Friday, February 29, 2008

What's Happening w/ Life-long Press!

Well, There’s been; plenty of food, music too, a few beverages and lots of fun working around here. The magazine is in layout and features the linguistic styling of~
Zac Demby+Evan James+Steven Goldman+Valyntina Grenier+Sarah Garrigan+Julie Choffel+David Spataro +Lukas Champagne+Harmony Holiday+Rebecca Brown+Hillary Gravendyk+Victoria A. Hudson+Tyler Williams+Sharon Lynn Osmond+Jean-Pierre Lacrampe+Lily Brown+Elanor Johnson+Thomas Cooney+Nikol Polidoro+Jenny Dray+Challen Clarke+Trevor Calvert+Janet W. Hardy+Blake Larson+Sara Mumolo+Jack Morgan+Scott Berger
The photos are by Angela Scrivani and were taken to be featured in an interview by Steven Goldman with me about Back Room Live and Life-long Press. Pick up a copy of /Back Room Live/ at our Publication Event Saturday March 29th ~ Details below ~ And be on the lookout for BRL in book stores, on the shelves and in the air.

BACK ROOM LIVE ! SATURDAY NIGHT ! MARCH 29TH 7PM!

You are invited to BACK ROOM LIVE ! a Life-long Press Publication Event ! Saturday Night ! March 29th 7pm ! With poets ! LYN HEJINIAN ! BRENDA HILLMAN ! GRAHAM FOUST ! GEOFFREY G. O'BRIEN ! Come celebrate our first printing of /Back Room Live/ at Mc Nally's Irish Pub in Rockridge !

Brenda Hillman is the author of seven collections of poetry, the most recent of which are Cascadia (2001) and Pieces of Air in the Epic (2005). She is Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at St. Mary's College of California, and is also working against war with CodePink, a social justice group.

Geoffrey G. O’Brien is the author of Green and Gray (2007) and The Guns and Flags Project (2002), both from the University of California Press, and coauthor (in collaboration with the poet Jeff Clark) of 2A (Quemadura, 2006). He teaches verse writing and literature in the English Department at UC Berkeley and at San Quentin State Prison.

To settle for a single dimension, a single representation results in only bad things: bad first dates, limited reading lists, and pesky wars in places such as...umm...Iraq. Foust's book is a reminder that even daily objects should be strange to us, that in order for us to be honest observers of who and what surrounds us, it is necessary—at times—for us to act as strangers among them. (Kaethe Schwehn, CutBank)

Lyn Hejinian’s most recently published books are My Life in the Nineties (Shark, 2003) and The Fatalist (Omnidawn, 2003). A new book, Saga/Circus, will be published this coming fall. She is also one of the ten authors of the currently on-going series of volumes titled The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco, 1975-1980. Hejinian is the editor of Tuumba Press and the co-editor of Atelos. Other projects include Qúê Trân with music by John Zorn and text by Hejinian (available on New Traditions in East Asian Bar Bands; Tzadik, 1995); two mixed media books, The Traveler and the Hill and the Hill (Granary Books, 1998) and The Lake (Granary Books, 2004) created with painter Emilie Clark; and the award-winning experimental documentary film Letters Not About Love, directed by Jacki Ochs (1998; distributed by New Day Films). She teaches in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

LIFE LONG PRESS ! OAKLAND ! MARCH ! 2008

So that's,
Sat. March 29th at 7pm
McNally's Irish Pub
5352 College Ave
Oakland, CA 94618
(510) 654-9463
Minutes from the Rockridge BART Station
and on the 51 bus line

Join us on Saturday April 26th for writers Linda Norton, Ben Perez, Ben Prickett ans Sarah Fattig! Be looking out for BRL in the Book Store, live and on the shelves. And check out our updated schedule for Life-long Press events to the right.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Post Provisional Primary Poling Place

The theme of the yoga class I went to yesterday was "resistance." She, the teacher, asked us to think about what we believe in, what we want from ourselves and for the world, our mantra, as a counter force to "resistance," and of that force emanating from our bodies. Of course I thought of kindness. And initially thought of that coming from the heart. After I voted I felt happy (and proud) and found myself looking at peoples eyes while walking to meet a friend for food and drinks. People were looking me in the eyes too, really looking and seeing something that made them; smile, look a bit confused and even say hello. Kindness.
In this sense, kindness, fueled by the heart moves w/ the eyes. That's not to exclude the movement of kindness by aural or physical means just to say that I was experiencing something important about the directive (and reflexive) power of kindness by looking.