本、店、し、クリスマス！

Basically everything at The McSweeney's Store is half off. I got some Christmas shopping done the other day and of course bought some things for myself. This is a problem. Why?

Books I have bought/received as gifts and I haven't yet had the time to read:

• Michael Chabon - Maps and Legends
• Charles Burns - Black Hole
• The Book of Other People - Zadie Smith
• Dave Eggers - What is the What
• The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith
• The Children's Hospital - Chris Adrian
• The McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets
• Alison Bechdel - Fun Home

Plus I get the New Yorker every week and barely get to open it. PLUS I've asked for tons of books for Christmas. What am I to do? I guess I'll read a book a day on Christmas break. That's my only solution.

Here are a couple of places where I'll be Christmas shopping online and you should too.

• Lush Cosmetics- All natural, vegan, awesome, handmade soaps and such
• Buy Olympia- Mugs made out of corn, paper goods made out of recycled paper, books from independent publishers. $10 T-shirt sale!
• Fred Flare- Store cute! Japanese imports, and lots of cute junk like these!
• And McSweeney's, of course

And here's a poem I wrote this week. It had to be in this specific form, which I'm not too keen on. It needs a little work but I think it's pretty alright. Right? I hope so.

*

50 Harley Salute

The black Lincoln
entered the gates
and into those
familiar, smooth, linear
aisle ways. 5mph
for the sake
of hitting whom?

After circling (rectangling) along
the guzzler was awarded
its resting place. I
stepped out onto the
lush, manicured, lively landscape.
Dressed up for whom?

Until I finally made it over
to the deep hole and
whimpered not for him, but
for the spectacle made in
his name. 21? More like

50 Harley salute.

Each one of those bikes was
accompanied with an accessory wearing its
most rebellious uniform. But what can
be more conforming—living by
a label or dying by one?

But of course I looked so plain
and boring by trying to be respectful.
They saw one thing about him and
attributed all those 65 years to
it. A patch on a vest.

Because when he was 21, not 50, he
sat in a lawn chair on the back
porch with my grandpa. Drinking cocktails, smoking packs,
shootin’ the shit. Never once did he wonder
if his funeral would be a fashion show
loud enough to make his life a cliché.

*

Yay bulleted lists!