photo credit: Chase Jarvis
I MAKE A POSITIVE LIST!
Bill Moyers' TV viewers have chosen True Diary as one of the 15 books they think American should read. Cool. Cool. Cool.
AWESOME DAY AT THE BOOKSTORE
Tuesday night, I impulsively stopped by Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle and bought a couple of books and they both kill me.
1.
Michael Robbin's Alien vs. Predator, a book of poetry from Penguin, is funny, profane, surreal, and pop-culture obsessed.
Here are a few first lines of various poems:
"My neighbor's whales keep me up at night."
"Love will tear us a new asshole."
"Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk."
"It's a gorgeous day, not a bat in the sky."
"The elephants ate each other, then they dreamed"
2.
Fast Machine, is a rowdy collection of short stories by Elizabeth Ellen. They're like heavy metal love songs written by a woman with a pawn shop electric guitar that has an extra string grafted onto the neck. Intense, intense, intense.
I'm not sure how else to describe the stories except to say that the book's title is borrowed from AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long":
"She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean
She was the best damn woman that I ever seen
She had the sightless eyes, telling me no lies
Knocking me out with those American thighs"
GONE, GONE, GONE
Here is a lovely and sad slide show about the glory days of record store browsing. In ten years, we'll be looking at slide shows of the glory days of bookstore browsing.
DOWN, ACROSS
One of the great crossword constructors, Brendan Emmett Quigley, has a puzzle on his blog that features me! Makes me very proud. Here's the link.
SMALL AND COOL
Over at Apartment Therapy, the Small Cool 2012 contest has begun. Go there to marvel at the lovely organizational and design skills of other people while being ashamed of your own sloppy ass.
NIGHTMARE
A must-read by Chris Jones in Esquire about a terrifying night in Zanesville, Ohio, when a handful of police officers and animal control workers had to hunt and kill fifty-one lions, tigers, and bears. They'd been released from a home zoo by its owner, Terry Thompson, who then killed himself. The article begins with a man named Sam Kopchak, who led his horse to safety while feet away from a escaped grizzly and a lion. Yes. A. Grizzly. And. A. Lion.
I'M IN WITH THE IN CROWD
I am on the American Library Association's Top Ten List of Challenged Books again! It's always an honor to be on this list. It means I'm scaring the right people. Hooray! I keep hoping somebody will organize a national boycott against me.
SMARTISH PACE
I've got three new poems, "Sonnet, With Snow," "Web," and "Falling," in the latest issue of Smartish Pace, a damn good literary journal out of Baltimore. In this issue, I love Rebecca Lindenberg's "Catalogue of Ephemera," which includes the line, "You gave me the loose tooth of California, the broken jaw of New York City." In this poem, she also mentions pomegranates. Poets are obsessed with pomegranates! Some PhD student needs to write a thesis titled, "What the Hell? The American Poetic Obsession with Pomegranates."
BEST COAST
Okay, I am in love with this band. If Lesley Gore and Joey Ramone had a love child, it would sound like Best Coast.
AND THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN BEGINS...
HEY, UNIVERSE
I've got three poems in the latest print edition of Grist, a cool literary journal from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It's the Fifth Issue of the magazine. My poems are all titled, "Hey, Universe." I've written thirty poems addressed as such and that makes it really tough to organize and, um, remember which is which. So now, when I write poems in this series, I title them differently and put the "Hey, Universe" in the body of the poem. Much simpler. In the same issue, I love the poem, "Fatherhood in Middle Age," by Al Maginnes. It contains this: "...And not before I explain/a hundred times that families,/like nests, are built: imperfect,/asymmetric..."
IT'S HARD OUT THERE FOR A RACIST
From Salon, here is a funny takedown of the conservatives who don't understand what "Hispanic" might and might not mean.
ON THE MAP
I'm very proud to be chosen as one of ParentMap's 2012 SuperHeroes for Washington Families. The photo shoot was so much fun with kids, parents, teachers, ParentMap editors, and a great photographer. As directed by a kid named Taj, I did the Karate Kid Flying Crane pose, Walk Like an Egyptian, and Madonna Vogue. I also spent a little time with Gordon McHenry, director of the amazing Rainer Scholars. You need to check out the Scholars and give them your support. Here's a photo of two of the heroes, Seema Mahtre and Mark Fadool, and their son, the good and honorable Taj!
THE BEST WEBSITE IN THE WORLD
I have fallen in love with strangers simply because of the book I saw them reading. That's one of the saddest things about e-readers. They don't reveal anything about the reader's personality. But a paper-and-glue book gives us a glimpse into a person-their loves and hates. I once saw a woman reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man on a train from New York to Philadelphia and she suddenly looked like Eva Marie Saint. Anyway, like I said, from a recommendation via Anna Minard at The Stranger, here is the greatest website in the history of the world.
CLASSY
I love how much young folks love True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Look how great this classroom assignment turned out. Here's the tweet about it.
STARBUCKS LOVES GAY PEOPLE!
I am still pissed at Howard Schultz for selling the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City (yeah, those are the first white guys from Oklahoma have stole something from an Indian) and will always be pissed at him. And I will never forgive him unless he holds a press conference here in Seattle and publicly apologizes for selling the team and admits to one of two things: 1) He sold the team to Oklahoma City because he just took the largest offer and didn't care if the team stayed in Seattle or not. Or 2) He sold the team to Oklahoma City while foolishly believing they were telling the truth when they said they'd keep the team in Seattle. In other words, Schultz must either admit he was a greedy asshole or dumb ass who got faced by Republican oilmen from Oklahoma. But, on the other hand, I have to admire Schultz's public stand for gay rights. Read about it here. And I also have to admit to my love for those Via Instant Coffee packs. They are awesome for camping and for book tours. I no longer have to choke down the crappy coffee in hotel rooms or pay thirty dollars for a pot of good coffee from room service. I just boil water and add the Via. Curse you, Howard Schultz, for making me buy Via. Curse you! But here's the thing, Starbuck's unabashed and very public defense of gay rights is far more important than the future and past of pro basketball in Seattle. Or anywhere else. So, yes, Howard Schultz, I'm won't forgive you for the Sonics debacle but I do honor you for your stance on gay rights.
NO, NOT THE MOVIE WITH KEANU REEVES AND SANDRA BULLOCK
Click on the image below to take a very fun test of reading speed and comprehension. Me, 803 wpm with perfect comprehension. Can you beat me?
Source: Staples eReader Department
THE STRANGER
I've begun a new column for our local commie, gay-friendly, sex-and-arts obsessed, locally focused free weekly newspaper. Here's a link to all the stuff I'm written for them over the years.
MANY POEMS PUBLISHED
My poems have been published in a number of literary journals lately. Here are the links to the journals, though many of the poems are only published in that old-fashioned paper-and-paste format, and aren't online. But take a look at all these wonderful magazines and do that crazy thing of subscribing to one of them. Or read a bunch of their online content and drive up their hits numbers.
Slipstream published "Lean Cuisine" in issue 31. It's a poem about a restaurant on the Spanish/French coast where I ate the best meal of my life, and the surprising revelation about who else had eaten there. Slipstream was one of the very first places that ever published me, back in 1987, and my collection of poems, I Would Steal Horses, won their Chapbook Contest in 1992. I hadn't published with them for many years so I'm happy, happy, happy to be back in their pages. And proud to be published alongside small and micro press legends like Gerald Locklin and the late Hugh Fox.
The Literary Review published my poem, "Touch," a very Catholic prose sonnet (yeah, I know, oxymoron) about iPads, in their Fall/Winter 2011 issue. Also published in this issue is Joshua Diamond with great, weird poems about fires and oranges. Here's a link to a poem of Mr. Diamond's that is published in the online journal Brink.
Pank published one of my very favorite poems I've ever written, "Sonnet, with Bird." It's a eulogy for a fellow tribal member and a lifetime friend. Pank has online and print issues (though I'm only in the latest print issue). They publish wonderfully strange and experimental work. I admire the crazy poem/story in the print issue by Lindsay Hunter. It's ALL IN CAPITALS and it includes this line, "...HIS ASS IS LIKE TWO HALVES OF A BASKETBALL I HAVE TRIED MANY TIMES TO TOUCH IT." How could I, a basketball fiend, not love that line? I, however, have an ass like a piece of fry bread torn in half.
Raleigh Review published three of my very short poems, "Forty-Year Marriage," "After the Young Hoopster Asks Me if I've Ever Heard of Jenny Craig, I Proceed to Run his Ass Up and Down the Court," and "One More Epitaph for My Gravestone," in their Vol. 2 (2011-2012) print issue. Online, you can read "After the Young Hoopster..." and "The Eternal K-Mart Layaway Odyssey." Jermaine Simpson has a great poem, "To Light a Cigarette," in this issue. It begins, "My father didn't believe in auto shops." Love that.
Specs, another wonderful journal that focuses on experimental and multi-genre work, published my poems, "Sonnet, with Jet Wash," and "Happy Holidays!" in their Issue 4: Kaleidoscopic Print. Also in the issue is Robert Walker's very cool and funny, "The Story in Which You are a Knife," which contains the line, "You're a shark I stole from the Atlanta aquarium."
FUNNY, AS IN FUNNY
Via True Hoop, I learned of Mike Birbiglia's Secret Public Journal. This entry on being a frequent flyer and attending the South by Southwest Musical Festival is very funny.
FUNNY, AS IN NOT FUNNY
There is a goofy Republican uproar over Robert DeNiro's joke at an Obama fundraiser. He wondered if America was ready for a "white first lady." It's a nice little bit of political humor. While there's much talk of Obama being the first black President, there isn't much talk about the historical significance of Michelle Obama being the first black First Lady. And the media has largely ignored the way in which Obama's blackness has enraged and emboldened large segments of the Republican party. And I find it hypocritical to the extreme that Newt and Santorum would denounce DeNiro's liberal-minded racial reference to history when they, as Presidential candidates, have made conservative-minded racial references about welfare recipients. I call bullshit. But with politics, one often has to call bullshit.
SHATTERING THE GLASS CEILING
From Beast TV, here is a great mix tape of Hilary Clinton being Presidential. I guarantee you she will run for the White House in 2016.
DEFAULT
In Guernica, via recommendation by Longform, is an article by Aimee Phan about her family's purchase and eventual loss, by default, of their condo. Painful, painful, angry stuff.
NEW IKEA
I know it's dorky, but I love Ikea. Love it. And I'm very excited about a new dresser they have coming out in August. Look at this weird and gorgeous thing. If Hogwart's were Swedish then this dresser would hold all sorts of build-it-yourself magic artifacts, including an Allen wrench that doesn't rip your fingers to shreds.
MAINSTREAM FIGHT
Via Salon, Scott Turow continues to speak of Amazon's predatory practices. Good for him and the Authors' Guild. But I continue to be mystified by you so-called "literary rebels" who defend Amazon. Or defend the Internet literary culture which you have somehow associated with Amazon. I hear rebel complaints about the awful big six corporations of publishing, but I rarely hear rebel complaints about the one awful big corporation that wants to monopolize bookselling, publishing, publicity, editing, and every other damn thing. When I attack Amazon, I am not attacking Internet literary culture, which I am firmly and happily a part of. No, I am attacking a huge corporation that has escaped most liberal and literary rebel moral and economic scrutiny. I don't think many or most people realize that Amazon wants to put bookstores out of business. All bookstores. That's the only explanation for their business practices. And for you e-fundamentalists who are addicted to that $9.99 e-book price, you will be sobered up when Amazon gets their monopoly and begins to raise prices. To put it in recent terms, Amazon is in the 1% and independent bookstores are in the 99%. So who are you going to fight for?
LOOK WHO RUSHED OUT THE DOOR
141 companies have removed their advertising from Rush Limbaugh's radio show. You can see a nice graphic of the companies here . I would love this to be that rarest of creatures-a successful liberal boycott-but it's truly a bipartisan abandonment of Limbaugh. I'm sure conservatives will continue to call it a liberal smear, but WalMart, not exactly a leftist company, has pulled away from Rush. And while I'm happy that Mr. Limbaugh is getting his ass kicked, I wonder which liberal media person will be the first to lose his advertisers because he/she says something awful. It seems the radio waves will be more polite, but I think we liberals who are celebrating Rush's pain will feel much different when a lefty talker gets slapped around this way.
HOLY SHIT
I just watched Game Change, the HBO film about the McCain/Palin 2008 campaign and it was fucking painful. If the movie is only 20% true then the selection of Palin was even more dangerous and insane than any of us had previously believed. Both Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt , McCain staffers portrayed in the film, have attested to its accuracy. Wallace said it was "true enough to make (her) squirm" and Schmidt said it "gave (him) a little case of PTSD at times." Of course, McCain continues to publicly deny that his choice was crazy, but he must have some serious dark-night-of-the-soul shit going on. The major revelation: Palin would drop into catatonic states during moments of extreme stress. CATATONIC STATES! I never read the Game Change book, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, because I was scared of it, but now I have to read it, especially for what it will also teach me about the Clinton and Obama campaigns. Watching Game Change is like watching Saw 3. You have to cover your eyes during the worst parts.
TWAIKU
Here is a great essay by Ernest Hilbert on the past, present, and future of "acoustic formations" in free verse poetry. I especially love the mention of twaiku- haikus on Twitter. I've been messing around, but have not yet posted, twaikus. But, hey, maybe soon.
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
With all the love and heat in my heart and head, I recommend to you Alex Epstein, an Israeli writer (translated by Becka Mara McKay) whose two books, Lunar Savings Time and Blue Has No South, are filled with hilarious, surreal, scary, and incredible short short stories. Very short. Sometimes just a paragraph. Sometimes just a line. If you're a fan of Lydia Davis or Amy Hempl, this guy will also rock your socks. Read him now!
SALES, SALES, SALES
From New Rules Project, a concise argument in favor of Congress extending sales tax collection to online retailers.
IT'S THE LEGAL DRUGS THAT ARE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM
Here is a story from the NY Times about the evil little town of Whiteclay, Nebraska. I'm sure most of you non-Indians have never heard of Whiteclay and don't know there are many towns like Whiteclay out there in Indian country. Certainly, any Indian who goes to Whiteclay chooses to drink but the dealers and makers of booze also choose to sell their drug to obvious addicts. We vilify and chastise one group but never the other. I don't know about this lawsuit's merits but I certainly agree with its moral philosophy. The alcohol salespeople in Whiteclay are predators and should loudly and publicly be identified as such.
SPEAKING UP
In the midst of an effort to ban my book at Westfield High School, NJ, here is a lovely, powerful defense of my book written by a young woman named Liz Griesmer.
A SLIP ON WATER SAVED A LIFE
From Grantland, an amazing oral history of the Malice in the Palace, the historic NBA player-fan brawl in November 2004. Everybody interviewed is so frank and honest about their weaknesses and motives. But you know who comes out looking damn smart? Scott Pollard, the retired NBA player. Dude has heart and intellect.
WHO SAYS POETRY ISN'T IMPORTANT?
From the pages of The Onion comes the news of a 1.3 billion dollar sonnet.
TENDER AMNESIA
When I read this comic by MariNaomi in The Rumpus, I remembered three people who were amazing to me at critical moments. Three people who I've never seen again. Three people whose names I cannot remember. Three people I probably wouldn't recognize on the street. But three people who changed me in such positive ways. Dear Magical Three, I remember your kind hearts.
INSANE GENIUS
If there really are going to be Hot Tub Boats available then I am buying one. I am hydrophobic, can't swim, get sea sick, and am really grossed out by the thought of sharing a bath with even my very best friends, but I want this Hot Tub Boat. I need this Hot Tub Boat. As my friend, Justin, wrote after I forwarded him the link: "I picture floating up next to a couple freezing fuckin fisherman, all shivering and shit, and we dig around a bit in the Tubboat and then say, 'Shit, sorry, fellas...we don't have any warm drinks.'"
POST MODERN FAMILY
As a postscript to the post below (And doesn't it seem rather post-modern to place a post-script above the script?), I'd like to point out a curious writers' dilemma. What do you do when the critical review of your book is better than your book? It's happened to me a few times (The Guardian utterly decimated me in 1996 or so) and I've always done the Charlie Brown looking down at the ground and reevaluating my career choices walk of shame for a few hours. What is D'Agata doing right now?
PANTS ON FIRE
Oh, man, this is a funny slap-upside-the-head review of John D'Agata and Jim Fingal's book about their battle over the fact-checking of non-fiction essays. I've always been a fan of D'Agata's work, and he's published my work in a number of the anthologies he's edited, but this particular book and his interviews about it have made him seem like such a post-modern ass. It all feels like a publicity stunt and not a serious examination of the fictional nature of non-fiction. Maybe that's the point. Maybe D'Agata is getting exponentially metaphysical about non-fiction versus fiction. Maybe he always knew the reviews of his book would simply continue the non-fiction versus fiction argument. In any event, in reading this book, you'll learn that Fingal is Batman and D'Agata assumes the role of the Joker.
NIGHTMARE
This article about Internet tracking should scare you. I think some hacker genius could make millions and millions of dollars if he/she created an easy to use, legal, mainstream, and relatively inexpensive program that could utterly fool the big Internet corporation's tracking efforts. I have no idea of knowing if such a thing is technically possible. And philosophically speaking, I figure dedicated hackers aren't all that interested in big money, and that more mainstream talented computer geeks are far too conservative and invested in the Internet status quo to consider it. But somebody tell me if it's possible And where I can invest in such a project. Ha! Wouldn't it be fun and rebellious to make millions by being anti-Internet tracking?
AWESOME
Perhaps the greatest pro-choice sign in the history of the world. The perfect amount of humor, rage, crassness, and illumination of the violent rhetoric of anti-choice folks. And, once again, that sign is just so damn funny.
"...at any given moment, about half of us are decent, compassionate, altruistic folks and the other half is a bunch of knuckle-dragging cave people."
From Five Points, via Poetry Daily, a funny, very personal interview with the hilarious poet David Kirby.
WHAT IS AN INDIAN?
Another half-assed comic from that legendary (cough, cough) artist Sherman Alexie.
AND NOW, YET ANOTHER PAUSE FOR SELF-PROMOTION
Hey, here's an article about my recent appearance at St. Cloud State University. The writer-a student, I believe-very nicely presents some of my punchlines, including a couple improvs that I'd forgotten I'd said. That happens when you do a lot of improv, so I appreciate that I'll now remember the bit about a deep woods reservation kid thinking they only had toilets at Sears. Somewhere, a Native academic is whining about the self-hatred and stereotypes in that joke and that thought makes me laugh even harder. I remember speaking to a small group of First Nation Indian students at a Toronto university a few years back. In the room was a First Nations university professor who seriously claimed that a college education wasn't that important to a Native's life. You have to watch out for those Indian academics. They're allergic to irony so they sneeze a lot around funny people.
MYTHMAKING AS DEADLY WEAPON
Via Longform, I learned of this incredible essay by Matt Evans about the actress Frances Farmer and all of the bullshit myths surrounding her life and career. If you'd previously known of Farmer's story then this essay will blow your mind. If you're just learning about her then you'll get your mind blown twice. Read it now, please. It's an incredible education, and reminds me again that, despite my cynical nature, I can be just as fooled by myth as anyone else.
SCARY
So there's a new program that allows one to choose your seatmates on airplanes using very social media. It's an opt-in program for now but it still scares the hell out of me. I don't want some talkative person who picked me because they think I'm Russian (my last name) or because they recognize my name as the author (or recognize my name because I'm a Jr. and think I'm my late father and are way interested in the ghosts of very kind and very dead alcoholic Indians) or because they are single women looking for a married dude (or married women looking for a single dude). I just want somebody who'll smile when we first sit and then ignore me for the duration of the flight and then smile when we get off the airplane. Two smiles and silence. That's all I want. That better be a category if this thing becomes mandatory.
BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR PARODY,
PARODY KINDLY STOPPED FOR ME
I love Lisa Russ Spaar and her poetry column at the Chronicle of Higher Education. Her examination of the continuing Emily Dickinson phenomena is insightful, funny, and challenging. I'm a fool for Emily Dickinson, too, so I winced in recognition at some of the more pointed jabs at Dickinsonists. Yeah, I'm a fool for Lisa Russ Spaar, too.
BY THE WAY
I had posted five or six other new items last night but they've all disappeared. And I have no idea what happened. The short version of them: I insulted the TED talks and crowed about turning them down a few times, though they do have awesome speakers; I posted one of my lame-ass comics, this one about a moose without self-awareness; I think I posted a song or two by goatee-wearing bands; and something else, I think. Anyway, I will try to reconstruct. If I can remember what I posted in detail. Oh, wait, I posted a Louis C.K. bit about Twitter! I'll put that up soon.
THE PRESIDENTS WE SHOULD HAVE HAD
Okay, this is an angle on Presidential elections that is fascinating. As David Frum states, we often debate how recent elections could have saved us from much strife (Gore v. Bush, anyone?), but I hadn't much considered long-ago elections. As I did some very preliminary research on American Presidential runners-up, I realize that we've actually done pretty well. In short: We might disagree mightily with the politics of our Presidents, but we've never chosen the monsters (except for Andrew Jackson, that guy was a psychopath).
THE OFFICIAL THEME SONG FOR EVERY GUY WHO EVER HEARD, "I JUST DON'T THINK OF YOU THAT WAY"
YES!
"AND THE DINER... STANDS ALONE"
A truly wonderful article about the 30th anniversary of "Diner," Barry Levinson's directorial debut, by S.L. Price in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. Below is the wildly awful trailer that killed the movie's chances at immediate success:
UM
From the incredibly stylish and handsome men at Street Etiquette, these awesome shoes. Don't know who they're made by, don't know their name, but I love them.
SPEECHLESS
I keep thinking this has to be a hoax but here is pistol, codesigned by the Susan G. Komen Foundation, for sale. Wow. If this is real, I can't even begin to understand it. In a matter of a few days, Komen has outed themselves as a right wing outfit. Here's an ad for the pistol. And below is the pistol. This has to be a hoax. It must be. Holy shit, it can't be real.
FIGHTIN'
Students in Tucson have been protesting the racist educational policies of Arizona. Here's a photo of one young woman at a protest:
This is one of my favorite photographs of all time. As writers, we spend most of our time in self-involved bubbles, but to learn and see how much our work can mean to people is amazing. I might get a t-shirt made of this photograph shot by D.A. Morales.
TURNING A GREAT POEM INTO A MAD MEN EPIC
Erin Belieu is a great poet and her hilarious, bitter poem, "When at a Certain Party in NYC," has been turned into an awesome short film:
EXPERIMENTS
Hey, folks, I've been farting around with Sketchbook Pro on my iPad. Here's one of my comics:
MONEY
An interesting take by Douglas Rushkoff on Facebook's impending IPO. Essentially, Rushkoff believes that Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg, once rebels, now have to grow up and become a real business bound to age-old capitalistic ideas and ideals. We'll see.
DAYDREAM BELIEVER
The awesome Neko Case interviewed me a couple years back in Spokane. And I took her on a tour of my reservation and other small towns in Eastern Washington. The interview has just been posted at The Believer.
POWER
This is a long list that relies almost exclusively on inside jokes about the book world but it's a very funny series of inside jokes.
WOW
What a strange and aggrandizing defense of Joe Paterno this is. Michael Novak, while writing this portrait of "the very model of Western humanism," utterly fails to recognize that it was precisely this beatification of Paterno, Penn St., and college football that enabled the child abuse to continue. The child abuse by Catholic priests went unchallenged for decades because everybody from the Pope down to the ordinary parishioner were incapable of questioning the infallibility of the Church. For many, college football is also infallible. For many, a great football coach is Jesus returned. Somebody might want to update Michael Novak on the concept of false idols.
"YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD.
I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS."
Charles Murray, the legendary (cough, cough) mind behind The Bell Curve is now assaulting the morals and intelligence of-wait for it-poor white people. Yes, powerful white people are now blaming powerless white people for the mess we're in. So, um, when will the powerless white folks stop voting for the condescending jerks of the Republican party? Wait, I was just being condescending there, wasn't I?
FUN - LINK CORRECTED
I'd forgotten that my book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a plot point in "Facebook the Past," the seventh episode of the third season of My Boys, a situation comedy on TBS. The show was canceled in 2010 but it was not my fault. I hope. Anyway, how fun to be a plot point in a TV show.
THE MOST TALENTED MAN IN THE U.S.?
All right, so Joseph Gordon-Levitt is certainly a great actor-one of my favorites-but who know he could sing like this?
And he is also a writer, poet, editor for a pretty cool collaborative website called HitRecord. I'm not a big fan of crowd-sourced art, but I'm happy Gordon-Levitt is using his fame and moola to celebrate and publish small press work. I'm even a bigger fan of his now.
WORLD BOOK NIGHT - A REMINDER
Hey, folks, The Absolutely True Dairy of a Part-Time Indian is one of the books chosen for World Book Night. Go over to their site and sign up to give out free copies of True Diary or books by Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Tim O'Brien, and 27 others. It's way cool. Do it, do it, do it!
TAXES DANCERS
Romney doesn't evade paying taxes but, like all those other anti-tax crusaders, he evades the truth about the payment of taxes. The rich don't pay more taxes than the middle-class; they pay less. I'm a self-employed and proudly successful writer-a Native American rags-to-riches story, a Horatio Algier with more Melanin, a fuckin' patriotic stereotype-who pays twice the actual tax rate as Romney.
THE LINEMEN FOR THE COUNTY
So how do the capitalistic Republicans of Kansas feel about Big Business now that Boeing is abandoning Wichita? I would have thought they'd say something like, "The Boeing corporation is a citizen who has the full right to conduct his business wherever he likes." In any case, I'm sad for the hundreds of workers who are now out of jobs.
BROTHERS WITH BIG ARMS
I'd read that Warrior is a great movie, but I was completely surprised by exactly how great it is. It should have been as successful as Rocky. It should have been a cultural event. Yeah, it's violent, but it will make you weep with joy and loss. And it's a sports movie, yes, but it's a love story. It's about modern gladiators. As my son said: "Dad, it has beaten-up, bloody guys hugging each other and crying. It's the best movie ever."
GAME CHANGE
I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about the HBO Sarah Palin/McCain flick. I have high hopes it will be good. In the trailer, that look of terror on Woody's face as the convention crowd starts chanting, "Sarah, Sarah" is great. He's like Dr. Frankenstein.
OCCUPY THIS!
I'm thinking there is not an Occupy movement going on here. How many liberals do you think live in this country? A few dozen? Why would they live there? I'm curious about the phenomena of liberals living in decidedly conservative cities, and vice versa. I suppose it comes down to conservatives taking advantage of a liberal city's arts scene; or it's liberals taking advantage of a conservative city's outdoor life. Yep, there are Republicans who love Alternative Rock and Democrats who love skiing. Weird bastards.
TWO DECADES
When I read about academic panels like this, I feel flattered and horrified at the same time. And I laugh, too, because I think of a panel called Twenty Years of Sherman Alexie that features my wife, sons, siblings, mother, and best friends. My sons would share an essay called "Lying Down Anywhere: the Egalitarian Naps of Our Father." My wife's would be "Arguing with My Husband, One of the So-Called 'Lyric Voices of our Time.'" My mother's would be "Assimilation: Like Every Other American Male of Any Ethnicity, My Son Doesn't Call Me Enough."
SMART ASS POET
The wonderfully bitter Jim Behrle goes all Occupy on the Poetry Establishment Elite. Did you know there was such a thing as the Poetry Establishment Elite? Yes, there is. And it's also a bunch of white guys, albeit white guys who are mostly semi-liberal. "Liberal," as in Votes for Democrats; "semi," as in Pretty Much Hangs Exclusively with Other Semi-Liberal White Guys.
FEELING IRRATIONALLY FESTIVE TODAY
So I've been watching videos of various musicians covering classic Christmas songs. Here's one I enjoy for his straightforwardness:
POETRY & RACE
A very interesting essay on race and poetry by Jaswinder Bolina. It reminds me a question I used to get asked in nearly every interview: "Are you ever going to write about more that Indians?"
LANGUAGE AS INFECTION
A strange and frightening movie: Pontypool. And if you do watch it, make sure you watch and listen all through the end credits.
THE TOUGHEST MAMMAL?
Here's a surprising story.
WE NEED THE INTERNET AND PRINT MEDIA
Dorli Rainey, the elderly woman who was pepper-sprayed by the Seattle Police Department during an Occupy protest, speaks wisely and, yes, hilariously, about our current political situation. A key point: We need free Internet access and a thriving print media.
HOOPS & WRITIN'
So I'm playing in a charity basketball game at the University of Idaho on November to help establish a Native American scholarship in the MFA writing program. Here's the press release.
YES, THEY'RE JUST SOCKS, BUT THEY ARE PRETTY, PRETTY SOCKS
Just bought two pairs of Stance socks. I'm wearing a mismatched set right now and I'm feeling very happy.
BRILLIANCE
I love, love, love the conceit of this little literary magazine. So funny, so terrestrial and Internetty at the same time. And 30 words! I'm addicted to writing and reading tiny stories. So I'm all jazzed about this magazine. Let's turn it into a national project. Write this dude and tell him you'll wear the stories on your clothes.
BLOOD AND BIRDS
Hey, I've got two new poems online at poemeleon, a wonderful poetry emag. And you should really check out Kim Bridgford in the same issue. She's written a ton of sonnets, and published a few books of sonnets, that take new looks at eccentric, contemporary culture. She's great.
CLASS WAR
Through recent personal circumstances, I've been intensely made aware of how much privilege I enjoy. And while I certainly appreciate how that privilege is helping me, and am grateful for my long slog up the economic mountain, I am also reminded of how many folks do not have even a sliver of that privilege. As I read the coverage of last night's Republican Presidential debate, I am nauseated by how completely they've abandoned and vilified all middle and lower-class folks. And I'm even more nauseated to know that a majority of those middle and lower-class citizens will vote for the top Republican maniac in 2012.