It's a Good Things We All Wear Clothes (!)

Starting a couple of new projects.

Got free tix to the Russian Ballet at the Fox.

There were a surprisingly large number of Russians in attendance.

JT spent a lot of time trying to liberate a frisbee caught in a tree

It was tense to say the least.

Just got this book

I am really digging Condo's figures

especially these

and these.

And I heard Anthony McCann give a reading as part of the Emory Poetry Series. Everyone reading that night was incredible. You should get his new book out by Wave Books and read it out loud to yourself or whoever happens to be sleeping beside you. Here is a poem:

FIELD WORK

by Anthony McCann

Later, on the ridge, in samurai dress

I appear. It's me. In mustache. And gear.

The most is full of

CHERRYBLOSSOMS and I count

the cries of

BIRDS. Beyond that moat is

TEENAGE FRANCE. There youths frolic,

pace and

resemble me. But

what kind of person

is a person

like this? My fingers

put shadows

on all of the

birds

as just

beyond song

birds

scrape up the sky.

We ride

on a haycart

down through

their codes. In the village

the villagers

dress

in blue codes. Our fathers

make shadows

all over their

caps. I mean

our fingers

make shadows

on the faces

of cops. We cross the

late bridge

to our fathers.

Sugar, Mr. Poon?

Last week there were television shows being filmed at the end of the block at both my house and my studio.

Catering trucks seemed to be everywhere I went.

I must live a very cinematic life.

Or my life is very made for TV.

Whoever thought of putting rye and fernet branca together had vision.

Indeed, this post is going to be completely muddled

much like my brain.

Who can stay focused in the spring?

I haven't seen as much art lately as I have been hearing people talk about it.

Listened to John Yau who said when he was starting out he moved to new york to be a poet and for money he planned to either "be an art critic or an x-ray technician" depending.

He said he didn't want to go into academia because he didn't know what a poem was.

Similarly, when it comes to art he likes to "be in a situation where I don't know what I am looking at."

I like that as well.

Like Yau said, "you have to get beyond what's happening in your own thinking." I think maybe I'll just start quoting him from now on when people ask me questions.

Saw Jizzle De Jizz

Those guys I enjoy every time.

Speaking of, I went to the Goat Farm

and shot a video.

Attractive fellows coming soon to a computer screen near you.

Yau is also working on some poems that are a play on words

"more true bull ahead"

"disguise the limit"

"believe it alone"

Am I allowed to post those online?

What are the rules for posting someone's poetry? I don't know. I don't ask.

William was back in town for a visit.

This tends to involve shoe shopping

and sparkly things

we're planning something for May that has great potential for being hilarious and if it goes well then you too will be wondering what you are looking at.

Mike Germon, "Our Lady of the TriForce."

Saw these Germon's at Aurora.

Mike Germon, "Nudes."

Statuary.

It's not William, it's six foot five inch Zoey now. This woman came up to Zoey and asked "so were do you dance?"

You could call that moment the Ecstasy of Saint Zoey

Garden update: strawberries survived the winter

Weeded and seeded

and spinach has starting popping up (rather late but here nonetheless!)

tender little babes

trying a hand at zucchini.

And this is my new favorite thing. Riverview Farms has gone mobile and roams neighborhoods selling the best grassfed beef and spicy sausage and eggs you will ever eat. I follow them around on my bike like it's an ice cream truck.

You can get their weekly schedule here.

Poke in the Eye

Schutz show coming to a close.

Heard poet Paul Guest give a reading amongst all those drawings.

Schutz, "Untitled," 2005, Gouache and Ink on Paper, 14"x20"

His poems start with a particular question or thought. If you could interview Godzilla what would you ask?

Schutz, "How We Would Talk," 2007, Ink on Paper, 22"x23"

A drawing by Schutz starts with a question too.

Schutz, "Swim, Smoke, Cry," Detail, 2010, Gouache and Ink on Paper, 38"x50"

How do you depict someone swimming, crying, and smoking?

Schutz, "Untitled," 2008, Ink on Paper, 19"x25"

NOTES FOR MY BODY DOUBLE

by Paul Guest

The plot hole by which you must enter in

to the story is a doozy, a real humdinger,

if you will, and it is all made of fire,

the way the stars are made of fire,

though we dream them to be utterly cold

and prickly with a sad light. Nothing

ever stops in my world to hear me

singing to you. I have always loved you,

sweet twin, beloved doppelgänger,

alien lump of word in my mouth,

language I spent three years learning

only to forget when it grew too hard

the phrases that meant something:

Dear, I am your long lost butter cookie;

and, I am sorry, it was accidental,

but I have dipped the poodle in laudanum.

Let us do away with digression

for the night, though to me

it has always seemed the heart’s core,

and think on our motivation

for the lines to follow:

the suddenness of our sorrow is shocking

and the day is hollowed out

and here at this moment,

this crucial hinge of the breaking heart,

I think of the day years ago

when I was a boy and came upon my uncle,

a fish’s tail clamped in his teeth,

tearing the skin from the fish with such force

I could hear it —

and I felt so strange and empty

I have never spoken of it

to anyone, or let myself on a day

whole with sun think of it.

What he was doing, and why,

I never asked; there is never

an answer large enough for a world

so huge with meanness.

And I was pulled from myself

but couldn’t feel a thing,

and this is your motivation,

mirrored self, speaking back

the words I make wrongly,

lifting the heavy, crude lot of anything

I can’t. You must know me

exactly, apart from yourself,

to give back to the world what I can’t.

You must know the angles

of light so well the shadows

will accept you like a brother.

You must not choke back my breath

when the ashes on the wind

blind even the birds in the trees.

Schutz, "Poke," Detail, 2010, Ink on Paper, 20"x18"