Review: Emily Ate the Wind by Peter Conners

Peter Conners, the author of a previous collection of poems and a forthcoming memoir about following the Grateful Dead, Growing Up Dead, recently published Emily Ate The Wind, a novella of extravagantly tiny miniatures. At five-by-eight inches, the book is the size of a boulder. It is as light as pumice stone. The surface feels like a hardened sponge with just as many gaps and holes as the matrix of what is there. There are repeated sentences with repeated characters engaged in oblique activities of daily life made all the more bleak and oblique because there isn't any context for their actions. Many times the sentences themselves find themselves unraveling the mystery of the world documented here. "Emily tries to exit the bed on her left and hits a wall. There is no wall. Why is there a wall?" There is in the novel a Dan, an Amber, an Emily, a Lucinda. The events in the book have little to do with each other, and only the tenuous magic of same names, a book jacket, and Conner's sharp syntax keeps them bundled together. One event happens at dawn one day, or another at dusk. Something happens in a rock quarry. Another event occurs in a trailer.

Narrative can suggest itself in even random occurrences. In a story, two things happening one after the other suggest a correlation and a cause. I learn that the black cats crossing my path are bad luck because of the time a black cat crossed my path and then a man driving an El Dorado shot a stop sign and parked the grill in my back seat. Emily Ate The Wind, however, manages to undo this false logic and reduce the characters to a succession of sentences, garage doors, dirty clothes, applesauce, and Kyle's Bronco.

PowerPoint Off: Matt Briggs and Doug Nufer

An audio visual duel to the death between a hippie and a business man.

On November 18th, 2008 at 7:30 PM at the Jewel Box Theater in Belltown (free of charge), Matt Briggs and Doug Nufer will present their “roadmap” for the future of the community writing organization Richard Hugo House. Neither is affiliated with the organization. And neither are you. Present your own vision of the future at powerpointoff.blogspot.com or come to the party to heckle, cheer, and consider: is a community writing center a halfway house or school? (PDF Poster | FaceBook Event)

The Jewel Box Theater on 2322 2nd Ave. Seattle, WA 98121; 206.441-5823.X2; Jewelbox@seanet.com

"Half" by Claudia Smith

I think people should read this story. If you haven't it is here.

Faire Gallery/Cafe Open Mic - 2nd Tuesday of Every Month

I went to the Faire Gallery/Cafe Open Mic in the shadow of the silver canisters of the Met Park Office towards at the foot of Capitol Hill in Seattle. It was a great evening with all the readers good and short. I saw Willie Smith, who has also been posting his readings on YouTube. Willie reports that his video HOW THE COPS FIXED MY ASS was "accidently removed from YouTube. Another friend won't use Gmail because she says Google is Evil. She doesn't trust that her data is save with them. Any coporation with the mission statement, "Don't be Evil," makes you wonder. Are they really removing Willie Smith's video? (It is there now.)

Anyway here is the info about the Open Mic:

Open Mic
The David C. LaTerre Memorial Park'n'Ride
Tuesday, Nov. 11th 2008

Parking Attendant: Roger Weaver

Second Tuesday of Every Month we reconfigure the chairs and sofas so that parking becomes available and rides can be taken, free of charge.
Sandwiches and beer available for purchase. No fear of DUIs while parked.

Park Opens: 7pm
Ride Begins: 7:30pm

Faire Gallery/Cafe
1351 E Olive Way
www.fairegallerycafe.com

Filter II release at Richard Hugo House this Thursday at 7:30 pm

Filter is a hand bound journal produced and edited by Jennifer Borges Foster who produced last year's Roethke Readings for ACT. The books feature screen-printed covers, an accordion-fold erasure booklet made from hand torn Rives Heavyweight paper, hand-torn endpapers, hand-tipped in original art, and a vast array of talented contributors including Mary Jo Bang, Rebecca Brown, Matt Briggs, Kary Wayson, Trisha Ready, Matthea Harvey and Amy Jean Porter, John Olson and many others.

Get your copy here! (From Etsy)

Readers: John Olson, Trisha Ready, John Osebold, Kary Wayson, Deborah Woodard, Corrina Wycoff, Brangien Davis, Erin Malone, Elizabeth Colen, Carol Guess, Brian McGuigan, David Mitsuo Nixon, Kate Lebo, Emily Kendal Frey, Adriana Grant, Tatyana Mishel, Roberta Olson, Bob Redmond

Music: David Mitsuo Nixon, Jose Bold (John Osebold and Kirk Anderson) -- all of whom happen to be members of theater/music/art collective "Awesome".

Original Erasures on display by: Rebecca Brown, Brangien Davis, Ariana Kelly, Jennifer Borges Foster.