A Crackle in Your Ear

Sometimes updating this blog feels like writing "The Glaser Gazette" a twice ever published family newsletter I made in PrintShop (R.I.P.) on our Apple 2 GS (R.I.P.) many many years ago with the help of childhood best friend Jeff Puro (who has since moved on from his position at the Gazette).  But Mike Young updates his blog, and Jono had a pretty serious blog, etc.

Recently I rediscovered how great Jesus' Son is (duh!) and the lesser known collection "Escapes" by Joy Williams.  My copy of Escapes looks nothing like the one pictured.  For the first time I've been reading "Why Did I Ever" by Mary Robison, which is just as amazing as everyone told me it would be.  Who needs friends when you can spend your days with lovable lunatic narrators like this?

October 1st marked an important date in local literature news--It was the 3rd anniversary of Flying Object!  Refurbished firehouse and house of words dreamt and founded by Guy Pettit! For the last three years, I've marveled at it, and parked by it, and taught writing there, and learned about reptiles there, and participated in readings and collaborative drawing nights, and danced and sweated there, and snuck into the apartment there, and fiddled with the lock there, and been surprised to see Luke there, or Ben Roylance there, and tried to discern Guy's moods there, and pushed aside the black curtain there.  (The editors at The Glaser Gazette would have never let such a sentence fly, but here there is more creative freedom).  

On October 18th, we celebrate FLYING OBJECT, and all the poetry of the world, and the people in these towns, and the wildly inspiring performance work of Ben Hersey (who I had the joy of watching perform at the Book Mill last week, in an epically weird display of all the funniest parts of being human, in a tour de force (did I get that right?) that made all other art seem flappy and useless).  I will be reading poems alongside the music of Potty Mouth  (the talented, girl-powered band that reminds us how things used to feel/should feel, who have in the last year grown into their own, outgrowing their own with their new record Hell Bent), and the poems of Sampson Starkweather, a competitive athlete, a necessary dancer, the giant of the poetry world, and author of the murder weapon, The First 4 Books of Sampson Starkweather.  

If we are lucky, woman of grace, maker of beauty, Paige Taggart will show, and Ben Pease and Bianca Stone, and Ben Fama and Monica?  I know Peter Gizzi will be there, come early for a signature, and Dara Wier (in elegant black), and even possibly John Maradik, amateur badminton player, Seth Landman (man of the whale), famous sportswriter Frank Basket , Emily Hunt (artist/poet/beginner poker player), Emily Pettit (who I don't want to embarrass with any quick nickname), newlyweds and hilarious duo, Jacob and Shannon, the voice behind the clouds, Mike Young, gentleman about town, Boomer Pinches, local opinion, Jono Tosch, the beating heart of Brian Foley, neighbor of wit, Jonathan Volk, guys it's an exhausting amount of people... I heard that the ghost of Chris DeWeese will drop by and change the ipod to grunge music, and I know Dan Chelotti will be there, gathering the sticks of a poem the morning after, and is it too much to think new Umass Fiction Professor, Jeff Parker, might stop by? or Lucy from the bookstore, or the first years I haven't met yet, or Luke Bloomfield, mayor of Cattan, or Haley Thompson on her beautiful rescued bicycle, Halie Theoharides, the face inside my ring, Carla Costa brilliant mind in the trees.  Mike Young, is this what it feels like in your head?

If you want to buy tickets for the raffle or learn more about the party, click here.

Also, check out Kelin Loe's newest endeavor: Flying Object Radio!  Her first guest is stunningly amusing poet, Dorothea Lasky

Lastly, thanks to The Atlas Review and Ghost Proposal and Similarpeaks (any day now) for publishing new poems of mine.  Thanks to Better magazine for publishing great works by Emily Toder, Chris Deweese, and Dan Chelotti!  Did you guys check out Sink Review's new issue yet? I liked Jack's new poem in there and excited to read the rest!  Also, thanks to Jacob Kaplan for the shout out in Impose Magazine's new segment about literary happenings in NYC.