It’s My Two Cents: Friendster, Frisell, Jordan, Arcangel, et Cetera
[admin / November 20th, 2009 / Young Bright Things / Tags: Bill Frisell, Cory Arcangel, Deep Tracks, DWR, Earles and Jensen, JJ Walker, Judas Priest, Knit-Head]
Humping a statue can be a dignified form of political protest–I logged onto my Friendster page for the first time in, like, two years–Sometimes I miss living in Camden, NJ, but not going to school there–I can’t wait to see what a Powell’s bookstore looks like, and I will on January 7–Some nonprofit organizations aren’t run well at all–Even non-elaborate movie plots are confusing when taking Theraflu–We’ve used a cleaning person before, and I am not ashamed of saying it. It’s an almost religious experience, and everyone should try it once–Look up “guitar maestro” in the dictionary and you will see a picture of Bill Frisell–Those Jerky Boys Fans eager for another high-concept crank call duo should look no further than Matador Records artist Earles and Jensen–I didn’t know that my wife didn’t care for the music Hall and Oates. If it wasn’t for our daughters, I would have divorced her–Please, just once, let me see the streets of Prague…Prediction: I will not see the street of London for at least 15 years–Let’s all go to Cracker Country. Or not–
Idea for band name: Peter et Cetera–Bob Holman has done more for American poetry in third quarter of the 20th Century than all of the poets laureate from that period combined. To paraphrase Steve Earle, I will stand on Billy Collins’ coffee table in Clarks and say that–You could listen to Bill Joel’s 1980 Glass Houses album and sing along to every song this Friday afternoon. Or you could remain a miserable person–My students love it when I impersonate my mother’s voice, fake cigarette in hand–When the Poetry Foundation website ran a letter from John Freeman complaining about my first article for them, they didn’t contact me. Â They just ran it. Â I still think they were dicks for that–The best poetry critic in the United States right now is still Jordan Davis, followed by Michael Scharf and Joyelle McSweeney–
Do over-funded literary journals ever feel embarrassed and help out other journals? Until they do that, I won’t donate to any of them–I didn’t know Cornelius Eady was a playwright–Doesn’t all yogurt help you go the bathroom?… A website that ran a snarky-but-smart review of my new book invited me to read for their series. I consider myself a publicity whore, dear reader, but that’s where I draw the line–People should stop referring to themselves as “white trash—â€it’s fucking offensive and condescending”
I once ended a poem with a JJ Walker “dyn-o-mite” imitation reading for third grade poetry contest, for which I won second place. The kid who won first, we learned that evening, clearly didn’t write the poem. He ended up getting kicked out of the armed services for selling coke, I was told–If you keep committing the “comprised of” error, I won’t read your record reviews.  It’s as simple as that–Space heaters have probably done more to promote literature in this country than any state arts agency–I wish more colleges would invite me to read there– My two-year-old daughter picked up my wife’s curse words first. Karma is sometimes tardy–I can still read the Crutchfield catalog from cover to cover–If you read The Chronicle of Higher Education enough, you will think you have been fired even before you get your first professor job–I didn’t know that Walter J. Ong of Orality and Literacy fame, was a Jesuit priest. But somehow it makes sense–Speaking of Judas Priest, I had a dream about a guy who worshipped Priest in college. It was present day: We hung out in his apartment, which he shared with his mother, furnished entirely from Design Within Reach– AAAARG.ORG is like the theory PDF handout Napster–Here’s what a colleague said other people say about my first two books: the first had the passion, the second had the craft. I’ll take that–Cindy Crawford is still hot–
Check out my friends Knit-Head site, where you can get a mohawk-style knit cap–Cory Arcangel is my favorite artist right now–If you have Sirius radio, you will know that the term “tunage” lives on in DJ Earle Bailey’s banter at Deep Tracks channel 17–Here’s what I can say I use Torrent for: to download a copyright-free copy of the Marx Brothers’ A Night At The Opera–I didn’t know about Tributosaurus, the “future of rock and roll,” but now I do.
I’m stating the asininely obvious here, as editor, but this is one of my new Friday morning rituals. Coffee? Check. Jack Teagarden? Check. Nester’s Two Cents? Check. Get a cup of coffee, put Sweet and Hot on your stereo, and read Nester. It’s like we’re cuddling. Can you feel the togetherness? I’ll even put pants on so you don’t get creeped out.
I was thinking about over-funded journals the other day when one showed up in my mailbox. You know, Dan, I don’t want help from the over-funded. They can keep their funding and their expertise. It’s theirs. But they should use it. I would love it if they could take their money and their big throbbing aesthetic and all their pedigreed expertise and produce something that wasn’t so fucking abhorrently boring. Oh, it’s good, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. That’s what they should be embarrassed by. Notable exceptions noted, it’s pretty sad.
Walter Ong was a Jesuit? That does make sense.
A classmate urged me to check out this site, brill post, fanstatic read… keep up the good work!
http://www.rappnews.com/2010/05/20/the-rapp-10/
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