Hello Pussy!

The Mainichi Daily News (via boingboinG) brings us news that Hello Kitty products specially designed for men are now going on sale. Well I'm so glad I don't have to wear that girlie tee-shirt any more. HK fans can officially be of both sexes (at once?).

Seriously though, this is the best news I've heard since this product was released!

Not about nature?

Back in the mid- or late-'90s, a haiku of mine was published in the now defunct Gorge "journale of the literary and the untamed". As it is terminally out-of-print, I think it safe to reproduce the poem here.

Fear blazing my brain
night air chills my bones like rot
the city is dead

Writing in his vanity column recently, Brodersen cites this as an example of "incomplete compliance with the Haiku form" (sic), because it does not "contain a season word" and "a reference to the natural world". I leave the reader to deduce for herself if this poem does not intensely evoke both season and nature, have a well constructed kireji, and correctly counted onji, or if Brodersen is just wowing us with his jealous imbecility again.

In the words of the Old Man

I never knew
all this time the number of eyes
that had feasted
on what I thought was my breakfast

I never knew
how it would hurt to see you as others see you
as others long for you
luscious as you were for me in the early years

I never knew
and you thought it would never harm
not yours this knife
that twists in my gasping side

I didn't know
until I came face to mournful face
at your graveside
with a congregation of smartly dressed old men

Norton who...?

It seems that Norton has never heard of Debuse, or at least claims he has never read any modern poetry that combines speculative themes, experimental modes, and poetic creativity. Since a poem of his was once published alongside mine in the Speculative Haiku anthology of 1991 (and we met at the launch party where, if I remember correctly, he took me to task for sneering at the "champagne"), this can only be a dishonest and deliberate slight.

I have only to say that Norton's own poetry is only as speculative as wondering what might be on television tonight, only as experimental as drunkenly trying doggy-style for once, and only as poetic as the Kindergarten limerick performed by the educationally challenged child with drool down his tee-shirt. Needless to add, the column he writes for the Bamff Weekly Gazette is not going to win any awards from the Science Fiction Poetry Association any time soon. Savvy?

"To keep out barbs and blades..."

'ɥɔnoʇ ʇsǝɹǝpuǝʇ ǝɥʇ uǝʌǝ s|ǝdǝɹ ʍou
ɹoɯɹɐɹǝqʎɔ ʎɯ ʇnq

'ǝɯ ||ǝs p|noɔ sʞɐǝɹɥdɥsǝ|ɟ ǝɥʇ sǝɔuǝɟǝp ʇsǝq ǝɥʇ
sǝ|ɔsnɯ ƃuıɥɔʇıʍʇ ɹoɟ ǝʎǝ uɐ
sǝxǝ|ɟǝɹ pǝɔuɐɥuǝ
p|ǝıɟ W3 ƃuıʇdnɹsıp-|ɐuƃıs ɟo o|ɐɥ ɐ
uıʞs ʎɯ ɹǝpun ɥsǝɯ ǝɹıʍ-ouɐN

Truth

"?"

What is "truth"? Is yours the same as mine?

Ghost in the Shell: Innocence

So I finally picked up this DVD last week, drove myself mad last night figuring out how to turn off the subtitles, and then watched probably the coolest film opening with a cyber-hooker being shot that I've ever seen. (And that's saying something... some of the imported cyborg snuff out there is shit hot!)

Apart from some confusion at the end concerning what they meant by "ghost" in the context of uploaded/downloaded minds (in the cyber-age data is copied not transferred) there is nothing to complain about in this film. Seriously. Gunfights, explosions, murderous hookers, a handsome hero with synthetic eyes, lush CGI clashing with anime characters, the whole bit. I am going to watch this again. Now.

My grandfather's grandfather

My grandfather on Japan
I lived for three years
In a cage under the ground
Now I hate them all

My grandfather's grandfather on Africa
Returned from the dark
Telling of conquest and game
Silent 'bout the slaves

II Robot

This is a beauty!

Over at Collider, Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) says in an interview that he is working on a script to a sequel to the 2004 Will Smith film I, Robot.

Well the fact remains that if you're going to do sci-fi in Hollywood and you want to pesuade your producers that it's going to make enough money to warrant their spending several tens of millions on special effects so you don't have to make an unwatchable piece of crap like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then you probably need to (a) hire a slick but soulless hack like Goldsman to rewrite your script; (b) cast a guaranteed buck- and fannie-magnet like Smith to play your dumbed-down lead role; (c) remove any hint of moral complexity from your plot and characters; (d) add some horribly old-fashioned morality tale saccharine to make everyone feel good about themselves for not having had to make a difficult decision; (e) go shoot yourself in the fucking head before you subject us poor defenseless citizens to your bullshit in the first place.

That's not poetry, that's force-feeding excrement to children. Now you can feed what you like to your kids, but don't label your excrement "soy protein" and try to feed it to everyone else's kids too.

On the other hand, if you've never read Asimov, you might be under the impression that there are some kind of cool sci-fi ideas in the first film. And hey, at least they didn't make the stupid version that Ellison wrote. That would have sucked and bombed.

Beer review: Imperial Cannon

This week I had the rare pleasure of the company of an outstanding Catalunyan poet accompanied by a half-litre of very unusual beer, when my friend and colleague Guiomar Rivera visited on the Alberta leg of her North American reading tour. (She was actually taking a scenic train ride between bookings in Winnipeg and Vancouver, but we were able to offer her hospitality and cultural discourse for a day or so in the interim.) Ever the gracious guest, and knowing my tastes, Guiomar brought with her a bottle of Imperial Cannon, an unusually strong malt ale brewed to celebrate the anniversary of the Cervecería Güell, an independent craft brewery near Las Ramblas, Barcelona, where her aunt is the head brewer. I won’t say we enjoyed the beer even more than her company, but we enjoyed her company even more for the addition of the beer to the evening’s menu.

This cheeky beer, which comes in a dark glass bottle and boasts 10.9% ABV, has a tasteful, minimalist label with a yellowing, historic maritime maps theme. Upon pouring, the beer is a dark red with an excitable head of foam, needing to be topped up a few times as the glass fills; in contrast to the creamy white head, the beer looks almost porter-black, but when held to the light it’s more a bright ruby, with the opacity of the wine-dark sea. I have to confess here that we didn’t let the bottle stand for long enough, so the live yeast didn’t have time to settle at the bottom, and the bitterness is therefore slightly more dirty than it would otherwise be. If I ever have the privilege to try this delightful beverage again, I’ll be sure to treat it with more respect.

Sniffing the glass, one is hit immediately with the aroma of hard caramel, and that roasted barley that some people take as a coffee-substitute, but there’s a hint of ripe dates and apricots in there as well, perhaps a souçon of parsnips roasted with an orange zest seasoning. It’s certainly hoppier than I expected, and in a pleasant way. A tantalizing first sip is fruity and light, carrying over some of the ripe citrus flavour and a just mildly saccharine sweetness suggestive of orange barley water or cordial; nothing so far letting on how brutally strong a beer this is going to be. On taking a second sip and letting it sit on my tongue for a few seconds, I’m getting the malty, fruitcake darkness in more force, plus a more cloying hoppiness like chewing seeds or unripe lime leaves, dry and bitter rather than refreshing. I can smell tobacco, so I swallow quickly before I panic and back out.

It’s here on the swallow that the yeast hits me, and it’s pretty brutal, leaving a cloying layer of sleaze on the tongue as if you had the ‘flu, almost drowning out the peaty aftertaste of a good blended whiskey. Breathing over the memory of that bitterness, I can taste rye, ginger, fine flour and maybe a hint of marmalade on burnt toast, the way the English like it. I take another swig, enough for two or three swallows so I can taste it across my whole palate at once. The citrus is almost gone now, nothing more than a glazed fruit peel backdrop to the brandy-soaked cake washing past my tongue, the echoes of liqueur and coffee in my throat, my saliva stained with cooling fudge. The earthiness is still there, like gently sautéed mushrooms tinged with bitterness from chewing old spinach leaves. Almost salty to finish, this beer is more like a meal than a drink. I couldn’t drink litres of this in one sitting, but the complexity of the textures and flavours was absolutely delightful, and I’m glad we had it as an aperitif, rather than letting it be spoiled by accompanying it with spicy food.

Found verse

1. Reconnoitre crystalligerous seaplane reassimilating Kurt
2. Don't let them ridicule you anymore!
3. Ebony jezebel wraps her sucking lips around
4. my late client with his wife and their only daughter were involved in a motor accident
5. Black hole of Kolkata is pierced by plastic mate
6. Hello! I am tired this afternoon.

Debuse abusé

In a petty, whining editorial in this month's issue of the Contemporary Review of American Poetry Brodersen coins a new epithet "Debusean", which he defines in a footnote as:

given to predictable modes while inflating ones own originality

Now it is true that this is not a common adjective, but of the nineteen occurences of Debusean to be found in a popular search engine, the most common definition would seem to be:

Debusean

startlingly unpredictable, under-appreciated, critically incisive.

A less magnanimous scholar than I might be tempted to define an epithet Brodersenian at this point. But check your dictionaries... we already have a perfectly good word for cretin.