what's going on


so i've lost weight. funny thing about losing weight is that when someone asks if i lost weight and i say yes the next question is, 'on purpose'? sure enough the 3 scariest words in the english language are SUDDEN WEIGHT LOSS. the next question asked is if i'm on a diet. my answer is no. nothing terribly restricting only a modification of eating habits and an increase in healthier eating. but i still eat shit, i just don't eat a lot of shit and make choices in my eating. where i used to eat a lot and all the time now i eat some and at set times. just that.

but then i hear others and their diets and i think never have there been a moment in our history where there is such an abundance of food that we worry about overeating and gaining weight. used to be just the opposite in our history. for that i am grateful to be living in our time. and yet, the future scares the shit out of me, and not because i'm growing old and more hardened. i just find our human behavior to be short-sighted and ravenous. we piss in our own water glass then complain that the water tastes a bit salty and is too warm.

okay, whatever. been a stressful day. i'll leave it at that.

at any rate, going thru some chaps last night i find sf poet david larsen's dogma '01 manifesto where he declares a diy ethos and demands writers forgo all market forces and publish their own work with their own hands. self-publish or perish, and do it in as large numbers as you can manage. as larsen writes:

Dogma '01 rejects the division of labor between writer and publisher that prevails in the literary market-place, and therefore its productions are unfit for all but the most informal modes of distribution (barter, give-aways, and low-volume sales).

larsen is referencing chapbook production but i would also include publishing your own work, and the work of others you like and admire, on blogs and other e-media.

do it now. you might be a genius but don't expect anyone to recognize it right away and fall over themselves to publish your collected. do it now and for yourself and the readers will follow. now larsen's dogma '01 is not some absolute tract to be taken religiously. even larsen has a book out, the thorn, by faux press.

but perhaps it's simply me. are there any other poets around who would feel guilty that third party spent potential thousands of dollars and much time and energy publishing your book that will maybe sell a couple dozen? would it not be better to publish it on your own on the cheap and send copies out to friends, family and fellow poets? the number of readers would probably be the same.

it's not that i don't participate in the market economy. i buy shitloads of books and love books and think that there are many presses, such as bootstrap productions and meritage press, that are worth our support. i've participated in eileen tabios's online survey of poetry book-buying habits with her analysis here and the raw data here. but as for me i would indeed feel guilty about a small press spending the kind of bucks it takes to get a book of mine in print when i can publish my work myself for a couple hundred bucks at the most. i prefer chapbooks anyway and i don't have a cv to update.

no one is asking anyway. but then again, if asked i think i might say OKAY!!!!