Theo Jansen's Strandbeest's. The video is a little woo-woo in a large-scale Dutch "the-genius-of..." sorta way, but this guys really is amazing. He constructs these giant mythical beast skeletons that walk by themselves powered solely by the wind, and he's constructing herds of them to let wander freely across the beaches of the world.

Ann Arbor Thai food pickings are slim--especially if you don't want to drive out to strip-mall-land--but there's one good, reliable fastfood-ish Thai restaurant in town called "No Thai!" (a soup nazi-esque, attention-getting name, no?). I was trying to place a to-go order with them the other day and so I Googled their name and came across a storm of this.

I think my favorite is the suggestion: "No Thai!: By Mr. No." Seriously though, what is WRONG with people? Are they just bored? Do they have no sense of irony despite the fact that we've been living in the AGE of irony for the last decade? Maybe this is unfair but I could understand if the restaurant was called "No Black!" or "No Jew!" or even "No Asian!"...but "No Thai!"? Really? Is there a big problem with specifically Thai discrimination in the U.S.?

No. Way.  Ugh. I mean, it's great but...meh...I burned all the pieces that give me a shot at standing a chance against any of these people. I  hate the no-repeat rule. And I was looking forward to relaxing tomorrow. Did I mention HOW great this event is?? Isis & Andrea blew my mind tonight. I don't think I breathed during their poems.

Contestant	Rd 1 Rk	Rd 1 Scr	Rd 2 Rk	Rd 2 Scr	Rd 3 Rk	Rd 3 Scr	Rd 4 Rk	Rd 4 Scr	Total Rank	Total Score
Andrea Gibson	1	29.8	1	30.0	1	30.0	1	30.0	4	119.8
Isis	2	26.7	1	29.6	2	29.9	1	30.0	6	116.2
T Miller	2	29.0	3	29.6	1	30.0	3	29.9	9	118.5
Nicole Homer	1	28.7	5	28.8	2	28.6	1	29.6	9	115.7
Sonya Renee	4	26.8	3	29.3	1	28.8	1	29.9	9	114.8
Tara Hardy	4	26.8	1	29.9	2	27.8	2	28.6	9	113.1
Karyna McGlynn	3	27.6	2	29.5	4	29.1	1	30.0	10	116.2
Original Woman	6	27.7	1	29.8	3	29.9	2	29.9	12	117.3
Christena B	6	28.5	3	29.8	1	28.2	2	28.6	12	115.1
Amy Madison	4	26.3	3	29.5	3	27.9	2	29.5	12	113.2
Deep	4	29.1	1	30.0	1	29.7	7	29.1	13	117.9
Ms Wise	3	26.6	5	26.5	1	30.0	4	29.8	13	112.9
Starr	6	26.5	4	29.0	1	29.7	3	29.7	14	114.9
Tasha	3	29.5	3	29.4	3	26.8	5	27.5	14	113.2
BethSheba	1	29.4	9	28.8	4	28.6	1	30.0	15	116.8

's the

So I'm here in Detroit at the Women of the World Poetry Slam and, surprisingly, not doing too shabby. Here are the top 18 poets after last night. Check it out, I'm 8th, or tied for 3rd depending on how you look at it. If I do well tonight I might actually have a shot at the finals, but I'm still convinced last night was a fluke & tonight's bout certainly isn't going to be a cakewalk. I have to go up against Isis and T Miller who are both ranked above me (as you can see), Radar who is tied with me, Lauren Z & Esme who are both doing very well. In fact, everybody's doing really well...I'll admit I'm a bit surprised. The quality of work I've seen here has been consistently high & the range of styles and subject matters has been amazingly diverse. I had my reservations before I came here but the vibe is great, the spoken-word is compelling and I'm having a really good time...despite the really scary hotel I'm staying in which I will report on later when I don't have to practice.

1st (rank):
1 Andrea Gibson

Tied for 2nd (rank):
2 Isis
3 Maria Del Naja

Tied for 3rd (rank):
4 Ocean
5 Lisa Slater
6 Deep
7 T Miller
8 Karyna McGlynn
9 Tara Hardy
10 Radar

Tied for 4th (rank)
11 Gypsee Yo
12 Tasha
13 Emily Shafer
14 Nicole Homer

Tied for 5th (rank):
15 Original Woman
16 Black Swan
17 Sonya Renee
18 Amy Mattison

I just seem to have won the Washington Square Poetry Contest for a poem I didn't write. It said "Dear Karyna," (that's me!) "Congratulations! You have been selected as a winner in the 2007 Washington Square contest" (woo-hoo!)  "for your poem "Experience in an Automobile." (wait...what??).

Please somebody tell me I wrote that poem and just don't remember doing so. That's an icky mix-up. I don't know if I *actually* won for a different poem, or whether somebody else won for "experience in an automobile" and they accidentally e-mailed me.

Stay tuned.

Gah, so I'm going to the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Detroit this Thursday and *apparently* we're supposed to have individual haiku introductions for ourselves. I'd say people like "Gypsee Yo," "Truth Is...," "2 Deep" and "Queen Sheba" have a head-start in this arena.

Seriously, guys. I can't come up with something for the life of me. Will somebody help me haiku-whore myself an intro? Ideas? Even if they're terrible, they're more than I've got.

Chocolate Spear of Destiny from God's name is 3/4 a haiku unto itself! If only we could do dirty limericks instead. I'd be all over it.

I've by and large given up doing publicity-posts for every journal I'm published in (because, well, I'm in a lot of journals, and friends don't try to make friends purchase a bunch of shitty lit mags just because one of their special snowflake poems appears on page 72).

This journal, however, deserves special note. Not because I'm in it, but because it's new, it's different, it's beautiful, and it ROCKS, and I want everybody to know it. It's called The Open Face Sandwich and I just got my contributor's copies of the first issue. I was immediately taken in by the lovely design, but then I noticed there were postcards of photos of dead squirrels falling out of it, and book marks, and there were all these haunting centerfolds of dead animals, and then I started reading this long notebook paper reproduction of a handwritten kid's journal from 1992 called "my Gernll!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then I read this amazing essay by Ariana Reines (whose new book The Cow I'm currently reviewing for CutBank) which starts out "I only saw my dad's dick once," and then I started reading this thing called "Ballerina Blunders & a Few Male Danseurs" which outlines every important misstep, embarrassing moment, and faux pas in the history of ballet, and and and.... (!)

So yeah, it seems like every new journal purports to bring its readers writing that's "beyond the pale" or "without borders" or "an eclectic mix of recipes, found objects, translations of translations & bastard-hybrid-belles-lettres-of-all-creeds." Admirable, I guess, but total bullshit. Most of these magazines either get a little whackity-schmackity-DON'T (e.g. The Power Rangers Meet the Lone Ranger: A Tragedy), or they're more dry and staid than POETRY on a bad day--the main difference being that the latter at least manages to evoke some passion and sense of skill as opposed to the ball-shaving, disaffected "efforts" of most of my Po-po-schmo poetical generation.

Anyway, OFS manages to not only avoid these pitfalls but actually genuinely delight and entertain, and look good doing it! Do go buy one. Then, if you're a writer of the strange variety, submit something. They accept e-mail submissions, which I love. If you live in Ann Arbor I'll give you a free copy; they're one of those rare breeds of journals that's both *good* AND sends you, like, twelve copies.

Hooray for a print lit journal I'm not embarrassed to leave on the back of my toilet!

http://openfacesandwich.org/

does anybody else on here have an Xbox 360?? Adam & I got one and we want more gamer friends to roll Katamaris with and play Settlers of Catan. Comment here, or friend us. I'm fossefox, of course. He's hedgomatic.

Great news! Destructible Heart Press (http://www.destructibleheart.com) has decided to publish my chapbook Alabama Steve.  All Steve, all the time! This means I have not one but two forthcoming chapbooks that couldn't be more different from one another. V. exciting.

I featured at the University of Michigan slam last night and it was really fun. I haven't had a real leg-stretchy "feature" in ages. I forgot how much I liked it. I did, however, have to shorten my set on the fly because my performance stamina isn't what it once was.

Adam & I have to go rent a car now. We're driving halfway to Western Mass tonight. Wheee!

Beau(joethelionn) just sent me this picture from Austin. I'm not even f*&*@$%^ kidding around here. He got totally lost in the recesses of Pfugerville (think deep country, scary Austin suburbs) and ran across this street sign.

"Only one man has survived an encounter with Old Gregg and lived to tell the tale"



                                                                                                                                          ...and that man, ladies & gents, is Beau Paul.





In case you're missing the reference here, please cure yourself of your benighted  ways by making your way over to Adam's journal where the Legend of Old Gregg is embedded here: http://asterisk8.livejournal.com/302720.html?mode=reply

So...not to be too "my boyfriend put a dance club inside a duck," but if you're a lil' nerdy comme moi...AND you like stand up comedy...AND you like board games, you might be interested to know that yesterday Adam & I finished making our own version of Settlers of Catan based on Patton Oswalt's stand-up comedy. Okay, so it was mostly Adam--he cut out cardboard hexagons until his fingers bled--but I did act as something of a creative consultant on the project. And let me tell you, it's friggin beautiful! It's seriously prettier than the real thing. We played three times yesterday & it was more fun than the original because you get to have conversations like:

"Hey, can anybody trade werewolves for weed?"

"Nope, sorry, can't do it. I'm up to my ass in weed right now, but I'll trade you two whackity-schmackity-dos for some Dewar's."

"Put more potatoes in my bowl! I thought you all had potatoes."

"Don't put your Stella D'oro Breakfast Treat there! You're treat-blocking me. Besides, you already have the Tallest Midget!

"I can't do anything right now because freakin' Robert Evans is all up in my junk!"

&etc.

We were planning to make two copies and present one to Patton Oswalt after the Comedians of Comedy show tonight, but it was hard enough to make one and now I don't think we're willing to give it up. We're a little in love with it.

 My mom's flying in from Texas later this afternoon (yay!) and she'll be here all weekend for my birthday. We're pretty much picking her up from the Detroit airport and transplanting her in the Blind Pig for a night of Oswalt, Bamford, et al, followed by a rousing game of...SADNESS BOWLS OF THE APOCALYPSE!





























...oh my god, I'm almost 30. Oh, 30....kiss, kiss...where have you been all my life?
 







BTW, yes those are uncooked cornish game hens getting pushed through gray drapes.

Unless you've been reading Adam's journal, you're probably blissfully unaware of our apartment-hunting woes & misadventures over the last--what?--month? Trust me when I say it was a long bit of nastiness. It involved people without teeth trying to foist "Michigan Basements" upon us where, presumably, they locked up their cracker spawn until they were of age. I can't tell you how many "four bedrooms" we saw that looked like the owner had taken a perfectly serviceable one bedroom and split up the space into hobbit-closets so they could charge more. I can't tell you how many rooms I found myself in that were so depressing I could easily picture myself locked in them, chewing on bedposts and writing  self-admonishments with crayon all over the walls: "I WILL not open the window on Tuesdays. I WILL not open the window on Tuesdays..."

In the end, our best options were a loft in Ypsi without windows in the bedrooms, a dilapidated Victorian in Delhi, and a farmhouse near Hell, Michigan.

We actually signed a lease for the place in Delhi because, despite our intuition and reservations, we were blinded by the idea of the fire-pit in the backyard and the Huron river that you could practically fall into when you stepped out the front door. We mythologized the place so much that we signed an obviously shady lease that would've landed us in an overpriced spider-infested crazy-commune with hippie landlords who could never be bothered to call us back even though they left their broken-down vehicles in our lawn.

When we came to our senses, we tore up the lease. The whole debacle almost ended my friendship with Cyan.

One day,  Adam was like: "Wait. Why can't you move in here again?" We pondered this. The original objection was that his roommate Laura already had a cat who probably wouldn't be too fond of Maxwell & Sviddy. Also, we were trying to find a place where Cyan could move in as well (and the 3rd bedroom in Adam's place isn't the most inhabitable place in the world). But then we got all caught up with the idea of dropping out of society & moving to the country because we were so sick of Ann Arbor we couldn't stop vomiting into our own scorn. But, after everything that had happened, we reassessed the situation and it took us all of half a second to realize that moving me into Adam's place (which is big & gorgeous) was the best and most obvious thing to do. Oh, no! The cats might hiss at each other! Boo-friggin-hoo. Seriously, it was the biggest head-slapping "Duh!" moment ever. We're actually saving money, too. It was like the moment at the end of Lost in America where they realize that despite their intentions to drop out of society "just like in Easy Rider" and "touch indians," they both secretly can't wait to get back to the city and eat shit in order to get their old quality of life back.

So, hello from my own personal Pemberly in the center of Kerrytown, where we can walk out the front door and practically land in a loaf of Zingerman's bread. Yes, it's horrible! We're surrounded by a farmer's market, a fish market, a butcher, an antique shop, a gay brunch place, a coffee shop...  Oh, the humanity!  Sure, it's a little homogenized. Sure, we'd love to live on a houseboat someday. Sure, we'd both like to marry the same lighthouse keeper and then kill him so we can live in the lighthouse. But will it really suck our souls to live in this highly-desirable place for another 10 months?

As I sit behind my big wooden desk, typing. As Adam sits at his piano, playing. As the kitties sit at the windows, basking. I think not. This will do, pig. This will definitely do

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This is amazing! The day's off to a lovely start now! Props to my dad for sending this my way.

Did I go on birth control again despite the BEASTLY side effects that it's given me in the past, simply because they came out with a pill called....


YAZ (!?!?)*

Am I really THAT big of a new wave freak that I'm able to convince myself that any product that shares a name with the genius behind Upstairs at Eric's, MUST be good?

It wasn't, of course. Three days and I turned into suicidal hag.

Still, I can't help but wish YAZ (the BC) would use use YAZ (the band) in their advertising campaign:

Dragons, the policeman knew,
were supposed to prevent babies, to prevent babies, babies

inside, you can feel the difference, outside, you can see the difference,
sperm is stop, stop
inside, outside
you can feel the difference, outside
you can see the difference
acne stop, stop

you can feel the bloating stop, stop

A baby would definitely not, would definitely not
be created, stop, stop
definitely not

sperm permanently get themselves, get themselves
slaughtered, slaughtered, slaughtered
he decided.

if you're on this pill, the policeman said, stop, stop


*perhaps the product is aptly named. You see that cover photo? That's about how my body felt when I was taking it.

...now I can finally get back to things that matter, like playing Katamari Damacy until my hands bleed....




oh, KD, I hear you calling me! I want to wad you up into my life!

This morning  asterisk8 brought me coffee and the most everything-est bagel I've ever had.

it was sweet, certainly not surprising for him...but I thought: 'Adam is the most everything-est bagel I've ever had.'

Ok, so I know I don't usually discuss the ruckus of luv on my lj, but maybe just this once??

In the entry before last I promised the next entry would be about why I love my boyfriend, but instead my next post seems to imply that I love my boyfriend "because he's a hipster, mom..." which isn't quite accurate, so, as promised, it's time to play a little game called "Hi! Haaaave you met Adam?"

If you're on my lj friends list, you may remember Adam from such infamous fire-starters as "Menopause is a fucking demon" but there's, oh, so much more to him than faux sexism and flame wars. For instance, did you know he's a 31 year-old pisces from Northampton who uses Jane Austen as a common cultural reference point? Or that he has a iron rooster playing a white baby grand toy piano inside his fireplace? Or that he can do a mean karaoke version of James' "Laid," is writing a chapbook which is sort of Nick Flynn meets Denis Johnson, writes lovely/creepy music, makes amazing collages, can hold forth over a pint/throw darts blindfolded, and owns a new sexy-ass Pentax K10d with which he takes uncommonly good photos?  

Adam has a predilection for jackets, scotch, period pieces, bi bim bop, stand-up and sketch comedy, political blogging, thrift shopping, Settlers of Catan, good IPAs, clear communication, audrey hepburn, empathy, coffee, silly faces, argyle socks, kitties, the pitfalls of IP law, and, apparently...me. This is very convenient since I think he's the bee's knees. I should mention that this entry will probably embarrass him terribly, but I just can't keep my incredibly good luck to myself. I'm only scratching the surface here, of course, but what a scratchable surface.

Seriously, he may be a French Canadian New Englander, but in some ways he's such a southern sweet-pea I might not be able to stand it but for his well-developed sense of schadenfreude & inherent understanding of why Schopenhauer is a disappointed optimist rather than an out and out pessimist.

I promised butterflies. See? Look at all the butterflies... (!)






Did I mention he took me to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island where we drank mint juleps on a long white porch overlooking Lake Huron amid a sea of geraniums? *sigh*



That's right, folks, you just saw Karyna 'shut the fuck up' McGlynn with her heart stapled to her sleeve.

Over the course of my visits to Austin this summer, I realized that half the questions my mother asks me can be answered with some variation of: "Because they're hipsters, mom..."

AT HOME
Mom: "Your boyfriend's very good looking. Does he work out at the gym a lot?"
Me: "Ha! No."
Mom: "Why not? ....Why is that funny?"
Me: "Because he's a hipster, mom."***
Mom: "Hipsters don't go to the gym?"
Me: "No, mom, they literally don't."

AT CONCERT
Mom: "Why are none of the people here dancing?"
Me: "Because they're hipsters, mom."
Mom: "But don't they like the music?"
Me: "Sure. But they can't act like it."
Mom: "Why?"
Me: "Because they're hipsters, mom."

AT BAR
Mom: "Karyna, why are all the men here drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon/smoking parliaments/wearing white plastic belts &/or scarves in summer?"

You get the idea. I think the following hipster olympics video is the best "training video" I've found  for my mom in a long time. 




They forgot that "the waning moon is the new whining moon" & "Happy hour is the new half hour."


*** I should note that Adam firmly (& appropriately) rejects the notion that he's a hipster. We had a long, large-sunglasses bedecked talk about it at brunch at the Aut bar last Sunday, after which we both smoked a Parliament & went home to update our MySpace pages. I mean, I understand that there are nuances to & variations on the term 'hipster,' but, really, am I going to try to explain these differences to my mom when she's having trouble grasping the concept as a whole?

Well, against all expectations, the Ann Arbor slam team made semi-finals! I was given the wrong information last night about who we're competing against, so now....*exasperated sigh*...we're up against Austin again, as well as Cambridge, Charlotte & Decatur. Austin apparently still has all of their big guns in reserve, so if you come to the Parish (214 E. 6th St.) tonight at 7, you can STILL see Austin shine the floor with our asses. We basically pulled out everything we had to make semis and still only came in 2nd both nights, whereas Austin got the 1 both nights & beat us without breaking a sweat, casting nary an eye towards their heavy artillery.  I can't think of any team I would rather be creamed by.

That said, go, Austin, go! Here, I humbly offer you the heads of the Ann Arbor team in the hopes that will use & abuse us tonight, catapulting your damn fine selves into friggin' finals!

Well, I'm a TIRED cupcake as it is and I've got a flight to Austin leaving at 6am tomorrow morning followed by a week of National Poetry Slam brouhaha. Ugh.  I've been abusing myself terribly. asterisk8 and I have been F. Scott & Zelda-ing on the rooftops of...uh, Ann Arbor. I think we simultaneously decided to spend more time in Ypsilanti. If I'm going to stay in Ann Arbor another year, I need to seriously extend my reach. A2 is tapped out. Sure, I may suddenly stumble into some unexpectedly good Bi Bim Bop, or discover trivia night at some overlooked townie bar, but for the most part....eh. Lemme put it it this way, Adam took me to see a show at the Elbow Room in Ypsi on Saturday and in that tiny little sliver of time/space I saw more interesting-looking people than I've seen all year in Ann Arbor. It was a bit overwhelming. I was suddenly in high spirits. The rain + the change of scene (+ other lovely  things of the romantic variety) = a moment  of time in which possibility/color flooded back into my life.  It feels really lame, pointless & unimaginative to dump on Ann Arbor and I've managed to avoid doing so for a long time because I've been happy here, so it seemed like a good place, but it's not a good place. The ways in which it's been good for me rest solely upon the tiny life-raft of cool people I've met and the fact that my interactions with those people are heightened because we cling together like shipwreck survivors in a sea of mediocrity. Well, that and the fact that A2 isn't overly distracting, which allows me to get more work done. But those aren't selling points. Those are fortunate side effects of its suckiness. Meh. Less bitching, more sleep, more Ypsi.

I'll see all you poetry peops waaaay too soon. Tuesday night @ Ego's, first bout of the night at 7. Manchester, Honolulu, Palatine, Randall. We plan to win. Seattle's in the bout directly after. Be there.

Wednesday (Day): Come to the Slam & the Academy Panel I'm moderating (11:30-1 Hideout Upstairs). Featuring Tara Betts, Ragan Fox, Tara Hardy, Jeremy Richards, Robbie Q. Telfer, Susan B.A. Somers-Willett. Should be a great discussion.

Wednesday (Night): Come watch me cheer on my hometown (Austin) as they beat Ann Arbor's ass! 9pm Antone's.

Thursday (Day): Come to my Publishing Tips for Slam Poets Workshop (11:30-1, Hideout Upstairs)