My Next Runway Fix . . .

But will Jeff, Uli, Laura, or Michael be there? Or just Kayne and crazy Vincent?

I.N.C./Project Runway Fashion Show with Tim Gunn
11/09/06
6:00pm

Macy's Downtown Seattle
1601 Third Avenue
Seattle, WA 98181

International Concepts® and ELLE magazine are taking the winning designs from Project Runway's third season on a tour of seven Macy's stores nationwide. The event will also feature an I.N.C. fashion show hosted by Project Runway co-host Tim Gunn. Your Macy's is on the tour, so stop by the I.N.C. department for your Runway fix.

RSVP: 206-506-4FUN

 

Hot off the press from Oregon State University, Long Journey, Contemporary Northwest Poets, edited by David Biespiel. Includes the work of over 80 poets, including: Bruce Beasley, Linda Bierds, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Sam Hamill, Christopher Howell, Richard Kenny, Dorianne Laux, Heather McHugh, Suzanne Paola, Peter Pereira, Lucia Perillo, Stan Sanvel Rubin, Martha Silano, Clemens Starck, Joan Swift, Mary Szybist, Nance Van Winckel, David Wagoner, Ingrid Wendt, and many, many more. Get your copy here or here.

PS: There is not a single heron, salmon, or Doug Fir in the entire book.

 

I Miss Project Runway

  

Perhaps the thing that has stuck with me the most is Nina Garcia saying, of Jeff, that he "has a point of view." Even though he overdoes it at times, or it doesn't work at times, what made him a good designer was he knew who he was, what he was trying to say, and the work flowed from that.

Deep Play

"The notion that inspired play (even when audacious, offensive, or
obscene) enhances rather than diminishes intellectual vigor and spiritual
fulfillment, the notion that in the eyes of the gods the tight-lipped hero
and the wet-cheeked victim are frequently inferior to the red-nosed
clown, such notions are destined to be a hard sell to those who have E.M.
Forster on their bedside table and a clump of dried narcissus up their ass.

"Not to worry. As long as words and ideas exist, there will be a few
misfits who will cavort with them in a spirit of approfondement--if I may
borrow that marvelous French word that translates roughly as "playing
easily in the deep"--and in so doing they will occasionally bring to
realization Kafka's belief that 'a novel should be an ax for the frozen seas
around us.'"

-"In Defiance of Gravity" by Tom Robbins, Harper's Magazine, Sept
2004

A LARGE GROUP OF PICNICKING CHILDREN is struck by lightning. Four girls and four dogs are killed. Twenty-three children suffer burns, cataracts, macular holes, tympanic membrane rupture, and skull fracture. At the church service, the pastor organizes his eulogy around the trope of being called. God reaches down with a finger of light, etc. But the positive charge originated in the ground and climbed an invisible ladder of electrons skyward.

— Ben Lerner
from "Angle of Yaw," in Angle of Yaw, pg 36.

Some news you can use

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Some doctors might improve their bedside manner by honing their creative writing skills, a small study suggests.

Yale University researchers found that medical residents who completed a creative writing workshop felt the experience helped them better view their patients as people, and not just medical cases.

The effect, according to the researchers, seems to stem from the fact that the residents not only reflected on their own emotions and the experiences of their patients, but also wrote it down as a story.

full story here.

Thank you, Pamela, for the link

It's been unseasonably warm and sunny this October. We have a poppy in the back yard that is blooming again, a dozen giant buds! It's a little disturbing, a little manic and out of place, these bright orange flowers I'm used to seeing in June-July (I wonder if this feeling is what Plath's poem, "Poppies in October," is refering to?).

Spent much of yesterday working in the yard with Dean, planting about 100 bulbs: daffodils, tulips, crocus, allium. We sprinkled red pepper flakes with them, so the crazy squirrel in the neighborhood doesn't dig them all up, like he did last year. We'll see if the hot little surprise when he bites in to one is enough to ward him off this year.

Went to a terrific poetry reading by Martha Collins, from Blue Front, at Open Books. Amazing stuff. A pleasure to meet her. Then off to my nephew Brett's first birthday party. Which was a hoot, until he got some cake in his eyes ~grin~.

 

The Primary Care reading went pretty well. There were six of us reading, including Jack Coulehan, one of the editors of the anthology. (Which is a beautiful book, btw, Iowa does a great job). We kept it short and sweet, read for about ten minutes each, which was plenty, really (remember: leave them begging for more, not begging for mercy). We had a fairly large attentive audience (about 50 people). And some good questions at the end. Some of the highlights, for me, were: Ted McMahon's powerful "Silver Fork, American River," about being on a team to salvage a rafter's body from where he had drowned in whitewater; Arthur Ginsberg's (no relation to Allen, hahaha) poem about pushing chemo in the pediatric ward as a resident; Jack Coulehan's poem "The 600 Pound Man" and how he finds him beautiful in the end; John Wright's funny as heck "Blue Helper" poem, about post-prostate cancer use of Viagra; Karl Weyrauck's poem about being on the receiving end of a cardio-version. Good stuff. I read Bonnie Salomon's (yes, there are women physician poets!) "Call It," about calling a code in the ER, and a couple from Saying the World that are in the anthology, as well as a couple new pieces that are in What's Written on the Body, and was pleased with how the new stuff went over (one of them read in public for the first time). A party of about 14 of us went out for dinner afterwards at Trattoria Mitchelli. What fun!

This man is my new hero:

David Kuo was on Bill Maher's show Friday night, and I was totally impressed by what he had to say. He's a Christian Conservative, who was head of Bush's "Faith-Based" programs for several years. He has come out with a book exposing all the lies and hypocrisy of the right wing "compassionate conservative movement," and how they used evangelicals to their own ends (surprise, surprise). His strong advice was for all Christians and Evangelicals to STOP giving money to right-wing political organizations (who only use it for their own ends), and instead to actually GIVE IT TO THE POOR (really!). It was pretty amazing. A call to the religious to get back to their true path: one of humility, of caring for the sick, the disadvantaged, the suffering. Rather than supporting these power-mongering neo-fascist Republicans. You go girl!

Here's a quote from online, about his book Tempting Faith:

"He says some of the nation's most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as "the nuts."

"National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as "ridiculous," "out of control," and just plain "goofy," " Kuo writes.

In fact, when Bush asks Kuo how much money was being spent on "compassionate" social programs, Kuo claims he discovered the amount was $20 million a year less than during the Clinton Administration."


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We are still in withdrawl from Project Runway's stunning finale . . .

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We now return you to your original programming.

In production . . .

I turned in my Page Proofs yesterday for the new book. It's so exciting to see how the poems are going to look: how they fall page to page, what the font looks like. And I really like the work, I'm happy with all the poems (hopefully that is not a bad sign). I just shuffled the order of a few of them, one last time; made an edit here and there, and it was done.

I believe I get one more chance to review before it goes to the printer. And I should have books in time for the ASU/Piper conference, and AWP (if I go). The cover is very different. I'm not sure I cared for it at first, but now I love it.

Stay tuned . . .

Note to current administration:

Iraq is NOT Iwo Jima.

Autumn is really here

The cold dark gray weather has moved in. The garden is going dormant and making glorious colors. I woke up in the night to rain falling against the bedroom window and couldn't fall back asleep. I love the fall weather. I really do. And what's best: I usually write more in the fall.

 

our fothergia . . . 

 

Our neighbor's apple tree in fall. Doesn't this just scream "Ode to Autumn" to you? 

 

Downtown Seattle in fall (note the male couple).