Kitchen Sink hosts Clear Cut Press

Thanks to Clear Cut Press for an excellent evening which included readings and performance from Matthew Stadler, Stacey Levine, Matt Briggs, Mount Eerie and We Two and The Universe!
xx
Kitchen Sink

If You Miss It You'll Be Sad...

AN EVENING WITH CLEAR CUT PRESS
Hosted by Kitchen Sink Magazine

7:30 PM
Thursday, June 22
Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
510-649-1320
FREE

MATT BRIGGS, STACEY LEVINE, & ROBERT GLÜCK

Accompanied by the music of MOUNT EERIE (formerly The Microphones)
& the textural environments of WE TWO AND THE UNIVERSE
 (Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans)

Notes from Paradise (Bolinas)

Important lessons from this weekend's KS retreat:

1) Nicole is a lucky lady, what with the Bolinas living.
2) Carla is bbq queen
3) Editors need to be better about word counts

4) Focaccia greases through the box
5) Stefanie makes a killer chicken salad
6) The road to Bolinas does indeed make one nauseous


7) We are highly effective communicators even on a Saturday afternoon, even when we digress repeatedly
8) Good ideas are coming! Good articles and illos are in the works!
9) Anything else I missed, ladies and gentlemen?

Get your butt in a theatre seat

My boss made our entire office go yesterday during work hours, which should be a sweet Monday afternoon, but I'd been kind of steeling myself to see this thing, given my climate change psychosis.

But it is so inspirational and scary and PowerPointastic.

Really. Go.




The movie seems in part to be a perfect campaign launch for '08. Gore comes across as personable, inspired, informed, and incredibly ethical. He argues that we, as a nation and a planet, have an ethical obligation to curb the effects of global warming, which I think is the most effective way to present this argument to America (especially the religious part) in general. It's also helpful to remember that stopping global warming is a survival issue as well. Do you want to die? Well fine, then continue driving your SUV everywhere, buying electricity made from burning dirty coal, and not bothering to vote for dynamic leaders.



Frankly, slow suicide is way down on my To-Do list. I've got other things I'd rather do, like see Iceland before it melts, and those enchanting Camargue ponies that live in the salt flats in western Provence, and getting rid of the concrete in the backyard so I can plant more veggies, and seeing Jose Gonzalez play with Psapp on Saturday. Oh, and skinnydipping and thrift shopping. And writing more articles for Kitchen Sink. Yeah. So that's a good reason to do a little planet tidying. So we can get on with our own damn lives.

Al Gore. Who would've thunk it, with the coolness?

Pipeline/Kill Time

On Tuesday I will buy two records with my credit card.

The first is the deluxe reissue of Thurston Moore's Psychic Hearts. This is the record that spooned with me, kissed the matching freckles on my cheeks, and sang me to sleep when no one else would. It's also the reason why 18-year-old Carla got to see John Fahey play a guitar built from a WWII airplane at a tiny club in Northampton, MA.
Here's what Thurston wrote about it:

So I called Ray to ask him I he'd like to come along and he flew out and we met Fahey at the Iron Horse here in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Fahey at first thought I was some guitar repair dude he had the club try to locate. Ha HA ha — I told him I'd take a look at his axe but I knew nothing about repairin' 'em but I knows a lot about destroyin' em! That was it — we were pals. We bombed around the East Coast, me and Ray up front and Fahey, expansive girth and pants bursting at the zipper, stretched out across the back seat gobbling junk food.

Then there's Rather Ripped. If this is what happens when Jim O'Rourke leaves a band, then I've got a list of 10 or 12 artists whose careers I'd like him to relaunch.
There are no Sonic Youth records I don't like just some that I like less than others.
But from what little I've heard of this one I do believe that on Tuesday it will all come back around.
The little, noisy squirrel that lives in the northeast corner of heart will come alive again and you'll all wonder what's making me look so flushed.
Now you'll now that it's just a return to bedroom dancing so fervent it churns up gale force winds.

The blog's a-hoppin', so don't bother knockin'.

1. "You're a figure of fun, and I plan on having fun with that figure." Though Hank Rollins and I share a birthday, I haven't been a fan of his in years. Still listening to (and watching) him compose an Up with Liberal People mash note to Ann Coulter has pretty much MADE my hung-over Sunday.

2. I think I was still drunk when I woke up this morn-- er, afternoon and read this. Somehow I managed to keep down my chorizo, perhaps due to the secure knowledge that Wes Craven (or someone who'd like very much to be like him) will option the story for the big screen before 2006 is out.

3. Pillows. My new favorite local band. Unfortunately, the songs posted on their site don't do them justice, so go here instead so you can check them out live.

4. Birds and Batteries. My new favorite local band that my friend is in. (Think Grandaddy with an extra helping of the Band and the Bee Gees -- no, really.)

5. X-tra Action Marching Band. I know, I know, one of the weeklies already said so. But mon dieu -- my new old favorite band to get extravagantly drunk to.

Some More Favorites ...

This Sunday I'm totally tore up from three days straight of (not my own) wedding prep and partying and et cetera. It's finally over, and I'm trying to fend off the post-event doldrum drop by honoring a few Things That I Been Likin':

1. A Salon/AP dispatch regarding how they're celebrating the 6th day of the 6th month of 2006 in Hell, Michigan. Be sure to note how, in the last graf, the writer makes reference to the second of two "leading theories" as to how the unincorporated hamlet got its name -- but not the first.

2. Curry Plant. It's what makes the sweet, maple-like smell that wafts up from certain sections of Lake Merritt in Oakland. I've wondered what this smell is for at least four years, maybe more, and have even asked fellow strollers out at the lake, but, last week, the Rogue Reporter and I finally asked the one guy who knew. When we cooed and ahh'd over him, he replied, simply, "botanical knowledge," and walked away. So remember, guys, botanical knowledge impresses chicks.

3. Yahoo avatars. When they first introduced these, I immediately created my dream Burning Man girlfriend -- the lady I'd hop the fence for. I've recently created an avatar of myself, albeit with a giant caterpillar. It's kinda stupid ... but it reminds me of one of the best photographs I've ever taken, at Burning Man last year.

4. The UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. That's where the wedding was.

5. The Flying Burrito Brothers "Gilded Palace of Sin." Yup, it's summer.