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Fun, Gun, Real Play, & Control

This video is hypnotic.  Not just because it involves citizen Parsons and an intersection in the city I’m very familiar with, but because it’s a sort of mock-epic ballet of control–control of a public space and people in space, control of the self. But maybe not mock– I suppose there will be consequences. One can see Officer Baylor struggling to retain some sort of dignity as he continues to perform authority on the stage of the street, in front of the crowd.  His face reads restrained panic at the same time; he knows he has inaugurated a sequence of events which will have negative professional consequences.  Still, the roads must be kept safe, citizens on the sidewalks, given the necessary information about what conduct is orderly and what is not.

Oh DC! U St.  This sums you up–

I love you anyway…

Favorite quote: “You guys just ruin everyone’s fun–that’s what a police state is.”

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Intervening Absence? Yes.

Gently Read Literature just published my review of Carrie Olivia Adams’ Intervening Absence. Thanks GRL.

I still chew on the poems in this book. They’re good.

Gently Read Literature, by the way, is worth attention. They strive for more comprehensive reviews of books which incorporate a substantial amount of quotation–they let you encounter the texture of the stuff.

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Cheryl’s Gone Thursday: Sally Keith, Karen Anderson, Casey Smith, & Maureen Andary

Blowing out 2009 with one of my (& our) favorite people in DC–Sally Keith. This is the last thing you should do before you leave town.  Assuming you leave town. Hardcore DCists, come and say goodbye to your carpetbagging friends.

Plus, beer!

Sally Keith, Karen Anderson, Casey Smith, & Maureen Andary

Thursday, December 17th at 8 PM

Big Bear Cafe 1st & R NW Washington DC
www.cherylsgone.com

Sally Keith’s new poems will appear (or have) in: A Public Space, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Literary Imagination, and Black Clock.  She is the author of two collections of poetry, Design and Dwelling Song, and teaches at George Mason.

Karen Leona Anderson is the author of “Punish honey,” chosen by Evie Shockley for Carolina Wren Press in 2009.  She received an M.F.A from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an M.A. from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and her Ph.D. from Cornell University, where she wrote a dissertation on poetry and science. Her work has appeared in ecopoetics, jubilat, Verse, Indiana Review, Fence, Volt, and other journals. She is an assistant professor of English at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Casey Smith teaches writing, poetry, and print culture history at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. Recently he has collaborated on poetry projects with visual artists, Vesna Pavlovic, Nilay Lawson, and Kerry McAleer-Keeler, and he has something in the works forthcoming with Ward Tietz. To the best of his knowledge, he has not been subjected to alien abduction.

In 2008, cabaret artist Maureen Andary was awarded a Young Emerging Artist grant by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to produce her debut album, “Nostalgia”, and was selected as a finalist in the 2008 Mountain Stage New Song Contest, one of the premier showcases of emerging musical talent in North America. Maureen sings classic jazz and blues as well as original songs that are inspired by the chord changes of 1930s pop music. A native Washingtonian, she has been nominated for two Wammies by the Washington Area Music Association this year and performs as part of the indie pop duo The Sweater Set.