search ingenious

Recently I was in touch with a Finnish poet about search engine poetry. I have never done this, and I feel like at Sarah Lawrence the teaching methods were very traditional in such a way that it never even occurred to me to discuss poetry made in "non-traditional" ways such as via Google. But I'm terribly interested now because I've learned that if done right, search engine poetry can make such strange sense. Google has a personality, and parsing through the technical language can yield disturbing human results.

Observe here Leevi Lehto's "Get a Google Poem" generator. It's a neat thing to try. Here is what I parsed out of the results that my search phrase yielded. Mine isn't very good, but I like the abundance of lunches. I love the word lunch. I want some lunch right now actually.

Lunch at the Harmful Marina

Prevention and Mitigation
of Harmful Algal Blooms
for Fish Mariculture. Lunch--

buffet at Summit Hall. Lunch.

Discussion of effectiveness reports:

Please note all meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) will be served in. ...If you come up with something good, please post.

& things

Well, the reading was ok. I think I read a bit too fast, being a.) the first reader, b.) unaccustomed to my own sense of timing, and c.) kinda nervous (I'm not a good reader! But perhaps someday I will be)... I was glad to see Rohin there, and Al, with his cohorts -- they were all were super gracious about my kind of strange nervous speech patterns. Afterward Rohin and I went looking for a barbecue that we didn't end up finding, but all in all it was a good walk and we wound up someplace more reliable anyway.

Here's a thingamajig.


There is nothing the matter in your chest


Your unbeliever’s heart makes a peculiar sound
when you lay down your head: blood blearing sideways,
like a flood in a basement you think.

What's your man got to do with me?

i'd rather be at home

Waiting for my man to get back from work. I wonder what he will bring home today. Seriously, the only reason I'm up to date on my reading is because he works in bookstores and brings home exclusivities... I just finished Peter Adolfsen's Machine, which was pretty freaking excellent. It was tiny, compact, and very lyrical.

The following has nothing to do with any of those characteristics.

*

I should have known there was copper in your pocket

by the way magpies always followed.

When you move, everything cocks its head.
You don’t notice, but things unwind to hear you.


*

Also, CHIZILL EVERYBODY HAPPY JUHANNUS YEAH. Now go drink some sahti and try not to get an upset stomach. <3

hah hah hah

If you are in New York, please come to my reading, next Friday the 27th, at 8PM. I'm reading as a part of the Earshot series at the Lucky Cat in Williamsburg. Directions and other goodies available on the website. I will read first, so don't be tardy.

To combat the weird melancholy of having like 82734876 submissions out and hearing back from none of them, here is a silly little nothing. I seem to have written lots of these. Who knows why.

A maraschino
is sweetened, preserved, and jarred.
We'll say fruit remains.

There, I said it. Where to go now?

throwing her overboard

I go to London in exactly three weeks for the Milton Symposium. This will require that I book a hostel, which I know I should have done already, but haven't. I don't mind if it's far; I just need to be able to take a subway to where I'm going. My paper is mostly in working order, though I'm a bit nervous because there will be basically a hotelful of badass Miltonists (Barbara Lewalski! Stanley Fish!). And I'll be alone. I don't know. I'll be fine, but it still makes me a bit edgy.

In other news, we do have a mouse in the apartment. I saw it last night -- the little furball came running out from under the table I decorated and ran for the kitchen. This means I am visiting a hardware shop today for a mousetrap or two. Thing is, I don't want to murder the little bugger, since the last thing I need in my kitchen is mouse guts. So I'm looking for a live mousetrap, and I imagine a hardware store might have such a thing. If not, there's always the internet.

Best Lentil Salad Ever:

1 cup each of French Lentils and Green Lentils (maybe a little more)
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1/2 medium-sized cucumber, chopped
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1-2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

I cooked the lentils for like 45 minutes on low heat -- basically they doubled in size and absorbed most of the liquid (I submerged them in lightly salted water, adding a little when I thought there wasn't enough and the lentils weren't quite done). Ground loads of black pepper into the cooking liquid in the last ten minutes. Then, once off the heat, I mixed in the vinegar and oil and let it sit for a minute. Then, one by one, I added each of the veggies. And served the mess on a bed of spinach. Voila, perfect hot day food and loads of leftovers.

Now I'm going to try to find the right bin for my composting project. I think my plants crave something at least as nutritious as my lentil salad.

In other news, summer is hot.

A lemony background color for the lemony, lemony weather. It's in the 90s for one more day, and then we get the (relative) relief we've been hoping (praying/screaming/payola-ing witchdoctors) for. G and I have two fans in our apartment, and while it's true that they're large fans, it's a long apartment.

little things

This morning we woke up at 5AM to a munching sound in the radiator. I hope we don't have a mouseypaws cracking through our walls with his little teeth. That would be against the pets clause in the lease. Although maybe a mouse is a loophole? Note to self: ask landlord.

Anyway, then we were completely awake and made eggs and a bagel half and a cup of tea and decided to sleep for a couple more hours and then go to the Housing Works open-air bookfair. Then, we're going to Rohin's roommate's barbecue. Then we're going for drinks with some friends who are leaving town for realz. All good things to do on a 94-degree Saturday.

Sadie

Just a note about a magazine I wish had been around for my formative years so I wouldn't have had to bike the two miles to the library for back issues of Seventeen at the donation pile for ten cents a pop. Sadie is out with its new issue. If you poke around, you might be able to find my humble contribution... but I'm not telling you where it is, because you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing. The editors put in a lot of work on this and it looks great.

magazinestuffs

I'm very very excited about how this new issue of At-Large is coming together. It's looking great, seriously. Garrett has been working very hard on editing the poetry, and we've gotten some fantastic submissions, so it's looking quite promising -- plus Rohin's "extras" like the little thematic write-ups should give the issue even more substance. It'll be out later on in June, in a few weeks' time, and I think it'll be even better and more euphoric than the Jungle Issue was. So stay tuned!