Puck

As its first event of 2009, Borderland Books in San Francisco is hosting Nisi Shawl on Jan. 3. Nisi will be reading from her book of stories, Filter House. Here’s the reading details, including directions to Borderlands. Nisi has been a prolific contributor to Puck over the past six months–just by reading through these posts you can get a glimpse of the range of her interests.

review by Brian Charles Clark

Through his Epigrams, Martial has come down to us as a Roman rap star, an Empire gangsta who tweaked the noses of all around him – unless you were pretty and had sexy naughty bits, in which case the odds were even as to whether he’d sing your praises or declare you a whore.

Born in Spain in the year 40 A.D., Martial was a poet who lived much of his life in Rome, dying just after the turn of the first century. His mastery of raunchy innuendo (not to mention outright declaration of skankiness) may well be unsurpassed in the history of literature. He’s certainly in the ninetieth percentile. Read the rest of this entry »

poem by Nisi Shawl

down

it’s the ceaselessness of snow

that amazes me;

so many so soft impacts,

such desultory swirls and aimless drifts.

the darkness of the sky;

the lightness of the ground;

small differences, piling up.

review by Brian Charles Clark

Bird lovers, animal lovers, people watchers, rejoice: the not-be-missed The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is back with more of everything. More parrots, updates on bohemian ornithologist Mark Bittner and director Judy Irving, plus a slew of other material amounting to nearly five hours of DVD-watching pleasure crammed onto two discs.

For those who’ve already seen the film, the biggest bonus may be the update on Mark Bittner, the lovable, idealistic, keen-eyed amateur ornithologist who observed, cared for and befriended a flock of wild parrots living on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. Not wanting to spoil the film’s ending for first-time viewers, I’ll merely say the ending is somewhat wrenching, so it’s good to know what became of Bittner. Read more on Curled Up With A Good DVD…

review by Brian Charles Clark

Maybe it’s because I don’t have kids, but when I sat down to watch Please Vote for Me I figured I was in for a lighthearted romp. Foolish me. As any parent will know, children are mean and vicious and will stoop to anything in order to get elected.

Although the third graders in Wiejun Chen’s delightful and frightening film may be new to democracy, they instantly get what it takes to win an election. First, pick on your opponent’s weak points by exaggerating the truth of those weaknesses. If that doesn’t persuade your fellow classmates to vote for you, then try lying and bribery. Never mind that the position being vied for is class monitor; these kids go at it as if they were running for ruler of the world. Read more on Curled Up With A Good DVD…

When Nisi read at Book People in Moscow, Idaho recently, a young woman interning as a reporter for Yin Radio (based at KRFP FM in Moscow) recorded her reading. You can now hear that reading via an MP3 on Yin Radio’s site. Nisi read all of “Bird Day” and part of “Wallamelon.” The 53-minute program also includes Kim Barnes reading from her new novel, A Place Called Home, as well as a piece on Coco Umiker, a food science grad student at WSU (one of my public relations interns wrote about her major professor here) who is a partner in a winery down the hill in Lewiston, Idaho.