Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

Love how this shot turned out – took it in downtown Portland.

A few years ago a handsome, charming young couple from North Carolina answered a craigslist ad we posted for a house sitter – something about: “must love chickens and cats, like to read, etc”. We were on an east coast family tour and decided to trust the internets to take care of our house.

Theirs was one of the many responses to the craigslist ad, but they answered most charmingly and explained they were going to play around in Portland for a few weeks and maybe play a gig  or two, and yes, they loved chickens.

Beth and Phil turned out to be The Bowerbirds – and they’ve since become one of my favorite bands, as well as the favorite band of many others, I imagine, as they’ve done quite well for themselves.

Last I’d heard they were building a log cabin – here’s Beth flexing her impressive, accordion-playing muscles:

And Yesterday they released a new album: Upper Air

Nice work!

See The Bowerbirds here: http://bowerbirds.org or check out their music on iTunes

There’s an interview up at L Magazine that I had a lot of fun doing:
Ben Parzybok’s Best Date Ever

ah shit! Craig Arnold, author of Shells and winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, died. Apparently he fell from a cliff while hiking in Japan (where he’d been teaching for University of Wyoming).

I’ll never forget listening to him read from Shells at Powell’s on Hawthorne. Afterwards, starry-eyed, I asked if he’d consider submitting to Gumball Poetry. He was incredibly gracious and took the poem capsules I jammed into his hands. What a loss.

Here are a couple of links:

Craig Arnold’s Volcano Pilgrim blog

Find Craig Arnold

Craig’s books at Powell’s: Shells, Made Flesh

Farragoblog - a blog remembrance – there are many more of these online.

Two pics I took from the halls of the elementary school I was in last night.

I especially love the “No! Name! Calling! Week!” — can’t we have that as a national holiday?

Also note that at Voice Level zero, students are advised not to eat fish skeletons.

Laura will be reading at the 1,000 Words reading series (hosted by Mel Favara) this very Monday. Here’s the release. The website is here – but it’s not updated yet. If you haven’t been to one – it’s a very fun series.