Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Per Una Selva Oscura

Started a new blog. http://perunaselvaoscura.tumblr.com A Project blog. Somewhat similar to my old http://diaryofa36thyear.blogspot.com. But a little more complex. In this age of tumblr and reblogging I can kind of get the scrapbook feel that the paper version of Diary of a 36th Year had.

The Diary blog was written literally by taking piece/fragments of my written diary and collaging them together. I have mostly forgone the written diary except for notes while reading. So that is not the project. The project is a sort of attempt to pull out some sort of prose narrative. I talk about poetry I'm reading, poetry readings in a obscure he/she way, a vague "he" coming out of having a real "he" in my life! And since I crashed one of the Public School meetings on the bible, I am interested in continuing and using the very interesting biblical aspects/ as well as readings from a book on the history of yoga I recently started reading. To combine religion/spirituality with poetry concerns, with personal life, and finally dreams, which I finally started to be able to remember again after having a month with nowhere to be (first time in 10 years I've had that much time off at once!). And I will probably be mixing in some Linguistics/TESOL aspects from my classes.

I got the idea while reading Book 2 of Robert Duncan's The H.D. Book, Nights and Days, which is what I originally wanted to call it, but it was taken. Duncan talks a good deal about Dante, (not to mention a good deal about everything), so it seemed to fit. The Nights and Days section is a poetic meandering around the theme so far of night, with lots of exposition on stars, but it is really more the form and style of writing in this section, more than the content, that really inspired me. The idea of leaving jokey funny facebook posts behind, and writing in a poetic voice entirely — seems very appealing to me right now. Maybe too many people are witty these days, it is no longer appealing to me to be so. Combined with my new age in my new decade and my desire to be a teacher, which has somehow led to another level of interest in my writing. And I'm also started to view the prevalence of "witty" in some ways as connected to capitalism, when you are doing that you are selling something people want. I want to sell something I want.

But Inspiration #2 came about rather simultaneously as reading Book 2 of The H.D. Book, which came about through reading about how Kate Zambreno was writing a blog about wives of writers who wanted to be writers but never became writers, and how that blog ultimately became her book Heroines, and that inspired me to make a blog that could be a book, and could be a prose book. Trying to trick myself into prose through a device (but its so still poetry, but thats ok).

It is also organized by day. Day 1, Day 2 etc. But these are not real days since I'm about to become very busy with the semester. I'm thinking of them as biblical days. A logical end of course would be 365 days, but that seems a bit too much for a book, plus with the rebloggings, it would just be huge.

Thinking to research Dante a little bit more and those cute little circles of hell. Research the organization, etc. and see if I can do something with that...

Perhaps, yes.   Wikipedia says that the Comedy is made up of 14,233 lines that are divided into three canticas (Ital. pl. cantiche)—Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise)—each consisting of 33 cantos (Ital. pl. canti).  Perhaps I will stop on the 99th day.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Yogis uniting for workers rights, Hyatt


I expected more yogis couldn't even find any at first.  Joined the picket line for a minute. I want to start joining picket lines more often, very much a high! So much energy from the people. I asked do I need a sign to walk with you, and they're like no no here here, making room for us. I think I should wash my yoga mat that the homeless man used though -- he was kind of cute, he kept yelling out "I'm So Relaxed!" -- but there is some mysterious black stuff on the edges now.

I didn't know who Seane Corn was before but think she must be SO famous now.

Also thinking how interesting it is, how easy for some (those with money) to sell out to corporations, because they want the money. How to not sell out and stick to your values should be a component to all yoga teacher trainings, as is a little critical thinking maybe. Too much unthinking jockiness in the yoga world, trying to sell bliss because it is a selling point but not really teaching people the intellectual side of things, how can we have "union" -- yoga when the yoga being sold is so lopsided?


Friday, January 04, 2013

Favorite Netflix Streaming Movies Watched in 2012


Skyline

Downton Abbey: Season 1

Stranded

Faces in the Crowd

The Bothersome Man

Melancholia

The Scarf

Thor

Timecrimes

Archangel: Pt 1-3

Stargate Universe Seasons 1-2

Accident

Farewell My Concubine

YOGA: The Movie

Battlestar Galactica: Ssn 1

The Phantom of the Opera

Fish Story

Ashtanga, NY

Columbus Circle

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Reading/Performancey things I gave/did 2012


Much shorter list :(

January 22:
11th Annual Poets Theater Festival (Debt Play) - Counterpulse

June 4:
Greene/Hunter Poetry Reading - Bird & Beckett

June 16:
SPT PRESENTS: Endless Summer - CCA

July 28:
reading/going away party at zack's: with jess heaney, tom comitta, zack haber

October 17:
Live at 851: with Suzanne Scanlon, Jess Dutschmann, Ivy Johnson, Alexandra Naughton





Readings attended 2012

Evan Karp went to at least 134 poetry readings in 2012! 

So I counted. I only went to 41, wait 42, forgot Quiet Lightning, wait 43 I forgot David Brazil, Eleni Stecopoulos, and CJ Martin at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library. OMG. Oh, he says "literary events" but anyway.

School seems to have slowed me down a lot. 42 altogether, only 9 between Sept-Dec.

2012 Readings Events


Alice Notley

Live at 851: Gabriel Blackwell, Joshua Mohr, Derek Fenner, Zack Haber

iduna: an opera in one act  (didn't really see this but I went)

Manifest Reading and Workshop Series #12, Erika Staiti, Alana Siegel

SPD Lit Crawl Creature Features Micah Ballard, Julien Poirier, Rebecca Farivar, Ben Mirov, and Claire Becker.

Live at 851: Suzanne Scanlon, Carrie Hunter, Jess Dutschmann, Ivy Johnson, Alexandra Naughton

Live at 851: Book Launch: Jarett Kobek, M Kitchell, Elly Jonez, Lorian Long with special guest John Tottenham

CCA Reading! Thom Donovan, Suzanne Stein and Sara Larsen

San Francisco I'LL DROWN MY BOOK Launch

RE@DS: Kevin Killian & Andrew Kenower

The Other Fabulous Reading Series: Ben Mirov, Alana Siegel, Adam Fagin

Studio One  kathryn pringle and Rebecca Farivar

C.J. Martin reading for Julia Drescher and erica lewis POETRY READING, Susan Gervitz's


David Brazil, Eleni Stecopoulos, and CJ Martin at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library


Canessa Park Reading Series presents: Nicholas Leaskou, Jay Thomas & Delia Tramontina

Live at 851: Nick Sturm, Rachel Hyman, Diana Salier, Steve Orth, Tom Comitta, Amy Berkowitz, Rod Roland

San Francisco Book Launch for Kevin and Rob-Alley Cat Books

reading/going away party: jess heaney, carrie hunter, tom comitta, zack haber

Woolsey Heights presents Dodie Bellamy, Jason Jimenez and Francesca Lisette

Featherboard: kathryn l. pringle, Alli Warren and Brent Cunningham

Leslie Scalapino Memorial Lecture in Innovative Poetics

Endless Summer SPT reading: Francesca Rosa, Erin Wilson, Micah Ballard, Joshua Clover, Juiliana Spahr, Taylor Brady, Michael Cross, Lara Durback, Melissa Eleftherion Carr, Suzanne Stein, Sara Larsen, Melissa Mack, Alli Warren, Alan Bernheimer, Kit Robinson, Loretta Clodfelter, David Buuck, Karla Milosevich, Cynthia Sailers, Carrie Hunter, Margaret Tedesco with Pam Martin, Del Ray Cross, Samantha Giles, Ron Palmer, Anne Lesley Selcer, Sara Wintz, Jill Stengel, Kevin Killian, Beverly Dahlen, Matthew Gordon, Sarah Rosenthal, Sean Negus

Bird & Beckett Books- Black - Kelder - Thibodeaux

Poetry at the Long Haul: Juliana Spahr, QR Hand Jr, Dereck Clemons

Quiet Lightning- Zack Haber, Karen Penley, Mariama Lockington, Aaron DiFranco, Valerie Chavez, Zoe Brezsny, Matthew Rogers, Max Tomlinson, Joe Case, Maureen Blennerhassett, Chris Carosi, Brian S. Hart, Cybele Zufolo, Samantha Rubenstein, Casey McAlduff

Amerarcana 2012 Release and Reading

Poetry at the Long Haul: Dan Thomas Glass, Megan Kaminksi, Sarah Rothberg, Janey Smith

Good Friday Poetry-Books and Bookshelves, Alana Siegel + George Quasha

Bowerbird Treasury: The Reading/ Reckoning

Sara Larsen, Rusty Morrison and Dennis Phillips reading at Canessa Gallery

Manifest Reading Series #6

Live at 851 Presents: Thomas Patrick Levy, Andrea Kneeland, Sarah Fran Wisby, Lindsey Boldt and Shruti Swamy.

RE@DS reading: Tom Comitta (Didn't really see this but I went)

2/11: House Reading - Durback, Thomas-Glass, and Young-Lauren & Tony's House

Live at 851: Lonely Christopher, Keely Hyslop, Janey Smith

Poetry at The Long Haul...Camille Roy, Lindsey Boldt, Steve Orth!

Manifest Reading Series #4

a reading and conversation with Tim Trace Peterson, j/j hastain and Monica/Nico Peck

a reading and conversation with kathryn l. pringle, Erin Moure and Andrea Rexilius

Wintz, Rankine (absent) & Bellamy

an evening with Cecilia Vicuna

an engagement with Sherwood Forest

11th annual Poets Theater festival


TESOL/Linguistics related books of 2012 (mostly "still reading")

Linguistic Theories Of Humor (Humor Research, No. 1) (Humor Research, No 1)
Sex And The Brain



Favorite Books read in 2012 that I gave 5 stars to on Goodreads


Touch To Affliction
Stephens, Nathalie

A 22 and 23
Zukofsky, Louis

Nilling: Prose
Robertson, Lisa

Knot
Doris, Stacy

Two Books
Martin, C.J. 

Sand
Phillips, Dennis

Hurdis Addo
Giles, Samantha

Chinese Notebook
Agrafiotis, Demosthenes

Undying Love, Or, Love Dies
Toufic, Jalal

To After That
Gladman, Renee

Infinite Variations
Nelligan, Marci
Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. the Joy of Cooking
Lin, Tan

The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures
Spicer, Jack

Song for His Disappeared Love/Canto a Su Amor Desaparecido
Zurita, Raul

Applies to Oranges
Thorson, Maureen 

Schizophrene
Kapil, Bhanu

Event Factory
Gladman, Renee

To Carry You Being
Haber, Zack


Goodreads Reviews 2012

Half sex, half Buddhism, the way everything should be. Finally starting to read my 2011 ugly duckling presse subscription books. Writing deep in a surface way. I had the orange hardcover library edition. Cathars vs the Catholics. Collage of underlined lines. The book I want to be reading whenever I'm reading another book. I like how he seems to have this one thesis, and all his books, whether poetry, prose or a hybrid of the two, are really all about this one thing. I wrote some *really cool* stuff about this book in my spiral notebook, which I can't find. Thinking deeply about Devo. Great right after waking from a nap and not putting your glasses on. The way that the actual subject matter of the book very slowly dawned on me was really cool. I also liked the Muslim interpretation of "Silent Night, Deadly Night." I'm so depressed. I was confused and thought this was a zine listing Robert Duncan as author instead of editor, but then I realized it is an essay by him that begins with two poems as epigraphs to his essay. Entertaining. I totally don't remember taking this from your house, but I guess I did. I found it in my bag. "Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundred of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn them into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be." Want to read the whole thing just two at a time like this. That the question that despair asks has no answer.