It's Times like these When I take Advantage of Hulu

And so my first book has officially been published via Lulu.com! It's called Lights of Night (I'm so proud to be able to italicize my own work...) and it's a collection of various different photographs I took when I was back home in Jersey on a rainy night driving around. The images are all longer exposures so all you see is blurs of light and color and maybe a dashboard or two. The book itself has 13 color images and a three page blurb about the beauties of driving at night in Jersey, when the traffic isn't as bad because the densest state population is asleep. And the last page contains my information (Name, E-Mail, Blog) and a "Thank you for reading!" to wrap it all up good and tight like fresh ground beef from the butcher. Here are a few images from the book and the cover art:

Now I can go watch Arrested Development on Hulu and some Rocko's Modern Life! Shaawing!

Sometimes All you Need is a Good Waxin' and Some Marvin Gaye

After a long and stressful week, which really spanned over a week and a half, I decided to treat myself to some goodies at Trim, a waxing joint where my good friend Kat acts as a functioning receptionist. But I couldn’t go ahead with my lash tinting (a $20 affair as opposed to a $24 bottle of mascara) without clearing my conscious of the homework I had due soon ahead. And so I decided it would be best to distribute my Zine by requesting to place one on the table in the waiting area to which Kat forcefully replied with: “TWO”. And so two out of my remaining copies landed themselves amidst a sea of Vogues, Comsos, and Vanity Fairs. After having said lashes tinted, and feeling utterly and shallowly beautiful, I proceeded to give my a copy to a lady paying for her Trim procedure of choice after deciding that the conversation prior (holding the topic of anal bleaching) warranted me enough to give her a book with a page devoted to a poem about Breasts. After leaving Trim while unlocking my bike I locked eyes with a young fellow walking the street and forced another copy upon him. My final copy was precious, and so I felt it must lay in the hands of someone worthy and fitting, and so I decided that the one location fitting enough for my bizarre and hapless (moreso hopeless) Zine would be none other than the volunteer movie store known as Odd Obsession (I HIGHLY recommend checking it out on Milwaukee Ave..). There, I trapped the young man running the computer of the joint and handed him my Zine. A day of success and glories, no doubt after a fail of a Zine, and here are the pictures to prove it:

The Zines are In!

Whelp, kids, the Zines are finished for class and I was asked to review Vrinda's Untitled piece of work. I would like to start off by saying that her Zine is just that, a piece of "work". Just by looking at the cover you can tell that she was meticulous about every little detail concerning her Zine, from her stylized highlighting of different words in larger texts right down to the little veins and capillaries of her anatomical drawings. Everything about it yells detail, detail, detail. But it is in no way boring! With proper photocopying Skillz, Vrinda was able to gain just the right contrast for each page, whether is be a big hulking mass of black with different dream or heart diction highlighted to the barely-there texts concerning blood cells and blood pressure. Each page has its own character and shows it right out loud. Vrinda even bothered to vary her page sizes and chop down a few pages just for anatomical drawings of eyes and skeletons and whatnot. And the splash page, if I do say so myself, is quite the beauty! Perfectly copied. And with varied page sizes come varied censoring styles, from blocks of ink that cover the entire page minus a few sentences to little patterned blotches and all the way down to nothing so that you can see the entire text. I must say, that on top of all this genius, that the cover is probably my favorite part. Not only does it catch your eye and separate itself from the rest of the book with its paper, but it's also really funny to pet. So let me say this, folks, go. Go out and read Vrinda's Zine (a name unworthy of this piece of artwork). Go read it, and pet it. Pet it lots, and make your fingers as happy as your eyeballs!

For more information please visit our class Blog and Vrinda's own Blog.

Time is on My Side but that doesn't mean I like Him.

This past weekend I ventured out to good ol' New Jersey and experienced ever problem that could possibly happen in a trip back home after a hard week in Chicago. I'll spare you the awful details of arriving home with one of the worst colds I've ever experienced only to be greeted by too many family members and friends needing me to be here and there at this specific time. But in short, I apologize in advance for not being able to blog sooner about my Zine, and even more sorry that I was unable to allot myself the necessary time to make a TOTALLY RAD Zine. But nonetheless, I was able to crank out something that I am proud of given the amount of time put into it. It's a little ditty of a Zine with all my shouldn't-be-published poems and thoughts and some absurd doodles, if you can even call them that. But instead of telling you all about it, I'll leave it up to my camera lens to show you what went ON. The Zine is called "Work In Progress" because that's really all it is and we should all look to work on progress in life rather than digressing, but now I'm doing that and sounding hackneyed as a price. I must say, however, that I am extremely proud of my copying Skillz and the fact that I was able to piece fifteen of these babies together in a matter of hours. Hellz to the yyeah. Now for the imagery...

  

The Best Things in Life are FREE. Or Stolen.

Before Distribution Time, I decided I would make more copies and take upon Ian’s ingenious suggestion of making my books into smaller sizes. SUCCESS! With the help of Kinko’s, a chopping block and the edge of a tin foil box I was able to make 43 +/- chapbooks ready to see the world with eyes unclouded by hate (if you catch that reference I may or may not owe you ten bucks..). If I could make babies that fast I’m pretty sure the world would be a horrible place by now.. Here are some photos of my kitchen on work day:

For distribution purposes I decided I would follow the ways of great Christian and Buddhist followers and stand on a busy street corner and hand out my chapbooks. But PLEASE, do not get confused, I know it is very easy to do so, but there is NO “u” in my name.

Anyways, I walked up to the “corner” of Milwaukee, North, and Damen, with my friend Alex and we decided with a quick roundabout spin that we would choose the Bank of America Slice of a block for distribution, aka the Flatiron. And so we trotted like no one had ever thought to trot before (because it doesn’t really require any thinking) and low and behold we approached our designated land and I proceeded to hand out my chapbooks standing with my weight balanced quite awkwardly on one leg, shoulders hunched, testing new slogans with ever fifth customer: “A moment for the arts?” no. “Free thoughts?” not really. “Free thoughts, free art!” yes! And then I suggested they check out my blog (THIS ism). SWEET, BRO. Here are some more photos:

"I CANNOT take this photo seriously right now.."

Yes, that is a limousine, and yes, the driver did read my chapbook while sitting at the light shortly after receiving it.

Some Cool Cats outside of American Apparel dugg my chapbooks...

OK, so this guy was probably my favorite fan of the day, if you will. He not only took a chapbook the first time around, BUT he also came back to inquire as to how to read it and what it meant, AND after walking down Milwaukee Alex and I saw him and his friend eating dinner outside. I would like to thank the grand street of Milwaukee for this string of wonderful coincidences! 

Even the police are informed..

My last chapbook went to a young man wearing a DG shirt who replied with, "Seriously? I can have this? What about your number?" I'd like to take that as a sign that this was a successful day of business, despite what was to transpire later that night.. 

NOTE: As soon as I get a scanner I will post a PDF version of my chapbook so that everyone who follows my blog may be clued in as to what these people find so intriguing. 

Cerebellum: I'll Use mine if you Use yours!

Lately, I've been really intrigued by the natural world around me and the feeling of peace it leaves lingering in the outer layers of my body, and so many of my works are inspired by fruits, trees, beings, blossoms, etc. My favorite poem (at the moment, but probably forever - note the blog title..) is James Wright's A Blessing (See Blog Desc.), and so I find that a good amount of my work echos (or tries to echo) the spirit in his poem as well as some of the visuals. With most of my works now I really just want to be able to penetrate a person's heart of hearts, that one place in him or her that tingles when something actually matters. 

These are three of my most recent works in Poetry that I look forward to having reviewed. I’d say they’re the ones I’m most proud of, mostly because I’ve learned a whole lot more about perception in relation to what we say and what we say we see. Basically, I learned to show rather than tell (a huge problem of mine.) I like to say that I will probably never have a “finished” work, in the most concrete sense of the term, but these are most definitely not to their final stage, but they sound pretty snappy! I figured I could play with these works (along with making new ones, possibly) in different publications because I am so much about presentation of my work. I find that a different page color or a different method of publication adds a whole new meaning to the work and might even call for a different set of line breaks, or a stanza, or maybe even some new words. I am very-very particular about every section of my poem (that’s why I can’t do fiction, too many words left behind that may have needed capitalization or emphasis of a different sort) and so I’m not so much looking to add to my works as much as I am just looking to skin it down to its core skeleton. I like my stuff RAW, baby!

It’s the Mother’s Fault

 

When I see children

In a bath or running around naked

I contemplate how unsexual their bodies

Really are. And how they don’t need

To worry about or do anything

Sexual until after their pubic hairs

Grow. And they shouldn’t. I look

At their hairless skin and think

About how one day I might be

A mother. And then I think how remarkable

It is that a human being can come

Out of me.

 

 

Contentment: Anxiety.

 

Washed over lilacs

With a Marinade

Brush and Baster. They’ll flourish

And their soft colors

Will bleed a little

Like watercolors,

Ever so carefully

Cared for: the blossoms,

They shout

A quiet solemn Tune.

And the light and lovely

Perfume

Tickles my palms and olfactories

And I’m left staring at the light

Just so that my sneeze may never come.

 

Cherries that Hit the Ground Blue

 

I walked down a side street the other day and found

A smashed watermelon and some Cherries

From the day before. They looked unright but beautiful,

No less, their colored Juices staining the grey slate

Sidewalk. I walked down the same street about

Two days later and lying in the dead, wet leaves

There sat a plum. It was perfectly edible.

(Really hating the format on these poems... Thanks, Blogger, if that is your real name.)

Note: If you'd really like to know the meaning of a poem, well, I'm not into that. There really is no one idea behind any of them, BUT! I can inform you as to where my state of mind was so that you may better grasp the ideas behind each work. There may even be some things you pick up on that I may never have found myself.