to help haiti

I'm sure you can find these on your own, but here is an article with many different links to aid agencies:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100113/cm_huffpost/421014

haiti

So what else is new?

I heard about the tragedy in Haiti last night and after the usual lament for the already so poor and disenfranchised islanders, my disorganized, tired mind thought about Samuel Dalembert (the much maligned Haitian-Canadian center for the Philly 76ers) before I thought about my singer-writer friend Cassendre Xavier, who had been kind enough to show me her cover art for a recent book she is completing. If you follow this blog, you might recall USK's interview with her in March, 2009.

Anyway, it seems to be more of the same, the poor getting dumped on in the worst ways imaginable while the rest of us try to save or protect or build upon our own little lot in life. Roberto Bolano's "Maurico (The Eye) Silva" is on my mind when I think about the futility of the situation, but I think about Voltaire's Candide and its "philosopher" Pangloss too.

Many Haitians live in the larger Philadelphia region, and I was fortunate enough to know a married Haitian couple who lived in my father's third floor at 44th and Pine for a couple years of my childhood. The husband's name was Antoine Astache (spelling is probably off), and he had been on the radio in Haiti, speaking against whatever government was spoken against in the 1970s. He was a very warm person, and I remember running into him years later in a movie theater and being greeted again with his kind smile.

I believe that my 8th grade French teacher, Mr. Bien-Amie (yes, "Mr. Good Friend") was also from Haiti, and I remember a classmate's tape-recorded rap that included the refrain of "Fermez La Bouche," followed by "You shut up!" in the way that this kind teacher would repeat in English when the message warranted it.

I also know that Philly, poor in its own way, couldn't find anyone to pay to accept a huge ship full of its garbage that for this reason wound up floating around the ocean for months and months (years if I'm not mistaken, years during our John-Street years if I recall correctly). In the end, as I remember it, Philadelphia paid Haiti to accept this malodorous bounty; we paid their government to leave our trash on their beach. (In fact, this Steven Hayward article says, "Even Haiti wouldn't take it," and in fact, I am mistaken about the dates too... if this is the same ship, then its travels began in 1982.)

If you would like to donate to Haiti, here is one URL that can help.

when a blogger falls in the forest...

...I'm guessing he scrapes his knee, moans about his lower back, checks his hand-held computer for signs of disrepair, and laments that no one hears him except the forest gnomes.

In other words, the semester has begun, and I may have very limited opportunity to lose my two cents in the woods.

Bark.

writerly birthdays

Lee Konstantinou, Aharon Levy, and Fred Siegel are several writers celebrating their birthdays this week. To the best of my knowledge, not one of them has tackled the theory of how to properly conduct a birthday bash between Christmas and New Year's Eve, and that their names suggest Jewish and Greek Orthodox holy days is not the only reason why.

If you do google any of the folks above, look for satiric futurism, weird dreams, and dwarves and Russian adolescents stuck in dry comedy or the dryer. If you'd prefer to bing these fellows to see if their scribble suits your fancy, that's fine by me. And if kicking the reading habit is one of your new year's resolutions, so be it.

In any event, you're not dead yet.

Happy 2010.

ou est le don? sur le contemporary horizon bien sur...

It's official! USK's poet-in-residence, Don Riggs, has been translated into Romanian and is available both online and in the print version of a journal edited by the good Daniel D. Peaceman in Bucharest. Follow this link for more details:

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/2009/12/lyric-horizons-don-riggs-united-states.html

Dr. Daniel invites you to join his global literary community; you can send him your poetry, your spiritual vibrations, and even your cash to help him in his bilingual project.

the first of bolano

December is undoubtedly a month of Bolano. Do you require proof? Here is your quotation of the day, an excerpt from "Vagabond in France and Belgium":

The dead are at peace, thinks B stretching out in the bed. As if she had read his mind, the girl says that no one who has passed through this world is at peace. Not anymore, not ever, she says with total conviction. B feels like crying, but instead he falls asleep.

More Roberto Bolano in English translation arrives early next year: http://www.amazon.com/Monsieur-Pain-Roberto-Bola%C3%B1o/dp/0811217140/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a

Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations looks good too: http://www.amazon.com/Roberto-Bolano-Interview-Other-Conversations/dp/1933633832/ref=pd_cp_b_2_img.

It'll be interesting to learn how well this cult of Bolano translates and endures in the English language. In a world of fierce competition and low sales numbers, it is impressive that so many of his titles appear within months of each other and sell all at once. Chris Andrews and Natasha Wimmer deserve a lot of credit for the less recognized part of the deal. Translation?