RawkRollWhateva

So summer's come to this... I need a job. I finished restructuring my manuscript + finished the rewrites on a chapbook (two of the main reasons that I didn't want to have summer employment- I know, grad school was supposed to be for writing but it seems like I was always WORKING!) nonetheless, it doesn't appear that I'll get my backpay from Eos anytime soon, which would allow me to enjoy summer unfettered by a job & the unemployment checks simply don't support my lifestyle & by lifestyle I mean doing anything other than checking books out of the library and scanning for free events then ducking out as soon as they are over so I don't have to explain that a drink or a poetry book isn't currently in my budget. Now really what kind of summer is that?

I will teach two English Comp courses at LaGuardia/CUNY in the fall + start a business with my Ph.d genius friend, Melissa, but until then I'm going to suck it & find summer employment. Any suggestions?
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July is going to be all about music reading. I just checked out Dean Wareham's book from the library and so far it's pretty good. The book begins with an infamous (that is if you were a fan of Galaxy 500- which I LOOOOOVED) statement from Damon talking about Dean suddenly wanting to become a star and bathing himself in the spotlight. It's a ballsy move & a perfect way to start the book- bring on the drama, turn on the amps, cue up the guitars... "it's no fun giving the middle finger to the blind." Can't remember what Luna song that it is from, but it remains forged in my brain and has given me much delight over the years and still does.
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More rock- a ways back Thurston Moore put out a book exploring the mixed-tape culture and what was lost via no longer making mixed taped. My friend, Julia, and I recently reminisced about making or receiving mixed tapes from past lovers/crushes/heart-skippers & how you'd sit around trying to decode why the person put THAT jam on the tape...

With a c.d. you put on your ipod & just skip over those songs without ever worrying the brain. Anyways, the book was o.k. coulda been much better but was geared towards an Urban Outfitters crowd (unlike Back in the days- which just wound up having an audience at UO, but when the book first came out- we flipped with joy at Powell's City of Books)

Well Mr. Moore is back at it, & even though this doesn't go down until July I'm marking my calendar now for it. A book about Sonic Youth and about the No Wave scene. I love reading this stuff. & the jump-off at McNally Robinson should be pretty damn good:

Friday, July 11, 7 PM

Sonic Youth and No Wave

David Browne, author of Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth (Da Capo Press)

Thurston Moore, author of No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980 (Hna Books)

Thurston Moore is a founding member of the seminal band Sonic Youth and the author of several books. His book No Wave visually chronicles the collision of art and punk in the New York underground scene of the 70s and 80s. David Browne, a journalist and author specializing in music and pop culture for over twenty years, writes about the history of Sonic Youth and its huge influence on this scene. The two will discuss the band and the scene, perhaps with some audio and video.