wednesday newstrip

MAGA granny admits to grooming teen grandson to believe Democrats worship Satan · nuclear plan put forward by Australian Opposition leader, Putrid Dustbin, could cost as much as $600bn & supply just 3.7% of Australia’s energy by 2050, experts say · Israeli forces tie wounded Palestinian man to a military jeep in an incident a UN expert said amounted to using him as a human shield · a man who terrorised South Australia in a 10-year bank robbing spree has been sentenced to 35 years jail, but will instead take his own life under voluntary assisted dying laws · Philippines says it won't start a war, but won't yield 'to any foreign power' after clash in South China Sea · lost continent 'unlike anything found today' discovered off the coast of Australia · the Museum of Old & New Art (MONA) in Tasmania was found to have discriminated against a man who was refused entry to its women-only ‘Ladies Lounge’ in April 2023, despite paying the museum entry fee · Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the state must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary into the military, a decree with the potential to divide Prime Minister Beenjammin' NotJustAnyYahoo's governing coalition.

Today the post-
woman brought
me a brochure
from EARWAX—
extinct animal 
resurrection with 

academic expertise—
suggesting that if 
I donated both
money & a sample 
of my DNA they 
might be able 

to bring back 
the Amazonian 
smilodon. I de-
clined. Now if it 
had have been 
the mastodon. . .

wednesday newstrip

China-Australia relations 'back on track', says Chinese Premier Li Qiang · a remarkable group of Aussies stationed in Antarctica will celebrate the Winter Solstice in a very bold way, by swimming in freezing waters between -5 & -25 degrees celsius · Internet could be worsening our fear of small holes, psychologists say · ‘I need your help saving koalas’: Australians band together to build wildlife corridors · new Australian market research suggests the so-called 'bank of mum & dad' could be closing for business … despite its best intentions · old fools caught raiding Groper Creek for mud crabs.

wednesday thursday newstrip

Australian Opposition leader, Putrid Dustbin, is to pull Australia out of the Paris Agreement, & bring in nuclear power if his right-wing coalition wins the next election · Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has suffered a light whiplash injury after she was assaulted by a man in central Copenhagen, her office has said · grim scenes at Aldi as snow gear overflows "Special Buys" shelves bedcause it appears there's little snow this year · security experts have raised alarm over the vulnerability of older iPhone models, warning users with "outdated" tech are now more vulnerable to cyberattacks · survey reveals Australians distrust China & are losing faith in United States · don't know much about the clitoris? The International Cliteratti will help.

Now out from Otoliths

Otoliths has just released 100 Titles From Tom Beckett — Poems by Mark Young, Paintings by Thomas Fink, & with an Afterword by Tom Beckett.

Mark Young & Thomas Fink
100 Titles From Tom Beckett
full color
152 pages
ISBN: 978-0-6455483-3-4
$US37.75
Direct URL: https://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young-and-thomas-fink/100-titles-from-tom-beckett/paperback/product-nvwzp98.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Tom Beckett's list was challenging. Sure there were some straightforward titles; but when you're confronted by 'Some of America’s Finest Malapropisms Stagger into a Bar' or 'He hadn’t Always Wanted to be Somebody’s Girl' or 'The Nine Stages of the Decomposition of a Corpse.' it's definitely time to kick into overdrive.

Add to that a common comment on my poetry is many of my titles have little relevance to the poems that accompany them. That is something I could not allow to happen here. Instead, the poems had to pay their respect, homage even, to the title that gave them birth.

I think I have done that successfully. &, helped along by the paintings from Thomas Fink, given me a collection of which I am most proud.
— Mark Young


Mark Young’s insightful, laser-sharp new poems in 100 Titles From Tom Beckett invite paradox and chance to dance with the sparks and echoes of Tom Beckett’s hilarious, downtempo titles and Tom Fink’s paintings of spreading fractals and swirling ropes of color. Young’s humor and pathos sprinkled with inkblots of bathos illuminate this book. His magnetic fields tease the push/pull levers of constraint and release. “I seem to be attracted / to things that do not exist, no / beginning, no end. Non-end - // ities, if you like, until negated / which then creates them.” Young’s poems often playfully reflect upon their own development and diversion as they proceed, exposing an openness to process at each turn of phrase. It is a pure delight to see Young, Beckett, and Fink – three master poets in their own right – join hands in the creative adventure of this marvelously generous work.
— Charles Borkhuis, author of *Rearview Mirror*


Reading 100 Titles From Tom Beckett makes me recall something I’ve sometimes thought about Mark Young’s poems: if all words created a block, the poet made poems by chiseling some of them out to fall randomly on the floor; the poet then assembled the words into lines and poems surface through a music created by breath and syllablic rhythm. These poems then are unique in that Mark volunteers that he actually tried to make his poems relate to the titles given by Tom Beckett. And yet the leap between title and text is not (always) linear, might be considered opaque in some cases, so that the reader's freedom of response is not diminished. What’s relevant to me is seeing how Beckett’s titles are such strong muses for Young’s poems. These poems present the play of brotherhood, as affirmed by Thomas Fink’s paintings where colors and shapes effect a harmony that couldn’t have been anticipated by each individual element before the painter joined them. Poems can be created through a multitude of ways and these results indicate the generative effect of affectionate brotherhood, while affirming that poetry succeeds by creating relationships and connections.
— Eileen R. Tabios


[Lulu has a 15% discount — promo code BOOKGOALS15 — running this week until Friday night. Promo codes for future weeks can be found each Monday at the Lulu Press Facebook page.https://www.facebook.com/Luludotcom/]

Today the post-
woman brought
me the latest 

issue of Conspiracy 
Theory Quarterly 
in its plain alfoil 

wrapper. I waved 
to the spy satellite 
as I carried it in.
  

wedneday newstrip

Speaking outside the court after being convicted on 34 charges of falsifying business records, DoNuts T.®ump said he had been subject to a "rigged trial" by a "corrupt" judge, without providing any evidence to back up those claims · idiotic man fined for trying to 'body slam' orca off New Zealand coast · breast implant removals on the rise in Australia as researchers study health issues · Hellblade II tips for mastering the game’s visceral combat · accusations that DoNuts T.®ump has taken advantage of taxpayers by overcharging for lodging & travel for his Secret Service detail are once again being raised · ABBA receive Swedish knighthood for pop career that started at Eurovision · the ANC party that freed South Africa from apartheid loses its 30-year majority in landmark election.

The Wizard of Idiosyncrasy