Burdens of the Day

Editor's Note: From time to time, we receive an e-mail that defies categorization and yet must be shared with the greater public:

"I call it serendipity but this week I received a letter from Missy - an SFO (Secular Franciscan) who sends a note to the Rosary Makers she started 9 years ago. Alas, my hands were not made for this wonderful job, but I try to support them financially with small donations. In her letter she enclosed a flyer telling about Helen Pelczar a Franciscan lay sister who died in 1926. From Cleveland and a Slav as myself though she was Polish and I am Slovak, I was thrilled to read about this woman who is purported to have suffered the stigmata. But to the point-- I entered in Helen's name on a Search wagon which brought me to Zyzzyva. An intriguing name. I love Z and my name in Slovak is Zuzana so you will understand why. I found the poem Burdens of the Day, Nov.12, 1936 by Duane BigEagle. He chronicles the different happenings on this day when they opened the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Two happenings interested me: On this day.....Archduke Otto of Autria got back the Hapsburg throne from Mussolini, who also traded Czechoslovaia to Hungary in return for Ethiopia. (Thanx a bunch Mussolini- but know - wherever you are -Slovakia is finally an independent democracy. On this day....a grave began to sing in Cleveland. "Ave Maria" came up clearly from the sod above Helen Pelczar, Franciscan lay nun, ten years dead. (Wow, how beautiful. When I read something like this I wish that I had a poetic streak!) At any rate, if you are still with me, I imagine BigEagle is dead by now. But I appreciate his "Burdens of the Day." I was 6 years old when he wrote them and I had never heard of Helen before Missy sent the flyer and Zyzzyva confirmed her existence. Thanx."

[Editor's Note: Duane BigEagle is alive and well; his poem appeared in Spring '99.]

My Colleagues

1) Don Lee, longtime editor of Ploughshares, is leaving to become an associate professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. His second novel will be published by Norton next spring.

2) In September, the U of Iowa Press will bring out Whose World is This?, stories by Lee Montgomery, executive editor of Tin House. Meanwhile, the paperback of her memoir, The Things Between Us, comes out in July from Free Press.

3) Hilda Raz , editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner, and her son Aaron have written an important, disturbing, bewildering, heartrending, informative book about how Hilda's daughter Sarah finally realized, in her late twenties, that she was a man and became Aaron: What Becomes You (University of Nebraska Press). Many of Hilda's poems in her 2001 collection, Trans, deal with Aaron, so, in a way, this is his (somewhat belated) book. His rants are too often shrill, but many of the scenes he describes are harrowing.

Among the many ironies is that he became a clown, professionally, and has worked extensively among the homeless. The jacket copy grandly describes him as "writer, performing artist, curator, historian of science...director of the Museum of Nature in Portland, OR."

It is sad that the book contains no photos, although he himself once felt desperately in need of images of transsexuals, and couldn't find any. Google can't find any images of him, either.

Aaron's surgeon does four gender-reassignment operations a week, Hilda reports, "Ninety percent of his patient's families disown them."

Best Journal Design Award

The Council of Learned Journals has given its "Best Journal Design Award" to The Southern Review.

The full-page acknowledgment of the award, in the Spring issue, quotes the award's citation: "a comforting sense of literary materiality... This is a design for people who love the tactile and palpable aspects of literature."

In general, I agree: the texts feel good on the page.

(What's the diff between "tactile" and "palpable"? If they really want palpable, they should use letterpress, an extravagant tactic last tried in a litmag, I think, by Ben Sonnenberg, when he was trying to squander his inheritance with the original Grand Street in the eighties. I've recommended it to Poetry.)

The look is classically restrained; the layout is simple-- no pull-quotes, no blocks of color behind texts, no sidebars, no colored rules....which is more than we can say for the award's runner-up, VQR, aka, The Virginia Quarterly Review, which is a splendid example of two much money chasing too much inspiration.

The page size is very big for a journal, 6 3/4 x 10 inches, and there are 256 of them, numbered from the beginning of the year, hence, this first text in this issue, the second of the year, starts on page 253. (Isn't that learned!)

The margins are generous, although the footers (the page numbers at the bottom) are annoyingly indented and, to my eye, too close to the text, and the headers at the top of each left-hand page repeat the name of the journal, as if we might have forgotten. I find it particularly obnoxious when the name of the journal appears, in small caps, above the title of a poem.

The 36 pages of reviews at the back of the book are announced by a "title page," followed by a blank, a pseudo-elegant waste of space and a pathetic act of segregation. The "In Brief" reviews are set smaller than the main texts, a common learned practice, but one that strikes me as patronizing (they are not worth standard-sized), rather than economical (more words can be squeezed in).

On the cover, on the spine, on the title page, on the contents, and in an ad, the "the" of the Southern Review is lower cased, but on the copyright page and on the inside back cover (the donors' page), the The is capped.

The cover bleeds a b&w photo, and the same photo, in a half-sized detail, is used on the back cover, which is filled to the edge (bled) with an appropriate shade of gray, while below the photo are the names of the contributors.

The subtitle on the front cover reads, in small caps, PUBLISHED QUARTERLY AT LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, which, although inelegant, presumably helps convince the administration that the journal's budget is justified as public relations.

The inside front cover states: "No unsolicited manuscripts will be read/during June, July, and August." To which the proper response is, I think: Excuse MEEE."

The bio blurbs are offered just after the contents, which is better than hiding them in the back of the book, although the title "Contributors" is weirdly indented.

Eight photographs (and the cover) by Neil Folberg (who appeared in ZYZZYVA Spring '87), from a book forthcoming this fall, comprise the "art portfolio," presented on coated stock, preceded by another "title" page, which should at least have contained more of Folberg's "author," Lin Arison's "statement"--she is given only a paragraph excerpted from the book on the "blank" following page. The selection of images seems skimpy and perfunctory.The color ones seem murky to me.

Sometimes, when a poem starts on a right-hand page, the poet's name is incorporated into the header, at other times, the poet's name is flush left, just above the title. This inconsistency is disturbing.

Did I mention the spine, which reads:

Volume
43
Number
2
Spring
2007

although, to be fair, I should state that those words and numbers are centered. As they are, at the bottom of this ugly (white) spine:

Louisiana
State

University

At the bottom of the full-page announcement of the Award:

With gratitude and admiration the Editors recognize
the high degree to which this award reflects the talent and
meticulous care of this journal's designer and typesetter

BARBARA NEELY BOURGOYNE

Cry Wolfe

Yesterday, I was on the 33 Stanyan, perhaps MUNI's most baroque line, starting at Potrero, traversing 18th, crossing Market, ascending Haight, left on Stanyan, down Arguello, into Pacific Heights. A woman sat down in front of me and pulled out The Web and The Rock, which was published posthumously in 1939, having been edited by Edward Aswell, later to father a daughter who was one of my fourth-grade classmates.

I have been thinking about Wolfe lately, in terms of how could Max Perkins have been a great editor if 1) he didn't make Fitzgerald rewrite the "drama" into which the last part of This Side of Paradise degenerates and if 2) no matter how much he cut, Wolfe goes on and on, and is now, as far as I can tell, unreadable.

I asked the woman what had prompted her. (I was a bit high, having just fortified myself, during a meeting with a new board member, with a cup of hot cocoa, a slice of walnut pie, and a slice of sweet potato pie, at Mission Pie, Mission & 25th.)

She had been in Dog Eared Books (not an advertiser) and she'd flipped through it and liked what she read. She said she planned to read even more Wolfe after The Web. It looked to me like she still had a good 650 pages to test her mettle.

Later, on the 1 California, a woman sat down in front of me and continued her romp through Middlemarch.

Meanwhile, Aneesa continues to make professional progress.

The Underground

OK, altho I try hard not to be like other bloggers, I'll tell you what I'm listening to: Rembetika: Greek Underground--Songs & Musicians, 1925-1947. (To listen to some songs, click here and scroll down.)

What I really like is the liner note defining "mangas (or Rembetis): One who scorns straight society and its conventions. A Mangas operates on the fringes of society. He doesn't get married, never walks hand in hand with his girlfriend, doesn't wear a tie or collar, never carries an umbrella. He hates the police, helps the weak and shuns work."

That's a program I could sign up for, except, of course, for the part about the umbrella.

Fall Forward

Now that all the texts have been selected and edited for the Fall issue, which comes out the end of August, the theme has revealed itself: Action/Adventure.

You may recall the All-Sex Winter issue; the Action/Adventure issue is similar in that you may not recognize the theme when you finally come across it. I'm not afraid to tell you now, because you'll have forgotten it by late August anyway.

The issue includes pieces about: descending an ice wall; flying close ground support in Nam; philandering north of Santa Fe; snowshoeing in West Yellowstone; tracking down a dead shrink; gillnetting in Alaska; selling industrial plumbing in L.A....

What does it all mean? What turmoil in the depths of the editor's psyche is being played out?

Sunday in the Park

Bearing the handcrafted letters, z y z z y v a t h e l a s t w o r d, we explained to the curious at the 96th Bay to Breakers 12k race what it all meant,

and cruised to the finish line, just seconds before it, the finish line, was dismantled.

YouPo

1) I'm indebted to Clay Banes for pointing toward a mashup of poetry videos, The Continental Review.com.

2) ZYZZYVASPEAKS has moved into (a distant) third behind Ron Silliman and Robert Peake in Small Press Exchange's admittedly small sampling of litblog popularity.

Defining Moment

(The Bay to Breakers Sunday: the ZYZZYVA zentipede departs the Garfield statue east of the Conservatory of Flowers at 10:30.)

Ed Champion may be the most distinguished litblogger in our hood, and he feels such an obligation to his readers that, to tide them over during his recent vacation, he invited other bloggers to sub for him. He invited me, but I suggested I wouldn't be able to do anything more than I was already doing on my workday blog, since I believe in Taking My Best Shot. Fortunately, Ed was not at a loss for replacements.

Among them, I'm particularly indebted to Patrick Stephenson for pointing toward Wordie, "like Flickr, but without the photos."

Naturally, I searched for "zyzzyva," and found seven brave souls who listed it among their favorite words. Dictionaries that defined the word were also cited:

Merriam-Webster suggests some good alternatives.

The definition I myself had worked up for the Urban Dictionary got one thumbs up, four down.

Google is also good, but who is Robert Clark Young (believe me, you do want to know).

A Junker

Since I agree with the philanthropic axiom that if you don't ask, you won't get, I write my donors throughout the year, not just during the giving season. In my most recent letter to major donors, I provided a list of items they might consider giving: "money, art, stock, jewelry, vintage wines, or, pardon the expression, an old junker...."

Imagine my surprise when one of my favorite donors e-mailed to say he had a car to contribute.

For some reason, I pictured a Land Rover with an annoying scratch on the right rear fender. Or maybe a Lexus that needed new brakes.

In the event, a dismantler, nicely named Pick & Pull, offered $250 for the car, which has 174,000 miles and (at least) a blown head gasket. Needless to say, I had to decline the gift. But the thought, while it lasted, was thrilling.

DIY

Ron Silliman's seventies litzine, Tottel's, is now archived on line. (Click on the "facsimile" button. Note esp. the cover of #16.)

Silliman's linguistics professor at SF State had "argued that if I was [sic] a poet, I should have a magazine – it would give me a chance to contact all of the poets whose work I admired, sharpen my own critical thinking about poetry, and even give me the chance to print my own work. "

Besides these three reasons, here are three other reasons all writers, esp. poets, should do-it-yourself:
4) to realize how difficult it is to separate the wheat from the chaff
5) to realize how thankless the task of editing/publishing really is
6) to realize that no matter how noble your intentions, acute your sensibility, boundless your energy, etc., the end product will turn out to be, by the standards of Literature, essentially unacceptable

Gentle Reader

I was meeting a former board member for lunch and had given myself plenty of time--as it turned out, way too much. I passed a SONY store and decided to try its e-book, the Reader, again.

I'd fiddled with it before, but this time I thought I'd put in a solid half hour, as if I were reading a book to kill time.

The sample "literary" text—there are several different genres on offer--is Pride & Prejudice. I've read it a couple times, of course, and I saw the movie. But I'd forgotten Mr. Bennet's great line: If there is a ball, Mrs. Bennet better not come along, because she is so beautiful she will consume all the attention (to the detriment of her daughters).

I thought to write the line down, because my memory does not serve me well, but I'd already advanced several scrolls along and couldn't retreat effectively. That is, I kept pushing the lever that sent me back to the title page. Which was annoying.

Meanwhile, although the PRS 500 weighs only nine ounces, I was developing carpal tunnel syndrome, although I don't usually consider myself weak in the hands. Also, the grayness of the background depressed me, as if I were in Minnesota in February, being deprived of sufficient sunlight.

I finally found a button on the side that advanced the text. That helped.

Darcy came on the scene...and then the sample ended.

When I got back to the office, I found that a review copy of Josh Goldfaden's first collection, Human Resources (Tin House Books, $12.95) had arrived in the mail. I had no trouble turning immediately to the Acknowledgments, which offered special thanks to me for helping with Nautical Intervention, the best story in the collection.

This paperback has such nice touches as jacket flaps and a deckle edge. I tried to download Chapter IV of P&P on it, but nada. So I read a story some other editor had worked on, "King of the Ferns," instead, and was amused without any carpal stress.

B2B

Next Sunday, May 20, ZYZZYVA will enter an unofficial centipede (a group of runners) in the 96th annual Bay to Breakers race.

We will start off from the Garfield memorial, a big bronze statue of the 20th President just east of the Conservatory of Flowers, at 10:30 a.m. sharp, and stroll casually toward the beach in an attempt to be The Last Word crossing the finish line just before it closes at noon.

I will be wearing my black ZYZZYVA T-shirt. (To order your own click on it.)

You are invited to join us for this important cultural event, wearing an official T-shirt or not. RSVP.

Meanwhile, Athur Tulee (ZYZZYVA 49) reports that he "flew ZYZZYVA's colors in Spokane's Bloomsday Race [which for some reason was held on 6 May]:

"I was either going to wear 'The Last Word: West Coast Writers and Artists' or 'The Last Son of Krypton,' a Superman-logo T-shirt, but decided on ZYZZYVA because your black shirt would warm me up sooner than the blue shirt in Spokane's chill morning sun.

"Uhm, I started out unwise (cut my hand, had blood loss, got some first aid, decided to walk it instead of pretending to run it), had fun on the way (took my time until I realized I could go a little faster) and finished maybe not wise but with humility (my legs cramped up in the last mile+ or so - I had been run/walk/run you see). Considering I started in the rear of the very last wave of participants, the Red Wave, and wove my way around thousands of walkers, strollers and runners, finishing just under 2 hours is decent. The Bloomsday Run is 12k, or 7.8 miles.

"Just wanted you and your mighty staff to know that Z:TLWWCWAA had some representin'/product placement. "

Prep

Yesterday's NY Times Business Section rambled on about the unpredictability of bestsellers and how pathetic it is that publishers don't do market research to find out what readers really want, the way real businesses try to stay in touch with their customers.

Some publishers were decent enough to say that they felt they were looking for something new, something unpredictable. Of course, most readers, esp. most recreational readers, just want more of the same.

The Times took a close look at Prep, a novel set in a prep school that was passed on by two dozen publishers until finally bought by Random House for $40k; it went on to sell 133k in hardcover, 329k in paper. I thought it was bor-ing and meretricious.

I asked the author, Curtis Sittenfeld, when she appeared at a local independent bookstore that does not advertise in ZYZZYVA, why she called it Prep. She hadn't; "they" made up a list of titles, and ultimately chose it.

I asked her why the the jacket copy didn't acknowledge that she herself (and her family before her) had gone to Groton, whose alumni include FDR, Dean Acheson, Sam Waterston, Harry Matthews, Alexandra Paul of Baywatch, and many other toffs--she said they didn't want to get too specific.

I asked if she had ever read The Rector of Justin, the wonderful novel by Louis Auchincloss about Groton's great headmaster Endicott Peabody. She said she had not; she did not want to be burdened by research.

Her second novel sold 36k in hardcover, 6k in paper.

I think she was a flash in the pan.

Jack Wiley's great-great-great-great grandson Peter

Publisher John Wiley & Sons is celebrating its 200th anniversary.

Congratulations to a sixth-generation Wiley, Peter Booth Wiley, chairman of the board, who lives in San Francisco, wrote The National Trust Guide to San Francisco and five other books, including a history of the SF Public Library, as well as a memoir that appeared in ZYZZYVA Winter '99 and was included in our anthology Lucky Break: How I Became A Writer, currently available on Amazon for forty cents.

Spring Reads

Local writers in the Spring issue of ZYZZYVA will read next Thursday, 17 May, in the Book Bay of the Main Library at 6:30: Rachel Howard, Bob Judd, Charles McLeod, John Struloeff, who becomes the director of the creative writing program at Pepperdine in the fall, and, as an added treat, Debbie Yee, a new Board member.

Meanwhile, this Sunday, former volunteer Ari Messer has a gig with Ledbetter and his Best Bet, who will play the entire In the Aeroplane Over the Sea album by Neutral Milk Hotel. As Ari puts it, "For many of us, this immense work of musical genius from the mind of Jeff Mangum is one of the reasons we keep playing music. We like it so much that we want to share it! I will be on mandolin. There will also be everything from an accordion to a cello." Rockit Room, 406 Clement St., San Francisco, 8 p.m.

And Memorial Day Weekend, Ari will be doing live music and soundscores with choreographer Peiyi Ko in a "program that grapples with problems in our society through juxtapositions of dance, text, video, live music, audience participation and interactive technologies," at NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa St.

Top Ten: Fifties

The 50th anniversary of the Fifties has been going on for some time, but it may not be too late for a Top Ten:

10. Alger Hiss, Commie spy & liar, convicted of perjury

9. The Golden Age—of (live) television, Detroit, Broadway musicals & rock 'n' roll

8. U.S. rolls back the Chinese in Korea, refuses to defend the French at Dien Bien Phu, and insists on an end to the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt.

7. Roger Bannister breaks the four-minute mile, proving there are no limits to human possibility; ditto the conquest of Everest; ditto Kon-Tiki; ditto Sputnik; ditto the conquest of polio

6. Beatniks—the first masscult rejection of late-capitalist consumerism

5. Joe Stalin dies; Joe McCarthy dies.

4. Waiting for Godot

4. Rocky Marciano retires undefeated/untied, 49-0-0, the only heavyweight champ ever to do so.

2. The H-Bomb makes nuclear war "unthinkable." In fact, all subsequent wars have been local and "conventional."

1. The End of Imperialism, domestically called Desegregation (This post was prepared last week; yesterday, The New York Times ran a story on the current problems in Little Rock.)

ZYZZYVA the Sequel

So far, for Fall, ZYZZYVA Numero 80, we're on target. We have the front and back covers; all the art--architectual projects solicited from members of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects; and a good hunk of text.

We have six first-timers and two second-timers.

How do I pick them out of the hat like that? I don't know.

Some cover letters say "hoping to be published for the first time," but they're thrown out before I read the manuscripts. And I'm always surprised and delighted when I call to let writers know I actually do want to publish their work...and they say it will be their first time.

But why do I pick so much raw stuff, when I get so many manuscripts from creative writing teachers, writers who have won prizes, writers who have published widely, from........ published writers who couldn't write their way out of a wet paper bag.

Bee There

Speaking of events designed to benefit nonprofits, congratulations to Small Press Distribution for their terrific idea: next Monday's organization-appropriate fundraiser.

Sunday Edition

As the show reopened Saturday nite, it was apparent that reverse entropy (in the form of the clean-up crew) had been at work.

But then, even greater liberties were taken.

This installation, a benefit for Watchword Press, was first described in yesterday's post.

Extry, Extry

The editor's installation at The Lab this weekend, a benefit for Watchword Press:





a carpet of book jackets (discarded by the USF Library) and deployed inside out. After the initial "perfect" laydown (Tara Donovan meets Carl Andre), entropy ensued.

Sumer is icumen

And loudly sings American Chickens.

Debut as an Artist

My debut as an installation artist:

Friday & Saturday, 7-11 p.m.

The LAB, 2948 16th Street, San Francisco. $5 (includes a chapbook)

In celebration of the fact that every story can be told a thousand ways, Watchword Press has commissioned the work of over 40 artists to create a living literary diorama based on the world of one short story, "A Concordance of One’s Life," by Jim Nelson, featuring new work by: Aaron Thomas Nelson, Alexandra Pratt, Alice Gambrell, Amber Cady, Andrew Touhy, Bret Hitchcock, Britta Austin, Chelsea Pegram, Chris Baty, Dafna Kory, Dane Argentieri, Elly Karl, Eve Venus Ekman, George Pfau, Helene Poulshock, Howard Junker, Jacob E. Evans, Jana Flynn, Jeff Johnson, Jeffrey Noll, Jesse Clark, Jessica Cowley, Karen Ondracek, Katja Rivera, Ken James of Fellow Travelers Performance Group, Kristina Fiedrich, L.J. Moore, Leslie Outhier, Liz Worthy, Mary LaBianca, Melanie Moser, Minky Lew, Rebecca Johnson, Thu Tran, Zulema Summerfield...!

Flitty

I was seized by the need to reread Catcher, which I do every five or ten years, and fortunately I had a chance yesterday. My flight to San Diego to see the Morris Louis show at SDMOCA (thanks for the wonderful tour, Kathi; what a treat to see so many "Veils"--impossible to imagine, they are so big and complex and beautiful) was delayed for two hours and the airport bookstore, nicely stocked by a local independent, Books, Inc., had one copy, all I needed.

Every time I reread Catcher, I'm struck by something I hadn't noticed before. This time it was a word I had forgotten, "flit," which the Urban Dictionary calls "a 50s slang word for a homosexual. Largely fallen into disuse, yet popularized by Salinger's book."

Holden first uses "flitty" as a commonplace insult with other boys in the dorm. In New York, he wakes up on his former teacher's couch (he had retreated there in the middle of the night and had been taken in) to find the man "sort of petting me or patting me on the goddam head....That kind of stuff's happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can't stand it."

The next day, having fled-- and slept out the night in Grand Central Station--Holden reconsiders: "maybe I was wrong about thinking he was making a flitty pass at me. I wondered if maybe he just liked to pat guys on the head when they're asleep. I mean how can you tell about that stuff for sure? You can't....I mean I started thinking that even if he was a flit he certainly'd been very nice to me...."

Meanwhile, am I the only one to feel that Catcher is our version of Ulysses?

M.ySpace

I stand in solidarity with MyFriends and theirs.