Seattle man who helped launch Microsoft left $65M for gay rights.

Wow. What an inspiring story, but also very sad.

I guess it's really true that money alone can't make you happy. Or that giving is better than receiving. What do you do with your life, how do you *spend* your time, your money?

"With Weiland's gift, Pride becomes the largest such foundation in the country.

Weiland's other beneficiaries include Lakeside High School, Stanford University, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the United Way, The Nature Conservancy and three other environmental groups."

Ahh . . . imagine if he had thrown a bone or two to a small poetry press or local literary magazine.

Dean and I spent the afternoon at the Northwest Flower and Garden show yesterday. Now it is gorgeous and sunny outside today, almost as if on cue. Ahhhh, I can feel Spring coming. We are going to work in yard, and plant the four new winterblooming heathers we got from Stanwood Heathers & Heaths.

Gay City: Volume One
The Gay City Health Project is proud to launch"Gay City: Volume One" an exciting new anthology of fiction, poetry, comic art and photography. Co-sponsored by Richard Hugo House. anthology@gaycity.org
Cabaret
$5 donation
Thursday, February 21st, 2008, 7:00 PM

*
from the Lulu website:
Some would say that everything about “coming out” has been written; that everything about AIDS, gay relationships, religious conflict, exclusion and grief has already been “done.” This slim anthology refutes that. Gay City: Volume One is a collection of fiction, poetry, comic art and photography published under the auspices of Seattle's Gay City Health Project. The work addresses Gay City's mission of preventing HIV transmission by building community, fostering communication, and nurturing self-esteem. Included here are author Tom Spanbauer’s “Mr. Energy”, written during the dark dawn of AIDS, alongside “Ethan Green” creator, Eric Orner’s visual chronicle of “25 Years, 25 Fears.” Inside you’ll find an excerpt from syndicated columnist Michael Thomas Ford’s novel “Full Circle”, eight pieces from the award winning poet Peter Pereira, and groundbreaking works from artist Donna Barr, plus many others.

Dean and I went to hear Li-Young Lee at Seattle Arts & Lectures last night. He is an interesting character: very self-effacing, non-linear in his thinking and presentation. I was put off a little by the shtick he does, fumbling about with his papers at the lectern, not sure what he is going to read, starting and stopping and unable to speak a complete thought. Maybe he thinks it helps put him and the audience at ease? I find it annoying. Still, I loved many of the poems, and also his discussion of the concept of "I and Thou."

He didn't read one of my favorite poems from the book though:

Mother Deluxe

"We can't stay where we are,
and we don't know where else to go,"

is the first card my mother deals. We're playing
her deluxe edition of "Memories
from the 20th Century."

"Dead Baby," "Mystery Bundles," "Cleansing by Sacrifice."

Seven cards apiece and the object is not to die.

"Exodus," "Eyes Snatched Away,"
"Superstition at the Side of the Road."

All cards are good or bad depending on how you play them.
"Defeated by Wings," "Eating Forbidden Blood."

No card possesses inherent value.
"Among the Lepers," "Burial by the Solo River,"
"The Extracted Oil."

Every player begins in bondage.
Every player eventually dies. Everybody plays
whether they know or don't know they're playing.

Maybe this isn't a game.
Maybe it's World Evening News.

Maybe this time I'll rescue my mother.
I can't tell if I thought that or if she said it.

-- Li-Young Lee
from Behind My Eyes

Maybe this isn't the news.
Maybe this is a dream God is having
and somebody should wake Him.

Good boat, first boat, old boat. Mother,
my first night with you lasted nine months.
Our second night together is the rest of my life.

PLU Visiting Writer's Series: Mark Doty

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
"The Writer’s Story": 5PM, Garfield Book Company at PLU
Reading: 8PM, Lagerquist Concert Hall of the Mary Baker Russell Music Center



(PLU=Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma). For more information click here.

From Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth. I think this is Rich's best book in years. It seems more focused, more engaged.


LONG AFTER STEVENS

A locomotive pushing through snow in the mountains
more modern than the will

to be modern . . . The mountain's profile
in undefiled snow disdains

definitions of poetry . . . It was always
indefinite, task and destruction

the laser eye of the poet . . . her blind eye
her moment-stricken eye . . . her unblinking eye

She had to get down from the blocked train
lick snow from bare cupped hands

taste what had soared into that air
— local cinders, steam of the fast machine

clear her palate with a breath . . .distinguish
through tumbling whiteness . . . figures

frozen . . . figures advancing
weapons at the ready
for the new password

She had to feel her tongue
freeze and burn at once

instrument searching, probing
toward a foreign tongue


I love the central image of this poem, the blocked train. I see it as a commentary on our own current political situation, where we are paradoxically enraged, burning, but frozen, immobilized to act. And I can't help but think that she is referring to, talking back to, Steven's "Snowman."


THE SNOWMAN

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

From Monday's Sound Focus on KUOW/NPR

Poems for the Beloved

This week, many people will exchange gifts and declarations of devotion in honor of Valentine's Day. Those who are separated from their beloved must find some way to bridge the distance. Today, Peter Pereira and Eloise Klein Healy read poems that provide evidence of the imagination's capacity to reach the beloved, despite geography and even mortality.

Click on the audio icon in the above archive link and you can listen to me reading "Twenty Years After His Passing My Father Appears to Us in Chicago, at Bobby Chinn's Crab and Oyster House, in the Guise of Our Waiter, Ramon" from What's Written on the Body. (the program starts about 25 secs in)

The recording is a little echo-y, but I love how this turned out. And the conversation/analysis of the poems, with hosts Elizabeth Austen and Megan Sukys, is fascinating. Check it out!

January Reads

Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier * Perhaps the best way to truly understand the self, is to truly understand another.
What the Living Do, Marie Howe *
Anxious Music, April Ossman
American Spikenard, Sarah Vap
Complex Music, Tony Tost * (mostly for the fabulous cover, and the title poem)
The Insomniac Liar of Topo, Norman Dubie
Poetry, January 2008
Cascade, 2007
The Sun, January 2008 *
Raven Chronicles, #13-1 "Whimsies"
The World in Place of Itself, Bill Rasmovicz
Something Bright, Then Holes, Maggie Nelson
Embryos & Idiots, Larissa Szporluk


*recommended

Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year!
It's been three years here at the Virtual World. I've had a gas, met a lot of people, both virtually and in real time, read a ton of poetry and poetry-related stuff, and shared in more silliness than I can shake a stick at. Thank you all.

One of my new years resolutions is to live a little more in the "real" world, and a little less in the "virtual" world. So I will be on break for a while here. But don't worry, I will still be visiting — either lurking in the background reading *your* blog, or popping up in the comment fields. Until then, take care!

What Did You Do the Last Weekend of the Year?

A friend of mine got married! Another friend had a baby. Hard to top that.

Saturday afternoon, Dean and I cleaned out some of the basement storage and took three or four boxes of "stuff" to Goodwill. Then we went to Sears and bought more stuff (hehehe): new bathroom rugs, jeans, and who knows what else. The we went to Costco: the place was mobbed!

Then I found this very cool program for backing up your entire blog, comments and pics included, to your own hard drive. It's called HTTrack Website Copier. It's free and highly recommend it. http://www.httrack.com/ I wanted to be able to save the whole three years worth of blogfiles. Who knows, maybe I'll make it into a little book.

We had friends over for dinner Saturday night. We had hummus and pita, cocktails, mussels, salad, seafood risotto, bread, and Marionberry pie with "rich-lite" vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. The we played this crazy old Italian card game called Briscola (I think it means Trump). What a great time we all had!

Today we fixed breakfast of bacon and eggs and hashbrowns and toast. Then we fixed the birdfeeder. Then we took a walk from Pioneer Square up the the Seattle Art Museum. Saw the Japan show and the Gaylen Hansen show. His art is fascinating: cartoonish, yes sophisticated. I think he is said to have taught Gary Larsen how to draw cows.

Then we walked back down to Pioneer Square and had lunch at Cafe Umbria. Then we went to Elliott Bay Books and I bought a new novel, The Night Train to Lisbon, that I had just read a review about in the Seattle Times. I read the first few chapters all huddled up on the living room sofa under a throw. I think it's going to be a good read.

Tonight we are going to a neighborhood dessert party. I think we are taking a Panatone and a bottle of wine.

I'm putting some final revisions on a couple of poems. At least I hope they are final.

I can't believe it's almost New Years. But with it coming on a Tuesday, and working both days on either side, it doesn't seem like much of a holiday this year. We'll probably go to the neighborhood burn in the afternoon, and have a quiet evening at home. And be in bed after the ball is dropped in New York (meaning 9pm here).

It makes me think of that old song "What Are You Doing New Years Eve?" Not the Barbara version, but the Ella version (my favorite).

*

An ode to the meat eaters (myself included)

I've been reading Norman Dubie's new book and enjoying it a lot. Here is a poem, that was featured on today's Poetry Daily.

The Last Gold Raptors of Soma
for Joel & Laura

This winter equinox is different from any other—
it's not the lizard men
playing ping-pong through the trees, the lighter-than-air
balls red with sunset; their sleeves
dressed with the feathers of dead Medici falcons.

A cow looks nervously at its eye
reflected in the ice
that the farmer breaks, releasing
the rope in the tree
and its black anvil weight falling. . .

The cow now looks at its eye
reflected in water,
thinking this is its cruel nativity—
the farmer looking at its lame hind leg
thinking of his red-haired brother-in-law,
the local butcher.

The sensitive cow, Mirtle, now charges the winter pond.
She drowns. The poor cow's tail
still flagging the spaceships just
behind the reddening hill.

So, the sun's down, the ship's lights
are like obvious fat jewels. And
if we want to have commerce
with the lizard men in their blue suits,
then we must eat more of these slouching animals
and faster too.

*

Norman Dubie
from The Insomniac Liar of Topo
Copper Canyon Press

Bhutto, ah Bhutto . . .

I can only hope that, God willing, peace and justice will come to Pakistan.

How About a Shave?

Dean and I had a lovely Christmas Eve with family. One of my sisters hosted at her house, and there were about 30 of us. Great fun!

And then Xmas day it snowed! Very rare in Seattle. It didn't last, but it was beautiful to watch the big flakes coming down.

Christmas Day afternoon we went to see Sweeney Todd. What a sad, funny, gory, sweet movie! It has everything, a love story, great songs, humor, and blood. Helena Bonham Carter is off-the-hook funny in her role as Ms. Lovett, the meat pie maker. And Johnny Depp is perfectly cast as the vengeful mad barber. A must see!

A patient gave me a box of Red King Crab legs. Dean and I steamed some of them last night: they were amazingly sweet and succulent. Though it was kind of creepy stuffing these huge spider-like legs into the pot and covering them with a lid. Esp after Sweeney Todd. We mixed some of the meat with tomato sauce and tagliatelle pasta for dinner. Yum.

Hope your holidays have been grand.

Merry Xmas! (Santa on a Stick?)

Apparently, this guy's neighbors are not amused. I think it's a hoot.




It's not so much the Santa impaled on the cross in front of Art Conrad's Bremerton home, it's the headless Santa that sings carols on his front porch that has neighbors crying humbug.