For my last guest-blogging post, here is my friend Takafumi Ide's beautiful installation, "Crossroads": Continue reading

"Although Proposition 8 fails to possess even a rational basis, the evidence presented at trial shows that gays and lesbians are the type of minority strict scrutiny was designed to protect. "Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as 'the right to same-sex marriage' would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy -- namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages. "Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians, including: gays and lesbians do not have intimate relationships similar to heterosexual couples; gays and lesbians are not as good as heterosexuals; and gay and lesbian relationships do not deserve the full recognition of society." -- Judge Vaughn Walker Continue reading

"There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest, than in all the alcohol ever distilled." -- Edward Verrall Lucas Well, maybe. But I was glad I was awake when I had afternoon cocktails with my friend Michael at the Campbell Apartment in Grand Central ... It's like a cathedral of refreshment! Continue reading

I had lunch in Brooklyn (at Linger, on Atlantic Avenue) yesterday with my life-long friend Deborah Pintonelli: ... extraordinary poet and fiction writer, all-around beautiful person. Debbie and I went to Columbia College, in Chicago, and studied with poet Paul Hoover and fiction writer Randy Albers -- two of the world's best writing teachers (and all-around beautiful people). Here is a poem from Debbie's premier poetry collection, Meat and Memory (Erie Street Press): The Themes of Passion Channel-wet. The only blue eye For miles. Neoromantic. Stripsearch. Surrender, trellis. Forsaken Heathcliff, Bandaged tale. The "U" in uterus. The angst in Ingenue. Running a cold coal poker Through something sorry. Or a tongue into a warm ear. This is called "To gain ingress," and Can be compared to An insufficient lunch hour Or a bubble bath. The hands of fate So warts, so Wagner. Cooking plenty, the warm rum Of mother, syllabus, acupuncture. To be keen, to Juggle windows, sit In parks all day, Vacation without guilt. To sprawl plump down Into a diary of clean bones. Andalusia. Thick cart. The crate with your Surprise in it. Slate, saliva, The stucco husk. The numbheadedness Of device, egress, The Nice Word that Ends this. * * * Debbie's forthcoming fiction collection, Some Heart, from Autonomedia, will be an absolute delight if you're a poet (and if you're not, too): imagine a chance meeting between Emily Dickinson and Kathy Acker on a sidewalk filled with hopscotch, the chalk running into a rainbow after a sudden tornado. Continue reading

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"How often have I lain beneath a roof of trees and sestinas, Sestinas and trees, the chiasmus of my timid hopes decked Out in the styles of the day, Losing myself in novels of corporeal sunshine and a home . . ." -- Noelle Kocot, "The Poem of Force" (from Sunny Wednesday, Wave Books) That was the weekend, actually. Today, I'm here: "as if one world could be created from another and words could touch flesh" -- Charles Borkhuis, "Parallel Universe" (from Savoir-Fear, Meeting Eyes Bindery) Continue reading