Retiring the blog! Keep tuned in to Spaceship Tumblers. Keep a good eye out for Fascicle, a web journal that I'll be launching this year. Lately realized that I've got too many projects that I'm anxious to devote more time to for me to keep blogging. A shift in attention is a shift in values. I'm ready to walk the walk.
Friday, February 04, 2005
So instead of drinking a lot of liquor and listen on to a depressing Will Oldham song over and over, I on the instead decided to drink a very moderate amount of liquor last night and try to write some songs. Ken Rumble left his drum kit at our place from his birthday party last Saturday, so I've been trying to teach myself how to play drums this last week. I've taught myself two or three little patterns. Anyway, so against my better judgment there's the lowest possible fi version of it at Spaceship Tumblers (at the very bottom of the page) -- moderately drunk poet playing all the instruments, recorded onto the most modest of 4-tracks, played over a boombox into a telephone. It's called "School Ya (On the Mouth)." I try to write songs like a 5th grade Bob Pollard. This is no exception.
The lyrics:
School ya on the mouth!
Cool ass on the phone!
That's the verses. The chorus:
"Who asked?"
"This did!"
"With what?"
"Good kiss!"
Not really sure what the chorus means, but I wanted something vaguely amorous. Seems like a good bit of dialogue. I can't really play the instruments, and I certainly can't sing, but by the left leg of Keith Moon I do believe I got the spirit.
The lyrics:
School ya on the mouth!
Cool ass on the phone!
That's the verses. The chorus:
"Who asked?"
"This did!"
"With what?"
"Good kiss!"
Not really sure what the chorus means, but I wanted something vaguely amorous. Seems like a good bit of dialogue. I can't really play the instruments, and I certainly can't sing, but by the left leg of Keith Moon I do believe I got the spirit.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
The song that will be on a million mix-tapes:
"Bed Is for Sleeping," Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney, Superwolf
The song is almost clinically, cruelly manipulative. Pretty finger-picking, simple country-song conceit (x is for y). Devastating direct lines "Where are you going?/Why are you leaving?/Left on the walkway/To swallow my grieving" followed by achingly pretty doo-doo-doos of the melody into the outro. Not quite Leonard Cohen's "Once of Us Cannot Be Wrong" (maybe the most devestating song I've ever heard) but the next best thing.
These sort of songs on repeat are my guilty pleasure. The sort of stuff that a Wes Anderson character would listen to on a bus. Except for hours on end. You should've seen me pre-Leigh, The Shins' "New Slang" or Rickie Lee Jones' "On Saturday Afternoons in 1963" on endless repeat (upon waking!), canvases, housepaint and acrylics spread out all over my apartment floor (I went through a fairly healthy writing crisis/general crisis time while in Arkansas where I basically did nothing but paint, write and record music, read Allen Grossman and/or Frank Stanford, and imbibe). Even now I like to take a night to drink Wild Turkey, sit in the bathtub and listen to Nebraska about a dozen times. This is healthy artistically, makes sure I don't get this adolescent emo stuff into the poems. I'm a hugely sentimental person, and songs like this Bonnie "Prince" one kill me, as did the hug last night between the Iraqi woman and the Marines' mom during the State of the Union. Good thing this song wasn't playing at that moment or I would've given up writing again, downed a bottle of whiskey and climbed the house & weeped to water the trees. The right Don Williams song will get me on the phone at 3 am calling my grade school teachers. Anyway, it's a great album, exactly the sort of Hem/Iron and Wine/Ida/Secret Stars stuff that you would think I'd think I'm too cool to find myself moved by.
Leigh's in Atlanta right now being recruited by Emory's badass business Ph.D. program, so that might explain. We've only been apart less than a handful of evenings since we've started dating, usually if I have an out-of-town reading during the week, or we're in Arkansas and she doesn't feel up to staying out til the crack of dawn with me and Paul in Fayetteville. It's not even 10 pm! Maybe I should cue up Royal Tennenbaums or childhood pictures so I can completely lose it! Check back here in a couple hours for updates. Mrs. Hieronymus, don't be surprised to get a phone call by 1!
"Bed Is for Sleeping," Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney, Superwolf
The song is almost clinically, cruelly manipulative. Pretty finger-picking, simple country-song conceit (x is for y). Devastating direct lines "Where are you going?/Why are you leaving?/Left on the walkway/To swallow my grieving" followed by achingly pretty doo-doo-doos of the melody into the outro. Not quite Leonard Cohen's "Once of Us Cannot Be Wrong" (maybe the most devestating song I've ever heard) but the next best thing.
These sort of songs on repeat are my guilty pleasure. The sort of stuff that a Wes Anderson character would listen to on a bus. Except for hours on end. You should've seen me pre-Leigh, The Shins' "New Slang" or Rickie Lee Jones' "On Saturday Afternoons in 1963" on endless repeat (upon waking!), canvases, housepaint and acrylics spread out all over my apartment floor (I went through a fairly healthy writing crisis/general crisis time while in Arkansas where I basically did nothing but paint, write and record music, read Allen Grossman and/or Frank Stanford, and imbibe). Even now I like to take a night to drink Wild Turkey, sit in the bathtub and listen to Nebraska about a dozen times. This is healthy artistically, makes sure I don't get this adolescent emo stuff into the poems. I'm a hugely sentimental person, and songs like this Bonnie "Prince" one kill me, as did the hug last night between the Iraqi woman and the Marines' mom during the State of the Union. Good thing this song wasn't playing at that moment or I would've given up writing again, downed a bottle of whiskey and climbed the house & weeped to water the trees. The right Don Williams song will get me on the phone at 3 am calling my grade school teachers. Anyway, it's a great album, exactly the sort of Hem/Iron and Wine/Ida/Secret Stars stuff that you would think I'd think I'm too cool to find myself moved by.
Leigh's in Atlanta right now being recruited by Emory's badass business Ph.D. program, so that might explain. We've only been apart less than a handful of evenings since we've started dating, usually if I have an out-of-town reading during the week, or we're in Arkansas and she doesn't feel up to staying out til the crack of dawn with me and Paul in Fayetteville. It's not even 10 pm! Maybe I should cue up Royal Tennenbaums or childhood pictures so I can completely lose it! Check back here in a couple hours for updates. Mrs. Hieronymus, don't be surprised to get a phone call by 1!
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
BESTEST AMERICAN POETRY!*
*not limited to American poets!
"Rejected by McSweeneys: Superbowl! The Sestina" Jim Behrle. The Jim Side. February.
"Blind Weed Blazon" David Berridge. Word For/Word. #7. February.
"Hidden Gardens" (Twenty-Four Hour Hyakuin Renga). Alec Finlay, et al. Jacket 26.
"This Must Be the Place" Kate Greenstreet. GutCult #6. January.
"Dear Needed" Matthew Henriksen. Unpleasant Event Schedule. January.
"What Is the Correct Subject?" Sarah Manguso. Octopus #4. January.
"The Miraculous Drought of Fishes" Stan Mir. Word For/Word #7. February.
from "Goat Songs Concerning Certain Dispensations" Standard Schaefer. GutCult #6. January.
from "Campanology" Marcus Slease. Never Mind the Beasts. January.
"What the Tree Said Lifted" Dale Smith. Octopus #4. January.
"Snug" Robert Stanton. Great Works. Date unknown.
"Against Metaphor" Chris Vitiello. Word For/Word #7. February.
from Irresponsibility Chris Vitiello. Tex Files. January.
***
Added another Vitiello, plus Stan Mir's excellent poem, and brilliant work from David Berridge, all from the new Word For/Word. I think there'll be more added from this new issue, which is astounding. The visual work is great. My brief time with it so far has me more excited about a new issue of a mag than I've been in a while. Read Randall Williams' prose, and check out the visual work.
Also added one of Kate Greenstreet's poems from the latest GutCult. Both of her poems are fantastic, but I'm thinking the one I picked might just be the bestest of the two.
*not limited to American poets!
"Rejected by McSweeneys: Superbowl! The Sestina" Jim Behrle. The Jim Side. February.
"Blind Weed Blazon" David Berridge. Word For/Word. #7. February.
"Hidden Gardens" (Twenty-Four Hour Hyakuin Renga). Alec Finlay, et al. Jacket 26.
"This Must Be the Place" Kate Greenstreet. GutCult #6. January.
"Dear Needed" Matthew Henriksen. Unpleasant Event Schedule. January.
"What Is the Correct Subject?" Sarah Manguso. Octopus #4. January.
"The Miraculous Drought of Fishes" Stan Mir. Word For/Word #7. February.
from "Goat Songs Concerning Certain Dispensations" Standard Schaefer. GutCult #6. January.
from "Campanology" Marcus Slease. Never Mind the Beasts. January.
"What the Tree Said Lifted" Dale Smith. Octopus #4. January.
"Snug" Robert Stanton. Great Works. Date unknown.
"Against Metaphor" Chris Vitiello. Word For/Word #7. February.
from Irresponsibility Chris Vitiello. Tex Files. January.
***
Added another Vitiello, plus Stan Mir's excellent poem, and brilliant work from David Berridge, all from the new Word For/Word. I think there'll be more added from this new issue, which is astounding. The visual work is great. My brief time with it so far has me more excited about a new issue of a mag than I've been in a while. Read Randall Williams' prose, and check out the visual work.
Also added one of Kate Greenstreet's poems from the latest GutCult. Both of her poems are fantastic, but I'm thinking the one I picked might just be the bestest of the two.
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