most listened to 2009

Fawshawn Boy Meets World (I mean god damn! Kids like 21yrs old, dropped out of highschool at 17 to rap, after a bunch of great mixtapes finally cut his first full-length this year. Fucking great, definatley more to come.) Here's a video from a while back he did with Evidence (label mate to Brother Ali and P.O.S) -N & on the other side of things, The Pogues 1985 release Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash has spent a disproportionate amount of time on the playlist, happy birthday Shane. -N

The Very Best of Two-Thousand & Swine

Song of the Year: Akron/Family's "River" So good, so sad, so enriched with a nostalgic sound. A perfect 2009 tune for me to try to cry to.

Top 20 Albums of 2009 (F off, Pitchfork)

1. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion (No denying it. Simply the best)

2. St. Vincent Actor

3. Passion Pit Manners (Best dance/candy music of the year. Shut up.)

4. Akron/Family Set 'Em Wild Set 'Em Free

5. The xx The xx

6. The Very Best Warm Heart of Africa

7. Starkey Starkbass (Muthafuckin dubstep)

8. Raekwon Only Built for Cuban Linx..Pt. II

9. The Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca

10. Atlas Sound Logos

11. Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

12. Cymbals Eat Guitars Why There Are Mountains

13. Nurses Apple's Acre (Portland, baby!)

14. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

15. Micachu and the Shapes Jewellery

16. Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were an Angel

17. Girls Album

18. The Flaming Lips Embryonic

19. Grizzly Bear Veckatimist

20. YACHT See Mystery Lights

Notable Books of 2009, The Year of the Short Story

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

Don't Cry by Mary Gaitskill

COMING NEXT: THE YEAR IN SMALL PRESS & PUBLISHING

merry christmas motherfucker!

'It was Christmas Eve babe In the drunk tank An old man said to me, won't see another one And then he sang a song The Rare Old Mountain Dew I turned my face away And dreamed about you Got on a lucky one Came in eighteen to one I've got a feeling This year's for me and you So happy Christmas I love you baby I can see a better time When all our dreams come true' -'Fairytale of New York' The Pogues Thought you might be looking for a good Christmas cry, hope your hangover treats you well, eat up & drink hard.

Loving you, N

tk lk pt.2

D- here is the next addition in a series, miss you much. Life is good! Loving you, N

how it is nothing (p.2)

in the strange and wonderful

drag Bill from his bed, hurting too hard,

wanting his wife back.

how it is nothing

to leave for California,

he says this is the

strangest.

Bill put feet up,

take stock of empty spaces,

maybe she would be speaking

but right now is not.

BZR

D-I love the theme, the honey fits well, sexy winter. I can't wait for the new year, our lives revovle arou- d it, the new chance, chapter. I made an organized ch- art of the things I need to have done in 2010. I wish you could come again soon. The neighbourhood is becom- ing alive around me, there is so much here, I hope t- hat I can become an integrated part of it, I plan on rooting down here for some time. Please check out http://www.23rdandunion.org/. This is 3 blocks from my n- ew place, and 1 from my old. Where you and Nat h- ung out. I love the new work, I feel that this back and forth has been very beneficial for us both. Loving you, N

S

S see this: the subtle curve of my supple, white, skin the alabaster glow of slender hand moving padded & moist over silk surfaces shining like a damp spark

arced high 5 times splaying a splintered shine over the ash of oak furniture.

see this: the soft curve of supple porcelain the eggshell high cheekbones rising under dark currents of cloudy milk. (2007) -N

Tk Lk Pt 1

Take Luke: 3

teeth missing. Looking sharp for

his son, who is

more his brother

(they partied alot). Asking for 10lbs of cure,

I tell him about Arizona-

he appears interested.

I blame a lot of it

on my folks, I say

Also, my sisters, the overdose.

We laugh about dope,

he seems thankful.

also because we shake hands.

I smile & laugh out loud

a lot for him. -N

New poems; more about honey

There is more honey

in this one. Wait,

Susan, where you off?

I bite off a corner of skin.

I begin to know the bartenders’

names. They see my feathers.

On all levels, in all places,

this is not a joke, so stop

laughing. Nice moves,

Susan. The water drips

wetter and tastes more like

honey more than honey does.

***

Call it breaking. Call it what

you will, Susan, you will anyway.

Susan, with that smile I feel

you may not be taking this seriously.

There is a law that all drops

of water and rays of heat

come from above. Some days,

Susan, I think you may be

half of that law.

Shorty, I'm a Champion

The honey is delicious / although it burns the throat

N, gorgeous poem. Gorgeous. It portrays, with slim & efficient sound, yr quickness around the city, yr energy, yr inability/not wanting to sit, not to burl. With routine, with becoming so comfortable in the city, comes the ability to do it all, to want it all. This is what we call Championship. Shine on, Champion!

The honey is indeed delicious, the throat will continue to burn, but yr voice will still be there. We live with the burn. That's from me, with a little help from John Ashbery.

I haven't worked on my poetry since the last post, although some great literary things are stirring up here in the Stump:

We confirmed our date for the Holocene event (Feb 10). More details to come. Yr ass better be here.

A new literary group is in town. THE PLAGIARISTS. I want to eliminate the vowels & call ourselves the PLGRSTS. We create fictitious writers, develop storylines, plan to submit fake work, and hold readings where these writers are supposed to show up.

I've been reading, thanks to Marsh, a Slovenian poet named Tomaž Šalamun. His work has made a strong push as of late. His book Woods and Chalices is rocking my socks. Here's one poem:

IN THE TONGUING OF BELLS

I decant a blossom. It goes before you.

You're filled with Uriah. Green, tiny, and pressed.

Blueness is a furious cake, a round

cake where yearning sleeps. Are the balls

the balls of the earth? At wells

and fountains? At Atlas's pillar?

You say that you'd be my property.

You'd lose everything instantly.

I still wouldn't notice you anymore, injured.

I choose from the thickness. Honey collects

cries. And when the body thickens and you get up

because I dress you, because I congeal you.

I erase you back in the past. I draw

a white flap, shine a white flap.

I've also been reading Flaubert's Madame Bovary. I can't believe I haven't read it before. Read it, please do.

I've been listening to:

Akron/Family ("Everyone is Guilty" & "River" are two of my favorite songs of the year.)

The Bug

Guided By Voices's Isolation Drills (I remember buying this when I was 18 or so, and hadn't listened to it many times since, but I love it.)

Okay, fine, here's a poem. It's a soft surreal one, not all that serious. But, it's our blog and we can do anything we want. Championship!

RED OCEAN

What if all the water in the world was red?

Most is.

I’ve never seen the ocean before, but

I’m pretty sure that salt water

is red.

I want an ocean named

after me.

I want to find a new one

so the old ones can keep

their names.

There has to be

one more.

I have a name and soon

it will be a salty pool

of red.

Come, swim in

my name.

Let me show you that water

is red

& it

is safe.

Let me hear you say

my name,

Swimmer.

D! I hope all is well. I miss you much, I thought about you out of the blue today & wanted to let you know. Your friendship is irreplaceable, and I wish we were back in the same city again.

D-yr post reminded me of how much I need to see PDX & to see you. Thxgiving was just as lush, I'm assured. Up till 4am almost a whole week, rarely got more than 5 hours sleep, & plenty of soft talks and hard drinking. I love the poem & I think the best work comes from cultivating a shared mind. That's the idea right? What we are doing here, that is. I am setting into Seattle. I am close to living in a city not dominated by the briefness of my stay, but by routine! It is wonderful, this is a slow city for making friends, but I am becoming rooted. Also-it won me over first as a city, then later as the place that I live. I am proud to be here. Life has been frantic latley, sometimes my body is barely letting me lay down & I wake up talking (literally). I have had a hard influx of ideas and things to say, & am often overwhelmed, but I like it. There is no other life I would want to live right now. I am in love & feel everything with great conviction I only walk in steps of two's or three's. Counting the corners of my teeth, of the walls, the small ridges of the T.V. -Distracted only by the reflection, handsome, maybe the small sounds of feet making patterns under its shoe. They have a special on PBR 40oz's at the shit shop near my house. $1.98. Loving you, N.

"Stop leaving," someone told me.

N, gosh, I miss you. I hope yr Thanksgiving was as lush as ours here in the PDX. I stole a line from you: you sent me a message saying (almost) that you wished that I was doing what you were doing to you. I fucking love that. How reflexive! How beautifully mutilating! (Actually, that's kind of a good line too: beautiful/mutilate) So I stole it. Hope you don't mind!

I went to Arizona, the home of the Sidewalk Slammer, the Big Tempeasy. Seventy-five degrees, palm & cactus, the sun! O the sun! I thrive off of it. To know that a large part of my heart, my formation of my Self, the people I love the most, are there, though I probably will never dwell there again, is a daunting & positively startling reality. My trip shook me up a bit, in that it reinvigorated my desire for It All, for a true romance, knowledge, a thirst that can never be quenched, but the chase to be quenched is the glory, the romance. How reflexive! Just like yr beautiful line. I'll leave you to gargle this jumble of jumbo jargon. I love you, pal. I leave you, also, with a collection of words & lines that are not yet a poem, but I like the combinations of them. Perhaps we can talk more about it, and make a more comprehensive thought

Sweat piddle

Windy'd curtain

Stop leaving

Crumbs scrapes remain

Sing to a no not now

jejune sunrise

Crisp palm sway

Arms up up

above the globe

Stay me

Do the things I do to me

almost done

In the terrible of young life walked with tight fists, we must not look too hard but not, you say, hit too soft. You say our fingers kept tight also need kept ready, because it is angry, we must not look, you say, too far But see this tight flurry, swaying home with a fire in my head. I walk with measure, & talk with a great conviction.

D-

New poem is SC

new poem/hello

SUGAR IN the basement I am always seething I have cooking something sweet over a fire I'm ever stoking looks like sugar, tastes like meat AND in the night I am ever watchful I am the gun-man on your porch the guard of everything that's awful always drunk & out of sorts D-that Berryman reading I first heard with you and M near the 30th&Main house is still one of my favorites. Yr right, the songs have been difficult, re-reading always treats me different, but 14 stays. You like Brendan Behan? Been starting slowly, but rich in Irish history and a good drinker, give it a chance. Keep me updated on events coming up, a week or 2 if you can, so I can take the train down. I had sweet potatoe fries, avocado, & coffee. Love you much, N

New poem, no title yet

I, too, know

that whatever it is we are

supposed to be doing is not

whistling on the tops

of our bottles. I, too, know

there are commands we

have not heard.

I, too, know

that a lineage of fathers

have covered the ears

of ours with their

burly hands. I, too, know

that if we could hear, we

would be startled

almost to death.

It's Dream Song season

N, hope yr day is going well. The wind is blowing little orange scraps of trees called leaves all around the city. It is nearly 4pm & almost dark. Berryman's Dream Songs lie in my lap. I do not understand them today. His lexicon is bizarre, his form flippant. Yet, when I think of what a Poem is in my mind, my only answer is Berryman, to imitate him, to live his life. Song 14 may be my favorite poem of all time:

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,

we ourselves flash and yearn,

and moreover my mother told me as a boy

(repeatingly) 'Ever to confess you're bored

means you have no

Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no

inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

Peoples bore me,

literature bores, especially great literature,

Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes

as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.

And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag

and somehow a dog

has taken itself & its tail considerably away

into mountains or sea or sky, leaving

behind: me, wag.

Wow! It is one of the most transparent of all the Songs, but it can really be digested if you hear Berryman read it. YouTube has a video of him reading it. Check it out.

So here we have it. John Berryman, Paul Celan, John Ashbery. That's all we need. Me thinks.

I had ham & eggs for breakfast this morning.

xoxo

d

That's Why I Bring it Home

D! Sleep little is back in effect. Got 1/2 sick for a week or so. I'm looking at 4 or 7 hours a night. Thx for the books. Been listening to The Pogues 'Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash'. Goes well with the drinks. In a blind taste test you will find that Evan Williams is far superior to Jack Daniels. Wish you could attend the Catalyst art gallery this Saturday, will miss you. See you soon, N

I want to see yr morning face / I want to see all side of you

N,

I'm back! It's blog time, all the time! How's the Little Sleep coming along? I sleep a bunch one night a week; the rest, well, you know, is Straight Crushing.

I've been reading some interesting stuff which, despite yr school schedule, you should check out sometime. Three books: Dust by Arkadii Dragomushchenko, Literature and Cinematography by Viktor Shklovsky, and Silence by John Cage. They are all quite differing, but revolve around one central theme, that is how sound is organized to create signs, soon becoming plots, conflicts, and possibly clarity or conclusions. We, my friend, cannot take the concept of the organization of sound & its form lightly. All this is done to reveal something in the world in which we live. Some people call this Art.

We must also think of this in terms of music & of poetry (or formal literature or written word). We order words & notes/pitches/stresses for specific ends. I will leave you with that. To what ends are we striving for?

Music: I'm listening to Small Sins right now. Listen to the song "Prove Me Wrong."

K, I love you!

xoxo

d

feels good, looks better

Cha tonight, up late, up early. Taken a few weeks off at 25% sick, flu/cold/etc. Work has got me down, life otherwise is on the up&up. There is no way we are going to sleep between now and tomorrow, there is too much to do, and I can't sleep anymore this week. Paper due on Monday, but I'm not worried. 'In the night I am ever watchful I am the gun man on your porch the guard of everything thats awful always drunk and out of sorts' Loving you, N

more day each plz

D is back on Mon. slept hard, can't sit down/stay still. Up on writing, down to George Town to see a friend at 9lbs. Right? See you soon. -N

bust it

D left town, good amount of late night of heart to heart. Sleep Little: Fri.- 3:30AM-7:15AM = 3.75H Sat.-3:30AM-9AM = 5.5H Sun.-1:20AM-6:20AM 5.0H =13.25H Feels good, looks better. If you're not into missing out, be sure and go to the Grayskul album release. Fool. Wake Early, Work Hard, Up Late, Sleep Little. xoxo fp -N

WRDS

Funny stuff we've said today: Why wouldn't we just make out? Totally F'ed her P. You call it crack. I call in Diet Coke. 

Things you shouldn't do after 10pm: text yr mother. That's it.

xoxo 

D

Hottie Convention

D is in town for the H convention. 

Little sleep & Bulliet. Straight crushing.

Prepping for the Holler-scene event. 

Can't stand up. Can't sit still.