| Glutton at the Muskrat Buffet |
[Jul. 5th, 2006|02:15 pm] |
Hey all,
What better way to celebrate the day after America's birthday than with my brand new book, "Glutton at the Muskrat Buffet?" This shiny little number features 80 pages of poetry in a convenient perfect-bound format. Enjoy a few slam classics insterspersed with oodles of exciting new works.
The book will be available online shortly, but in the meantime, you can get a copy RIGHT NOW!
All you have to do is shoot me an email (narkleptic at hot mail) or paypal to the tune of $16, which includes shipping.
This book makes the perfect stocking stuffer, Seder plate, tree ornament, or decorative coaster.
Get yours today.
Love,
Eitan
+++
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| metric |
[Mar. 24th, 2006|11:27 am] |
Last night took my little brother to go see Metric. The band has really improved their act in the 2+ years since I last saw them in what I just thinkg was an off night at the Troubadaour. Well, last night they were energized and tight and a general blast to listen to.
I don't think I've seen a chick ratio like that since the Tori Amos Little Earthquakes tour. (My little sis saw Clap You Hands Say Yeah last night, and said *that* show was mostly boys....)
My little bro, Eliav, who is 15, told me he recognized one of the girls from the bus ride to Hollywood.
Well, 15 minutes later, we're on the patio during the break and the same girl walks up to us: she's a cute little speck of a thing, and she totally strikes up a conversation him. "Hey, you were on my bus!." I'm telling you, eager LJers, that girl wanted my brother.
She was with some friends, and as the group of all of them chatted together, boy did I feel old. Old old old old od.
I didn't want to be an ass, so I introduced myself.
"Hi, I'm Eitan."
This one skinny kid in Hot Topic couture looked at me like I was his dad...
Well, things were going well enough for Eliav until the girl asked what grade he was in.
"9th."
She looked like she had just stepped barefoot into a dog poo.
and that, as they say, was that.
But what can you do? No 11th grade girl is gonna want to mack on an 9th grade boy.
**
The band was doing jazzed up and rocked-out versions of their songs all night, which was great by me, since if I want to hear note-for-note reproductions, I'll play the cd. It was great, except for one unfortunate and surprising descent into wankery during the encore. They closed with an amped up take on "Dead Disco" one of the Big Hits, except when they got to the bridge, they shifted gears completely into what started as some sort of spacey jam and then progressively got slower and slower and slower and I kept thinking "okay, they're gonna bring it up now" only they never did, and the song went on for like 10 fucking minutes (dude, this isn't a Fela song) until, when they finally *did* bring it back up, all the energy had been sucked from the room.
It seemed a strange lapse in showmanship from an otherwise taut group.
**
**
also, please go here:
http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/ |
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| AWP Roundup |
[Mar. 17th, 2006|10:35 am] |
At the risk of sounding like an Academy Awards acceptance speech, the first thing I need to do is thank the tremendous number of people who helped make my recent Austin trip so wonderful and special.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) doctortina for a super-rad panel that I felt honored to be a part of, and then too for being a good whisky-buddy—very important while our respective others, jacqueleena and Ernie-poo (sorry, I don’t know his LJ handle) were off doing their smoky thing and presumably geeking out about Star Wars. While we’ve been acquaintances over the years, this trip marked the first time we really got to hang out—and it was fun fun fun.
slomosexual for general-purpose goodness and introducing J and I to the new, improved Ruta Maya.
grammarsquirrel for 1) assisting J in the very important, and very expensive particulars of cowboy boot shopping, and 2) coming through big-time with the Texas barbeque. You introduced my little lady to her very first rib. And she didn’t even know what animal she was consuming. 3) For having a hellaciously cute wife and son.
poetryslam for gracefully scrolling the text of “Muppet Howl” on his ibook, thereby allowing me to read it at the Austin Slam to what was clearly The Best Audience Ever Created for this particular piece, which I had stupidly neglected to bring to Austin in hard copy form. Lucky for me, I had my pen drive, and Big Poppa E had a computer. The rest was magic, baby, pure magic.
And Mikey, for an awesome SlamPlanet party and what I hear is great movie and of course the always excellent Austin Slam. Wish I could have stayed for the screening.
and lowhumcrush for being the best bitch-partner ever,, and reminiscing about the olde days at the LBC slam.
And Jim Coppoc, who put together the simply fantastic slam reading at AWP. One of the best readings I’ve seen in a long long time.
And I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty of other good peeps.
*
Next, I can report that AWP, while enjoyable, is not AS fun as SXSW. But really, how could it be? 1000 bands in a rock and roll bacchanalia versus 3000 aspiring and/or successful writers of literary fiction and poetry…
I enjoyed my time meandering the conference floor, schmoozing where I needed to shmooze and perusing the endless stacks of journals.
Nonetheless, it’s hard to escape the thick veneer of dorkery that coats the entire enterprise. There are very few social interactions untinged by at least a slight awkwardness, and man, the fashion leaves something to be desired. I would characterize it as a PhD exercise in “studied dishevelment” as each conference attendee had clearly packed only their most literary outfits.
*
Things were a mite hectic for me schedule-wise as I juggled 1) attending the conference for personal gain 2) attending the conference as an employee of PEN USA and 3) visiting Austin with my fiancé.
In the end, I believe a fine balance was struck. Delicious Mexican food was consumed. The PEN booth was manned. I got a seven book publishing deal and sold the rights to my next chapbook to Universal.
It was a good trip. |
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| meme time |
[Mar. 1st, 2006|11:54 pm] |
okay, I really never do this, but this one is really good...
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often) please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me.
It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.
When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog... |
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| Austin update |
[Feb. 27th, 2006|09:37 pm] |
As of today the lovely and gregarious jacqueleena will be coming with me to Austin next week.
I'm thrilled!
She's never been to Austin, and I can't wait to take her for some migas at Tamale House, not to mention the breakfast taco orgies.
I'd like to spend two days doing AWP stuff. This means J will be on her own, exploring Austin and hanging out. (She'll have a car.)
Any suggestions for her?
I know she wants to catch some SXSW fims. Can you buy single-screening tickets, or do you need a film pass?
Also, she's totally fucking awesome, so if you want to help serve as tour guide, you'll get our undying love, and probably some beers, too. |
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| Hipster Thomas Kinkade |
[Feb. 27th, 2006|01:21 pm] |
Yesterday I was walking through LA's most popular paen to consumerism, The Grove, and I passed a storefront filled with bright paintings.
I went in for a gander. Nearly every square inch of wallspace in this large, multiroom gallery was platered with flat, bright, pop-culture riffs by Todd Goldman. He's the dude, apparently, who created the "boys are stinky throw rocks at them" line of T-shirts. Goldman has since parlayed his wildly popular if not terribly sophisticated obversations into original art and prints. Sample: stick figure skinny chick next to stick figure fat chick with the caption "Spandex is a privalege, not a right."
Lithographs of these high-quality artworks started at $850. To get an original would set you back $4000. According to the guy at the desk, there were approximate 1400 paintings (original) for sale. Holy Toledo!
It immediately struck me that this dude Goldman had hit the hipster goldmine. Here was a Thomas Kinkade for the vintage puma set. Instead of vacuous images of illuminated country cottages (and their implicit endoresement of judeo-christian worldview), we had flat, vaguely obnoxius pop-culture allusion (and their explicit endorsement of fatuous self-absorbtion). To the intended audience however, these two images sets work the same way, marking their owner as a discerning "collector" of art, as opposed to merely a "consumer," yet both are indubitably more commerce than social statment.
Unlike Warhol, who saw the convergence of art and commerce, Kinkade and Goldman seek to maintain the illusion of their seperation. At least Goldman appears to actually "paint" his canvasses, as opposed to Kinkade, who's inkjet prints get dabbed with oil at the factory... |
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| Question for the Austinites |
[Feb. 24th, 2006|02:34 pm] |
Should I rent a car for my AWP visit? I'm around 3/8 to 3/12.
I'll be staying at the Crowne Plaze, in dowtown, so getting to AWP-related events should be no problem.
What I'm wondering is if I'm going to want a car for other things.
And, if you've got a bead on kind of other things will be happening, do let me know.
Right now, my only extra-curricular is a Wed. slam feature. |
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| starucks cryfest cell phone epiphany |
[Feb. 22nd, 2006|01:32 am] |
Two weeks ago I destroyed another cell phone in anger, so I recently i found myself waiting at the Sprint store while the service tech transferred my numbers.
This would take a few minutes so I drifted over to the neighboring Starbucks to sip half-caf and catch up on school reading (Knut Hamsun's "Hunger").
As much as it pains me to admit, the music they were playing was pretty damn good. It was a record of Leonard Cohen covers, many of which it seemed I'd heard before. I continued reading and sipping. All was good and as normal as could be expected near the intersection of Sunset and Western.
But damn that Jeff Buckley. Damn his "Hallelujah." Not thirty seconds after that song starts playing and I start tearing up. Thirty seconds later, I'm fucking weeping. It's 11 am and I'm supposed to be reading Scandanavian literature while waiting for my cell phone to be repaired and it's all I can do to not totally break down on the cushioned chairat a Hollywood Starbucks. Thank God for dark glasses.
I replaced replaced my long-lost copy of Grace today while on an itunes bender. And so it was that not five minutes ago,I was reduced, once again, to a quivering pile of fleshy rubble.
Damn.
**
other ipurchases:
new Arctic Monkeys
new Belle & Sebastian
Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins
both Sufjan Stevens "state" albums (got sick of waiting around for my sister's copies...) |
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| belated self-promotion |
[Feb. 15th, 2006|10:55 am] |
For Los Angeles-types on thid list.
I am featuring tonight at World Stage.
7:30 workshop
8:30 feature
4344 Degnan Boulevard | Los Angeles, CA 90008
(one block east of Crenshaw, north of Vernon between 43rd Place and 43rd Street) |
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| The Continuing Adventures of Our Intrepid Hothead |
[Feb. 9th, 2006|06:10 pm] |
Hey Austinites (and AWP-ites),
I will be in the fair city of Austin next month for the AWP conference March 8-12.
Other than featuring at Egos on Wed night, and doing some conference attending/shmoozing/cavorting in the day on Thursday and Friday, I'll have plenty of time to make mayhem.
I want booze and I want breakfast tacos, and I want some of you motherfuckers to hang out with me while we indulge our most base Texas Hill Country desires.
**
(sadly, this means that I won't be able to make SXSW...I've traded four days of rock and roll for the chance to grind up the people who run acedemic writing programs. I feel so old.) |
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| hardest oscar category |
[Jan. 31st, 2006|01:43 pm] |
for me would have to be best animated feature.
Corpse Bride
Howl's Moving Castle
Wallace and Gromit...
were all exceptional films, which really exploited the boundaries of their tech.
Most importantly, they all told good stories.
As much I loved Corpse Bride's production design, and it's plaintive story, my nod would have to be for one of the other two films.
It's hard not to fall for the good-natured whiz-bang of the Wallace and Gromit, and that, I think, coupled with the unconventional storytelling of Howl's Moving Castle, will ensure an Aardman animation victory.
Still, I'm glad I don't have to chose.
And if you haven't already, for god sakes, see all three of these. |
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| happy birthday slomosexual |
[Jan. 13th, 2006|12:32 pm] |
you big skinny bald turd of love.
wheee! |
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| Eitan in Hollywood W/Mike McGee |
[Jan. 11th, 2006|01:35 pm] |
Hey all,
press release time!
Eitan and Mike Mcgee
Jan 17 and 18
Fountain Theatre
5060 Fountain Ave (Fountain and Mariposa) LA 90029
8 pm
$10
woohoow!
***
Hollywood, CA, January 17 and 18, 2006—PEN USA presents National Poetry Slam champion Eitan Kadosh’s Too Neurotic! (A Show About Love, Work, and Jewish Summer Camp) in benefit performances for PEN in the Classroom at the Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90029, at 8pm. Tickets cost $10 at the door. Melding verbal pyrotechnics with pee-your-pants storytelling and a snazzy wardrobe, Kadosh chronicles the sexual and employment travails of the 21st century Semite. The New York Times calls him, “exuberantly defiant,” the San Francisco Bay Guardian declares him “a burning bomb-ass word spinner” and the Sacramento Bee, says he’s “a dragon spitting fire.”
“There is no one who does what Eitan Kadosh does”, says PEN USA Executive Director Adam Somers, “He’s a ceaseless fount of energy, and an absolute riot to watch. He’s the hardest working man in performance poetry.”
Combining monologue, poetry, comedy, and improvisation, Too Neurotic! is the result of Kadosh’s time spent working as high school English teacher, sperm donor, children’s party entertainer, music journalist, camp counselor and family sponge. A 1999 National Poetry Slam Champ, he toured the slam circuit for years, honing and developing his material, bringing a bit-o-Jew to cities across the continent.
Opening up the night will be 2004 National Individual Poetry Slam champion and lover of all things puddin’ Mike McGee. The last time these two shared a stage was May 2005, when they became the first American slam poets to appear at La Sorbonne.
Proceeds from this event will benefit PEN USA’s PEN in the Classroom program, which places professional writers in LA public schools. PEN USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States. Its membership includes more than 1200 professional writers |
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| Eitan in Hollywood |
[Dec. 12th, 2005|02:40 pm] |
Hey all,
This is the early heads-up that I will be headlining the Fountain Theatre on January 17th and 18th.
I'll be doing a mix of old and new material. It's rare for me to do a full-length performance poetry set in Los Angeles--so this will be the best time to see me for a while.
The show is a benefit for PEN USA, which protects the rights of writers around the world.
January 17 and 18
Fountain Theatre
5060 Fountain Ave., LA 90029
8 pm
$10 at the door |
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| Movie updates |
[Dec. 2nd, 2005|10:20 am] |
Syriana is good.
Interesting good. Good in the way it casts a wide net over the geopolitics of US oil dependency, good in the generally solid acting by its (mostly male) cast. Good in the washed-out desert cinematography, sand dunes and oil fields backgrounded by the shimmer of distant skyscrapers. George Clooney in particular does a compelling turn as a career spook who finally realizes the ways he's been used by his own bosses.
It's interesting too in that it's the rare mainstream film for which narrative opacity is a clear value (heh heh...). I mean, this film is a confusing motherfucker. There is no way that you can figure out everything that's happening while its happening (though the plot sort of comes together more as you sit and think about it later). There's a slew of characters and names, not to mention four distinct plot lines which come together in various ways, but you can still grasp enough to get a general sense of the fucked-upness of it all.
People will love or hate this movie based on their reaction to being confused by it.
If you're sqeamish, like me, I do recommend averting your eyes during a fingernail-pulling torture sequence. Icky.
**
jacqueleena caught a screening of Brokeback Mountain the other day, while I was stuck in class. Her reports confirm what I've read so far: hot gay sex and a three-hankie conclusion to a stellar film. Sometimes it's hard for me to muster the energy to see a movie I know will make me sad, no matter how good it is, but this one does look pretty damn worthwhile. I'll report back when I see it. |
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| submitted |
[Nov. 30th, 2005|11:37 am] |
to {*sic*] magazine
It's a new LA based lit mag doing themed issues.
The subject of the first issue is the manifesto as literary text. |
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| I like to move it move it |
[Nov. 28th, 2005|12:42 pm] |
Thanksgiving ws amellow affair, defamilied and wonderful. There was still family, but it wasn't mine, and nobody's parents were invited. We motored to Berkeley (assy traffic, natch) to have our bird soiree with jacqueleena's sister and her boyfriend. It was a pot-luck affair, with everyone contributing food items they had never cooked before. I made two caramel apple pies, complete with delightfully flaky (and from scratch) crust. Oh, the glory of shortening!
I got to bask in the sweet snuggles of a heretofore bashful lundehund (http://members.aol.com/puffindog/apuffin.html)
Bought "Madagascar" at a truck stop on the way up, and watched it all weekend long. I had Netflixed it a few days earlier and developed an unquenchable thirst to listen to the film's dancing lemur version of "I Like To Move It Move It" over and over again.
**
Saw "Harry Potter" after we got back--I think it the best of the HP flicks by far, with a real sense of the darkness that creeps through the books.
Tomorrow night, it's "Syriana."
**
finding a proper hitchin post is driving me bonkers.
** |
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| Man, I am a crapulent LJer |
[Nov. 23rd, 2005|09:15 am] |
Monday was a milestone of sorts, as it marked the first time in the year and a half of my MFA program that I got pissed off in workshop.
Not irritated at someone's assy attitude before class, or bored by a particularly dull poem (luckily those are pretty rare) but actually angered by the content in someone's writing.
I'm pretty easygoing, and I do my best to give honest and cordial criticism, but this time, I couldn't keep the grrr. from my tone or vocabulary.
In a poem titled "Some Things I Don't Understand," which in total was an unhappy marriage of wry observations and personal religious questions (the author is a born-again christian) one of the stanzas, in reference to the recent tsunami, included the phrase, "brown skins untainted from Babylon's fascism, sunken souls at rest ecaping the Nazification of the Nations."
hmm.
There's about 5000 things wrong with that sentence, from its factual innacuracy to its nativism/paternalism.
I said I found the sentiment "repellant." jacqueleena said I should have explained what I disliked about it in a manner designed to educate, and of course, she's right, but at the time it felt good to bring a little heat to the workshop.
**
In other news, I have now joined the ranks of the psuedo-cyborg Americans, with garish Bluetooth headset now affixed to my ear. In my defense, I only wear the thing while driving, and it's a whole sight more convenient than a wired handset. Still, I couldn't help but feel icky while buying it.
**
While picking up a Crock Pot this morning--jesus I'm becoming boring--I made an impuse purchase of the Danger Doom cd. I forgot, or didn't realize, that Target only sells "clean" albums, a fact I discovered two minutes in to the listening experience...it's not as diminished an experience as, say, listening to the Wal-Mart version of "Straight Out Of Compton," but I still feel cheated and angered by nefarious censorship I neither asked for nor support.
The album kicks ass tho.
**
Finally, after ladynoblebarnes solid recommendations, I made the leap into the large and tasty world of Honeycrsip apples. These apples are everthing she says they are: delicious, crisp, and never mealy. My verdict: A solid snack apple and a new lunchtime companion. |
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