Every published poem is its own elegy. What poet is not astonished, reading the mere poem on the mere page? The mere transcription of that other poem onto paper is a calamity, a desecration. Every poem, one might say, is a failed translation, an accidental imposter manufractured by the incompetence of a weak-eyed translator sweating in the light of a lantern whose wick is badly in need of a trimming.

- Robert Kroetsch, The Hornbooks of Rita K

Performance takes interaction

or Performance is buoying

or Performance is echolocation, sonar, whale noise

or Performance needs sticky surfaces

or Energy / Tension / Static

or Blow this scene This scene is blown.

I spend most of my day working on the computer, then I come home and spend my spare time on the computer reading theonion and cuteoverload and gofugyourself or checking my credit card bill or my bank account or looking for cheap flights or lately playing typeracer of all things (I hate it!) and so, no blog, no chapbook making, no writing. Sigh. I'm on the wrong side of the pendulum swing, I guess. Sooner or later something'll have to give.

Currently reading:

• Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (on the bus);
• What the Crow Said, Robert Kroetsch (before bed);
• Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, George Monbiot (actually only the first chapter so far; it may be too depressing to continue at the moment);
• Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals, Frans de Waal (still; I keep losing my place);
• far too many poetry books that I flit among and have yet to become absorbed in or give the necessary attention to: Fond by Kate Eichorn, Blissful Times by Sandra Alland, Drunk by Noon by Jennifer L. Knox, Broken World by Joseph Lease, The Iliad Book XXII by Lisa Jarnot, Dies: A Sentence by Vanessa Place;
• the stack of chapbooks and ephemera from the Blow-out Small Press Books and Arts Fair enticing and reproaching me (not currently, but soon);
• Hudson's English History: A Compendium, Roger Hudson (in snippets, because that's how it's written);
• The History of Sexuality Volume 1, Michel Foucault (not actually currently, because I already finished it, but yay! I finished it).

What used to qualify as a threat to national security: "...100 sweating, uncombed women standing around in the middle of the floor with their arms around each other crying sisterhood and dancing." It's all either incredibly offensive or incredibly ridiculous.

I was all ho-hum about the Blowout this year, but after last night my faith has been restored. Congratulations to fS for finding such an incredible reading venue. But how uninformative for those who weren't there. Sorry. Maybe descriptions after the hangover is less.

In my head all day today:

Flawed logic

Pad crepuscular rays.

Gloaming.

The dimming reason. Fade in stray.

Patiently flaying. Seasons of discular moan.

The mournful mizzen.

The follicle scrim.

Open fire. Fall clearing. Mollifying dusk rim

opt. A civil trim. Assimilator.

Opulentor.

Home fizzing.

Load baring. Laymen foible

strop. Fob gobbling.

Homunculus. Opal.

Bundle.

Stow.

How can we take pleasure in a reported pleasure (boredom of all narratives of dreams, of parties)? How can we read criticism? Only one way: since I am here a second-degree reader, I must shift my position: instead of agreeing to be the confidant of this critical pleasure -- a sure way to miss it -- I can make myself its voyeur: I observe clandestinely the pleasure of others, I enter perversion; the commentary then becomes in my eyes a text, a fiction, a fissured envelope. The writer's perversity (his pleasure in writing is without function), the doubled, the trebled, the infinite perversity of the critic and of his reader.

- Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

A Plan for Preserving Birdsong

Is it true that tiny lawyers
.....Hatch in puddles in the spring?
I plan to capture orioles,
.....And teach them how to sing.

But if they can't, the lawyers,
.....Dressed in cunning feathered suits,
Will congregate in sheltered spots
.....And toot on tiny flutes.

- Dennis Lee, The Bard of the Universe

What blossoms did I know? Stinkweed and maybe the shooting star. Buffalo beans in the springtime. Wolf willow. Pin cherry. Foxtail. Does quack grass blossom? Does pigweed bloom?

- Robert Kroetsch, The Words of my Roaring

Feeling Overwhelmed, Stuck, or Burned Out? Personal Life &Work Life out of Balance? Having Trouble Saying No?

This is a workshop for lawyers that want to learn to:

· Work more effectively, yet also have more fun in their lives!

· Create healthy personal boundaries.

· Enhance all their relationships!

· Make life affirming decisions about balance!

· Make changes or complete ongoing changes.

· Maintain excellent mental health and manage stress!

I feel stressed! from all the exclamation marks! !

One of the most pleasing things is stamping DRAFT in big, red letters on legal documents. Stamping COPY comes a close second, but stamping DRAFT is more satisfying somehow.

Currently reading:

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (on the bus on the way to work, because it fits in my purse);
• The Words of My Roaring by Robert Kroetsch (too quickly, because Kroetsch books are basically recreational drugs);
• Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals by Frans de Waal (partly for the pictures of apes and monkeys, partly because de Waal rocks);
• Dies: A Sentence by Vanessa Place (haltingly, because I'm too distracted to give it the attention it deserves);
• Chicago Review 53:4 & 54:1/2 (intermittently);
• Implexures by Karen Mac Cormack (barely, because I just started, but expectantly); and
• A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright (again, because I need to refresh my memory).

OK, I google my own book too damn much, but look! you can buy it at Target! I would love to see my book in a bargain bin at Walmart or Costco or something, marked down to a super-low price, like 50 cents. That would be one definition of success.

And here's Audiatur, a neat site my book has popped up on (thanks to derek beaulieu). Not sure of its purpose, or its language, but it has a lot of poetry.

Do I (does my writing) have a wilting gaze? Really?

In case you haven't read it already, here's Rachel Zolf's very cool acceptance speech for the Trillium prize, recently awarded for her book Human Resources.

Slowly turning into a lawyer: yesterday I added a "furthermore" of my own volition to a court order I was drafting, for no reason other than to make it seem more "legal". But the furthermore looked incredibly strange and I had to google it to make sure it was really a word. And later I took a "therein" and a "thereon" out of a contract I was editing. So all is not lost, yet.

WTF? Of course it's worth $112.82, but who's buying?

Aww yeah, T. Rex and Marks & Sparks. Sigh. I remember Marks & Sparks.

Poetry! Social conscience! Tiny books! So cool.