i can't really sing, so

Because of my dissertation writing (and reading), I didn't read as many books cover to cover this summer, and those are always the only ones I write about/note as "read," so I'm combining all the summer months here! I definitely read a lot of excerpts from books, but this isn't the place for that. See: My dissertation! When it's done! Someday! Not too far in the future! American Hybrid Poetics by Amy Moorman Robbins I agree with so much of what Robbins says in this book, and it's provided a fruitful background for my research, though the way she uses the word hybrid makes me a little crazy because it seems to cover too much ground, and she never really defines how she is using it in a way that is clear to me. If it were only ever an adjective/modifier, I think I'd be fairly on board with most of the argument she is making, but she uses it occasionally as a noun in a way that gets me. I won't give away my entire dissertation, though, and instea...

A squirrel and a bird are having a conversation outside of my window. They don't sound too angry yet, it hasn't escalated, but they don't sound happy, either. Now, they stopped. Here are the books I read, and a little bit about them, in May and June 2013: Double Game by Sophie Calle I had this shelved under "fiction" because I received it during my Birthday Book Club in 2012 from a fiction writer, LaTanya McQueen. It's a beautiful object of a book, with ribbon to tie its illustrated hardcover binding together, semi-glossed pages, and pictures galore. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I chose "fiction". In reality, I need a sort of "art book" section on my shelves-- though art books tend to be taller and more "cofeetablebook"-like, this would definitely classify itself as an art book. The "double game" is Sophie Calle removing herself sharing the reality of a fiction written about her and then reinventing hers...

The holidays mean spending time like money depending on whether or not you like to spend money, but then it's January and you are recovering from all of this time AND money spent, so you are a hermit, mostly. I unhermitted last Saturday to see Eileen Myles & CAConrad read for the Chapter & Verse series and even though the room was small and packed and first too cold and then too warm the reading was excellent and I was glad every second I was there. It wasn't like when I go to see a movie, and I like the movie, but I want it to be over so that I can tell everyone how much I liked it. It was the opposite. It was warm, and there was a reading, and I was listening and grateful, and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to tell everyone how much I was liking it in any real way, so the inverse of that would be just wanting it not to end, except I had to pee, so I knew it had to end or it was going to end with me peeing myself. I just ordered Eileen's Book from Wave...