utubed

I'm dipping further into the media maze of youtube. Here's an excerpt from my interview with Harlan Ellison as he rants about fools and writing. That day was truly a highlight in my life. As it will be in yours. Forever.

And subscribe to my page so you can join the revolution. Come on.

Blogctivity

Activity on this blog has gotten a bit slow, I've noticed. Not that I'm criticizing. Have you heard from me, lately? Groop hasn't met recently, sure. And it's the holidays.

But there are some things to discuss. First of all: who. Jen has a personal statement she needs us to read. Since it's short, we could also discuss someone else's story, chapter, partial chapter, column, or holiday card missive. Volunteers?

Oh, I know what you're thinking. What about you, Ella? Weren't you in the cafe with Jen while she was writing her personal statement? Weren't you working on the next chapter in your novel?

Yeah. Didn't go so well. Working on it, though. And haven't even started on any sort of holiday card activity.

Okay, so ya'll haven't been writing either. But have you read anything decent? Me? I've been reading blogs about ebook readers. Isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard? Reading about the possibility of reading?

Okay, I have been reading other things, but I'm not allowed to talk about it. All I know is this: it is very hard to write about grief. In fact, you can't write about it. If you do, it can lean toward the overly-sentimental, embarrassingly so. You have to write around it, or it just doesn't work.

Publishing machine. So far there are six in the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFh5axDKWU

http://www.ondemandbooks.com

Adventure Journey Episodes Updated

So, after a many-month hiatus while the website was updated, Adventure Journey has gone back online. Not only did they keep my serialized fiction as part of the new site, but they even gave me a raise! This month they've published the ninth entry in the ongoing non-linear saga called simply "Episodes." Check it out.

amsterdamned

Because my traveling companions demanded I do something with that footage from our trip last year, here's my first contribution to youtube. It's just a lark, hmmm 'kay? But I expect massive hits. Get it? You know, because...What?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSJKLlG6PcQ

Guerilla Poetry/Writers With Drinks, uhm, Razors

http://www.guerillapoetics.org

is a site dedicated to getting poetry into bookstores around the US. You sign up, they send you slips of paper with poems on them, and you go slip them into random books at the library or Cody's or wherever. Here's a chunk of their manifesto:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the literary rifts that have separated them from another, and to reverse the unbalanced powers of opportunity, the separate and unequal station to which the laws of publishing have forced them, a decent respect to the opinions of their readership requires that they should declare the reasons for their subversive tactics.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all writers are NOT treated equal; that some are undeservedly endowed by their university or publishing house with a certain level of haughty privilege; and that in the literary world we are entitled to a Byline, Publication and pursuit of an Audience.

And no offense Laura. You don't publish poets anyway.






Writers With Drinks (By Charlie)

At this month's Writers With Drinks, there will be ice buckets located at
strategic points all around the Make Out Room. That's because it's severed
limb month! Whose limb will be severed? It could be yours! After years of
hearing about our "incisive prose" and "razor-sharp wit," we've decided to
live up to our billing at last. Each one of our writers will receive one
package of surgical scalpels, which they will hurl at the audience at
dramatic moments in their readings. Your bloody mary could wind up being a
little more bloody than you bargained for!

When: Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007, 7:30 to 9:30 PM
Who: Kage Baker, Inga Muscio, Jessy Randall, James Calder, Ellery Urquhart
and Samhita Mukhopadhyay
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St. between Mission and Valencia, San
Francisco
How much: $3 to $5 sliding scale.

About the readers/performers:

Kage Baker has written a series of novels about The Company, a 24th century
entity which uses the technologies of time travel and cybernetics to exploit
the past. The novels in this series include In The Garden of Iden, Sky
Coyote, Mendoza in Hollywood, The Graveyard Game, The Life Of The World To
Come, The Children Of The Company, The Machine's Child and The Sons Of
Heaven. She spent many years in the theater and taught Elizabethan English
as a second language.

Inga Muscio is the author of Cunt and Autobiography Of A Blue-Eyed Devil: My
Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society. She teaches workshops on
feminism and anti-racism.

Jessy Randall is the author of A Day In Boyland and the chapbooks Broken
Heart Diet and Other Food Poems, Because Mona Is In The Psychiatric
Hospital, Slumber Party at the Aquarium and Dorothy Surrenders. Her writing
also appears in Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists.

James Calder is the author of the Bill Damen novels, which are "crime
stories about genetic engineering and the human future, set in the San
Francisco Bay area." The first three Bill Damen novels are In A Family Way,
Knockout Mouse and About Face.

Ellery Urquhart made it into the final round of the fifth Rooster T.
Feathers comedy competition. He's also appeared at Tommy T's Comedy and
Steakhouse in Pleasanton, and hosts a comedy night at the Listen & Be Heard
Poetry Cafe in Vallejo.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay blogs at Feministing.com and Colorlines' blog Racewire.
She's the training and technology coordinator at Youth Media Council and is
on the advisory board at Wiretap Magazine.


More upcoming events:

Sunday 11/11 from 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM: The Bay Area Bisexual Network's 20th
Anniversary Event, featuring comedian Rob Yeager, Featuring buffet brunch,
juice, coffee, tea, vegan, vegetarian and meat eater friendly menu. At the
Lake Merritt Hotel/Barbary Lane, 1800 Madison St., Oakland, CA. See
www.babn.org/ for details and to buy tickets

Sunday 11/18, from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM: other magazine fifth anniversary
party and issue #13 release party. Featuring Victor Krummenacher (Camper Van
Beethoven), Hazy Loper, Kelly McCubbin (Ukeapocalypse) and DJ Joel Schalit.
At CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission @ 9th., $7 to $10 sliding scale, $10 gets you
the new issue of other magazine. No-one turned away.

Writing from the pain

Plucking my unibrow into its proper dichotomous form was cake compared to the slug of fluid I sucked out of my ear just hours before. Here is a link to cauliflower ear:

http://rlbatesmd.blogspot.com/2007/09/cauliflower-ear.html

I had a minor version of it, like someone had stuck a couple of peas just under the outer lip of my damn ear. It often happens during wrestling, or as in this case, Jujitsu. The skin gets separated from the cartilage and a bubble of fluid forms beneath it. If untreated, the cartilage beneath the herniated skin dies, since the skin is how the cartilage receives its nutrients. Dead cartilage shrivels up and becomes hard as regular bone and looks pretty funny. And I already look pretty funny. So I went to Justin’s house, stood in front of the mirror, and turned on all the lights. Justin tossed a syringe into the sink.

“Just stick it in and suck.”

I leaned in close. I would do this on my own. Mostly on the advice of Bon, my large Korean instructor who nearly beat up the last person who helped him with his cauliflower ear.

Just when I’m gathering up the courage to poke my ear, the needle right there, I mean *on* the skin, Justin peers into the mirror and shouts that I have wolverine ears. This means that I have long, wispy, nearly transparent hairs emanating from the rims of my ears, like a wolverine I suppose. You can’t really see them unless you get really close, and turn the lights way up. Which is what I was doing.

“Dude, I’m getting you some tweezers.”

“Shut up. Leave me the fuck alone.”

“You’re not going to get any chicks with wolverine ears dude.”

“I’d rather have wolverine ears than cauliflower ears.”

“But Duuude-"

“Shut up means no talking, as in no sound out of your face!”

I began to stick my ear with the syringe. I cringed a lot. It went in smoothly, after a small pinch of pain. I heard a small “tick” and then another “tick” as the needle penetrated cartilage. I drew out enough liquid to get up to the “1” mark on the needle. It was reddish, pale stuff that seemed a bit thinner than blood.

“Plasma!” Justin hooted. “That’s a syringe full of plasma!”

I’m still not sure how we got around to the fact that I had a unibrow. Anyway, my ear hurts, and so I wrote about it.

Introducing...

www.bridgethoida.com

(Okay, so all the bells and whistles, I mean links, are not completely in place. But the home page with flash is up--and awaiting comments.)

Link me Laura!