Thanks for all the birthday wishes.

Vicky, I agree Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was very good. For only his second full-length movie, Michel Gondry did a great job of directing. His first movie Human Nature (also a Charlie Kaufman script) was also quite good, and the DVD of his music videos is excellent. One thig that did bother me about Sunshine though, was the circular time thing. It was handled somewhat subtly--I think it was probably Gondry's idea since he has a penchant for it in the music videos as well--but it seems pretty gimmicky even still. On the other hand, I'm glad to see Kaufman being a little less clever and a little more sincere.
--OH, could you fix the link on the side--theres no "the" in the url so it goes o someone else's blog.

Jorge, maybe I'm just backlashing because he's so well loved in umassland, but I wasn't very impressed with Tieg's book. It wasn't so much that I thought it was bad, it just seemed a little too easy. I do have to abmit there's something very fresh about his poems though.

Speaking of books, though it's not very new, I really liked Hoagland's last book What Narcissism Means to Me. There's certainly some poems that completely fail, but some are amazing. I really like "Two Trains." I don't really understand how he does it. There doesn't seem to be much going on language-wise or even imagery-wise for the most part. It seems like they should be sentimental (and sometimes they are), but usually they're not.

Oh so here's a Wheelwright poem. It's really short because I didn't feel like typing a long one:

IN THE BATHTUB, TO MNEMOSYNE

Away in this chambered secret, I'll draw sound
out of its cistern, pavement sealed, and drink
life water from rivuleted water life
of here excluded wind and sun. Intrude
your person, knock, or voice without a message
of great joy or doom,--I'll answer your sweet rattle
with unfond silence, or present at your fond touch
a hollow turtle shell, or vacant snake skin.