Paul K. Tunis – Omphaloskepsis: #2
Paul K. Tunis is a graphic-poet. 
His work has been featured in Bateau, Drunken Boat, TheTHE Poetry, Loaded Bicycle, and elsewhere. He’s a kangaroo rat and likes mac and cheese.
Lunarlinks: January 15, 2012
We’re barely into the New Year and already writers are engaging in some sparkling discourse. An example: As 2011 closed out, Lev Grossman told us in Time about seven books he was looking forward to reading this year. Without missing a beat, PANK editor/Ayiti scribe Roxane Gay took to the The Rumpus to address the unaddressed—that in his list, Grossman omitted work by writers who weren’t white men. Her argument is poised, clipped, and sharp, but the real chemistry crackles in the comments section of the piece where Grossman responds.
Over at The Millions, Madison Smartt Bell offered a gimlet-eyed glimpse into Old New York one that contrasts sharply with Jen Doll‘s “How To Be a New Yorker” that ran in The Village Voice last November. For Bell, New York is an idyll; for Doll, the same city is a blizzard of stimuli with little poetry to guide its madness.
Speaking of little poetry to guide any madness, we would be remiss if we didn’t tell you about Miles Klee‘s debut novel Ivyland being available for purchase. Klee was one of the four readers who read at our holiday jamboree last December.
The Poetry Foundation’s Janaka Stucky outlines how indie publishers can survive in the age of Amazon.
Oh, yes! All things costumed and chameleoned: Emily Asher-Perrin has some brilliant words to say about David Bowie’s transformations over at TOR.
And sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. ModCloth has handpicked a few indie publishers who are packing a little innovation into every title they issue. Featured publishers include Dancing Girl Press and Birds of Lace.
Nicole Steinberg – ‘Getting Lucky’ Poems [AUDIO]
Nicole Steinberg’s Getting Lucky series pulls text from back-issues of Lucky Magazine, the self-proclaimed “magazine about shopping & style,” and rearranges the copy into poetry, providing a cheeky perspective on how the magazine’s use of language—almost absurdist at times—affects its female reader base. Three of these poems are available below along with audio recordings from last month’s holiday party, where she also read selections from her chapbook Birds of Tokyo (Dancing Girl Press, 2011).
Getting Lucky With Edith
It’s ennui that plagues the beautiful starlet
who claims to love cheeseburgers. She tastes
mildly of peppermint and cinnamon chalk,
bathed in creams, milks and pistachio butter
with a just-back-from-safari glow. You might
spot her at a cool London flea market, straight
from the planetarium, or just grabbing milk
at the store—a Studio 54 Audrey Hepburn
in strappy sandals, tulle overlay and a most
wearable cape from a Paris couturier.
It’s important that fashion be reasonable
with a touch of hysteria. We’re all fighting over
who gets to take this pedigree peacock home,
the lush kaleidoscope under that flouncy skirt.
Getting Lucky With Lindsay
Body-conscious and puffy in seventh grade,
awash in a spectrum of Prada-swathed, mini
Cleopatras, a tough-as-nails collegiate girl sparked
my fixation with the feminine form. Tawny and
pigment-drenched, her hipster horn-rims popped
with a confident cool next to my sloppy denim
overalls and tie-dyed scrunchies. My ballerina
boyfriend, glitzy and buff—I lived in her shrunken
baby tees for months, smelling the fabric, exuberant
and ready. These days, I’m paired with sleek, tight-faced
fashion cartoons who’d throw me out a window
for a fabulous mascara—a departure from my favorite
wildcard and our smoldering nights; how we came
together, built for touch and always taking more.
Getting Lucky With Jamie
If you want to go a tiny bit hipster, here’s how:
Grab a romper and go to town on the all-natural train
from Jackson Heights to lower Manhattan; mask
any contempt for the matchy-matchy girls under
your straw fedora and un-meltable hair. Always
have Kate Moss’s precise address and phone
number at the ready; indulge in vanilla soft-serve
and run wild through dressing rooms, completely
guilt-free. Hide your arbitrary fears and Connecticut
weakness; call forth your tough, punk rock shine.
Stay pretty in the heat of the New York chill
you’ve dreamed of since you were a teenager, even
after you’re no longer new. Lick your black pearl lips,
telegraph a dose of danger. Let it come, dripping wet.
Nicole Steinberg is the editor of the literary anthology Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens, as well as an editor at large at LIT magazine. Her poetry has appeared in H_NGM_N, No Tell Motel, BOMB, Gulf Coast, and other publications. She is the author of Birds of Tokyo (Dancing Girl Press, 2011) and founder of Earshot, a NYC reading series. She currently lives in Philadelphia, where she paints her nails.
“Getting Lucky With Jamie” originally appeared in H_NGM_N.
Paul K. Tunis – Omphaloskepsis: #1
Paul K. Tunis is a graphic-poet. His work has been featured in Bateau, Drunken Boat, TheTHE Poetry, Loaded Bicycle, and elsewhere. He’s a kangaroo rat and likes mac and cheese.
Moonshot Holiday Party 2011
The moon may be a harsh mistress, but your friends at Moonshot will keep you warm and cozy during our first annual holiday party. Drink your holiday spirits and stick around for a winter reading by four talented writers and poets. Egg nogs! Hot toddies! & now featuring special acoustic performances by the amazing Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt + Thank You Ma’ams.
Please RSVP to contact@thehomeof.org (or join our Facebook event) to receive the address of The Home Of. The Home Of asks attendees to RSVP to preserve the privacy of the venue, which inevitably enhances your experience. The venue is located one block from the 4th Avenue and 9th Street subway stop, serviced by the F, R, and G trains, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, NY
Featuring readings by:
Jessica Elsaesser is a brunette prose poet living in Brooklyn with a passion for small objects.
Miles Klee‘s writing has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Awl, The Huffington Post, The New York Observer, Salon, The Millions, and many other publications, online and off-. His debut novel, Ivyland, is currently available from OR Books.
Nicole Steinberg is the editor of the literary anthology Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens, as well as an editor at large at LIT magazine. Her poetry has appeared in H_NGM_N, No Tell Motel, BOMB, Gulf Coast, and other publications. She is the author of Birds of Tokyo (Dancing Girl Press, 2011) and founder of Earshot, a NYC reading series. She currently lives in Philadelphia, where she paints her nails.
Nicole Treska lives in Harlem and teaches writing and literature at The City College of New York. She turns up early to most things, and is rarely prepared for the weather. She is susceptible, and loud, and working on it.
Josh Gardner, “My Mother, the Somnambulist”
Josh Gardner ☛ My Mother, the Somnambulist
The cops have been called to my family’s house only twice.
I say only because we’re screamers, not talk-it-outers and it’s amazing those thin walls never just went kaput, blown out like some cartoon when we got into the groove of one of our screaming matches: me against Tina, Tina against Donald. Donald screaming at mom, more like at a child than his own wife, and mom just sitting there with her voodoo eyes.
And because sometimes I could hear the screaming from way down the block on my way home, and the neighbors would look up at me from watering their lawns or walking their dogs and then just as quickly look back down.
What’s funny is, both times they’d called the cops were after silences—once right before Tina finally ran off for good and once when Donald heard me whispering on the phone to another boy and broke my nose. Both times, there was our usual noise followed by nothing. Hollering followed by smashing followed by nothing.
The first time, Tina’s time, came after she told Donald to fuck himself. She was sixteen and brazen, and backed up by her boyfriend’s invitation to come live with his family. She was late coming home and when Donald asked her where the fuck she’d been, she turned to him and said, “Jamie’s” and kept on walking. “Dumb little bitch,” he called her for the millionth time. And for the first time, wild-eyed and manic, Tina stopped. She stopped and she said “Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit,” emphasizing every single syllable like it was the most important of them all.
Donald ran up the stairs and grabbed her by the hair, all the while screaming more obscene things than even I was used to hearing. And Tina screamed and kicked. And I yelled, begging for him to stop. And after he smashed Tina’s head into the drywall, he did stop. Everything stopped, just for a moment, and we all floated there in adrenaline confusion, wobbly. (more…)
Joel Allegretti – “For Immediate Release: House of Goodbye” Opens at Museum of Enteric Representation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“HOUSE OF GOODBYE” OPENS
AT MUSEUM OF ENTERIC REPRESENTATION
The Museum of Enteric Representation today announced the opening of “House of Goodbye,” an installation by the theoretical artist and architect Nicholas Σ. The exhibition runs through 5 p.m. tomorrow, at which time Σ and a team of his students will destroy it in the presence of museum visitors.
The piece occupies the entire first floor and half of the second. The second-floor portion is closed to the public. The artist, however, has created “Goodbye Means Goodbye,” a set of 501 23” x 29” multiples featuring black-and-white photographs of that section of the work. They are available on the second-floor landing at no charge.
Elaborating on the impetus for “House of Goodbye,” Σ writes in an artist’s statement, “Here is the room of the bed of final things. Where a lifetime’s cookie jar of dreams and wishes is the last word of the last sentence of a paragraph. Science has advanced from background music to a concert program for a rapt audience. Religion is the coda, the diminishing strain as the bow decelerates across the violin strings. Silence, as John Cage knew, is itself a form of composition, notably when a lifetime’s cookie jar of dreams and wishes is the last word of the last sentence of a paragraph that strives to describe the room of the bed of final things.”
The Museum of Enteric Representation is planning a retrospective of Σ’s aerosol sculptures.
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Joel Allegretti is the author of three collections, most recently Thrum, a chapbook of poems and prose poems about musical instruments. His second collection, Father Silicon, was selected by The Kansas City Star as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006, a list that included novels by Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Pynchon. His work has appeared in many national journals and was the basis of two song cycles composed by Naxos artist Frank Ezra Levy. Allegretti is a member of the Academy of American Poets and ASCAP.
Ron Riekki, “Heroes”
[Moonshot #3: Secret]
Ron Riekki ☛ Heroes
The only reason I’m on set is because it’s a cattle call. They must have seven hundred extras at this thing. At least. They’ve transformed the inside of Staples Center into an airport. And they did a good job too. Must have cost a ton. I’ve only done one other show before this—Samantha Who? And this show blows Samantha Who?’s cheap sets out of the water. Which means it must be doing outstanding in the ratings. I’ve never seen the show, don’t know a thing about it, am just glad I’m getting paid for a day. And all I do is stand here. Make sure nothing happens. When you have seven hundred people all in one room, it can get hot, people can get hungry, and they don’t do background checks for extras. As a matter of fact, there’s a prison I know in northern Arizona that they actually pass out information on Central Casting to prisoners when they’re released because Hollywood is always looking for prison types (which is true) and they don’t care if you have multiple felonies (which is true, as long as you don’t have any sex crimes). And Arizona is happy because it gets ex-cons out of their state.
I don’t have a gun.
I took a weekend course and got my California Guard Card. The final test was a joke. You turn in your answers and if you flunked, they have you take it again, with all of the ones you got wrong marked. It’s multiple choice with only three possibilities, so if you already got one wrong all that’s left is two more choices. If you still flunk, they only let you take it one more time. But you would have to be something beyond a moron to flunk the third time. So everyone passes.
I found out quickly no one would hire me because I have a Masters and nobody wants somebody educated. Not in this economy. In security, they’re looking for potential lifers and having an education, especially in something as specific as Contemplative Psychology, makes it so that you have a big question mark hovering over your head. When the economy collapsed, I realized just how worthless my degree was, so I got the stupid idea of moving to L.A. My parents live in Baraga County in Michigan, which has the worst unemployment rate of any county in the entire nation. That’s where my parents chose to live, because my Dad miraculously found a job there, as a Shovel/Drill Maintenance Supervisor in the mines. And they told me that if I stuck around they might be able to get me a job in the mines too, in a year or so. I’d have to live with my parents for a year to possibly get a job. No guarantee. I packed up and headed as far away from Michigan as I could, which was southern California.
Except I found I couldn’t get any kitchen jobs in L.A. No tutoring jobs. No bartending jobs. The actors took them all. And there’s definitely no mining in Los Angeles. Nothing. Until this. (more…)