Do Gummi Bears Dream of Rubber Passion Fruit?

2008-08-20T09:45:00.001-07:00

Don't forget that I'm reading tonight! Check two posts down for the details. At this reading you'll be able to purchase my booklet just out from House Press, A RING OF TRUMPET BRASS. Brand new! You don't want to miss out! It's another great-looking release from a great little press.

Drinking & blogging means...

2008-08-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

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a list post! Yea. Everyone's excited about these. I know because of the amount of email I receive that are similar to the following:

Dear Mr. Logan Ryan Smith,

I would like to say that you are just, like, super awesome. Everyday I read your blog, and, well, WOW!!! I get so excited when my RSS feed tells me you've made a new post! What I especially like are your lists. I would soooooooo love to know more about the man that is THE LRS. Yes, everyone in my office agrees-- You're #1! Like, wow. You're life is the stuff dreams are made of. Also, while I'm writing, I'd appreciate it if you'd get back to me about a great timeshare I think is just SCREAMING your name. My number is 001 3354 409 59090. Also know that I have $9,000,000 in a bank account hidden in South Africa that I'd really like to sign over to you. Please contact me and send this email to all of your friends!!!!

Sincerely,

Prince Ali Hassin
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

So, since the love of my list-posts has reached all the way to the great kingdom of the somewhat East, please enjoy the following:

MY TOP 20 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF ALL MOFUCKING TIME!

1. Joy Division - UNKNOWN PLEASURES
2. The Smiths - STRANGE WAYS HERE WE COME
3. Joy Division - SUBSTANCE
4. The Smiths - THE QUEEN IS DEAD
5. Joy Division - CLOSER
6. Depeche Mode - SONGS OF FAITH & DEVOTION
7. The Sound - HEADS & HEARTS
8. New Order - LOW LIFE
9. Tubeway Army - TUBEWAY ARMY
10. New Order - POWER CORRUPTION & LIES
11. Nine Inch Nails - YEAR ZERO
12. Nine Inch Nails - PRETTY HATE MACHINE
13. Gary Numan - THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE
14. Radiohead - IN RAINBOWS
15. Joy Division - STILL
16. The Smiths - THE SMITHS
17. The Cure - DISINTEGRATION
18. The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
19. New Order - SUBSTANCE
20. Front 242 - UP EVIL

It's impossible to make lists. To get a real good representation, I'd probably have to do a top 100-- which is entirely likely.

DISCLAIMER: All lists are subject to immediate change without yr know-what-no-how.

I am reading this WEDNESDAY, 8/20

2008-08-18T15:01:00.001-07:00

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date: August 20, 2008 07:30PM
location: Books & Bookshelves, 99 Sanchez St., San Francisco, CA, United States
description: House Press Reading

featuring:

Logan Ryan Smith
Carrie Hunter
Kalicia Pivirotto

House Press will have broadsides of Carrie Hunter, and Kalicia Pivirotto, and a booklet by Logan Ryan Smith, fresh off the small presses for this reading.

2008-08-11T21:24:00.001-07:00

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I just found out that I'm gonna be an uncle! This is terrific news. I can't tell you how long I've waited for my sister to get somebody to knock her up so I can be an uncle and teach the kid how not to appreciate whiskey like a snob, but, rather, how to appreciate whatever whiskey it is that you can afford. And I plan on passing on this knowledge as soon as that kid turns two.

And also the brilliance of baseball and Doctor Who.

And The O.C.

Say uncle!

2008-08-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

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I take back what I said about New Order not being able to make good albums outside of the 80s. GET READY is pretty damned good. I guess I actually never had the entire album and for some reason never even gave it a chance. Is it as good as their core albums from the 80s? No, but that doesn't negate the fact that this is an excellent New Order album, all the same. In general, it seems to me, that most people do their best work early on. Only a few do their best work later. And something tells me my opinion of REGRET will have changed, as well. I don't have their last album, WAITING FOR THE SIRENS' CALL, yet, so judgment on that one will have to wait.

So, NEW ORDER, if yr listening, and I bet you are, I apologize. I'm really very, very sorry for dissing you. I hope you'll forgive me, even if you are broken up and will never get back together again because Peter Hook is a complete prick.

So, sorry.

2008-08-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

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HOUSE PRESS releases a second printing of Cedar Sigo's Expensive Magic.

2008-08-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Eric Gelsinger reviews Aaron Lowinger's OPEN NIGHT.

TRANSMISSION PRESS

BUY SOME BOOKS!

2008-08-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

TRANSMISSION BOOKS

TRANSMISSION PRESS

TRANSMISSION PRESS

2008-08-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Weird. Whatever it is, though, I find it strange that few of the articles about this thing are asking why its front feet are bound. Obviously a person threw this thing, probably while it was still alive, into the ocean to kill it.

A lot of people want to say this is a sea turtle missing its shell. However, there's quite obviously tufts of hair left around its head. Other people think it's a racoon, but racoons don't have beaks. There's also this place nearby suggesting it could be a science experiment gone wrong. But then why tie its legs together and drown it? Surely they have an incinerator.

Also, why aren't there more pictures of this. Did only one person take a picture and then only ONE picture? Seriously? What with all the camera phones and shit these days?

It's got to be a hoax of some kind, but I kind of want it to be something more mysterious and bizarre and real.

SUPER ADVANCE NOTICE 4 DA EAST COAST:

2008-07-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

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September 18
Big Orbit Gallery, 30d Essex St.
Buffalo, NY
7pm

LOGAN RYAN SMITH
FRANK SHERLOCK

__________________________

Everytime I hear "Buffalo, New York," in my head, it's always in the voice of the Dali Lama from that one Simpsons episode where he flies out the window on the way to his next engagement in Buffalo.

2008-07-29T11:55:00.001-07:00

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ADVANCE NOTICE: I'll be reading with Carrie Hunter at Books & Bookshelves August 20. Michael Slosek is MC-ing, and you'll be able to find many House Press wares there; as well as many, many other small press chapbooks and books and great things.

And me, of course. You'll find me there. I'll be one of the great things there.

On August 20,

Hump Day.

2008-07-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

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I LOVE NYC.

Did I ever mention that? I fucking love it. And when I hear that someone like, I don't know, Brandon Brown, got to go there recently and have this fantastic trip and adventure, because NYC is a big adventure and the most fucking awesome city in the world-- well, I get a little jealous. Seriously, I love NYC so much that when somebody else gets to go there and I hear about how wonderful NYC is from someone else it's almost like I'm watching someone else makeout with my girlfriend right in front of me. I get filled with JEALOUS RAGE. A big sick feeling in my stomach.

So, that said, Brandon Brown, watch yr back!

2008-07-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

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AFTER JUST HAVING FINALLY FINISHED LEAVES OF GRASS

I enjoyed reading Whitman's LEAVES OF GRASS (having finally read it-- the deathbed edition)
And I enjoyed it even more for its Annexes (though I was, long before them, just waiting for the book to end)
As they made the book so much more like a Life (long (if one's lucky), arduous, vibrant, loved, hated, reviled, lived, rejected, seen, objective, subjective, observant, accepted, respected, forgotten, remembered (again and again), repeated, experienced and ended, though not ending, entirely, or ever)
And like Life, though I enjoy it (that is, the book and Life),
I doubt I will ever be able to read it twice.

7/28/08

2008-07-26T19:17:00.001-07:00

This book was made with only the finest selection of hops and barley. BUY IT!

2008-07-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

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Holy shit. TRON 2 is actually in production. Praise be! Here's a really shitty video of the trailer premiering:

2008-07-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

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Every once in a while I find something I'd written a while ago that I had considered "thrown away" and discover that it's actually worth something. MUCH LIKE YOU SHARK was a book that I originally wrote in 2006 and thought was fucking garbage and so I never looked at it again until sometime last year; and now that book is one of my personal favorites. A couple nights ago I found a few long poems written in 2005 that might be pretty OK. But last night I found a chapbook called TRACKS that I wrote around the same time as MUCH LIKE YOU SHARK, and which I had, apparently, given up on even more. I thought the book was complete, utter shit. Turns out I was wrong once again! And like all of my chapbooks, TRACKS (the first draft, anyway) was all written in one sitting, so it's a complete book.

It's kind of thrilling to find old work that's basically complete and-- at least in yr own opinion, pretty good --because it's like I didn't even have to write it, but there it is! Because I had so completely forgotten about TRACKS it's like I wrote it in my sleep or something and now I have this "new" book to look at and be excited about.

I guess I do tend to write a lot, so I end up "throwing out" a lot-- i.e., save the file but never look at it again. But I definitely suggest going thru old work every once in a while, especially stuff a year old, or older. I bet you gave up on something that wasn't so bad.

2008-07-25T22:36:00.000-07:00

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PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

2008-07-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

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What fucking kind of a fucking world do we live in where a sequel of fucking Sisterhood of Fucking Traveling PANTS (?) (really? I mean, really? I mean, are you fucking serious-- PANTS???? TRAVELING PANTS!!!!????) but, apparently, it's fucking IMPOSSIBLE to make a sequel to Serenity, one of the best sci-fi movies ever made, spawned from one of the best sci-fi series ever made. Over and over again we're told how it "just can't happen".

What kind of a world is it?

A not good world, that's for sure.

A not good world.

John McCain's Neverending War

2008-07-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

2008-07-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

The New York Times rejects John McCain's essay for publication in their Op-Ed section.

2008-07-22T11:02:00.001-07:00

GALATEA #10

This one includes a review by Eileen Tabios of Michael Koshkin's ORGY IN THE BEEF CLOSET, which you can go buy at TRANSMISSION PRESS.

Open Night by Aaron Lowinger

2008-07-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

TRANSMISSION PRESS TRANSMISSION PRESS TRANSMISSION PRESS

It's here, people! This is a book that rivals records and makes you think yr supposed to put it on yr turntable, but then you try and you realize that it's not round-- but it sure does GROOVE, baby! Oh yeah! You want you some poetry that make yr heart sizzle all the way to yr tongue, baby? Oh yeah, this is the book for you! You know how people call certain bands "Music to Make-Out To"? Well, baby, sweet sunshine of my life, this here is "POETRY TO MAKE-OUT TO". Yes, that's right, this is the book that makes things go ba-bump in the night! It'll make yr legs shake, yr liver quake, and yr brain bake, baby, oh yeah! So come on now and get 'em like a sweet piece of hot cakes! Oh yeah! Take this book to yr insomnia and call it FRIEND. It's the book that keeps on giving, giving and giving all the way to the END, baby, oh yeah!

Go buy it at TRANSMISSION PRESS and rock out with yr **** out, oh yeah!

__________________

open night

While the unseen night
windows are expanding
a lot of things here outside
the time cat clamped on my cheek
PBS tower crowded out by leaves
mother of wonder night calls
from your hair to your feet
out left out right
middle and center
the back the sides
more than ever please here
the side I’ll sleep on
until the walls all laugh
so loud the garden hears

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2008-07-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

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So, a couple of fucked up, gross dreams from last night. First one: I am an actor on a show (I won't tell you which one, but I am living in England) and we're on site at a large theatre downtown filming. At one point we're on the roof filming (it's a grey dawn) when I see a menacing figure coming up the fire escape. I recognize him as someone that had threatened to kill the crew-- either this had happened earlier in the dream, or the dream just decided that. So, I see the guy about to hop onto the roof and I push him down. He falls down a few steps, then gets up and starts running back down the fire escape. People on the roof are freaking out. There's a few crew members and other actors outside to the side of the theatre now near this guy. I yell to one of them to "get his gun". This guy is now surrounded by two actors and a crew guy. One of the actors, a little nerdy guy, probably in his early 20s, hears me and gets the guy's gun. In a very realistic fashion (he doesn't know what he's doing) he fires the gun at the thug three or four times from maybe five feet away or so, and he misses. Two more "thugs" show up, one knocks the gun out of the actor's hands, picks it up and puts a bullet in his brain. Blood flies and the kid drops. Then one of the other crew members grabs a gun he found on the ground (?) and begins firing it at the three thugs. He, too, doesn't know how to fire a gun, and misses numerous times before hitting one in the kneecaps, then when that guy falls he goes over and shoots him in the head. Immediately after one of the other thugs kills that crew member. I find a gun on the rooftop and am about to fire it down at them when one of the crew members yells "It's a cap gun!" I fire anyway, just to be sure, and she was right. Just a little harmless pop. Then the two thugs run off into the city or into the building or something. All of us on the roof are freaking out and I have a distinct sense of guilt for telling the people down there, essentially, to try to stop them. The gunfire and the violence was very realistic and disgusting and I have a sick feeling in my stomach. But then I remember leaving the theater with another actor, meeting my girlfriend outside who asked how the day went and me saying only that "it was a long day". Neither of us mentioning the massacre that just happened. Which, oh yeah, was a massacre, actually, as I think the thugs, as they were running away, ran thru the theatre and killed more people on my crew.

Fast forward to where this dream turns into an action movie. I think I even woke up after that last bit but the dream continued once I fell back to sleep. So, anyway, I'm in a helicopter over the ocean and being dropped down by wire onto a big boat. This ship is where the two thugs that got away have been hiding. Apparently I also know (thru dream logic) that the rest of their "gang" is on that boat, too, and they had something to do with murdering my coworkers. Not to go into too much detail (because I can't remember much), but basically I go thru the corridors of this big ship, finding the guys and breaking their necks. It was gross, too, because it was quite realistic. I could feel the weight of the person struggling, and I could feel the pop of their necks ring thru my hands and arms. Not to mention that I was killing most of these thugs in their sleep, or that sometimes getting their neck to snap wasn't that easy and I had to keep twisting harder. It was pretty disgusting. But I got them all, and apparently there were a bunch of people on the boat that were pretty happy about that.

Of course the writing of the dream down doesn't do it justice. This was one that felt very visceral and real and added to how fucked up gross it felt. I also dreamed last night that I had a bunch of glass stuck in my feet. It was quite painful. I was trying to pull the little pieces out because I didn't know if I should be ripping the large shards of glass out of my toes and feet. Anyway, I've been having dreams like this before-- the glass in the feet thing, and I have to assume it's a common symbol of something-- just like the dream I used to have of my teeth falling out, breaking apart, or being torn out. And it's always very uncomfortable as I try to figure out what I'm going to do, because, obviously, I can't walk. But what was weird is that this dream *felt* very painful. I woke up after a large piece was ripped out in the dream and I swear the bottoms of my feet actually felt sore, as though they'd be cut to shreds. I waited a few minutes for the feeling to go away, thinking maybe I was still half-asleep, but it stayed.

Thought that was pretty weird.

2008-07-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

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They better start doing something like THIS around here soon. I'm fucking tired of nearly getting hit everyday I walk to and from work. You know how some people have road rage? Well, when I did have a vehicle, I never had road rage. Things really didn't bother me all that much. But now that I've been walking to work for the last few years or so (it's about 1.5 miles) I have quickly developed a serious and bad case of WALK RAGE. I get fucking pissed. If yr in a car and see me in the cross walk you better think twice before trying to barrel past me. I've made a habit of smacking a car anytime it gets too close to me and one of these days I'm just gonna put my fist thru the window, pull you out of yr 2-ton death trap, knock that fucking latte and iphone out of yr grubby little yuppy fucking hands, and bitch-slap you into a fucking coma.

I'm fucking serious.

Try me.

2008-07-16T15:03:00.001-07:00

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Just found out that Christopher Eccleston, who played the 9th Doctor, will be playing Destro in the new GI Joe movie. I didn't know they were making a GI Joe movie, but the idea of a live-action Destro (and Cobra Commander) (and Snake Eyes!) (and Storm Shadow!) sounds pretty cool to me.

However, Christopher Eccleston, let me ask you this: Is playing Destro in some GI Joe movie (which will probably be pretty lame, actually) somehow better or more fulfilling than playing an iconic character such as Doctor Who? I mean, come on! You agreed to be the Doctor for just one season so that you could be sure you had the time and flexibility to do movies like fucking GI JOE??? REALLY? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

COME ON!!!