Trip Season Over, People Buying Books, Links

Now I am returned from a four day baseball tour. Craig, Benji, Russ and I drove from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh to Baltimore to Philly catching a game each day. I felt like an East Coast Bill Luoma. Highlights include-

-racing to see who could be the first to write the names of all the 50 states (me, just because Craig wrote Tennessee twice) (but I misspelled Massachusetts) (argh);
-riding a horse bareback in Gettysburg at 2am and getting thrown and my foot stepped on and later Benji and I got stampeded but in the end being okay;
-Craig and Russ saw a ghost;
-reenacting the battle of Gettysburg in the pool chicken-fight-style (only this time the South won);
-my grand slam in Whiffle Ball, omg I was so excited;
-$1 hot dogs in Philadelphia;
-hanging out on my roof last night;
-Benji drove so fast;
-Russ wrote a list of "Baseball Viewing Rights" one of which was something like whoever does the best heckle shall be known as Master of Insults; I earned this when I yelled to BoSox Left Fielder, Hey Ellsbury, do a backflip!
-the trip was too short really and we packed a lot in such as Rummy and jokes about Michael Phelps like This trip is going as fast as Michael Phelps and Craig is the Michael Phelps of climbing down the fire escape.

Trip season is over now. Finally I can get back to work. I apologize to everyone to whom I owe certain things.

So thanks for reading that. I hope you enjoyed my trip as much as I did.

Read this, it's Eileen's results for how poetry sells. Especially interesting is her reflection on the gift economy of poetry, specifically just giving books away for free. I specify because it seems like "gift economy of poetry" shouldn't refer to just the commodity value of the product but the life value of people who care about poetry. I mean, me writing a book in the first place is a much bigger gift than me giving you a copy, absolutely. Me being in a position to write a book means that I have been given so many gifts -- gifts as in I was impolite in first grade but Ms. Zechman (sp?) taught me to spell anyway, and also gifts as in I am a gifted dude what with the English language. Anyway. The reflections at Eileen's blog about the gift economy are interesting although not earth shattering. Just reminders. When I was just starting I was big into giving product away but self-published novelist Dan pointed out that friends are a pretty big demographic and he said sternly, "Never give a book for free." He didn't add anything dirty like in Glengarry Glen Ross, so sometimes I still do. But I am not in the Bake Sale place BlazeVOX finds itself in. I'm not comparing PG to BV. BlazeVOX is required; support BlazeVOX.

It's always Amazon. They bite. "What time is it?" "It's Amazon." What's your favorite food. Amazon.

Thank you to everyone who bought Stephanie Barber's book/DVD, These Here Separated. It is now "in the black."

Holy crap, The Weblog is totally different. I don't think we've seen this much of an overhaul since 2004.