Les Bonnes Femmes

Les Bonnes Femmes at the Walter Reade Theatre. Claude Chabrol. 1960. Awesome. Great scene in an indoor pool in Paris. Also coats, strip clubs, confetti, braids, woods, zoo, boyfriend, stalker, and an electronics shop. Beautiful, funny, world screwed up.

my new students

I had a dream that a small white piece of fur was going to be in my class. They said it had eaten two cats. It bit me or scratched me, and I had a large gash. Beside it, someone was playing with tiny animals, one purple, one green. They had wings and tails and smiles. They were also going to be in my class.

Books, books, books. Unnameable Books (formerly Adam's Books). Dripping with books. Lie down, wait to become one. On a walk to Red Hook saw the other Adams Books. Got Lydia Davis, Break it Down. Broke it down. No I didn't.

That thing in the corner is a poem.

I saw an amazing deer sticker. My friends have the most amazing deer stickers, full of emotion.

BAPM!!!

I stole this from NEG at humanverb.blogspot.com. For some reason every year I have a hard time finding out about the Bay Area Poetry Marathon and usually miss the whole thing even though it takes place over several months:

The 2007 Bay Area Poetry Marathon

Curated by Donna de la Perriere & Joseph Lease

Saturday, May 26, 7-9 PM
Lee Ann Brown, Anna Eyre, Kevin Killian, Erin Morrell, Stephen Ratcliffe.

Saturday, June 30, 7-9 PM
Polly Conway, Diane DiPrima, Sara Lihz Dobel, Camille Dungy, Israel Haros, Paul Hoover.

Saturday, July 28, 7-9 PM
Albert Flynn De Silver, Noah Eli Gordon, Lyn Hejinian, Jane Miller, Rusty Morrison, Jessica Wickens.

Saturday, August 25, 7-9 PM
Edward Foster, Judith Goldman, Andrew Joron, Dana Teen Lomax, Denise Newman, Lisa Robertson.

$3-$15 sliding scale admission

From its inception during the summer of 2001, the Boston Poetry Marathon developed a national reputation among experimental poets. An annual weekend-long event, it featured approximately 40 readers (poets primarily but also artists from mixed genres). Everyone, from the distinguished poetic elder to the excited emerging poet, read for 20 minutes each. Boston Marathon readers included Charles Bernstein, Maxine Chernoff, Norma Cole, Robert Creeley, Forrest Gander, Laura Mullen, David Shapiro, Tom Sleigh, Cole Swensen, and many others. When co-founders / co-curators Donna de la Perriere and Joseph Lease moved to the Bay Area in 2003, they moved the Poetry Marathon to San Francisco. A tremendous success, the 2004, 2005, and 2006 Bay Area Poetry Marathons took place as four day long events at The LAB. This year, poets from across the U.S. and the Bay Area join together again to celebrate innovative poetry in a series of readings throughout the summer at The LAB. Come join us to hear this year's exciting line-up!

For more information on upcoming events at The LAB visit our website at www.thelab.org

for lack of anything better i'm writing about the typewriter. my mind is clear, i don't know about clear and strong like result of meditation but anyway clear. my responsibilities are few for the summer. it's a state of mind i forgot i'd return to.

new york is a lot dirtier than california but surfaces are ready for it. in california we have carpets and metal window frames. hardwood floors in brooklyn are supposed to be covered with black dust that never leaves your feet until you scrape that skin off. and the open windows have leafy trees outside them. that is what i want in my life. leafy trees outside my windows. shade trees. we don't have those so much in oakland. just oaks with tiny leaves. live oaks, stubbornly alive.

llb and i are using the mail, the real mail, the realmail. writing poems and mailing them. however there are glitches. we had to drive up a huge hill to get one of the typewriters and then climb a long stairway. they were moving and the man's grown child seemed reluctant to let her take the typewriter. was the child there or did he just mention it?

llb moved three times without trying out the typewriter. in her current residence, we wrote one poem. first the typewriter was broken. then i fixed it by snapping a piece together. it was not really broken. the poem was called "first poem." yesterday she was typing a copy to send me. three lines in, the ink ran out. that typewriter is electric. it erases the whole word when you make a mistake.

now she'll have to go to the typewriter store for a ribbon. i have a typewriter. a black smith-corona. it takes serious finger muscles to get the letters out. the poems i wrote on it in grad school seemed momentous. so much noise for those letters. the force damaged the table underneath. but those poems...not as good as the effort.

here my sister has an underwood. i could type this post on it, photograph the page, and post it as a jpeg. then it wouldn't be searchable. i think the underwood belonged to my great aunt mary. correct me if i'm wrong.

UPDATE: LLB: my typewriter IS really loud