people keep hugging their giant hamsters

Back from NYC safe and sound. Spilled some wine on my shoe. Random rooftop statues. Lucky streak included finding a Mexican restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Someone had a stroke then petitioned people on the subway for benefits. Had quite a time catching the bus to the city; had to jump out in traffic while stopped behind the bus at a red light near a church and pound on the door. The driver said "This is a first." Thanks to Francesca Chabrier for due diligence. If you were a lawyer making a pickle joke, the phrase "due diligence" would come into it somewhere.

In NYC I read at the Disinformation Party, a party for Chris Toll's new book The Disinformation Phase, which is like a pop sci-fi Lorca. Lots of fun. Day after that I biked around Prospect Park on a Japanese mom bike with my friends John and Lincoln, then I gave John tennis racket advice and we speculated about the logo of the Brooklyn Nets. Why didn't they call them the Brooklyn Ballers? You really effed that, Jay.

What else in NYC? I went to the Brooklyn Flea Market and bought an expensive artisan grilled cheese sandwich. Just kidding I bought a cookie. Not kidding: I bought a cookie and Ben Fama's chapbook New Waves, which I read on the Megabus back to Western Mass in the very considerate orange twilight, which Fama suggests is one of the only two colors that exist. Also in NYC I asked someone what their favorite food was and they said "I don't like rap or country." Also in NYC the subject came up "Does Chainy live like this every night?" but that subject also probably came up outside of NYC. Also in NYC the L wasn't running so I walked around the Hasidic part of Williamsburg for a long time and thought about how the school buses looked normal except for the writing on the side. Do you want a payot? I do not want a payot. I mean, it's like, you buy one thing from Gardners Supply Outlet then they won't stop sending you emails. Tornadoes suck. People carry strollers up/down subway stairs and through emergency exists. There's a store somewhere on the way out of Manhattan called Insomnia Cookies. How do people blog about anything without giving up and talking about cookies the whole time? Your guess is as good as a mime.

Many thanks to Matt Margo for reading "The Peaches Are Cheap" and "WTF Is An Electroylte" from LLF on his Cormac McCarthy's Dead Typewriter Anniversary Ustream Event. He soldiered on during a storm. He asked his audience if they wanted him to read the whole long story and they did. Matt really nailed the dialogue during the garage rehearsal scene.

Have you seen The Lit Pub yet? You should see it!

Sometimes people enter into relationships and sometimes they then turn around and think about them, which is the subject of my poem "Is That It's You" up at Dark Sky. Thanks to Kevin Murphy for publishing me, and gawk all those other fine soulja boyz/girlz in the contents of this fine summer issue, which will be online only for a short time. Love is when you take someone more seriously than you take people.  Not sure what else to say, but this is already too long of a blog, so here is a part I cut from the thing I'm working on because nobody cares about Y2K philosophy:

"Is it even worth saying that Y2K mongered its scares because no programmer in 1970 imagined their code would still be afloat thirty years later? Not in 2000, land of star-clogged obelisks and robot maids. Should we admit that even late as the mid-90s, the idea of civilization making 2000 seemed mildly bonkers? Like God was bound to punch his way out of the Sphinx’s nose, sand crumbling and God flicking sand off his ponytail, stepping mincingly on hot sand underfoot. Then He’d clear His throat and call the whole show off, tell us to find a ride home and try not to trip on the gila monsters. This seemed more likely than one big computer bug. Ten years. Goes where?"