Rich Baiocco

"By now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling; almost everything benefits information...."

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:59:00 -0700

“By now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling; almost everything benefits information. Actually, it is half the art of storytelling to keep a story free from explanation as one reproduces it. The most extraordinary thing things, marvelous things, are related with the greatest accuracy, but the psychological connection of the events is not forced on the reader. It is left up to [her] him to interpret things the way [she] he understands them, and thus the narrative achieves an amplitude that information lacks.”

- Walter Benjamin from the essay The Storyteller (published 1936)

PIONEERS PRESS: :: BLANK DAYS OF NEW YORK ::

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:50:00 -0700

PIONEERS PRESS: :: BLANK DAYS OF NEW YORK :::

SUPPORT PIONEERS PRESS. ALL SORTS OF GOOD ZINES, ALL SORTS OF SPECIAL OFFERS

shwardo:

My breastbone is sparrowful waiting for your words to bleed
Through the blank days of New York. I wish to charge you, laughing
Like all the lost friends I want to wrestle and outdrink
—look how these black sparrows have rushed
to leaf this naked winter tree—
But somematter is…

:: BLANK DAYS OF NEW YORK ::

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:48:00 -0700

My breastbone is sparrowful waiting for your words to bleed
Through the blank days of New York. I wish to charge you, laughing
Like all the lost friends I want to wrestle and outdrink
—look how these black sparrows have rushed
to leaf this naked winter tree—
But somematter is the thing:
I have grown better at missing You than loving you, I have grown
with you gone missing. And while you went missing,
For reasons so mystically personal,
Pinched were my heartbreaths
By cats claw and outcold passed love.
-Though who was there to care?-
And you returned a sparrow too, turned blue. You are
The bluebird that escaped bukowski’s heart, Since.
I’ve pressed the heartbeat of your sorrowful breast
With my thumbs
And been clumsy with your new sincerity.

*from Death In A Rifle Garden by John-Vincent Greco

you can buy it right here from my friends in Kansas at Pioneers Press for $4.
buy everything - their catalog is a treasure trove

~rjb

21st Century Malleable Steel

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:31:43 -0700

Stalin changed his name to Stalin from Jughashvili.
Man Of Steel - did you also know he wrote poetry in his youth village?
Faulkner wrote poetry before becoming the iron authority of Yoknapatawpha, his fictional county.
Faulkner changed his name to Faulkner from Falkner.
A clerical error, perhaps, a chance to stake your own claim
on history. He was 5 feet 5 inches. Unsuitable for the U.S. Army.
Stalin had a gimped arm. Was 5 feet 4 inches.
Wore wedges in his shoes.

Fake it til you make it
personal. Revenge
Men of the 20th century, this is where we part.
Too many sides of the argument, too many views to point at.
Too much free information to support an authoritarian state.
Too much appropriation to control where your work will go.
To whom will your work reach.
To whom your work will speak.
This is the Century where all stale and staid Industries will fail.
Where states will separate.
Where power will disperse like ink itself bleeding off the card faces in a cardholder’s

tiny

clenched

fist.

Could Stalin allow Stalin self doubt?
Was there room for Terror to allow remorse?
Public appearance is everything & nothing
infuriates a control freak,
unable to hold water in his lap
without a fish tank,
like a portrait of the pacific ocean
in an enemy’s home.

The lengths we go for hiding
truths. Remember how they called him friend? The Allies, the Great War, called him Uncle Joe, who knew what a gulag was? Back then where was wikipedia & youtube?
Behind curtains,
20th Century men with their 20th Century power.

You know Faulkner had a brother who was also an author.
Faulkner had a brother who was also an author, imagine.
It’s true. John Faulkner.
Well actually it was John Falkner.

Beach Sloth is sweet! & tireless here’s his review of...

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:03:10 -0700

Beach Sloth is sweet! & tireless

here’s his review of Gesture zine #5 . his piece ‘Thank You’ in the issue made me laugh. many good pieces in here. all good

~rjb

More Ars Poetica

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:03:00 -0700

This Is the Poem That’s Going to Get Me Out of the Mines

by Ron Riekki // Juked 5/7/13

Jonathan did it. He teaches at a university in Washington now.
Or Oregon. I forget. But he said he gets fifty grand a year.
To teach creative writing. That’s like winning the lottery.
I make thirty grand and my lungs are turning into a collection
of twisted lies. I cough more than I think. I asked Jonathan
how he did it and he said he didn’t know. It was like God
napalmed him with luck. He got some award for a poem
about a goddamn lake and suddenly they pay him a thousand
dollars to read for fifty minutes in an auditorium filled
with students who don’t want to be there. I tell him to seriously
tell me how to do it and he said you have to make sure
there’s a lot of mist in the poem, that they can see the mist,
feel the mist, and then just go from there. He says that poets
love mist. They want so much mist in a poem that you can’t
see anything else other than mist and then from that mist
you have something really beautiful peek through and then
something really ugly peek through. But it can’t be too ugly,
he says, or you’re fucked. And he says don’t swear. He says
you want mist and beauty and a touch of ugly and every word
has to sound like it’s linked, like it’s a big game of Scrabble.
He says that the real important thing is that you don’t have to feel
anything writing it. Don’t get caught up in the poem. That’ll trick
you, he says. What you want to do is be a little mathematical
devil and just plot that shit like Stephen King, but with so much
thesaurus crap that people think you have a Ph.D. If you do that,
they’ll give you everything in the world. They’ll eat your feet.
They’ll kill your children. They’ll throw money at you
like it’s made out of cotton. They’ll light random Vietnam villages
on fire, if you ask for it. They’ll drive a bellhop insane,
if it’s your wish. He keeps going, a long list. I ask him
if he could set up a reading for me at his college. He says no,
that they only give money to people who don’t need it.
The more famous you are, the more money you make,
the more we pay you. If you need it, we can’t give you a cent.It’s a rule. Then he’s gone in that way that humans do, just disappears and goes back to his life and kid and perfection
and I think of mist. I keep thinking in my head, “Mist, mist,
mist, mist, mist, mist.” With all that sand kicked up in the air,the mask strapped to my face like I’m in Shanghai, the sawdustof air I live in, all day, I keep thinking about that goddamn mist.

Weedy Sea Dragon went to Monterey Aquarium today and this lil...

Sat, 11 May 2013 21:51:07 -0700

Weedy Sea Dragon

went to Monterey Aquarium today and this lil homie was my favorite. wish my camera phone had better resolution

Plant Life :: Death of an Amaryllis Bloom hey, im testing out...

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:00:00 -0700

Plant Life :: Death of an Amaryllis Bloom

hey, im testing out some new mp4 converter software so i put together this little clip from daily photos i took of our amaryllis blooming and withering. at some point the pedals droop to where it looks kind of like a swan.

~rjb

please let me know if it takes forever to load/view? thanks

take a listen. order info at bandcamp link. cassette or digital...

Thu, 09 May 2013 09:59:17 -0700

take a listen. order info at bandcamp link. cassette or digital download.

i love this album cover color

ARS POETICA?

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:00:44 -0700

by Czeslaw Milosz

I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
and stood in the light, lashing his tail.

That’s why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,
though it’s an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.
It’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,
when so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.

What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons,
who behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues,
and who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand,
work at changing his destiny for their convenience?

It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today,
and so you may think that I am only joking
or that I’ve devised just one more means
of praising Art with the help of irony.

There was a time when only wise books were read,
helping us to bear our pain and misery.
This, after all, is not quite the same
as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.

And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.
People therefore preserve silent integrity,
thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.

What I’m saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
under unbearable duress and only with the hope
that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.

Berkeley, 1968

i didn’t realize this was one of my favorite songs till it...

Wed, 08 May 2013 08:41:42 -0700

i didn’t realize this was one of my favorite songs till it hurt me so good

Pat Ruthensmear - Golden Boys

darby crash and pat smear, but not recorded by the germs. a lot of bands cover this song in a shitty so-cal pop punk way, but the original is the best as is usual.

THIS LITTLE BOOK WILL GO EVERYWHERE WITH YOU

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:45:21 -0700

gnade:

I don’t read/write/like poetry (in general) but this little book is an exception. DEATH IN A RIFLE GARDEN. Just got a box of these muhfuckers in the mail yesterday. I literally thumb through this every couple days. Get in on it.

up with it

Blue Moon of Kentucky

Fri, 03 May 2013 22:05:00 -0700

this poster rules, huh?. read or re-read hunter s thompson’s essay The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent & Depraved and you’ll thank yourself later. it’s funnier than…

"Let the dead explain to the dead what happened // we are fated to beget a new and violent tribe //..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 09:11:15 -0700

“Let the dead explain to the dead what happened // we are fated to beget a new and violent tribe // free from the evil and the happiness drowsed there.”

- Cseslaw Milosz from Flight 1944

Burnesha = Sworn Virgin

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:50:00 -0700

my friend BAM sent me this photoshoot of Sworn Virgins Of Albania by Jill Peters. Dating back hundreds of years to Balkan tribes that operated under the Kanun, an oppressive code that *shocker* favored the male gender, Burnesha were those biologically born women that dressed/acted as men to gain rights and privileges, and swore virginity for life as part of their own code.

“This practice continues today but as modernization inches toward the small villages nestled in the Alps, this archaic tradition is increasingly seen as obsolete. Only a few aging Sworn Virgins remain.”

Adam’s DIY Guide To Fighting The Big Motherfuckin’...

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:09:00 -0700

Adam’s DIY Guide To Fighting The Big Motherfuckin’ Sadis at Brooklyn’s Mellow Pages Library.

i hope a whole new borough of people get turned onto this book

mellowpageslibrary:

Up top we got a real cool zine from PIONEERS PRESS out of the Middle West with THE DO-IT-YOURSELF GUIDE TO FIGHTING THE BAD MOTHERFUCKING SAD by Adam Gnade. Thanks Adam, Jessie, Thad, and Rio.

Then, out of nowhere, we’ve got some big time good news from Ryan Bradley bringing us a nice set of Artistically Declined Press books

Thank you universe.

here’s my may day

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:15:14 -0700

here’s my may day

The Hemingway

Wed, 01 May 2013 08:00:25 -0700

by john-vincent greco

It is difficult to speak simply in poetry.
simply, i think

Of Hemingway’s Farewell To Arms; of Hemingway’s river bed,
pebbles and boulders dry, white in the sun; water clear, swiftly moving, blue in the channels, and and ands

I listen to the water streaming through a book somewhere
in poetry, I simply want to speak to you. But

It’s difficult. There’s a lot of wind, the guy with his headphones. Sometimes I don’t know when to shout or whisper. Or how.

Other times I find myself knowing many languages. Even 1s and 0s. Believe me, I’m surprised myself. A Rosetta Stone of demons within this same coat.

Come out with it, you demand. Plain speak. Unadorned. But I come without it and only adornments. Or I will not speak. Days I simply refuse

To listen. I don’t need to be won. I love you and I love you plainly beneath
makeup and perfumes can you love me plainly? It is difficult, you say

Nothing. In poetry, it’s difficult to speak to a real person. Is it possible to listen? Hemingway’s Arms, I think. I think of Hemingway’s farewell.

mammal: lk shaw — can you imagine

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:08:00 -0700

mammal: lk shaw — can you imagine:

whoa fk :: lk shaw

enjoy this space

PIONEERS PRESS: Re-printed! What a Beautiful Face--A Neutral Milk Hotel Fanzine! by Katie Johnson

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:08:01 -0700

PIONEERS PRESS: Re-printed! What a Beautiful Face--A Neutral Milk Hotel Fanzine! by Katie Johnson :

we ride rollercoasters into the ocean we feel no emotion as we tumble down to the world and i guess its worth your time because there’s some lives you live and some you leave behind. it gets hard to explain…

wearepioneerspress:

What a Beautiful Face is a brand-new fanzine dedicated to one of thee most fantastic bands on the planet, Neutral Milk Hotel. Between these lovely/lovingly hand-drawn/colored covers, you’ll find longer essay writing by Katie Johnson and Death in a Rifle Garden author Rich Baiocco, “fan fiction”…