Tuesday, September 30, 2008

good shit...

Hosho McCreesh's new one is featured in the Orange Alert Spotlight. if you've not picked up this perfect bound paperback with its stunning art and fantastic design, coupled with some of the strongest poems Hosh has ever put in a collection, then you're really missing out. this thing is a motherfucker, every poem hits hard, images that burn, lines that churn the guts, glimpses into the pure heart of the nightmare where hope is a pinprick of light in the far far distance, and might be an illusion in the end. it's a beautiful thing to behold...

and while you're at it, j.b's new one is a beast of poetry too. full of life, brimming with humor and insight, it's a roaring return to the world of small press poetry from one of the best around.

and if you've got a few bucks more to spend get alan catlin's latest from sunnyoutside. it's a damn good collection from a small press legend, and some of the poems will knock you right on the bar room floor. check it out.

also, just got some new stuff from Doug Draime published by KSE. thanks to Doug for sending em my way. get everything of his you can find. he is a master. what else can you say?

finally, congrats to them Noot boys for scoring "Best Local New Music Act" in our Creative Loafing alt weekly. Mathis "Bimbi Garraux" Hunter (aside: he also plays in the "Best Overall Local Music Act" Reader's Choice band The Selmanaires), Hosho and I are putting together a killer audio addition to the forthcoming Sunlight letters book, with excerpts being read along with original musical/ambient soundscapes. more info on that in the very near future...

oh and:

sorry you couldn't just steal $700 billion MORE from us just yet, though I'm sure it'll happen anyway. how about trickling UP for a change? and jesus, this is all about credit swap bullshit and insurance and NOT the bad mortgages, which plays but a small part in the whole deregulated bloodbath and mass fleecing of the Treasury (read the sept. 30 entry, it's the shock doctrine and a giant theft...I mean, how does 100 trillion in derivative trash sound?). bah, more than half the money would go to foreign banks anyway. where are my poker loss bailouts? but whatever. who cares? wheeeee! I have a shiny new penny! capitalism ROOLZ!11!!!

(a good blog about 'money and shit' is H E R E)

Saturday, September 27, 2008

no gas...

no fucking gas. imagine when other trucks stop arriving. like the food trucks. or the medicine trucks. there are fights over a few gallons of gas already here in atlanta. folks are gonna stop going to work soon, and have in many cases. I'm sure it'll all work out, our gov. here in ga, the same one who prayed for rain to stop the drought, says there's plenty of gas and that it's mostly our own fault. but in reality, it's kind of semi-apocalyptic. I'm building a specialty vehicle in the back yard as we speak, just to be on the safe side:



at least there's a plan in place to stop civil unrest. nothing to see here folks, just mind your own business and don't worry about that kid getting his head kicked in across the way. he shoulda minded HIS own business...

disturbed? you will be...

in case you've not witnessed President Palin in action. it's waaaaay fucking worse than ms. south carolina while being equally incomprehensible...

stuff...

I have two one none extra copies of the most recent NYQ if anyone wants em.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

rip richard wright...

Sunday, September 14, 2008

won't you help...

Friday, September 12, 2008

the announcement...

Orange Alert Press.

oh man, this thing is gonna be sick. there's gonna be special editions, great original artwork, audio/video complete with originally composed 'sound structures' and music, lots of good shit. stay tuned for all details as it comes together.

Monday, September 08, 2008

go buy this...

from the publishers:

[untitled]
by justin.barrett
$7.00 [includes shipping]

justin.barrett's newest poetry collection, [untitled], is now available from Propaganda Press. Sixty pages of new material - most of it never before published - [untitled] is a raw and unfiltered look inside justin's life; personal, emotional, loving, questioning. From the metaphoric uses of science to explain loves lost and found to the analytical probing of William Carlos Williams and the red wheelbarrow, this book is a tight collective of simple recollections, moments of details jotted down as they were fleeting, preserved in a cornerstone of justin's mind and a splotch of ink on paper. The poems are at once beautiful and sorrowful, honest and dream-like, sexy and bashful, personal and universal, introspective and outright loud; the apparent paradox of which makes this collection a necessary guide and companion to the contradictions of the everyday.

This book is available from Propaganda Press for $7, which includes shipping. All authors receive and set their own royalties on our press, so the purchase of this book goes to support justin directly. You can purchase this book by sending well-concealed cash, check, or money order made out to Alternating Current, PO Box 398058, Cambridge MA 02139 USA; or you can send us a direct Paypal payment using the email address alt.current[at]gmail[dot]com.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

IGB...

here is what editor Bill Shute had to say about In Gambler's Blood:

Anyone who’s known or worked with a problem gambler knows what a fascinating phenomenon gambling is and what a great metaphor for the human condition it provides. KSE previously published EXACTA BOX, which dealt with horse racing, but that work focused more on the details related to the track and its hangers-on rather than the psychology of the gambler. Now Christopher Cunningham, one of America’s most distinctive and instantly recognizable poets and co-founder of the Guerilla Poetics Project, has created a new chapbook, IN GAMBLER’S BLOOD (sound library series, volume 36) that investigates the strange and sweet power that gambling—-in this case, poker—-holds over the players.

This work has an interesting history. When Mr. Cunningham wrote his previous KSE chapbook, NEXT EXIT: FIVE (at the point, the ONLY solo entry in the NE series), he mentioned to me that it had been composed under the musical influence of Calexico and Ennio Morricone (and knowing CC, I’m sure Miles Davis was also in there somewhere). I filed that information somewhere in the back of my brain, and one day while I was blasting Ennio Morricone’s NAVAJO JOE soundtrack on the way to work, I thought, “Christopher Cunningham…Ennio Morricone…Sound Library volume.” CC is the kind of writer who appreciates a challenge, so he immediately rose to the occasion, dug out the Morricone albums, and listened through the music until he found an internal narrative: the story of a poker game from the perspectives of the different players. That, in a nutshell, is IN GAMBLER’S BLOOD, a brand-new nine-poem suite that has all the qualities one associates with Cunningham at his best: the tension, the understatement, the understanding of life and of people, the passion, the diamond-sharp precision of the finely chiseled language.

Beyond the thought-provoking poetry, though, KSE 110 also features a haunting and beautiful original B&W cover portrait from noted photographer Cynthia Etheridge, and if that’s not enough, each sale copy comes with an original mini-painting by Mr. Cunningham, inserted into the book on a card. Yes, each chapbook has a unique artwork in it, not a copy! And all for four dollars postpaid ($5 outside the US).

Chris’s previous KSE book, NEXT EXIT: FIVE, was one of our most-acclaimed and fastest-selling items, so please act now on this. Ordering instructions can be found by accessing the “available KSE poetry chapbooks” page...

Although not an example of “crime poetry”, IN GAMBLER’S BLOOD reminds me, on some level, of the great existential crime films from previous decades such as Walter Hill’s THE DRIVER and Jean-Pierre Melville’s LE SAMOURAI, and those two works are beyond compare. They haunt the viewer and are models of high-octane understatement. IN GAMBLER’S BLOOD fills me with a similar feeling. Thanks to Chris and Cynthia for taking on this project—if you buy only one KSE chapbook this season, this one would probably be it."



I hope you take a chance and check this one out...

go read this...

a chapter from an unnamed, unfinished novel by one Hosho McCreesh at the Johnny America website:

H E R E.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

but we have a permit for this concert, officer...

so?



also, it's nice to live in Georgia where these kind of folks 'represent' us.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

In Gambler's Blood...

is now available. four bucks (but I suggest you try the "three for ten bucks" offer from Kendra Steiner Editions and pick up work by Doug Draime, John Sweet, Luis Berriozabal and many other great writers). remember, every copy gets an original watercolor as a special insert. I think this book turned out really well, nine poems that tell the story of a poker hand in action. take a chance and head over H E R E to purchase your copy and support the small press. thanks to bill shute for the opportunity and inspirado and to cynthia etheridge for the cover.

10-4, Snow Man, RIP...

one of my favorite movies...

Cledus Snow: Atlanta to Texarkana and back in twenty eight hours? That ain't never been done before.
Bandit: That's cause *we* ain't never done it.
Cledus Snow: Suppose we don't make it?
Bandit: Hey, we ain't never not made it before, have we?



Cledus Snow: Hey Bandit. Me an' Fred got a question.
Bandit: What you an' Fred want?
Cledus Snow: How come we's doin' this?
Bandit: Why d'you ask?
Cledus Snow: Well they said it ain't never been done before.
Bandit: W'hell thats the reason, son.
Cledus Snow: [shrugs] That's good with Fred.
Bandit: [laughing] Ten-four
>