Being at one of the largest universities in the country affords me the privileged opportunity to encounter many different writers. So far this year OSU has hosted Mark Danielewski, Linda Gregerson, Dave Eggers, Rebecca Barry, and Lore Segal. Yesterday we had the pleasure of meeting John Gallaher, who spoke in the morning about his outstanding journal The Laurel Review, and then in the afternoon about his outstanding poetry collection The Little Book of Guesses, which won the 2005 Levis Poetry Prize selected by our very own Henri Cole. He's the first person I've ever met who seems to agree with me about the overratedness of Shakespeare. If you're a writer who plans to attend the AWP conference in New York, you should read his collection then stop by our table (The Laurel Review and The Journal - for which I am the associate prose editor - are sharing one this year) and tell him how much you adore it. Tell him you like sentence fragments, dislike "projects," and then ask to see his little notebook.

Matt Lively got his BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University:

Super Mom

Tube Train

Untitled

The following video of Chicago's Blue Ribbon Glee Club performing The Pixies's Where Is My Mind gave me goosebumps:

Belgian artist Jan De Vliegher:

India
(2005)

Swimming Pool
(2005)

Watch
(2004)

Romanian artist Florin Ion Firimita:

Eight Ways of Forgetting
(2004)

Scenes From a Childhood 2
(2000)

Coronation
(2007)

I don't understand what this poster has to do with the movie, but last night we went to see Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. I liked it more than Life Aquatic, less than Royal Tenenbaums, on par with Rushmore, and honestly, I can't remember Bottle Rocket, can you?


ps - The studio cut out a chunk of the movie so Anderson has released it as a short film called Hotel Chevalier. It's got Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman in it; if you click the title you can get it for free.

The Legendary Louise Bourgeois has a new exhibit at the Tate. So for today, I thought I'd share some of her work other than the famous sculptures:

Le Lit Gros Edredon (with lips)
(1997)

That Night
(2001)

Day and Night (Day)
(2007)

German artist Martin Wehmer:

Eyes
(2007)

Wonkawai
(2006)

Two nights ago, Caitlin and I went to see Wilco, and lucky for us, Andrew Bird opened for them. Jeff Tweedy and company were not worth the price of admission: they played three bloated encores and drolled on and on and on for so long that I felt like I was being cornered at a party by a group of annoying proselytizers. I don't care for hippy jam band music, and Wilco is now a full fledged hippy jam band. Andrew Bird, on the other hand, was phenomenal - a one man tour de force! I've seen him a few times before, but always with a band; this time he was solo. If you get a chance to see him, you owe it to yourself. He whistles and plays the fiddle and harmonium, and he doesn't wear shoes.

Last month I featured artist Chris Jordan; the other night he was on The Colbert Report, click here to watch.

Oh, in case you missed it, one of the most irrelevant writers in the world won the Nobel prize for literature, and then had the audacity to be smug about it!

Today I share a sampling of work from a website dedicated to contemporary Armenian artists:

Two from Minas Hallaj:

Allegory
(2006)

Margaritte
(2006)

Two from Sarkis Hamalbashian:

Untitled 1
(2000)

Untitled II
(2000)

Two from Tigran Hovumyan:

Kentavr
(1995)

Artist and Model
(1995)

Reed Danziger earned her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute:

Winter Field 10
(2001)

Particle Energy #13
(2004)

Theory 2
(2002)

Charles Rhyne interviews me at Ashcan Rantings.

My friend, Catie Crabtree, has three great poems in the new issue of 21 Stars. My favorite one -- "Other Variations" -- uses the Oulipo n+7 constraint, and begins:

you caught my eye we exchanged
glass

Today the untitled work of Byroglyphics:

My review of Joyelle McSweeney's new book Nylund, The Sarcographer is now up at Bookslut.

Two Untitled pieces from Robert Selwyn's 2003 portfolio:

The "hillbilly art" of Jesse Wiedel, who earned his BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute:

Welcome to Eureka
(2005)

Varmints
(2005)

Meth Mouth
(2007)

Swan Song
(2007)

Australian artist Jan Allsopp:

The five of eyes

The seven of staphylococci

The two of kidneys

Also...

One of my favorite poets, Noah Eli Gordon, has a new book out called Novel Pictorial Noise. Here is a sample:

* * *

STRIKING AN ORACULAR NOTE to flush out the lazy assumptions lodged within one's skull won't offer comment on some recurrent aspect of life, as the world's not weirder than we think, but weirder than we can think. For example, a yellow moth appears to pass through a blue tire in the painting above my understanding of geometry. The question arises: is this a picture of the distance between yellow and blue, or is it merely a means to ground the figures, a maxim bled of its proverbial exigencies, such that the only relevant plane remaining is constituted entirely by the hue of the grass—the ground over which anyone wishing to approach must pass.



between What draws
equates of

* * *