Action, Yes - Taking Submissions (till May 15th)

The on-line journal (editors Johannes Goransson and Joyelle McSweeney) Action, Yes is taking Submissions till May 15th.

E-mail submissions to submissions@actionyes.org

A Slow Day in Hollywood

--I'm staring at curtains.

--I'm watching a "Fey" Video
("Lentamente"-- perfect, just fucking perfect)

--German's such a sexy language. Large hard breasts. Black spiked panties.

--I'm thinking of lying under the bed. (It's safe there. Where the dogs go when the Pirates shoot up loud-colored vomit.)

--I need some anti-aging cream.

--This ink's running. I am so damned ripped.

--I'm watching New York goes to Hollywood (bent over and whining on a treadmill. O, Tiffany. O, Tiffany. no, not really.)

--Maybe I should go downstairs and count birds.

--I get so many emails asking me to go back out on tour. Yawn.

--It's snowing somewhere. A bird flying up over the snow. No.

--My asshole's itching but I'm too tired to roll over.

--And now I'm listening to Elton John's "Original Sin"



Oh, it's carnival night
And they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels
Painting little devils on the roof

Oh the furnace wind
Is a flickering of wings about your face
In a cloud of incense
Yea, it smells like Heaven

The Art of the Blurb - Raped by A Sharp Object

On his blog, Eunuch Blues, Brian Foley (self-described as a "sharp object) goes after the Art of the Blurb.

The Mockingbird Blurb!

(and proves that he is indeed a sharp object.)


The phrase that caught my eye and adrenaline's "blowing on a rape whistle."


On a similar note, here (on my Facebook Group for Holy Land) is how I introduce my book's blurbs

"My woman says there is no one whom she'd rather marry
than me, not even Jupiter, if he came courting,
That's what she says-- but what a woman says to a
passionate lover
ought to be scribbled on wind, on running water."
(Catullus, translated by Charles Martin)

that being said, to follow are the blurbs on the back
of "Holy Land"

Ringing Video Contest (and Audio now on-line)

my e-chapbook "Ringing" (free on line) now has audio of me reading the poems).... and Kitchen Press is running a video contest....

here are the guidelines:

"Kitchen Press is now accepting submissions of short home-made videos to accompany individual poems from Rauan Klassnik's on-line chapbook "Ringing"

The six winning videos will be posted on the Ringing website and the six winning authors (video makers) will receive their choice of either one Black Ocean book or two Kitchen Press chapbooks (subject to availability) shipped to a U.S. address.

Deadline: June 15, 2009 (winners to be announced and videos posted to website shortly thereafter).

Rules: there are no rules.

Guidelines and Preferences:

1- send all inquiries and submissions to ringingvideo(at)yahoo.com

2- Three or less videos per submission

3- One Video per email. So, if you're submitting 2 videos please send 2 emails.

4- Each Video should correspond to an individual Ringing poem. (There are 19 of them, including cover poem, Death Poems, End-Page poem)

5- Each Video should incorporate, in some form, the words of its corresponding poem

6- If you would like us to send you the mp3 file(s) of Rauan reading one or more of the poems please send an inquiry. You can listen to these on the Ringing website.

7- Since the Ringing poems are short (and the mp3 files of Rauan reading them range from 5-22 seconds only) we'd prefer short videos.

8- All levels of sophistication are welcome"

Hoping to get lots of video submissions so please help spread the word. Tell friends. Post on blog(s), etc.... Thanks

$8100 and rising!

Tao Lin is selling his MySpace account on Ebay.
(auction ends in about 30 minutes)

here's the lot's description:


----------------------
This auction is for NYC-author Tao Lin's Myspace account.

The winner will receive Tao Lin's Myspace account's email and password, gaining (1) access to Tao Lin's ~1500 Myspace friends and (2) a percentage, maybe .5% - 5%, of Tao Lin's internet presence/identity. This transfer of internet presence/identity is "concrete," or "actual," in that Tao Lin will not engage in any behavior that will inhibit the new owner's access/range/freedom to "do whatever" with/to Tao Lin's Myspace account (in a manner Tao Lin "himself" might "do whatever" with/to), including but not limited to [anything that can be thought of]. Tao Lin will not edit his Myspace page in any way from as it now exists. *HOWEVER* Immediately before Tao Lin transfers the account to the winner Tao Lin will make one bulletin post saying that the Myspace page, myspace.com/taolin, is now "being controlled" by "a different entity." The bulletin will be vague. Probably less than 150 people will read it and less than 30 people will focus "hard enough" to know what it is conveying. *BUT* If bidding exceeds $666 no such bulletin will be made, people will "simply" not know that anything has happened, as they continue to Myspace message myspace.com/taolin "fan mail" or "requests to hang out" or [3-5 other things that get messaged to myspace.com/taolin sometimes], write on myspace.com/taolin's wall, and friend request myspace.com/taolin.

If you have questions go to the following post on Tao Lin's Tumblr account:

a post on Tao Lin's Tumblr where you can ask questions or anonymously shit-talk

and post your questions in the comments section, where anonymous comments are allowed, and Tao Lin will answer your questions within 24 hours.

Tao Lin (b. 1983) is the author of the forthcoming novella SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL (Melville House, Sept. 2009) and four previous books

Paypal is accepted.

Sincerely,

Tao Lin, CEO
Tao Lin Store ™
-------------------------------

and, here are the most recent bids:



1***m US $8,100.00 May-03-09 15:44:24 PDT

a***y US $8,000.00 May-03-09 15:31:52 PDT

1***m US $8,000.00 May-03-09 15:44:14 PDT

l***m US $7,500.00 May-03-09 15:44:04 PDT

l***m US $7,000.00 May-03-09 15:43:46 PDT

1***m US $6,500.00 May-03-09 15:43:37 PDT

l***m US $6,000.00 May-03-09 15:43:28 PDT

l***m US $5,500.00 May-03-09 15:43:03 PDT

l***m US $5,000.00 May-03-09 15:42:51 PDT

l***m US $4,000.00 May-03-09 15:42:08 PDT

1***m US $3,500.00 May-03-09 15:41:01 PDT

l***m US $3,000.00 May-03-09 15:40:51 PDT

1***m US $2,500.00 May-03-09 15:39:40 PDT

l***m US $2,000.00 May-03-09 15:39:28 PDT

l***m US $1,500.00 May-03-09 15:39:17 PDT

l***m US $1,000.00 May-03-09 15:39:08 PDT

The Steaks are Big Here

(An Argentinian restaurant. Two nights before my wedding.......Ahhhhh....)

The Red Moon

Tonight the mountains turned a shade of purple they sometimes do round the Red Sea. I watched bats feeding. Sometimes they skim down over the water when it's dark blue. Anne Frank believed people are basically good when she didn't believe they're not. People die in the woods hunting. People die in bed fucking. People die pissing on each other. You can walk down to the sea. You can sit down and pray. The Red Sea has beautiful boardwalks. The one here's not so bad. Sometimes Mayan Witches swirl down out of the sky and ask you for money. Iguanas climb up into the moon and it turns red. There are 700,000 homeless dogs. Wagging their tails and prancing on their back feet. There are bells ringing in their eyes. One day I dumped them in the sea and it hasn't stopped barking.

How the Duck Drowned

Duck was drinking.

Duck went swimming.

Duck drowned.

The Fool: Rauan Klassnik is not important

Reb Livingston dreams about me. And writes about it on her blog.

Reb (in a dream not involving Rauan Klassnik) says she was "underwater playing some kind of fish game."

Reb says "Rauan Klassnik is not important."

Reb's No Tell Motel is open to submissions now.

Reb reads lots of books about dreaming.

Reb wants to approach life as a fool.

A few nights ago I dreamed about some baby hummingbirds I found in a man-made nest under a wooden deck in an abandoned lot. They looked like baby Love Birds. Two men who'd looked quite threatening a moment before were suddenly telling me all about hummingbirds. I think the lot was Clayton's.

In other news:
I washed my dog today.


(p.s. Reb's a very good friend.)

Poem a Day - Milk, Glimmering and Whispering

Some how or other I'm subscribed to Poets.org so this time of year I get a daily Poem-A-Day email.

Here's what I got today:



Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle
by John Updike


The celebrated windows flamed with light
directly pouring north across the Seine;
we rustled into place. Then violins
vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength, then Brahms,
seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness,
bit by bit, the vigor from the red,
the blazing blue, so that the listening eye
saw suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes
of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held
the holy glowing fantasy together.
The music surged; the glow became a milk,
a whisper to the eye, a glimmer ebbed
until our beating hearts, our violins
were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead.


Seems like an accomplished version of the epiphany travel poem I railed against on this blog a long time ago.