R a c h e l B. G l a s e r

First Post of the New Year!

2012-01-13T07:57:00.000-08:00

It is freezing in my turret, but I must continue onward, wearing my winter jacket.

<--Here is my latest commissioned NBA portrait, this time the enigmatic Ben Wallace. The whole time I painted him I'd thought he had retired last year, but now that I'm done, I see that he's back playing with the Pistons as if he never left!

Almost weekly, I recommend this book to people, The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond Of Matches, an absolute masterpiece by French-Canadian author Gaetan Soucy. I don't think I've ever read a book with a more interesting narrator. Emily Pettit has it stocked at Amherst Books, if you are in the area. If not, you will likely have to buy it online-- it has been very hard to find in person.

It's been amazing to be watching basketball again. I'm pleased the Bulls and the Thunder are at the top of their conferences so early. Last night, JT and I watched Tony Allen and Rudy Gay play great games as the Grizz killed the Knicks who played with little grace or heart. The night before I caught the end of the awesome/weird overtime Heat/Clippers game, in which LeBron missed the most freethrows I've ever seen him miss.

Lastly, I want to remind Western Massachusetts that sign-ups are filling up for Emily Pettit's and my Spring Writing Workshops at Flying Object.

Creative Writing with Rachel B. Glaser
Thursday evenings from 5:30-7:30pm
February 23rd (8 Weeks)
$175

Although writing of all styles will be welcomed, the class will be encouraged to explore nontraditional approaches. The class will complete both in-class and out-of-class writing and reading assignments. The workshop will run in typical workshop style, with writers sharing their work each class. In addition to their workshop pieces, writers will write short pieces in response to weekly exercises. Besides poetry and fiction, pieces in this class can be also written as playwriting, nonfiction, or even songs and found objects. Exciting writing is not necessarily experimental, but it benefits every writer to read and experiment with writing that breaks with convention. A good writing workshop is the ideal environment, a forum for ideas in general, and the best kind of collaboration. The last class will take the form of a reading (along with the poets in Emily Pettit’s workshop) at Flying Object among friends, family, and the public.

If you are interested, please send an email explaining why you would like to take the class, along with a little information about yourself and a writing sample of 3-8 pages (the writing sample can be an excerpt from a larger work, or a combination of any genre) to rachelbglaser@gmail.com.

If you want to participate in the class but are inexperienced in Creative Writing, you are strongly encouraged to use the writing sample requirement as your first prompt. If you are stuck and would like a more specific assignment, please email Rachel and she will give you an assignment (which will give you a feel for the format of the class).

Rachel B. Glaser is a graduate of The University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s MFA Program in Fiction. Rachel has taught at Elms College and Flying Object. She was a Juniper Festival 2011 Writer-in-Residence. Her work has been published in McSweeney’s, New York Tyrant, and others. Minutes Books published her poetry chapbook, Heroes Are So Long. Her first collection of stories, Pee On Water, was released by Publishing Genius Press. The title story is a history of the world told through the evolution of human behavior.

$175.00
Sign-up for the workshop by credit card or paypal:

Poets & Poems with Emily Pettit
Monday evenings from 5:30-7:30pm
March 12th (8 weeks)
$175

In this workshop we will get curious. Writing, reading and discussing poems will be our means of propulsion. I hope for this workshop to be generative and reflective and offer many new perspectives to each in relation to your own work and the work of others. Engagement with your own work and outstanding contemporary work will help us to explore how an interest in poetry can be pursued in the larger context of one’s life. Poetry will get us curious.

I hope for this workshop to use the unique space that is Flying Object to help inform our ideas, our writing, our reading. It will be our laboratory.

If you are interested in reserving a place, please send an email explaining why you would like to take the class, along with a little information about yourself and a writing sample of 4-10 pages of poems to ecpettit@gmail.com.

Emily Pettit’s first full-length book, GOAT IN THE SNOW was published by Birds LLC. She is the author of two chapbooks, HOW (Octopus Books) and WHAT HAPPENED TO LIMBO (Pilot Books). She is an editor for notnostrums and Factory Hollow Press as well as the new publisher of jubilat. Emily received her MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa.

Classes will be held at 10 writers.

Flying Object will be awarding one scholarships to offset half the tuition cost to one writer. If you are interested in receiving this scholarship, please mention it in your email to the instructor. The scholarship is awarded based on a combination of need and merit. Additionally any previous student of Rachel’s may take her class for the discounted price of $125.

_______________________________________

Refund policy: Please note, tuition includes a $15.00 non-refundable deposit. This means that if you drop a class after signing up, we will refund your tuition minus $15.00. If there’s less than a week (7 days) before the start of the first class, we will refund 50% of your tuition. Once the class has begun tuition is non-refundable. So make sure that your month-long vacation to the Arctic won’t conflict before you sign up!

December News and Links

2011-12-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

Poet Jack Christian has a great chat with Poet Mark Leidner about Leidner's Factory Hollow Press book "Beauty Was The Case That They Gave Me"

Pre-orders for Emily Pettit's debut "Goat In The Snow" forthcoming from BIRDS LLC Press

With the news of the upcoming NBA season, writer Bethlehem Shoals writes his first NBA post for new sport blog The Classical

I'm excited to read in Providence, RI where I lived and had fun for so many years at RISD. The reading and panel is at Brown University, part of a program set up by the great Evelyn Hampton and Sarah Tourjee. It will be fun to see old roommate and singer of songs Mike Young, my old fiction teacher Joanna Howard, and the other great readers: Lily Hoang, Matt Bell, and Matt Salesses

12 hours later update

2011-11-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

The basketball is better!

Magic

2011-11-25T22:55:00.000-08:00

Here is half of my latest commissioned MSpaint, Magic Johnson, painted for the talented and charismatic Michael Kimball! (Click here to see a different view)

Jubilat 20 is out, and filled with great poems by Ben Fama, Peter Gizzi, Shannon Burns, Mich elle Taransky, CAConrad, Lesley Yalen, and many more. Come to Flying Object on December 3rd to celebrate the issue and the raffle!

The MLP Stamp Stories Anthology is now available for order. In honor of this publication, Wigleaf published a special edition of 50 word stories. I participated, as did other MLP contributors: Joanna Howard, Joanna Ruocco, Claire Donato, Michael Bible, and more.

Emily Pettit and I's first double workshop reading at Flying Object was a great success. Thanks to all who listened and read.

The new powerhouse of creative, genre-defying, thought-provoking sports blogging, The Classical, is near launching. Currently they have a preview tumblr up, and have started posting.

Hopefully the NBA will return, because right now things are looking bleak.
The NBA looks like this:

Reading and Winter/Spring Class Announcement!

2011-11-20T11:07:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow night (Monday the 21st) from 5:30-7:30 join us at Flying Object (42 West st., Hadley, MA) to listen to a reading by the writers who participated in Emily Pettit's class and my own class this past term. From what I know of the readers, I am sure it is going to be very varied and impressive!

Recent Developments

2011-10-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

Edward Mullany's first collection of poems "IF I FALTER AT THE GALLOWS" is available from Publishing Genius Press. The collection is beautiful, and funny and strange. PGP runs an online journal called Everyday Genius, which posts poems and stories daily from really talented and varied authors.

The image to the left is one of Mullany's. It has been exciting watching his paintings transform on his blog The Other Notebook. For a long time the paintings were painted with bold wiggling lines, but in the last few weeks, a new De Kooningian quality is erupting within them!

Mike Young, young author of Look! Look! Feathers and We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough, is accepting students for his online poetry workshop with Barrelhouse. I have never taken a class online before, but if I was, I'd want someone like Mike Young to teach me, a man who has built a number of cultures on the internet, who has a couch in his chat room.

Additionally, I should congratulate amazing lunatic Nat Otting, whose first book of poems THE WRONG BOOK has won the 1913 Fanny Howe judged prize. Nat has been called The Human Hyperlink. His writing defies logic and delights me. I am very excited for his book to take shape.

It has been super exciting to witness the planning and designing of Emily Pettit's upcoming book GOAT IN THE SNOW, due out February from BIRDS LLC Press. The image to left is not the cover for Pettit's debut, but it was hard for me to not create many alternate covers, which one day might be considered for the Japanese translation. Emily's poems are a wise, comforting voice, giving me instructions while I dream, supporting all levels of wonder, encouraging life with no discrimination for what types of life will come. I am very excited to be reading with her in Denver this February!

This post feels like I am making a newspaper for my homeroom class. The most recent news, which arrived today, while my Adobe Acrobat Icon bounced insistently at the bottom of my screen wanting to update, is that I will be reading in NYC on November 14th at Webster Hall with Ben Fama, Ben Mirov and Marina Blitshteyn for the first reading of a new reading series called Death Hums created by Amy Silbergeld. I hope the reading is in The Marlin Room (pictured right!).

Lastly, here is an interview that I did with The Short Review. Thanks so much to Tania Hershman!

August News

2011-08-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

I am very pleased to have a story in McSweeney's issue 38! The cover is stylish and simple, like discovering a great piece of jewelry in your friend's old log cabin, or reading a delightful historical fact.

Thanks to Hilary Plum, the talented writer of fiction and co-director of Clockroot Books, for interviewing me at Kenyon Review blog.

Lastly, here is a portrait I painted of my nephew. Email me at rachelbglaser at gmail dot com if you are interested in commissioning a painting of your baby or loved one!

Michael Kimball interviews me for Charlotte Viewpoint

2011-07-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

The interview can be read here. Michael Kimball is the author of many books, including the new book 'US' which is out with Tyrant Books. Michael helped me edit 'Pee On Water', and is a big help to Publishing Genius Press.

In other news, the NBA lock-out.

Also, Blake Butler/Lily Hoang's dream-child 30 Under 30 is now out (Starcherone Books), with writing from Joanna Ruocco » Brian Oliu » Michael J. Lee » Angi Becker Stevens » Shane Jones » Devin Gribbons » Christina Kloess » James Yeh » William Seabrook » Danielle Adair » Megan Milks » Rachel Glaser » Michael Stewart » Sean Kilpatrick » Andrea Kneeland » Zach Dodson » Beth Couture » Mike Young » Kathleen Rooney & Elisa Gabbert » Joshua Cohen » Matt Bell » Adam Good » Andrew Farkas » Jaclyn Dwyer » Ryan Downey » Ryan Call » Kristina Born » Conor Madigan » Rebecca Jean Kraft » Evenlyn Hampton

I'm very excited to read it!

SoftSpot

2011-06-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

I have a poem based on christina leung's Pizza Tree in SoftSpot's newest online show, alongside Ben Estes, Mark Leidner, Ryan MacDonald, and many other great artists!

"SoftSpot **is pleased to announce its latest show, (Un)Seen + (Un)Heard.**

Art is about articulating things that lay outside the realm of normal language. For (Un)Seen + (Un)Heard, we chose twelve works by visual artists and twelve contemporary writers that explore the complex human experience. We randomly assigned each writer one of the visual works, and asked them to respond."

New story "Turid" in Cousin Corrine's Reminder Issue 3

2011-06-24T15:08:00.001-07:00

Cousin Corrine's Reminder is a Brooklyn-based literary journal teeming with art and comics and cool writing. I'm excited to be featured in such a slick and substantial collection. It is available at the following book stores: Atomic Books, Bearpond Books, Bibliobarn, Book Culture, Carmichaels, City Lights, Domy Books, Greenlight Bookstore, Paisley's Country Gallery, Powerhouse Arena, St. Mark's Bookshop, The Golden Notebook, Three Lives & Co., and Word Bookstore.

May News and Links

2011-05-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

There is a now a recording up at The Poetry Project website of me reading my poem "Sleeping Ugly Moon." Thanks so much to Macgregor Card and everyone at the Project.

The books of Mike Young, Alex Phillips and I, were all listed on The Believer's Reader Survey

Derrick Rose became the league's youngest MVP

I completed the commissioned painting of Muggsy Bogues for Blake Butler, which he commissioned on this very blog a year ago.

(I am open to commissions to paint any basketball player, past or present! Price varies based on format and size.)

Edward Mullany's first book of poems If I falter at the gallows is forthcoming from Publishing Genius Press!

new mini review

2011-03-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

from Indie Reader Houston

I spoke about one of my favorite books

2011-03-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

at the blog over at Rescue Books

New short short story on Route 9 magazine

2011-02-17T08:26:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to have some work alongside great writers like Mike Young, Jason Larson, Ryan MacDonald, Hilary Plum, Brian Mihok, Sara Jaffe, Dottie Lasky and Many Many More, Great Job Route 9!

New Poems Online!

2011-02-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

at the new New Delta Review

check out 2 collaborative poems with the NBA expert, Denver poet Seth Landman

and the longest poem I've ever written

New Picture Poem Up at Noo Journal

2011-01-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

read it here, editted by TODD ORCHULEK

New Epic Review of 'Pee On Water'

2011-01-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

written voraciously by Lonely Christopher

New story

2011-01-17T11:04:00.001-08:00

on the great short fiction online magazine Matchbook !

New Ethusiastic Review!

2010-12-30T11:43:00.000-08:00

at Small Doggies by cool artist/writer Matty Byloos

New Very Well Written Review!

2010-12-17T09:43:00.000-08:00

At the Faster Times by Robert Tumas

Also, I read last night with Ben Fama for Lauren Ireland's The Reading at Chrystie St. series and Ben and Lauren were both really funny and it was fun!

I'm going to read again in New York sometime in February with my good friend Julio Cesar Gonzalez in a priest's abandoned quarters. Julio is going to play in his band Sister Big Stuff, and we will do at least one collaborative piece.

Mike Young's release reading for Look! Look! Feathers is tonight in NYC here.

NEWS

2010-12-14T21:38:00.001-08:00

Mike and I interviewed each other at HTMLGiant

Amelia Earhart got interviewed

The graceful and gracious Mairead Byrne mentioned me in a RISD interview

The Nets Almost Beat the Lakers

Reading in One Week From Tomorrow

2010-12-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to be reading, after a not having read in awhile. The reading will be
Thursday, December 16th, 7 PM in the West Village for The Reading at Chrystie Street with Ben Fama
at
THE FOUR-FACED LIAR
165 West 4th Street, at 6th Avenue

Thanks to Ben and Lauren Ireland for helping this happen!

new review/interview

2010-09-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

Joe Riippi writes about POW for WWAATD

new

2010-08-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

short short story up at Everyday Genius

Summer Tour Over!

2010-06-25T19:37:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all who attended and organized our readings! Who let us sleep in their houses! Who cooked us interesting meals! Thanks to Natalie Lyalin and Mike Young, who read fantastically every time!

PEE ON WATER

2010-05-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

Soon you will be able to preorder an advanced copy, but not just yet. Probably in late June/early July for $14.

Here is an interesting piece Edward Mullany wrote about the cover

READING NEWS

This June, Mike Young, Natalie Lyalin and myself are going on a reading tour

so far

June 16th Philadelphia at BOOK space 1113 Frankford Avenue (1/2 block south of Girard Ave. ) Philadelphia, PA 19125

June 17th D.C. at Barrelhouse Presents at Wonderland Ballroom at 7:00 1101 KENYON ST, NW WASHINGTON DC 20010

June 18th Richmond, VA at Chop Suey Books

June 21 Atlanta at Blake and Amy's Solar Anus Series at 7pm at Beep Beep Gallery

June 22 Durham, N.C.

June 23 Charlottesville, VA (tba)probably at a house!

June 24 Baltimore at the Hexagon at 7 1825 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201

There will be some NY dates in the summer and fall

and also,

August 4th Mike and I will read with Blake Butler at brookline booksmith (organized by Gene Kwak)

September/October Mike and I will be reading with Mairead Byrne in Providence (and possibly Boston again or Cambridge or Western MASS)

September Mike and I will read with Tao Lin in Ann Arbor, MI for the Great Lakes Great Times reading series

Also, do you believe Delonte West/LeBron's Mom?

may the Suns make it to the Finals, and LeBron to the Bulls

2010-05-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Reading this Friday (the 19th)

2010-03-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

join us at 7 PM in the A.P.E. Gallery in downtown Northampton for a reading
by Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch, whose collaborative book Ten Walks/Two
Talks has just been released by Ugly Duckling Presse.

Also reading will be me from my new chapbook Heroes Are So
Long (Minutes Books, 2010) and Nat
Otting of his 4 minute poem.

the Bears: Philip, Fancy, and Craig

2010-02-25T11:08:00.000-08:00

during the lunch-time lull
a girl danced in front of the cage

recently escaping her mother
the girl shimmied around like a famous girl on tv

Craig dropped his doughnut immediately and it made a dull ffp
Philip slowly rotated his head
he scratched his eye

sunlight hit the girl's braces and blinded Fancy when he looked up
he chased the red spot
ran into the pond

the girl laughed and she danced and danced fast
the zoo worker looked up from his cellphone and almost smiled

the bears congregated in the gazebo

the zoo worker loudly tried out ring-tones

the bears whined a sound like wood scraping wood

the wood rubbed the girl's ribs

she stopped dancing and the wood hit wood and hit her mother

her mother was so ready to scold but heard

Craig's hairs stuck out from the wooden whine

an ant discovered the doughnut and feasted for hours

Fancy's whine dropped pitch and now there was harmony

the zoo worker could not hear ring tones

the girl became unafraid

buying money

2010-02-08T18:42:00.000-08:00

I really really miss buying money
I would use my socks and my candy and I would buy money
a good alternative for someone with old items

the pink toaster, feather headdress, cute lamp, Merlin’s hat, hot pink calculator, deluxe toothbrush set, my pet balloon

I would lay it out on the trundle

this was usually after we ran the pro races
he wore the entire pro athletic clothing set (shoes, vest and shorts)
my pocket was puffed with cash

we ran one pro race per day
then bathed
and did homework

he brushed his teeth with my deluxe toothbrush
and I brushed with an ordinary one from the store
then I bought money

I knew about money
that it piled exact and thin
that it bundled in families and waited in suitcases
it could turn at any moment into a pool
or a fat fat turkey
a dripping diamond necklace

it wasn't trash, though it smelled so old

but he displayed his clothes in his room
it was filled with things
it had grown into materials
he had more yo-yos than days of the week
he wore his pro sleepwear
he was a mansion owner in his bedroom
and he was only 5

the brinking point!

2010-01-30T22:20:00.000-08:00

the literary agencies called my parents
and I got in trouble
and I liked it there

I gave myself a daring haircut
like I'd always thought was suiting for the brinking point of something dramatic

I did all the dramatic things
like running the wrong way on an escalator
ripping a letter to shreds

breaking a plate on the table
wiping a booger on glass

my friends finally emailed
they said, "how are you"
and "what is new"
I watched them get pushed back and back into older pages

there have been so many businesses I have almost made
bright, floppy businesses
that one might run fervently, lazily, obscenely easily

tvs look so ominous!
the internet waves on fire

I bought the bad shiny magazines
I was addicted to school!

the jobs bounced off me comically

the shower kept going and going
it's liking us!
it did feel like that
it kept complimenting us
and holding us
it was heating us
like to show we were powerful
it heat us and beat us nicely
but then the soap gave me hives

though I have mostly new clothes
I can't help but picture all my x boyfriends
running around in a field
one of them has a video camera
and the others are strongly opposed

2010-01-30T22:18:00.000-08:00

2010-01-21T23:47:00.000-08:00

Studying Counseling Psychology, I'm affectionate, funny, articulate
I'm Quentin.
I currently love cities.
Crawling to the café, I am a not a fan (so much) of sports.
I love vintage beaches.
I'm a passionate person,
I rarely do anything subtly rewarding.
but sometimes I like to play complicated board games.

What am I doing with my life?

Working hard on my current passion.
Obeying the speed limit.

I am engaged in some sort of project.

I'm looking for a conversation that wanders through a multitude of subjects, the art, music, politics, food, news, and everything and anything else that interests you.

didn't call Aetna again

2010-01-20T12:27:00.000-08:00

Today I didn't call Aetna
I hate having friends
I dream on tv

the forms keep on coming
the postage is iffy
a bed will love anyone but the couch
it has died

the Burroughs book broke you
the Grass book, he likes you
the Jane Bowles is waiting, and giggling, and living

my guitar's in a coma
my father had a father
and his father had two fathers
and those fathers had opinions
and the opinions grew furry
and the wives grew worried
and here the history twists and its
all in dull greys
its cave painting on dust
graffiti on trucks

I read it for an assignment in front of the class
it broke my audio recorder
so I used sound effects

I have walked into a cloud of people and passed

I was the non-drug among a bunch of drugs
I mean there was a party and it spread through entirety

it spread through entirely
you tried to explain it, but then got stuck so rolled around
and re-recalled it
dug through all your email account accounts for

there was a town and we filled it
a reality hung light like a net, over a group

it was nurses
and ball players

there was a group of old chess players
there were badass genius babies

it was a brave before
but then you took too many pictures of it

I'm Reading

2010-01-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

This Thursday the 21st with Mike Young at Green Street Cafe in Northampton, MA. It starts at 7:30 and I hear Thurston's Moore's car mechanic will be there!

NFL

2010-01-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

the NFL wakes up when it sleeps
she snores when she snuggles

I read the Murikami book all winter and it grew pages
the character watched people's faces for a whole chapter and ate donuts
I had my own name when I read that book
something the character called me

the NFL is too tired to stretch
she lumbers up the stairs

she sat on my origami mansion when I was a kid

what do I know?

I babysit lofts in Brooklyn
I keep them company

once I saw the NFL in person
she breathed light into my eyes
it was thanksgiving
she picked up the other team's play phone as a joke

the Murakami book could crush some origami
it is fatter than the Bowles book
it is reading the Richard Hughes book

I babysat a loft that had an Italian bathroom you could see into
I found the Murikami book by itself
it was too quiet to watch tv
my friends were all with other friends
I felt like my own boring secret
my phone was sucking up a charge
the loft was full of art and money
there were several beautiful hundred dollar bills in a spread on the desk
it was like a good hand of cards
it seemed exactly like a test

the NFL is too huge to sleep
she goes crazy when she's good
her heart slams
she dances
she wants us to watch her

check out American Short Fiction's favorite stories

2009-12-24T16:33:00.001-08:00

ttp://www.americanshortfiction.org/blog/?p=2373

the doctors

2009-12-21T18:58:00.000-08:00

the secretaries were hugely fat
their kid was rebellious
and after school had to sniff in the waiting room
waiting for nothing
dropping a plastic cup
becoming slowly huge

there was a sculpture about the body
but I knew not to look
every bad part of a body beats and strains
is famous in the body because it has its own ache

on the ground in the doctors we talked about men
the blood crept in a straw
I gave up like a dog
breathed the huge fake breathes the new age ones, they welled like lakes
in the ugly office
I'd thought she was killer, but then she was sweet, sweet, like a stranger

lying on the ground is more secure than balancing in a person's stance
in a sit
rising like a genie out of your chair
I chose the floor

Thanks for voting!

2009-12-21T18:57:00.001-08:00

I'm going to call it "Pee On Water and Other Stories"
like I originally thought for many years

What Should My Book be Called?

2009-12-01T09:38:00.001-08:00

click here to vote !

New York Tyrant 7 / Brian Evenson Release PArty this Saturday in Ny

2009-11-15T18:37:00.000-08:00

my story The MAgic Umbrella is in 7. I might be in attendance. will anyone else?

the face was hilarious

2009-11-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

staring from a book cover
it seemed like we could feed it
so you bought it for your mother

she thought it was too sexual
we laughed all through dinner

it gave me headaches
but we wanted to show your brother

he was drunk at the movies

but in his room with the book
it still made us laugh

it had a hold on our evening
we read it as we waited and it was just a boring biography

you kissed the face as a joke, kissed the book
the face was at a dead stop
but also outrageously human

the joke was ruined by the kissing
a fact we'd exaggerated
made special very on purpose

I took it home and read a big chunk
the american male biography
I looked for the pinpointing, the expanding, the sex
it was a smooth, frictionless biography
the kind you can't live with

Fun Opening in NY! November 5th

2009-10-31T23:21:00.000-07:00

girls club reading of Anthony Kiedis 'Me Book'

2009-10-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

from my vantage point I can see a few minutes handcrafted in Italy

no impurities will pass through my brand new blood stream
I just lie back and relax

I could stick a needle into a thousand-dollars

this is a wonderful smelling gas, legal in Europe

I shot Mexican gangbangers
my doctor is preventative
I've been able to channel my brothers
I seek out wild salmon

what?

2009-10-27T22:01:00.001-07:00

I am no expert

I cry two eyes

I cannot rap onstage

I eat Nutella like an Egyptian Queen

I make the spoon a candy

people get nervous in small talk in elevators

they wonder if they have headaches

when people my age go dancing

I paste coupons in an album

when a strange number calls

I leap to the phone like flames

my plants sag

my basil withers with low self-esteem

Egyptian Queens smell really strange but that is half the fun

their headdresses fall in their soup

their soup was made by slaves

their lovers are not proud

their Nutella is spooned incessantly

through hot ass afternoons

here is a commissioned Charles Barkely portrait

2009-10-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

email me if you'd like me to paint an athlete, historical figure, loved one for $$$

this wednesday in amherst, ma

2009-10-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

winner of I should make visual what? survey

2009-10-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

9-11

but now i see that 'Mysterious Woman Committing A Crime" is tied, so I will do that one too

"Pee On Water and Other STories" will be available this summer!

2009-10-06T07:27:00.001-07:00

Publishing Genius is publishing my first book

NOHO READING THIS THURSDAY!

2009-10-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

October 8th, 7PM (on the dot!), at Northampton Booklink. Upstairs in the
Thornes. 150 Main Street. Heart of Downtown Northampton. Cozy! Novel!

ELLIOT HARMON! The redheaded wonder! From North Dakota by way of San Francisco!
The poet laureate of Ms. Pacman! Editor of Idiolexicon! Whose work has appeared
in DIAGRAM, NOÖ Journal, and elsewhere! Who knows the news anchor's taking
lessons on sounding like she's from here!

JOHN MARADIK! Curlyheaded provocateur of Hugo's bouncers! Angel with sentences
of flint! Published in American Short Fiction! Climbing up the rockfaces of
narrative splendor!

ROBIN MCLEAN! Who has driven her wit and beauty from Alaska to Massachusetts and
back again! Who has elevated the bonfire to spiritual raucous! Writer of
characters that whistle with punch and frankheaded grace!

the general seriousness of the adventure

2009-09-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

the princess and the general embark on a dangerous mission
essentially comic, eerie blue-green

two terrified, bickering bureaucrats accidentally discover a camp
causing a hideous chain reaction
a period of civil wars

the princess is two hundred pounds of “aura”

the bureaucrats ride on the back of a storm, to a desolate rest stop in the wastelands

they discover boys (aged 15 to 18)
the boys laugh in anticipation of the princess
they stop laughing, but the laughing continues

they look around amused
the general insists they all return to their homes
they say they have no place to go and begin to party

one night the party reluctantly accepts the presence of the general

one of the boys is weird and erotic
a group of bullies begin to taunt the boy
worse comes to worse
and he is slashed from chin to groin with quiet dignity, in a matter of seconds

the general feels safe in raging air-to-air battle
the boys begin to maneuver toward the forbidden

everyone safely drifts to the foreboding surface
the general, the princess with “aura”
they are watched by a giant, who quietly disappears into the foliage

aliens sling along the road
the group is surrounded
the aliens give out puzzles and jabber to themselves
one storms off in disgust and makes a laser

unknown to everyone, the general grabs an alien and tries to communicate, but all he can make out is that the creature worships him and wants him
the alien is lounging, obviously waiting for something

the princess' arrival is a huge parade
drunken bureaucrats stagger down an empty street arm in arm
realizing that they have been adventuring with demigods

the general and his army of youthful warriors make plans to rescue
the nose of the Emperor,
(the center of the galaxy!)

I don't go blabbing around much, it’s always just this once

2009-09-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

the girl sits on the balcony licking cigarettes, watching still clouds,
in and out of sleep
careless in her hair
an addicting torture to get her in conversation

I let her drive me back and forth along the highway
each grand time the floor meets a wall
friends are drugged, yawning

the stars smell huge

I search for horses out back
my hand cupped to the horses

at a party at her house I'm in the cupboards
a nerves-man slinks up the driveway
the girl in his grip
not the spacey girl I was all about
her sister

I hold a knife in the long whatever
do all knives hold this pleasure?
I haven't ever again
with it, cutting air

awaiting a night horse, some haunting
friends sit shoved against the other

the knife slides in smooth like you and gets stopped up
bones and
there is a whole woozy body tickling in panic
the knife, so naked as an excuse

I walked home in mud I gave up girls

this sleep town
laundry, grocery
I watch the butcher cut my dinner

later in the yard I drag a foot to drag the grass off
a kitchen knife to the night wields a half power, but nothing enough to stun me

she bonds deeply with one bird

2009-09-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

a preteen fascinated in sex and trying to restrain her long musings and social rejection
has begun to weird out the reader

her boring summer is made interesting as she spies on her freaky neighbor, and bit by bit uncovers the boy on the doorstep
raised among 16 exotic birds

she loses the friendship of her friend Dorene
who would rather go to the mall than pour over microfiche in the library

when God himself allows her in the bird room, she can easily stand the fumes
"Most people throw up," he says

she bonds deeply with one bird named Island
she tries to steal Island (just for a sleepover!) in her purse
but is caught and never forgiven

her Priest punishes her, and after an awkward meal, she goes into her room to mope
laughing and crying, she runs into the woods and witnesses a sexual or violent act
her life isn't tragic enough to join
she sees a needle on the sidewalk and considers
then instead plans vandalism

during the two funerals the next day, Dorene gets a boyfriend before her
summer is an embarrassment of reality
a huge crush
an eccentric made-up haircut

she feels hugely guilty, violent and strange
she sits on the plant and it rumbles
amazed, she tells no one
not even her old piano teacher, Mrs. Doofle

she lives culturally cut off from motorcycles and sideburns
a movie star is drunk, and vies for her attention
he is just an underpaid actor and not a Savior at all
he leaves on his motorcycle, taking the more wild Dorene with him

idyllic genius friend

2009-09-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

is it late for love?
a glimpse of what
the drifting temperature

do identical twins dream?
one boy completes another's
dancing on the interstate

from the eye, witness the death of idyllic genius friend

about this stuff
poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines
every old spell to the point of bursting

sometimes a soul can heal by saving a crushed little girl and a pony

to keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting Mother Teresa higher than people
eagles never fit in

an unfairly imprisoned father protects his only son from a child prodigy!

a beautiful tortured writer met his idol, and vanished

Bel is the hot girl, the one all the boys fantasize about, but
why does she spend time with Dave?

Dave is not the typical psychotic
he is something more

How about a dream we can all have together? (from 2005)

2009-09-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

Something to distract and unite us. All of us. This country, the one below it, the one above it, one that’s mad at us, ones we make jokes about. Let the dream be: Aliens.

They don't have to be scary like usual. They don't have to be green again. No missing eyes or too many eyes. Maybe they could make sense. These aliens are less like wind and ghosts, more like food and animals.

They aren't attacking or kidnapping; they are moving into some of the smaller cities that have space. They are moving into Providence, RI. They have new kinds of ways to have fun. Way different than roller-skating. Kind of similar to roller-skating. They live life better than us, like Native Americans did, like birds, like kids. We date them and it’s Amazing!! Our parents have their reservations of course. Silent family dinners. But, The Fun! Everyone starts having The Fun!

Previous to the aliens, everything was too specific. A fork's form was stuck in perfect fit to its purpose. A light bulb, reading glasses, bottles, socks, floss. All perfect fits! One was driven to dream for things in between. Things between solid and liquid. Like hair gel and lava!

The Aliens arrived just in time, just as things were becoming Unbearable. No new albums were good albums. Brand names had finally succeeded in being really spooky. But then: Alien Surprise Weekend! The aliens came with tools. They told such funny jokes! We all stood in the outside, like it was perfect temperature, like the skinny moon would say our names if he had time, waiting in line to hear the underground alien poets who’d made it Big on their planet, who hadn’t heard the term underground, but upon hearing it had dug houses underground in a new type of joke where you actually did the thing.

fancy plants

2009-09-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

a man licks a woman
they feel like Japanese People or the room is Japanese
leaves must be watching
eyelash fans
none of the fat money of pizza
cool dry waterfalls instead

a woman lies on a man like a smaller helper boat, a bird that eats bugs but is tired

a weed keeps a fancier plant company
a spider tries to entertain the weed

tiny girls on the street are shy because their parents are always offering up their names

I sleep on a leaking cloud
the tumblrs of relaxed girls soothe me

Sing radiohead like something has gone wrong

2009-09-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

we made fun of Maycock
that kid doesn’t know his pants are called Khakis
he thinks his dick is for peeing only

karaoke is praying
if you do it right
biblical holograms of high school bedrooms
your voice reflecting in the glass

Drew destroyed songs until they were just familiar
embarrassing stories about yourself
he found the very center and squeezed it to death

I tried hard not to hook up with this boy
weird hugging on the bed
The part of CPR when you break the person’s ribs by mistake
we lay there attacking each other’s character
complimenting each other’s body

Ten take away six plus four
Take away seven
Plus three

and what about the music we make in cars
when no one is sitting shotgun
no one carrying the radio like a football (snug) (well)

no poetry looked so humble as the kind flowing up the karaoke screen
color moving left to right
each word getting wet

some grace

2009-09-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

burning for good luck
you put your thing
in some grace

a man would test touch
someone’s woman
someone’s mother
someone’s whole neighborhood

a man might nude the time
get it young

it’s a man who said
pray for god, he’s cold

a man must be crazy
a naked jock living

done dog

2009-08-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

a dead dog can't be fished out
or explain how it was how it acted
it only knew you
spread out on grass
it wasn't self conscious
we keep talking and waiting, boring, longing
it is done like a business
it was so private

what?

2009-08-25T20:28:00.001-07:00

I am am no expert

I cry two eyes

I cannot rap onstage

I eat Nutella like an Egyptian Queen

I make the spoon a candy

people get nervous in small talk in elevators

they wonder if they have headaches

when people my age go dancing

I paste coupons in an album

when a strange number calls I leap to the phone like flames

my plants sag

my basil withers with low self-esteem

Egyptian Queens smell really strange but that is half the fun

their headdresses fall in their soup

their soup was made by slaves

their lovers are not proud

their Nutella is spooned incessantly

throughout dragging afternoons

it trembles in my book

2009-08-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

Oh man, I say this
parents persist
the dead linger linger
a real love will grip you
will stay as wet sand and
twin the same body
the real things they shush you
a sandwich is honest
the breathing is worth it

sleeping ugly moon covered with eternal flame

2009-08-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

O Lord my soul is swimming
and has ruined all my body’s good clothing

I was damp and God offered me a drink
his voice descended
“Well done O sovereign woman, let me gaze your naked heart”

God’s mighty arm carelessly jumped roof to roof
each dark abode was hewing
I was reluctant and he said
“I will give you a golden ray”

I drew my shirt close
I already had a golden ray

it was old, but still worked
I used it on the stairs at night
and occasionally during the day

God scratched the sun and clouds scattered
a big wave came and broke my shirt

God’s vision handled my bosoms
I’ve handled hundreds and hundreds of bosoms
said God
his eyes shone with weeping

your soul, barely

2009-08-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

your soul was hidden with hair
had on it, a few proud moles
the witchdoctor believed to be normal

we were outside on a towel
my soul was lit up and obvious
yours, we determined, was obscured
unusual and unwilling

you were the pet falcon of an old woman
you were a child’s best trousers
do you like the drums?
you were a drunken songbird put in with owls
do you smell the odor of a garden?
did you tell your mother you felt ill?
you got tired of talking
and left the tavern

an arrow, you sped from the bow
and pierced the eyes of villagers

it was morning
the children cried

you called it an illusion
you called this world a phantom world
you were still sharp
no one could hug you without bleeding

you were friends with angels
and the angels got injured

you were not concerned
your eyes were hot
you would not relax
the Blinded cursed you
and the sound of your name
moved your body like a song

you stabbed eyes and crops and the bedding of your neighbors

you fell on the rooftop
and leaked
you were dead, but glumly went and got ready to die
the man at the cemetery pointed the way
but you didn't go

you couldn’t give up wanting to be famous
you worried about what you were going to eat
you wanted to buy an engraved belt

we grew tired of you
so you turned into a rare bird to awe us

you were trying to make money
you pranced and looked sick
you were wearing an engraved belt

EXCITING NY THEATER EXPERIENCE

2009-07-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

COME TO THE ART SHOW OF THE SUMMER!

2009-07-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Please Vote 4 John so we can win $$$

2009-06-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

potluck hell

2009-06-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

I never liked this and you Julia

all the foods and their friends

give me a headache

Im no more reunion head of the personality complex the lost friend the dead friend whatever

I only had male heroes

my girlfriends had troubles with their families

I was on your online list of ex friends

the picture of me where I look fat and you look happy about that

the sticky acquaintance

I meant to call the other Dina

the hot Dina

at the factory

2009-06-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

lets say I was in charge and someone knocked

I could say I was busy even if only I wanted to stay where I was thinking by myself

days I slave in a guitar factory

there is no music

the dust clings to skin and long skinny panes of glass

lets say I was on smoke break and the smoke was liquid smoke and ran down my face and let me have another break after that one, an extra fat moment

these guitars are floppy and don't pass inspection

there are animals places and materials

here is a collection behaving badly

trying for the sex look of elcetric

puddling in my hand on the assembly line

the spoon

2009-06-13T23:58:00.001-07:00

his name was Spoon and he was only inches

he came onto me and everyone giggled

the fruit salad mixed and blended until it all tasted the same

Spoon thought he could make me feel good

"I already feel good" I lied

the party was for Celeste, but really it was a surprise party for Molly

Celeste was crushed

at parties like this I got into conversations then abruptly drifted towards the food

a guilt wagon, longing in no directions, eyeing my shoes by the door

the spoon danced around badly

"Where did you get him?" everyone asked

"At the magic store on Route 10"

"How much ?" asked Molly, drunk and happy

"ten bucks"

"Ten bucks?" I said absently

"Too much!" the spoon replied and gaily tripped on the table

this girl

2009-06-13T23:28:00.000-07:00

she couldn't stop britney spearing

it was the only songs she knew

she was dark from lazy sun

the machine took pictures intermittently

"I look gross" she would say

and she did drugs

when im with yall its like im wearing the family panties and i like it

the pool bleeds neon and no one is sharp

my plant is in the garage because it has spider mites again

there was a party but the birthday was a month later

fireworks went off and we couldn't see them

rain was like a hi-tech thing the pool had come with

2009-06-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

April 17, 18, 24 and 25 at 7:30 pm, and April 19 and 26 at 2 pm
a great light recorded a guitar demo

a lady's baby
a strange lady

the house heaves its windows
heat wilts mini bonsais
baby baby palm trees
all weak shrunk plants

friends make the points of a shape
in a craft of melted plastic and
wispy hairy yarn

moms pump out an illusion of space
your car is sagging ass

2009-06-07T21:20:00.000-07:00

I was high with a fish

it was pretentious (my friend's friend)

"This world is un-generous" it said

its mouth puckered and sucked

This world is spacious, I knew

its air is clear, except when smoke

a rain can tweed it

a snow just loves it

a man jumped from the bridge and we laughed

a man on the bridge laughed and we rolled our eyes

a family knows you when your dumb

it loams around while

I used to hang out in photographs

eating birthdays, growing sideways

"The word 'cast' shouldn't go with 'shadow'"

an object could lean

a tree could cover light

hide that cigar in the grass

please wait while I get my phone

we pushed a door that gave into a room the same size as ours but empty available and yearning with boredom

this is the kind of room you could get good at gymnastics in

there were onlookers to this wedding

there were kids crying they felt so intact

my mom fell during ping pong

2009-06-04T21:05:00.001-07:00

My mom fell during ping pong. Face down in the carpet. Our paddles were old and cracked. They made a red rubber dust on the table. People say I look like her. My face stretched with crying. Everyone laughed. My mom made fun. She said she was fine. Her sneaker was torn. Later, she'd admit that her hand did still hurt. Later, we freaked out at each other and my friends laughed more and said me and my mom were like two sides of a mirror and it was like one person freaking out at themselves. We had released a squirrel from my dad's trap. "That is like putting your finger in your father's eye," my mom said. The squirrel had stuck a tiny hand out the cage, and dug like to start a delusional hole to China. His arm was so like the arm of a cartoon squirrel. We released him and he zagged. We saw a snapping turtle standing near the highway and tried to nudge it. Its eyes were wet and personal. Its beak was wry and cruel. We tried to and it snapped. We were impressed and estranged from it. My friends left and it was me, and I went outside and saw a cat puke. I put peanuts in my dad's trap and reset it. Earlier, there had been a groundhog and I gave my friends the binoculars. Since my dog died, a massive movement of life has bothered his area. Once my dog was sleeping and wild turkeys slinked across the yard. My mom would stack tennis balls in an "art installation" for him to destroy. He flipped his food on the ground. He did not eat his hair like other dogs do. Now we are impotent and bored. The ride was short and now its done. No one will love us except each other and not with any guts or pep.

Seth Landman (winner of Who Should I M-Soft Paint Survey

2009-05-27T00:26:00.000-07:00

above with Emily Petit during playoffs

mom swarm

2009-05-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

a mom watches muscles
a mom drives reckless
a mom's hair is frayed like
a mom's voice is shrill

be careful near moms they will help
one is sick of balancing
oof she says as she sits

three moms jog during lunch
four moms are comparing lives

a mom gets wrapped in string
another mom solves a crime

two moms should never cum together
though some do
when they are over each others house

its messed up that people can be mean to our parents

2009-05-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

we are busy with lives
our parents are soft and lolling
and strangers can get mean

I hover in a business meeting
watching my mother try to change lanes
panes of glass separate us
Let her in! I yell
but the driver is a stranger
he doesn't care
he doesn't know
to him, me and my mother are unattractive

that just boils me over
everyday I make myself up for strangers
i don't want to offend anyone with uneven skin

when I'm around strangers I feel crazy and wash my hands in a tense effort of determined nonchalance

when strangers are around me they ignore me completely with total self-absorption

I have a picture of you when you were still a stranger
I aimed my phone at you and copied you and met you and now its me plus you
treading through the natural world and meeting the elderly and the house-less
grocery shopping in a more relaxed way than when im by myself fighting the public's nonchalance with my own amateur nonchalance

#12

2009-05-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

I'd been suspended from school for leaving vegetables as jokes. My parents told their friends and everyone thought, Where is the harm in an eggplant. There was no harm really. I spent these days watching game shows. My sister came home reporting someone had been leaving vegetables. My cell phone was jumping off the table. Buzz buzz. My cell phone had an uneven vibrate, giving it a personality I got a kick out of. Someone had outdone me and made a vegetable platter in the hallway near the vice principle's office. This platter was plateless, was on the ground and would prove a mess to dismantle. The tomatoes were sliced and surrounded the platter, how tomatoes often do. Lettuce was used as a backdrop. Broccoli stood up. I didn't arrange like this. I would make a barrier of eggplants and wait behind a pole and laugh at everyone laughing.

The platter had gotten much attention. The school was planning an assembly about starvation, dreaming up a fund-raiser that would be mandatory and redeeming. My sister was in awe of this platter. My cell phone twitched and leapt. DUUDE UR CRAZY. People thought I'd done magic, but I knew me. This was the work of someone more nuanced. I could tell a girl had done it, and I felt competitive. I began to plan a platter of my own. Huge potato faces, powedered sugar hills. Carrot railroad tracks. At the dinner table the vegetables just laid there. An asparagas sagged on my fork. What are these things, I thought. Why does a cucumber taste nothing but clean?

Daisy

2009-04-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

I was drawing. The six-year-olds raised their eyebrows. “Donald Duck’s friend,” I explained. My marker drew a big fat bow instead of the spiky hairdo of a duck.

“That doesn't look like Donald.” They went deep in thought, “Oh yeah, his Girlfriend!” Malone grinned her whole fat face. “Draw him kissing her!”

I started to draw him on one side, his beak able to kiss her cheek. “NO! Draw him on the other side, kissing her.”

So I did, beak-to-beak, with two cautious centimeters between. The six-year-olds went crazy. A block tower tumbled to the ground. Someone ate something from their pocket. All faces flashing with the chant, “KISS-ING! KISS-ING!”

“They are thinking about if they should kiss. Make a thought bubble and write ‘Should we kiss or should we not?’” I drew a thought bubble that said just that, in my sly handwriting. They were screaming they were so happy. “What should Donald be holding?” I asked Ash.

“A picnic basket!” She was right. Donald was always carrying picnic baskets. Wherever he went it was always good picnic weather, or else threatening to become good weather. It might be thundering and lighting and Donald is shivering in a blanket, but the sun, his sun, always wants to join any sort of party, his weather wants to sing. Ash thought Daisy’s dress should be flowers, so I drew it as flowers.

“Make Donald black,” said Rolly. My hand reached for the brown. “No! Donald’s not black,” Ash said and Ash was black. “Donald is blond,” Malone agreed. “Black or blond?” asked Rolly. Ash swore he was blond. Donald and Daisy looked back at me desperate and foolish. They were very close but not touching. They had a picnic basket, but nothing else to do. Their world was blank and temporary.

check this out!

2009-04-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

They Kissed Their Houses

by Shaggy Chain

#11

2009-04-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

A fly was soggy on the cantaloupe. She had long eyelashes that clung to her face. She stuck to anything that touched her.

She was without bones. She was a black more solid than darkness. Her face was hard to tell from her body. Her legs were folded in and splayed out.

People could barely see her. She was a lump and no longer alive. A person's finger nudged her, to tell what she was. She kept falling back to the cantaloupe, and it was sexy, cause she had long eyelashes. Her falling to the cantaloupe was like a women collapsing into bed, over and over again, except she was dead.

A person's fingers tried to get her from the cantaloupe. The cantaloupe was in pieces, was rounded from sitting in itself. It was in a glass bowl. It seemed very domestic. The fly stuck to the finger and was wiped onto the Ceran wrap.

The wrap was clear like a dream. The wrap got caught on itself in a way that made a sound. When stretched taught, the wrap felt proud like a drum. The wrap knew what it was doing.

The wrap was not without pride, but days later it clung to itself and smelled like something else, then was gathered and balled and tossed in with the trash. The sexy fly laid on the wrap and did I mention she was wingless?

#10

2009-04-10T21:01:00.001-07:00

Roy wished he had a drug problem, so his family could sit around him solemnly and talk, and he could get teary and listen, and then agree with sincerity, the whole thing a success! He had no addictions and was afraid to start any. If he was moody his friends gave him pills, and his girlfriend brought him back a drug on vacation, a rare one, a good one, but this he kept in a wooden box with secret compartments that were obvious and easy to open.

Once he was an artist and his girlfriend, (an earlier, sterner one) told him that artists were just people who wasted time with fake worlds. She was a realist. She thought artists created problems in fake worlds so they didn't have to live in this world. Roy agreed, but didn't think it bad. He'd paint a weirdo with five legs and five feet, and then he'd sit back and mull. This weirdo would have to have special pants, Roy would all-a-sudden know. Pants would get painted in an exhausted heap on the bed. Weirdo pants with five legs. This was the problem solving of an artist.

His earlier girlfriend was a purist, he had thought. But then he thought of another friend who might be a purist. And then another. He could argue all his friends as purists in one way or another, each personality had an extreme effect on the life of their body, but that wasn't purism, was it? No, that was different.

At the corner store a young lady had spilled chocolate milk all over the ground and was sulkily cleaning it up. Roy wanted to help and ripped open the plastic on a roll of paper towels. He was resourceful and the clerk yelled at him, which made him rebellious. The young lady was rebellious also. A carton of chocolate milk had gotten in her way, and she had messed that carton up until it was an ominous spread on the floor. She'd destroyed it. It looked like shit, but Roy could smell it, and it smelled fine.

#8

2009-04-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

"Hey what was that album? Red Hot Chilli Peppers write home unhappy?"
"It feels like we're on a road trip during war time!"

That night every ball I hit went flying. The striped green reminded me of a frog, and I'd never thought this before. The music was rubbing off so I didn't finish, but briefly, I thought it would be good to go through making up symbols. Like solid blue is the great lake, and me and you could call them this, and strangers would be interested. Solid yellow would be golden ticket, or bumble ball, or the sun.

This here's a combo, I'm going to hit the blood drop into the frog and the frog to the emptiness, and the emptiness into the grassy knoll. But I didn't finish this. All the songs that played were authenticating, for fifty cents I could keep up and it was worth it. If you used the eight ball to hit in your ball, it meant you weren't afraid of dying, and during the course of the game you'll notice I did this many times.

I was born one gender, but a pair of jeans could switch me like that. I could fall in love with girls like all of modern culture. If I got lazy at Hoolie's, he'd do some magic tricks for me. Diving after the cards, desparately, like this was in an asylum. Friends entertain for free, I never feel conflicted about having friends, friends is one good thing. Nature is so cool too, it doesn't bend itself or care. I look at the window and think Nature is my secret role model and I'm not going to tell anybody.

This was in the middle of a breakdown, but my breakdown kept taking breaks, so I had these wild fun times wherever I was, strangers included, weather permitting, a movie theater couldn't tell me what I could or could not bring inside. I would stroll in with a pizza, outside food, and when they adressed me, I'd say, "Hey, this here is your life, and this over here, is mine, let's just live and pay none." Or more like, "Yeah man, I know, let's not spill our moods you know? We are in the same exact room right now." Not that. None of that.

I'd be talking to everyone and think it was lucky our skin was so intact and keeping with us, that it was a privilege in a way, that even though some bad stuff had happened, it hadn't yet ruined us into little epitaphs we'd give after the person left. Maybe someone had a problem or two, but it enlivened our old city, a problem brought incident, the incidents brought order. Whenever I felt bad enough to live filthy, I told myself it was time to cut an album.

#7

2009-04-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

Keith had locked me in the storage, so I was gonna make the best of things. My ma'd pack'd me a sandwich and I dented it with my thumbs. Dumb sandwich, I thought. You are soggy, a mush! A messy mass, you are, you fucking sandwich. I took a bite. Bleh. Bleh. I took a bit in my fingers and made it into a cube. Perfect sandwich cube! I said. Please teach me your ways. Bleh. Bleh. I ate the sandwich cube. The sandwich had smeared jam in the bag. Fucking messy ass bag, I thought. You look dispicable. You are uglier than other bags I've seen. There was a weird sticky dust on the ground and it stuck to my jeans. Weird sticky dust, I thought. Where are you from? What causes You?

There were big piles of cardbaord boxes all around me. They inspired me little. Keith was a moody worker. He didn't have anything to lose. Everyday he walked in with rythym and had little or nothing to lose. He wouldn't let anyone see his car. He parked it far far away from the warehouse and came in sweaty everyday. I saw a moth, but had nothing to say to it. Keith once scared me at the water fountain and I got water all on my shirt. I heard mice in the corner and went to check them out. My footsteps echoed like a strangers. The mice made little mincing sounds and I couldn't see where. Oh sandwich cube, I said once more. What ever happened to you?

#6

2009-03-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

Disappointment is added on a list. Desire discards all lists. Javier got his knuckle bit, but it didn't discourage him, it was his pass-code to the new world. Claire was self-conscious so went in the bathroom. The town they peopled made them better realize the city. They felt drawn to an even smaller town. Could this end, thought Maryanne. Maryanne knew if they moved to a smaller town, they would just get a crush on a smaller town, they would find the locals more local, the animals, there would be more. And even having a house in the woods, wouldn't one night they decide to sleep out in the yard, and feeling too safe, want to wander deep in some woods, where the world starts, where the day begins? Would this year end with them sleeping in dirt, on sticks, through rain? Joyce just wanted a cool job. She didn't want to have to tell her friends about anything uncool. Here, in this moment, a person has a tongue, and teeth, does restaurants, does taxes, does wish some and get some, but leans forward, scratching at anything that sticks out, patrolling his own skin for problems, leaning into the next moment, spreading disappointment and predictions, but Javier, his knuckle was cool.

story-a-day#5

2009-03-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

My roommate is allergic to lizards, but I have one, secretly. I'm not an animal person. The lizard lives in my bedroom. It has sleepy, watery eyes. It prefers one stick to another. I let it out on my hand and I want it to walk up my arm onto my shoulder and then down the other arm or on my lap, or down my leg, but it doesn't care to. It is not curious. If it were a person, I worry it would not like me. Maybe if it were a person, I'd despise everything about it, I'd hate it. The lizard is bored, and if I wasn't bored I wouldn't have bought the lizard. My roommate, she can't eat anything. If she touches a lizard, she says it would spread, it would cover her arm like poison ivy, it could make her very very sick.

story-a-day#4

2009-03-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

My wife had been dead ten years today. I woke as normal, sat up in bed and watched the graveyard. I looked at the grave I pretend is my wife's, though my wife is buried states away, where she grew as a girl. I watched a family group take a stroll, and it looked as though they were going to put flowers on my grave, I mean, my wife's grave, well, actually some stranger's grave, some old poor dead fool, but then they dropped them at an anonymous grave. Some luck, I thought, not knowing if it were good or bad. My plan was to play some Keno numbers, the sun was out, it had been awhile. I went out on the porch and the neighbor boy was fighting with some girl. They cursed each other out in the sunlight. Then they leaned against two separate cars. She had a shaved head, but was still pretty. She carried an icecream bar that was melting on my grass. "How's it going now?" I said, my voice loud and cutting the moment. They looked at me, the day was glorious, the anger in their eyes was like a power on the street. I adjusted my belt, I scratched my door post. "I'm O.K," she said, a glob of ice cream falling. She kept my gaze.

story-a-day#3

2009-03-27T12:39:00.001-07:00

My older sister controlled my life, the carpet was hot lava and so I had to jump couch to couch, but she had a special power that allowed her to nonchalantly walk all in the lava and sit there for long periods of time. It hurt just to look at her. I had to change my cereal when she convinced me of the AIDS cherrio, rare, sure, but there was one in every 100,000 boxes. My mom didn't belief us, but my Dad did, and we switched to Chex and did not regret it. In high school my sister got fat, and I ate full time trying to keep up with her. Being fat is so cool, she told me with lively eyes, there's so much of you, you get confident! I was destined to stay average weight. I wore her clothes and they spread around me like ribbons on a may pole. Later on, our dynamic switched, and small phrases of my own creation, "Whatevers," "hot-mama-llama," "gee-whiz, lay miz" appeared in her everyday talk, after I had long outgrown such stupid phrases. I forget all that now, living adulty, waiting in waiting rooms, doing laundry, the weather is wildly pleased, and mostly I am glad and unoccupied.

story a day #2: MY PEN PAL GOT SHOT

2009-03-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

My age or older. Her hair got stuck in doors, so she threatened to cut it. Once there was a long hair of hers, stuck to a piece of tape. It could have been anyone's. I still have the envelope. She was a flute player, color blind, meat-eating, strapped for cash. My husband would bring in the letters for me, smirking, but he had this pen pal vicariously. I'd only tell him the basics, I never showed him a picture. This was an assignment in second grade. I had wanted a boy so I could get married, but they paired us so we wouldn't get too excited. My classmates' letters were perfunctory. Pet's name? Pet peeves? Tv? Foods? All favorites, like an interview. I filled up pages with confessions and stickers. I hate my mom! I wrote, My brother smokes! I looked in a mirror and took pains in exactness. My eyes are one inch, I think, I told. Her letters called her father a hotdog, that she was the prettiest girl in her homeroom. I was impressed. She was a bank of all my secrets and this went through high school and college, the internet, her job doing massages on a cruise boat. When I was in the hospital, I could have made it sound like an artist residency, but I resisted. It is possible that if I heard her voice, it would have repelled me, my husband liked to argue. That I could be as happy writing to the toilet. He is a jealous man. Anyone I talk to at the grocery, he sharpens his ears at. I found out through a search engine about my pal. She was shot by her lover, some guy I hadn't heard of. Her funeral is going on right now, but I'm just sitting at home.

story a day #1

2009-03-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

The dinosaur was muddy and eating bananas. It was male. It stomped through a patch of flowers. A dog rushed at its legs and the dinosaur gnashed its teeth. The dog took off in the other direction, dirt flying from its paws. It was hot and the dinosaur sweat out his eyes. His skin was rough like tree bark. His teeth were shiny with drool and glinted in the sun. He ate some flowers, and then he chewed a mouse. The mouse's tail whipped wildly against his tongue, making the dinosaur twitch. The dinosaur swallowed and could feel the lump sinking down his throat. The dinosaur's swinging tail whapped into a tree. The pain was dull, it told him where the tree was. He forgot he had just eaten a mouse, and saw another one like it was the first one. There were dozens of sounds, but he was used to them. There was a worm in the ground, he could feel it on his foot but could not reach it. He kept stomping around. He saw an explorer and ate him. A big camera was crushed between his teeth. The camera battery gave him a jolt, and the lens was crushed into shards of glass, embedded in his gums. The dinosaur tried to lick the glass out. His blood tasted like rust. His tongue was cut and one part flapped against the roof of his mouth. He took one huge claw and scraped his gums and tasted more blood. He spun around and ate more from the banana tree. The soft bananas slid down his throat, but every bite sent the glass further in. He opened his mouth, and his stomach pushed a low sound that grew and stretched out in the air, it hung in the air, it vibrated.

my bracket was perfect at first

2009-03-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

it set out like a child
it had whims and the whims had ideas

at the center was a supposed and it streamed and spread

it was clean-cut and everything rolled live

a faulty dunk
a finger in string

a family itches
a conscious compiles

this is a game we all played between games
I made 100 jokes in 100 minutes
and not all of them worth it

if I'm not calling its cause I see an invisible space and you're in it

the ball gathers ball
luck ages
fate mopes
all wavy games leak their bounds

this one opened and cut my hair
friends were scattered on different sides
holding the E-Z pass in the air
my style was nonchalance
my style was and so what

all loves are quick
this was one-hour

let a vacuum dream dream and succeed

2009-03-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

grackles are hogging the feeder
cops say crime is contagious

back where I wound all my time
hair keeps pumping out our heads

in this, the afternoon gets fat and warm
a dog's tiny pupil has little expectation

the architect and the house
they mostly affect the neighbor

the sky sighs with airplanes
I can write on it with a laser pointer

years ago, Chinese food was Magic Food
a piece of bread would not impress anyone

let all things glide their dreams
a vacuum has a lot it wants to take care of
a bicycle needs to feel a breeze between its legs

there was a pizza who was late for a job
he was melting all over the place
he melted on his brief case

I've got aura and brains

2009-03-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

I was naive, but then I ran tits first into a tree
I eat cereal
solve sudokos

when I have a premonition about the president
I write him a postcard

this is the meat and potatoes of my message:
All bad magic has a missing partnered solution
Stay above water
Fix that exposed picture hook! It might hurt someone!

please don't read glee in those exclamations
that is just my Imac
I am but a person

a dog lolls in my lap
the birds make off with some hair

here again, we wish on a digital watch
say a word and then jump into a pool

it isn't that I want a shape beside me
I see one and its morphing

also by crazy M. Bean

2009-03-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

Nothing more for Sally Silk
cut her skinny foot and
stubbed her fat one.

Nothing more on Sunday morning.
Wakes up on the couch,
boyfriend's sleeping in the oven.

By nightfall she's in shabby shape.
Told her friends to fuck themselves.
Take your supper in the cellar
you'll get no second slice of cake.

Meat by M.Maniac Bean Machine

2009-03-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

Haha. I've got it,
You old lazy woman.
You bet your teeth I do.

I'm gonna come home with
a cough
one of these days
and I'm gonna cough on you.

Nevermind the pin-cushions,
the pearly-colored window-curtains,
the bookshelf and the knives.

I've got the giggles in my mind.
I'm done with your domesticity.
I'm a grumpy, grimey, gray, ungrateful girl.

I'll walk around in whatever
Bare boney legged--
that's me.

Don't start questioning things now.
I can tell the future
by looking in your mouth.

a vacation is expectation

2009-03-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

you went to another country, like random, like for fun
you met the town mix up
one drunk musician
a prostitute and her son

one water was fast and threw people around in it
another water would not move an inch
you sat and coaxed the water up your finger

the food was a sauce

there were nets upon nets
to keep you from mosquitos
but the mosquitos
bless them
they did not want you

nothing special

2009-03-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

if I sit still, the fly goes crazy
when I go crazy, the fly stops and watches entertained

the scissors are self-important
the recycling bubbles over in its bag
my quilt sits on my armchair

would you like to be alone?
I ask everything

there are egg shells
there are water bottles with clear consciences

there are tape dispensers
and hairs whose dream it was was to stick to the tape
I pull off one such hair

the coins are all dirty, but don't know it, and sit in stacks

my phone is familiar with here
this is nothing special

on the new planet

2009-03-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

all hair is frayed
pebbles crumble if you pinch them

I dig a little place to take a nap
I sleep so well and often

a critter walks by and I admire it
IF I WERE YOU, AND YOU ME
I yell

I reflect
I press my body onto a yearbook
I feel stupid and play MASH

it does seem time moves across a wire
watch it, it wiggles

goodbye friend
hello annoying new person

jesus mazda and more karma

dragons usually get slayed
I look pretty from a distance
I understand classical music
wet dogs have dreams
hear me, movie stars
have faith
see god
buy food

in the woods

2009-03-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

in the woods
in the snow
we feel brooding and scared of trees
we touch them and they don't know us
they are surrounded by other trees
but are dumb to this

trust us dead highways, this car knows better

2009-03-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

this night lasts all night, all air
constant trees, fur scurrying past headlights
these, the dark heart of this area
and snuggle further
find the dark heart within the dark heart
the sleepy movie house drinking beer
dizzied with sloppy aesthetics

night is so natural because the stores are shut
a drunk car gets parked
when this town sneaks a beer

If you think a chimp retirement home is sad, climb inside this headache

2009-03-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

its like the face is annoyed to be a face
the day feels ugly
so takes a shower
even though its already clean

the day doesn't know if tomorrow is itself, or if that is something different
if there are infinite deaths, or just one big one later

people say stuff, in the rain, on the phone, in the bathroom, seriously from an opposite couch, genuinely, leaning against a column, people catch you before you leave, people say "remember when you," people meet, people say "i have call waiting, but I'm not going to," people approach you and its them and their face and you and yours, and are those things fitted completely as one?, faces look like other faces and you meet another Jason but with a Devon nose, people rush up to you, their faces say some intro on them, they get memorized and glorified, in the bad light they twitch

this is old! Always faces, blushing, monsters, parents, crying, headaches!

to take a break I pull out a joke
to row a boat I dip the oar in romantically

to add some beauty, I present this row of staples
they are connected still as one thing
for now they are intact

things are said to you, they are sentences, real deal life dialogue
and they hit the siding of your house
they drip down the window

then, we recover, our faces fall normal, we escape, are received
by all the office supplies we have ever wanted
all these uninvited bits of paper

can we shape a happiness
form some out of something?

I tried one with some tissues and tape
you built one with a toothbrush and a dust clump

if the face loves the air
and the face doesn't flinch
can the day renew ?
like turn over and be cool

R a c h e l B. G l a s e r

First Post of the New Year!

December News and Links

12 hours later update

Magic

Reading and Winter/Spring Class Announcement!

Recent Developments

August News

Michael Kimball interviews me for Charlotte Viewpoint

SoftSpot

"SoftSpot is pleased to announce its latest show, (Un)Seen + (Un)Heard.

New story "Turid" in Cousin Corrine's Reminder Issue 3

May News and Links

new mini review

I spoke about one of my favorite books

New short short story on Route 9 magazine

New Poems Online!

New Picture Poem Up at Noo Journal

New Epic Review of 'Pee On Water'

New story

New Ethusiastic Review!

New Very Well Written Review!

NEWS

Reading in One Week From Tomorrow

new review/interview

new

Summer Tour Over!

PEE ON WATER

Reading this Friday (the 19th)

the Bears: Philip, Fancy, and Craig

buying money

the brinking point!

didn't call Aetna again

I'm Reading

NFL

check out American Short Fiction's favorite stories

the doctors

Thanks for voting!

What Should My Book be Called?

New York Tyrant 7 / Brian Evenson Release PArty this Saturday in Ny

the face was hilarious

Fun Opening in NY! November 5th

girls club reading of Anthony Kiedis 'Me Book'

what?

here is a commissioned Charles Barkely portrait

this wednesday in amherst, ma

winner of I should make visual what? survey

"Pee On Water and Other STories" will be available this summer!

NOHO READING THIS THURSDAY!

the general seriousness of the adventure

I don't go blabbing around much, it’s always just this once

she bonds deeply with one bird

idyllic genius friend

How about a dream we can all have together? (from 2005)

fancy plants

Sing radiohead like something has gone wrong

some grace

done dog

what?

it trembles in my book

sleeping ugly moon covered with eternal flame

your soul, barely

EXCITING NY THEATER EXPERIENCE

COME TO THE ART SHOW OF THE SUMMER!

Please Vote 4 John so we can win $$$

potluck hell

at the factory

the spoon

this girl

my mom fell during ping pong

Seth Landman (winner of Who Should I M-Soft Paint Survey

mom swarm

its messed up that people can be mean to our parents

#12

Daisy

check this out!

#11

#10

#8

#7

"SoftSpot **is pleased to announce its latest show, (Un)Seen + (Un)Heard.**