All These Weirdos

2011-02-01T15:33:00.002-06:00

I WANT TO WIN THE LOTTERY OR BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT THIS SUMMER

"Please" by Robert Creeley

2010-07-22T16:16:00.002-05:00

PLEASE

for James Broughton

Oh god, let's go.
This is a poem for Kenneth Patchen.
Everywhere they are shooting people.
People people people people.
This is a poem for Allen Ginsberg.
I want to be elsewhere, elsewhere.
This is a poem about a horse that got tired.
Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.
I want to go home.
I want you to go home.
This is a poem that tells the story,
which is the story.
I don't know. I get lost.
If only they would stand still and let me.
Are you happy, sad, not happy, please come.
This is a poem for everyone.

Hello from beyond the grave.

2010-07-03T15:49:00.000-05:00

WONDROUS THINGS I HAVE SEEN

by BRANDON BROWN

From the "introduction" of Wondrous Things I Have Seen by Brandon Brown:

The formal structure of Wondrous Things I Have Seen is derived from the ancient and medieval Arabic form called saj’. The saj’ is decorative prose which rhymes, and which often makes use of rhythms more common in verse. The prophet Muhammad said, "Avoid ye the rhyming prose of the soothsayers or diviners."

From Wondrous Things I Have Seen by Brandon Brown:

My sex left me at the confluence of two rivers, assuming the rising flood would do its job of killing. The flood bubbled around my lungs and made all my blood soggy but I was lucky—a wolf came over and put teats in my mouth and I sucked. Scary wolf, so brazen and shameless to force open my mouth and make bite on teats my teeth. Bashless wolf, do you not know that hunters lurk near these rivers, who hanker for jackets of wolfskin? The spot where the floodwaters ebbed was part of two ranches owned by Ronald Reagan, collectively known as Ronald Reagan Ranch. A ranch hand found me coddled by wolves, let wolves live, clasped by the rear he reared me on the ranch, extending the borders of his working day so it knew no bounds. Fortunate rancher, he did not know I would be the king of anatomically-camel ranch hands, endorsed by Vulcan to stamp forehead by lightning at my discretion. My crown tasted like a coin or teat. So first thing I did was hunt, trap, beat, exterminate wolves.
Specs:
19 writings on 25 sheets of 100% post-consumer, acid-free paper
beautiful cover drawings, front and back, by Kari Freitag
hand assembled in Lawrence, Kansas
$11, postage paid (to United States and the Canadas)

one day Baumann gonna fly . . .

2010-02-20T18:45:00.000-06:00

quilts pieces—

2010-02-01T23:12:00.001-06:00

in Gee’s Bend they put the time in
but what they make
are they obligated to make it?
when it don’t make them no money
I don’t know

but you can’t make
what they make.
I can’t either
and the world feels them
all different countries feel the tops—
they’re not supposed to unless
they’re buying
they’re not to dirty
three quilts Loretta fashioned
from the same batch of men’s clothing scraps
says the curator—
it started in the ‘60s and without the women
there’s no quilts
to cover the batting
to match the backs to.

do they even need quilts in Alabama?
would you feel cheated should they farm
instead?

The women consider the process
of piecing the quilt top
highly personal.
In Gee’s Bend
the top side faces up on the bed,
is always pieced by a quilter working alone,
and reflects a singular artistic vision.
quilting the quilt together—
the completed
top, the batting, the back—
is sometimes performed
communally,
among small groups of women.

The Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective sells
the internationally acclaimed artists
from this Alabama community.

then there was from within me
a cheer and rancor both
not understood—
something wildly piebald—
when there were no prices
no ways to buy
and the site was four years old
still under construction in 2010.

so much,
something in my face feels
like everywhere
has the same feelings
as me sometimes,
something cold in my chest
up my throat
in my eyes.
My sister-in-law’s daughter
sent those clothes down
told me to give them away, but didn't
nobody want them.
That knit stuff, clothes
from way back yonder, don’t
nobody wear no more,
and the pants was all bell-bottom.

We ain’t that out-of-style.
I was going to take them
to Salvation Army but didn’t
have no way to get there,
so I just made quilts out of them.

this, Greeks, is not born of moral sense: like,
I can do this, they can’t
so I gotta because the world needs
a quilt—
but it does:
all the banks need one
someone’s face’s
blown off and there’s a sad muddy ditch
with someone’s face parts and someone’s
penis and other bodies blasted into it—
stuck half deep in it—
that ditch needs a quilt now,
someone never made it
out alive
someone’s telling lies on-air every night
someone just said, “Allow him his tonsure”
and when someone speaks as if it can be no other way
that means they need a quilt,
and Robert Mugabe: be quilted!
and you who’ve lost your son to the World
of Warcraft: we wish
his avatar quilted in phone lines in space
we can reach him, we will reach him
and does Than Shwe know what a quilt is
could he hold people and small cats in quilts
if he tried
can we all just surround Kim Jong-Il
kick him in the balls
wrap him in a quilt and song him

someone just saw the bunch
of charts and green lines
you bet your mother’s social welfare on
last quarter and lost
and that someone said,
“Quilt it up into sumpin’—”
and that’s what Gee’s Bend is,
but not because it has to be.

It has arrived:

2010-01-01T13:55:00.001-06:00

my version of the money shot.

the poem the blog was named after . . .

2009-12-25T10:17:00.001-06:00

she sired my triceratops

for Jesse and Emily

effort towards the gender
bent over
looking down at
a bar
of dove soap
no that’s dove poop
you see what i did there
just right
here’s to years a new chapter
happy memories
cleaning up rat turds
season salts
blatant you look ok
google goggles new app
able to find your ass
even Stephen Hawkin
pics even CUNY applications
sounds racist
some of my best friends are
racist assholes
you look as though
alligators! barnstormed
at Osawatomi
native gaming in
the politics of self
preservation now means
screw your cum
in a mason jar
Danny Devito
directly addressing
the great
a no no
impregnate
radical Shiite cleric
with terror
they’re the reason
rare pheasants live
now in Ford factories
why years ago Geraldo
Rivera got his nose
raped
by a dino-sapien in
Janesville, WI.

Reviews have been posted (links in text).

2009-12-23T23:33:00.003-06:00

McCrary all up in dis.

In this post at Galatea Resurrects, Lawrence poetry juggernaut Jim McCrary reviews the newest Mitzvah Chap, Well Meaning White Girl by Alli Warren.

He also reviews Hyperglossia by Stacy Szymaszek, my dear friend.

He also reviews Get the Fuck Back Into That Burning Plane, an Ugly Duckling chap by Lawrence Giffin, which is probably my favorite chapbook in recent memory. Lawrence, if you read this, will you please come read in Lawrence, Kansas? We are named after you.

In this post, he also "engages" Robert J. Baumann's A Man About Town, which is not really available yet unless you are especially unlucky.

Please "chime in"

2009-12-17T11:44:00.001-06:00

What should I title my poetry manuscript so that Fence Books will publish it?
I am still sad I didn't get the fried chicken at Bog Boy
my penis is my marketing ploy
Seth Abramson, Jr.
Fence Modern Poets Prize Winner 2011
Happiness a film by Todd Solondz

View Results

Create a MySpace Poll

new for bird poets.

2009-12-01T21:40:00.003-06:00

In the same world as exists
million-tome birds,
also there’s sewn so many nests
skrilla.

shit.
there’s a chicken.

that’s my bird there
‘cause
when a chicken wear a boa

that's skrilla.

when you stitch a chicken in
a boot
and rub it
that's historic--
Welcome To
beautiful bright orange
food fuck

dribblin' my
presence all on
your rhymes.

i believe it was a drowning
Tippy Hedren
or maybe Rambo who
once wrote of
the zilch we feel
when we write.

you feel that?

that's just me, stitching
chicken upside
your head.
just me, cracking yo’
hollow bones with
crack tablets,
stealing your throne,
now i own yo’ ass

steep crack mountain pass

like i said before
like the stitch i sewn
you the itch that prone
to the birds
like a fucking gerund form
of the verb:
flying flow
owning

gon'.

should i copyright this idea?

2009-11-19T00:01:00.001-06:00

Some of my best friends are black people.

2009-11-17T09:42:00.001-06:00

The “mulatto” is assumed

suicidal; he fails to complete

racial classification.

The “mulatta” is a woman white enough

that [she] implies “Quadroon”

generally credited as the first work

of white gender

while avoiding white “characters.”

Generally,

a woman who can attempt

to love a white man

eventually suffers

all the social graces

that come along with slavery.

A common objection to oppressed

or enslaved races of whiteness

is instead of sympathizing with one’s own race

they often lay in lurid fantasy

of a small amount of “black blood”

that renders [them] fit

for proper marriage.

Today’s bi-racial peoples

seem to be key. Halle Berry

recently spent most of her life

“trying on the other hand.”

Other Black, White, and Jewish continually state,

“Civil Rights Movement, baby; not tragic.”

To this trope:

Barack Obama.

Looking for serious relations. I wrote to great man.

2009-11-10T10:17:00.001-06:00

Linh Dinh has posted pics on his State of the Union Blog from his recent visit to KC, KS and KC, MO. People should look at them.

If in the autumn a plesiosaur

2009-11-09T13:41:00.003-06:00

in denying its own existence
holds a banana in
its finny hand
walks only slightly hunched
then turns back to
market its poontang
splaying its vast flaps
all ocean-wide and shit
manifests like a ship's
manifest, then on that landed
ship
we could build a stove
and stoke it with our faces.

If, then, assuming in summary
a face appears in meat things
far and
cooling in coolers that drip burnt
umber--but
a face none knows like one
knows the hairy
chin of Christ--then

then an end must come
to all things under
Hustler, published still by
Larry in Indiana.

Jesus' dick has a chin

that you'll punch lightly

so that someone blushes

so that

the fall of man comes

the banks fail

the car companies

fail the Detroit Lions

who have to now play

games in Afganistan while

searching for Bin Laden

having already been

laid in

the process--sex boat

scandals true--then playing in

Beijing where the creepy, short

Chinese play for free

having already rejected

pay in

American dollars or

Chinese dolls

Made in America.

I feel like saying

"fuck you" here--to myself--

since when

I say "fuck you"

in general

it makes me feel like

auctions have been won for

very vast plesiosaur

flaps, catching wind on the ocean

taking me away

to animation:

James Cameron directs

groundbreaking 3-D effects

of my vast balls finally

that finally sway in jibberish

draw tight

rest on your chin

like Jesus

a baby, kindling

for our autumn oven

Honey.

Fashion Trend Spotter

2009-11-04T19:56:00.003-06:00

That specific traffic sussing
a specific anxiety related to fashion
in a confident little cougar cat.

Meow.
Am I
right,
people?

How’s a pocket constructed people
are such individuals, it’s so
personal little cougar cat

that writes home once:
here’s the occasion here’s
me, a color story being forecasted
as being different from a prison

—in this prison they can write their tepid earless poems and read them.
Other poets can earn up to $200,000

so I guess
we must ask the susséd ones about
what draws one person to love
civil war
while another is drawn
to animals?

Well Meaning White Girl by Alli Warren now available from Mitzvah Chaps.

2009-10-11T11:51:00.001-05:00

"When is The Collected Alli Warren going to be published?"
-Michael T. Hauser

Mr. Hauser voices with clarity that which is surely on all of our minds, and though we here at Mitzvah Chaps cannot answer that question anymore than we can afford extra toppings on our pizza, we can safely say that if you order Alli's chapbook Well Meaning White Girl, it will be 'popped in' the mail within a week.

Specs:
19 Poems by Alli Warren
Cover designed by Anne Boyer
Edition of 150
Saddle-stitched in Kansas
$7 (includes shipping if you live in the contiguous US)
Includes this poem:

FERTILE CORRESPONDENT

The looping points like likeness and so forth
asserts that everything happens because
I do not know how to work metal
I am less effective I devote a great part of my time to
the interpretation of signals When signs are slow
in coming I do not hesitate to seek the slightest touch
by water by wheat berry by cotton thread and flintstone
I lick around the perimeter and then I lick under
that other totality to overthrow with a flick of tongue
that I might run to the top of a high hill
without weariness sprout a disc and make bold
claims Aim to come correct come morning
after morning there is full range in weights
and extensive looting Insert two fingers to bring breath

To Order:

and the hills have green balls

2009-09-25T16:18:00.002-05:00

there is texture or
residence in
some jungles

we have to clear
quite a bit of bits
out of.

this's true
too--authentic voice is
all of a sudden
don't go there.

be sure to give us that in
juxtaposition.
justin, position
your timber
at my lake

and bye bye.

and w/ rope, Tyrone's chicken

2009-09-25T16:08:00.002-05:00

what in the box
is the fuck is in
really in
muy muy in
tre in
buon in
discerning the in in in
is this:
is fucking in still
is coming in/let in
very fragrant in
Latin
Patton
or
Tourin
in shape of Tyrone
Tyrone's round about
here's a daily constitution
by Tyrone
what tie Rhone
what already
now in Germany
a German inbox
is fueled well
too fucked in
a sense: a cold headless
carcass of chicken
in a word:
Tyrone's

Iffn' My Next Wife

2009-09-25T15:50:00.002-05:00

Put the ball
the moment you have beaten
it.

Return drills
to Armani's
village
where all cocks
align all dogfights
with other thus
with other colors/
urine/colors/urine
name another color
and I,
I will irrevere your
ass
at last.

Better than no one ever; thank you, Carson Cistulli

2009-08-19T17:28:00.006-05:00

I am a person of many interests, to the detriment of excelling at any one of them. At least that's what I tell myself to account for the mediocrity that extends into all the nooks of my life.

I know that I am mediocre because every time I think I have gotten better at something, or an sort of good at something, I encounter an example (or countless examples) of people that are better than me at that thing.

Latest example: I like to think that I my baseball fanaticism is a nice balance between objective/statistical analysis and irrational things like "he plays for my favorite team" / "he wears high socks". I could probably write an article about Rickie "Skittles" Weeks to that effect and have it be pretty fun and informative to read, even for the most casual of fans. I might even be compelled to do so were it not for this article by Carson Cistulli of FanGraphs on Mark Bellhorn. I think it's one of the best sports articles I've ever read. It just so purely reflects a love of the game, the rational, irrational, the vibrancy and depth of the game that I love.

I cry at stupid things. If I listen to "Vacant Skies" by Sparta or "Adlai Stephenson" by Sufjan Stevens in headphones, I know I'll tear up big time. When I think about that 2008 US Presidential election, I fucking whimper. This article makes me feel ok as a human being, and I guess that is worth crying about.

if my life was a TV show

2009-08-10T19:05:00.002-05:00

everyone's favorite character would be Rhoads Elliott Stevens.

2009-08-04T12:58:00.001-05:00

from Daily Kos:

Democracy-Hating Boehner Making Threats

LOL

Jesus H. Freedom, 12/25/0000-7/4/1776-9/11/2001-??/??/????

2009-07-09T09:36:00.002-05:00

"Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)"

Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day
Out in the yard with your wife and children
Working on some stage in LA
Did you stand there in shock at the site of
That black smoke rising against that blue sky
Did you shout out in anger
In fear for your neighbor
Or did you just sit down and cry

Did you weep for the children
Who lost their dear loved ones
And pray for the ones who don't know
Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble
And sob for the ones left below

Did you burst out in pride
For the red white and blue
The heroes who died just doing what they do
Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer
And look at yourself to what really matters

I'm just a singer of simple songs
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith hope and love are some good things he gave us
And the greatest is love

Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day
Teaching a class full of innocent children
Driving down some cold interstate
Did you feel guilty cause you're a survivor
In a crowded room did you feel alone
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her
Did you dust off that bible at home
Did you open your eyes and hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep
Did you notice the sunset the first time in ages
Speak with some stranger on the street
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Go out and buy you a gun
Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watching
And turn on "I Love Lucy" reruns
Did you go to a church and hold hands with some stranger
Stand in line and give your own blood
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love

I'm just a singer of simple songs
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith hope and love are some good things he gave us
And the greatest is love

I'm just a singer of simple songs
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith hope and love are some good things he gave us
And the greatest is love

The greatest is love
The greatest is love

Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day

'save the date'

2009-07-05T14:34:00.001-05:00

2009-07-04T15:02:00.002-05:00

i read your poems and you are my favorite poet and i don’t know what to do with these feelings that feel magical and stupid

2009-06-23T21:33:00.000-05:00

thank you,
thank you.
i thought you might like how my body puffed up like a bird
i had to readjust my feathers
i have a melty look on my face i think
it can be made without a lot of money.

today i traded a plane voucher for a bag
of gold donuts
gold hubcaps
gold crystals
gold l.e.d. screens
good old golden sadness of the ancients
spreading the sad sad seed of the
male unicorn’s single prong
of sadness.

thank you thank you i give you
the predictable
the fertile correspondent.
it is a song i wrote
in bed beaming in early evening.

this expensive weeping
sweeps you like a machine up
your warm walls thank you
now. thank you,
i didn't know there would be
the hubris of mummies.
maybe we can harvest the hubris of bird mummies.
i know where some of those are.

(I) Love (Science) Poem

2009-05-28T16:06:00.002-05:00

w/ a tire you add
to a motor
some tension
makes a spire where
things--

tender parabola
inverses and
I tend a parabola too
your bottom
lip.

there's such trickle
some sun--
not ours--
as dark as yellow
can go
animal almost.

you said something of tax
to the center of cities
to your brother
for incentive to
privately produce iron
beams
true tested
(sweat) across
my forehead you
don't
seem to notice
or mind.

imagine this world
class structure where
everything's of carbon
date me.

Young writers.

2009-04-19T10:15:00.002-05:00

I am now no longer in my mid-twenties. That means, to me, that I am old. People/writers I look up to are younger than me. Lamenting my transition into the "late twenties," I'd like to celebrate a few younger writers, who have accomplished far more.

Cote Smith is 25. His friendship means more to me than he knows, I bet. He recently had a crushingly good story published by One Story called "Hurt People." Here is an excerpt from the story and a chance to support Cote and One Story by subscribing. Here is one of the editors' blog entry about Cote's story, his "concerns," and his talents. It is probably more interesting than anything I would say.

Alli Warren is probably somewhere around 25 (maybe I am way off), but I know she is younger than me. She is way more successful than me, that is for sure. Ron Silliman called her "one of those poets." It seems like she has been writing good poems forever; for example, here are some poems from 2005-ish in EOAGH. Here is a more recent e-chapbook from Duration Press called No Can Do (warning: PDF download in link). I will have the privilege of publishing a chapbook by her via Mitzvah Chaps very soon. Other info on Alli-chaps can be found here, here, here, and here.

Sam Pink is 25 or maybe 26 depending when his birthday his--his book I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It was published in 2008 and it says that he is 25, which is a weird thing to put in his bio since it will only be true for less than one year, unless the book was published on his birthday, then it would be true for one full year. Sam is published damn near everywhere on the internet. His stories aren't really "stories" sometimes, sort of in the way that Lydia Davis's stories aren't really stories sometimes. That's not to say that the "content" or "style" of Sam's work is anything like that of Davis, but it's pretty good.

2009-04-16T13:36:00.001-05:00

Types of Rarity

2009-04-15T10:41:00.002-05:00

Rare pleasures
Freak natural occurrences
Prodigal human abilities
Pangs (as in of brevity, missed chances, passing greatness, or awe)

2009-04-06T01:52:00.000-05:00

will someone please tell me how this happened?

Money is not real.

2009-03-27T16:30:00.001-05:00

From The Money Masters, via Linh Dinh's blog:

The Fed was deliberately designed to appear as a sort of government body to hide the fact that it is a private banking cartel whose member banks share in the vast profits of seigniorage (i.e., the difference between the cost of printing/minting or otherwise creating money [a few cents per $100], and its face value). Yes, the Department of the Treasury does still mint our coins (at the US mint) but that represents under 1% of the US money supply, the great bulk of which is simply bankbook entries - electronic keyboard impulses in computer memories - created by banks on-the-spot to fund loans they make in response to loans applications their "customers" submit (hence the competition by banks for your loan applications and credit card borrowing).

Wouldn't you love to have that exclusive ability - simply to type numbers on your keyboard creating bank accounts, and then write checks or charge purchases to those accounts (actually, no - it is gravely unjust to everyone else and is impoverishing the world for that power to be in private hands).

Blog Trolling

2009-03-11T11:13:00.003-05:00

I'm kind of obsessing over Linh Dinh's pictures of Bethlehem Steel, the viewing of which flanked my reading of Dale Smith's blogpost about Collapsitarianism-- a connection so clear that it seems cliché. I am big walking ball of superficiality.

Some new blogroll links:

H.O.W. Journal

Resisting Poetry Blog

Blue Hour Press (amazing e-books!)

Do people remember what blog names I used in the past?

2009-03-07T21:42:00.005-06:00

Here are the ones I remember (in what I can remember of the order):

The Naming of Things

Chick Fuzz Pea Brain

Kee-Wahn-Kee-Lo

Jimmy Eat World (thank you Kari)

phatic, adj.

I Gasped.

extremely soft retarded kitten

just about rotund enough (thank you Kelly)

On the Internet It Is Stupid to Imagine Boundaries

It Is Stupid

I Is Stupid

Jhumpa Lahiri (current)

If you remember other ones please post them as comments.

here.

2009-03-02T17:03:00.001-06:00

Abraham Smith from joshuamarie on Vimeo.

2009-02-26T20:17:00.001-06:00

this was a fantastically quick turn around: i have a poem on 3:AM.

who are they/what is poetry?

2009-02-25T18:08:00.003-06:00

Blogging and Meaninglessness/Ethics, Pt. 2

2009-02-24T22:42:00.002-06:00

what are the moral/ethical/personal/existential/social implications if Silliman's Blog is my sole 'window' into the 'world' -- not just the poetical or literary one, but all the world? like Africa and shit?

2009-02-24T21:43:00.003-06:00

this morning i wrote this poem in bed and read it to Kelly. i told her i had written a poem that meant something for once. she asked what it meant and then i talked for a long time and felt i had said too much but she said she liked my explanation. i don't remember what i said it was about, i could probably paraphrase pretty accurately, but i'm not going to, i'm just going to title it "Pooem"--but now this whole thing in bold has become the title i guess.

for the sake of making fun
of space—

in order to use everything i know
in a poem—

i shit out what fish
sleeps still in my bowels:
what i know is something
like the sting of empirical dung
on my hole.
i don’t know what a tannin is—science—
but i have examined deeply
the beaded head of a broccoli sprig,
blotches in shrimp asses
much like my own.
it is a comfort to own your own bowl
for scatting
i'm learning—
by trial and error.

but for instance i think i know for certain
the slant of sun—
the poem—the sonnets—the Berrigan—
the one that hit me
in Mequon
after they extracted the rat
brain from my cheek,
but i don’t: tell me
what’s one word—
tell me one word
that makes the sun made of
real sun
or at least of a pulsing mote—
something more like the cat
shit i felt through a towel
this morning—
light a real light,
Marx a real armpit:
woolen.

revolting the way i know
to claim
the means of producing a poem
of my own:
i dipped a leaf in honey, clipped it
to a bank door—
called it a pun.

(what i know is to press up—
my bulb hits a notch—
and you come)

one word makes fun of
shit we spin and it is:
lint-pile-i-love-ya

and once again dig toward my ass
through my tummy.
space is a helmet with mirrors
for eyes in my mind.
this poem could not use all
i know / used all i know
in the lines about poo.

headphone home #1

2009-02-22T00:00:00.004-06:00

i have been sitting in my bedroom with my headphones on for several hours now. sometimes i do this--just sit and wonder how all these sounds can make me want to die and live forever. one song that i continually come back to (it makes me cry because i can't imagine how all the parts come together to form this whole) is "Vacant Skies" by Sparta. i went to see Sparta at the Metro in Chicago back in 2002 or 2003 with Erick and I think Aaron was there and we missed the first song, which was, of course, "Vacant Skies," and i never forgave myself for being late.

so now, sitting in my room, having happened across the song in the trolling of my iTunes, i figured i'd see if i could relive what i missed at that concert, and lo and behold, this video of a totally decent quality on the You(series of)Tubes. if you watch it, please note the amazing work of Jim Ward's alien-like fingers at the beginning of the song (he's the front man, and the skinniest person on earth, so it shouldn't be hard to figure it out).

i told Chloé recently that i try to give my life meaning by making soundtracks for it. one way to do that is to constantly remake soundtracks for the movies in my head. i just titled this post, thinking that it would be something of a recurring theme working with my deeply nostalgic use of music. here it goes.

this Sparta song was on an EP that came out when Jesse and Cush were living together on the East Side of Milwaukee. Joshua Hren came over and we listened to the cd in Jesse's room (there was only one room--Cush slept on the couch--the landlord thought they were gay). there was a certain dim light. i can almost remember what i ate. i parked on the north side of Brady Street, just west of Farwell. perfect weather after it stopped raining. after listening, i think we recorded, very coarsely, a song that we referred to as "0.9% Interest" on Josh's analog 4-track. (that was for the band we wide-eyedly called Kindness Quotient.) i still have a different recording of it in my GarageBand files. at the time we thought it was great. but held against something like "Vacant Skies"--at least the way i see it--it was nothing. nothing i touch ever is.

i think, now, that why i listen to music, why i blog, how i use culture is to realize that other people move through life in the same ways i do. some of them would be sad without me. that seems an odd jump to make. with music it is stupid not to make those connections.

Magical Icon Below, Please Click as Many Times As You Would Like Please.

2009-02-05T09:24:00.000-06:00

Let me be sentimental and extremely appreciative for a minute.

2009-01-29T13:29:00.001-06:00

From an email, sent by my friend Aaron to a bunch of our "ilk":

Flight from KC to MKE is $286. 610 miles from Lawrence to Milwaukee by car, 30 miles per gallon, round trip gas would have been about $80, so a flight would require an additional $206. I am starting the "Get Baumann to Milwaukee and Save the Woodland Pattern Poetry Marathon" fund with $100, if we can come up with the other $106 the festivities will still be on.

I am not worthy of living.

J.A.R.E. presents . . .

2009-01-25T21:46:00.005-06:00

Original art by Becky Evanhoe.

Colors (To: Aunt Pat) (1990 or 1991)
wax crayon on stolen letterhead
8.5" x 11"
NFS

Novel excerpt re-discovered after long, tribulous e-search.

2009-01-25T21:18:00.004-06:00

I finally found this novel excerpt from Mazie Louise Montgomery, which I have been trying to find for a while after I read part of and then forgot what it was but had the feeling that I wanted to read the rest of it. It was a moderate-to-strong desire to find the excerpt and read it and I spent perhaps 15 minutes clicking on people's blog links and doing Googles searches to find it. I couldn't remember who it was by, only that the author had a name with three names and that she was female, and that the main character was named Dominica who was a teacher in Staten Island.

I asked Stephen Lewis about this several times and I think I annoyed him. I also asked Zachary German about it and I am pretty sure I always annoy him. I found it because Ryan Manning interviewed Mazie here and I have that blog in my Google Reader. I saw Mazie's names and thought, That was her; now I have the missing piece to the puzzle. I should have thought to ask Ryan about it a long time again.

Blogging and Meaninglessness/Ethics, Pt. 1

2009-01-24T20:57:00.005-06:00

update (9:15pm): 56%.

if i "mark all as read" on Linh Dinh's blog on my Google Reader, i will reduce my number of "unread items" by 48%.

this might relieve stress.

if i decide to do this, are there any moral implications?

(All) Seven (and We'll Watch Them Fall)(?)

2009-01-24T19:57:00.003-06:00

i think i have been tagged by Stephen Daniel Lewis.

in honor of that:

a. someone used over half of my agave nectar and left the bottle a mess. i felt 'used' for a while, looking in the mirror and rubbing eucalyptus-scented lotion into my dry shoulder. i felt a little righteous: better than some people and worse than other people in history.

b. i simultaneously feel like a better person and worse person than ezra pound, who knew a lot of things (languages, authors, philosophies) but was also a fascist anti-Semite for most of his life and probably took things a little too seriously.

c. the cat that i was taking care of (but is now being held for ransom by my roommate's girlfriend) probably takes things too seriously for being a cat. my girlfriend's roommate's cat is one of those cats whose head jerks around when they watch you do something very quickly. i think that is a sign of taking things too seriously.

d. dressing for the weather is taking things too seriously, maybe. but if i didn't dress for the weather, and was extremely cold, then when i got into my bed and got warm again, maybe with another person (to whom i would sign to warm my vocal chords), then that would give my life meaning. meaning in life is a serious thing.

e. the best time to rub something into your body is right after a shower or bath.

f. ezra pound looked like a cat after a bath.

g. when i am with you i feel like a cat after a bath.

Happy Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T12:52:00.001-06:00

reading blogs has inspired me to make a blog post for the first time in a while.

2009-01-19T19:49:00.002-06:00

Ron Silliman discusses the levels of greatness a literary blogger can achieve.

Here is an example of my favorite poetry being written right now probably.

I shrunk the number of unread items in my Google Reader from 868 to something like 271.

I feel like I learn things from looking at Brock's blog. It is a kind of unconscious learning. I just go there and look at the images and somehow feel smarter.

In the last ten days I have won $825 in online poker.

Here are people I will finally get to meet or be reunited with at AWP in Chicago in three weeks: Maurice "Alex" Burford, Gina Myers, K. Silem Mohammad, Gabe, Mike Hauser, Karl Saffran (does not have blog), Marie Larson, and many others!

What if I gave people my facebook password and let them do whatever they wanted to my facebook page?

This blogging episode has revealed my true mediocrity. I am an unmotivated, boring lump of flesh.

Happy new year.

2009-01-09T19:10:00.000-06:00

"I am very attracted to Marlon Wayans."--Chloe Jones

2009-01-05T19:23:00.001-06:00

Yeah Bruce Lee Pizza: uncovered art by Robert J. Baumann

2009-01-05T16:00:00.002-06:00

Yeah Bruce Lee Pizza (2006)
Pencil and Marker on Copy Paper
11" x 8.5"
$1.00

Some things I listened to in 2008. [Part 2]

2009-01-02T17:06:00.003-06:00

Midnight Organ Fight - Frightened Rabbit

I am pretty sure that I will never get sick of this album. I am still picking up on new sounds every time I listen. I read a review when this album first came out that said something about how good the backing vocals were, and I think the last time I listened to this album I finally heard what that reviewer was talking about. The reason that I hadn't heard it before was because I thought some of the vocals were synths! Maybe that speaks more to my ear than it does the production, but I keep being moved by how delicate and complete these recordings seem.

This is a lyrically dark album, to be sure, but the music is almost always hopeful, swelling, or triumphant, which is, to me, quite attractively existentialist: we know that death is the end of us, that all things are meaningless, but the fact that we have resolved to make art means that we move in spite of death. The song "Heads Roll Off" (I posted the video here) is just about the best existentialist rock song I've ever heard ("It's not morbid talk, just that nature's had enough of you").

Thank you, Frightened Rabbit, for bringing despair back to the mainstream.

Total 'Album of the Year'.

The Airing of Grievances - Titus Andronicus

My good friend Curt said it best when he said, "Bruce Springsteen meets Desaparecidos."

I felt a bit displaced listening to this album with all its youthful angst and punkish ambition, but I'd be flat out lying if I said this wasn't one of the most inspiring albums I've heard in a long time. I sort of felt the same way about Defiance, Ohio's The Great Depression last year, but Titus Andronicus is less snarky and more sentimental (or perhaps just more introspective, and thus more self-effacing), and in spite of myself, I think that I will probably always prefer the latter.

Low-fi recording, long guitar rock-outs with hella-riffs, and codas like "Your life is over"--I am so fucking emo . . .

Matador Singles '08 - Jay Reatard

I purchased this album just about a week ago, under very sad circumstances. Atomic Records, indie record store staple of Milwaukee for the last 24 years, is closing in February. I bought the last copy of this cd that they will ever sell. Upon realizing this, the store manager, who sold me the cd, gave me the card that represents the cd in the store (the kind that lots of record stores use this to save space). I felt sad.

But the music made me happy. Jay Reatard is a tough guy who makes rough recordings, but just like in Stephin Merritt's work, I always sense a bit of sincerity behind Jay's grave or assholish humor. Am I crazy to say that Merritt and Reatard have a lot in common as songwriters?

Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust - Sigur Rós

For people who were wondering whether Sigur Rós could pull off shorter, poppier stylings, feast your ears on this.

Sigur Rós is beautiful without ever being trite (perhaps it's hard to be trite singing in a made-up language; though some might say it's quite pretentious). The English translation of the album title is "With Buzzing in Our Ears We Play Endlessly." If my life was dictated by the movements of a Sigur Rós album, I would be the most beautiful person in the world. I would smash the face of the world with love.

We Brave Bee Stings and All - Thao & The Get Down, Stay Down

At first I was going to say "token Asian female vocalist" but I know that this is just an awesome folky album.

Hat tip to my friend Alex Stegeman for the suggestion lo those many months ago . . .

Next Year in Zion - Herman Düne

Who likes French crooners? I do!

Herman Düne frontman David-Ivar Herman Dune (aka Yayajoni) does some sweet covers of tracks from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, not to mention songs by Ice Cube, The Moldy Peaches, etc. You can probably find them by doing blog searches.

Because my first exposure to these guys was the home recordings and YouTube videos, this studio album kind of disappointed me with its crispy production. But the songs on Next Year in Zion are funny and dark and sweet, perhaps in part because of the French accent in which they are sung. The 1-2-3 / Apple Tree EP (2008) provides a nice middle ground between the lo-fi stuff and the newer full-length.

I posted a video here, and included a track each from the album and EP and Yaya's cover of "Today Was a Good Day" in the playlist below.

Rip It Off - Times New Viking

Short, crunchy nuggets of audio gold. Buy the vinyl if you can.

Little Wars - Unwed Sailor

For some reason, this band is not on All Music Guide. An underrated instrumental effort.

Hold On Now, Youngster - Los Campesinos!

Twee punk? Whatever it is, if fucking rocks my eyeballs loose.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

I imagine that one day I will return to this album and really appreciate it again, but for now, it's a bit played out. I've heard Paul Simon is a jerk.

Alopecia - WHY?

Seeing them at the Jackpot in Lawrence was a blast. Giving hope to all kinds of word nerds everywhere.

Street Horrrsing - Fuck Buttons

I don't know what to say about 'electro' stuff. It's pretty good.

Visiter - The Dodos

I think I just like the song "Fools" but the 'organic' drumming is a plus in my ears.

Some things I listened to in 2008. [Part 1]

2009-01-01T14:24:00.006-06:00

Brace yourself for another "year end music review." Maybe you will find something you like, and then you will forgive me for being so cliché.

These are not necessarily things I liked, just things that I thought about.

Arm's Way - Islands

One of the reasons Electric Light Orchestra remains one of the few 'classic rock' bands I really like is because there is a playfulness to their music, a sort of winking self-effacement that was so atypical of their peers, while still producing the big, gaudy sound expected of 1970s rock.

With Arm's Way, I feel like Islands have taken up that mantle, and then some: songs with the heavy layers and multiple movements a la ELO, but with the face-melting hooks that contemporary hipsters come to demand. At the same time, I feel like Nick Thornburn and company have said, "Fuck the hipsters," -- they're always going to be having fun, taking themselves just serious enough to make awesome music.

Pitchfork Media's review of Islands' second effort lauded Thornburn for avoiding trying to repeat their "breath-taking" first effort, but also lambasted it for the ways in which it strays from the construction of Return to the Sea. I don't get that. To me, the fact that any Islands track has become a synonym for "skull-rocking pop medley" is pretty unique and enjoyable. So much so that I can only speak in horrible abstractions.

This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That - Marnie Stern

I guess Marnie Stern is hot. She did that whole kissing booth thing. I don't care about that. All I care about is that the song "Shea Stadium" is one of the most sonically stimulating songs I've ever heard. The rest of the album is pretty good, too. If you like guitar tapping noise and off-kilter drumming. I do.

BITS - Oxford Collapse

When Oxford Collapse released Remember the Night Parties a couple years ago, I fell in love with the album, and remember being slightly embarrassed at liking something so fratty. But even if the album dropped into a macho world of silliness after the first five tracks, those five were some of the most fun and rocking songs of 2006.

OxColl's 2008 follow-up features songs that feel more like songs--the album feels more like an album. The sound is more consistent--it feels like they envisioned the sound more fully, not just added a bunch of songs that they played at parties to a few well-considered efforts (as they did in RTNP). BITS is definitely party rock, but it's a self-aware party rock--stuff likely to make its fans feel aesthetically elite as they get blindingly drunk once again.

Parc Avenue - Plants and Animals

Somehow reminiscent of both Donovan and "Hey Jude" Beatles bombast, Parc Avenue was the second 2008 album that had me thinking that maybe my baditude towards 'classic rock' was unjust. I think it's just more that I like way a lot of contemporary 'indie' groups are learning from the '60s and '70s. I don't even know what that means. Dark Meat's Universal Indians comes to mind for the same reason's (though they draw just as much from things like Black Sabbath as from CCR).

Red Star EP - Third Eye Blind

Having not released anything since 2003's Out of the Vein, this was kind of a surprise, especially since you don't see bands with 3eb's (former) popularity release things that aren't full-length albums. But what better way to reinsert themselves into the contemporary scene than with a short, e-only release. The first track (included here) is a pretty good effort, but a track tending towards the Snow Patrol end of the spectrum and a live track consisting of Stephen Jenkins and an acoustic guitar leave a bit to be desired for any loyal fans still awaiting this release.

I'm not sure if the radio edit of "Non Dairy Creamer" includes Jenkins shouting "Young Gay Republicans!" during the bridge, or how I feel about said, but I have to give Jenkins credit for trying. One thing I can say is that Jenkins has never been afraid to try to fuse the disgusting with beautiful (see the unedited version of "Slow Motion") or to wear his skeptical heart on his sleeve (see "Darwin"). For me, perhaps, Third Eye Blind is adolescent-obsession-turned-guilty-pleasure, but I'm still rooting for them.

Thank you DIAGRAM :: 8.6 for being the pinnacle of my literary achievements.

2009-01-01T14:19:00.001-06:00

They took these poems because they are weird, I guess.

2008-12-28T17:21:00.003-06:00

2008-12-22T18:05:00.000-06:00

what number of unread google reader items should produce an 'i give up' mentality?

As I Lay Dying, a Monkey

2008-12-13T12:27:00.002-06:00

“Someone’s face hurts because someone just got punched.”

I told Heinrich to shut up or his face would hurt. Because of my fist.

I’d like to say that we were all drunk but we weren’t. The girls were tipsy on wine coolers; the guys never drank more than one or two microbrews—the bitterness gets to us. (None of us drink coffee; all of us like the idea of chocolate bars with very high cacao content but none of us actually eat them.) We could drink flavored vodkas mixed with fruit juices, but there’s really no point. What we really hate is being drunk.

*

How it happened was Heinrich left me alone at the bar, next to a regular. She was fortyish, hair-sprayed, make-up melting off her face—my type. She was drunk. What I did was make her laugh, touch her shoulder, lick my lips.

I think it was the licking my lips part that drew a fist to my face. It was the bartender, her husband, the owner’s fist. I didn’t know that at first, as she dabbed clumps of generic foundation into her napkin.

“How do you know he’s her husband, then?” one of the girls asked.

“He told me as his fist was moving: ‘That’s my wife, bitch.’”

“You’re such a bitch,” Heinrich said.

I hate my friends.

*

I feel dumb almost every time I speak. I don’t feel dumb when I talk only if I talk about feeling dumb. Sometimes I make a conscious effort to say things that will not sound dumb. For instance, after I got punched, I say this to my friends:

“He imparted two insightful bits of information. First, by saying, ‘That’s my wife,’ he let us know that the woman at whom I licked my lips is married to him, the implication of which is that I should not, nor should any other man, and possibly woman, although he would probably think that was hot, lick my, his, or her lips at this particular woman, his wife, he owns her sexuality, let’s deconstruct the binaries thereof, let’s be graduate students, blah blah blep.” I want to stop here. I’m not even using correct grammar; I’m not making a point. I suck.

I continue, “Second, he thinks or wishes that I am a ‘bitch,’ which could mean a female canine primed for breeding, licking its lips at his wife.

“Or, he could have meant ‘bitch’ as a colloquial insult, commonly lobbed at a threatening entity in order to weaken its social standing. In the case that the insult is applied to a man, it is meant to emasculate; if levied on a woman, it is usually to exact ownership or domination over her.

“Ultimately, the second use of ‘bitch’ was effective, because now, after being called a bitch, I have no penis.”

That is the punch-line. No one laughs. One of the girls grins at the ground. Heinrich looks down her shirt.

*

I go to the bathroom and seriously consider eating a urinal cake. In my head, an eight-year-old version of myself is calling my present self a urinal cake face. The pet chimp I always wanted at that age throws feces at me. It is my own feces, drizzled with the chimp’s AIDS-infested blood. The chip knows sign-language and, in my head, I understand what he signs: I hope you get it.

The chimp grins. I finish peeing and pick up the urinal cake. I put it to my lips.

Then another fist—the bartender’s other one—breaks up my face and the cake. I fall hard, head to linoleum. The blood comes quick, I see.

*

I am worried. If I die here, now, my last words will have been misunderstood, not laughed at, dumb ones.

Pacman down wid it.

2008-12-09T13:51:00.001-06:00

Pacman gon drank.

(Hat tip to Cush for this shiznite.)

Poem.

2008-12-08T20:43:00.001-06:00

Oh happy chance to've made

your life a feature loony tune,
and the gross product, a pearl

of cum on a cactus, does not bloom.

-Matthew Henriksen

imagine Detroit goes
blat-a-blat-blat at
the stacks of cash we use
as houses now that

this is the beginning
of a poem about the spot
on your breast
i thought was lactation

i thought of because
home is the covetable
lump of glands and flesh
my face sticks in summer

‘cause i carried a watermelon
fruit slimes over
a moustache’s past hovering
bees in a silken pillow-

case i’ve hewn from
light your face a bulb—
an onion of rubbings of
stung and pulled in

half wiggling while teasing
some half black fuzz in
the throes of Detroit losing
pistons and cum.

people who read this blog and are from the lawrence and kansas city areas.

2008-12-04T21:09:00.004-06:00

please come to see Matthew Henriksen and Jordan Stempleman read at 6 Gallery (716.5 Massachusetts St.) on Sunday (December 7) at 7pm.

please visit An Actual Kansas Reading Series blog for info on these two poets.

here.

2008-11-30T23:51:00.000-06:00

Hi! from Mike Hausey Hauser

2008-11-29T21:30:00.000-06:00

What Can Be Learned

2008-11-28T16:18:00.005-06:00

today i explained to my mother that blogging is like an on-line diary. i think i 'referenced' Live Journal and said something like, "word origin: web log." my mother asked why i needed 7 blogs. she referred to my groups of friends as "artist circles." i felt worthless a little. i thought, pluto is no longer a planet.

i then shared cheese fries with my mother and sister.

i considered adding a comma to my blog title. (it could be added in one of two places or both: after "soft" and/or after "kitten".) the fact that i didn't actually do it is another example in my life of being thwarted by meta-consciousness. if i could be just self-aware enough to think, it would be funny to add a comma, it will amuse me, this blog is amusing to me and that is why i keep doing it, instead of continuing on to think something like, why, it wouldn't matter, blogs are dumb, your blog is dumb, you are an asshole for keeping a blog because the world is fucked, write a check to Ndugu so he can go get some melon, you never help people, 'you have changed', then my life would probably be 'better off'.

*

i am reading Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper, and of course it is brilliant. one third of the way into it i realized that anything i write is obsolete. i tried to incorporate 'the author' into stories without knowing that Plascencia had already done that perfectly in this book.

if everyone who wanted to see 'the author as a character in a fictional work' would just read this book they would say, "That never needs to be done again," and then they could be happier, better people and live lives in the service industry and not try to write shit that has already been done before--and much better that they ever could--but they don't know about it because they are too dumb or lazy to have read the right books.

if anyone wants to see 'language as a crippling force still but one that's unable to hinder human love' in a work of fiction they should just email Chloé C. Jones and ask for chapters from What Can Be Learned (working title) and read them and then they can say, "This crushes my soul enough that it will be a long time before I ever need to feel loved by a piece of fiction again because I feel so loved by this piece of fiction," and then they can move on with their lives, maybe get a math degree so that they no longer work in the 'wrong genre', they can just watch TV and touch themselves a little and then fall asleep and then in 40 years they could just die without anyone noticing.

by "they," of course, i mean me.

*

i feel happy right now. my sister keeps talking to herself underneath the christmas tree.

i explained Text abbreviations to my mother. she then later dropped POY into a sentence, explaining, "Poop On You." i want to understand why my mother's brain doesn't function like this all the time, or at least more often. i kept on wanting to tell her things about David Foster Wallace that Cush and i have talked about lately. i told her about the pressure i feel about loving my family, how i don't want to feel that way. she asked me a question about food, and went back to reading the paper. i thought about Aimee Howard. i felt guilty for thinking that, and for wanting to shake my mother.

my hoodie makes me feel beautiful. my mother keeps telling me to 'retire' it. i feel beautiful alive. i am feeling far less temptation to gamble than i was before i started this blogpost. i feel like this blogpost is coming to a close, and that i can face the world, the sad world of Milwaukee's east side bars, Schlitz, and people i want to touch.

*

i am pretty sure that this picture of a kitten with its ears burnt off is what i feel like deep inside. don't worry, friends: this is a good thing. it feels good to feel like this cat looks. because it is alive and now someone can love it.

Music Tapes to play in someone's front yard in Lawrence on the 24th of November.

2008-11-19T17:00:00.002-06:00

does anyone know where the Music Tapes will play on the 24th of November? i want to be there.

It's Hard to Find a Friend (the blog, not the Pedro the Lion album) reports on the sort of impromptu, sort of front porch-ish tour that the Music Tapes are doing to support their new album, singing saw tunes, and it sounds amazing. i have emailed the address in the article in order to find out but somehow i suspect i'll end up 'knowing' the person in Lawrence that's hosting this show.

who knows. maybe it will be me.

who is she/what is poetry?

2008-11-18T23:33:00.002-06:00

if you imagine Pat Morita alive, drunk, and laughing: that is pretty much my life

2008-11-18T23:19:00.001-06:00

http://wufgood.blogspot.com/

2008-11-18T11:17:00.002-06:00

things are 'heating up' over at Willow Ufgood. with Alex and Kari, i have begun recruiting an all-star lineup of 'young artist-types' by which to kick the internets' respective asses and honor the legend that is Willow Ufgood.

Willow Ufgood.

Willow Ufgood.

Willow Ufgood.

Willow Ufgood, come calling in the night,
let me be thy cock,
the rock of thy church
in moonlight!

In daylight my cloak be thy Nelwyn foreskin,
by dawn, that i feign to represent thy great locks.
i, thy church!
thy kite to fly!
thy troop of Brownies!

foresake thy flaxen wife--
i'll make you uf good.

2008-11-15T20:44:00.001-06:00

i just now became very aware of my face.

who is he/what is poetry? (part 2)

2008-11-15T15:54:00.001-06:00

will someone say something about this poem even if it is extremely negative?

2008-11-15T02:30:00.004-06:00

how food and sex can be used as currency in times of great need

1.

we wiggle in sunshine
to wrestler grunts.

we bulge in recliners
with ass-morphing glee.

good trans-fats undercover
drawn out with the
good convo on mopery
we use—

we shuffling brood
of orchestral udders—
oh wow!

what a mood we are in.

2.

our must is a currency
is grist in a sack:
copper wire and jewels
swarm our plumpiest parts
and
we burst of the crack we plant
on our hands
for the staggering whites of our
neighborhood watch.

we checker and nibble
at turkeys and plums—
the kings of reality retreats.

3.

we cover—
in scraps—
as bums.

4.

trodden in bulwark
we dump out the back end—
the drunk in the trunk.

for in
pinning a tit to a bill
we grin—
what a mood we are in.

5.

what craven water we use
just to brush our toothies!
just to moulder in soot of the zoo!
the beastro!
the hay!

6.

we come up in cards
and shimmy the jackpot—
a swizzling luckbox—

a trove of trolling for butts—
what a mood we are in!

7.

we carpet the vacant
with the fleecy fleece
of deery deer—
with the appled cadavers
of guttery gutters.

crouching with trowels
we lap wine from
we lien.

does exposing ourselves get it done?

when dawn comes as cheese dust
we hump for the market—

to save it from certain nonpareils.

i missed my sister's birthday i hope she doesn't hate me.

2008-11-15T02:27:00.001-06:00

i just google imaged someone's name and 7 of the first 8 hits were headstones.

i think the person is young. i hope the person does not die.

who is he/what is poetry?

2008-11-13T00:13:00.003-06:00

K. Silem Mohammad on "Stupidity in Poetry"

2008-11-11T15:19:00.002-06:00

Here is the last paragraph of the post:

Lest it be concluded that I am trying to dissuade my readers from their poetic pursuits, I should say that I think stupidity, like wisdom, has its place. And there are different kinds of stupidity. Here again the other three disciplines of magic, religion, and philosophy are relevant. Magic encourages a local, temporary application of stupidity to a specific, staged set of actions. This stupidity is always already recognized as contingent and insincere. It is pretend stupidity, largely harmless but also largely frivolous. Religion encourages a total or near-total investment in the most dangerous kind of stupidity: the kind which leads one to surrender wholly to whatever powerful idea or feeling is presented as necessary, and in so doing to render oneself an unthinking pawn for whoever presents that idea or feeling. Philosophy encourages, like magic, a stupidity that is temporary and contingent: a voluntary placing of oneself into certain postures of unknowing, in the interest of isolating and clarifying those truths that are (hypothetically) knowable. Poetry uses all these strategies, but strips them of their practical applications. In poetry, we engage stupidity almost in the spirit of confession or ecstatic ritual. We stare it in the face and acknowledge it. We admit it as a fact, and don't try to control it. We simply experience it, like absurd laughter, or a surge of morphine through the veins. We own it in the hope that it won't own us.

i feel like the people in my poetry workshop should read this (though maybe Dennis Etzel has already done so).

this, in a lot of ways, gives me hope that people will rethink poetry like Obama will help people rethink politics. (what does that even mean? i think it means my brain is small, soft, feline.) it makes me feel justified in my motivations for writing and my assessments of poetry: i read and write poetry because i feel like doing so is to participate in communal acknowledgment of the inability of language to hold lasting meaning outside of a hyper-focused context, the inability of our brains to process and hold enough cues to know anything. what i mean by that latter clause is that poetry (read: "language"?), for me, is the constant renegotiation of meaning, trust between humans, and the violations thereof.

i think i just butchered KSM's point for my own purposes. just read his piece.

i feel crushed.

2008-11-08T00:15:00.001-06:00

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

2008-11-05T18:43:00.003-06:00

people who know me know that sometimes i cannot get phrases out of my head, and i say them to myself or out loud at times that i am not actively thinking anything else, such as when i take a piss, or when i am staring at my students, of whom i am very frightened. today i said out loud to my students, for no reason, "The Pick Up Artist", referring to the VH1 show with the host named Mysteriosus or something. that was the first time that i ever said that particular phrase, but other phrases have appeared just as inexplicably and have then stuck around for years. a quick list of such things

when i am sitting at my keyboard and not able to remember what i want to type, sometimes i will type or think to myself, "jimmyeatworld.com".

in the bathroom i think, "the Milwaukee Brewers".

when i walk down the street, i think, "he walked down the street".

while playing Tetris, the question replays in my mind: "can Baumann get it done?"

i've often considered the mundane nature of these mind-slogans to reflect on my own boring nature. though people may initially be excited by my nuances, when they get to know me more, i fear they will see that all i do is sit around at home, reading things, repeating meaningless phrases in my head and narrating the simplest actions and thoughts: "he needed water." "he buttered the bread." "could he really face another day of teaching students nothing of use?"

sometimes, i want to shut up forever and just absorb the world. "i will be a part of you," i want to tell the world, striking a deal, "but it will just be better if i never again pretend to have anything to offer you; the very act of speaking, as you know, relies on such pretense."

when i speak, i feel horribly alone, out of control, narcissistic.

but last night, and then again this morning, i felt part of something bigger. something nearly (or more than) 64,000,000 other people also must have felt. i didn't have to say a word. i didn't say that many words at all last night, or this morning. i stepped into a booth. i stepped out. i stepped up to the a machine that accepted something from my hand. i felt another person, who earlier that day had done the same things i had just done, press a finger to my chest and then, as if magically, between that person's finger and my chest, there was this stupid little sticker, and that sticker was like a baby that i was proud of -- there are reasons not to like it, maybe, but i overlooked them, like a parent. i drove home feeling ok. i went to my room. occasionally i called meaningless things to Elliott that he could damn well see for himself. as i watched the maps become blue, i felt better, got quieter. i didn't have to speak to be a part of the world; a responsible part. a joyous part. i imagine millions of people with sheets of paper, doing nothing much, saying nothing much, changing history with their mind-slogans.

and then this afternoon, when i walked through downtown Lawrence, through South Park, up the hill on 13th Street, and through the KU campus, i looked people in the face, like i usually do. but instead of thinking "i could never be friends with that person" or "who is s/he, i wonder" like i so often and so divisively do, there was a new refrain that sounded over and over, appeared over every face and made me wonder, ultimately, just what we are capable of next. that slogan, of course, was

OBAMA.

i hope it lasts for years.

BlogMix #6: Pop Crush v1.0

2008-11-04T01:07:00.002-06:00

Good bye, K. Kenneth Saffran.

2008-11-03T23:22:00.001-06:00

This is pretty cool.

2008-11-02T13:43:00.001-06:00

The Home Video Review of Books
Volume 1, Issue 1

www.thehomevideoreviewofbooks.blogspot.com

Kansas writers popular with SPD employees.

2008-11-02T00:18:00.003-05:00

This is pretty cool. I just looked at the "Staff Picks" portion of Small Press Distribution's website.

The first book listed there is Anne Boyer's The Romance of Happy Workers.

Then, someone else picked Brief Under Water by Cyrus Console.

I was happy to see Elizabeth Robinson's Apostrophe up there, too, since I will (hopefully) get to work with her next fall via Mitzvah Chaps.

The new SPD website looks like shit (at least the front page does, anyway), so it's nice to know that the employees tastes are still intact.

i am writing.

2008-11-01T23:24:00.001-05:00

clowns, dream
me good.

i wrote a poem.

i felt like a bad writer.
i called on all
fawns and baby men:

step to the mics—
open drilling in a random
survey the pen, too, so

jarring in my mind
‘cause i don’t pickle shit
‘cause i don’t got brine.

and the woof of the hawklet
as in innocent chomping
rabbits set in

Kansas

the booth with the back out
a hand with a home as
a boyfriend’s boat.

in a poem i wrote a depressed
kitten’s fur tips sulfured as
matches—amazing—blasting

whole batches
and when it scratched
it rained money,

soda and a coney,
three or four fewer
pills than i needed to make it

in a Vegas buffet
my first time through;
i lost it all to a prostitute

the second time. the third
rhyme, in Colorado—
i ate avocado

today, so i feel healthy;
i’ve written nothing becoming—
the opposite of accruing

wealth.

2008-11-01T19:36:00.001-05:00

looking at the the gchat status of my friends is making me happy.

Hallopoeem.

2008-10-31T19:02:00.003-05:00

"the best ever death metal band in denton" was on a tape in the tape deck in my car.

i sort of cheered at the end when John Darnielle talks about dreams.

a kid named Bobby Leack in my confirmation class told me that my dreams were "overrated."

i was confirmed but two years later i became an agnostic.

i want to hold Bobby Leack directly responsible for my agnosticism.

tonight, on Halloween, i would like take this opportunity to thank Bobby Leack.

thank you, Bobby Leack. Happy Halloween.

i clicked the repeat icon on my itunes player twice. now my computer is repeating "the best ever death metal band in denton" a lot.

i think it is playing for the fourth time now.

i would also like to say Happy Halloween to Curt.

Happy Halloween, Curt.

i would like to wish all the people of Zimbabwe a Happy Halloween. i do not think anyone else will do that.

i would also like to wish people of Zimbabwe food and medication.

food and medication, people of Zimbabwe. food and medication.

i am into doing things for people, lately.

today, i returned someone's social security card to his address. at the corner a man asked me how to get to The Wheel. he was driving a 'drop top'. i thought of Ice Cube and Yayajoni, and of asking the man to hit the switch and make the ass drop, but he was middle-aged, sweating, and boringly dressed, so i gave him very specific directions to The Wheel.

a girl who i see on campus everyday walked by on the other side of the street. her face looks like it is always smiling but she never looks happy. her hair is greasy and she wears men's shorts.

i just stopped "the best ever death metal band in denton" in the middle of the eighth or ninth time and put on "song for golda" by Herman Düne.

earlier, i stopped eating Doritos because the bag was empty. i kept putting the bag down and picking it up again until i had eaten every available Dorito, then i looked around my room. i stopped drinking grape soda because my glass was empty. i stopped consuming these things only because of their absence. i wiped my mouth and fingers with a tissue.

there is more grape soda downstairs in the fridge.

that girl works at a restaurant i eat at a lot. i think she intentionally smiled at me once while she was busing a table, but she didn't look happy then either.

i don't make people happy.

i arrange Tetris blocks and make them disappear.

i just went back to the beginning of this poem and changed "atheist/atheism" to "agnostic/agnosticism".

earlier i wanted to hand out sandwiches on the street but Elliott reminded me i had no sandwich "fixins".

i want to touch Elliott's muscles through his black shirt.

this is not the poem i wanted to write. i wanted to write something about costumes and maybe something about sex. "whatever maximizes my potential to get laid," i said to Elliott.

i wanted to write a poem that sounded like Brandon Brown or Dodie Bellamy wrote it.

also, i have to pee. but this is the poetry of endurance. i will persevere.

for the people of Zimbabwe i will not walk the 12 feet to my bathroom to relieve myself until this poem is finished.

instead of handing out sandwiches to people, i will not pee in honor of the people and in honor of the sandwiches that never were.

i had a nephew that was still born. Joey. i will hold in my urine for Joey because he never got to "hold it" for the sake of poetry.

for a second, this poem seems better than the poem i wanted to write.

for a second, i know this is not a poem.

i am now listening to Howlin' Wolf.

for a second, i feel suspended in a place where meaning is meaningless.

there are actually some Dorito crumbs left.

for bird poets

2008-10-31T00:01:00.002-05:00

in the same world as
exists
million-tome birds
also there's sewn
so many nests of
skrilla.

mini new money
millionaires tell
crooked crack rock
mountain passes:
steep road to
road candy
and shit. shit.

i haven't seen a chicken in
sixteen months
but i seen one stitch in
a dude's boot
'at was rockin'.
you know who--
what beard what eyes--
schoolin' you bird-cabbin' bums.

there's a chicken
there.
that's my bird.
'cause
when a chicken wears a boa
that's skrilla.

when you stitch a chicken in
a boot
and rub it
that's historic--
Welcome To
beautiful bright orange
food fuck
dribbling from my
presence on
to your rhymes.

i believe it was a drowning
Tippy Hedren
or maybe Rambo who
once wrote of
the zilch we feel
when we write.
you feel that?

that's just me, stitching
chickens upside
your head.
that's just me, cracking yo'
hollow bones with
crack tablets,
stealing your throne,
now i own yo' ass

steep crack mountain pass
like i said before
like the stitch i sewn
you the bitch i thrown
to the birds
like a fucking gerund form
of the verb:
flying
flowing
owning.

gone.

this is becoming a blog that only links to other things

2008-10-28T15:30:00.002-05:00

because it rates low on emotional health, social self-confidence, understanding of others, feels depressed, and i can't remember what else.

the reason i stop writing poems sometimes has to do with people like Brandon Scott Gorrell writing poems like this that i feel like i wanted to write but when i try to write like this it comes out boring i don't know how to surprise people and be honest at the same time i lead a boring life i think about what socks to wear this takes a lot of time in the morning and then it is 3pm and i have 'wasted my day'.

annie h. linked this.

2008-10-28T00:27:00.002-05:00

Neely's Back!

2008-10-27T16:35:00.000-05:00

and by ryan manning.

2008-10-25T21:06:00.001-05:00

here.

i have been interviewed by tao lin.

2008-10-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

here.

Financial Profile for Robert J. Baumann

2008-10-25T12:38:00.000-05:00

Savings Account: N/A
Checking Account: $544.56
Next Paycheck: $544.87 due 10/31/08 (direct deposit to said checking)

Student Debt: $18,200
Credit Debt: $17,900
Debt to Friends/Family: $1250

Bills Due Soon:
Rent: $350 (11/1/08)
Geico: $255.60 (10/31/08)
Bank of America: $169.00 (11/12/08)
USBank: $217.20
Toyota: $44.50

Monthly Income: $1089
Average Monthly Expenses: $975
Available Credit: $7600
Likelihood of Using Said: 50-70%

Summary: I'm fucked.

i find people who find good people who find good things to read and look at and listen to.

2008-10-24T16:53:00.004-05:00

UPDATE October 27 (responding to insightful comments made by Tor Hershman): i want to make a poetry anthology of poems, one that includes poetry and poems, or things that are poetic. it will be very similar to a poetry anthology in that it will include poetry, but it will also includes various types of poems.

i saw Mathias Svalina read in Fayetteville, AR and even though he was "a little drunk when [he] read" his poem "Forgiveness," it made me exhale in what i bet was probably a very audible way. i think only Katy Henriksen was close enough to hear, so that is good; she is nice and will not hold it against me if she heard it. i emailed Mathias and asked him to send the poem and he sent me here, which also has good poems by Matthew Rohrer and Tracy K. Smith in promotion of Wave Books' State of the Union anthology.

then, today, Alli Warren's bloggings made me want to ask: who wants to do this with me?

right now i'm really into picking my nose. i can't stop. sometimes, it feels like there's always something in there. i do a less-than-thorough job for the sake of discreetness, and then have to do it again six seconds later.

i want to make a poetry anthology of poems about money, since i have none, and it will make me feel rich, i predict. wealth of poe-poe. people who read this blog can submit skrilla poems to mitzvahchaps [at] gmail [dot] com. mitzvah chaps will publish CHICKEN BOA: Notes On Skrilla Prelapsarian, Post-Fordian, & Lavender when it publishes Brandon Brown's Wondrous Things I Have Seen in Januray 2009.

thank you, blinging caucasian jesus, for being in my life.

thank you, Herman Düne, for coming to Lawrence.

pookie, you a goon, but what's a goon to a g-ah-bull-in? nahthin'. NAHTHIN'.

2008-10-24T00:21:00.000-05:00

Hello, and welcome to the latter part of October.

2008-10-22T01:02:00.001-05:00

Anne shared this with me. it makes me feel inadequate in life and beautiful. i will write a poem now.

Hauser: Ready To Go

2008-10-20T18:09:00.002-05:00

Sexual Poem

you of
the opposite
angle

from my
po
sition

don’t know
what’s
good for you

hold my
cock a minute

ok I’m back

I have
no arms no legs
no nothing

Click here to get to Mitzvah Chaps to order. $6 includes shipping.

2008-10-16T22:11:00.001-05:00

Peter Lorre / Karl Saffran: A Study

child's shoe makes way back to owner through courageous, selfless act of young Bostonian woman

2008-10-16T16:56:00.004-05:00

exhibit A:

found shoe s. huntington ave. bus stop left foot designed for baby (jamaica plain)

Reply to: comm-879894962@craigslist.org ^[?]
Date: 2008-10-15, 6:28AM EDT

yellow elastic below velcro strap. brown. on sides, two yellow stripes, one green. classy. 'see kai run' brand. sole impressed with 'love smile jump dance dream'. gently used. smells like new. lonely for its right side. are you the size five its missing?

Location: jamaica plain
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 879894962

exhibit B:

Thank you so much!! This is my son's shoe that he lost on Tuesday. What is the best way for us to pick it up? I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to look for it's owner—those are his "nice" shoes and I felt so bad to lose one!!

Best,

A--

on Crossing the Baumann Line

2008-10-16T13:19:00.004-05:00

for those of you who check this blog but don't check An Actual Kansas Blog or the Mitzvah Chaps blog, Karl Saffran and Mike Hauser, who co-curate Salacious Banter will be reading in the aforementioned series i co-curate with Anne Boyer.

a while ago, Mikey coined the phrase "Crossing the Baumann Line". as with the infamous Mendoza Line in baseball (which is an especially appropriate comparison since Kansas City Royals great George Brett, whose SuperHighway Mike and Karl will intersect during their train-based venture to Lawrence, coined the term), it's not good to cross.

crossing the Baumann line can mean any number of things, but right now i feel like it means plummeting into scary amounts of debt and lust for vapid, small-faced vixens that make you look shallow to your best friends. friends, you don't want to cross that line.

pimping the things that i have a hand in.

2008-10-14T16:45:00.004-05:00

Please come to see this that I help organize.

Please buy these things that I make part of.

Please read this journal that I will have poems in soon.

today i felt the end of something.

2008-10-13T11:31:00.002-05:00

i was/am listening to Bedhead's first full-length WhatFunLifeWas (Trace Syndicate Records, 1994). they remain one of my favorite bands. it was kind of a late discovery, considering that my first experience of Matt & Bubba Kadane's slow-build guitar-core was in 2000, via new band The New Year (mush thanks to my good buddy Chad VanDierendonck for this). after hearing the 2001 release Newness Ends, i craved more Kadane, and immediately purchased used copies of Bedhead's entire backlog. some of the EPs i had to order on-line, of course, but all you their full-lengths i found at record stores around Milwaukee.

as much as i liked Newness Ends (and i loved it), i loved Bedhead even more. it satisfied the peculiar need that i never realized i always had: to hear four guitars playing simultaneously in a cathartic but not overwhelming way. given that The New Year's first release was largely the same, slow-building lovefest with the electric guitar, i had high hopes for future albums. and to be honest, The New Year has not disappointed me: i love both 2004's The End Is Near and this year's self-titled release (both from Touch & Go Records), but today when i started listening to WhatFunLifeWas (i'm now listening to Bedhead's second album Beheaded, which, for the first year that i owned it, i thought was called "Bedheaded"), i realized that the Kadane Bros.'s love affair with the guitar is over, and that's sad to me, because whenever i need that four-guitar fix, i have to rely on these three albums.

it's like when you have friends that are a couple who you really like together, and they break up and you can't figure out why they don't love each other anymore. or when your parents do that, and then you feel neglected in the bureaucracy of the divorce. i'm sure that's been said before.

if i like Bedhead, who else should i listen to?

are people more or less attracted to me now that i have made it apparent i look exactly like Jason Lee?

2008-10-10T22:08:00.002-05:00

All These Weirdos

"Please" by Robert Creeley

Hello from beyond the grave.

one day Baumann gonna fly . . .

quilts pieces—

It has arrived:

the poem the blog was named after . . .

Reviews have been posted (links in text).

Please "chime in"

new for bird poets.

should i copyright this idea?

Some of my best friends are black people.

Looking for serious relations. I wrote to great man.

If in the autumn a plesiosaur

Fashion Trend Spotter

Well Meaning White Girl by Alli Warren now available from Mitzvah Chaps.

and the hills have green balls

and w/ rope, Tyrone's chicken

Iffn' My Next Wife

Better than no one ever; thank you, Carson Cistulli

if my life was a TV show

Democracy-Hating Boehner Making Threats

Jesus H. Freedom, 12/25/0000-7/4/1776-9/11/2001-??/??/????

'save the date'

i read your poems and you are my favorite poet and i don’t know what to do with these feelings that feel magical and stupid

(I) Love (Science) Poem

Young writers.

Types of Rarity

Money is not real.

Blog Trolling

Do people remember what blog names I used in the past?

Blogroll Updates

here.

who are they/what is poetry?

Blogging and Meaninglessness/Ethics, Pt. 2

headphone home #1

Magical Icon Below, Please Click as Many Times As You Would Like Please.

Let me be sentimental and extremely appreciative for a minute.

J.A.R.E. presents . . .

Novel excerpt re-discovered after long, tribulous e-search.

Blogging and Meaninglessness/Ethics, Pt. 1

(All) Seven (and We'll Watch Them Fall)(?)

Happy Inauguration Day

reading blogs has inspired me to make a blog post for the first time in a while.

Yeah Bruce Lee Pizza: uncovered art by Robert J. Baumann

Some things I listened to in 2008. [Part 2]

Some things I listened to in 2008. [Part 1]

Thank you DIAGRAM :: 8.6 for being the pinnacle of my literary achievements.

As I Lay Dying, a Monkey

Pacman down wid it.

Poem.

people who read this blog and are from the lawrence and kansas city areas.

here.

Hi! from Mike Hausey Hauser

What Can Be Learned

Music Tapes to play in someone's front yard in Lawrence on the 24th of November.

who is she/what is poetry?

if you imagine Pat Morita alive, drunk, and laughing: that is pretty much my life

http://wufgood.blogspot.com/

who is he/what is poetry? (part 2)

will someone say something about this poem even if it is extremely negative?

i missed my sister's birthday i hope she doesn't hate me.

who is he/what is poetry?

K. Silem Mohammad on "Stupidity in Poetry"

i feel crushed.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

BlogMix #6: Pop Crush v1.0

Good bye, K. Kenneth Saffran.

This is pretty cool.

Kansas writers popular with SPD employees.

i am writing.

Hallopoeem.

for bird poets

this is becoming a blog that only links to other things

annie h. linked this.

Neely's Back!

and by ryan manning.

i have been interviewed by tao lin.

Financial Profile for Robert J. Baumann

i find people who find good people who find good things to read and look at and listen to.