LA Reading w/ JCS @ PRB

Check it OUT!

John, Steve and I are taking off for L.A. on Saturday. John and I are reading at The Poetic Research Bureau at 4pm on Sunday. You can expect a report and a road poem upon our return. Things I'm looking forward to:

Hijinks! Celebrity sightings! Cat petting at Mathew Timmons' apartment! Late nights! Discussions of psychoanalytic theory with Mark Wallace and discussions of German film with Joseph Mosconi! The possibility of Steven Boyer and cocktails from tiny cups! Trying not to smoke amidst clouds of smoke! In n Out burgers! Getting head shots for Steve! Canoodling!

Anyway, I'm excited.

Brain Dick or Your Hallowed Halls

Sent at 12:48 AM on Friday
me: my brain dick is HUGE
like it hardly fits
i can't wear hats
i sufffer from migraines
because my brain dick is constantly throbbing in my skull and pressing against my eyeballs
Morgan: i want to apply with that
me: you don't even know how much you want my giant brain cock in your school
your school wants it so bad
me: your school is a little slut who wants itbad
Morgan: lets get dirty and apply to grad schools
me: we can sexually harass everyone
me: Dear Wright Institute, my name is Lindsey Boldt and I am interested in studying psychology because I would like to someday use my in depth knowledge of the human psyche to start a cult based around making me feel good.
Morgan: because someday, i want your slut program to have my big brain dick bump up against your faculty walls
me: I will cultivate transference with as many people as possible until they all think that I am both their mommy and their daddy and then I will exploit them.
me: You, admissions councelor, you know you want it.
me: forget what the deans want
what do you want?
me: do you want a big juicy, hefty, healthy brain in your institution?
one that's sensitive to your needs
sensitive to your mission statement
Morgan: a big thick brain tearing through the panties of cold institutional thought?
Morgan: sensitive to the funding challenges faced in our new economy? this big dick is not only big, but comes loaded.
me: fully loaded
Morgan: ready to pour forth academic, fecund academic product, all over your eager admissions face
me: What does interdisciplinary mean to me? It means flexibility and confidence in a multiplicity of positions and departments.
me: It means that I can and will go and do ANYTHING
Morgan: it means bending over backwards for my intellectual passions, and the forwards, to meet the needs of the university as well
me: yes, forward little by little and then back, back and then forward and then back and forth and back and forth and back and forth
Morgan: i throb with an intellectualism that desires to explore every nook and cranny of my discipline, to taste every academic flavor that your program has to offer
me: my desire for knowledge and intellectual rigor is equaled in intensity only by my discipline and stamina.
Morgan: I am a person that's deeply concerned with how deep my big intellect can penetrate your institution
me: i am in it for the long, long haul. i take the phrase "masters program" very seriously. I will strive to achieve dominance in my field.
Morgan: When i say that I put the pedal to the metal in my academic pursuits, I mean that I will be putting my metal to your petal
me: I find rigidity of thought to be, yes exciting but I strive to enact a firmness of position while still maintaining the nubility and flexibility necessary to both challenge and please my institution
me: maybe we should write some from a female perspective
Morgan: the kind of academic experience I seek results from an intensely personal and exciting exploration of the most hidden and secret parts of myself. I hope that your faculty will recognize the unique position in which i now sit, ready, to receive.
me: i feel exhilarated by a kind of openness that i have never experienced before
Morgan: its almost as if revelations and realizations flood from somewhere previously untouched, a vault of pent up intellectual exhilaration, simply waiting for the seasoned hands of an autumn institution such as yours.
me: My mind needs stimulation
Morgan: by old man acadamia

reflecting on primary heartbreak and it's persistent reverberations. first love is one of two people depending on gender and sometimes they die or leave or ignore or misunderstand or screw up or have differing priorities and desires. second heartbreak is one of two people depending on gender and sometimes ditto. the numbers can vary as can the genders but watch it not matter. everyone henceforth is one or the other or not of interest. what happens if you only have the one? or half a one? or have two for half the time and then only one? or more than two? watch it not matter. heartbreak.

which is the best metaphor for that sneaking up behind and tapping on the shoulder and the shocked look of recognition: rings in water, spiral arms, feedback loop, plenty others. funny to realize the one sneaking up and tapping is the one looking shocked, the one with the shoulder, the one with whiplash from double-taking.

sorry, but that doppleganger is you, silly. DUH. DUH. sorry.

I've been thinking

About what Dana Ward said about the "radical possibilities of friendship" and how both friendship and poetry could have the potential to be radically benevolent forces for good. How Dana should write a treatise outlining how this. The same Dana Ward's thing about "creating presence" with friends via the internet and how completely necessary it is do that sometimes when our closest loved ones are very far away. This makes me think about how much we dream our lives anyway and why not dream ourselves together? How strange and radical it can be to be really physically in someone's presence, to share space with someone, to be very very close, sharing eye contact and air, to allow them to affect you without mitigating mediums--how truly terrifying this can feel. Intimacy on a grand scale. Sex too. Parapraxes: forgetting, losing, misplacing, slipping, falling, dropping, typos, saying the "wrong" word, saying the wrong name, the wrong time, the wrong place. The way we know how to protect ourselves from the outside but we have no defenses from our own inner worlds. How the psyche kicks the inner "excitations" out to look at them straight and fight them off that way. My friends. My dad. Smoking. Cancer. My childhood. My dreams. Babies. Kids. The compulsion to repeat. Physical pain and how it is necessary to strengthen after mobilizing. How I should start leaving 15-30 minutes early for everything to compensate for Muni and for my inner world. All the the things I've left out. How I should've left that out and most of the other things.

Real Quick: I'm doing this

November 1st- Suzanne Stein and Brandon Brown reading from their novel @ 2nd Floor Projects (I'll be holding cue cards)
November 8th (Sunday)- Reading w/folks from Dodie Bellamy's prose workshop 4pm @ ATA on Valencia St. between 20th and 21st (Going to be so good. So Much good stuff.)
November 22nd (Sunday)- Reading w/John Sakkis @ Poetic Research Bureau in L.A.
December 6th (Sunday)- Reading at SPD Open House

Behavior Management Strategies

When speaking to a group, keep directions simple

Use the "When Before What" strategy: tell them when then tell them what.

Offer positive reinforcement to those participating and following directions ie: "I really like how so-and-so is doing such-and-such" or "Thank you so-and-so and so-and-so for doing such-and-such".

Stickers and other small prizes or gifts are a great way to show your appreciation and remember that a heartfelt "Thank you" goes a long way.

If it becomes necessary to offer criticism, do so using a compliment sandwich: one compliment--your criticism or problem--and a second compliment. Ilustrate for him/her/them a generally positive picture of the situation and allow the unwanted behavior to stand out.

Projection and Conceptual Projects

Projection:

Can I just take a minute to talk about how conflicted I feel about most of things that I end up posting on this blog? For instance the post previous to this one titled "I'm in this". In that post I attempted to appear flippant about my publication in Vanitas when I do sincerely feel proud to be published in it. I hoped that by stating the fact of my publication in the most blatant way I could think of "I'm in this" my awareness of self-congratulatory and self-promotional acts like this would be apparent, that the irony of my doing so would be apparent, that you might chuckle and forgive me for wanting to: share my pride, make you aware of a publication that I respect and even convince you of my importance, that my goals would be met and none of my fears realized. I was afraid that you would think one or more of the following things: that I was bragging, that I was playing coy, that I wanted to show you that I've been published alongside names you might recognize, that this is a desperate attempt to establish my validity and necessity in a community that I have neglected, that it's a wonder that anyone takes me seriously, or nothing--that you wouldn't care.

I was just telling John Sakkis on Monday how being published in magazines like this doesn't have the same satisfying impact on my personal sense of self-worth as a poet that it used to but then the very next day I get on Facebook, see that Vanitas #4 is out and that I've been published in the same issue as, I'll be honest, some names, and I felt reassured. I felt like maybe someone out there who didn't take me seriously before mightl take me more seriously now. I wish I didn't care but I do. One poem in one magazine and that is where my mind goes.

Let's take the piece that's been published in that magazine too. It's problematic. I translated the traditional Vietnamese folk song, The Ca Dao, homophonically from a recording by John Balaban on Ubuweb. The results are very sexual and scatalogical. Questions follow, right? a) what's this white girl up to translating a Vietnamese folk song? b) is she making fun of the Vietnamese language? c) does she just have a super puerile mind? d) would I hear the same thing? homophonic translations, who cares (that's SO been done)?

What am I doing here with this post? Why do I feel the need to expose myself? I should save it for therapy. I should save it for a real piece instead of barfing it out half digested onto the internet. I should consider my audience. I should stop considering my audience so much. I should stop considering myself a blogger with an audience (I mean, really). I think of specific people as I write, knowing to some extent who might read it and drop a line or two in for them. Maybe one will like me more because I've exposed my neuroses, maybe one will like me more because I am being vulnerable, maybe one will be reminded that I do think about these things--that I am not a ditz, maybe one will like me more because I remind me of her/him, maybe one will respect me more because, maybe one will like me less because I am being vulnerable, maybe one will respect me less for second guessing myself, maybe one will like me less because I am not like her/him.

I want to be the person you want to see and that is a problem. Thankfully, I want you to mirror me too. I'm not so totally screwed.

I was going to post some conceptual projects below but this post has got long enough, I think, and I don't think anyone would read them if they were all the way down here. I want you to read about my conceptual projects. I want you to think that they are smart and in turn me.