Some highlights from the Yale Museums

At the Museum of Natural History:


Mummified cat.


Giant squid.


Bird and chick.

At the Yale Gallery of Art:

Bhuddapada.

John Latta on Sightings.

Thanks to Woodland Pattern for stocking Sightings.

I'll be in Connecticut when this program is going on, but my dear friend Nicole will be reading my Joseph Cornell lobster poems, which are scheduled for publication later this spring from 1913 Journal.

My former employer The Dallas Morning News recently asked me to become a blogger for their new Texas Pages site.

Bsy bksn

On Friday, I am heading here for 3 weeks.


And then out to Seattle for this:

This week, I discovered the work of Vija Celmin.

Broadway

at the forked path
of two fused clavicles
what gives the bodies
of birds and dinosaurs
the power of flight
mapping intersections
spines radiating out
along a backbone
three wishes are
simply not enough

leadbelly angelmind

inky blinky
pinky & clyde
transparent apparitions
from the ghost pen
birthed without
a head, brain
or heart back-
lit in blue
polyps grow
into medusas
sport a single
orifice for entry
and re-exit
s(t)inging
paku paku taberu

I've been accepted into the PhD in sociocultural anthropology program at the University of Washington.

Paraphrasing words of wisdom from my dharma friend Tom:

There would be a bump on the wheel whether you went fast or slow or no matter where you went. You just have to know that bump is coming up and continue on the journey.

If someone handed you a mic and said get up there on stage and sing would you sit there and worry about being electrocuted? In the next second, a MAC truck could drive through the building and drive over your chair and the safest place for you would have been the stage. So are you going to get crushed without doing what you really want to do?

Museum of Science, Fair Park

slipped into a mosaic
map of the solar system

Halley's Comet
burning bright as

a monk's flame-
retardant heart,

the moons of
Jupiter and "Cecil

Green" planet what
certain gifts entitle

a name engraved upon
a wooden bench,

a place amongst the stars,
a moniker emblazoned

across kiln-burnt brick,
in the final renovation

the unripe orb outlasts
even Pluto

dwarf planet
ejected from

the celestial ring replaced
w/ the no. 134340

logging a billion visitors
and their footfalls

Information to be stored for use until a later date - The Brown Recluse in Marfa is owned by poet Christopher Cessac (that would explain it's particularly good lit section). It's one of two indie bookshops in Marfa and has the best empanadas around.

This weekend, I stamped 150 title pages for Works on Paper.

Things I learned that I did not know before:

- Speedball blockprinting ink is meant to be DILUTED before using
- ink consistency is very important - not too watery, not too thick, not too dry
- keep your chop clean for good definition
- old exacto blades too dull to carve out book covers are perfect for clean-up jobs
- blotting/a pre-stamp is essential
- my round chop has a design defect that prevents ink from picking up in the middle (understood 25 stamps later....)
- printmaking-based arts are not a good match for someone with a patience/perfection issues.. OR maybe they are exactly the right match

The pages are back in the mail to Convivio for binding and I am hoping that this little edition sees the light of day by end of March, in time for my retreat to Connecticut and the Beinecke Book Arts Conference.

Body Worlds

We went to see the Gunter Van Hagen's exhibition at the Museum of Science with Kort's mom and her figure drawing students. It really bummed me out. Particularly the room of plasticined fetuses and a pregnant woman who died and donated her body to science. Kort described it as being able to sense the humanity of these bodies. Sad.

Happy

The Booklyn Artists Alliance has just accepted Haiku Not Bombs for publication. Congratulations to my collaborators and friends on what will be a very exciting and innovative project!

Ping Pong

Featuring work by Jean Vengua, Laura Mullen, Daniel Nester, Betsy Wheeler, Shin Yu Pai, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Mark Young, etc. More info here.