it is the first day of Fall and the walking to and from work is pure pleasure because of it getting light later in the morning and darker in the evening. the air snaps from cold in the morning, and it is warm, with an underbite of cooler air in the evening. ah, my favorite time of year.

so stopped at the Newsbeat to see what's to see. Doug, behind the counter, sees me and says, How's literary life?

fucking hell, I reply. this morning I was running late for work, my computer is acting up, waking in the morning feels like being a ling cod at the end of a fishing pole dragged to the surface of the sea from a depth of 300 ft from a fisherman on a boat just off the Farrallons with all my guts poppling outta my mouth while my eyeballs sorta just go bam! out their sockets. oh, and I think my dog, Hugo, is possessed.

possessed?

yeah, fucking possessed. you see last night Anna left the bedroom door open and Hugo disappeared. Anna says, where is Hugo. you know he's probably on the bed. get him off.

so I go in their expecting Hugo to be stretched out in blissfull sleep on the bed with sheets and covers all spread out in disarry. and sure enough he's there. but he's not on the bed. oh no, that hound is hovering over the bed, like little Regan in The Exorcist. the room temperature must've dropped to freezing and Hugo's eyes were round, red lasers.

then Doug tells me about a Ted Joans festival in SF in the next few weeks or so. he's not really sure when but asks me to ring him at the shop tomorrow for a definite date and time.

Doug stocks many, many wonderful journals. I always make discoveries. today I got:

The Threepenny Review because of the hilarious essay by August Kleinzahler on his own dog and the poetry of Berkeley poet Jim Powell.

Circumference: Poetry in Translation a nice surprise. not seen this journal before, but when I got home and looked more closely was pleased to see my friend James DenBoer's, and Maria DenBoer's, translations of first Millenium Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus.

fo A rm (dis/embodiment) I've not seen this journal before, but was struck by a couple of visual poems by Michael Basinski and mARK OWEns. also, there is poetry by Judith Roitman, a poet I know from a collobaration done with Jim McCrary and published in McCrary's chapbook Dive, She Said (Hog Oil Press 2000). and what looks like a cool interview with Robert Kelly. Crag Hill has posted publication announcement here in February.

and a couple of days ago I found at Barnes and Noble what's got to be the coolest Chicago Review published because it focuses on the work of the late, great Ed Dorn.