Accommodatingly

Jessie is going to Minneapolis tomorrow to do this. If you live anywhere near Minneapolis, check it out. I’ll miss it (in addition to missing Jessie).

Steve is going to Chicago tomorrow to do this. He’ll be talking on Sunday morning, accompanied by, among others, the very good poetry critic Eleanor Cook; he– oh, I give up: I… I’m looking forward to Rosanna Warren and others on Friday night, and to James Wood on Saturday night, both in time slots compatible with sleeping until the morning hour when most non-parents likely wish to awaken. If you’re in Chicago I hope to see you there.

Nathan gets to hang out all weekend with his Bubbe and Zayde. We’ll miss him– but we think they’ll all have fun.

And if I don’t say something here about this guy soon, I’ll be derelict in my poetry-blogging duties: watch that space, I guess…

…new books I’m very excited about, and expect to say so at greater length elsewhere soon: this one, and also (despite the slightly overwrought catalog) this one. What are you excited about these days? Let us know. In Chicago or Minneapolis this weekend, if possible– in Boston later, otherwise.

Well, I had to call this miscellany-style post something, and it’s a neat ice cream flavor Jessie found last week. As neat as I’ve tasted recently unless you count the best ice cream store in the world. (Sorry, Izzy; you are tied for second best, though.)

Two hours ago we got back from Willimantic, where we celebrated Jessie’s mom’s birthday and Jessie’s mom’s husband’s mom’s birthday. Nathan got to chase a ball, and kick a ball, and watch a ball kicked by, his affectionate cousins, whose names he likes to say. It’s a bit of a drive, but not bad if Nathan (a) sleeps or (b) wants us to sing children’s songs— we got (a) on the way down and (b) on the way back– and it’s certainly easier than flying. Yep, that’s one of the reasons we moved.

Should I write an essay entitled “Science Fiction as an Ethnic Literature”? Somebody should. I’m afraid that I’ve taken on an assignment (no, a different assignment) that requires me to read all of Philip K. Dick, which is like, and yet in another way not in the least like, having to read all of Swinburne. For a third assignment short article, I need to find out– tomorrow if possible– whether it’s true, or whether it’s more of an urban legend, that few Americans cared much about Paul Revere until Longfellow versified his midnight ride. UPDATE: the Paul Revere archive-and-tourism folks say it’s true. (I still want a print source, though. [shakes head])

I owe about ten people mix CDs. And in a couple of weeks they’re going to get them.

I owe many more people than that thanks and some sort of detailed update on our first month or so in Massachusetts: it’s neat to get so many queries, but scary to think about how many I may not answer directly. Come visit us when you can, o friends who live elsewhere. And tell us, if appropriate, just what you saw and ate at the State Fair. We miss the fair: age cannot wither, nor can custom stale, its infinite variety of food on sticks…

Partial Nathan update: he’s super-interested in opposites– up and down, new and old (and the associated word “time”), on and off (bathroom faucets now say “on” and “off,” rather than “off” and “no”), small and tall, Sox and Yankees (really– he loves saying “Go Sox!”) and the fact that 6 becomes 9 upside-down, while N becomes Z on its side.

As Brazelton’s research predicted, our extroverted, neophilic child loves the stimulation of his day care but sometimes, about half an hour after we bring him home, gets cranky and needy and desirous of Mommy’s (in particular) attention, maybe in part because he can “misbehave” around us and blow off cranky steam, while at work at day care he wants to behave.

Jessie reviews a cool memoir in the new Rain Taxi; it’s also the Powells review of the day today.

Unless things go pear-shaped I should be blogging here soon. Stay tuned. Oh, and support the Mercury if you can. All they need now is two out of three.

Steve has been holding down the blog-fort for a while. I’ve been too consumed by household stuff to think of sitting down at the computer to post. Today the distraction of television presented itself, wresting me away from the process of putting together Ikea furniture.

Which brings to mind this exchange:

Nathan: Kee-ya! Kee-ya! Kee-ya!
Steve: Did you go to Ikea?
Nathan: No.
Steve: Who went to Ikea?
Nathan: Mommy!
Steve: What did Mommy get at Ikea?
Nathan: Daddy!

Dan came over with his son Louie this morning, bearing yummy scones for breakfast and, as an added bonus, beautiful purple and yellow tomatoes (perhaps in an homage to the Vikings?). We ate the tomatoes tonight with freshly-made mozzarella from the Belmont Farmer’s Market and basil from our very first box from Boston Organics. For $37 a week, they will be delivering a great big box of organic produce to our door! Definitely one of the perks of moving here.

It’s been strange reading and listening to coverage of the bridge collapse. We drove over that bridge several times a week, usually on my way to and from work and often with Nathan in tow for day care. Very scary stuff.

I just realized that Mary Lucia’s interview with Douglas is on the Current website. Listen!

Do you live anywhere remotely near the Twin Cities? If so, do not under any circumstances miss Thursday’s comics-and-subcultures-and-graphic novels event, a public conversation involving Douglas Wolk and Austin Grossman.

Douglas is the author of Reading Comics, a forthcoming critical guide to the medium, which Douglas discussed in Salon. He also wrote a good book about James Brown and several thousand insightful reviews of records, comics, performances, equipment, Burning Man festivals, and some other stuff.

Austin is the author of Soon I Will Be Invincible, a novel about superheroes and supervillains that’s the most fun I’ve had in a while: it’s like a literary novel set in Astro City. (If you know Astro City, you know that’s high praise.) Austin also enjoys some reputation as a designer of video games, including what I’m told is the highly acclaimed System Shock.

The free event takes place at 7:30pm this Thursday June 28 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (click the link for directions). We’ll see you there!

Once you finish Douglas’ and Austin’s books you may be seeking summer reading: I recommend chasing your adorable toddler around the room until your eyes glaze over and you can’t read anything

Sara Ryan’s absolutely perfect second novel for young adults, set in Portland, Oregon…

Edward Castronova’s Synthetic Worlds, an informative book about online gaming aimed at non-online-gamers, now supplemented by his cool-looking Synthetic Worlds Initiative; and…

Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber, a nearly-perfect work of Afro-Caribbean coming-of-age science fiction, which I’ll likely be teaching this December (note that this is not a general Nalo Hopkinson recommendation).

As for poetry… well, stay tuned.

We’re getting down to the wire here, and one more purge is in order. Let us know if you are interested in any of this stuff, or if you know someone who is:

Garden tools, fertilizer, herbicide
Bamboo porch chairs from Ikea
Small microwave
Wooden outdoor table w/ two matching chairs
2 beat-up, bright green Adirondack chairs

I’ll probably be adding to/subtracting from this list as the date approaches. In most cases, we’ll be happy to hand over stuff right away, but some stuff we’d prefer to hang onto until right before we move out.

happiness

Originally uploaded by Jessie and Steve

Today was our seventh anniversary–zoiks!–and the weather was beautiful. We took a walk to the park for lunch, which Nathan thoroughly enjoyed. I think more picnics are definitely in our future. Then we had a remarkably unstressful trip to the mall, followed by naps for all of us. Dinner was hamburgers on the grill. Afterwards, we took a stroll around the neighborhood, had some playtime on the swings at the local playground, stopped for a granita at the coffee shop, then hung out in the yard for a little bit before coming in.

Nathan enjoyed his day so much it took a little while for him to let go of it. His loudest yowl ended in silence a few minutes ago.

I like our lives here, and I will really miss it. I wonder what it will be like living in Belmont. I hope that we’ll have more nice days like today, both before and after we move.

Jessie has noticed more than once that while Nathan enjoys playing with either (and with both) of us, he seems to find her more cuddly than he finds me: the close, physical, primate clinging little ones sometimes crave and often need comes more strongly when she’s holding, singing to, or reading to him than when I’m holding, reading to, singing to, etc.

This difference once merely made me feel sad, but last night we realized that it had some use: when Nathan (not for the first time) had real trouble sleeping– “real trouble” for a one-and-a-half-year old, being “45 minutes of screaming after being put to bed slightly early because he was overtired, having taken half his normal nap”– I may have had an easier time getting him to calm down and go back to sleep, because, as the less cuddly daddy, not the more cuddly mommy, my holding and rocking a very sleepy Nathan was calming and warm enough, but not so calming and warm that he felt it worth his while to refuse sleep and scream until he got more.

I have begun to think of myself as a form of methadone.

(Yes, I know that mommies are “supposed to be” more cuddly and daddies less so, so that we conform to a stereotype: but surely there are couples where daddy is more cuddly– it just happens that we are not one.)

Thanks to the dozens of people who came to Alex’s and my “goodbye to Minnesota” reading. We were glad to see you all.

Well, I hope it’s not really my last reading ever in this state to which we owe so much, because we like to think we’ll come back and visit our friends.

It is, though, almost certainly my last public poetry reading until we move to Massachusetts in mid-July, hence my last as a Minnesota resident:

Please do come to my reading with my fantastic colleague (is he an ex-colleague now? perhaps, but he’s still fantastic) Alex Lemon. Opposable Thumbs Books, 2833 Johnson St NE, Minneapolis, MN, Friday May 18 at 7:30pm. Get there early and save yourself a good seat. And bring your friends, if they like me, or like Alex, too.

In an almost unrelated matter, I am still an inconsiderate person who doesn’t deserve as thoughtful a spouse as Jessie– but I like to think I’m improving, however slowly. (If you want to read about a neat marriage and a couple of wonderful music-headed people, check out John Peel’s autobiography, begun by him but completed by his widow. I finished it this morning… and really ought to review it today.)

First in one sense, last in another: I’m giving a reading at Opposable Thumbs Books on Friday May 18. It’s likely my last reading in this state before we decamp for New England, though of course I hope to come back now and then (to read, or not to read).

Details: 2833 Johnson St NE in Mpls, phone: (612) 706-2020, time: 7:30 PM, cost: no cost at all. Unless you buy stuff at the bookstore, and I hear it’s a good bookstore. And a record store, too.

Better yet: I’m reading with Alex Lemon, who teaches at Mac (and holds a degree from Mac), and whose own site is beautiful. Check out his book, Mosquito.

Some of the songs on the new Avril Lavigne album sound like the Fastbacks; several more sound like the Muffs. Recommended (but skip tracks 5 and 12). At the moment, I’d like to read a poetic sequence in twenty abbreviated segments based alternatingly on the lives so far of Avril Lavigne and of Mark Perry. I’d like to read it, but I don’t know that I’d like to write it.

Then again, I don’t know that I’d like to write anything just tonight. Our guy woke up at 5:45am and would not acknowledge me as a parent: he screamed and screamed until he got his mommy, which made everyone involved feel bad. On the other hand, when I drove up to our day care site in our car this afternoon, while N. was playing outdoors with his mommy, he turned around, pointed to the approaching car, and exclaimed “Mommy!”

Ron tagged us, which I think means I have to tag five other people (ideally, related to poetry). Do I even read enough blogs for this sort of thing to make sense?

But I do read glenn mcdonald, who just became a dad and still writes superbly articulate music reviews (that doesn’t mean I like all the music)…

glenn’s newborn daughter has the same name as the daughter of Mrs. Coulter, to whom we link all the time…

I’ve just now discovered Darren Wershler-Henry (a well-designed home page but not a blog) whose book about typewriters I have to read (but it doesn’t count, it’s not a blog)…

if you want to see somebody having fun while thinking provocatively about contemporary poetry, with emphases on Britain, the post-Ashbery quasi-avant-garde, and Chicagoland, not nec. in that order, try Archambeau; I always do…

Corey, who seems to be using his blog to make notes for his dissertation (not a bad use!) turned me on to Harp and Altar, a good-looking new Internet poetry-and-criticism mag…

and of course I keep up with these people. Kevin has perhaps surprisingly terse predictions…

but since I’m still uneasy with the Web as a mode for poetry criticism (though of course Silliman and others can do it well), I’ll close with two people who have significant web presence in other ways than true blogging, and whose recent books have surprised me very much, in the sense that I like them a lot and might not have expected to: the first is Noah Eli Gordon, whose co-authored satirical poem “Archaic Torso of Stephen Burt” seems to have vanished from all online fora, and anyway isn’t in his nifty A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow. The other is James Longenbach: “Being mortal,/ I aspire to/ Mortal things.” (Think how different that line would be were “to” on the other side of the line break.)