this is a song i recorded tonight

it is a cover.

['rabid bits of time' - chad vangaalen]

sam pink -- 'yum yum i can't wait to die'

when i received sam pink's chapbook in the mail, i didn't know what it was because it didn't have a return address and it was in a wrinkled manila envelope with terrorist handwriting. for a few seconds i felt like maybe it was a bomb. this made me feel wanted and like someone was worrying about me somewhere. it was warm to feel this. when i opened the envelope there was a piece of paper that read 'WAGNER, KILL YOUR ROOMMATE. [HEART] SAM PINK'.

i think reading sam pink is like opening a letter-bomb because i feel like it is dangerous and i feel like i could suffer greatly for the rest of my life if i continue doing so.

i am excited when i read sam pink. i feel like i am lost in the woods on my way to visiting my caveman friend. in the woods i am stepping over dead animals and watching tiny pink flowers grow from moss.

the chapbook is short lines of intense poetry or something. everything is micro-size except for one poem which is like two page long. this is his 'epic'.

noah cicero wrote something a while back about how writers have to understand that 'literariness' is dead and they have to begin as sort of literary cavemen and start all over again, discover sentences again, live minimally. sam pink is probably the cro-magnon equivalent of charles baudelaire. sam baudelaire is building a little home in the woods and when he is finished he will sit inside cross-legged and look out. when he comes out i will be more excited.

interesting nouns in YYICWTD: stone, cloud, marks, pond, roots, notches, 'check this shit out, motherfucker', home.

interesting verbs in YYICWTD: press, sleep, lie, touch, expand, shave, put, eat, working towards.

the other night i was drunk. i pulled out the chapbook and read it out loud to all my drunk friends. a few lines into it i understood that no one wanted to hear this. everyone was being polite. i had the distinct feeling impression of being perceived as a troglodyte. i turned around and limped out of the room.

FREE MUSIC

MOTHER REDWOOD (2009)




Continuous collage of a creative rebirth : recorded sloppily in the spring of 09 after a bleak winter in Arkansas.

1. God Is Free
2. Cocoon
3. Jesus Wolf
4. Mother Redwood
5. Peter & The Wolf
6. Cousin Edgar
7. Black Octopus
8. Messenger Birds
9. Ave Maria


3 CHRISTMAS SONGS (2007)



1. Away In A Manger
2. Silent Night
3. The Gifts They Gave
(includes a little note for you)


THE ABEL EP (2006)



1. Dominique
2. Wolves
3. Telephones
4. Gunfights
5. Arkansas
6. Abel

HOME

photo: tracie faust

dream #14

i had an evil dream last night. i could feel a dark person in my room. he owned a black cat. the black cat jumped onto my bed and the dark person stood in the corner and watched. the black cat looked into my face and i wanted to yell at it and tell it to get off of me. but i could not move. the cat had bright yellow eyes and i could feel my brain squirming. it was sending the command to my body, 'thrash'. but my body was not obeying and i could not move because the cat had a spell on me. i was awake and i could not move. the dark person was wearing a hat. he was staring at us. the cat was there. i tried to scream and i tried to ask god for forgiveness. i felt very afraid and i tried to move but the cat kept staring at me with its bright yellow eyes and i started to cry.

second interview

on thunk.

this time with ken baumann.

interview with xtx

from what i have deduced, xtx is a woman. she lives near los angeles. she likes vibrators. she writes delightfully obscene bits about childhood fears and extreme taboos. i would equate her to a femie sam pink, who is also an anonymous blogger. anyway, sometimes when i read her blog i try to imagine the amount of effort it would take for me reinstitute myself into the blogging world as an anonymous writer. i feel like maybe it would be more effort than i am willing to commit to but still, i have been moved.

your name is xtx and i am almost positive that is not your real name. because of the graphic and explicit nature of your blog, i would understand your use of a pseudonym, but which idea came up first: to have a pseudonym or to write the way that you do?

You are correct. xtx is not my real name. My real name is a bit longer and has more vowels. When I started blogging I actually used my real first name, but as my blogging continued, and because of what I tend to write about, I decided to change it to a pseudonym because nobody in my real life needs to know how fucked up I sort of am.

how 'fucked up sort of are you?

That is an interesting question. I actually don't think I am fucked up in a literal sense. I have a very normal, boring outside life. I think it's perhaps my internal life is what is 'fucked up' and by that I mean, I am very perverted, disgusting and strange on the inside. I have bad thoughts. I do sick things. I think strange thoughts and I am pretty comfortable with all of it. (Maybe that's the part that makes if 'fucked up'.) My blog is probably the best example of an outward manifestation of my inner fucked-upness.

some things in your blog imply that you are older? this is interesting to me because it have kind of thought that maybe feelings of anxiety and 'sociopathicism' kind of go away when you grow up. do you think your blog has aggravated and allayed your anxiety?

I am older. I turned 40 this year. It fucks with my head because to me, 40 is an old person. I am not an old person. People fall down when I tell them my age because 90% of the time people tell me I look 33 which is also my favorite number so it makes me extra joyful when they say this. I feel 12 every day of my life.

I think you are who you are throughout your lifetime. I just think as you get older, you get more friendly with who you are, and learn to accept that you have anxieties, and that you will never feel you are smart enough or pretty enough or talented enough, but press on anyway because what the fuck are you going to do? Crawl into a hole? In your question I am projecting that you are looking for advice in this area as you seem like a young-type of person. So, here is my advice to you: You will never believe any good things you tell yourself about yourself (because why would a loser believe a loser like you? --I am speaking from experience) So, try to learn to listen to what others say about you…those people in your life that you think are awesome. If they are telling you how awesome you are, you should probably try to believe them. And trust that.

your posts normally consist of bizarre and absurd phrases and stream of conscious thoughts. how much of it is biographical and how much is just silly and funny to laugh?

I've never done a scientific study, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's maybe 50/50 or 60/40 or 70/30. I honestly don't know. As I try to remain incognito on my blog, I can't ever write straight 'biography' or 'reality'. If I want to write about my reality, I sort of have to paint it with absurdity and then frame it with retardation while attempting to get the main idea across.Over the years, I believe my regular readers have learned to discern fact from fiction. Most of my newer readers I think enjoy trying to figure it out. I sometimes get emails asking what sex I am. This, to me, is victory. The rest of the shit, is just silly and fun to laugh at shit. Again, as I can't write about my life, I have to make random shit up to write about…hence, the name of my blog.

your blog doesn't seem to be promoting your 'writing'. it just seems like your doing it for fun. you obviously have some kind of an audience. how long did it take for people to become really interested in your blog? how long were you just writing this blog for yourself?

I started blogging in 2002 when you were in diapers. I blogged on a site called "Diaryland". I started gaining an audience probably about a year in. This was probably due to being 'promoted' by a superstar fellow blogger…the Blogfather…Tony Pierce who I had met on a poetry chat board some 8 years prior. He got me blogging and now he is the blog editor at the LA Times. We have 'known' each other 13 years, but have never met. I would've never blogged if it wasn't for him.

I've always been writing my blog for myself as I must write shit or I feel like that feeling when you have to crap or when you have to sneeze or when you feel like throwing up and the only way I can make that feeling go away is if I write. The bonus prize for writing 'for myself' is that others seem to enjoy it as well. I also write for them because they are cool for even wanting to read my shit in the first place. Go them!

My blog does not 'promote' my writing, in that, I'm not looking to become an 'author' at this time in my life. I have been published at a handful of online zines and that is awesome and fun, but not my main focus. I think when my life changes in a few years, I might really try getting 'serious' at writing or something. But for now, it's just because I feel the need to write.

have you ever considered publishing your writing of any kind? please explain.

Once. When my blog was getting major hits and Anti and Tony were both publishing blooks. I considered doing it too, but couldn't figure out how and didn't want to ask for help. I wanted to do it so I could have a bound version of my shit…not for money or anything. I have a lot of writing on my blog. I would still like to get it all together and be able to read it in my hands.

things i am reading

i seem to be a verb
by r. buckminster fuller

i had never heard of this book before i found it by accident at the JBU library on monday. because of this, i feel as if i have a little treasure. when i showed my roommate the book he was very excited to see the author. r. buckminster fuller i guess he is a big deal. i think it would be safe to say that 'i seem to be a verb' is one of the first books to marry image and text compositely as rhetoric. it's kind of like a book version of adbusters, except published in 1970. every page is halved by a running marquee so that the page is separated into two blocks of text. the bottom block is upside down so that when you finish the book you have to return to it upside. i like to think that this was so that other people across from you could read with you if you were in a bus or in some other public place. the books follows a very subtle flow of thought so that the images evolve into the text on the next page or vice versa. this seems fitting since evolution is a theme in the book. much of the text is made up of quotes from dr. fuller himself as well as quotes from various public icons such as stanley kubrick, abbie hoffman, marx, and even charlie brown. the quotes all mostly allude to the future in language, art, social programs in the industrialization of mankind but also a kind of spiritual revolution where competition, nationality, and economics will be eliminated.

here are some good quotes:

'the intellectual integrity and infinite order of the universe obviously are greater than man. man is an invention within it. what one did about this understanding would have to be through design. i decided i must not be a persuader, but a doer.'

'all animals, except man, adapt according to the environment. man changes his environment, making it adapt to him.'

'i live on earth at present, and i don't know what i am. i know that i am not a category. i am not a thing--a noun. i seem to be a verb, and evolutionary process--an integral function of the universe.'

'every child is interested in the universe. his questions are universal--and usually impossible or hard to answer. development of specialization has been either the result of 'forced feeding' or inbred talent; two musician parents tend to produce musician children'

he says some things that make me nervous, like about how cool automation and industrialization is but it is maybe kind of balanced when he says things like the government is spending more money 'educating' computers than educating children. the front cover describes the book as 'environment and man's future--by the visionary genius of our time.' this book was published in 1970. i want to say it was 'ahead of its time' but i feel that i don't feel like that is really important. i do feel like the book is just regular important, especially now when we are living in an time where our actions upon the environment have a direct and immediate consequence upon ourselves and our descendants. this book is an easy read and i recommend it.

please make a home (dedicated to ryan manning)

please make a home for my penis with your hands.
it is cold and i am afraid.

talk to me quietly and be gentle to the backs of my arms.
make small sounds that in my language mean 'home'

make it a warm and clean place,
so that i will be able to close my eyes
and hear my aching bones tell me
this is the place where i belong.

ask me to open my eyes and look at you.
then rub the cold out of me,
take my hand and lead me to the fire.
we will brush shoulders and know,
we will not say it but we will know.
you will knit gloves for my thick, frozen hands.
and i will point out different species of snow birds to you
from your bedroom window.
and you'll look me in the eye and ask me where,
ask me if there
ask me.

make a home from me where it's warm,
where i can swell and expand,
and crack pipelines and water-stained walls.
i will not bother you.
i will not make a mess.
i will just try my best to take care of us.
i will clean out the soot from the chimney
and chop firewood before breakfast.
i will read quietly after lunch
and share interesting passages with you.
i will hate what you hate
and love what you love.

i will sleep in the corner of an empty room
curled up by the window.
and i will not ask you for anything.
i will not ask you to re-finish the floors.
and i will not you ask to fix anything,
i will clean out the pantry
and take shits in the woods.
i will clean the kitchen with swabs of cotton dabbed in bleach
and you will understand my tremendous
ability to be grateful and alive.


i will stay in my sleeping bag and
watch the moon pass over my face.
i will sleep happily in the light
and know quietly that
there is nothing more simple
and there is nothing more safe.




just please make a home for my penis with your hands.

Vega -- new album coming Oct. 28th (RE-UPDATED)

1. Vega I
2. Golden Spools
3. Vega II
4. The Panda
5. Vega III
6. Fox in the Sand
7. Vega IV
8. Tiger's Ear (Rio en Medio cover)
9. Vega Ultra (bonus)

'Vega' is free for anyone who would like it. It will also be physically available as a cd. The cd will comes in two sleeves--a paper sleeve and a plastic sleeve. Both sleeves are recyclable (please recycle). The paper sleeve will feature my handmade album art. The plastic sleeve will feature nothing. The cds will be numbered and with a little personalized note inside. To cover expenses, Vega will be available as donation-based through paypal.

This will be my first physical cd. I am in the last days of mixing. I project that I will be finished a week from now. By then I think the sleeves will arrive in the mail and I can mail them. Maybe the 'digital download' will be available sooner than the 28th. If you would like to 'pre-order' a CD, you can e-mail me your physical address: israel.cilio@gmail.com.

*******

UPDATE: as a form of self-promotion i would like to offer the entire blogging community a FREE physical copy of Vega.

if you are interested please leave your physical address in the comments or e-mail it to me at: israel.cilio@gmail.com

dream #13

i was in prague with my the agents from x-files. we were shooting a documentary about the history of prague. there was a giant football arena. inside were millions of people. we were shooting it. i was looking through my lens and found two people i knew from college. i quickly shot a grappling hook near them and slid down from where i was hiding up in the rafters. they were two people who loved each other and who knew that they loved each other but never confessed it. they were together now.

then we were standing in the street. i was wearing a trench coat. it was late afternoon. the sun was setting over the vltava. the sun was coming in between the buildings. i saw bald czech man ride by on his bike. he was wearing sweat pants.

i was determined to solve a mystery.

sunday alone at the open-air flea market

this morning it was bright and cold.
i wore a jacket.
i made breakfast.
i read the news.
i felt vacuous and neutral.
i went to the hillbilly flea market.
i bought all these things for under $2 in quarters.

[ave maria - vienna boys choir]

fit-over sunglasses: 50 cents

leather bag: 25 cents

similing pineapple candle: 25 cents

green owl candle: 25 cents

'i love you this much' bear candle: 25 cents

'don't forget i love you' elephant candle: 25 cents
'cosmic consciousness' by dr. richard maurice bucke: 25 cents

'insights for the age of aquarius' by gina cerminara: 25 cents

not purchased at open air flea market -- 'you: poems by frank stanford': $15 ('steep')

'the gang'

vegan dirge

the cardboard said they died
on the 22nd of september.

i watched the light change over the box
when i moved through the hallway.

on the 22nd of september
i think i was laying on my bed.
watching the ceiling fan spin.

the lights in the hallway felt like an incubator:
it was less but the color was more
and i kept the babies in sight.
and everything else in the frame
changed colors and did funny things.

on the 22nd of september
i remember distinctly feeling
like an alien.

i felt like an alien today
carrying the carton of dead baby chickens
cocooned to the dumpster,
because i had let them
stink in my refrigerator
for too long.

Animal Collective - 7/12/03 Denton TX

interview

on thunk

WHO AM I?

frank stanford literary festival -- fayetteville, arkansas

the editors at TYPO magazine have organized a literary festival celebrating the work of the great american poet frank stanford, most known for his epric 'the battlefield where the moon says i love you'. the festival will last through this weekend (16th-19th) and will feature readings by local poets, panel discussions on stanford's life, and even the screening of irv broughton's biopoc on stanford, It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood which won the 1975 west coast film festival's best experimental film award. the film will be introduced by broughton himself and then to top it off, there will be a marathon reading of stanford's 'the battlefield' from 7 pm - 7 am, which i think i will try and stay up for can't go to because i have to work.

more information on the festival here and here.

here is an interview with TYPO editor and festival organizer Matt Henriksen, whose character i largely evaluate as 'good' based on my experience with the speediness and courteousness of his return e-mails.

here is a condensed version of stanford's biography that i got from here:

In 1974 he married the painter Ginny Crouch and they moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where Stanford worked as a land surveyor. Stanford returned to Fayetteville in 1975 and lived with the poet C.D. Wright. He founded Lost Roads Publishers and continued to earn a living as a land surveyor. Between 1971 and 1977, seven volumes of his poetry were published including.

At the age of 29, on June 3, 1978, Frank Stanford died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Of the over ten collections of Stanford's poetry once in print, only two are available today. Stanford's powerful imagination has been praised and elegized by many poets including Thomas Lux, James Dickey, and Franz Wright.

it surprised me to find out that one of the editors from typo is actually from fayetteville and it also surprised me even to think that there were any kind of legitimate poetry readings in my area. i should really get out of siloam more and i would too if it weren't so goddamn cozy here. i think this gives me more incentive to submit to typo in the future. i don't know why. yes i do.

i think maybe i will feel like stanford will somehow 'typify' arkansas for me. then i won't have to romanticize it so much in order to live here. i don't even know all of arkansas. i hear farther south they have alligators. in any case i consider this my courting or frank stanford. hopefully in the end i won't end up crying in my car and with a raw weiner or something. then i can set him up as a cardboard literary god and it will be more bearable and lovelier.

jim henson memorial service -- 21 May 1990.

Mourners gather for Jim Henson's Memorial



Jim Henson Funeral Muppet Tribute pt. 1



Jim Henson Funeral Muppet Tribute pt.2



'When The River Meets The Sea' Jim Henson Memorial



Richard Hunt opening remarks at Jim Henson's Funeral



Harry Belafonte 'Turn The World Around' Jim Henson Memorial



Frank Oz talks about His Friend at Jim Henson's Memorial



Big Bird sings 'Bein Green' in tribute to Jim Henson

things i own

[chad vangaalen - 'willow tree']






[LAKE - 'on the swing']



[billy bragg - 'ingrid bergman']

there was the land and the sky.
it was the desert.
the sky was very much 'there'.
it was flying past.
charles watched it pass
from the window, bored.
it was cold.
in the bus, it was cold.
charles watched his breath collect on the glass.

charles tried to stretch his legs.
his pants would not his legs seperate.
they were around his ankles.
charles looked down
watched the white-gloved machine
stroke his erect penis.

on the seat he read the sign
'thank you for traveling
Masturbation Bus'

charles sighed quietly.


he thought:
'i grow weary'

MEAL

trends in my googling patterns reveal that when given a video option as opposed to a text option, i will choose the video option and either watch the video or click on another tab and listen to the audio. i will do this 9 out of 10 times.

when i am talking to someone and they do not understand a word or a sentence that i have just slurred, i experience exponentially increasing increments of despair in proportion with the amount of time it takes for me to ejaculate some correction and is multiplied by a time and a half when the other person makes grimacing facial expresssions.

***

driving through oklahoma city i got a phone call from my boss asking if i were in town yet. someone was sick and i had to work. so as soon as i pulled into town, i went intowork for a few hours. it was cloudy and the streets were wet. the air was clean and when the cars drove by they made hissing sounds with their tires on the street. i found a book i had forgotten at work in a drawer. the book is called ozark, ozark: a hillside reader and it was features writers from the ozark region and was published in 1982. this book has some of the most quiet little precious sentences i've ever read. this is by leonard hall from his 'four seasons at possum trot farm'.

The sun dropped below the clouds and made a red ball on the horizon's rim. In the single moment before it was gone, colors in the valley and along the river and out across the far hills were etched in a hundred variations. Each tree took on its own distinct and individual green, from the silver-gray-green of the willows by the creek, to the yellow-green of hickories on the hill, to the clear, pale green of hard maples nearby, to the solid black of the far-distant oaks across the the river. Then the sun was gone and the colors fused back together and no longer stood out in the sharp contrast, though the western sky blazed brighter.

i've decided i'm going to put something like this together from my little town. i don't know how it will turn out but i know exactly what it will look like. it will be called MEAL and it will be brown and it will be by young writers from the ozark area. maybe it will be experimental short stories or maybe it will just be old-fashioned nature writing. i don't know but i am excited. if anyone has some advice about publishing a literary digest, i would certainly appreciate it. i have many questions for you as well.

***

i am also planning on self-publishing my first series of micro-novels. i've decided on the name and it will be called Close the Gate, Little Brother. it is named after an album released in 1968 by the czech folk singer karel kryl when communism was first instituted in prague. here are the translated lyrics to the album's titular track.

i am very excited about this all. i have never started a literary digest before. i hope i don't lose steam.

***

here is a picture of what the vega ep will look like. each cd is numbered and will come in a little white sleeve along with a plastic protective cover. for now it is just a 'teaser':

***

validation bohemian travel boy-wonder extraordinaire