NEWS: Work on the resurrection issue of fish is nearing the final stages. Expect the new issue within the week! There will be lots of great color photos, and the writing in this issue surpasses the rest. Stick with fish! Stick with the real thing! Bookmark http://manufacturedenvironments.com/ today!

The week was smooth and glossy. I finally got around to finalizing some ideas I needed to get together in order to graduate in May. Grad school went fast, and hopefully three months from now I’ll have my Master’s degree in hand. And then I’ll walk out into the nasty, brutish world and see where it leads me.

My elder relations have been stressing a location near to them, but you know I’m feeling pretty free with it all. Where I end up a few months from now may have a lot more to do with the jobs I’m looking at then deciding I want to live in Madison or Milwaukee. There’s a lot of possibilities and I think I want to just savor the moment — being in school — before I start the job search process. Some people put their resumes online and mine will be going up in the next day or two.

I usually don’t talk about the weather, but it was 60 degrees today, which is extremely warm for a February afternoon. It was like fall some said. There was a bit of rain. I can’t help thinking we’re all going to fry in overly hot summers as the ozone layer shrivels to nothing. And when you see someone driving one of those S.U.V.’s today, act out and get them to stop using those overconsuming polluting vehicles. Give ‘em a kick in the shins!

At any rate I’m excited about the new issue of fish. It’s going to be something else. Stay tuned for more details.

NEWS: The new issue of fish is coming along swimmingly. I need to get out & take some photos for the issue. It’ll be done shortly after that. It’s been an interesting challenge to get two issues out in one month, but it has gone well. The zine issue is still in print and available at various downtown locations such as the Record Collector.

Things are really going to change with the next issue that is due out soon. Expect something big and brassy. It’s going to be exciting!

In other news I finally got going on my Master’s project. It took a bit of doing to get the topic nailed down, but things are all set to go. I’ll be in research mode for the next couple of weeks. I know I’ll have a lot to say. I’m shooting for roughly a 50 page paper. I did a 50-pager last semester and it felt so tremendously good to write at length. Expect more of that! I’ll probably put the project on the Web too. Maybe I’ll make it a Web project full of hypertext and links to other sources.

The weather’s been really weird and warm this week. It’s as if winter has decided to go away and we’ll have spring and summer all year round. It has to be global warming. We’re all going to die. Too many of those S.U.V.’s running around. Smash a window today!

It’s hard to imagine that I’ll be done with grad school in only a couple of months. Time has really been flying. Of course there’s the big question of what to do after school. I’ve got some leads but nothing definite yet. I suppose I’ll start thinking more seriously about it after Spring Break, which is only a couple of weeks away. I’ll spend that time working on my project mostly. No Florida beaches for this scholar!

Anyway, time to get running. I’ve got photos to shoot & a new issue of fish to finish up.

NEWS: The zine issue is making rounds rather successfully — but anticipation mounts for the next - soon to be delivered - issue of fish.

I’ve been hard at work the past week on the next issue of fish, my zine. I’m not saying just yet what the title of the issue will certainly be a Phoenix rising from the ashes. The zine issue concerned itself with a certain amount of wailing and lamentation. The new issue of fish will be very different — as it seems each issue has its own distinct identity. It will contain much more fiction — I already have five short stories lined up for this issue and should see some more come in in the next week or so. I’m trying to secure some more poetry for the issue as well. It’s exciting working on it. This issue will also have a distinct visual identity that is different from the previous issues as well. The text fonts have gotten smaller but there is more white space in which the text flows in a multi-column spread.

There is still plenty of work to be done on this upcoming issue. Bookmark this page to stay tuned for the latest info.

Did I mention that I’ve been cutting myself loose from popular culture — from advertising-driven reality? That’s right! I’m giving consumerism a big old fist up the rear on this one. The easiest thing one can do is get rid of your TV. Yeah, no TV. Don’t need it. Don’t want it. More difficultly I’ve also given up movies as well. I have less of a problem with movies because some of them are artistic, but Hollywood has become this cultural monster that is invading the farthest reaches of the globe, pushing American consumerism. So I’ve disconnected with that as well.

I’ve limited my culture consumption to two newspapers daily (The Daily Iowan and the New York Times) as well as the several magazines I subscribe to including Mother Jones and Columbia Journalism Review. On the other side of the coin I still have an Internet connection, but my surfing is decidedly non-commercial in focus. I’ll need to investigate banner ad blockers…. Any suggestions?

NEWS: The zine issue of fish is now out in the distribution channels. It is too soon to hear what people are making of it, but I know they’ll make something of it.

I read two books this week: The Acid House by Irvine Welsh and Demian by Hermann Hesse. Both were certainly interesting. Hesse is one of my favorite authors. I can really appreciate his take on religion and spirituality. His books dwell a lot on finding the path in one’s life. From Harry Haller in Steppenwolf to Narcissus & Goldmund, Hesse’s characters are wanting to find truth in their own spirtuality.

Demian tells the tale of young Emil Sinclair. In a sense it is a coming of age story. Sinclair is a sympathetic character that I identified with. He lives in a world a good and bad — a very black and white image of the world. His life becomes much more complex when he is awakened to other interpretations of reality and religion by his friend (or rather, mentor) Max Demian.

Welsh’s book is a riot to read. Full of drugs and profanity, The Acid House is a collection of short stories that amuse and describe. Welsh’s favorite and best-described characters are the working-class drug-using youths of Scotland. The dialect will really get you in this one (“Aye, Kim, dinnae tell ays ye widnae git intae his keks if ye hud the chance.”). But it’s ultimately very readable. A couple of the stories fall flat, but overall this is a really good read.

I went to J.T.’s Tobacco Bowl the other night to start reading Hesse. I haven’t been in there for a while. The music was alright, and the people were good. I dropped off a few copies of fish while I was there. The reading was going fine for about the first hour and then this middle-aged chap sat down at an adjacent table. That was fine except he lit up this obnoxious cigar and started puffing feverously at it. I kept reading. And then an older fellow sat at another adjacent table and lit up his pipe with some pungent tobacco. It was too much. I couldn’t breathe. I left.

I guess that’s what one should expect with a place called the Tobacco Bowl, but they should prop open the door to let a little fresh air in. Yeah, okay it’s winter. Whatever. It’s a mild winter at that.

The nights are easy and warm. I am comfortably enscounced in the academic world. But my gestation will be lasting only a few months. Then I’ll pop out in the birth of graduation, get a slap on the back with the words “Take a job, ya c—t!” Somehow I know it will be an interesting time.

NEWS: The zine issue is being photocopied as I write this. It’ll be ready at 1 p.m. after which I’ll need to do some folding & stapling. These are certainly tasks I could pay to have done but why? It would be a waste of money when I can do the funky old work myself.

So it’s exciting that another issue of my publication, fish, will be in the public’s hands in a matter of hours. But perhaps it marks other important milestones, which I won’t get into here. At any rate I’m writing this Friday night, getting jiggy wit it, and listening to some awesome funk on KRUI — the local college station. I was a DJ there last semester & it was loads of fun but I’ve got a good thing going this semester — doing the T.A. thing, doing the Master’s project thing, doing the over-the-top thing.

As I was observing the other day, things don’t matter much unless You Get The Work Done! For every writer there’s a hundred thousand people who would like to and do call themselves writers. Only problem is they don’t! Write, that is. Just keep grooving with the soul — just keep moving with the funk — let the patterns spin out in your mind & twirl ‘round on the paper & give it up to the musicians giving life to the funk — &&give soul up to the wonderments to the desire to the horns blowing out in constrained ecstasy.

I live in the moment & know no other. I live in a world in my mind. I live in the world that is this city. I live spinning the old school tunes w/an ultra hi-nrg stereophonic drumNbass techno destruction. Shortening the life span but enhancing those precious moments giving word to the wonder spinning technology.

But precious word to those dissing the digital vibe. Don’t worry! The digital is too new — it took billions of years for the universe to develop from its digital underpinnings. Just wait — we’ll need like 10 years or so & then digital will be like real life & the digital won’t be a different thing because it will be the real thing. CD’s suck undoubtedly, but ten years & we’ll be in a new way where the digital is the real & the analog synthesis won’t be a bitch different from the digital solidarity. Don’t worry friend, we’re giving it the all.

NEWS: Here today is the launch of the new design. It’s easier on the eyes and easier to navigate. Enjoy!

I’ve been thinking about unfinished business. There are so many tasks left undone in one’s life. So much to do really and never enough time. I think the important tasks are, or should be, the ones that get completed. Some talk on and on about the novel they’re going to write, the mountain they’re going to climb, the graduate degree they’re going to go back and get, — whatever. Talk is very, very cheap.

The life of things is in the doing — & completing. I’d rather hear someone say they’d applied to 23 graduate schools & been denied by all than to hear vacuous talk about wanting to go back to school with no action behind the words. To someone who can complete that first novel I say, “Hooray!” I say never give up on your dreams — but you have to work at them. “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Somethings may fall on your lap — and the more luck you have the better — but being a writer or being anything doesn’t consist in talking about it. Do that which you desire — and perhaps do that which you fear.

Living a good life takes courage and discipline. The ability to work is also important, as lazy people don’t amount to much. Some books take a lifetime to write (Whitman) and others take a fortnight (Kerouac) but it is those people who worked at it that have achieved something. Some people say, “Oh, I could never get an article published in Salon.” — And they’re probably right. Their attitude creates their reality.

So what I’m saying is WORK! I love people who know what they want in life and are ready to stick their necks out for it. Today is the day. Saying you’ll start working on it next month, or after the baby, or after I get my promotion, is like I said cheap talk. Sit down and draw up a schedule of the week & mark those times that you can work on your dreams. It’s all up to you.