Peptic Robot Press Interview

My forthcoming chapbook, State(s) of Flux is a collaboration with the artist, Joseph Lappie. Peptic Robot Press is Joseph's one-person publishing press which focuses on art books, so it's a distinct pleasure to have Joseph designing, laying-out, creating, and illustrating the book. Here's an interview with Joseph.

[state of emergency]


To honor movement in crescendos of text, combing through ashes
for fragments of human bone, studying maps drawn for the absurdity
of navigation-- what may be so edgy about this state of emergency
is my lack of apology for what I am bound to do. For instance, if I
dream the wetness of your mouth an oyster my tongue searches for
the taste of ocean, if I crave the secret corners of your city on another
continent, then it is only because I continue to harbor the swirls of
galaxies in the musculature and viscera of my body. You will appear
because I have mouthed your name in half-wish, reluctant to bring
myself to you. You will appear for me, because you always do, with
earthen skin outside the possibility of human causation.

Barbara Jane Reyes from Poeta en San Francisco

CUT OFF YOUR HANDS | YOU and i

This could be you

Watch it: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=31274&nid=YOnQwkiTAd5ktvJV_ZvUiTYxNjgxNQ--&id=14590-10424122-tceMklx&t=3

Line Up

Stain Bar
*thurs 23 - An evening of readings and music with a set by JOHN FOTI Followed by readings from the authors JEREMY SCHMALL and GRAEME BEZANSON start time 7:30 p.m.
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STAIN OF POETRY presents

Fri., Oct. 24th @ 7 p.m. - Stain Bar - Williamsburg, Brooklyn

** Browning, Cohen, Herron, Howe, Rumble, and Svalina **

stain
766 grand street
brooklyn, ny 11211
(L train to Grand Street,
1 block west)
718/387-7840
open daily @ 5 p.m.

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EARSHOT!

Join us for the next installment of EARSHOT at The Lucky Cat, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!

*Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 8 PM*
Admission: $5 + FREE DRINK!

Hosted by Nicole Steinberg

Featuring:
Amy Lawless (Noctis Licentia)
Alex Smith (Lux)
Danielle Grace Warren (Hunter College)
James Shultis (Queens College)
Caedra Scott-Flaherty (New York University)

The Lucky Cat is located at 245 Grand Street in Brooklyn, between Driggs and Roebling. Visit their website for directions: http://www.theluckycat.com.

EARSHOT is a bi-monthly reading series, dedicated to featuring new and emerging literary talent in the NYC area. Visit http://www.earshotnyc.com for more information or e-mail Nicole Steinberg at earshotnyc@gmail.com.
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The Poetry Brothel Masquerade

Featuring David Lehman

Saturday, October 25th, 9pm-2am

The Zipper Factory

336 W. 37th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues)

$15 cover (includes a complimentary Le Tourment Vert Absinthe, one free raffle ticket, and a private reading with your pick of a poetry whore!)
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FAUX CHAPS PARTY

Friday, Oct. 24

630 to 830pm

at Jimmy's No. 43
43 E. 7th St. - downstairs (b. 2nd & 3rd Ave.) NY

Short readings by:

CAConrad - (SOMA)TIC MIDGE
Alan Davies - ODES
Brenda Iijima - SUBSISTENCE EQUIPMENT
Jack Kimball - PATHOLOGIES
Jeni Olin - THE PILL BOOK
Stacy Szymaszek - ORIZABA

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second reading:

Saturday, October 25

at 8 pm

at Unnameable Books

456 Bergen St.

(btwn 5th and Flatbush)

Brooklyn, NY

Please join us for a reading by Laura Jaramillo and CAConrad in celebration of Laura's chapbook The Reactionary Poems, just published by olywa press. Chapbooks will be available for purchase at a discount.

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3rd reading:

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27TH

KGB BAR 85 East 4th St., NYC

7:30pm, admission free

Rick Barot and CAConrad
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Event: Swedish Poetry In Translation
"Fredrik Nyberg, Johannes Gorannson, Jennifer Hayashida"
What: Listening Party
Host: Unnameable Books
Start Time: Friday, October 24 at 8:00pm
End Time: Friday, October 24 at 10:00pm
Where: Unnameable Books
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 8:00 PM Reading Language for a New Century BMCC TRIBECA Performing Arts Center 199 Chambers St. New York City, NY 10007 Website: http://poetshouse.org/progcoming.htm#october Cost: FREE for students and members of AAWW and Poets House. Others: $10 Description: Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Tina Chang, Monica Ferrell, Eric Gamalinda, Kimiko Hahn, Nathalie Handal, Cathy Park Hong, Khaled Mattawa, Ravi Shankar & Barbara Tran A panel discussion with Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Tina Chang, Kimiko Hahn, Nathalie Handal, Khaled Mattawa, and Ravi Shankar will precede the reading, at 6:30PM. Co-sponsored by the Asian American Writers Workshop and the TRIBECA Performing Arts Center at BMC

& you/ you're not doing so well/ all the blogs are about you/

I spent Saturday in Bk: fort greene, williamsburg, greenpoint, fort greene, williamsburg. Highlights? Eating a bagel from Verb Cafe, seeing Ethan (my ex's cat) eating at General Greene, and Spector's bday party. I spent Sunday running errands and attempting to recover from Saturday- got in late so I was quite tired all day.
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Deep Disco invited me to this today:

Can We Save the World Economy?

Conversation with George Soros, Nouriel Roubini, and Jeffrey Sachs

Monday, October 20, 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm

Columbia University, Miller Theater, Broadway at 116th Street

It was definitely worth making the hike up to Columbia. I was quite impressed with Roubini and Sachs. Sorros was already a given and I loved the way he illustrated the complexity of the economy and its bursting buy using bubbles. I kept thinking of the bubble blower who stands on the coner of Centre and Canal- somehow this guy and the people that ru(i)n our economy didn't seem so different, you know?

Sachs, by way of Sorros' book, The Bubble of American Supremacy, mentioned that students trained in economics are not trained to be skeptics and that they project depth via the surface. In other words, they take surfical economics then infer the depth via this reflection which is why they are so reckless and aren't accounting for the collaspe which came from the murky depths of an ill-structured system.

I couldn't help but think about my biggest and most consistant complaint in regards to students is that they are not skeptics nor do they want to investigate intelligence and own it. They are more than too happy being told and accepting surface as the complete and (un)complex reality.

A h h u m a n i t y

Wait up Bartleby I'm beyond depressed & on my way

Words: The New Wheaties

Yes, this is going to be about the debate last night, in particular, Obama's comments about Education reform; I appreciated that he put some of the responsibility on the parents (although, as always, I remain skeptical that parents will actually accept this responsibility). Anyhow, I've been slowly (or lazily) reading Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf which is the story and science of the reading brain. I came across a passage today while riding the 7 into Long Island City and it's been floating around in my head and heart chambers all day.

"Learning to read begins the first time an infant is held and read a story. How often this happens, or fails to happen, in the first five years of childhood turns out to be one of the best predictors of later reading. A little-discussed class system invisibly divides our society, with those families that provide their children environments rich in oral and written language opportunities gradually set apart from those who do not, or cannot. A prominent study found that by kindergarten, a gap of 32 million words already separates some children in linguistically impoverished homes from their more stimulated peers. In other words, in some environments the average young middle-class child hears 32 million more spoken words than the young underprivileged child by age five.

Children who begin kindergarten having heard and used thousands of words, whose meanings are already understood, classified, and stored away in their young brains, have the advantage on the playing field of education. Children who never have a story read to them, who never hear words that rhyme, who never imagine fighting with dragons or marrying a prince, have the odds overwhelmingly against them."