Arthur Klepchukov Has an iBook out

I knew Arthur Klepchukov as more of a visual artist—a pretty good one at that—at Berkeley. He had poetic leanings and a lot of raw talent that I liked.nhe was a member of the Tainwreck Union when we were just starting out, and I have some cool pictures of him reading at Nabolom in Berkeley from those times somewhere in the archives, but I'm not looking them. Up because Athur has got something cool he's done, and I'd like to tell you about it.

Blinks of Awe is an iPad only release of poems in a new format you've never seen before. He self-published it, and it's the first of its kind I've seen so far. I've been dreaming of doing a project like this for a very long time, and Arthur totally beat mew to the punch. It's a full on interactive experience with poetry. Or, at least it's a valiant reach for one. He's a pioneer, and pioneers aren't going to be perfect right out the gate. But if you're up for something totally different, Blinks of Awe is built for you.

It's basically a book of concrete poetry with a video greeting from the author and recordings of him reading his poetry on every page, The design and photography and art are all his, so there is a great flow between the pages, chapters, and just the intercourse between the words, images, and sounds. The whole time I was experiencing his poetry (I say "experiencing" because "readings" would short change what's happening in Blinks of Awe. It's much more than that. 

It's hard to be too critical about this piece. Its price tag is only $5, so for that amount of money just to check out the frontlines of where poetry and literature and even non-fiction books are going, it's more than worth it. But it's hard to judge his poetry by itself because it isn't. Are we going to start judging poetry like we do films and plays, where every job is criticized on its own merit? Should I take the sound production on its own and talk about that? We get a lot of new questions from work like this, which might be why Klepchukov made it in the first place.

This an exciting new direction for creative projects. It makes me think that books will be constructed more like movies are, where every person has their own task, and there is a director who brings them together. Questions about authorship are going to spring up like crazy if things keep going like this. We'll be talking about creative teams rather than authors on their own. I always liked collaborative projects. I can't wait to make one of these.

Tip your server

Created by: HospitalityManagementSchools.org

Hospitality Management Schools sent this to me, and I think it's pretty great. I like that it's really well-designed and just perfectly made. we actually pay our servers $3/hr just because we want them to feel like we appreciate them.

Harm, by Hillary Gavendyk

Hillary Gravendyk has a book of poetry out called HARM. I finished it today and liked it very much in the way one likes such things that turn the belly and make you want to cry. Not that there aren't some sexy moments or that she doesn't take time for tiny librarians, clock faces, and uv-seeing sparrows, but mostly it's a sorrowful peal. It's like sitting at the edge of a forest and listening to the howling feral dogs.

The forest is also inhabited by birds and weather patterns. Nimbus clouds gather; there is "cherry bomb weather." In THE BIG, THE BAD, she guides us through an enchanted forest of storybook characters who seem familiar but are still new and wondrous. Then we are in the hospital rooms again.

I have asthma, so I think about my lungs quite a bit more than most people, but nothing like Gravendyk. She has had half a dozen lung transplants in the last three years. I asked her some questions about them, and I wanted to publish the short interview, but I haven't asked her yet if I could, so wait for that. Maybe she'll permit me to publish an interview here in a new post soon. Anyway, breath is a present rhythm in this work, and pain and healing just to receive more pain and healing is an evident theme that speaks to all of our experiences on this planet. It's perhaps the most adroit relation of a poet's experience to a reader's.

The things I don't like about this book (just to stay critical):

The blurbs on the back are so long they actually put me off reading this book for a few days. There are two poets I know who wrote those blurbs, but there are four blurbs. All of them are far too long. I kind of wish Omnidawn had put something else on there, maybe something that says READ ME! That's it. I loved this book. You should buy it. Click here to do that.

The Day They Arrested My Wife

Today, the newspaper printed an article about us. Well, it was mostly about Mary and her recent arrest. She was arrested because we were a little behind on our taxes (~$800). The ABC called us in to talk about getting a mixed beverage license. They pretended to be really nice, like this was just a formality so that we could expand our business. We were escorted to a conference room behind the bulletproof glass. They shook our hands with smiles. One was agent Weaver, but I can't remember the name of the other guy. Then Agent Weaver said, "well, the good news is you meet all the qualifications for you mixed beverage license. The bad news is you're under arrest."

What a zinger, Agent Weaver!

Then Mary said, "wait, we only owe like a thousand dollars. We can just write a check for that amount. I didn't know I was committing a class U felony. Isn't there something we can do so I don't have to go to jail?"

"Oh, you're going to jail," Weaver said.

"This is how you treat your business owners in Virginia?" I asked.

"I warned you about your taxes," Weaver said.

"You just said we had to take care of them before we got our mixed beverage license, " Mary said, "and we've made payments every month, and I've been talking with Kathy at the state tax office."

Then Weaver stood up and took her card out of the file and yelled, "be very careful what you say to me because she said you haven't spoken with her since November! Be very careful what you say to me!" This turned out to be a lie. Kathy told us she told him we had spoken with her in April. In fact, she has been the most helpful person through all this. She spent a great deal of time at our restaurant helping us make sure this didn't happen again.

Agent Weaver then stopped himself and said, "before we get into a long conversation about this," he reached into his pocket and pulled out his Miranda Rights cheat sheet and read Mary her rights, and she cried. I took out my phone and looked up the number of our lawyer. Then I realized why they had called the meeting for 12 noon on the Friday before Memorial Day. You can't get legal council or pay your taxes or do any kind of real business with banks or the government for four days. We were kind of dressed up because we were opening our new wine bar that night and looking forward to a long weekend.

Then agent Weaver started filling out paperwork in triplicate, which took ages because it was four felonies and four misdemeanors. His hands shook the whole time like he was getting off on it. It was totally creepy. Like, really, really creepy.

We all sat there in silence, and I looked up Mary's father's number because agent Weaver said Mary couldn't. After that he said she was under arrest for embezzlement because we were hiding money from the state. He said that this was what Al Capone got caught for. That's right, agent Weaver compared my wife to Al Capone. Then he put hand cuffs on her and said I should follow them to the jail because he had told the magistrate that she doesn't need to be locked up for the next four days. "Thanks agent Weaver." 

As they put her in the car, I stopped for a moment in a weird vestibule between the front door and the bulletproof glass near the entrance, they might call it a lobby, but that would be euphemistic. I had the phone in my hand trying to call my father-in-law. Just then a third agent came up behind me and introduced himself as the boss, agent Stephen Jones. Stephen Jones started calling me a liar and an embezzler and saying that we could lose our license over this. He was supremely angry and aggressive, touching his gun and everything. It reminded me of someone I knew in high school who was on steroids and got "the rage." It was as if he was trying to get me to do something I would regret.

Instead I didn't square off with him at all and kind of just said over my shoulder "I know how this works. This is how you've chosen to serve your community, and if you get your way, one more Virginia business bites the dust."

He looked at me with crazy eyes like the ones you see in pictures of terrorists and just then Agent Weaver sheepishly popped his head in and said, "we're ready to go," like he was saving me from him. Like this whole thing was a set up to try to get me arrested. I still have creepy feelings about that strange exchange.

And that's it. I waited at the jail. The jailer said she had never seen anything like this in the 20 years she'd been working the jail. Then the jailer said in a scolding tone, "I think you can take the handcuffs off." As a matter of fact no one I've spoken with has ever heard of something like this happening for so little an amount of money. It's pretty crazy. We have to go through two court systems, and we are requesting a jury. Do you know how much money this is going to cost the taxpayer in paperwork alone? A lot more than they're going to get out of us. 

In the jail parking lot, Mary and I had an argument because I was pretty angry and she was pretty stressed. But now we are back in stride and working together to get through this.

Some people are saying that we are beings targeted by someone who has a vendetta against us for whatever reason. Those people might be right. Haters gonna hate. If people see you with any degree of success or enjoying your life a little too much, some of them are going to get jealous and start trying to destroy you. But here we are smiling. This is nothing. We have each other. 

Jack Morgan's Book of Poems Finally Gets Published

I can't believe it, but my book, THE HAUNTING OF NINJATOWN is finally in print. It's available on Amazon even. Last week was the reading and release party. This is kind of a huge deal for me. A book with an ISBN!

Safe

I saw Safe tonight. I liked it. A lot. I still love relatively smart action films.

My two favorite whites tonight

Calcari is Xarello. Do you know WTF Xarello is? No? That's totally cool. It's a grape. It's a minerally, fairly dry, crazy amazing grape. If you see this on a wine list, forget about pairing, just buy it! Ours is from Perés Balta.

Then, holy shit! Felicité from Aarde Valley in South Africa tastes like an islay whiskey. Un-fucking-believable. It's smokey like a lapsang souchong but it's white, and you know what? It's Chardonnay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And get this: It's unoaked!!!!!!!¡!!!!¡! So amazing.

Radio Lab

I'm in love with RadioLab. In case you didn't know, I'm kind of a nerd, and I like being that way. It's a show about curiosity, and I'm a curious person. If you don't know about RadioLab, go to their website and download all of their podcasts and listen to them while eating a dinner late at night. I listen to RadioLab when I wake up and eat "breakfast," and my wife and I listen to the podcasts together when we get home late at night.

 You will LOVE RadioLab if you like thinking.

Drinking Liberally

We host Drinking Liberally at the Darjeeling Café every month. Normally, I have to work on those nights, running around a lot, serving, but last night we had enough people on to make possible for me to hang out with all the liberals. We talked about the local elections, and we talked about the coming big time election in November, but we also talked about all sorts of other things. I got a little drunk on wine.

One of the conversations we had was about Richmond. I like Richmond a lot. But downtown Richmond is kind of a ghost town. It doesn't make sense to me. It seems like the perfect place to open a restaurant. There's a big college, and there's the capitol. Doesn't that mean there are tons of eaters? Why is everyone going to lunch carts in Richmond? The restaurants I went to Richmond were all empty if they weren't chains, and the lunch carts were slammed. I loved the independent restaurants I went to. So what gives? We didn't really get to answer it.

Anyway, Drinking Liberally is totally great. I wish I could hang out more often with the liberals who come to drink. They are open and friendly, and they are interested and curious, and I like them.

Here's a link if you want to know more about Drinking Liberally.

Our New Wine Bar

Our new wine bar is under construction. Scottie Scott is building it in Staunton out of local walnut. It will have rounded edges and be totally beautiful.

We were at the workshop yesterday checking everything out, seeing the progress, and I snapped some pictures with the iPhone so I could share it with all of you. We're supremely excited.

We'll be having a grand opening of the wine bar on the 25th of May. Woo-hoo!

This is the story board for the project.

You can sort of see how it's coming together in this shot.

I can't wait for all of you to see it!