apple of my eye

Our view from the poet and cat's house.

Mr. Meow, himself, lending a claw.

Round the corner from the apartment, the street was blocked off, lit and ultra chink-i-fied for a Chinatown scene shoot. The inch thick glittering confetti did, in fact, take my breath away.

Ghost bikes near the Brooklyn Bridge entrance. I'm seeing these all over these days.

Sam and Brian Castro and I feasted on pastrami sandwiches and chocolate egg cremes here.

gerry shizuko kebo wakida birthday book

Mom is 70 years old this year (April 18th), and in celebration, I had my brother steal her baby book. Sam and I then scanned images and printed them out at Kinko's, and affixed them to rounded boards painted with black sumi ink, with a sand-colored cardstock accordion spine (this is technically called a Flag Book). Her very first birthday portrait got placement on the cover:

Here's the book scrunched up, featuring a pretty dorky family portrait on the back. No Douglas! This was the pre-Buglas era.
Mom in a gingham bikini with a chunk of lard named PW, followed by her own grub impression when she herself was a few months old.

The birthday culminated in a surprise brunch (I can't believe we actually pulled it off, but she was in fact, very surprised) at sister Debbi's house, with 12 or so of her closest friends. The brunch was catered by Doug with all the stops pulled out.

snapshots from whirlwind book tour

A few blurry moments on Los Angeles leg of the book tour. First event, at BookSoup on Sunset Boulevard, featuring three Aussie authors. 

Steven Raftner, Brian Castro, David Francis. Steven walked from Beverly Hills to the store, much to everyone's shock. His fictional history is about the one Australian passenger on the Titanic. He's a trooper. Courtney Love also crashed the reading, parading back and forth with an armful of titles while sporting a lacy pink dress.

To reach the reading for Brian, Andrew Allport, and Colin Dickey at Betalevel, we had to walk two very dark alleys, then head downstairs into the basement of an actual factual Chinese restaurant. Betalevel was a literary speakeasy and my favorite venue so far, cuz we got to drink very good dirty martinis while talking about literature with USC grad students.

Our final event in Southern California was really quite gorgeous. South Pasadena Public Library is lucky enough to have the magnanimous Steve Fjeldsted on staff as a librarian and event programmer. He brought Brian in and arranged for an opening musical performance on a traditional Chinese zither, had the event sponsored by the Pasadena Chinese American Club, and also arranged for Brian to stay at the nearby Bissell Bed and Breakfast. It was a golden night, enhanced by many familiar Kaya friends (hi Sesshu! hi Naomi! hi Cheryl! hi Sam's mom and aunt!) and this amazing guy on meds in the back who air guitared HEAVILY to the traditional folk music and yelling inappropriate things like "HOT!" after each song.

The inimitable, adorable Jane Marla Robbins in Santa Monica. We brunched on the beach with her dog, Camilla and talked about chapbooks and publishing, boyfriends and music. This is NOT Camilla the dog. This is a statue of a dog.

Before I could leave, I had to stop and say hi hi to performance artist/writer/actress/bicyclist Kristina Sheryl Wong, who graciously allowed me to stay at her apartment, catsitting Oliver while she was out conquering the world during Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Kristina likes West LA Japanese snacks, and so do I. We talked about boyfriends, publishing, Silverlake, Minnesota, and how things change even in three weeks, which is about how long I was on the road, doing book work.

smudging the surface- the chapbook fest

In a nutshell, the Festival was a super good time. I attended a full day of ridiculously delicious historical lectures on chapbooks (I was especially smitten with Michael Ryan, Director of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University, in a tidy bowtie and with his epic perspective on the traveling bookman of yore). 

A second literary panel featured the impressive scholarship of the young curator Kevin Young and the legendary poet and director of Naropa University's Summer Writing Program, Anne Waldman, who informed me that there is a HOWL movie in post-production! And just who, pray tell, will be cast to play Shig Murao?!

Day two of the festival was an opportunity to mosey down to the New York Center for Book Arts and partake in an most excellent bookbinding class, taught by the very talented and generous Susan Mills. 

Take a good look at this rad homemade, collapsable binding cradle she gave each workshop participant, fashioned from good old fashioned cardboard. I actually met Susan for the first time in the spring at the 2nd annual Codex Book Fair

A few more shots of the Book Arts Center, before I move on to the Asian American Writers Workshop!

Platens. This is the exact same model of letterpress that I first trained on with the Arts & Crafts Press.

Bless your cotton socks, Jane Mead Timken. What is that whimsical, tuxedo stripey font?

An army of Vandercooks

postcard from the chapbook festival

Back from the whirlwind Kaya tour and Chapbook Festival, and discovered this terrific review, featuring much of my presentation at the Asian American Writers Workshop!