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For reasons I won’t get into, I’ve decided to move my sporadic and unreliable blogging efforts back to BlogSpot. No flametacular reason, and it certainly isn’t because blogger has a better inteface. It doesn’t. It’s more of a issue of convenience. The blogroll here is old, much of the information is outdated. Basically, I’d rather start over a build something completely new. So… I am here, if anybody cares: richristow.blogspot.com
Life Goals
- Lose at least 30 pounds.
- Convert a large chunk of my diet to vegan/vegetarianism, again (I stopped roughly ten years ago) — while still eating a good steak or burger now and then.
- Quit smoking…. sometime.
- Continue to learn how to better deal with the constant stress in my family life.
- Do/Fix all the things that Jenny and I talked about, while creating a Honey-do, list.
- Get all bills and arears, from the year long mortgage crisis, caught up and current.
Writing/Editing/Professional
- Finish editing that Ezra Pound chapbook. (First thing I do this year)
- Edit my novella quartet and send it Skullvines (Second thing I do this year).
- Write a non-fiction book about poetry.
- Write another book length poem.
- Write a bizarro novella about WalMart.
- Stop talking in public about the things I’m “currently” writing.
- Answer email in a more timely fashion.
- Blog a little more consistently, now that I can’t blame WalMart for anything….
I really don’t know what I didn’t like about Season 3. My wife and I stopped watching half-way through. While my wife enjoys the show, she enjoys the novels more; I am told the books and the screen adaptation go in absolutely different directions. But, I don’t know. Maybe it was Jimmy Smits? There’s something about about the whole season that went by the numbers. Thankfully, now that Jenny and I are onto Season 4, the fun seems back. Lithgow knows crazy and plays it well. Only, I didn’t need to see the two shots of his his ass in Episode 1.
Yeah, West and avant garde music icon Meredith Monk have nothing in common, or do they? (Besides looking silly and pretentious at times)
West
Monk
Short Poems (I don’t write many of them)
I don’t know the release dates, but here are some individual poems I have coming up.
in Dead Bells edited by Jodi Lee (and yes, accepted for publication long before going to Belfire was even an idea)
in Kevin Lucia’s The Terror at Miskatonic Falls from Shroud Publications
in Christopher Conlon’s A Sea of Alone: Poems about Alfred Hitchcock from Dark Scribe Press
Anthologies
Death in Common: Poems from Unlikely Victims, forthcoming from Belfire.
These Apparitions: Haunted Reflections of Ezra Pound — guidelines will get a big reboot, and I’ll start reading for this project again. I’ll post the current TOC later. Alsi a Belfire Book.
Books
Wood Life: A Poem Snuff Books. Should have been out many months ago, but has been having formatting problems at the printer. I’ve learned from experience doing other people’s books that yes, it happens, and yes, it’s a pain in the ass. My guess is it goes on Amazon any week now. Plot in a sentence: Can a serial killer learn redemption? Poetic form in a sentence: What if Lawrence Ferlighetti’s Coney Island of the Mind was about serial killing?
Binge and Purge Skullvines press. Its a double novelette of quiet psychological horror set in Bermuda. One story is about a failed Canadian-Bermudian Folk singer, who’s also a serial killer. The other is story about a woman chased by a blob of her own fat, told in such a way that it’s not as funny as this sentence makes it out to be.
Books I’m Currently Writing (All poetry):
Demon Acrostics. Too crazy to describe at the moment.
The Miswanted. A reboot and reimagining and revision of my 2004 MFA thesis.
Love Songs in the Valley of the Goat Heads and Floor Punchers. This book is in my head, and it will come out, some day, dedicated to my late friend, Peppy Barbera.
Will I return to writing fiction someday? Perhaps. I have a draft of a epistolary chapbook called “Johnny Comes Lately” which has to be the most insane thing I’ve ever written. Don’t know if I’m ever going to send it out. The Sorrow of Young Caliban has been shelved for the time being. I’m thinking of adding to to it, but I’m also looking for a place to send it.
As has been noted elsewhere, I’m taking a job at Belfire Press as “Poetry Editor.” The details are still being worked out, but the terms were more than agreeable. So far, it entails heading up a poetry imprint called Needfire, which will publish a fixed amount of titles a year. Death in Common: Poems from Unlikely Victims will follow me to Needfire and will be one of those titles. These Apparitions: Haunted Reflections of Ezra Pound is also following me to Needfire.
At Bandersnatch, the Pound book was planned as a chapbook; however, since every press has different circumstances, the current length of the anthology is too short, and it needs significant expansion. So, I’m going to tweak the guidelines, the contact info, and then repost them.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t thank Jodi Lee and Louise Bohmer not only for the opportunity to work with them on a steady basis, but for believing in my abilities.
EDIT TO ADD: And I’m a dolt for forgetting Bob Freeman as somebody whom I’m always grateful to work with.
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I detest drama and public bickering, but given that I co-founded Bandersnatch Books, I feel the need to make the following statement:
A week or so ago, Scott Colbert announced on the Bandersnatch Books website that he was temporarily stepping down from co-publishing, so that he could focus on regaining his health after a recent hospitalization. I began bringing in some people to help with laying books out and clearing out the back log. Basically, I began to find people I could delegate work to, instead of doing it all myself. On May 18, 2010, at 12:59am, I received an email from Mr. Colbert informing me that he had changed all the passwords to Bandersnatch accounts in his name. He also informed me that I was not allowed to work on anything related to Bandersnatch Books, and that I had to cease and desist from working on the Bandersnatch Books website. Basically, he asserted that he actually owned the company and was firing me. This, of course, was counter to our initial agreement of many months ago, where we were “co-publishers” and “partners.” Several emails later, at 1:47am, he offered me a job editing poetry books. I emphatically declined.
Mr. Colbert makes several allegations on his blog regarding me and what impelled him to his actions. While I now could offer a very vigorous rebuttal with counter points, I will not do so. What has been done cannot be undone. A tolling bell, as a saying goes, cannot be un-rung. Further argument and acrimony will not change anything, so it would be a futile waste of time and effort. So, now, I am simply publically dissassociating myself from Scott Colbert, whatever team he is putting together, and Bandersnatch Books in totality. It should be noted that this statement has no baring on any writer conducting business with Mr. Colbert. It is not a judgement of any writer engaged with Colbert or Bandersnatch Books, and it should not be construed as such. I have nothing more to publically say on what happened, for the time being.
As for the contributors to Death In Common, apologies are sincerely extended, as the book is again leaving a publisher while on the cusp of final publication. Rest assured, talks are already underway regarding placing it and The Pound poetry project at a different press. I’ll be forthcoming with the details once papers are signed and the new deal is official.
This post has nothing to do with the recently passed healthcare fixes in the House of Representatives. However, having spent a lot of time around the US Military, one thing I do know is that the federal governement attracts really talented doctors — and they attract absolute quacks who don’t know shit. The joke is this: a man goes to a Naval hospital with a broken leg. The Navy doctor doesn’t look at the leg, but perscribes the patient with ear drops.
Well, it shouldn’t surprise me that that sort of lunacy is not confined to the federal government, but also that of the private sector. (So, to conservatives everywhere, the privatized solution is never a pancea). Today, I went to a walk in clinic complaining of neck problems; I lift a lot of boxes at work, so muscle problems could have occupational implications. The doctor checked my blood pressure and wanted to order tests for how my kidney is doing. Hardly ever even looked at my neck or shoulder. Turns out, this is the same walk-in clinic that treated my wife a year or two ago, when she had a very bad, bubbling rash that went all the way up her arm. Did the guy take a skin biopsy? No. He wanted to test her blood for diabeties. Anyhow, getting back to today. I left the doctor’s office with a scrip for lowering blood pressure. There was hardly any talk of the symptoms I walked in with. Now, I think I’m never going to go back to that clinic.
I normally like to keep talk of my personal life to a minimum, and usually around travel. However, the past couple of weeks have just been weird.
- fluctuations in ADHD.
- getting sick while my wife was out of town (So, 4 days alone…and I slept most of them).
- my mother’s been in the hospital again.
- and for the past two days, a dull, persistant neck and arm pain. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but consider that beyond my “Department Manager” job description at WallyMart, most of what I do is lift boxes — thus, making the idea of going to work 8 hours of tedious pain.
So, I’m a bit behind on catching up a few things. As this relates to Bandersnatch —
- Wrath James White’s book is horribly behind schedule, mostly due to cover wrangling with a graphic that keeps printing out dark.
- Death In Common — still trying to get the contributors paid off.
- T.M. Wright’s The Island needs a few tweaks, but will be done soon.
- I still have some contracts left to write.
- The Bandersnatch WordPress blog really needs updating.
- We’ve been having problems with our third party payment processor on the site.
In short, there have been the regular sorts of pains of starting up an enterprise. My attention getting strained by the first set of bullet points hasn’t helped matters. But, these things will get fixed. There’s not much of a choice in that.
Rich Ristow 