thoughts on black friday: man! my belly's full

thanskgiving holiday was lovely. anna and her sister made a marvelous meal and we just had some leftovers. indeed, we did give thanks for friends, family, our being blessed with having nicholas. why not. life would be empty without them, especially nicholas, in our lives.

well then, stores were nuts today. i didn't go shopping but instead took nicholas to see madascar 2: escape 2 africa. the less said about that movie the better. even still, it was fun as nicholas enjoyed the spectacle, the popcorn and the video games in the lobby. however, there were loads of people in the mall. with the downturn of the economy i can't say whether they were buying or just looking, but they were there. all of them, it seemed.

so so so, ever get the name of a poet you don't know very well stuck in your head which makes you go thru some of your zines and books and then fire up the laptop to search for him/her on google? well, i have and for some reason the name lee ballentine was stuck like a note in my mind. i have a zine, el pobre mouse, published by kyle kaufman [where is kyle anyway? he's not updated his blog in years] with a poem by ballentine which i reread. which was good.

then i did a google search for ballentine and found these poems and an old interview and in that interview found out that the poet is interested in alchemy and speculative fiction and that he alludes to being kicked out of school. got my interest perked up. nothing more to add i guess about my quick search of ballentine's work except that i'll keep my eye out for more of his poetry.

finally, thinking of holiday themed movies to write about. my only criteria is that the movies either be about christmas directly or be centered somehow around the holiday, such as the action taking place on or near the christmas season. tomorrow i plan on seeing the swedish vampire film let the right one in. yes, there'll be a review of it right here. you betcha.