Once upon a time Sean Cole, Xtina Strong, Cate Marvin and I were all in a poetry workshop together (Aaron Tieger would later be in workshops with Xtina and I, though I don't remember if he ever had one with Cate and Sean in it). Seriously. There weren't even any fistfights, at least as I recall. We were all very different then, though.

Though it is interesting to note who stayed in touch with whom, have done publishing projects which included the others. I suppose there's no accounting for the tenacity of any given person's memory vis a vis legitimacy and dangerousness.

Say hello to our friends across the pond at Zafusy.

It has been a busy week, I have a whole week of blogs to catch up on!

*WHEW!* Finally updated and alphabetized all the links. Hopefully I have not forgotten anyone! Let me know if I have!

My girlfriend reads The New York Times while listening to books on tape on her headphones. Freak.

Am hoping to get back to the Francesca Woodman project soon. Had to take a little break from it to get some distance. Got hung up on what was to be the longest sequence of the book (based on her Space Squared series). But I think I will skip that for now and just revist some of the other discrete images.

Still Time To Board My Spaceship--My Spaceship

There is still time left to submit to the first Cy Gist press chapbook, My Spaceship. Cy Gist Press will focus on chapbooks of ekphrastic poetry (that is, poems which describe/ interact with/ stem from works of visual art.) At this stage, the press will be focusing primarily on obscure texts in proprietary limbo. (In this instance, a black-and-white coloring book I had when I was a kid.) Submitted poems need not directly address or describe the images themselves--simply think of them as a point of origin. If you want to alter the images themselves with text, feel free to do this as well. Keep in mind, however, that the chapbook will be black-and-white only.


The images may be found here. If you require a higher-resolution image for manipulation, just let me know which image you are interested in. There are 20 images total, and each one will appear in the text only once. In the instance where there are numerous entries for a single image, I will select the one I like the best. You may submit as many poems as you like (submitting poems for multiple images will obviously increase the chance that I'll take one). Send submissions as MS Word documents or PDFs to: mark_lamoureux@yahoo.com. (Don't worry about cover-letters, etc. unless you feel the need). Please be sure to indicate which image each poem is intended to accompany. The reading period is from the time of this announcement to March 1, with the chapbook being completed in the following month or two. Payment will be 3 author's copies. Submitters will be notified at the end of the reading period. If I haven't received poems for every image I may write you back and solicit something for a different image.


Cy Gist press titles will not be sold, rather they are intended for barter for other works, for materials for future publications, or whatever else you may want to send to the editor in order to obtain a copy. Contributors will receive their 3 copies free of "charge"-additional copies can be bartered for. In the unlikely event that someone submits work and I don't take anything, I will send you a copy of the chapbook anyway. For the purpose of barter, things I'll be needing are:


Heavy bond white paper (30# or heavier) (I am going to be using legal sized for (11x14 for My Spaceship)
Cover stock
Binding thread
Access to an industrial-strength paper-cutter
Labor (come over some time and sew some books, etc.)
Booze (unless you want to send some in the mail, I recommend seeking out the editor and buying him a drink of your choice...)


Of course, I am open to whatever else it is you might want to send me (legal items only, please).


Materials received will help shape future projects. The cost of a chapbook would be roughly $5 or so, so the number of copies a given donation incurs will be based more or less on that figure. If you really can't think of anything, just donate $5 to the press and I'll send you a chapbook.
All snailmail correspondence to:


Mark Lamoureux
25-16 41st. St. Apt. 2f
Astoria, NY 11103

Coconut 3 would be a fun party.

Brilliant. Courtesy of Lorna.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Mark Lamoureux!

1. Mark Lamoureux once came third in a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest.


2. To check whether Mark Lamoureux is safe to eat, drop him in a bowl of water; rotten Mark Lamoureux will sink, and fresh Mark Lamoureux will float!


3. Ostriches stick their heads in Mark Lamoureux not to hide but to look for water!


4. Early thermometers were filled with Mark Lamoureux instead of mercury.


5. In Ancient Egypt, people wore glittery eyeshadow made from the crushed shells of Mark Lamoureux.


6. If you toss Mark Lamoureux 10000 times, he will not land heads 5000 times, but more like 4950, because his head weighs more and thus ends up on the bottom!


7. If you drop Mark Lamoureux from the top of the Empire State Building, he will be falling fast enough to kill before reaching the ground.


8. Influenza got its name because people believed the disease was caused by the evil "influence" of Mark Lamoureux.


9. Mark Lamoureux is born white; his pink feathers are caused by pigments in his typical diet of shrimp.


10. More people are killed by Mark Lamoureux each year than die in aeroplane accidents.

I am interested in - do tell me about
herhimitthem

OK, so now everything seems concrete enough to announce that Spuyten Duyvil has accepted Astrometry Organon for publication under its Meeting Eyes Bindery imprint. If all goes well, the book should be out at the end of this year, sometime next winter. I am very excited to have finally found a home for AO. I'm sure there will be a formal announcement at some point with more details.

Also, I should be posting the Cy Gist Press thing soon. It has been a fairly busy week.

When in doubt, meme. (By way of Laura):

Four jobs you've had in your life: Fruit-picker, Counter guy at Taco Time, Dishwasher at a Korean Restaurant, Faculty Assistant at the Harvard Business School.

Four movies you could watch over and over: The Exorcist, Spirited Away, The Ring, Aoen Flux.

Four places you've lived: Brattleboro, Vermont; Olympia, Washington; Boston, Massachusetts; Astoria, New York.

Four TV shows you love to watch: LOST, Battlestar Galactica (the new one), Invasion, The X-Files.

Four places you've been on vacation: Xalapa, Mexico (for a friend's wedding); Montreal, Quebec; New York City (back when I didn't live here...); Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Four websites you visit daily: yahoo.com, spamusement.com, and lots of blogs.

Four of your favorite foods: BBQ, Cheeseburgers, Pasticchio, Israeli hummus.

Four places you'd rather be: Montreal, Feudal China, Paris in the 20's, Atlantis.

Four albums you can't live without: DJ Rap, "Propa Classics"; Sisters of Mercy, "Floodland,"; Kate Bush "The Dreaming"; Matthew Shipp and Matt Maneri "Gravitational Systems"

Final Word on the One-Eyed Kitten

More amazed than anything
I took the perfectly black
stillborn kitten
with the one large eye
in the center of its small forehead
from the house cat's bed
and buried it in a field
behind the house.
and put it in the freezer

O however did I live without the bialy, you half-finished toroids of oniony bliss!

Stay tuned for various forms of big news.

Did anybody get a pic of me and Dug at the New Years Marathon?