Monday, April 18, 2005
Well this IS the Yakima Gulag Literary Gazett so I'll get to some lit here...
I'm exhausted, been running around all day but, I did go to the Poetry reading thing at the Yakima Gulag People's Institute of Higher Re:Education. This series is part of a class on poetry, a couple of my friends are takeing the class. I noted a girl in so much orange I wanted to ask her if she were keeping up with my Orange Revolution Updates and the usual students, One friend Mike and Kim R. formerly of the Galaxy are in the class. I find myself amazed there are good writers here but I should not be amazed, there's good stuff to write about and that will cause people to write good stuff.
The writer tonight was Barry Grimes, he is a poet in his spare time. He probably hasn't got a lot of spare time since he's as well a teacher.
In fact I'm fairly sure my kids had classes with him. He read some work I liked. His work that relates to his personal life is quite good, I like his style, it is spare, but not needlessly spare.
I could live without the references to Japanese poets and Lao Tze, I find that off putting. (It's a quirk, work with me!) but I do like his work in general.
I leaf through this book and find out this guy likes fishing and baseball, and has been to a few places I have lived in the past. Like a lot of Yakima writers he's affected by Raymond Carver. Not influenced, Grimes is his own man, but he knows Carver's work and you have to like a book with poems that mention cash machines and cats. I like the one called Politics, short, almost but not quite a one liner, and I liked One Morning for One Night, probably because I actually met Eli Wiesel, and the thing about teaching about the Holocaust is something I've thought about. Mr. Grimes gives a very good feel for his work, the good and the difficult aspects of it. That's cool, because no one thinks of writeing about being a teacher.
I had him sign a book, He has big handwriteing, the sign of an exuberant person. He deserves to be better known. It's very hard for writers in places like the Gulag, the atmosphere is one of relentless practicality combined with the magical thinking that is so fashionable in business life and that is very hard for writers.
I liked Mike's spy hat.
Speaking of the atmosphere, SOMETHING is real wrong with the radio on the AM, It's really been bad for about a week. The AM reception all across the dial is bad but it is ESPECIALLY govni locally. I can't pull in the local station that I say bad things about so often. I only say bad things about them because they are so persistantly complicit in brainwashing the politically naive, I still want to be able to hear them, like in case the volcano blew up or something. I mean local stations matter, because of stuff like that. Here there is a horrid ringing at all ends of the AM dial. I'd call them up, but they have my number blocked from the time I told them that it was getting old hearing ALL four Clear Channel Stations at the same point on the dial. That happens a LOT on weekends, instead of fixing it, well they put me on their list of people they won't talk to. You cannot call from any phone which is blocked. That is ok with me, but blocking me is NOT o.k. with me. I don't call them to be a pain, I'm actually trying to be helpful. They need to fix this.
Stuff like haveing an obnoxious noise non-stop is something a regular listener could TELL them. Nothing comes in clearly on AM. I have moderate problems on FM too. I happen to own a very good radio which has been treated nicely, not beaten up or dropped or spilled on or anything. So the wierd noise should NOT be comeing from my radio reciever. If it were the radio FM reception would suck too. The sound reminds me of the old days when there used to be radio jamming, it is a sound I associate with shortwave. Incidentally the fundamentalist stations come in FINE, and they are not that far off from the comercial stations. The Mexican station comes in fine, but I don't care for modern Mexican music. Bad music is disruptive for me, not annoying, disruptive. This wacky jamming like noise gives me a horrible paranoid 1950s kind of feeling, what is it when it's nostalgija but it's BAD nostalgija?
The writer tonight was Barry Grimes, he is a poet in his spare time. He probably hasn't got a lot of spare time since he's as well a teacher.
In fact I'm fairly sure my kids had classes with him. He read some work I liked. His work that relates to his personal life is quite good, I like his style, it is spare, but not needlessly spare.
I could live without the references to Japanese poets and Lao Tze, I find that off putting. (It's a quirk, work with me!) but I do like his work in general.
I leaf through this book and find out this guy likes fishing and baseball, and has been to a few places I have lived in the past. Like a lot of Yakima writers he's affected by Raymond Carver. Not influenced, Grimes is his own man, but he knows Carver's work and you have to like a book with poems that mention cash machines and cats. I like the one called Politics, short, almost but not quite a one liner, and I liked One Morning for One Night, probably because I actually met Eli Wiesel, and the thing about teaching about the Holocaust is something I've thought about. Mr. Grimes gives a very good feel for his work, the good and the difficult aspects of it. That's cool, because no one thinks of writeing about being a teacher.
I had him sign a book, He has big handwriteing, the sign of an exuberant person. He deserves to be better known. It's very hard for writers in places like the Gulag, the atmosphere is one of relentless practicality combined with the magical thinking that is so fashionable in business life and that is very hard for writers.
I liked Mike's spy hat.
Speaking of the atmosphere, SOMETHING is real wrong with the radio on the AM, It's really been bad for about a week. The AM reception all across the dial is bad but it is ESPECIALLY govni locally. I can't pull in the local station that I say bad things about so often. I only say bad things about them because they are so persistantly complicit in brainwashing the politically naive, I still want to be able to hear them, like in case the volcano blew up or something. I mean local stations matter, because of stuff like that. Here there is a horrid ringing at all ends of the AM dial. I'd call them up, but they have my number blocked from the time I told them that it was getting old hearing ALL four Clear Channel Stations at the same point on the dial. That happens a LOT on weekends, instead of fixing it, well they put me on their list of people they won't talk to. You cannot call from any phone which is blocked. That is ok with me, but blocking me is NOT o.k. with me. I don't call them to be a pain, I'm actually trying to be helpful. They need to fix this.
Stuff like haveing an obnoxious noise non-stop is something a regular listener could TELL them. Nothing comes in clearly on AM. I have moderate problems on FM too. I happen to own a very good radio which has been treated nicely, not beaten up or dropped or spilled on or anything. So the wierd noise should NOT be comeing from my radio reciever. If it were the radio FM reception would suck too. The sound reminds me of the old days when there used to be radio jamming, it is a sound I associate with shortwave. Incidentally the fundamentalist stations come in FINE, and they are not that far off from the comercial stations. The Mexican station comes in fine, but I don't care for modern Mexican music. Bad music is disruptive for me, not annoying, disruptive. This wacky jamming like noise gives me a horrible paranoid 1950s kind of feeling, what is it when it's nostalgija but it's BAD nostalgija?
# posted by Katja R. @ 9:22 PM 
