"THE MAN SUIT" BY ZACHARY SCHOMBURG

Schomburg's collection, The Man Suit, is a surrealist iteration of Americana in line with the poetry of Russel Edson and Philip Lamantia. Imagine Wood's American Gothic painted with slapstick acrylic of absurdist tints. Imagine if Darger had illustrated the minutiae of the Midwest Schomburg's poems are rife with haircuts, Barons, Town Killers all interacting in a quaint, almost kookily universal register

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TIME COMES OUT WITH THE 50 BEST WEBSITES OF 2009

That's right y'all and I plan on visiting all 50 and writing a little about them and their function. This little project might entertain me for long time. The url for the issue Time has devoted is http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1918031,00.html

NEW ZINE FROM HINCHAS DE POESIA PRESS, "ODAS A FUTBOLISTAS"

ODE TO LEONEL MESSI (REVISED)...

Oh Messi, the words don’t like to heel;
they rear up like a coked-up Clydesdale
to stamp the tales of your devious feet.
It’s just that you’re a meñique Loki—
an algebra prodigy with filthy squaw hair,
a mischief wick, Pre-Cambrian fireworks
display, you’re like nighttime diving from
the Concussion Quarry. Messi, your tech is
so untextbook—I want to stun each cell
of the reel where your feet call the shots.
Faster than fast, surpassing speeding
catalysts of exponential acceleration:
Messi you are like ten ton cubes of pins,
toothpicks, and shattered plate glass
by Tara Donovan. Your currency in malicious
slide tackles, oodles of shin splits and cleats
in the muscle’s mignon. Maybe the growth
hormone Barcelona bought for you held
the genetic credit of petite assassin panthers
or the supersonic locura that drives grey-
hounds bonkers and makes them chase
lures in fashionable muzzles and a jersey
with a number that corresponds to a ticket.

OCLC Minority Fellowship Essay

I want to participate in the Online Computer Library Center's Minority Librarian Fellowship Program because the scope and range of the O.C.L.C. phenomenon can not be ignored. As you know, the O.C.L.C. liasons with over 70,000 libraries and contains almost 142 million bibliographic records in well over 100 countries. I call it the O.C.L.C. "phenomenon" because these figures alone make the Center seem supernatural, a veritable colony at the forefront of bibliographic technology. In addition, I want to participate in this Minority Fellowship program because the roles and functions of libraries are in flux, and I would like to form part of the organization that is helping define what libraries are becoming.

I also want to participate in this program because the O.C.L.C. and I both believe that the aim of information institutes should be to provide unrestricted access to the world's information; while I would not consider myself an open-access maven, I do agree that information should not be obstructed by petty commercial restrictions, classist interpretations, or jingoistic tendencies. I understand this is virtually impossible and rather naive, but it is also what is just when it comes to allowing people to make sense of their world in the way they see fit. I believe my background in education would benefit the Question Point reference management service most, and I am especially interested in learning real-time assistance and the nature of the formation of knowledge bases

If you would like to know how the Online Computer Library Center has contributed to my short-term goals, all you have to do is proceed to WorldCat (www.worldcat.org) and conduct an author search, typing my name in the query box. This will bring you to the record for the first thesis I wrote for grad school, hyphen-American (2002), a collection of poetry I completed at the University of Massachusetts--Amherst to receive my MFA in Creative Writing. It is still my intent to publish my thesis from grad school, even though the title and direction of that piece have changed dramatically. However, WorldCat has become an inconsequential agent in this production, a partner in my pursuit of publishing a full-length collection of poetry. The scope and range of the O.C.L.C. phenomenon is such that my relatives in Argentina can check the world's catalog for signs of their literary relations.

If you would like to know how the Online Computer Library Center has contributed to my long-term goals

ODE TO CRISTIANO RONALDO (REVISED)...

Ronaldo roadrunner with a sovereign ring.
A disciple of flair, purveyor of ridonkulis
pomp; possibly, the prime material for
Peacocks, lightning bolts, and aneurisms?
A disciple of flair gets highlights in their hair.
Who the fuck cares? He dizzies balón,
combing it back and forth like diaphanous
Kevlar hair or spider web cotton candy
with drool-jewels of lewd dew.
Ronaldo is an Atomic Squid with thousands
of tentalegticles. On each foot, a sneaker signed
by speed certificates. He is rather a supple
unstoppable? Ronaldo is like ink black garden
snakes that stitch through scrub until they flash
the eye photography. When Ronaldo fakes,
a wake of whatif precludes his intent. I mean,
the man wears hazard yellowrange cleats and
bandages to hilt. Look, the designer jeans’
depots and Techno music—Maserati loafers
were invented for a minotaur like Ronaldo.
Dope cologne and power point presentations
with cascading flaming swooshes. He’s got this
one rubber band move which is the bane of D's
existence because as D-man you must commit
to a lunge; you can't half-lunge now, can you?
You can't flux capacitor back once you gigawatt.
You lunge, but he just blows past—as if your life
were a stop-motion parable set to Hawaiian music.

ODE TO KAKA (REVISED)...

I have never worn those spaceman goalie gloves
and wanted to push a cork into the Winchester of a striker.
Never wanted to be the general in yellow Lycra
barking orders at Easter Island lieutenants of defense.
Nor sentinel the post and strike zone on full tarantula.
But goalies do nightmare seraphim like Kaka.
I know this because I have seen the clips.
Certainly, those in need of the least from their cohort
shall be considered conspirators, but in an inestimable caliber.
True, the Kaka Show was almost like I pledge allegiance to Jesus,
in Milan, which is President Oz's private futbol cabernet.
And now, after the trade, Kaka is set to douse the Bernabeu
with naptha godspeed, jet-engine sprinter nozzle rabbit.
Seems like the kid has never had an invitation to squalor;
father's an engineer, mother's a teacher, and yet he can slick
the low shot under the goalie like a bread thief or stevedore.
Reviled in the Republic of Argentina for the psychosis-spanking
in the 2004 Cup; revered in the city of the Sforza as a conifer
of talent or an elm of elan, a true army of righteous celebrity.

"HOAXERS, CON ARTISTS, COUNTERFEITERS, AND OTHER GREAT PRETENDERS" BY PAUL MALISZEWSKI

Maliszewski's Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters, and Other Great Pretenders is a deft little page turner; at times, it reads like a manual on literary graft, at other times a treatise on aesthetics. There are interviews with integral fakers like Sandow Birk, a contemporary satirist who uses a paint brush, and Joey Skaggs, a performance artists with a penchant for writing press releases that titty-twists the media's nipple. In some ways it defies categorization: the first chapter is a mea culpa written by the author, that tries to come to grips with the ethical crimes attributed to his sword-pen as a correspondent for a business journal in Syracuse.

Maliszewski's very at ease in chapters like Paper Moon which details the series of extracts that the New York Sun published about what "John Herschel, a British astronomer working at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa," managed to see through his new and powerful telescope. Maliszewski writes that "The publication of this newspaper series even today is remembered as one of the country's most elaborate hoaxes."

The hoax was perpetrated by Richard Adams Locke and "With the publication of the fourth, most sensational installment on August 28, the Sun became the largest circulation periodical in the world. Regular subscribers in New York City numbered 15, 440" Maliszewski's contention is that New Yorkers of the day were pretty media savy, "The more than 270,000 people that lived in New York in 1835 enjoyed extreme media diversity," and that they believed Locke's "satirical" piece because they wanted to believe and because Locke's writing was powerful.

Of course, there is a chapter on James Frey, the memoirist who penned A Million Little Pieces and was later spanked by Oprah because Frey took liberty with his recounting; there is also one Stephen Glass, the engenue at the New Republic and made famous by the movie, Shattered Glass. Again and again, though, Maliszewski returns to his premise, which has him justifying the white lies that these writers and writers in general take when they create the fiction of the stories that they enrapture us with. Maliszewski believes that "Fabricated journalism can tell us plenty about journalism as it's practiced today--if, that is, anyone cares to consider it as something more than aberrant"

Let me retract a sentiment that I have inserted haphazardly. Maliszewski is not justifying lying in journalism, but he is interested in how "fabricated journalism also raises questions about how the profession prizes, and gives prizes to, stories that feature great characters and dramatic leads, literary qualities which may not be, strictly speaking, incompatible with reporting the truth, but which may...encourage some reporters to shade that truth a bit here and there" Maybe Maliszewski is saying that there is much truth that is created when a story gets told because the craft of the novelist and the journalist are working in tandem. Maybe Maliszewski is harkening to Marquez who said in a famous interview that "In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work."

EISENSTEIN'S "POTEMKIN" ON THE FRYING PAN

Play Eisenstein's "Potemkin" on a Saturday when it's real hot, and just sit there in your room exhaling air conditioning freon and possibly making margaritas with a surgical-steel blender.

The film looks so old that it sputters on certain cells and almost becomes like landscape. I have decided that there is something elusive in this old Russian movie about an uprising on what appears to be a Russian battleship (shit, hence the name right?).

I was reading a book of interviews on Francis Bacon and they talk quite a bit about how one scene in this movie haunted Francis Bacon while he was a card sharp in Monte Carlo (really, more like a casino lizard). And there is no sound, which is the weirdest thing nowadays: to have no score. I mean, the Cohen brothers mostly dazzled me in "No Country..." by managing to not need a score.

The thing turns out to be quite soothing, like a sequence of postcards or procession of action painting. Soothing was sitting under the crow's nest on the adjoining barge of the Frying Pan. That, and being remote from the barge, somehow there at the humongous restaurant and yet part of the Hudson landscape, the heliport, the water taxi, and low slung buildings on the Jersey side.

CHARLOTTE THE PIRATE AND THE PFEFFERSHOCK APPARATUS

Page 01:
There once was a pirate named CHarlotte who was descended from a very good family of pirates. Charlotte's mother and father had both amassed great distinction as the best pirates in the south of Germany. Charlotte loved to eat fleischsalat and study astronomy with the dolphins and take care of her little brother, Oskar. Charlotte could speak with the seagulls so she never got lost at sea, and since she studied astronomy with the dolphins, they too helped her guide her craft.

Page 02:
One day while Charlotte was busy piloting a ship on the mighty sea, two bandits flew into town on a gigantic vogel. Charlotte's father knew both of these bandits personally, but Charlotte was not convinced. She kept an eye on them like the sun surveyed the sea. She decided to reserve judgement until they could prove themselves worthy of being part of her family.

Page 03:
All of a sudden, the bandit seemed to turn evil. He took Charlotte's blanket and used it to hide his face. Then he put on a red sombrero and took out two pistols from his suitcase and aimed them at Charlotte's father. Charlotte swooped down on a rope and stole the bandit's pistols using a technique that the seagulls had taught her.

Page 04:
Charlotte pointed the pistols at the bandit and fired, but only black pepper came out of the barrels. With a pirate's cry she yelled, "Pfeffershock" and the bandit started sneezing for like an hour. After, the bandit started sneezing uncontrollably, Charlotte's father cried, "Stop Charlotte, this bandit was only showing me his Pfeffershock pistols because he is an actor and in a production of Carmen, and just like you he is playing a soldier.

HINCHAS IS FINALLY HERE, SO YOU BETTER APPRECIATE IT OR COSMIC NOOGIE ON YOU!

Dear Friends

Welcome to the first issue of Hinchas de Poesia, a digital codex that brings together the works of "American" artists. When we say "American" we mean it in the way that Jose Marti did when he wrote, Nuestra America.

Hinchas believes America is the sum of her parts, not just Canada and North America. We believe that the idea of America should extend from la Patagonia in Argentina to the outer exurbs of Toronto. And we feel that the vital interaction that transpires between artists should not be obstructed by racial, national, or party lines.

Hinchas believes Latin America is as much a part of the idea of America as North America, the Caribbean, and Canada are. Our first issue features the work of writers and artists that we consider Pan-Americans; you might say that the issue solely exists to big them up.

THANK YOU FOR CONTRIBUTORS FOR AFRICANAMERICAN.COM

If we could express gratitude as a raw exponent
then we would compose thorough odometers of thanks
a cumulous quantity of adieus and nostalgic salutations
rampant thanks, vampires on the moon, grateful doubloons
of effusive we-are-blessed-to-know-a-contributor-like-you
a flea circus of appreciativeness, a dust bowl of thank yous

If we could stitch hymns into the seams of the beholden
then we could walk around immune to no small palaver
violins plugged into amplifiers, dogs coughing at the moon
indebted to you fugitive and furtive, lurkful thanks
of dromedaries on the plains of small glass blossoms
a caravan of glass-bottom obligesse, and a megaphone
that barks in waves.

both amplitude frequency and frequency modulation thank you
neither Goliath nor Golem nor Gargantuan No One nor Cyclops
knows the extent of our indebtedness, the gauge of our loiter
unchartered in temperament banners and lonely for the gristle
of non-stick, Teflon Tron Thank You Teleportation Vestibule,
paltry radio nadirs and troughs of thank, a tsunami of fidelity
a 50 story thank you encroaching on the unsuspecting coast.

SECOND VERSION OF POEM FOR AFRICANAMERICAN.COM

All of you suns and moons / Ashanti crescents above lintel / In wizard slippers and currency thobes / securitycam precious, crocodile bile / Juggling some real Shotta! Pral'ems No Bueno! / illegible contracts and pink slip kite blueprints / navigate barrels of vuvusellas and drum surgery / from the tarmac of a negligible promontory / A place more stratosphere than atmosphere.

The suns scope the World from third story / Adam Clayton and Frederick Douglas sentinels done good / But, who doesn't the work indict? / Surely, the proscenium means dirt bike riders can wheely across Three Five / And lawnmower up and down Lenox like hard jesters / Regardless, people really need the seen in Harlem / And they invest in Gaze Technology or Reflex Equities / they underwrite astringent nostalgia.