dead auxiliaries in heaven, opportunistic comedians in the basement

So I've got a whole trove of stuff to catch up on, which means I need to wear my special pink skull power wristband to type it all. Actually nevermind I took it off immediately after I took that picture because it's too small for my wrist and I was about to pass out.


—The last Glitterpony for now is out, very bittersweet. A fine swamp of poems up in there. All the faves and new faces too. Sampson Starkweather says "light is awesome! / there should be a mind Olympics" and in so saying invents a new school of poetry called The School of Poetry That's Impossible to Disagree With. I have a couple poems in the issue, with 2/3 saucy-mouthed titles: "Why Fuck Around?" and "You Must Motherfucking Change Your Life" and "Know and Make Known." These are from a new school of poetry that involves taking chickpeas and pouring some masala paste on them and cook-stirirng things in a pan of warm olive oil until your dinner is evenly coated and easy to have made.

—Back on December 9th I did this "New Voices in Fiction" thing at Brown University with a great bunch of folks: Matt Bell, Rachel B. Glaser, Lily Hoang, and Matt Salesses. It was kind of a trip to read and have my work taught at Brown. Deep thanks to all the organizers and coordinators and cool Brown MFA students we met, especially Evelyn Hampton and Sarah Tourjee. One kid came up to me and aggressively grilled me about changing the ending to "The Peaches Are Cheap," which was exciting. Here is what else happened, according to my text message draft notes: "Hometown jigsaw and orbitwheels. The keep-yr-distance-bug-vaccuum. Jimmycake benedict." I only remember what the last one means, because the last one is about food.

—Then around Christmastime I went back to California, and within California went to the Bay Area to eat burritos and visit cool people like Chelsea, Jimmy, Mike K, Lorian, and Elliot/Erin. While there I did a reading at SF's hippest new tweegoth secret spot, the 851 Squat, beautifully decorated by Janey Smith and friends. Thanks to Mike K and Janey for inviting me. There were some interaction opportunities ("C'MON!") and some sexy stories. Here is a video of my reading (thanks to Evan Karp for recording), which is 13 minutes long, so you know, get a samosa or something (I mean to eat instead of watching it, not to eat while you're watching, geez, what do you think I am, aggro or something):






—Some thanks to bow at faces: thanks to the big DC for including Look! Look! Feathers in his list of favorite 2011 books, and thanks to Michael Fillipone for mentioning We Are All Good in his list of every book he read in 2011 and saying that when I open my mouth, "America comes out." Which, geez, I know my stomach's been weird since I got back from Thailand, but I hope MF doesn't have any information I don't. I still need to do my Every Book I Read in 2011 list for HTMLGIANT. There are around 92 books, so less than last year, but hey, I had to figure out the Baltimore bus system, gimme a break.

—The super cool Carrie Lorig asked me to make a playlist for the University of Minnesota MFA blog, and how could I say no to that? My playlist is called "A POETRY ADVICE THEMED PLAYLIST THAT IS SINCERE AS A JAR OF SWEET PICKLES BECAUSE I DIDN’T LEARN THE WORD GHERKINS UNTIL I WAS 23 AND BY THEN IT WAS TOO LATE." Sources inform me that gherkins aren't actually always the same thing as sweet pickles, so be careful about taking any of my advice. But do listen to the songs, which are really good.

—A long time ago Gene Kwak asked me some very sharp questions about place and place's role in my writing, and in January that back-and-forth went up on Hobart. Some of the stuff I say is a little gherkins-y (see above), but at least one true thing is when I say that I feel at home whenever I visit somewhere.

—For January I've been guest editing Everyday Genius, and I felt like the most genius thing I could do was acknowledge my own lack of genius and farm the selection process out to some actual geniuses, so I asked Gene Kwak, Evelyn Hampton, Nat Otting, and Carolyn Zaikowki to harvest some content, and they did an amazing job finding stuff. January isn't quite over yet, so check out what's there and stay tuned for more.

—In a few weeks, Mark and Laura and I are driving up to New Hampshire, where I'm going to do a guest workshop/reading at their alma mater, the Chester College of New England. I'm very excited, as New Hampshire has a very endorseable weirdness that floats over its entirety. Also we're going to stop in Northampton on the way back, so it will be cool to see friends and do snowy high fives there.

—Finally, the 2012 Magic Helicopter Press catalog is up! Do the checking of it outness! Especially the April 2012 forthcoming book of Jordan Stempleman poems No, Not Today. Speaking of how I'm unable to publish a book that doesn't have "today" in the title, major props to Ofelia Hunt's Today & Tomorrow for winning the Alt Lit Gossip 2011 Best Debut Novel award. Keep the channel on Alt Lit Gossip's Tumblr for all your alt-lit gossip needs. I wish the rest of life were so accessible. Like I could go to cheapindianfood.
tumblr.com for all my cheap Indian food needs. For now I guess I will have to yell at the microwave.