snowy

here's some snow from today. i was doing dishes in the background. i don't know what that song is. i was listening to the internet.

the secret

sexiest ghost alive

i just watched an hour long special about people magazine's sexiest man alive because i'm tired and none of the other channels are getting reception. it was so boring. guess what wouldn't be boring? a show about sexiest ghosts or sexiest trees or sexiest walls. they could interview someone with objectum sexuality, like the woman that fell in love with the berlin wall, and then ask her to rate her top 25 sexiest walls, and then show pictures and have her explain what she likes about each wall. then i would be fascinated and entertained instead of bored.

ladies, am i right?

bus stop conversation

i have had lots of conversations at bus stops lately with men who are probably nice and mean well (maybe?) but make me feel uncomfortable regardless. here is the one from tonight.

--(man) is this the bus? have you been waiting long?
--(me) yeah i have, actually. it should be here soon.
--good, i need to get home.
--yeah.
--what were you listening to?
--oh...(embarrassed)...beyonce.
--oh yeah, she's my sexy singer.
--......yeah.
--that's like that single ladies song, right?
--yeah, that's right.
--do you know that song, she's like a wolf?
--no, i don't think so.
--it's by s. she's like a wolf.
--oh, she wolf? shakira.
--yeah, i love the way she dance! i like to see her body. i'm surprised my girlfriend lets me watch her videos. when i see her dance, i think of my girlfriend's body, dancing like her. i think of my girlfriend's body and her voice.
--......ha......yeah.
--my girlfriend and i are getting married next year. we've been together ten years. we're going to have an anniversary.
--congratulations, that's great.
--she got me this (pulls out an mp3 player). i love it. you ever seen one of these?
--yeah, that's a nice one.
--my girlfriend put it in the computer, and there the songs are. i was impressed. she put 44 songs on it. all kinds of music.
--that's very cool.
--you need to get smaller headphones like these (points to ear buds, then my giant headphones)
--oh, i don't really like ear buds.
--see how it looks? (shows me mp3 player screen, with song titles) you know the song all shook up?
--yeah.
--you know the song always?
--no, i don't think so.
--here, listen to it. (inches closer and gives me his earbuds)
--no, that's ok.
--oh i meant, you can plug your own headphones in it and listen to it. i don't bite.
--oh......do you really want me to?
--yeah, i want you to know what song it is.
--ok. (plug in my headphones. recognize it immediately as a song from the '80s. take headphones off.) oh yeah, i know that song. it's from the '80's.
--you know that song?
--yeah.
--what do you think of when you hear that song?
--umm...the '80s, i guess.
--do you think of romance? because i have to find a good romantic song for my girlfriend's anniversary, so we can dance across the floor in a smooth way.
--yeah, that would be a good one. (inches closer and i back up into the bus stop sign)
--what's your name?
--kathryn. (we shake hands).
--i'm robert. you're so nice and young and beautiful.
--......thanks.
--halloween's coming up!
--yeah.
--it's going to be scary! you know that exorcist movie coming out? that's scary. you know freddy?
--yeah, i don't like horror movies. i never watch them.
--no freddy?
--no.
--jason?
--no.
--christine?
--no, i've never heard of that.
--you never heard of christine? it's about a car that drives around with no one in  it. and it kills people.
--haha, no i don't know that one.
--well then, you'll like this one. the car.
--is that a movie?
--yeah, it's called the car.
--is it about a car that kills people?
--yeah. monday is labor day. are you going to be free?
--oh, i'm going to indiana to visit my family.
--all the way to indiana? michael jackson is from there, you know.
--yeah.

THE BUS COMES, THE END.

haiku with harpy by bianca stone

isreads7 contributor bianca stone posted this haiku and drawing on her blog a few weeks ago. this was actually my favorite haiku that she submitted. i'm glad she made a harpy!

A car alarm at dawn.
O dark head
surrounded by yellow birds.

7 unsuccessful haikus by chris killen

look at isReads for the 8th haiku

another beautiful sentence

i'm in san francisco! it is so great. i can't post pictures because i forgot my camera cord thing, so here is a picture of a beautiful sentence.

i like jorin bossen

i have been reading emily dickinson's master letters, here are some of my favorite parts

God made me—(sir)—↑ Master ↓ I didn’t
be—myself—(He) I don’t know how
it was done—He built the
heart in me—By and by
it outgrew me—
----

I cannot (talk) ↑ stay ↓ any (more) ↑ longer ↓
tonight ↑ (now) ↓ for this pain
----

I’ve got a cough as
big as a thimble—but
I don’t care for that—
I’ve got a Tomahawk
in my side but that
don’t hurt me much,
(If you) Her Master—
stabs her more—

---
never minding (whatever)
so long wandering , ↑ if (out) ↓
to him at last—
Oh how the sailor strains,
when his boat is
filling—Oh how the
dying tug, till the angel
comes

email auto-fill mishap

just realized i accidentally sent an email that said "mmm...bacon jam" to the wrong person.

i like laura plansker and her tiny dioramas

laura plansker

the secret

when should i tell him that i’m only slightly human?
i tried sending him a photograph but he mistook me for a shed.

i walk around, feeling human.

maybe more miserable than most--cars are always trying to hit me.
is there a human under that pile? certainly not!

but look, i have arms. i am like a human that has arms.
i am like a human that has arms but with a face torn off by a dog

and buried under a pile of dirty laundry and litter.
but look, my heart beats outside my chest, it beats like a heart.

i have tried taking out my eyes to examine them and failed.
i have been a quiet ball of hair and teeth since before birth, i was born.

has there been a human born with no bones, or with a shovel for a face?

i am this human.

like a human i have memory and blankness.

when there is enough light in my eye i sleep and in my sleep
i am only slightly human and i give up.

postcards from new life

bestie megan martin has writings and speakings up at word riot. look at it, she's cool.

here's my favorite postcard:

After Many Seasons at the Asylum, She Climbed Into the Arms of The Universe

This is the last you will hear of my adventures in this new world, dear. As I write I am climbing into the blossomy tree in the courtyard, against the Good Doctor’s instructions. The Good Doctor is calling:come down this instant but I am climbing higher, leaping branch to branch, breaking more teeth than I have. I dangle! I perch! I feed myself bloated on the plumpest leaves, blackest berries, most delicate petals, paperskin stained with fruitblood. I scrape back bark from limb, branch, twig, with barehanded grace. Sunbleached words dry and curl, flake underpen like snow as seasons change around me (did I mention it is the tallest tree known to woman?), but I shall continue until I’ve whittled myself back to earth. Once my nails have unbloodied and resurrected themselves, once these sentences have turned to soil, I will finally understand: I am here.

what are people being for halloween?

please don't say balloon boy. i'm going to go as blogger. i would really like it if you would tell me what you are going to be in the comments section of this post. omg, also, send me pictures at kcregina@gmail.com and i'll do a halloween post on monday!

if you're not dressing up, just make things up and send me stolen images that you find in the street.

it would be cool if people went as their moms. maybe i'll go as my mom.

okay. happy halloween!

guess who's a bad azz

my friend, eliot reed

micro-sculptures by willard wegan

i'm going to see this show sometime this week. willard weegan makes sculptures so tiny they can only be viewed under a microscope. his sculptures fit inside the eye of a needle or on the head of a pin. in order to make them he has to slow down his heartbeat in a meditative state and sculpt in-between pulses.

what in the world.

my grandpa

my grandpa, edward estes, was born on sept 6, 1923 in kentucky. he died this morning. he was married to my grandma for 62 years. he was my favorite storyteller and photographer. here are some of his pictures. he will be very missed.

strange things have been happening to me because of B complex vitamins. i feel uncharacteristically positive. i feel so positive that i twitch at night, smiling instead of sleeping. i am looking for apartments and i feel certain that i will find the perfect place for the perfect price and my future will be wonderful. what is happening.

stacey levine

has a blog now! the internet is so happy about it...

the arrival

i went to the printer's row book fair today with megan and got the arrival by shaun tan. art spiegelman blurbed it, saying that it's a "wordless story that uses the language of silent cinema and the picture-story traditions that predate comic books," and that this "masterfully rendered tale about the immigrant experience is a documentary magically told by way of Surrealism." i really love this book. i like that tan created "anonymous" cultures and that a lot of the images in the story don't necessarily "stand" for something, but instead give the emotion of something. tan says this:

"I am rarely interested in symbolic meanings, where one thing ‘stands for’ something else, because this dissolves the power of fiction to be reinterpreted. I’m more attracted to a kind of intuitive resonance or poetry we can enjoy when looking at pictures, and ‘understanding’ what we see without necessarily being able to articulate it. One key character in my story is a creature that looks something like a walking tadpole, as big as a cat and intent on forming an uninvited friendship with the main protagonist. I have my own impressions as to what this is about, again something to do with learning about acceptance and belonging, but I would have a lot of trouble trying to express this fully in words. It seems to make much more sense as a series of silent pencil drawings."

  you can see more pictures here.

i really like cate marvin.

claire donato

i just read someone else's body, a chapbook from cannibal by claire donato. aside from being weird and smart and funny, claire donato is great at line breaks. each line is a beautiful unit. you can see this best in the first poem, "The Night, What It Allows":

The walls are tearing

  out of their paint.     My legs

  are crossed.     I am not

listening to the TV

in the other room.     I am not

  listening to the television.     The window next

to the television is

  turning away.     The window is

open.     There is a person

outside of it, screaming.  I am lying

  on a television, my eyes are closed,

someone is breaking into my

house: I have always been afraid

of the night, what it allows.     I have

never been afraid of the depth

of your fall: in, on, arms, quarrel,

voice...I am never afraid

to layer my breath over yours--

and when I ask you to plot your anger

on a line, I am referring to fear, how

it is linear: see how mine moves

upward in a diagonal line?

See how it moves up to choose?

Why are you lying in a heap on the floor?

i just typed the whole poem. i didn't plan to do that, i just didn't want to stop. am i in trouble? who cares, do you see what i mean about the line breaks? beautiful.

here is another poem from the chapbook that i love, it is so great:

There are apologies I am too

You can read more poems and buy the book here.

a beautiful manhole

this is cool

katherine regina

feeling depressed for no reason and also a little scared of this. can anyone tell me what they're saying?

trailer for "i am in the air right now"

the talented greg lytle did a hand drawn animation video for one of the poems in i am in the air right now, available for pre-order from greying ghost press. i think he said he drew around 400 frames (*update* 750 frames!). what in the world. he is so good. this is maybe the best thing that has ever happened to me. if you have a short piece that you would like animated, contact greg.


I Am In the Air Right Now from Greg Lytle on Vimeo.

sometimes sylvia plath comes up on my ipod shuffle. her voice is terrifying.

"unless you're doing a character voice, ball, there's gonna be a beatdown"

have you been following the play over at venom literati featuring wayne koestenbaum, jesse ball, elizabeth taylor and dr. manhattan? i like it when jesse ball taunts elizabeth taylor.

what?

i just light boxed but it only got into one eye. my right eye feels much different than the left. what will happen.