NEW YORK -- WHERE I BECAME A BLONDE

‘Twas a lovely trip to New York City. Thank you to all who attended the Marsh Hawk Press book launch. I didn’t know most of the people at the launch (which is great—was C.K. Williams really there? I’m such a fan of his long lines! ). Delight to meet Jack Kimball, Tim Peterson and Neil de la Flor in person for the first time. And I had a brief but most enjoyable chat with fellow reader Phillip Lopate about a novella he once wrote (he's prolific!) that entailed research in the Filipino movie industry—I told him that it actually rivals Bollywood. Oh, and Claudia Carlson was there doing sketches of poets—this is actually a sketch she did of me and Phillip; Claudia has a clever idea: she does the sketches and then asks the poets to autograph them—I think the results in part will be featured in a future online exhibition at the Marsh Hawk Press website’s gallery:



Here’s an earlier sketch Claudia did of David Lehman, Terrance Hayes and someone I can’t identify:


And it’s lovely always to see the artists indeed!

Last but not least, thanks to my hosts Barbara and Sandy McIntosh who took care of Moi whilst I was there. They so graciously picked me up from JFK as soon as I landed and brought me home to an incredible home-cooked meal—it’s the best corn beef I’d ever tasted. Tom Fink was there, too, to partake of Sandy’s culinary skills (Sandy’s not only a poet but a stellar chef!) Here’s Tom before Sandy’s desert: key lime pie!



Unfortunately, (sigh)I was led to update my absinthe imbibing. The last time I was at the McIntosh household, Sandy served a Bulgarian version that stripped the paint off my car, and my car was 3,000 miles away in California. But I'm so pleased that, this trip, they served perhaps the most yummy absinthe I've tasted -- this would be the Lucid Absinthe Superieure brand. So, poets, if you have to imbibe, I recommend this one from France.

So, what happens when poets imbibe absinthe? This ain't Vegas--it's the Chatty One's Blog! Now, Tom Fink didn’t imbibe but when I tipple that absinthe is I turn blonde. Here's the result:


Actually, I mostly post it because none of us had realized in all the years we’d known each other that I and Barbara bear a distinct resemblance to each other—I apparently look exactly like Barbara’s older sister! Whoo-ye news-bearing absinthe.

On that note, thanks Manhattan. You're one big pow-em toiself!