You know that an album has to be good when you can't get it out of your mind. I mean the whole album, not just one song off of it. Seriously. That's what's been going on for the last few weeks with album Heretic Pride released on 2/19/2008 by The Mountain Goats on the 4AD label.

Every time I catch myself listening to John Darnielle and Peter Hughes in my head performing "Autoclave", I try to change the channel, but just end up with them doing "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" instead. Then they'll switch it up on me and skip to "Sept 15 1983", or bounce to the albums title track! When they aren't playing in my head, they're streaming through my headphones - every day at work I pull up iTunes and listen to the album, all the way through, sometimes twice. Hell, I'm listening to it right now - I can't stop! (Maybe I should listen to some mariachi music to break the The Mountain Goats feedback loop I seem to be trapped in.)

In all seriousness, this album is incredible on many levels. From the well-crafted music, heavily featuring acoustic guitar and piano, with some light-weight drums in the background and some other sounds mixed in for good measure, to the extremely literary lyrics. In fact, it's those lyrics that have cemented the brilliance of this album in my mind. Where else can you find references to the works of Sax Rohmer and H.P. Lovecraft, along with a song that imagines the last moments of Michael James Williams, and even a piece for the fictional Michael Myers (from the Halloween movie franchise)? Of course, thrown into the middle of this are various songs about the Lake Tianchi Monster and swamp creatures, and even a beautifully intimate ballad or two.

It's the genuine intimacy of all the songs, even when they're referencing obscure literary characters or monsters, that brings the album home. Many of the songs tell a story about a character as a snapshot of a day. Sax Rohmer's spies sneaking around alleyways as the sun rises. Conspirators (or they could be people hiding from someone) scared in a room with a single light when someone calls on a phone line that no one dares to answer. A guy wandering into a Brooklyn pawn shop to buy himself a switchblade. An incredibly intimate and heartbreaking scene that takes place in the mens restroom involving an East Berlin disco refugee.

And suddenly the song changes again. The Tianchi monster is staring into space, in my head, anyway, floating among sandalwood smoke and children sketching pictures...

Press photos by Mark Van S. from The Mountain Goats official web site.

George Carlin. May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008. Goodbye.



I was fortunate enough to see this man live twice - once in Las Vegas and once in Baltimore. Both times were incredible, irreverent, mind blowing, and life altering. Possibly one of the most intelligent comedians of all time - may you find yourself finally at peace in death, Mr. Carlin.

More to come on both adventures, once the shock's worn off, the coffee's kicked in, and I make it through a day of work...

Have you ever been to the site Everything₂? Odds are, you're scratching your head right now and staring blankly at the computer screen.

I recently discovered the site after Googling the punchline to a Geek joke that I apparently wasn't Geeky enough to get (there go my über-Geek points). The site, which turned out to answer my question comprehensively, thus saving my street cred, also turned out to have entries on just about EVERYTHING.

According to the website itself, "Everything2 is a collection of user-submitted writings about, well, pretty much everything."

Everything₂'s concept is pretty simple. It's a multi-dimensional weblog joined together with the automatic linking of a Wiki. That is to say, its a website powered by a diverse user community that posts anything they want - writing about ideas, events, things, people, reviews... Then, the system automatically links words and phrases with other entries that contain those words/phrases. Or, in the terminology of the site, nodes are joined with other nodes.

Why is this so cool? Well, for one, it allows a reader to follow the writing in a random association sort-of way, stumbling from one entry to the next. It's a labyrinth of interesting ideas. In my case, I could spend hours getting lost on the site, clicking from one node to another to see where I end up.

So, for example, say I go to the site and search for "99 bottles of beer on the wall". I end up with two results, the first being a BASIC program that iterates from 99 to zero and prints the song... From that entry, I can click on the word "PRINT" and I end up reading about fingerprinting, two-dimensional works of art, and various other definitions. At this point I can keep wandering through to other words...

I also have the option of clicking on a link that says "I like it". If enough site visitors click the "I like it" link on your entry, presumably you end up in the "Cool User Picks" area on the homepage.

Even more interestingly, I can click on the "Chaos" link at the bottom of the page. This takes me to a "tag cloud"-like view somehow related to the entry in question. "Somwhere near print I got lost in..."

The first time I did this for the "PRINT" entry, I saw links to everything from "cout" to "George Washington's 1794 State of the Union Address" to "Marcus Garvey". But then, when I tried the exact same chaos, I ended up with a completely different set of entries in the cloud...

The possibilities are endless! It's better than a game of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon".

Pictures from the Split This Rock Poetry Festival's Easter Sunday march on the White House. This is the culmination of the four-day poetry festival that gathered poet activists from across America and Europe. Poets from as far as Hawaii, France, and the Netherlands were in attendance.

We marched from George Washington University, where Naomi Ayala and Galway Kinnell delivered powerful poetry readings, to Lafayette Park. In the park, we delivered a collective poem to the White House - a cento with one line provided and read by each poet in attendance.

The event, which I hope to blog about in more detail, was incredible, beautiful, and inspiring. Split This Rock was the brainchild of Sarah Browning of D.C. Poets Against the War.

Check this out - one of the tracks I've been working on for the upcoming CD. The poem I've sampled was written and performed by Ryan Coffman.

"What CD?" you ask.

All in good time, my friends... all in good time...

PLAY THE MP3

It's amazing what happens when you bring together talented poets, musicians, and visual artists, give them a vague idea of what an event's "about", and then let them do their thing. It's amazing how things come together beyond your wildest expectations. It's amazing, and hard to describe.

Saturday night's Sensarium was one of those events. Karla, Freda, Matt, Suzanne, Sheldon, the Megadrives, Ryan, Robin, Joanna, Daniel, and all the others involved with the art work, the poetics, the musical ambiance, the performance pieces, and the generally wonderful creative energy, and all of the wonderful people who came to partake of our crazy idea, to collaborate on the art project, to share their voices and their spirit and their good vibes - thank you.

It's hard to put into words. Fortunately, we have a few pictures.

Also, check out Robin's Sensarium blog post.

Apparently, some angry man, unsatisfied with his drinking and urinating experience, tore the urinal off of the wall in the DuClaw Brewing Company's restroom. Maybe he wasn't satisfied with the seasonal stout. Maybe he was angry about the Raven's not making it anywhere near the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl. Maybe he just had a few too many Venom's to drink. Hard to say... Hard to say...

By all accounts, the debut open mic event of Zelda's Inferno at 2640 St. Paul Street (St. Johns Church) was a success. Although I arrived late, missing such notable poets as Hiram Larew and Robin Gunkel, I managed to catch approximately two-thirds of the event, which featured some 20-plus artists reading both poetry and prose works, and a scattering of singer/songwriters mixed in between.

I'm sure that both Hiram and Robin's performances were top notch, but since I missed them (and a few others - my apologies to all), I can only focus on those that came after. Two of the best poetic performances were perpetrated by Zelda's Inferno members Gedalya Chin, who rattled off a faux-patriotic piece about how to swallow American nationalism and be thankful for it, and Karla Mancero, who took on the guise of street evangelist. (Full disclosure admits that Karla is also my girlfriend).

Joe Crespo graced us with a several intelligent prose pieces, and another writer (sorry I don't know your name skinny dude with glasses) read a story that circled around itself in a surreal, almost dream-like, multiple-lives-lived fashion that reminded me a bit of Haruki Murakami.

Among the musicians were Tom Swiss (also of Zelda's Inferno infamy) and a girl (again, that name thing) who both sang/played great folky acoustic guitar singer/songwriter pieces. There were of course other musicians in attendance, but I managed to miss their sets as well.

Props definitely go to Suzy, who organized and hosted the evening, both for hooking up the space and taking the time to put together another great Baltimore poetry event.

All in all, it was quite the night. The energy was high and the acoustic in the Church space were excellent. Although some performers stuck to the usual stand up behind microphone, the amplification really wasn't necessary in the booming cathedral-esque space.

I'm looking forward to the next last Tuesday (of the month) Open Mic - I promise to get there on time! Hopefully the momentum carries, and others in the community can start to attend.