Victor D. Infante's Blog, page 192

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck ...

Excuse my language, but I am really, REALLY, getting tired of losing people.

The Poetry Foundation's blog informs me of the passing of Ron Offen, founder and editor of the literary journal Free Lunch. Ron and I have been friendly acquaintances for almost 20 years.

Writes The Chicago Tribune:

"Mr. Offen, 79, died of cancer Monday, Aug. 9, in his Glenview home, said his wife, Beverly.

Mr. Offen was born in Chicago to Charles and Ellen Shirreffs Offen. He graduated from Austin High School and rec...

Stupid Things That Make Me Happy

Look at my Emmy. And now back to me ...

Skitz, Acceptance

I'm in a foul mood today. Mostly about Steve, still, but that's sapping my strength to deal with other things. Thinking I may go hide in the living room, hang out with the ferret and watch old episodes of Doctor Who. Hell, I was almost going to give up on my daily counters to Is There Anything Good in the T&G Today, except that I can't pass up an opportunity to point out that they obviously don't think an urgent call for blood donors is important to know. But whatever. They've said their...

Skitz, In-between

They took Steve off the respirator this morning, but while as of a few hours ago he was breathing on his own, there was no detectable brain activity.

More later, when I know more, and can process.

Culture is News

Yeah. I was up past 2 a.m. talking very intently about poetry and culture with Lea, Dawn Gabriel and Sam Cha last night, and am toasty this morning. Worth it, though.

The guys from 508: A Show About Worcester talk today about, among other things, the Telegram's paywall, their Is There Anything Good in Today's T&G website, my reaction that site, and the fact that I called Brendan Melican a hipster. And they make many good points, and admit that the Telegram does a few things well. Which is prog...

Wrestling with Jefferson Starship, and Capt. America on why you should support the Not-A-Mosque

I don't get Jefferson Starship. I really don't. Honestly, I think they're a terrible band, which embraces almost every cliche and excessive musical choice of the era when it was most successful, without half the camp charm of, say, Journey. Now, once in a while I surprise myself by critically re-examining artists I thought I didn't care for and seeing something I didn't see was there before. That's actually happened a number of times, with artists ranging from Tanya Tucker to Huey Lewis. Se...

Of Aerosmith, mosques that aren't mosques, burlesque dancers and early fall colors ...

Monday, a metered paywall went up on Telegram.com, meaning that nonsubscribers have to pay a fee to read more than 10 locally generated stories. Obviously, this was a cause of some anxiety for myself and others, and there was much chatter in the blogosphere, much of which I took exception too. My ire seemed to focus in on the guys from Pie and Coffee, particularly for their joke website, Is There Anything Good In Today's T&G, which, when you clicked on it, revealed a giant orange screen with ...

Catching up ...

Been a bit too walled in lately to get around to blogging, and as always happens, I find there all these things I want to talk about and just no time. But in any case, we'll give it a go:

I had a great time Wednesday at the Worcester Shakespeare Co.'s production of Taming of the Shrew. They're actually doing a couple different versions of this -- I saw the one with female actors playing female parts. Which is fine. I can get behind the idea of an all-male cast recreating Shakespear as it was o...

Skitz, Part Four

Days have passed, and now I know old friends who are ghosting around the hospital in San Francisco where Steve lay comatose. I get little updates in e-mail and on Facebook. People from that time our chattering, telling stories. Pictures from bad break ups, recollections of the time he managed to bash his head pogoing to the Ramones, getting trapped in Buttonwillow and of course, running tallys of whom he managed to talk into selling him his soul.

I've referenced this particular quirk before, i...

Sometimes, people are amazing

I'd known that Write Bloody had met its minimum goal on its Kickstarter fundraising drive, but was blown away to check in on it this morning and see just how well the press was doing:



This is amazing, and will go along way toward helping the press get a few thousand books by independent authors -- out into distribution. That's a Big Deal.

Of course, it ain't over yet. The overall goal to be raised is $9,000, and I have no idea how close WB is on that. Now, this wasn't Capt. Derrick's only pla...