42 Dead in Bomb Attack in Southern India

How could such a major terrorist attack take place and get so little attention? Pretend for a second that it happened in Paris...

Things to look forward to:
New Vic Chesnutt coming out September 11.
New Animal Collective, also September 11.
New Manu Chao, September 4.
New Denis Johnson novel out soon.

A quote I like

"Worrying is praying for what you don't want." --Little Joe





(Does attributing a quote to someone named Little Joe immediately drain it of credibility? If so, just pretend it's from the Dalai Lama. Lil' Dal. Little Joe is a Native American teacher that Bhagvan Das met in his very zig zag spiritual quest as recounted in It's Here Now, are You? a very entertaining read for anyone with an interest in that stuff)

Good news (thanks DBD)

Charles Simic is the new poet laureate. This gives me hope. Simic is one of my favorites. One of the reasons I like him is, as with Albert Goldbarth, I discovered him on my own, read him cold without any idea who he was or how big he was, so he felt like my own secret. I can still remember it too, it was an American Poetry Review at the Miami (Ohio) University library. (Goldbarth was at the ASU library--I can still picture the exact place the book was). This story reveals an insecurity I still feel about poetry, though not nearly as acutely as I used too--that I like a poet only because they're well known. That's not true, but on some level I fear it, and don't trust my own judgement. What John Darnielle (the Mountain Goat) said about Led Zeppelin (something like, how can you really HEAR Led Zeppelin , without all the associations?) applies equally to a Shakespeare poem or a Frost poem. I still get anxious when I don't know who wrote a poem, and if the poet's name is on the second page, I need to flip to see before I can read the poem. Ugh. It's an ugly thing. But now, with Simic--he and I go "way back, man. " Anyway reading him now, as with the first time I read him, I look at the world differently afterwards, there's a lingering change. That's what I want from my art.

How can this kid be anything but cool?

Congratulations

Dup and Hil

And a big welcome to....

DAVEY!