Kort took these pics with his i-phone of the Texas Unbound Lit Fest this weekend. Good times.


Dave was a scholarship student like me, my first summer at Naropa. He was at CU Boulder studying with Lucia Berlin. Now he is famous for his book Girls for Breakfast. Class of '97 r-u-l-z.


Saturday night was one of the highlights of our 5-day festival, with terrific readings by Jericho Brown, Roger Reeves and Alysa Hayes. Thanks to Natasha Marin for helping to connect us with some of Cave Canem's brightest and most talented. On the far right is Kate Taylor, L.A. novelist, who read from her novel Rules for Saying Goodbye.

Texas Unbound redux, 2nd night

WordSpace gave an award to TBAAL founder and director Curtis King. The man has tremendous faith. He's kept his arts organization alive and vital for 30 years.


Natasha Marin drove in from Boston to share her work. Natasha's a Cave Canem fellow and a conceptual artist who's worked a lot with interdisciplinary collaboration. Her Blackanese project is a project about notions of "African-American-ness" - along the lines of what does it mean to be "Asian"?


Afaa was the superstar of the night, sharing poignant poems and stories about his family and history - including a piece on the suicide of his father. He also read a poem in Chinese which he translated into English. It's called "Hong Kong Aviary" and is beautiful.

Lama Chodrak called us on Sunday to tell us that he won't be in New Mexico when we travel through the state. He'll be in Hong Kong until next summer. I got the chance to ask him if he could recommend a practice for me, and he gave me the Green Tara practice, which helps to dispel worry and anxiety. I put him on the spot by asking, and I was very touched that he was able to respond so quickly. I burst into tears after I got off the phone, what a relief. A practice is just a practice, something to focus the mind and heart, to focus on something besides one's own self-obsession and samsaric ways. Kort and I both have Lama's number programmed into our phones from two years ago when we started communicating with Lama about our wedding, over which he presided. I never dial it, because it seems like such a privilege to have a direct line to Lama, one that I am conscious of not ever abusing. We all need dharma friends in difficult and not-so-difficult times. Having that number in my phone book gives me the sense that help is within reach.

On the road this Fall to Portland, OR - I will be reading with Lee Montgomery in the Visiting Writers series at Reed College on October 4 at 8 pm. Naropa friend and Vancouver resident Chris Luna informs me that Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen went to school at Reed. I wonder if it's changed much since those days. We hear that Portland is a little more laidback then Seattle - a little slower, but still as green and funky.

Tomorrow begins WordSpace's Texas Unbound Lit Fest which will continue for 5 days. We've gotten some nice press in The Dallas Morning News and CitySearch. If you live in the DFW region, come out to the Undermain for some great literature! Highlights include Afaa Weaver on Thursday and Dave Yoo on Saturday.

Locus Point Dallas is now live.

I had a dream this morning about the WOMPO poetry list, which surely indicates that I spend far too much time online. In the dream, a female poet who's name I did not recognize posted a message to the list warning against a publisher from whom she had withdrawn her manuscript during the production process. She also went as far as attaching the really terrible cover designs that the press had come up with (they involved very bad close-up photos of yellow tropical fish and awful awful fonts that should be retired forever) and excerpts of her contract that would be unacceptable to any writer who should care about their work. In the dream, I felt better, knowing that I wasn't alone in my publishing travails.

To clarify the announcement that went out on KERA this morning - I am not reading tonight in the UTD Word Up Series, though Allen Birkelback is.

waste

a California foodbank
scrambles to do damage

control, documented
dumping in the Mojave desert,

whipped cream, yogurt &
expired tooth whitener

shipped for disposal to a pig
farmer long evicted from

the land, what you don't
expect rounding a corner,

the smell was deafening

a mountain of rotting food
the stench of a cow's head

dotted with flies a long
way from sun-bleached bone

Thanks to my alma mater for repping my books. I was surprised, but excited to read in the same issue that Carol Becker is leaving SAIC for Columbia, after her 20+ year reign over the school. It will be curious to watch how the school changes in its hiring practices, sensibilities, and general direction. Also of interest at the site - info on Wafaa Bilal's work - Wafaa was all over NPR a few months ago for his Domestic Tension project - he lived at the Flatfile Gallery for a month and had anonymous website visitors shoot paint balls at him, reenacting the violence of life in Iraq. More here.

"We don't have to be violent, or ugly or arrogant, just be charming, and what a pleasant world that would be."

Anthropomorphic Junk Shop

Weatherford, TX

California Pizza Kitchen

Richardson, TX

R.I.P. Nutritional Feed:

the circuit complete
when the power runs out
we'll just hum
a song

Tuesday is my own personal "Change Your Mind Day."

Better Homes & Gardens

I gave a reading at the Dallas International Bookfair. They hosted a dinner at an amazing Kessler Park home off of I-30 near Sylvan.


You climb up the stairs or you take an electric tram that takes you up to the house; We opted for the stairs


At the top of the stairs there is a stone and gravel Zen Garden


You enter the house and climb the stairs up to the main level - pictured is the main living room enclosed within abundant glass windows (only some of which actually open)


This is what it's like on the inside


The living room overlooks a small dining table and the kitchen


Upstairs is the loft/master bedroom


This guest house adjoins the main house

The house as a whole felt like it had affinites with the Rachofky House, high ceilings, lots of glass and light, very minimalist.

We Went to Kwik-E Mart

At the corner of Hillcrest and NW Highway


Homer points the way


The donut case carries the pink-glazed donuts in the Simpsons movie typeface treatment


We meant to check the ingredients on this and wondered if there was anything in these drinks besides caffeine and corn syrup


Giant sticker on freezer case of ice


Ralph in front of the ice cream cooler


Rows of Squishee cups, taquito-esque treats, and cases of Buzz in the background

Happy birthday today to Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Lotus Peak

rising from the dust-
heap of abandoned

microwaves, broken
office chairs &

corrugated tin roofing

187,000 pounds
of refuse streched

over ten thousand
feet of topsoil, snow-

capped crater
world heritage

hopeful – emblem
of a nation's purity

Steven LaRose and I have been working on a visual-text project that is archived on Steve's flickr site. Slack Buddha is producing our book, structure of the inner ear this fall as a limited edition letterpress chapbook. We hope to have it out by Steve's show at Kristi Engle in L.A. this fall.

The Kenny Goss gallery in Dallas is changing its focus to collect and show YBA. It's also changing its name to the Goss-Michael Collection - that would be Michael as in George Michael - ex-singer of Wham.

I just called Kort on his cell phone and heard a bunch of screaming, squealing women in the background. What was the big to-do? They caught their first glimpse of Kort's new i-phone when he went to answer my call. I bet he felt like the cool kid on the block....

The DMN has a cute story about The Simpsons' move tie-in with 7-Eleven stores - one of which is in Dallas.