It's been more than 2yrs since I've posted anything to this blog.

Yesterday was kind of a witchy day for me.
It was a new moon last night, which means the moon will now be waxing.
A waxing moon is a good time for renewal, for rebirth, for implementing plans.

Additionally, I pulled as my Rune of the Day: "berkano" or "berkanan" or "bjarken"
which seemed important, given the fact that "berkano"
(according to the information sheet included in my purchase of the handcrafted runes)
is a "Birch Goddess," a "tree," and a symbol for "rebirth;"
the image of the Rune itself is supposed to bring to mind "breasts,"
life-giving, sexual organs: that is, by providing milk,
the breasts provide the chance for a new life (i.e. an infant) to thrive, to survive.

Breasts, of course , are a natural symbol of fertility
and are associated with the Moon: both are round and inspire art.
Furthermore, I am a Cancer, and the Cancer's ruling planet is the Moon,
so it seemed like a convergence of sorts when:

1) the Moon was going to be a New Moon;
2) my Rune for the Day was "Berkano," which represents &/or symbolizes:
          a "Birch Goddess," a "tree," "rebirth," and "breasts;"
3) therefore, it was a feminine day of renewal,
          a chance for recommitting myself to my aspirations.

As such, I'm viewing today as a chance to begin
recommitting myself to literary endeavors, which means
1) revising and editing poems;
2) compiling and refining chapbooks and collections; &
3) seeking out and submitting to various publishing presses and houses.

The burden is mine to accomplish these goals; yet,
given the good omen I witnessed and interpreted yesterday,
I will succeed in properly utilizing this period of Moon-waxing.

Recently Published Interview & Inclusion in an Anthology

Hello All! Two quick things.

One:

I was recently interviewed by Thom James, a UK-based artist/person. He has started a project called Interviews with Strangers, which will seek to interview people from across the internet, in order to attempt to present a picture of the person behind the screen and not the words that the person behind the screen uses to create a picture of themselves. idk if i'm justly summarizing Thom's project, but maybe you get the gist of it.
Anyway, here is a link to my interview for Thom of Interviews with Strangers. I believe this interview is the first interview of the project, so I'm very honored to help Thom kick off his project and I think I did did a decent job of helping. (Furthermore, the drawing of me is good, just plain good! Just look at it, please. Thom's artist friend, Grace Millard, drew this badass image of me based upon a pic and the answers i gave during the interview.)
At any rate, thank you to Thom James for taking a chance on me and having me be the first interview of Interviews with Strangers.



Two:

I was even more recently included in an anthology, a real book! Kool Kids Press are good poetry people and they have very generously included some of my poems in their first anthology, JunkYard Kool.
I'm so thrilled to be included in this inaugural anthology and, also, to help kick off this anthology series by gracious acceptance as a contributor. Please take the time to read this anthology, which you can download for free or can be bought, if you financial means, as a physical book. Follow the link to Kool Kids Press' JunkYard Kool.
Thank you to Kool Kids Press, I am honored and thrilled to be included!




And that's it, for now. Thank you for reading, for listening, and I wish you have a very happy  and a prosperous 2015. Good fortune to all!

Love,
dom.

Bootstraps & Best Practices - Joshua Jarrett

Joshua Jarrett is a Georgian artist and student. While experienced and dabbled in painting, drawing, sketching, writing, collage-making, etc., Joshua's most accomplished/substantial/graspable works are his comics. Indeed, these comics are the convergence of his many talents. They are equal parts sketches, drawings, & paintings, poetry, prose, & thoughtful musings, all mixed into mosaic-like art. His first three professionally self-released comics ("Love Poems for Nobody," "Dear Victor," & "Diary") are available to download for free or donation at his Gumroad account, which can be accessed via Facebook or Gumroad itself; additionally, I have reviewed these three comics here. In Joshua's two most recently released comics, "Bootstraps" and "Best Practices," creative visual beauty meets philosophic thought and meditative musings. "Bootstraps," also available on Gumroad, and "Best Practices," available to read on his website here, both delve into autobiographical territories of introspection, philosophy, and peace of mind through creativity.



Bootstraps (2014):

Available on his Gumroad account here, "Bootstraps" is Jarrett at his most thoughtful, intellectual, and philosophic while still, by turns, spending time to examine the self and interpret personal information. Compiled from writings and drawings, which are gleaned from experiences spanning the course of several months, this comic is a prime example of Joshua's mosaic, collage-esque style, for each section is in its own right a distinct work of art. However, when cinched together with an expert eye for detail, "Bootstraps" becomes, not merely a gathering of thoughts, observations, and associated drawings, but a wholly fulfilled story arc, which gains a converging momentum as the pages turn. In this way, the comic's story and thought process is elliptical, tying together the various, seemingly unrelated strands from the beginning and middle into a beautiful braid by the end. This braid is one of self-discovery, self-acceptance, self-actualization. Like the Gordian Knot which much be solved, not through the knot itself, but by means outside of the knot, so, too, must one, such as this comic's narrator, seek to gain an understanding of himself, not through what has happened to him, but how he reacts to what has happened to him--how he reverberates, bounces back, "pulls [himself] up 'by the bootstraps'." If this convergence of theme and subject is not at once clear, give Joshua's comic a second reading, and a third, and a fourth... On a first reading, the final page of the comic may seem to drop suddenly and, as such, could be viewed as just another strand, separate and unrelated to that which has come before it. But this interpretation, I suggest, is trying to understand the comic in terms of the knot itself. To solve the knot, one must think outside the box; to understand "Bootstraps," one must read it repeatedly to see how the strands come together.

Best Practices (2014):

Not really available for download and certainly not (yet) in print, Joshua's most recent comic, "Best Practices," can be read for free on his website, here. This is his shortest comic to date, but is arguably his lushest and most visually beautiful. While his four previous works often exist with lots of empty space, sometimes utilizing said empty space creatively (see: "Love Poems for Nobody"), "Best Practices," in its current form, doesn't even waste time with a title page, evidenced by the opening page to the left. There's too much to express, too much to show for there to be empty space or time spent reiterating facts with a title page. But there is a tradeoff because the writing of this comic is sparse, restricted to the barest of essential "do good" thoughts, which are themselves like steamy wisps of evaporating dew in the sun's morning light: seen, noted, gone. In previous works, Jarrett's drawings and writings complimented each other, but "Best Practices" seems to go a step further. Images lead into the written thoughts or observations and often times these partially expressed words are completed, and fulfilled, by images, surroundings. Furthermore, the images themselves and the words both convey the same story of a life lived quietly, removed from the stresses and fast-paced realities of college life and city-dwelling. One panel reads, "Take Your Time," and is framed by feet standing in bathwater, bathwater which is clear, calm, non-turbulent. In essence, "Best Practices" gently reminds, not just the subject of the comic, but also the reader to stop and smell the roses, to enjoy life, to be content, serene. Thus, Joshua's most recent comic juxtaposes "Bootstraps" stylistically, thematically, and intellectually. While "Bootstraps" is heavy with written thought and mental inquiry, making direct reference to the birthplace of modern-day philosophy (i.e. ancient Greece [see: Gordian Knot]), "Best Practices" is visual, meditative, and, we can therefore conclude, taking us somewhere distinctly Zen.

?uestions - PT Cruiser USA

 PT Cruiser USA is a Twitter/internet personality who has gained popularity since starting her personal brand of loving PT Cruisers, livetweeting VH1 Soul, loving the men who are featured on VH1 Soul, and livetweeting her day-to-day life. I have reviewed the car's other books (here, here, & here), all of which are based on her life experiences and her ever-increasing internet fame and popularity. But this book, ?uestions, is a different thing altogether. Indeed, ?uestions is PT Cruiser USA's slimmest and most playful release. Less an insightful work into the car's day-to-day incidents, ?uestions bills itself, according to the back cover, as a book to be read and/or played with friends "to pass the time" with or without "other people when you're on a road trip in the car or something." ?uestions is like Mad Libs for the internet fame-obsessed; it's playful, silly, and fun, but it's also deep and thought-provoking.

While PT Cruiser USA has written bigger, more "substantial" books, ?uestions is a slim, 69-page volume (lol, 69!), which shows the car at its most thoughtfully ludicrous, which, in a nutshell, is the recurrent motif of her personal brand. That is, PT Cruiser USA has staked her internet identity as being both uproariously silly and quietly observant, both humorously shallow and surprisingly introspective. Anyone who has read PT Cruiser USA's other books will understand this paradox immediately. For each instance that the car seems to be the tarot deck's Wandering Fool, helplessly and endearingly out-of-touch with reality, she just as often turns around to prove she is intelligently aware of her surroundings and those in her life, becoming a diviner adept at reading signs, people, and situations. It is in this regard--the ability to "play the fool" so as deceive those around her while cleverly staying one step ahead of them--that PT Cruiser USA has survived real life unscathed and built her online popularity upon a solid foundation.

Therefore, ?uestions is a book for people to interact with. Not concerned with irl stories and Twitter-occurrences, ?uestions, very simply, asks the reader to ponder and answer questions. In this way, the book is like Mad Libs or other similar books in that sort of genre. ?uestions has a lot of empty space on the pages between each question so that the reader and/or group of readers can fill in their humorous and/or serious answers. And like PT Cruiser USA herself, the questions vacillate from the merely silly to the sort best described as "think about THAT for a minute." With this in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to answer 3 of the book's questions, falling at different places on the spectrum of silly to thought-provoking.

---

1. "do clothes ever feel sad when they're stained or have a tear in them?"

No, probably not. Although, it might be interesting to point out that when such things happen, we feel badly for the article of clothing. If, as some researchers and/or New Age folks have claimed, our emotions can be transmitted like signals, then it may be possible that our sad/unhappy feelings are imprinted upon those stained or torn clothes. And if so, then it may be that that article of clothing will from then on carry with it the memory or impression of sadness, which will forever remain a part of its "identity," so to speak. In this way, the clothing doesn't feel sad, but it just might be possible that we can make such objects emotionally effected and emotionally charged by our thoughts and feelings. (This vain of thought is not unlike what many people believe to be the cause of hauntings and ghostly activities; that is, the belief that we imprint our emotional states upon the environments and objects around us, thereby producing things like "haunted houses" and, possibly, "sad clothes.")

---

2. "do you think there is an abandoned warehouse somewhere with a rolling chair inside it with a skeleton sitting on the chair at receiving?"

Probably not, but I kind of hope so because, as this question reminded me, my uncle, who used to be a cross-country delivery truck driver, told me that there are teeny, tiny villages all across the country where there is just a factory and a few houses, and the only people who live there are the employees of the factory. As such, to my mind, it is not inconceivable that, perhaps, one of those tiny villages was wiped out by disease or something and there now sits a skeleton in a warehouse at receiving, eternally awaiting that final delivery...

---

3. "can animals take T to transition to another gender?"

Of all the animal-themed questions in ?uestions (and believe me, there are a lot!), this one may be one of the most fascinating to think about, at least for me, because honestly, it's something I'd never thought about before or even considered. But now, I can't stop thinking about it. I mean, T is testosterone and it is used in some, if not all, hormonal therapy/treatments. And animals, like people, have hormones, which make the males of the species have certain characteristics and the females of the species have certain other characteristics. So then, is it possible? Seemingly, yes. After all, if hormones can be manipulated in people to produce a reversal of the biologically-occurring hormones so that an individual can transition, then why not animals? At least, I should say, this seems possible in theory. I wouldn't have the slightest idea of how this could be "pulled off" in actuality. Of course, if it is possible, then the doses administered to the animals would have to be, I would assume, reduced compared to those doses administered to humans. And an entire other aspect of this question is brought up: supposing that it is possible to transition a male cat into a female cat, are we to proceed? Or, another way to put it: this question brings up the issue of consent. Can an animal consent in any knowing way to undergo these changes? Or would we be forcing this upon those animals for scientific research? Honestly, scientists have probably already done this to animals to study them and the effects of such procedures before knowing if and how hormonal therapy/treatments can, in fact, be used effectively on humans to help people transition to another gender/sex. Which, if that were true, then it seems to be further proof of our species being the ones that ever-continually muck everything up. (As you can see, this question has not provided definitive answers, but has in fact, like any good, philosophical question, produced even more questions and encouraged further thinking.)

---

In conclusion, don't buy Mad Libs or Cards Against Humanity or anything like that. Buy ?uestions by PT Cruiser USA instead. Play this game with friends at parties, on road trips, etc., or answer the questions yourself after giving each sentiment a good amount of time to digest in your mind. Generate discussion. Learn about your friends: what they think and how they think. Form deeper connections with those around you. In this way, a fun, playful, and seemingly silly book of questions by PT Cruiser USA is actually a way to form true, meaningful friendships and understanding between individuals.

A (semi-)Recent Publication & My Answers to the Proust Questionnaire

Hello; 2 Things:

1) This is a bit late, but earlier this month (Oct. 3), I had two poems published in Bluestockings Magazine's recent issue, which was in collaboration with Nudity in the Upspace.You can read the entire, beautiful issue here (hint: my poems, "not that that would be, nor has been, difficult to find" and "[untitled] for @Aurist" are on pages 19 and 36, respectively).

&

2) A few days ago, I took the Proust Questionnaire, courtesy of Fawzy Zablah, who is a fantastic writer and great person. He very kindly posted my replies on his blog, which you can read right here. Fawzy's written a great book, "Rarity of the Century," and he was so gracious as to invite me to answer these thought-provoking questions, popularized by French author Marcel Proust.

Okay, that's basically it for now. Thanks!

dom.