Eye-feast

                       Follow Marly's board GLIMMERGLASS on Pinterest.

--Thank you, nerdian software gurus--

Here's a Pinterest board for Glimmerglass, 

shared by me and the marvelous Clive Hicks-Jenkins.

Now in pre-order. Pub date: September 1, 2014.

Frolics, various

Updatery department: Lucy of Box Elder has pointed out to me that artist-Annie-who-moved-to-California is working on a picture for "Static." Go see (i.ink). There are several versions, so you can see changes, too. Last month I wrote some poems for a little book in honor of Clive Hicks-Jenkins and his 2011 retrospective (I'm early! Such a lovely and unexpected sensation), so I've had ekphrasis on the brain lately. I always enjoy seeing what people dream and make in response to my writing. Those lightning bolts look like creatures, though ones I don't want to meet up close. Thank you, Annie...

Next up on the anthology front: "Static" in Extraordinary Engines, ed. Nick Gevers (Solaris). Pub date for this all-original steampunk collection is September 30th.

I finally joined Dickens in wreaking a certain kind of mysterious and lively death on a character, and I can reveal that this was an extremely satisfying experience. In fact, riotous fun and maximal steam was had in the writing of this story. Moreover, I have evidently raised my family status because a mother who writes a steampunk story is more appealing to preteen and teen children. Why this should be, I do not know, but one of my old editors at FSG, Robbie Mayes, guarantees it.

Speaking of children, I am glad to say that my mother spoke to somebody in B's dorm who said that he sees B yacking in the lobby constantly or else riding his bike. Evidently the mountain bike is noticeable because everybody else thinks it's too mountainous to ride a bike on campus. So at least he is practicing his social skills and getting lots of exercise! Meanwhile, he keeps adding courses and has passed the audition to enter the theatre arts program. Go, B! So it looks like a double major in history and musical theatre if we don't yack and ride bikes to absolute excess.

***

Overheard just now: Mike and N have already woven a diamond-pattern seat for the Shaker's elder chair that Mike made for my father when he became debilitated. Now N is helping to weave a flame-stitch seat onto a Shaker bench.

Mike, evidently feeling mightily sentimental: Some day when you're an old man and your mother and father are dead, you can tell your grandchildren how you made this bench for your mother when you were a little boy.

N, 11, blasting through the treacle skies like a red-hot rocket: I'm going to tell somebody before that.

***

Recalled from yesterday: R, 16, is talking to her friend M during a rehearsal for Grease. The two are doing a little bit of chatter-patter as part of the background, so it doesn't much matter what they say.

M, with enthusiasm: I think boys are nice!

R: I'm a cat person myself.

***

Yes, I've been perfectly perfect in my horribleness about blogging. Or about not blogging. And I'm way overdue to talk about lots of new books by people I like, so I'll try to come back soon... What have I been doing? I've been committing more poetry, polishing the summer's very long poem, answering or postponing various requests, and generally pinwheeling about like a cat on ice who wishes that she was as clever and fast as a chimpanzee on skates.

Fried squirrel: new online poems

UPDATE 2/8/08: I am the premier Q-looney for today at qarrtsiluni with a poem called "Self-portrait as Dryad, no. 5." Thank you to the editors! UPDATE 2/2/08: "Stones in the Wilderness" and "Snow White in Wildwood" forthcoming in the next issue of Mezzo Cammin, an online site for women poets interested in form. I've published there before and like it. With all this luck going around, I'd better send out some more poems. I've been working on my current poetry manuscript and thinking that I ought to be energetic and send out more little white envelopes--somehow I've managed to place eighteen poems in the past ten days, even though I am lazy about such things. Here are a few new online poems: "The Fall," "The Starflower," and "Spell for Raine" (a poem written in memory of Kathleen Raine) are in the just-out "Loss and Restoration" issue of Mythic Passages at the Mythic Imagination site. In addition, there's a poem I wrote in memory of my elderly friend Fae Malania (writer of spiritual essays) in the January/February print issue of Books & Culture. It has now popped up on line as well. The editor, John Wilson, helped us along the path to getting a reprint of Fae's long out-of-print Knopf book, The Quantity of a Hazelnut (Seabury, 2005), so this is perfect placement of a poem. Upcoming: A poem in my Self-portrait as Dryad series will turn up on qarrtsiluni some day soon. It feels luxurious to be giving them a poem rather than editing an issue. Illustration: the hardcover jacket / paperback cover to my first book of poems, Claire (Louisiana State University, 2003.) Unfortunately I will not be publishing my second book of poems with LSU because Claire has not sold a sufficient number of copies.

***
Family Frolic

N is discussing Obama. Being devoted to the unconventional, he declares that he will have to be for McCain because everybody in his elementary school is for Obama.

Mike: McCain was a war hero.

N, age 10: Didn't he fry a squirrel in a microwave and eat it?

B, age 18, from under his headphones: I ate what?

News & Sillies & Confession & Praise

WHERE I'D LIKE TO BE

Mako Fujimura does the most interesting collaborations. I had the fun of doing one with him not long ago, and here is a new one that sounds especially attractive. If you're in New York City, this just might be something wonderful to do:

Fujimura Studio Announces: Makoto Fujimura to become first visual artist ever to paint live at Carnegie Hall in his collaboration with Susie Ibarra, composer.

World-renown percussionist and composer Susie Ibarra will premiere her new work, Pintados Dream (The Painted's Dream), a concerto for percussion and orchestra, in collaboration with visual artist Makoto Fujimura and American Composers Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on October 19th. Tickets are available at http://www.carnegiehall.org/ or by calling (212) 247-7800.

While Fujimura and Ibarra have collaborated and experimented with live performance art several times in the past three years, this premiere will represent a first for Carnegie Hall: never before has an artist painted on stage during a performance there. Fujimura's technique, heavily influenced by Japanese Nihonga as well as American abstract art, provides a visual complement to Ibarra's largely improvised percussion sounds, underscored by the American Composers Orchestra.

Fujimura, founder of International Arts Movement, uses all natural materials in his art. "I am more and more convinced that the imperfections are more important to define humanity than perfected products. Acrylic and synthetic mediums can accomplish great feats in design and other plastic applications, but in direct painting, I believe that natural mediums.... have 'memory imprints' of the past, and Japanese materials in particular (reflect) a collaboration with nature, heritage crafts and art."

Educated bi-culturally between the US and Japan, Makoto Fujimura's paintings have been exhibited all over the world. He was honored in 1992 as the youngest artist ever to have had a piece acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. He was also the youngest person ever to be given a Presidential appointment to the National Council on the Arts, the highest arts position in the United States.

Susie Ibarra's Pintados Dream (The Painted's Dream), a collaboration with visual artist Makoto Fujimura and American Composers Orchestra, will premiere at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on October 19th. Tickets are available at http://www.carnegiehall.org/ or by calling (212) 247-7800. The performance will be repeated in Philadelphia on Sunday, October 21 at 7:30 p.m. in the Harold Prince Theatre of the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, University of Pennsylvania. Details can be found at http://pennpresents.org/press/?item=2007-09-25a.

International Arts Movement will host a fund raising event to commemorate the event. "Evening with Fujimura and Ibarra" will feature a studio tour, premier seating for the October 19th event, and buffet meal at IAM's brand new Space 3839, as well as invitation to the reception with Susie Ibarra and Makoto Fujimura. Please contact Christy Tennant at Christy@iamny.org for more information. Photo credit: IAM press release.

***
HOME FROLICS WITH SLAPPING

N: Hey, what do you think this?

(Slaps torso wildly)

N, in a silly but fierce voice: The Macarella!

*

R (15) and N (10) are cutting up on the way back from North Carolina. R slaps N playfully.

R: How dare you!

N, in an obscure and romantic foreign accent: Oh, what a beautiful lady. But so dangerous!

*

N calls out as the car passes River St. at night: Guys! Penguins! Go back!

The penguins turn out to be a crowd of orange cones nesting on the sidewalk and in the street.

The Next Morning

(Much teasing from older siblings over breakfast.)

N's salvo: Why would there be so many if they're not penguins in disguise?

**
Teenagers, arguing about whether one of them is a midget or not.

Small classmate turns to R: Well, what do you think? Am I a midget or not?

R: Only a little.

**
Meanwhile B is a senior of 18 and still plans to be a general (he has been deeply, deeply obsessed with military history since first grade) and President. Dear reader of these words, my advice is that you immediately put on your boots and tremble. Trembling in boots is a time-honored mode of dealing with fearsome prospects, and it's as good as anything as a way to get ready for the Dominion of B.

***

MARLY'S LOUSY WEBSITE

Yes, I now confess my utter laziness in not checking for Firefox, Safari, Utnostifelque, Opera, Rosti, Snitter, Lear, and other browsers in re-making my simple, primitive website at http://www.marlyyoumans.com/. However, as the planet has whirled around the sun once more and time has thus come round for the famous 2-day birthday bash of R, I simply have time for nothing else than the usual events plus the approaching extravaganza of drama, gustatory piggishness, songs (some mocking), detection, sleeplessness, costume changes, charades, etc. You will just have to put up with the darn ignorant thing as is, at least for a while. I'm just too busy. Also, some of us are web morons and not even properly ashamed.

TEACHERS

I am now officially expressing my gratitude to teachers of small children. Do you know how hard it is to teach the same dratted material four times in a row to hordes of children packed full to bursting with questions?

It wore me out.

Let's pay the teachers more, or at least give them a good lie-down and a cup of tea.

Mornings with N

Small play, about events from the last week of 4th grade, all parts played by N:

Booboo, Dude

Little dark-haired girl points to booboo and says: OOOooh! My earring fell off!

N, jaded, unimpressed: Then why isn't it bleeding, dude?

LDG, sweetly: I don't know.

LDG adds cloyingly: Dude!

N, still jaded: Dude, I bet you put a fake ear over your real ear.

N breaks into "gotcha" hand motions: Ka-chao! Ka-chao! Ciao!

***
And another:

Combing the Radio

N is brushing the bedside clock radio with a small blue brush.

N, in case I'm wondering: I'm just combing Junior.

N pats the radio.

N: You're set to go to school, Junior.

N: Time school.

N: It goes very quickly, actually.

N pets a shark. Sticks shark in my face: Dude, man, what's so funny, man?

N's shark: I'm in a different world.

N's shark: I'm on Mars.

N's shark strains loudly for breath: There's no water on Mars.

N's shark appears disturbed: Oo, I'm having a baby!

Pop!

N's shark: Baby, wait for me!

N's shark walks around the bed on its tail.

N catches my eye.

N's shark: It's because I'm on Mars, dude. Ciao, baby!

Ear credit is due http://www.sxc.hu/ and photographer "S." of Canada. Thanks, S.