Todd Colby & Jeni Olin Read!

Zinc Bar Reading Series

Sunday October 12th

Todd Colby + Jeni Olin

For more stuff to know about the Zinc Reading Series:
Lungfull. org/Zinc/

ZINC BAR is at 90 West Houston between Laguardia & Thompson in New York City's Greenwich Village.

This one promises to be wonderful.

Lucky Dragons

Vincent Gallo

Marnie Stern!

Hawnay Troof on Chic-A-Go-Go

Deerhoof

Revealed!

We can talk about the secret of death while tethered together by the lace we once curled around the breaker box of grandma's neck. Think of electricity as nothing more than a profound pinch from death's bony finger. In the open with wet feet we feel lanky of build and able to twist off the end of the bread bag with a wrench. A toast to the buildings that still stand! A toast to the trees that are feigning longevity! A toast to the pets that will die in our arms! Death has a fake marble hallway and mock velvet curtains inside the pretend mind fuck mansion. Death has a shark stuffed with eucalyptus and calls that installation art. Death knows no bounds, the cure is waiting where you'll fall one day; a patch of ground that you'll be smashed on is waiting for your body. Until then, shout and make the candy crunch between your teeth. Ask for the gas at the dentist and all of these things will be revealed to you. All of them. Don't be disgusted.

High Places (More!)

What is Sweltering

Under the sheet
there is a balloon
a plate of wet deer
a backpack
full of lava soap
a Q-tip
stained with bike grease
an aluminum charm bracelet
something
with menthol
in it.

High Places--Gold Coin

Listen to pure goodness--The new High Places release is out now--do yourself a favor and buy it. Listen to more here.

Top Book of Poetry

1) City of Corners by John Godfrey

Remembering a Deerhoof & Justin Birthday Card (June 13, 2006)

Modes of Humility

You might want to get over your feelings of anxiety by buying some shit from people that look sad about what they gave up to sell shit to people like you. If your awareness of this situation adds to your anxiety then you should watch some television and wait until you see a commercial for a medicine describing your condition and then seek out that medicine even if it causes chaos of the mind.

There is always going to be someone whispering something in a coded language that you don’t quite understand. They may be talking about the feeling that things are collapsing, or that you make them feel uncomfortable, or that the world has gone bananas. Well you know what? That’s their job.

When some people become anxious they feel the need to be photographed or filmed. That's why certain people clear brush or wave when they exit an airplane. It's all about the hazards of thinking you don't really exist unless your existence is documented in a manner befitting a person of that caliber. Here’s a project for you the next time you feel upset about something in the news: practice signing your name in a large loopy scrawl so that when the people ask for your autograph you'll be ready. You should always be ready to do what you can for the people.

Let me suggest that you should shed your romantic tendencies. I already know what you’re thinking—so just consider this: fantasy escapes no one-- people are getting dead every single day because of fantasies. And here’s the real creamy center: There has never been a romantic movement among mathematicians.

Let me put it country simple: Lack of fear leads to injury, and injury leads to romanticism, and that's just one way of saying there's nothing like a bone poking out from your shin to bring things into focus.

Sparkle of Fear

Wash my face with your arm
suck the meat from behind my lids
a fancy boy with kinky paddles
slurps ghost juice from a milk hog
while toot muscle goth takes a razor to a shark
and stuffs it full of spicy mink blossoms.

All you have to do is read
and leave the rest to the medicine
which is leaking from a valve
a thick soup of iodine and sugar
is pumped into your heart
spanking your brain with the sparkle of fear
so you can get lumped while loaded.

I really dig your modern outlook.

Song

It's so cold
where it
never hurts.

Relaxing

In the same way that 100 mosquito bites are relaxing.

Bright Lint Pump

A bright lint pump
makes the air
"to sparkle."
Yearn to wobble
long of hope
short of cash
a little sprinkle
of "just can't"
and "fucking trapped"
so when people
have hedges
the hedges
get clipped
and that's a job
for someone
the papers
have stories
each page
a little something
to remember
you buy
stuff when
you're being attacked
and then
throw what you bought
over the blood.

Hey Codeine Breath

Fork over your tongue axe
you bring a special batch
of lethargy and loopiness
that stains the sheets
with marble dust. Damn it!
I'll half you into squares
& serve mint toast on monkey skulls.
The Moral: what's dirty
gets hammered,
then smashed,
then enraged, then mystified,
then tugged, then manipulated,
then flicked, then sleepy.

Aluminum Wind

Cast a new glance
at the aluminum wind
something is flickering
in the morning light
swing the megaphone
over the valley
watch how the stars
act like they're shiny
medallions of beef
edible rinds strewn
on the street
moist and pleading
ears cocked to one side
don't read the paper
don't watch the news
there's something burning
on both of your shoulders
we'll help you
put it out.

Captain Beefheart--Three Favorites

Kate Micucci

New Love Todd Songs

CLICK HERE

Frank O'Hara reading "Having a Coke with You"

How to Birthday

A piece of labor cake
was served along with a special
water that washes away fear
we love what you did
with your hair
the absence of glee
is replaced with
a pearly nodule
it could be a pill
the salad is rubbing
the spokes
grinding into
bump jazz
birthday lips
kiss bright spots
on your neck and belly
to swoon rapturously
with mailman and hiccup
a coffin full of foam
you get it all
birthday fuck
in a brutal milk shake
patch of ivy and
poison darts
ivory dice roll
on the back of
a gazelle (fun)
and you are better off
a year older
than the one
before the year
you let the water
wash away
another fear.

Top 10 Things

1) Anne Elliott's unpublished manuscript Alma
2) Jackie-O Motherfucker's "We are Channel Zero" off Valley of Fire
3) The NY Times article about Salvia Divinorum
4) Tommy Gleason: Design and Aesthetics for Insecure Fucks
5) Peter Orlovsky: Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs
6) Slavoj Zizek: Violence
7) Joanne Robertson's new song collection The Lighter listen to "Marker" --a dreamy swoon of a song.
8) My Cervelo R3
9) Bill Knott: Selected and Collected Poems
10) Running 19-miles around the Shawangunks

Everyday Stuff

Dream chump
you've got some battered chucks
skin flickers in the light
it's what you breath in
that makes your eyes moist
kicking over the tree
in an effort to slice
through memory flicks
loops into gunk
layers of disgust
your fragrant timepiece
is buckling under the medicine
aggravate with talk
sleep on a shit pillow
wake up and do it all again.

My Weekend in Photos

Bob Holman leads us in a group reading of Howl in Tompkins Square Park

The Shawangunks

Is There a Mouse in the Baby's Room?

Please come to BookCourt on Monday September 8th at 7PM for the book release party for Elizabeth Zechel's fabulous and funny new children's book Is There a Mouse in the Baby's Room? BookCourt is located at 163 Court Street in lovely Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, just steps away from the F train at the Bergen Street stop. Lot's of friends will be there and Elizabeth will be bringing some of her world famous cookies.

Today

I'm thinking about wearing galoshes
and a silver space suit
with titanium aqualung apparatus
the rock is smooth and heavy
if the tree is positioned correctly
all hell breaks lose
from the muscle that is sunlight
I'm not really all about that
I've stood in front of a thousand
people and not stammered
stuck to the issues
without the ceramic brain wedge
balanced in my ear
a real pelican, my friend,
is positioned near the podium
it gives my hand
something to fondle
while I speak
blessing myself
for getting out of bed
and not getting punched
in the face.

Here's One

You might want to calm down
in order to show a smooth exterior
if you're starting to not like
certain people. Don't let your brain
hang from your ear. That's bad.
Think of an occasion to screech
then multiply that
by one-hundred shitasses,
then moan, then sit down somewhere soft
and forgetful and stop sulking. That's
so-not-you so let it all come down
because it looks stupid hanging up there
in midair. The special effects
are so overrated--
and anyway,
it's time to roll up your sleeves
and yield to the force that evolves
into a form not unlike your
drug of choice.

23 years ago

23 years ago this month I moved into the 6th floor (the first two windows from the far right) of this building facing 1st Avenue near the corner of 9th Street in Manhattan. I used to listen to Steve Reich's "Violin Phase" out on the fire escape while I watched traffic roar by. Sometimes I would see Allen Ginsberg, Alice Notley or Eileen Myles walking by. I felt like I was in scary poetry city heaven. Most of the time I walked around feeling self-consciously erudite, anxious and dorky. I wouldn't want to live there or in that state of mind again--though I do like remembering those first few months in the city when it felt like there was so much to learn about and embrace.