Post-Thanksgiving

Though Jess and I didn't get to see our respective families for Thanksgiving, we had a great time with everyone at Nick and Allegra's, and we are grateful they invited us for what may be our last Richmond Thanksgiving ever. Lots of good food, amazing bourbon chocolate pie and cheesecake for dessert, and many kinds of booze and adult beverages.

It was a pretty awesome evening.

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Just got my contributor copies of American Literary Review, and it looks great and, I say this too often, has a great line-up of folks. They didn't update their website yet, but not only are future first book interviewees Jericho Brown and the omnipresent Seth Abramson in the issue, there's also Dana Curtis, Rachel Dilworth, Patrick Carrington, B.H. Fairchild, Richard Lyons, Jennifer Percy, David Wagoner, and Charles Wyatt, among others.
When I first got to VCU and was learning how to submit and buying subscriptions to magazines and journals, American Literary Review was one that blew me away. I thought it would take me many many submissions to get in, and somehow miraculously, it didn't. It's also one of my favorite poems of mine, so that makes it even better when the contributor copies arrive with such poems.

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A few days ago there was a chicken-scratched makeshift letter attached to the door of our apartment building. Jess and I have been making fun of it since then. When I went down to get the mail, I found someone had thrown it away, and it's too good not to share here:

Hi—

I live in Kensington Court (the big building across Shepherd) and a friend of mine is mailing me a very important package. However, she got my address wrong and put 3000 — — instead of 2900. She needs me to feed her birds so they don't starve to death while she is gone, so it's very important that I receive this package. My number is — — —. Please text me or call me and let me know when you get it. I will be at work for the rest of the day, but I will get back to you if you contact me. I get off work at 11:15 pm. This very urgent. Please help! Thank you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

— —

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Seriously? What the hell are those birds eating? Saffron and gold only from gold panning?

Anyway, I would've been nice enough to go ahead and text the guy or call him, but unless someone else did it in the building — and I think almost everyone's gone for the holidays — the package never arrived.

A day after it was still duct-taped to the door, someone put WTF? on the bottom in black magic marker.

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After years of wanting to watch the Stanley Kubrick documentary A Life in the Pictures that's always included in the now-always-revised-and-more-expensive-version of the box set, I finally got around to it, and at the very least it makes me want to write.

Kubrick was the opposite of the perpetually seemingly cocaine-snorting and if-not-filming-always-editing Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Though they're both legitimately heralded directors, I think it was interesting that Kubrick always wanted to be faster than he was. I think the cinema's better for how painstaking and beautiful his movies are, but I can see where he's coming from. And he seemed like a pretty warm and caring guy amidst the bearded exterior, always trying to get the most of his actors while always saying some pretty brilliant things. The kind of guy that seemed to make everyone smarter around him because of his work ethic and always striving to learn more and create better and more lasting images and films.

It's around two and a half hours, but it didn't feel like it at all, and I'd suggest seeing it, even if you're not a Kubrick fan, though I don't understand people who would say they are not.

First Book Interviews #7 and #8 - Morgan Lucas Schuldt and Jon Pineda

Just in time for the holidays.

#7 - Morgan Lucas Schuldt

#8 - Jon Pineda

I figured two of them would give everyone some reading material post Turkey Day.

Many more good ones on the way, so keep an eye out.

The next interviews will be up in two weeks.

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving.

Online Submissions Manager Faux Pas?

I recently found a downloadable file from a Submissions Manager of a journal I recently sent to -- via Google.

Yes, I Google my name every once in a while like everyone else does. Usually I'm able to find out what journals have been released via updated websites so I can gauge when I'll get contributor copies.

The said manuscript was withdrawn a few days ago, but I still feel a bit weird that it's technically public now I suppose, in older manuscript format.

And I was able to download the file. From the Internet. By clicking on that link.

Not a big deal really, but shouldn't Google not be reading these if they're from a Submissions Manager?

I imagine if I was looking for poets' work and that came up, I'd be curious enough to certainly click on it.

Did someone screw up?

Pretty weird, no?

The Giants are 10-1

In the past few days I got my contributor copies of Third Coast, American Poetry Journal, and Flyway. I forgot that's usually what happens in the later part of the fall or early winter. Not only that, but I think the subscribers are the folks who get theirs first, and then the contributor copies are sent out, which is something I need to remember.

Third Coast, as always, looks great and includes a great line-up of writers.

American Poetry Journal also looks great and includes a great line-up of writers.

In both of the aforementioned journals, Nick Courtright also has poems. Not only have we been in the same journals together, but a lot of the same issues in the past year or so. I told him I'm going to immediately send to every journal who accepts his work because of this previously unknown fact. Though I'm sure now that I actually know this, the rejections would come on full force. The poetry publishing world seems to be like that much of the time.

And Flyway, which seems to be a combination of I think three issues, oddly enough, almost looks as thick as Gulf Coast, but I don't think it's quite there yet. What I like about Flyway that I didn't know about the issue until I got it was, like Black Warrior Review, there's also a chapbook at the end of the issue, on different paper, which was a cool added bonus.

And Flyway sent two copies instead of one, which was great.

Hopefully I should be getting more contributor copies soon, and then I'll be reading over the holidays to catch up on everything I should be reading while I'm not.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that it's been over a year for some of these acceptances. It seems like just yesterday. And after the fact, the writers have it easy. Sometimes I don't think about all the hard work that goes into producing these issues, when you consider every aspect before it hits the printers, and in some cases, how many people have to work together to make it happen.

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I've said it before, but this has been one of the best years for ambient music in a while. Though that term is used broadly, I can't get into a lot of the more raucous and / or glitchy noise stuff, or haven't listened to anything that would bring repeated listens. That said, my definition of ambience is a bit different than other folks I suppose. And then what's the fine line with some of these ambient musicians and IDM or post rock? As long as it sounds good, I really don't care.

At any rate, the new Fennesz record, Black Sea, has been growing on me with every listen. I think it's his best solo work to date. There's plenty of glitch and atmosphere, but there seems to be more focus on the melodies, even if they're buried between weird guitar and computer manipulated sounds. A lot to discover with every listen. And as Venice seemed to be a summer record, Black Sea certainly seems right for the winter dreariness.

I'll probably have a separate best-of year-end list just for ambient / instrumental records, in addition to the regular list.

That's how good the year's been.

Speaking of, how about those G-MEN?

Playoffs? Certainly.

Anything more? We'll have to see what happens down the stretch...

Vicki

November seems to be my month. I think everyone who submits has one, though I probably jinxed the future Novembers. So seems it shall stay. Thanks to Josh and Michael at Grist, though, for taking a poem for their next issue, which I believe will be Grist's second. The website is really nice-looking and user-friendly, they post content from their issues on the site (which I always like to see from journals), and it seems like it'll be making its mark as the issues keep coming. The poem is an older one, though it's not that old I suppose. It's a poem I always debated putting in GHOST LIGHTS, so I may play around and see if it can fit somewhere.

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Also was able to snag the pilot of Eastbound and Down, which I think got picked up by HBO. I think it's the masterminds behind The Foot Fist Way, even though I thought that movie was highly overrated. A bit different and entertaining, yes, but I don't know if I'd watch it again. That said, I've been hearing great things about this pilot, so hopefully it's good, and hopefully it'll be on HBO soon.

It's like David Gordon Green was a spider meticulously caring for his egg sacks, and then they gave birth and just set fire to everything. So many directors, cinematographers, producers, and actors are now working in Hollywood and Los Angeles and other places across the country and are getting projects green lit because of his support and his influence and friendship. It's great to witness. Now Low and Behold needs to get released, which I've been wanting to see forever.

Please Be Great, Bowtie Cinemas

I had the pleasure of seeing some pretty inspiring movies in the last few days: Following Sean, Billy the Kid, and Local Color.

FOLLOWING SEAN is one of those documentaries that felt like a Jóhann Jóhannson composition, slowly building and becoming louder and more complex, until it suddenly ends and you're kind of overwhelmed by this hugeness in front of you. Maybe not all his works, but the best. I didn't know what I was watching at first or where I was going. There are tons of momentum shifts, time shifts, but everything feels right. It's linear a way, but you don't really know how it us or why it is until the end. It's really a film that creeps up from under you. I found it to be ultimately... filmed by someone with a beating heart, for one. A friend who was describing a poet recently said, "It doesn't feel like a human's behind the words; it feels like ghosts." So many poems feel like that, and some on purpose I suppose, but this was the complete opposite. It reminded me a bit of STONE READER in the sense of the quest, and of CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS for its use of older footage, not originally sought out for use in the film. I felt I was a better person after seeing it. It sounds saccharine but it's true. It's a film that feels silly to even begin to describe, and if you don't get it you may turn it off. But it clicked for me. There's so much I could say about it, but I won't try. See it. Not only that, but I didn't know who Lori McKenna was, and her amazingly beautiful song, "Never Die Young," runs with the credits. Her voice reminds me a bit of Sally Ellyson from Hem, who also has one of the most amazing voices I've ever heard.

BILLY THE KID was a movie I'd seen a trailer for, and it didn't disappoint. It's basically about a kid who's a sophomore in high school and gets followed around by a camera. Again, the reviews were mixed, and I can see why, but ultimately I found it to be completely interesting. You can tell he's borderline genius with the things he says, and there were moments I wanted to be that age again. I think it's essentially a movie about young love, but through some alternate sense of anything most of us have ever known. He's not your average high school sophomore, and you can tell he's something special. It's another oddly inspiring movie by the end. I'm having a lot of trouble making any semblance of a connection with my own words, which is another reason it just needs to be viewed.

LOCAL COLOR, like SNOW ANGELS, is a script that could've been made into a shitty Lifetime movie in the wrong hands, and you may say it is, in fact, pretty much a Lifetime movie. I think despite the possibly maudlin and predictable nature, I found it all to be enjoyable because I seem naturally to compare all art to poetry: painting, music, fiction, everything. I think most poets are biased toward the notion that poetry can be found in everything, but no other art can singularly claim that as far as I'm concerned. I find myself relating to Trevor Morgan's character (who I saw something in in OFF THE BLACK, even though the movie was a watered-down -- with more narrative -- David Gordon Green flick, complete with stolen cinematographer Tim Orr): wanting to learn and knowing it may take a while to realize why I'm doing what I do. The script is predictable, but there's something I like about it so much, for all the reasons I won't be able to explain.

I don't know if this post makes any sense.

But I still feel like I not only have so much to learn, but there's so much I want to learn, before I get older and jaded and bad shit happens to the point where I don't want to think about art in the least. I hope that never happens, but unfortunately it does for some.

I've probably written about it before, but when Phil Levine was here my first semester at VCU a few years ago, he said, about Larry Levis, and I'm paraphrasing: "Even when he was going through awful things in life, he never stopped writing." I remember so much about that moment, even where people were sitting, people who I haven't seen since that hour in that room with no windows open.

I can't say anything else right now without sounding like someone who can't even tell you what time it is.

Chase Blackburn

I sometimes get to this point, at around 3 in the morning, and it feels like my body's passed the point of sleeping, as if I had the window when I could've and should've crashed, and I didn't.

Last time this happened I was up watching Snow Angels for the first time as the sun was rising and Jess's alarm was going off and she was getting ready to go to work.

But now it's because I'm trying to fill out Ph.D applications, trying to get applications in before the date of nullification mostly dealing with my GRE General Scores, and thankfully almost all of the schools I'm applying to are letting me submit my scores from November 2003. Only one said I couldn't even apply if I didn't take them again. So I didn't apply there.

Considering the time and money I'm spending on so much I didn't anticipate regarding everything application-esque, I think I made the right decision. I think my scores are fine.

I waited too long, I think, to get the recommendation forms and SASEs and everything else out to the kind and generous and influential professors recommending me. I hope they're not too annoyed with me. I just wanted everything to be set in stone, so there would be no questions and no screw-ups on my end. And everything with that now seems good to go, so in their mailboxes and in the mail everything will soon be.

I'm more nervous about the economy than I am about schools hating my work and all I stand for. I have more faith in my work and my drive and my work ethic and everything else than I ever did while applying to schools for my MFA. I just hope if any schools want me that they offer funding. If I can't get that, I can't go. It's pretty much as simple as that.

I don't know why I wrote a post about this. But it's here. I'm sure the real sense of trepidation will set in halfway through December, when the applications are out into the world and out of my hands.

And how good are the Giants looking?

It's pretty fantastic to be a Giants fan right now.

Weird way to end a post about Ph.D applications.