Report: KEVIN KILLIAN @ UCSD

In all the time I've known Kevin Killian, I never really realized how subversive his work is until seeing/hearing him read in San Diego (Sandy Day Glo, Sandy Eggo). It is in my hometown, that poetry carries more weight, and not because this is where I grew up, escaped from, and prodigally returned to but because of the socio-political climate here. Having been in the Bay Area (Santa Cruz included) for nearly 10 years, I had become either immune to or had been cavalier in hearing "left-leaning" poetry. So, when, yesterday afternoon, Kevin Killian, whom I adore, read to a packed, black room--mostly full of young students (and most of those students, I gather, are from right-wing, conservative families)--his poems hit so much harder than before. Was it because I was aware of my surroundngs--San Diego is a major arm of the military-industrial complex--or was it because I noticed students all around me, squirming at the mentions of "you'll not return from Iraq" and "he had his hand on my cock," among many other homosexually and/or anti-war charged passages. I've always loved Kevin's poems, how subtly wrought they are while simultaneously seeming so loose, even, at times, off the cuff or snarky. I love that. But having heard them (ok, I've also got to address Kevin's presentation of his poems) and seen Kevin's almost flamboyant presentation of them--though he seemed more physically reserved than usual; fewer flourishes of the hands and gyrations of the hips, but they were still there--in such an environment, really exploded, for me, the depth and electricity of Kevin's work. My idea is that the more these kids are exposed to serious and creative people who don't conform to the Bushtopian ideal everpresent in San Diego, the more likely they are to be less like their parents. I do already see this change coming, San Diego has long been "that city on the verge of getting really hip" and I think, finally, it's beginning to let down its hair.

GO JOHN KERRY, GO!!!

and the Sox too. Hey! GO MASSACHUSETTS!

Don't you just wish W would choke on another pretzel. W, "I fart in your general direction."

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Home again, from my West Coast traverse. I was fortunate enough to have lunch in Eugene with Tony Robinson (you've seen the picture, I'm sure), who seems like a great guy and I wish I could have spent more time hanging out. Then on to Ashland, where I spent the afternoon and evening with Kasey and we had a great great time. Left Ashland at 5 am on Saturday to see Brighton in Marin and we spent the weekend having a blast. He's going to be a professional skateboarder by the age of 10 and you can bank on that. He's also very curious about girls flirting with him. He'll be 7 in February. Then to meet up with Tanya Brolaski, Stephanie Young, Cynthia Sailers, Dan Fisher and Kathleen Miller for dinner in Berkeley, then we went upstairs to Tanya's where LRSN and Elka Weber joined us for a lovely evening of drinking and smelling pizza vents.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

DEER HEAD NATION has been translated into Italian by Gherardo Bertolotti. To read some go HERE.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

The new, eponymous, Broken Social Scene album has arrived and I haven't stopped listening to it except to sleep and to work on my own music. Compared to their last, and phenomenal album, You Forgot It In People, BSS is more seamless and expansive, almost as if it's one hour-long song. It is a busy record, there are always too many instruments and ambient sounds to count but this isn't a bad thing. I'd suggest giving it a good listen.

NEWSFLASH!

Friendster has made it possible to see who's looking at you. Is this the end of anonymous stalking? Perhaps so.

Friday

Stephanie Young's. Me. Kate Colby. Reading from new work. Followed by much liquid.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

"My vocabulary did this to me" has never sounded more apropriate to me than it does at this very moment.

Just an hour ago I was sitting on a sand dune, amid innumerable varieties of desert wildflower, watching a two inch long beetle trudge along. Even the wastelands can be gorgeous. There are pictures and I'll put them up soon.

Friday, February 04, 2005

So I just tried the new MSN Search, supposedly created to challenge google. Well, it doesn't. Not that anyone cares.

More interesting...I've been playing golf! Sans plaid knickers.

Friday, February 04, 2005

Ron on The Elusive Eli Drabman's new chapbook The Ground Running from atticus/Finch.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

I still do not miss the Bay Area. I do, however, miss a few of those up there. I'll be back in 9 days but just for a short while.

The Revised Version

“THE LOVERS I LEAVE TO THE WINTER”
for Dana Ward

Of the icy light on the eyes, I will accept my blindness as it comes over me
and I will accept these white signals.
If I saw something good, I would remember it for yr gift-shop, a cup full
of coins for a small accordion.
In the dark room—I spoke to you as if you were here—a funeral prepared
for our imagined pageantry of loves left.
So I will accept no love at all on this coldest day of the year and adjust
the heavens to make a storm of excess paper, pencils and dust.
There is nothing so simple as a smile among a thousand sad faces but in my
blindness, I am made to feel out for laughter.
I believe in a place where the sun will restore my eyes and I accept that
they will remain an icy blue against so much offense.
There is god in them hills and they are green, they are off limits for hunting
because so few animals are free, the family on their land.
No pasture can release more than a wad of blackbirds into the glacial sky—
tonight, hollow but for the inky swarm and cutout clouds.
Whose traverse could be the will, the winter release its frigid obstacles upon
me, my sentiment and these metal rings.
I will accept the winter has claimed me a casualty and I will accept these tidings
of war as just recourse, sightless but tall.
So please set among your keepsake menagerie these blind eyes and the scenes
not afforded them in sight.

SAINT OF PERPETUAL SORROW*

Call me a spent orange in the dirt, a primer-gray birdhouse in the tree

or a new world thesaurus but not over the telephone.
Call me a nearly empty water glass, a ceramic kitten toppled on the sill
or call me a sad and broken man but do not call tonight.
Call me a celebration of new democracy, a vest of explosives beside you
or the state of the union address, marked return to sender.
Call me an unfinished word puzzle, a dull pencil or doldrums
but do not call to lure me from the tar.
Call me a despot having gone too fast, a sickly poinsettia in the sink
or a failed plan for two but no, not etc.
Call me a conduit for perpetual sorrow, an ill mannered house finch
or pruned rosebushes but not in the receiver again.
Call me an empirical fault, call me tomorrow or don’t bother using
words at all but do not from the other end just breathe.

*the title was taken from Gina Myers' poem "House"

Sunday, January 30, 2005

There is some severe sensory deprivation going on here. There are the weather, the landscape, the slow pace and then there is the complete lack of the sort of culture/civility I'm used to. I have never heard so may remarks about "gays" in my life--except when I was growing up in San Diego. Everyone seems repulsed when I mention moving to the Hillcrest neighborhood, because that's SanDiego's "gay" neighborhood. However, it's also where all the culture is. I've never seen so many drab, lifeless, landscape paintings in my life either. These are strange times indeed.

Over and out.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

I just returned from a charitable dinner and auction, where I was one of maybe 4 people under the age of 60. I'm not too big on prime rib so I stuck with the over-buttered asparagus, hyperbolically gravy'd turkey and rice pilaf. What the hell is rice pilaf anyway? Rice, Orzo, and parsley flakes, no? I'm changing my name to Edith Pilaf, forthwith.

xo,
Edith Pilaf.