lovely gift in the mail today: a clutch of chaps from jim cory. i told alex gildzen how much i liked cory's poems and asked if there were any of his books available. alex forwarded my address to jim who responded by sending me his books. i can't thank him enough for his generosity.

i know the heatwave is now centered on the east coast, that along with the humidity, which we had more than a touch of in california, is in my humble opinion a killer. hang tough out there. but here in northern ca the weather is much like fall in the morning and evening. the light is changing to a golden hazy particulate matter, and with the delta breezes there is a bare kiss of chill in the air. until the next heatwave, which surely is around the corner. fall is my favorite time of year, as i've mentioned before and both anna and i would be in heaven if there were 4 months of it. and anyway, anna and i were talking a couple of days ago about memories of autumn. how the area rice farmers would burn their fields, and that grey, acrid smoke is synomous in our minds with the turning of the seasons. i'm probably repeating myself, but the smell of rice smoke is redolent with memories of halloween, my favorite holiday, its paraphenalia and cheesy horror movies. and tonight the delta breeze kicked up, and whaddayaknow, rice smoke hunkered over the city for a while at dusk. and i called anna outside since the scent of it is that lot, and all so luscious.

which makes me want to start scouring the net for halloween websites, costume retailers, and ebay for vintage halloween stuff. i gotta keep that in check or i might turn into this guy and decorate the house in vintage halloween designs. anna keeps a water pistol full of lithium by her side and is not afraid to use it, just in case.

now i gotta run. gonna keep this an early night. drafted a poem in my notebook, and right now the excellent film by sam raimi the evil dead is on ifc.

(what's so funny) 'bout peace love & understanding