eight questions...

the fine folk over at the print magazine nibble asked me some questions.

H E R E is how I answered.

thanks for the opportunity, Jeff.

the postcard...

with actual finished cover:



you can order the soft cover H E R E (the hardbacks are sold out).

go read this...

it's about my good friend justin.barrett.

it's nice to have friends.

attention, pt. 2

changed my mind.

I'm not gonna waste my time deleting the deliberately off topic comments and moderating shit from trolls or friends or whomever, if you wanna talk to me, email me.

if you wanna talk to someone else, email them.

I have things to write and whatnot, and frankly, nobody can help with that, especially not with a comment, positive, negative, purposefully obtuse, willfully ignorant, joyful, gleeful, angry or otherwise.

enjoy your stay at the new, comment free UPRIGHT.

update 5/7: changed my mind again. I just realized, while searching for a link back in the archives from 2007, this method strips all the OLD comments away from the blog, all the way back to the beginning, and that's where a lot of good shit happened in the past, so I'm instead going to moderate comments at my leisure.

attention...

this is a blog about Christopher Cunningham, his work, and his assorted bullshit, like stuff he enjoys and various and whatever and etc. if you dig it, stop by. if you hate it, stop by. but leave me out of your conversations with others, please. I am not interested and will delete only those comments that are off topic and annoying.

otherwise, say whatever you like and it stays. I could care less if assholes and/or friends make jerks of themselves...not really anything I can control or care to.

also, it's Saturday and really nice here in the mountains and me, my girl of twenty years, my two dogs and the super fine afternoon are gonna enjoy ourselves, drink some bloody marys and beer, eat a nice meal, all the shit real people do when they have lives.

just sayin'.

end transmission.

check it out...

just got my contibutor copy of the Owen Roberts/Compulsive Press and Bill Roberts/Bottle of Smoke Press collaborative effort AggressiveBehaviour Anthology2 in the mail and it's one beaut of a handmade anthology of poetry by some fine fine poets (and there's also some crappy work of mine that somehow made it thru), as well as some truly gorgeous full color artwork by Henry Denander. the production is excellent and striking, and the poets inside include such luminaries as (you'll have to google these, I'm too tired for links): Denander, Locklin, justin.barrett, A.D. Winans, David Barker, Glenn Cooper (I think because Glenn's poems are always so heartbreakingly goddamn good that my mind never lets me remember how much I love his work; the poem "Life" in this anthology is worth the entire cost of admission...seriously, the motherfucker can write a line like everything depends on its landing properly...a boxer with words, that one...), Graziano and many more.

the book documents the ups and downs of a tough world, and the seeming uselessness but undeniable necessity of poetry and art in such a place as this. Owen's own poetry captures the essences of one man's struggle just to come to terms with the frailty of his own nature when faced with the raw impossibility of change that MUST COME or that black robed sumbitch wins...

there is amusement and melancholy and joy and resignation. you might want to pick one up before it is sold out forever: it comes out May 01 in an edition of 100 and you can pick it up H E R E for $8 reg. edition or $25 for the "Deluxe" version (I suggest stepping up to the DELUXE package myself).

support the world of the indy publisher; you could do a whole lot worse with your spare change...

attention:

I am going to sleep now for many many hours.

good night.

in case y'all ain't heard...

the editor of nibble, dandy poet and all around super awesome guy Jeff Fleming has a new chap out and if you've not yet purchased this mother, you need to. Jeff writes quiet poems of sad beauty, poems rich with images and life, poems that vibrate and cling to the page out of desperation and wonder, and this chap, The Bones Of Saints Under Glass, bursts with such work. the cover is by one Hosho McCreesh whom I've vaguely heard of somewhere, and the words will surely move you; they are heartfelt, heart-wrenching and honest as can be. a fine little collection from a tall strange skinny poet (not justin.barrett, heh).

you can pick it up H E R E.

why have you not bought it yet? you're not a punk are you?

good.

please to enjoy...

this sneak peak at the cover art for Sunlight at Midnight, Darkness at Noon:


thanks much to Chris Roberts for the really fucking great work.

the handbound hardbacks are sold out, but if you missed em, we hope you consider reserving one of the 100 softcovers with the above gorgeous cover art. you can do so H E R E; just let Jason know, or you can leave a note in the comments and we'll get you on the list (all softcovers also come with The Sunlight Tapes audio cd)...

heh and etc.

and hilarity ensues...

the official announcement...

for Sunlight is H E R E. for those who don't know, there are 26 hand-bound hardbacks as a special edition, and as of today there are only four three none left.

if you missed the hardback version, we hope you still click the above link and take a chance on the trade paperback, being offered in an edition of 100 and including the same cd as the hardback special edition.

I'm thrilled that this book is being made (especially while I'm alive, heh), that Jason and everyone else involved saw something universal in these personal letters Hosh and I traded back and forth for years, and that so many fine artists are involved to make it a stunning reality.

I offer my humble thanks to those who purchase it and hope you are thoughtfully moved by the contents, much like I was every fucking time I opened up the mailbox and discovered, through the pain and joy of someone the width of a country away, more about myself and art, and the endurance of the human spirit despite the endless banal horrors of daily life, than I thought possible.

these letters helped me to go on; and not just writing...

UPDATE: the hardbacks are now SOLD OUT. thanks to everyone who signed up...

interesting...

was wandering around in a local vintage stuff store today, looking thru the books in one of the stalls, and came across a book of letters from Thomas Wolfe to his mother in 1920. since we've been spending time in Asheville, I thought I'd pick it up and thumb thru it (I've not read Look Homeward, Angel but it's on my list of books I'm probably never gonna get to), and opened it up to this dandy passage:

...but let me paint you a picture of the probable future. 'You can write and teach too,' you will say. Yes, yes, how fine, how hopeful that all is. In ten, fifteenyears, I will be a sour, dyspeptic, small town pedant, the powers of my youth forgotten or repressed, bitter, morose, blaming Everybody but myself for what might have been. The awful thing about most people is their caution - the crawling, abject bird-in-a-hand theory.

The security of the present job - with its safe wage - is ever so much better than the uncertain promise of future glory. What matter if you kill your soul! - your fire - your talent - you can play the game safe and manage to live. Live!

...On the train coming up I developed a heavy cold, which hung on most persistently...I became worried...one night I started coughing here in my room, and I put a handkerchief to my mouth. When I drew it away there was a tiny spot of blood on it. I was half sick with horror and tried not to think about it. [...]The cold got better, the cough subsided, it has gone now - and the soreness has disappeared from my lung. But that is not the important thing; when this thing happened - which, I think, meant little - I thought the worst, and saw the slow certain advance of the old Skeleton with the Scythe - I saw the sure destruction, the erasure, the blotting out of my dreams and my poetry - and myself - and I couldn't face it. And then, almost in miraculous fashion, I steadied, my mind cleared and the old fear left me. I kept thinking of the words of Socrates just before they put him to death: 'For I hoped that I should be guilty of nothing common or mean in the hour of danger' - and these words gave me courage, and a measure of hope. And now I feel I can go on with a firmer step, and a more resolute heart. There is a new fatalism in my beliefs and I feel ready for whatever may come, but, whatever it may be, I mean to express myself to the last ounce, meanwhile.

So if there is a sore or corrupt place in me I feel that the rest of me - which is strong and healthy - should be able to put it down. And if that is true of my life, then why not there as well? If there is a sore or corrupt place in my life, why should not the rest of me - that part of me which has fed on poetry, and the eternal tragedy and beauty - wipe out old stains and ragged scars?

I'm looking forward to delving further, as I understand his picture in fiction of his small town of Asheville made it all but impossible for him to return...

I'm hoping to one day accomplish that same feat here in College Park, GA and paint such an accurate picture of life that it actually offends the other residents with its truth. and maybe effects (affects?) some kind of change...though I'm not holding my breath; some folks will always tell you the sky is green no matter the evidence to the contrary. that green sky is a necessary thing for their religion, their belief system, their existence to continue functioning, and to admit its blueness is to admit failure as a human being. but that won't stop me from writing about the savages and their baleful wailing before the sad and terrible blue sky that won't be green for them, no matter how hard they will it...it doesn't matter if it's a dog on a chain they refuse to acknowledge as another living thing just like them or a jesus that'll fix everything or a political ideology that is self-defeating even as its echo chamber promises bountiful success while the bus is plummeting over the cliff face into the abyss.

anyway, it's important to not be them, no matter the cost. it's important to attempt. creation is revolutionary in a world of donkeys content with the hand they've been dealt and lacking the imagination to bluff their way out of a big loss.

or whatever.

things are probably fine the way they are.