Desert Lease

Jacqueline and I spent a bunch of time over the last coupla days with Bay Area poet Joseph Lease. He was in town to read at UNLV and promote his stellar new collection Broken World. Read this book! It's a helluva follow-up to his previous collection Human Rights---I love the unapologetically ambitious and massive titles of his works. The book was just released, but I have been fortunate enough to have had a copy of the MS for the last coupla months. Thanks for the sneak preview! Rock on Joseph!

As part of the Nevada Humanities grant stipulations, each author must also give a talk on a subject (chosen by our intrepid leader Claudia Keelan). This year the subject was "Power." Joseph's talk was erudite and lyrical. Look for it in next year's Interim, along with those of Anne Waldman and Nathaniel Mackey (that is, if they say yes). Also, Joseph’s whole reading will be available at the UNLV English Dept. website as a podcast. Here is where it will be posted: http://liberalarts.unlv.edu/English/

Today, though, we spent the midday in Red Rocks---a beautiful oasis of Navaho sandstone only a few miles outta Vegas. Of course, development has crept up on the place, but it is still a lovely place to visit. Here are some pics:



Jacqueline and Joseph standing in the old sandstone quarry. It closed around 1912 if I remember correctly.



The abovementioned humanoids with Macchia. Notice her adventuress pose. She liked to sniff Joseph's face (he did wear a lovely cologne).



Poet wild in the desert.

Thanks for sharing your stuff, Joseph!

The world is an amazing place---especially when you build it off of the coast of Dubai

It's true. A student told me about this: http://www.theworld.ae/

I don't even know where to begin... So is this a post-post-post-modern world? My head hurts just thinking about all of the doctoral dissertations this little project's gonna spawn.

But it gives me an idea: all of the poets in the world should chip in a few bucks---then we could buy, say, New Hampshire and establish "Verselandia"!* Now that's nationalism.

E-mail me for more details about donating or if you have ideas for a cool flag---I'm imagining something in azure with many intricate designs.

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*Prose poets would be welcome.

I am the luckiest sunuvabitch in the world!

After I woke up this a.m. and checked my e-mailI discovered that I had won 32 free laptops! Additionally, my penis has gained somewhere in the realm of 64" and---this is the best part---Christian singles want to meet me! Me! That could be fun and interesting.

I just know that it all has something to do with starting a blog. God bless America.

When I wake up this early, I often think to myself: Am I an American today? Or an American't? Then I realize that I am about to go teach a classroom full of hotel and casino management majors who think I am completely insane for caring about books. Yuk. Today I am an Amerambivalent.

But my ambivalence only lasted a short time because I think I had one of them what Maslow calls "peak experiences" things early this a.m.: I was bringing Jacqueline her coffee and there she was: lying on her back in bed, NPR as alarm, her hair mussed with one of those sexy/cute half-smiles on her face---the adjective should be "moemuzzily"---and I wondered, "I have some seriously damn good karma." I must've carried elderly and handicapped people on my shoulders to cross streets in a past life.

Good morning blog friends. My spleen has receded a bit today. Ouch.