Booked - The Way We Sleep

Hey faithful readers, an essay I wrote on sleep, Catholicism, and death appears here with pieces by fellow Chicagoans Billy Lombardo and Jeffrey Brown plus fun others who you can discover on your own. 

As of now, they're shucking these glossy bad boys for $10 with free shipping. I might  rewrite/remix the heck out of this essay later and release 20 copies as a choose your own adventure zine, but hey, this is a cool book and Curbside Splendor is a grand supporter of Chicago writing. My friends Billy and Frank gave me some heavy editing advice and I'm finally starting to figure out this essay form.

Anyway, I ordered a copy few weeks ago. If you don't need to add another book to your life, I'll show you mine over coffee and you can humor me since this is my first book-thing I've been in.  

As to  the cover, if it were of me, the picture would display --  

• a frail man child spooning a pillow 
• drool all over the place 
• and since I moved, no bed frame, floor mattress 
• no facial hair and babe less.    
• but isn't it a pleasing blue? Appearing below, a message from the publishers: 

The Way We Sleep is on Black Friday sale for TEN FREAKIN’ BUCKS (FREE SHIPPING!!!) from Curbside Splendor Publishing this weekend.Jessa Marsh and I are honestly just insanely proud of this thing we’ve been able to put together over the last 2 years with so many creative, talented people, working with friends and making new ones along the way. I know I’m biased on this, but if you’re literary friends or friends who are just into cool stuff, you really can’t go wrong buying this anthology for $10. And you didn’t even have to sleep outside Best Buy all week to get it! Get it today at http://curbsidesplendor.bigcartel.com/product/way-we-sleep

Prose Poem #1

A form I like to play with is the prose poem. One teacher I had said it was a haunted house, a poem story, or a weird box. These things are true in that context is cut, things always take on this spooky "how did it happen" quality. I think from this Thursday to next, all my posts will be prose poems. Or maybe, maybe each Thursday I write one. It's hard to say.

This one comes from the Frenchman Charles Baudelaire, who famously looks pissed off and deranged in all of his portraits, which is true of his life, though he did have portraits made of himself, so maybe things could have been worse. Still, there is nothing worse than telling people their lives are not tricky.

Click on this fellow to read him. You may need to steal him off your screen and enlarge, or else hit "command+" to zoom.

I am a Barecelonan

I try to draw a little. I keep thinking, draw more, take an art class, get better at things, but I know there's no time for that. I like Joan Miro's monsters and people, so I bought a book of his lithographs. I figure drawing isn't my thing, so forget it, I'll just draw as he does and see what happens in a few years. My goal is to have an interesting tiger.

Spookiest Lunch

This is some spooky lunch art I made between periods. 

Most Sadful

When I am sitting as the saddest of the sad and in the bummest of the bummers I consult this Madlibs that I found at the Krayola practice spot. I think Curtis filled it out about three years ago, but hey man, I don't know.

Uh Huh Well Yeah, Basically

Well, gee I guess this is my blog, now, huh? Oh wow, I'm going to write the best things in it, OK? If you give a single shit about your intake of culture you must check back here weakly for

• advice, 
• pictures, 
• and episodes
• and zine reviews
• and thoughts on teaching, perhaps, but most likely no. 

I'm going to use this thing to express myself to the max, but with only a few words, you know? All this and more, unless suddenly my personal life (as in walking around, as in coffee and riding my bike) begins to satisfy my desperate need for attention. Well, gotta go, my friend are here!