Day 6,7,8 Reprise and Foxen

Having spoken with George the previous about wineries to visit on the way to Fresno, focusing primarily on other Paso Robles wineries, I surprised myself and headed instead up Foxen Canyon and stopped at Foxen winery, whose wines George said were getting better and better. Their pinots are become expensive and rare, and so I was disappointed the tasting room had none available to taste. The syrahs, cabs, and merlots were all good, and I sent some home, but they also whispered that they had 'a few' magnums "just in today" of their famed Sea Smoke vineyard and their Block 8 available, so I paid a ransom for one of each to add to the rest, and so I hope the government is happy that I used my "stimulus" check for wine that I hope will be very stimulating.

But much of the rest of the trip was a reprise of last year, and happily so, as I visited Mom and Dad and Haley and Hannah and Chase and my sister, who is still recovering from being slammed by a semi, my old neighbors Al and Lavonne, and, of course, the seco palms. We sat on the porch a lot. Watched the sky threaten rain. I shipped back some of my vinyl records even though I have nothing to play them on, but they're here in South Georgia.

I also spent another fine afternoon with Peter Everwine, and we talked again about poetry and life and friends and our work. And to my delight he is working. He remarked that he wasn't sure he had time to finish another project, but, leaving, I reminded him that Phil Levine predicted he'd give us another thirty years after he suffered a heart attack some years back, and I pointed out that you don't fuck around with a Phil Levine prediction. He laughed and said, "Well, I guess I have a few more to go, then." Many more, we all hope. We shared a bottle of Hartley Ostini pinot I picked up in Santa Barbara and we drank it into the afternoon, a sweet wine for sweet words.

Up early the last day to drive to LAX and home to grading and kittens after another good trip.

Day 5, Santa Barbara Style

Day five was nice and slow. Patrick and Robin offered up their house for a pizza dinner party Monday night, but Monday day meant everybody working but me. I caught up on end-of-semester panicky emails from students and then left around noon for lunch with the wonderful company of Chryss and Barry Spacks. I parked at the beach and walked up to the UCSB campus, which I hadn't been to since I worked there at the end of the last millennium. It looked the same and strange at the same time, as though someone had reconstructed campus from faulty partial memories. The lagoon was where it was, but the Student Union seemed pressed into the wrong place until I arrived and looked out the window at the lagoon.

Then Barry walked up, whom I hadn't seen but very briefly last year, and Chryss, and everything fell back into place. Barry, who hasn't aged a day since I first met him, was wonderfully Barry, upbeat and sparkling. If he were fatter I might even call him jolly, but he's not, so witty and wise will have to do. Chryss and he joked around during our quickish lunch, and I filled them in on my weekend in LA and life in general (kids, Amy, kittens, etc.) and then I took Barry home, as Chryss had to get back to the job, and they I shopped for the evening's wine and ingredients for the homemade tapenade I offered to make to contribute to Patrick's pizza. I also found some Fontina Val d' Aosta and had to purchase just for the transmogrifying irony of it (I live in Valdosta, folks, that's in Georgia, where the favored cheese is Velveeta or other 'mer'can styles).

I headed early (though I was briefly lost) to Patrick's to help with the pizza, tour the new home and see its lovely hillside view of Santa Barbara and the ocean. But friends George, Amy, Chryss and Cattie, and Barry from the night before, along with old friends Tom and his terribly cute son and Madeleine and Bob and their lovely daughter Sophie showed up to enjoy the new home and the old friend (i.e. me). It's been nearly twelve years since I moved to Santa Barbara and met all these wonderful people and we get older and the kids grow taller and things in the body hurt more or there's less of it or it's changing color and we fumble for glasses we didn't need then and it doesn't matter because this night reprised what was best about all my time there--these friends on a warm beautiful night with food and wine and the casual poetry of hanging out and love. Thanks Patrick and Robin.

We made our way back down the hill, George, Amy, and I, and we continued a smaller version of the party until the wee hours.

(I don't remember all the wines we drank, but it would have been a fine list. I contributed an Emile Moro from Ribera, and I know George brought some fabulous wines. Remind me?)

Road Trip Day 4: Books to Beans

Day four was OUR day. Elena's and mine. We've toiled away happily at the Poetry Corner for ten years, and, finally, they let us read. Happily, we both had fresh projects to read from: Elena's Masque (Tupelo) and my own chapbook, Other Medicines (Redbone). We chose to alternate rather than chunk it up, and that seemed to work well, create a different rhythm. Friends were in the audience, including Chryss, Margaret, and new friend Tristan with his lovely fiancée (and, oh, Jackson was there Saturday). And Robert, who read after and who taught me at Berkeley, showed up early to listen, but this is all I'll say about us basking in our tiny glory. We still had to work the rest of the day, and it was also a fine one, with Robert reading from his strong new book, and on through many regulars to Stanley Plumly in his best basso radio voice, to another old Fresno compadre Sam Pereira, and Wanda Coleman, who briefly turned it into a revival tent with heavy with eros. The complete lineup follows.

Elena Byrne and Marty Williams
Masque and Other Medicines

Robert Pinsky
Gulf Music: Poems

Maurya Simon
Cartographies

Al Young
Something About the Blues

Elaine Equi
Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems

Jill Bialosky and Dana Goodyear
The End of Desire and Honey and Junk

1:00 PM
James Ragan
In the Talking Hours

Adam Kirsch
Invasions: New Poems

Stanley Plumly
Old Heart: Poems

Carol Muske-Dukes and Sam Pereira
Sparrow and A Café in Boca

Chris Abani
Hands Washing Water

Wanda Coleman and Diane Ward
Mercurochrome and When You Awake

Luis J. Rodriguez
My Nature is Hunger

It was especially lovely to see Margaret, whom I bean seein' here every year and who beacons her smile wherever she goes. I left her in the green room with Robert and Pico Iyer. After the reading, Elena and I tried to meet up with Noah, who usually comes out but was visiting family in San Diego. That was perhaps the only disaster of the entire trip, since Noah was coming on bike and I had to leave for a gathering in Santa Barbara the moment he arrived. I needed more Noah time. But the three of us parted and hugged and I headed north, where I stayed with George and Amy, and where Chryss and Cattie and Dave and Patrick and Barry remained despite my latish arrival. We drank great wine (including a lovely '98 Dehlinger pinot) and laughed until late. It was nice to be home.

Road Trip Day 3: Book Festival and Party

After ten years or so, co-emceeing the poetry corner at the LA Times Festival of Books is fairly routine. Wake up, show up, set up, keep track of who's next and track them down if necessary. Buy books at Small World Book's tent. Sometimes the work keeps you from listening to the poetry, but given that it lasts all day, the words and poets can run together without time away from the tent, so I try to listen to a few carefully before I run off to check for the next poet, break in the green room, etc. The line up on April 26th was strong, so catching as much as I could became a challenge. Mark Doty, always a strong reader, began the day and he brought us a terrific early crowd that seemed to sustain itself throughout the day. Here's the whole list:

Mark Doty
Fire to Fire

Sholeh Wolpe
Rooftops of Tehran

Eloise Klein Healy & Elizabeth Bradfield
The Islands Project: Poems for Sappho & Interpretive Work: Poems

Albert Goldbarth
The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007

Brian Tracy
Driving with Dante

David St. John
The Face: A Novella in Verse

Jean Valentine
Little Boat

Marvin Bell
Mars Being Red

Christopher Buckley
Flying Backbone: The Georgia O'Keeffe Poems

Sarah Maclay and Charles Hood
The White Bride and Rio de Dios

Susan McCabe
Descartes’ Nightmare

Lynne Thompson
Beg No Pardon

Jennifer Kwan Dobbs
Paper Pavilion

Tony Barnstone
The Golem of Los Angeles

Catherine Daly and Stuart Dischell
Locket and Backwards Days

Mark, David St. John, Marvin Bell, Chris Buckley, Shole Wolpe, Jean Valentine (quietly), Stuart, and Eloise were all high points on an unusually strong list. My favorite moment, though, was when Albert Goldbarth read among the most masterful complaints in the history of letters, I believe, in his diatribe against the obligatory post-reading Thai restaurant meal. I was laughing, crying, and starving for a chili-cheese burger with a side of onion rings all at the same time. Tony Barnstone's work surprised me most, and he'll be in my classes next year, for sure.

Later, Sholeh and Tony hosted a party in Barry and Sholeh's loft downtown. The place was lovely, the conversation excellent and spiced with laughter, and the Persian cuisine was wonderful. Writers from both days attended, and Tony even brought along a little Hollywood, as Kimberly Oja (an OC regular) showed up. I told Elena that I felt a little out of place, outclassed, Fresno boy that I continue to be, but truly the gathering was warm and I was happy to cab Stuart and Jill Bialosky back to their hotel around midnight, and then the 405 back to the Hacienda.

Road Trip, Day 2, plus meme

Friday in LA was soft, warm, no plans or obligations. Just a few possibilities that never came to pass. I did the California thing--shopped in an upscale mall built no doubt on reclaimed toxic ground next to the refinery. Wine and a blazer. That's what I bought. Then I explored El Segundo, which merited all of that second as the cafe I stopped in for caffeine blared a soap opera. The walk was good. The beach was unwelcoming unless you were in an RV. The hotel lunch wasn't bad, a Mexican buffet of sorts, but the seafood soup was a very pleasant surprise. Just killing time until the evening.

The LA Times Book Awards ceremony was, as usual, long, but pleasant enough. I sat with Elena and fellow "Fresno Poet" and friend David St. John and his lovely daughter. You can check out the winners here, if you're interested. I was mostly interested in poetry, and Stanley Plumly won that for Old Heart: Poems among many worthy nominees this year (Albert Goldbarth, Marvin Bell, Jean Valentine, and Elaine Equii). The afterparty was lavish as usual, with chocolate fountains and food stations that featured lobster farfarelle and Korean barbecue shortribs and sushi and other savory items. We ate and drank, ate and drank, and talked into the evening. Stuart Dischell was also there, old brother in the word, another transplant to the south, and Albert was delightfully witty, as usual. The evening passed quickly into memory and I made it back to the Hacienda early enough to rest up for the book festival.

Because this is shorter, I'm going to take care of some meme nonsense because Chryss and Amy E. said I have to.

Here are the rules:
A) The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
B) Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.
C) At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) Ten years ago I was...
finishing my PhD, which I defended the same day the Santa Barbara pier caught fire. Driving back from LAX, I saw it burn fiercely and bright, probably all that creosote, but I thought from some distance it was all of downtown.

2) Five things on today's to-do list:
Lunch (Sonia's Cuban) with Carson and Taylor, Toby's rec letter, proof poems for Chattahoochee Review, syllabus for tomorrow, house show (Honest A's reunion cf. Carson above) tonight.

3) Things I'd do if I were a billionaire:
Hmmm. Are supermodels things? Bad joke, but really, don't you have to be some kind of asshole to hoard that much money? I'd like to think I wouldn't keep that much. I'd have to start some kind of foundation divided between environmental and human rights concerns that would keep me from every accumulating that much money.

4) Three bad habits:
Hmmm. 1) I procrastinate. I'll do the other two later.

5) Five places I've lived:
Here (Valdosta), there (Fresno), Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Salt Lake City, Utah. (That's six, but I'm still down two bad habits, and maybe Fresno counts as one of my bad habit[at]s?)

6) Six jobs I've had in my life:
Custodian, Snack Bar slave, Statistical Clerk (US Forest Service), Life Insurance Agent, High School Teacher, College Professor. (Be honest, guys, how many of you typed "blow" and then erased it.)

I'll tag Mike and Liz and John and all of my Myspace friends.

Road Trip: LA, Santa Barbara, Fresno: Part 1

The Hacienda Hotel next to LAX is cheesy, good, LA cheesy, 4o's or 50's American Cheese that tries to convince you you're in a more glamorous place than you are, visiting a more glamorous and exotic time, say, the quaint Mexico of TV yore, Zorro and the Cisco Kid Mexico--courtyards and fountains and murals (and there should be sequins on hats), its own dive bar to acclimatize you to time travel with Margaritas or Bud Light. Tourists, mostly from Europe, add to the confusion, German, French, Russian spoken here. Spanish, too, but mostly by the maids and janitors. It's tall and jets whiz into and out of LAX just to the north. To the south, the tall spires of El Segundo's refineries rise holy in this late era of gas and oil blinking red warnings to airplanes in the night. The air is warm and I'm tired, but I have a dinner date with friends, so head down Sepulveda to Palos Verdes with my little bag of dried Georgia porcini to contribute to the meal.

Palos Verdes is eucalyptus and peacocks and 60's California ranch homes and horseback trails on the hills overlooking the sea and the city. Elena Karina Byrne, my dear friend and fellow poet and the reason I get to go back to LA every year, shows me her house and its lovely view, and we begin cooking very quickly. She's planned to use my porcini in a recipe that calls for heavy cream and balsamic vinegar, a combination I'm ready to be surprised by. It's good to catch up, to be back in California. Peter and their daughter are at soccer nationals, so will arrive later. In fact, the big news around the house is their daughter's full scholarship to Oregon to play soccer. She's still a junior. She's that good. Every few minutes Elena and I have to go check the view, sundown over the city, lights coming on, the mountains in the distance, Santa Monica bay just visible to the north. And we catch up about mutual friends and friends she made out here when she visited. It's warm and we dine and the porcini sauce over the chicken is fantastic and holds up nicely to red wine. It's nice to be there with my friend in her lovely home, warm, almost ethereal. Elena shows me some new poems and they spark in the mind, bare wires against sheet metal beautiful, and we read until Pete and C. arrive from soccer.

It's good to see Pete, too, and we catch up, too. He's on tour with Naked Eyes this summer on a big east coast swing with ABC and Belinda Carlisle and Flock of Seagulls and, I think, the Human League. It's fun to hear him reminisce about seeing Hendrix and Traffic and Syd's Pink Floyd and Clapton's various incarnations when they were just coming out. He plays me some of his new music, the 80's synth-pop influences still prominent, but in a deeper timbre, more mature. The demos sound excellent and ready to go, though he points out how much more work they need in the studio. Then I head back down to the Hacienda, past the peacocks and eucalyptus trees, warm in the belly, warm in the head, tired from all the travel .

Califone and Iron and Wine, Freebird's, Jacksonville, April 13

"Rhythm"

Easier trip this time, earlier, time for dinner (Mexican food, not bad), time to walk on Jacksonville Beach on a sparkling perfect late afternoon and watch the ocean hush and hush before the Sunday evening show. This time my traveling companion was Andrea, lead singer of Night Driving in Small Towns, a graduate student who writes wonderful poetry and songs.

Freebird's is an odd, two-storey venue where some of the crowd looks down on the stage from upstairs, but it's charming in its own way. It's owned (if the name of the venue didn't clue you in) by an ex-Lynard Skynard musician, and the resident sound guy was Molly Hatchet offspring (no evidence of those Satellites), so Southern heritage was thick as a tick on a sleeping redbone hound. But Sam Beam is from around these parts, so the Jacksonville show doubled as a homecoming of sorts. His parents and other family members attended, so Iron and Wine played a generous, enthusiastic, passionate, and outstanding set.

"Melody"

Califone opened, and this time, we were there before the start. They eased into the show with a sweet "Tayzee Nubb." This time the crowd was more aware, interested, and clearly many in the audience knew the oeuvre and grooved along. They moved through their short set seamlessly between [Roots and Crowns] material and older works. "Orchids" surprises no matter how many times I hear it, and "Fisherman's Wife" after "The Eye You Lost in the Crusades" reminds us that music is pure time and stops it. Feel its rhythms directly; lose count. "Horoscope Amputation Honey" has become Califone's raga live, as its slow opening, its folky troubled poem ("braid your sins into its mane/and kick it to the county line/shake your chains cold and loose/there's nothing safe in your stars") builds into a bardo of rhythm and improvisation that hurts when it stops. Live, it's a folk-shaman symphony. They turn it up.

Sam Beam and his bassist (superb Chicago guy with a great sense of humor) came out to help finish the set, and, while the quieter "Spider's House" played more to Iron and Wine's traditional fan base, they erupted into "Pink and Sour," surprising for its heavy harem flavors and its strong rhythms. The bass crunched magnificently and Sam added to the strong rhythm superbly. And that was it.

After the show, everyone was happy. After goodbyes, Andrea and I drove two hours back to Valdosta, all the music in our heads keeping us awake and talking.

cellphone photos courtesy Andrea Rogers

Tallahassee Roadtrip: Califone and Iron and Wine

Getting to The Moon in Tallahassee on the 10th wasn't as easy as the 86 miles between us, since I had to sit through a stomach-churning committee meeting an hour too long. My wonderfully patient friend Dixie and I unfortunately arrived late, too late to go out to dinner before the show (The Moon's gumbo, though, ain't too shabby), and just in time to catch Califone's last two songs--"Orchids" and "The Eye You Lost in The Crusades." It wasn't even 9:30. The crowd (lots of FSU kids admitted free with ID), clearly showed up only because " free with ID," and maybe because they'd sorta kinda heard that Iron & Wine song on an M&M's commercial or something and somebody in the sorority said like one of their indie rock nerd friend's said it like might be awesome, and so they talked loud and had already drunk too much. Only 9:30 and some guy passes flat out in front of the stage during "Eye," a beautiful and arresting song, that, yes, could in fact cause one to swoon, so perhaps I'm being harsh. To be fair, plenty in the audience knew what they were listening to and were also irritated by the fraterlopers.

Tim Rutili, whose writing I've long admired, was kind enough to come out and wait with me for Dixie, who was out talking to guitarist and filmmaker Jim Becker, dutifully handling merch duties after the set. Tim rescued us and let us back stage where I caught up with him and Joe Adamik and Ben Massarella. Dixie had a good time hearing Joe reminisce about his single Valdosta experience way back when he was married to a woman who spoke only French. The owner of Groucho's (a classic dive and current biker bar called Mikki's) almost kicked Joe's band out because they refused to cover Skynard or Molly Hatchet or the Georgia Satellites, demonstrating that our famous deep South hospitality doesn't apparently apply when it comes to issues of musical diversity.


Iron & Wine began with their earlier quieter works, just Sam Beam with his acoustic and his sister Sarah with violin, pleasing those in the crowd who like Sam Beam's whispering ballads, his quiet stories. Then the entire band joined him, deftly weaving complex rhythms and melodies without overwhelming Sam Beam's natural vocal gifts. In fact, the bigger sound brings out the richness and purity of his voice, and live he proved that Shepard's Dog wasn't all Brian Deck's brilliant production. Every song on the setlist sparkled, especially my favorite from the new album, "Pagan Angel in a Borrowed Car," its southern love-gothic imagery clear and dark ("Love was our father's flag and sewn like a shank/In a cake on our leather boots/A beautiful feather floating down/To where the birds had shit our empty chapel pews) against surprising uplifting rhythms. The backing band was tight all evening, but never mechanical.

Watching from backstage, I focused on Ben Massarella, who plays in both bands, while he worked his percussive wizardry. Usually, from the front, he's hard to see, especially in larger venues. He's constantly picking something up and putting it down, his head bobbing behind the bank of "stuff" he plays like a bear hesitant to come out of the cave after a winter of hibernation, lots of up and down, lots of beautiful noise, that full head of hair, but mysterious. From the back, I watched him pick up instrument after instrument, many found objects, and make the perfect, perfectly timed, bang, shirrrr, ting, beat, or rattle. At times he held so many odd sound-fetishes live in his hands like spirit animals, it looked like he was performing shamanic ritual exorcism (especially during the thundering extended finale of "Horoscope Amputation Honey" in Jacksonville, more on that later). He also smiles when he plays; he loves the music, the sound he helps sculpture. I mentioned my amazement to Tim after the show. He just nodded and smiled, said, "He plays the air."

Photos by Dixie.

Visitors

Blogging and entertaining visitors for me are mutually exclusive, but I don't mind when people come and hang out here in Valdosta to read poetry or go to the swamp and look for alligators, so if either one of you missed me, please know the cause was righteous and just. First Elena Karina Byrne* (link on the list), a long-time friend, came and read from her new book Masque and taught in my beginning creative writing and contemporary literature class. She stayed for several days and I cooked, which was fun, and the reading was terrific even though I had to throw a sorority out of the building. Standing up to well-dressed, privileged girls, threatening to call security (we were in the right, so I wasn't being a jackass here), was one of my prouder moments. My proudest moment, however, was pulling a sourdough loaf out of the oven that looked and tasted like real sourdough, with the wonderful chewiness and the lightly sour tang that the local strain gives the bread. The next night I turned the remaining dough into a lovely pizza crust, which set itself off perfectly against the fresh sauce and aged fontina, provolone, and parmigiano reggiano. Best pizza I ever made, and second best Elena had ever had (after Italy, she says). Her wonderful smile was worth it all.

My nephew, Erick, also visited, beginning early Sunday, so we cooked on Happy Wake Up Jesus Day a fine leg of lamb, which has since become curry. He came to classes, to the reading, and enjoyed the post-reading "party" with former student and friend Jessica, who showed up with a bottle of the Captain and somebody found a shot glass and, somehow, we ended up in the back yard at midnight doing hula hoops. Fortunately, I stayed away from the captain (as did Erick) and so can document the late night silliness, and can say with no small amount of pride that I can, in fact, still hula that hoop. We did make it out to Grand Bay and spotted a large alligator not too far from the viewing tower, so our swamp trip was also a success. Erick also managed to find time to skateboard and we had fun walking around Little 5 Points in Atlanta, eating at the Vortex, buying T-Shirts at La Petite Mort, before he hopped on the plane for Coos Bay.

Note: Elena and I will be reading together Sunday, April 27th, 10:00 AM at the LA Times Festival of Books Poetry Corner.

Spring Broken

All the kids are at the beach drinking and smoking too much and reawakening their tan lines while spring arrives in fits and starts, tornadoes and frost and warm days in among them fooling us that winter's over, really. It's the spring of a thousand broken candidacies, the wrong time for a recession and our continuing national decay, the spring my congressional representative calls me and leaves a message on my phone to say he just wants to chat. What would I say to him? Thanks, Jack, for getting Stephen Colbert in front of the National Press Corps to ream the administration and especially the corps? Sure, but other than that, we agree on nothing I can think of. When I think of national security, I don't think of defense spending and war and spies and terrorists. I think of the security of our privacy, of our rights, of our ethos as a nation. These things erode from the inside, as when we violate our own laws, evade our own checks and balances. We don't need no stinkin' terrorists. This is our national insecurity, our belly-flop into the pool of blood and silence, of acquiescence to this culture of voyeurism and violation and torture.

Recently, the FCC fined ABC $1 million + for an episode of NYPD that originally aired in 2003. This is old news, but if you go watch the scene in question, you'll get a sense of what truly frightens this administration. Modesty. Privacy. A woman readies to take a shower; a boy walks in; she covers herself, mortified. The scene brilliantly turns on the voyeurism of the viewer, just settling in to see another famous NYPD Blue ass shot. She's relaxed, natural, alone (except for the eyes of the nation), and she exposes all of us and our desire to spy on her as she disrobes. And it's this repudiation of our cultural voyeurism that the FCC fears most. Go watch "reality." Watch Big Brother, then go online to catch the T&A. Watch CSI Miami, all its thongs and all its access to personal information, "for our protection." We are a people in training to be watched 24/7, and we're expected to like it. ABC isn't being fined for showing Charlotte Ross' ass. The FCC is fining them because she catches us looking, because she covers up.

AWP Moments*

Dinner the first evening with the Utah crowd (delectably tender short ribs at Thalia).

Lunch with Elena Byrne at the Stage Deli for a 21 dollar sandwich.

With Mark Strand on the street talking about wine. (He corrected my pronunciation of Sassacaia, a wonderful wine however you say it.)

Drinking the stuff with Kurt Brown and Wyn Cooper and Shawna Parker and Katie Coles and Steven Huff. What was that Grenache again, Katie? Who was that guy taking notes? Following it up with magnificent gyros from the street cart.

One of my favorite poets, Kim Addonizio, stops me and calls me by name. Too, too briefly.

In the lobby catching up with Terry Hummer.

Chinese food with John Guzlowski and running into Thom Ward, in search of his missing Fedora, on the way out.

"Eye Spy" with Paula while Margot Schilpp entertained her and Jeff Mock's lovely baby Leah.

Lunch with David Oliveira and Florence Weinberger at that little Thai place, then later seeing proofs of David's new book with his publisher, Peter Money.

The panel "Being Crazy Doesn't Make You Interesting" (in order of appearance) with colleague and organizer Jeffrey Vasseur, me, Marita Golden, Bob Shacochis, Amy Bloom, and David Kranes.

With Robert Pinsky after his reading remembering together Thom Gunn.

Talking to Rebecca Fussell while she waited for Anna Gatewood to show up.

With Wyn, Shawna, Tom Hazuka, and Ralph Wilson in the Old Castle where I ran into the delightful Joy Castro for the forth time while we wondered if Martin Amis would find us (he didn't).

Talking about Larry Levis with Alex Long and his former students in the conference hotel bar.

Seeing Yerra Sugarman again in her NYC element.

Answering the question, "Where's Amy?"

The other Utah dinner at Sardi's: steak tartar with fries.

Not being confused with Scott Cairns for a change (he's grown long, lovely locks) and meeting his long, lovely wife, Marcia.

With fellow Berkeley alum Sharon Dolin, talking about tough times, and finding out the good news that Bob Hicok had picked her book for Pitt.

Central Park and MOMA with Wyn and Shawna.

*The conference as a whole huge. There were many people I wanted to see that I didn't see (Jackie Osherow, Jill Rosser, to name two that I knew were there) or didn't see enough of (Rodney Jones, Kim Addonizio, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Bob Wrigley, Kim Barnes, Mary Flynn, Greg Donovan, Mark Jarman). These are a few of the moments outside of slogging through crowds to panels or book tables that stood out.

Road Trip, Valdosta to New Haven (New York City)

Was a distant voice
Made me make a choice
That I had to get the fuck out of this town
I got a lot of things to do
A lot of places to go
I've got a lot of good things coming my way
And I'm afraid to say that you're not one of them.

-- "Box Elder," Pavement

I had to head north for a conference, for some peace on a long drive, distance from and distance to heartbreak and a night at the home of the best poet writing today in America along the way. Wine (thanks Uncle Gene) and a fine dinner with Bob and Eve and much laughter, a few honest tears. Tears, because, honestly, no matter how much you do, it's not enough if you care, whether Blacksburg or Fresno or Valdosta, anyplace where people can't stop what's in their heads.

The road is a sweet hum otherwise, a veer and a slope, movement and purpose even in a dubious rented Aveo, but it had a CD player and I drove and listened and drove and made good time through all the states 75, 85, 77, 81, 78, 287, and 95 touch. I went the back way up and down, felt the mountains behind me, drank bad coffee and gripped the cold steel of the pump at gas stations, thanked all the fine people who sold me water and m&ms and who let me pee in the employee restrooms. I made it to New Haven in good time on day two, had Pizza from famous Pepe's with my beautiful daughter and James, her beau, and then headed into the city for AWP, which will be another entry. This is about the road and the way the mountains fur with trees in winter, about every white line saying I miss you all the way, north and south, Tim's voice singing it whisper soft, SM explaining why the hard way through Georgia rain and construction zones and Shenandoah Valley and where New Jersey is pretty, trochaic tire thump miss yous, slow miss yous in the wind and the miss miss of wipers whipping only the rain off the glass, and it's ok, this hard work, this forty hours of missing you. Coming home, south, it was all I could do to keep myself from hitting 87 North, north and north to where you are, but I couldn't do that because I wanted to too much. Too much.

Not blogging lately

Well, for the one or two readers perhaps wondering why nothing is here lately, my life has been otherwise occupied and this forum hasn't been the appropriate place for my musings. I'll resume when my attentions can go elsewhere.

It's been about as cold as it gets here. Yesterday I lifted an octagonal pane of clear ice from the birdbath. looked through the crisp blur of it at the house across the street. The cat sniffs the gap in the door I've opened so she can go out, and she backs up, turns around. Me, too. Me, too.

Five percent solution?

Hillary wins by a tear, according to the pundits. I saw the clip, and she seemed genuinely moved, and such a moment shouldn't be read as weak, though among the more endomorphish Americans, those who would prefer the cartoon from 300 for president, or Ahnold, the tear will provide proof that Hillary should go back to baking cookies.

But that's not the point. The real point here is that the press is jonesing so hard for story that they're starting to make them up, passing judgments and pronouncements so often that they don't even have time to notice their own contradictions, their own shaping of the outcome. To whit, while everyone argues whether Hillary weeps the tears of a clown (though the press was around) or crocodile tears or that this redeems Edmund Muskie's "dirty trick" snowflakes, the real story goes untold, perhaps because one might have to make reference to observer effects (you know, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in physics).

The press spent so much time salivating over Obama's poll numbers that it affected the outcome. Why be part of a double-digit assured victory when one might have more New Hampshire-style impact by voting in the republican primary to dump Romney? There's also the little matter of ballot design, which a Stanford scholar argues cost Obama 3% of the vote. But a single tear, a five percent solution (i.e. a ten percent swing) to a double-digit deficit? That's a better story. It's just not the real story.

(I haven't, by the way, joined the camp of either candidate, but the way this has been covered, even on NPR, has been outrageous, though an astute New Hampshire caller on the Diane Rihm show this morning pointed out the anti-Romney response to the earlier polls suggesting Obama was a lock.)

Congratulations to Jackson Wheeler, Burning Down the House

After finding out that John was recognized by Writer's Almanac, I received word that old California friend Jackson Wheeler's "How Good Fortune Surprises Us" is today's pick by former Laureate Ted Kooser on today's American Life in Poetry column. It's a pdf, but Jackson's worth downloading any software you might need. Hit the link.