A few weeks ago I finished this Derek Fisher commission, only a week or so before he was unceremoniously traded to the Cavs. I'm glad I finished him before the trade, which would have definitely distracted my msPainting. Now Derek is memorialized as a Laker somewhere in Canada, possibly in the office of a young lawyer.
In other NBA news, the Bulls beat the Heat and the Sixers without Derrick Rose, which is a great omen for the playoffs, and I'm feeling more confident about the Bulls/Heat conference finals match-up, if all goes how it seems it will.
Z-Bo is back for the Grizzlies. Also I'm looking forward to watching Arenas play for the Grizz, and Ellis and the new big guy play for the Bucks. This isn't really an NBA blog, but reading Landman's ESPN fantasy columns this morning is inspiring me to pretend...
Here is a close-up of D. Fish, much hated by Celtic fans, much photographed and quoted in the lock-out last year.
The world continues spinning and I am a few hours away from a finished Allen Iverson portrait.
In Poetry News, five of my friends from Umass-Amherst's MFA program have published books in the last couple weeks and months. My friend Chris Deweese's book "The Black Forest"
has been released by Octopus Books. Here are two lines of note from two separate poems:As I ride Eastward,
I can hear my biographer
furiously dictating
his own adventures
and earlier:
Or let's say you're dead
and you wish
for everyone else to be dead
It would be just like living!
"The Black Forest" is in good company of a slew of other new and great poem books, including local sensation Heather Christle's "What is Amazing", out from Weslyan Press.
Here is the beginning of Heather's poem "Basic":
This program is designed to move a white line
from one side of the screen to the other.
This program is not too hard, but it has
a sad ending and that makes people cry.
This program is designed to make people cry
and step away when they are finished.
In one variation the line moves diagonally
up and in another diagonally down.
This makes people cry differently,
diagonally. A whole room of people
New Yorker Lily Ladewig's book "The Silhouettes" is out from SpringGun Press. Here is a selection from "Another Poem for You":what do you call a pale-faced silence
that makes a healing sound? Me. Watch me
translate myself into English. Watch me
take my invisible top off. Things reconfigure,
they settle. I bought you this beautiful
silver espresso machine--it was imaginary
in the best possible sense.
Lastly and largely, Tyoyeu is actualized onto pages, written by two Seths.
This book is like songs heard underwater, a relative's mid dream babbles. Here are some sections of it:"I might see you in my nightmare
wandering
How'd you get there?
I'm running from the son I mated
I'm taking Alf on the road
Tell everybody that you know"
"Mathematics on whiskey. Triangles on heavy doves."
"Soup! Soup, are you accurate when I hold us between these spoons?"