Yer Sweet Chimneys

Book Review: Aleksandar Hemon's The Book of My Lives

2013-05-14T16:15:00.001-04:00

Go take a look at my review of Aleksandar Hemon's new collection of personal essays over at the L Magazine.

Photo Album: Future Wife in Brighton

2013-05-13T17:24:00.002-04:00

Social Mediums

2013-05-02T19:37:00.000-04:00

Hey, won’t ya please consider following our bands?

futurewifeband.tumblr.com

field-guides.tumblr.com

blushingband.tumblr.com

And, hey, won’t ya please be our bands’ friend?

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Future-Wife/363561520345820

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Field-Guides/332457746785990

https://www.facebook.com/BlushingBand

Photos of FIELD GUIDES @ Cameo

2013-04-26T15:32:00.003-04:00

by Morgan Cattaneo

by Olivia Smith

by Will Brant

by Crystal Arnette

WEDNESDAY (APRIL 24, 2013) √√√ BEN SERETAN + FIELD GUIDES √√√ CAMEO GALLERY

2013-04-22T11:54:00.003-04:00

RSVP: facebook.com/events/481555998565099/
TICKETS: cameony.net/event/241565-ben-seretan-field-guides-brooklyn/

Mist Complexion, Pt. 3

2013-03-26T17:27:00.000-04:00

Feeling-Size and Square Roots - w4w (Williamsburg)

The world feels so big sometimes. Other times it feels so small. The feeling-size of the world might be proportionate to the size of internal/emotional gravity. Or maybe it's more aligned with something more banal: the size of one's breakfast any given day, the number of hours and minutes and seconds slept through each night...

All this is to say:

The night before I saw you I slept approximately 6 hours and 15 minutes. (I won't try to estimate the seconds; that seems foolish and unnecessary.)
The morning of the day on which I saw you, I ate yogurt and granola. And a banana. I drank a coffee, black. (From Café Grumpy, the coffee shop on the corner of Meserole and Diamond, in Greenpoint.)
My internal/emotional gravity was stronger than usual; I felt weighted, an almost unbearable heaviness of my being. (Do you too like Kundera?)
The world felt somehow both big and small. (Weird, I know.)

Four things, if transmuted into lines, can form a square: ܛ

That night:

You had on some really stylish specs. (What is your prescription?)
I was wearing an orange-y reddish lipstick. (Today my lips are chapped. The air is dry.)
Field Guides were playing on the small stage in the back of Pete's. (The guitarist's strap kept breaking awkwardly.)
The world felt somehow both big and small. (I wish I had said hello.)

If you think this is about you, write your name and number in green chalk on the sidewalk at the corner of Gansevoort and Greenwich.

Tickets Available Now for April 24 Ben Seretan/Field Guides Show!!!

2013-03-21T12:03:00.000-04:00

{poster by BJK}

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Ben Seretan

Field Guides

Wed, April 24, 2013

Doors: 10:00 pm / Show: 10:00 pm

$8.00

RSVP HERE.

BUY TICKETS HERE.

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More info:

Ben Seretan

Ben Seretan—from Brooklyn—plays the electric guitar, sings, and makes "long music." If heaven exists, Ben is going to find it with delay pedals and join the chorus of angels. Guitars cascading like waterfalls, joyful and lulling repetition, droning waves of guitar filling the room and lapping at your ankles. Ecstatic Electric American Primitive. Influences: John Fahey, Earth, Alice Coltrane, the Minutemen. His latest recording, New Song, was released in November of 2012.

Field Guides

FIELD GUIDES began, as so many misguided things begin, in a bedroom. The bedroom belonged to a boy who wrote some songs about women and bedrooms and mental illness. And plants and animals.

FIELD GUIDES have lumberingly moved into the living room. They are a family now, featuring former or current members of Future Wife, BLUSHING, Heliotropes, PEELS, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. There are more songs now about Amelia Earhart and books and buildings. And plants and animals. FIELD GUIDES sound, according to some, like "noisy pop." Or "tidal, shimmering, and poignant." Or like "that band with the guy and girl from Canada." Or like they're "ripping off Yo La Tengo." They take that last one as a serious compliment.

Venue Information:

Cameo Gallery
93 N. 6th St. Brooklyn, NY, 11211
http://www.cameony.com

◊◊◊ 2 rare/new BLUSHING rehearsal recordings ◊◊◊

2013-03-13T15:39:00.001-04:00

Again, BLUSHING will be playing this Sunday (3.17.13) at CAKE SHOP

More info!

BLUSHING ◊◊◊ CAKE SHOP ◊◊◊ MARCH 17

2013-03-06T12:34:00.000-05:00

{flyer by BJK}

....PRIMA [[noise rock//nyc//members of Beasty]]
.........NOMS [[queertheorycore//boston]]
.............HOUSE PARTY [[noise//nyc//providence]]
..................BLUSHING [[ambient//nyc]]

5 bux, 8pm, starts prompt as fuck

CAKE SHOP
152 Ludlow St, NYC
btwn. Stanton & Rivington
212-253-0036

RSVP??

FEB. 26: DOPE BODY + GUARDIAN ALIEN + CHAT LOGS +TOM BLACKLUNG + LUSHES + SLONK DONKERSON @ 285 KENT

2013-02-22T18:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a show being put on by some friends happening next week. Y'all should check it out:

Chat Logs, a hyper-visceral noise punk trio from Brooklyn, NY, will be headlining a powerhouse lineup at 285 Kent, an underground DIY warehouse on what has become a prominent strip for Brooklyn music venues. This will be their first performance in the space. The band has been curiously alienating the tame Brooklyn scene for some time, most recently packing venues such as Secret Project Robot, Shea Stadium, Death By Audio, and Big Snow Buffalo Lodge, all the way down to the Rockaway waterfront at the Low Tide Bar.

From their habit of dousing the crowd in a cloud of baby powder to finger-pointing, miniature instruments, and oft-naked bodies, one never knows what to expect from the band whose first live performance was at the Whitney Museum of Fine Art. The band's recent performance installation at Southfirst Gallery, Dark Side of the Room, brought to life a butcher's nightmare: musicians costumed as pigs, all melting away amongst animal carcasses in a slaughterhouse. You will want to move your feet; there will be a wall of sound. The perfect soundtrack for your pity party.

285 Kent is an all ages venue on Kent Ave and South 1st. It is accessible via the Bedford Ave L, the G at Metropolitan and the Marcy Ave JMZ, show starts at 8pm, Chat Logs is scheduled to play around midnight.

And here are a bunch o' URLs… Yeah!

https://www.facebook.com/events/594474393912838/
http://chatlogs.bandcamp.com/
http://guardianalien.tumblr.com/
http://dragcity.com/artists/dope-body
http://tomblacklungandthesmokestacks.bandcamp.com/
http://lushes.us/http://slonkdonkerson.com/
http://slippertails.bandcamp.com/

http://showpaper.org/
http://toddpnyc.com/

Mist Complexions, Pt. 2

2013-02-19T15:26:00.000-05:00

Man of My Dreams at Brooklyn Bar, or, Lust - w4m (Williamsburg)

It had been six months or so since my car broke down somewhere in Indiana. It was towed and I found a cheap motel for the night. In that filthy bed I dreamt of a man I'd never met outside of slumber, but a man I'd seen behind my closed lids for years.

Fast forward to this past Sunday. You emerged from the ether of sleep into candlelit reality, man made manifest in flesh. We were sitting across from each other in the back room at Pete's Candy Store. Field Guides were about to finish their set when I saw you glancing at me with a glimmer of recognition. I was too nervous, and too shocked, to approach you after the show, and you must have been equally flummoxed. Have you been dreaming of me all these years as well?

Since Sunday, my dreams have become steamier, our encounters now primal. Sometimes we are lions on the savannah, wolves on the tundra. Always we are lustful.

If you are you, you'll know who I am. Be my valentine?

Photos from FIELD GUIDES' First Show

2013-02-12T17:11:00.002-05:00

Photos by Kristin Leigh Knoll / Animated GIF by BJK

Photo by Benjamin Seretan

Photo by Crystal Arnette

Photo by Kristin Leigh Knoll

Mist Complexions

2013-02-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

Bulbs, or, Girl With Hair at Show - m4w (Williamsburg)

'Bulbs' is such a silly word when you say it more than five times. Were I to name each bulb, I'd look to Greek mythology and Saturday morning cartoons. The bulbs were on the stage last night at Pete's Candy Store. Field Guides were under the low glow.

You: eyebrows like furry caterpillars, asleep and dreaming above your eyes of cocoons and future wings.

(and Jessica Tandy)

Me: a snaggletooth; two diligent eyes (neither lazy); hair growing (still at this age!) in mostly conventional locales; an evident yearning to earn the approval of my peers; an evident yearning for furry and furless affections; a coat evoking fields of nettles. If I were a marine animal, I'd be some sort of mollusk.

Bulbs bulbs bulbs bulbs bulbs...

Bulbs.

FIELD GUIDES - "Leading Me Back to You" (Wolfs Cover)

2013-02-10T02:03:00.000-05:00

On the eve of FIELD GUIDES' first live performance, we offer a home recording of a lovely number by one of our favorite young bands, Wolfs. (And, as an added bonus, and following Wolfs' lead, we include a surprise outro by one of our favorite old bands)...

Morgan Cattaneo: voice
Benedict Kupstas: guitar, synthesizers, voice

(Written by Maryn Jones)

Wolfs is a really, really great band: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wolfs/109488399066711

The show is tomorrow (actually, looking at the hour, it's technically today).

More info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/253527314779935/?ref=22

Field Guides + Awning @ Pete's Candy Store, February 10

2013-02-05T18:01:00.003-05:00

FIELD GUIDES Live @ Pete's Candy Store || Feb. 10, 2013 from Yer Sweet Chimneys on Vimeo.

"When I stare into space, I'm looking for you..."

2013-01-30T18:09:00.000-05:00

2 New Animated GIFs

2013-01-23T14:17:00.002-05:00

ANA-MATED GIF(T)

INFINITE MONKEY

{by BJK}

"Leading Me Back To You"

2013-01-15T01:15:00.001-05:00

Here is an adorable young couple covering a phenomenal, heartbreaking song:

They are apparently called Rooks. They are from my hometown. How fucking cute are they?!

The song is originally by a band called Wolfs. They were introduced to me a while back by my friend Adam from Tigers Jaw/Wicca Pha$e $pring$ Eternal... Their songs are shockingly good and capture the intensity and ennui of youth in a pretty spectacular way, with an emotional directness that seriously rips open my jaded heart every time I listen...

Download the Wolfs cassette HERE.

FIELD GUIDES • FEB 10 • PETE'S CANDY STORE

2013-01-11T15:34:00.000-05:00

{flyer by BJK}

{For this show, Field Guides will be Benedict Kupstas and Madeline Caldwell...}

PEN/Faulkner Podcast, Episode 12: 2012 PEN/Malamud Award Honoring James Salter

2012-12-21T16:49:00.000-05:00

LISTEN

James Salter reads his story "Comet"

(Podcast features music by Benedict Kupstas)

Defiant NRA Hack Deludedly Sticks to His Guns

2012-12-21T15:33:00.001-05:00

I'm still having a really hard time processing today's press conference with the CEO of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, in response to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. LaPierre's comments, his defensive and defiant response to the tragedy, and his paranoid fear mongering, was incredibly surreal and confounding...

From an excellent Mother Jones article about the press conference:

"The head of the nation's most powerful gun rights organization laid out a vision of a paramilitary America, where citizens are protected by armed guards until they are old enough to walk around with their own firearms on the off-chance they might need to pump a few rounds into a fellow citizen. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said LaPierre. "Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away ... or a minute away?" Yet outside of video games, civilians rarely stop mass shooters."

LaPierre continued his exploitative, scaremongering crusade to feed a dangerous, trigger-horny (he's the one that oddly conflated violence and pornography, so I'll keep it up) national paranoia—despicably vilifying those suffering from mental illness, suggesting a ratcheting up of violent confrontation in lieu of any rational policies or regulation, essentially depicting a frontier justice anarchy, prescribing an armed and paranoid populace while proscribing any reasoned or compassionate response to these tragedies, scapegoating an admittedly problematic media while bafflingly letting his own nefarious industry off the hook...

Here is a transcript of the press conference.

Two New Covers from Field Guides

2012-10-09T16:45:00.000-04:00

Some of the Street Art in the 798 Art District, Beijing

2012-07-18T11:22:00.001-04:00

One of the most interesting places I visited in China earlier this month was the 798 Art District in Beijing. Obviously, a westerner in China is keenly aware of the limits to free speech that are imposed (explicitly or tacitly) in China, and those limits are disturbing on a number of fronts. State controlled media, an internet that is monitored and severely curtailed, sedition laws that criminalize criticism of the state and the Communist Party, an incredibly disturbing number of journalists in jail, not to mention the human rights abuses at seemingly every turn... it's enough to make you want to turn tail and get outta Dodge. Then you check out 798 or run across an indie record store in Ho Hai or find yourself in a little reggae bar where teenagers are singing Bob Marley in English and Mandarin, and China begins to feel both smaller and more complicated than previously imagined.

That said, 798 was particularly interesting because it was packed with cafes, bookstores, galleries, shops, and restaurants. In some respects, it struck me as particularly western while in others, it seemed that this particular mix of art and commerce could only exist in a country that was really trying to redefine itself artistically. It'd be easy to go to 798 and wonder whether you were really seeing authentic contemporary Chinese art. Ai Weiwei, for instance, is known in the States because he was disappeared for 81 days last year, a move that caused international outrage and sparked a movement to find him asylum in the U.S. or U.K. That said, there were books and articles about Ai Weiwei all over the place in 798, though I didn't see any of his art. It was as if discussion of the artist was somehow in-bounds simply because his public persona and international celebrity was too big to contain. How does a censor put a cap on such a pervasive conversation and such a widely known figure? The answer, it seems, is that it doesn't.

Anyway, I'm certainly no expert and 10 days in China is hardly time enough to wrap one's head around these issues, let alone understand them in any sort of nuanced way. It is enough time, however, to snap some photos, so here they are, a few shots from the 798 Art District, which is well worth a visit the next time you're in Beijing.

10 Questions for Petri Press

2012-06-14T10:37:00.005-04:00

Starting today, we'll be running a short series of interviews with small press and small magazine publishers who, you know, get so much attention already that this is sort of redundant. We begin with Petri Press, a two-person operation out of Iowa City, IA. We recently emailed publisher Micah Bateman with some questions.

1. So, you've named your press Petri Press. I want to know two things about this: 1) Why? and 2) How does one pronounce this, really? Is it "pee" "tree" or "pet" "ree"? How do you say it, and how do you want other people to say it?

I've always said "pee" "tree," which Merriam-Webster Online confirms. But I also like the Dick Van Dyke Show pronunciation.

2. I'm curious to know more about your vision for Petri Press. Is there a driving aesthetic? A lack of a driving aesthetic? Is it even a fair thing to talk about certain presses in terms of particular aesthetics? Some might argue that doing so does a disservice by being somehow reductionist. What's your take?

I'm sure the more astute will be able to detect if not a driving aesthetic, an allegiance to certain groups and traditions. Eliot says you should have five main poets you admire and emulate. I have a lot more than this, but I'm slowly whittling down. I would bet most of the poets I'll publish are probably Stevens fans. What I really want to say is that I'm not at all concerned with curating any sort of "vision." I just want to publish poems or poets I admire. It just happens that many of them went to the same school as me, which is how I know about them.

3. Picking up there: it's always seemed to me that the question of genre in fiction--that is, what counts as "literary" versus what's seen as "genre"--is also a concern in the world of poetry. In fact, the divisions between aesthetic schools seems particularly distinct. You've got political poets, you've got so-called language poets, you've got confessional poets, and ecologically-conscious poets, and on and on. Is this kind of broad categorization a fair way to make poetic distinctions or is it largely useless?

I think we try to make sense of things with categories, but they don't exactly work. Sometimes it's difficult for me to distinguish Language poets from Dadaists or post-Language poets from what George Oppen was writing. And I'm a sucker for those poets I consider American Surrealists, but none of the living writers I consider such will own up to the name. And all poems seem confessional in a way, but we only recognize the more personal-narrative ones as such. Categories may be useful in describing poets' most salient qualities or allegiances if you're recommending a book to a friend, say. But ultimately it's all muddy water and at its worst can be used for unfair dismissal, i.e. "He's just a Dean Young follower," which is something I'd probably say but shouldn't. Who knows?

4. You've kicked off the website with some lovely art in the header and with poems by Nico Alvarado. Is there a significance to starting with Alvarado's work? This is going to sound silly, but when I saw that Alvarado was the first person you've published on the site, I wondered if you'd be going in alphabetical order. But that's probably just grade school conditioning at work....

I'm not publishing in alphabetical order, but I might list the authors that way. I wanted to start with Nico's work because he's one of my favorite poets. Before I started graduate school, I came across this poem and was so impressed by it that a year or two later, trawling the MFA thesis stacks at the University of Iowa library, I remembered the poem when I saw Nico's name. I checked out his Workshop thesis and kept it almost two years. Then I finally got the idea to send him a fan letter, which I hope spurred him to write some more. He was kind enough to give me the first three poems for Petri.

5. What's your editorial schedule going to look like? How frequently will you be publishing online and how many chapbooks are you looking at putting out annually?

We hope to publish a poet a week online and a chapbook every summer. Wish us luck.

6. Nobody reads. Nobody cares. Publishing is dead. The world's going to hell in a handbasket by all measurable quantities. Seems an optimistic move to found a press now. Are you an eternal optimist up against impossible odds, or is the situation I described really not as bad as all of that?

First, I don't think the situation is bad at all, just different from what it used to be. Second, 6 billion people might not read poetry. But I read a lot of poetry, and while there might be 6 billion poetry zines out there, I've only found a couple that I consistently enjoy. So this is really just a venture in founding a press for myself as a kind of running commonplace book. The optimism comes in making it public with the thought that it might mean something to someone besides me.

7. You're a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and are a poet yourself. The role of publisher is, I suspect, new or new-ish territory for you, no? How do you--as a writer--avoid the conundrum that many writer/publishers face when they're faced with either soliciting, rejecting, and/or accepting and publishing work by writers whom you know? Is a sort of nepotism a concern in a venture like this one, or is it a natural thing that a publisher might well with to publish work by friends, colleagues, former students, etc.?

I have mixed feelings about nepotism and poetry. When Jorie Graham was selecting for book contests, she was picking incredible books. It's just that many of them were by her students. Well, of course they were by her students! She had already selected them for admission to her graduate program; why would it not make sense that she would then select their books? Then Foetry came around and put a stop to all that. As a poet who's sending out a manuscript, it's nice to know that contests are more transparent and less nepotistic. But as a reader of poetry, I have to think book contests were better when Jorie Graham was selecting the winner. I also have to think that it's unfair when acquaintances are counted out of the few book contests that exist for poets, especially when they've been a student of D.A. Powell or Carl Phillips, say, who together judge 150% of the contests and have taught 10,000 poets. But of course this has nothing to do with Petri...

There are poets I've never met whose work I love. But I know about them because they're already well published. I'm more interested in publishing poets I admire whose work is not so ubiquitous. But then how do I know I admire them? Because they are my teachers, classmates, students, etc., and I've seen their work in workshop packets or thesis stacks and such. I'm still working on the etiquette for asking for different poems from what was sent to me by friends and acquaintances. I certainly hope I don't get into the business of publishing my friends' worst poems just as a gesture of friendship or collegiality. From my friends thus far, I've been asking for specific poems by name that I know I love. But I haven't opened for general submissions yet, so we'll see what that brings when that time comes.

8. What do you hope you will have accomplished at Petri Press after one year? After five?

I just hope I've collected enough cool poems to prove that the state of the art is still strong, if misrepresented.

9. Your collaborator (and wife) is Andrea Kohashi. She did the art for the website, I know. Will she also be doing the art for the chapbook series? Also: will the site be primarily text, as it is now, or will we see more visuals as the site grows? And finally, I have to ask: what's it like working on a creative venture with your spouse?

Yes, Andrea will be making the chapbooks herself, art and all. I'm not sure about visuals for the site. My kneejerk reaction is to say that it will be mostly work of the textual variety. But I'm leaving myself open to anything.

Working on a creative venture with one's spouse is actually great, provided the divisions of labor are absolutely clear. Andrea designs the header; I pick the poems. Andrea designs the chapbooks; I pick the authors. Etc. If we had to negotiate, I'm sure we'd be dead in the water.

10. I notice that while you'll be listing your authors in the right sidebar of the site, there are currently no author bios. On the one hand, I like that impulse--to let the work stand for itself without the trappings of a biography which (like it or not) always seems to change the way people find and read poems. On the other hand, if you're not including bios on the site, you're sort of shrugging off a long-held convention of book and magazine publishers. So, why no bios? Will is always be this way?

I guess I just don't understand the convention after Google. First, I don't care what awards people have won or where they went to school; generally this information just pisses me off in knowing what mediocre poets have won the Pulitzer or been a Stegner Fellow. Second, if writers' work strikes me, I'll just Google them and check them out online and then in a library or bookstore. I'm trusting that any reader who encounters a poet online at Petri Press will know how to use a search engine. Third, I want all the poets on Petri to be regarded in the same manner and not ranked by accolades. I'm trying to compile a running catalog of good poems, not accomplished poets. And those who are accomplished, one will probably know by name anyway.

"Light Leak | Walton" by Hong-An Tran

2012-06-12T15:52:00.001-04:00