Today the post-
woman brought
me what at first
felt like a capital
letter.

Later, 
after a closer
reading, it came
across as a lower
case of déjà vu.

wednesday newstrip

Former childcare worker from Gold Coast charged with more than 1,600 child sex offences · a Tauranga funeral home convicted of illegal discharges of cremation smoke, which sickened & traumatized neighbors over the “dead bodies over our property”, will have to pay $85,000 · a zoo in China has been forced to deny that its sun bears are "humans in disguise" after guests noticed the animals' uncanny resemblance to people while standing upright · Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the latest instalment in the popular game franchise, has an average completion time of 20-23 hours, according to Ubisoft · Indigenous experience of colonization now mandatory under school history overhaul · Sir Bob Geldof has revealed the heartbreaking text messages he received from Sinead O‘Connor just before her death · there will be two supermoons in August & one will be a blue moon.

Otoliths Issue seventy is now live

But first, to postpone the pain of having to confirm that this is, in fact, the last issue of Otoliths, a couple of notices from friends. Jeffrey Side has asked that the word be put about that he's looking for guest bloggers for his eponymous blog. Not poems — he has another site for that — but one where "The posts would not need to be as long as articles, and could (though not necessarily) cover topical issues in the poetry scene." His email is argotistonline AT gmail DOT com. Plus sandy press have recently published a new collection, with the slow-paced turtle replaced by a fast fish, from some arcane poet named Mark Young. It's available from Amazon.

Now back to the true purpose of this email. Issue seventy, the southern winter, 2023, issue of Otoliths is now live. This last issue is immense & ranges from the dunes of Oceano across to the battlefields of Ukraine, from Scandanavia down to the unceded lands of South Australia. It contains reviews, memoirs, collages, photographs, paintings, vispo, text poems, short stories, videos, combinations of the preceding plus a few other things. Included are Satu Kaikkonen, Martin Edmond, Scott MacLeod, Ian Ganassi, Stephen Bett, Eric Hoffman, R L Swihart, S. K. Kelen, Demosthenes Agrafiotis, Jack Galmitz, Bob Kotyk, Jon Wesick, Marzi Margo, Daniel Lehan, Vernon Frazer, Thomas M. McDade, Jennifer Weigel, Giovanni Fontana, Carlyle Baker, Laurie Kuntz, Lynn Strongin, Sanjeev Sethi, Christopher Barnes, Ferran Destemple, Vaishnavi Kolluru, Brandstifter, C. Mehrl Bennett, & John M. Bennett, Marc Isaac Potter, Texas Fontanella, John Bradley, Laura Jeannerette, Heath Brougher, Nate Logan, Paul Perilli, Joseph Buehler, Mike Callaghan, Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter, Paul Dickey, Yuan Changming, Grzegorz Wróblewski, Christian ALLE, Bill Yarrow, Jim Leftwich, Dale Jensen, Judith Roitman, Richard Kostelanetz, Laurent Grison, Maileen Hamto, Sabine Miller, Alison Ross, Javant Biarujia, Carla Bertola, Alberto Vitacchio, Nathan Anderson, Ken Poyner, Jim Meirose, Márton Koppány, Tom Formaro, John M. Bennett (Vispo), Patrick Sweeney, Pamela Miller, petro c. k., Karen J. Weyant, C. Mehrl Bennett, m@, Kirsty Lewin, Hrishikesh Srinivas, József Bíró, Daniel Barbiero, Rus Khomutoff, Pat Nolan, Kimberly Kuchar, Randee Silv, DS Maolalai, Michael J. Leach, Mark Cunningham, Dmitriy Shandra, Carol Stetser, Sterling Warner, Texas Fontanella & Michael Orr, David Wolf, Dave Read, Sheila E. Murphy, Sheila E. Murphy & K.S. Ernst, Tony Beyer, harry k stammer, John M. Bennett (text poetry), Tom Beckett, Rosella Quintini, Michael Gottlieb, Karl Kempton, Joshua Martin, Cecelia Chapman, Mark DuCharme, Réka Nyitrai, jim mccrary, Doren Robbins, Philip Kobylarz, George Myers Jr., Adam Fieled, Hugh Tribbey, Alan Chong Lau, Jacklyn Henry, Harrison Fisher, Kenneth Rexroth, Thomas Fink, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Ed Go, Pete Spence, Adriána Kóbor, Jerome Berglund, Roberta Beach Jacobson, Joseph Salvatore Aversano, Jeff Harrison, Stephen Nelson, Joe Balaz, Bob Heman, Bob Lucky, Liz Teuber, John McCluskey, Gavin Lucky, Elaine Woo, Rahul Santhanam, Debbie Strange, Steve Carll, Diana Magallón, Opal Louis Nations & Peter Cherches, KJ Hannah Greenberg, Susan Gangel, Jeff Bagato, Nathan Whiting, Guy R. Beining, Tim Frank, John Levy & Alan Chong Lau, Linda King, J.I. Kleinberg, Ella O'Keefe & Tim Wright, Jurate Sasnaitis, Hifsa Ashraf and R.C. Thomas, Harvey Huddleston, Glenn Ingersoll, David A. Bishop, dan raphael, Dennis Andrew S. Aguinaldo, Karl Kempton ( a review), Jonathan Cant, Pam Brown, Penelope Weiss, Bernie Earley, Keith Nunes, Anne-Marie Jeanjean, Eddie Heaton, Robert Burton, Alan Catlin, John Kucera, Steven Salmoni, Jessica Grim, Rick Henry, Cherie Hunter Day, Pete Smith, Tony Cosentino & K.S. Ernst, K.S. Ernst, Charles Freeland, Tejaswinee Roychowdhury, Jane Downing, David Jalajel, Antonio Devicienti, Eileen R. Tabios, Damon Hubbs, Eric Lunde, John Tustin, Robert Frede Kenter, Keith Higginbotham, John Digby & Bill Wolak, Bill Wolak, berni m janssen, Jill Jones, Barnaby Smith, Marty Hiatt, Peter Yovu, Mark DeCarteret, Mark DeCarteret & Wayne Atherton, Bruno Neiva, Susan Connolly, Irmak Canevi, Irena Tall, Michael Vecchio, John Levy, Tatiana Novikova, Caitlyn Steer, Edward Kulemin, Olchar E. Lindsann, Matthew Platakos, Jessica Dejanovic, Colleen Woods, Sarah Legow, Bobbi Lurie, Rico Cleffi, Linda M. Walker, Pearl Button, Kit Kennedy, J. D. Nelson, Mark Melnicove, nick nelson, fred flynn, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Cy Forrest, nicky melville, Edinburgh Mews, Volodymyr Bilyk, Marcia Arrieta, Makenzie Matthews-Beard, & Mark Young.

& finally, a sincere note of thanks to all of you who have made Otoliths the substantial & much-loved publication it is today.

Enjoy. Be sad.

Thank you for all your support.

Apparently / Google doesn't / even trust itself

Today the post-
woman brought
me what looked 
like some sort 

of interrogation
tecnhique. I had
to ask her: is this 
a glottal stop

ʔ

wednesday newstrip

Twitter to rebrand to X & drop blue bird, says Elongated Muskrat · paramedic makes housecall & finds a man who’s had an amorous encounter with a meter-long mop · Barbie & Oppenheimer smash the box office around the world · "I am become Shiva, the destroyer of worlds" said Barbie, while Oppenheimer looked pretty in pink · drug found in toddler's autopsy matches police seizure · YouTube personality & longtime MrBeast collaborator Kris Tyson has come out as transgender in a joyful interview · Tony Bennett’s family find solace in his ‘musical legacy’ in the wake of his passing · Netanyahu has pacemaker fitted on eve of pivotal Knesset vote on the government’s highly contentious judicial overhaul · DoNuts T.®ump calls the United States a third-world country run by perverts.

wednesday newstrip

Dingoes allegedly becoming more fearless as rangers consider fate of animals involved in Queensland island attack · parents of toddler who 'miraculously' survived after ingesting fantasy sent to prison · extreme heatwave: Greece battles to contain wildfires as temperature in Italy forecast to hit 46C · turning offices to residences is touted as a housing fix for a work-from-home era, but a $520,000 listing takes the brief too literally · Margot Robbie is slammed by Americans for talking with her Aussie accent while on the press tour for Barbie · cheers, standing ovation at celebration of the world's first openly transgender elected politician, New Zealander Georgina Beyer's colorful life · scientists vibrated a box of particles & they formed a strange new material.

wednesday newstrip (again courtesy of Rupert Murdoch)

'We'll rue the day NACC (the Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission) was founded' · ‘gutless’: Prince Harry slammed for letting world believe Royal Family was racist · DoNuts T.®ump blasts 'crackhead' attorney after White House cocaine discovery · ‘Boss moment:’ Kate involved in ‘brilliant takedown’ of Harry & Meghan’s racism claims · voters 'will make Biden pay' at the ballot box after the Supreme Court sunk his half-baked student loan forgiveness program · Australian eco-zealots are heading for a messy divorce with green energy · Princess of Wales masterminded royal response to Sussexes' Oprah interview · 'monsters:' Alex Stein blasts Biden family as 'evil' for refusing to acknowledge grandchild · ‘this is obscene:’ advocates calling for a ban on DoNuts T.®ump Jr.’s visit to Australia criticized · left-wingers have created a ‘new science’ for gender & identity · Meghan Markle warned there’s ‘no future with Harry’ if she wants to ‘save her career.’

wednesday newstrip

Scientists have finally 'heard' chorus of gravitational waves that ripple through universe · 2 people are dead · 28 people were injured in mass shooting at a Baltimore block party · Aussie TikToker ‘accidentally’ spends $10k on Taylor Swift tickets amid fan frenzy · US Supreme Court backs businesses refusing same-sex couples · the last refugee held on Nauru was evacuated to Australia after 10 years, it has been announced · France to deploy 45,000 police to tackle riots. Macron blames video games, social media · New Zealand doctor tells woman to drink '4 cans of Coca-Cola' to remove chicken bone from throat · Canada is going to war with Google, & it might not win · European Space Agency launches new telescope to find dark matter.

Today the post-
woman brought 
me the DVD 
of Peter Quince
eating caviar 
that prompted the
well known poem  
by Wallace Stevens.

wednesday newstrip

US approves chicken made from cultivated cells, the nation's first 'lab-grown' meat · US navy detected an ‘anomaly’ that was likely the Titan's implosion but only realized that was what it was after loss of contact with the submersible was reported · the owner of the Wagner private military contractor escalated his direct challenge to the Kremlin on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia’s defence minister · it has been revealed that multiple versions of Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are currently in cinemas · turn your phone off every night for five minutes, Australian Prime Minister tells residents · Pasifika health professionals are defending a new formula that uses ethnicity to prioritise patients for non-urgent surgery in Auckland, saying it will help address racism in the health system · clash over LBGTQ+ decor at Starbucks leads to planned strikes at more than 150 stores in US.

wednesday newstrip (courtesy of Rupert Murdoch)

Meghan Markle ‘cutting the chain’ from ‘mentally disturbed’ Prince Harry · Australian men jump position in global penis size ranking · New Zealand police patrol streets amid soaring youth crime · Joe Biden ‘making up for lost time’ despite never being ‘good on gay rights’ · ‘Other groups’ besides women interested in receiving uterus transplants · London Mayor Sadiq Khan has produced an “inclusivity guide” for his staff to tell them “what they can & cannot say” · Sky News Australia host reacts to latest ‘lefty lunatic’ · Russian cyber hackers compromise top-secret defensive data in historic breach · Harry & Meghan ‘$20 million’ Spotify deal cancelled · direct conflict between Putin & NATO military units on the ground in Ukraine 'the next logical step' after Zelensky's failed counter-offensive.

geographies : Natimuk

 

The back lawn, in black & white, after the sprinkler's done its work

Six Australian white ibis with their black heads

Four magpie larks

Two willie wagtails

& a magpie, just come along
to see what all the fuss is about

it's amazing what turns up!

(click on image to enlarge)

wednesday newstrip

‘Big Penis USA’ pills banned in Australia over undeclared substance · Australian Tax Office data shows 66 millionaires paid no income tax in 2020-21 · El Nino under way, raising fears of extreme weather patterns · Tjuwanpa Women Rangers sharpen shooting skills in mission to control feral cats in central Australia · DoNuts T.®ump says he's been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate · BoreUs(NoMoreNow) Johnson standing down from UK House of Commons after being told he will be sanctioned for misleading Parliament · Utah parent successfully blocks Bible from schools.

Today the post-
woman brought
me a birthday
card from the
Marquis de
Sade. Not for
me, I told her,
two houses up
the road. I ran
to retrieve it
the minute she
was out of sight.

Now available

Now out from sandy press.


Mark Young
with the slow-paced turtle replaced by a fast fish
sandy press, 2023
94 pages
$US 19.95
ISBN: 978-1736816066
Available through Amazon

Mark Young's language is at once familiar, sprinkled with unusual words beloved of the philologist in us. There is a Magritte-like gap between image and object, with a title that sounds as though it comes from a fable by La Fontaine. These are poems for the Zeitgeist, poems of the Internet Age and post-colonialism, a demystification couched in at times mysterious language. Poems written in a demotic language, apocalyptic, cynical, utopian and always beautiful, stripping pop-culture illusions bare while creating new myths, a deliberate misreading to create new truths. You think you know what's coming in Young's work, but there are always twists and turns enough to surprise you and catch you out; his latest collection, with the slow-paced turtle replaced by a fast fish, does not disappoint.

—Javant Biarujia, author of Pointcounterpoint: Selected and new poems, Resinations, and Spelter to Pewter. Creator of the Taneraic language and compiler of its comprehensive dictionary.

There's a sampler available at sandy press.

wednesday newstrip

Three more insurance companies including Tokio Marine have left a United Nations-backed net-zero climate alliance, leaving the group with about half the number of members it counted two months ago as insurers take fright at political pressure from some Republican politicians · ‘last resort:’ government faces legal action to force repatriation of Australians from Syrian refugee camps · Australia's 'misery index' up 220 per cent in a year due to rate rises, inflation · new evidence suggests Russia deliberately targeting schools in Ukraine · Whitehaven Coal's underground mine in northern New South Wales is polluting the atmosphere with more than three times the direct greenhouse gas emissions it forecast it would emit when it received environmental approval in 2015 · popular pub in Adelaide under fire for offering free drinks to woman based on their bra size: 'the bigger the better.'

wednesday newstrip

An Indian government official has been suspended after he ordered the drainage of a two-million-liter dam so he could get his phone back, which he dropped while taking a selfie · researchers say the US city of Manhattan is sinking at a rate of two millimeters a year · in a study published in the journal Science last week, a team of international researchers reported that more than half of the world's large lakes & reservoirs had shrunk since the early 1990s due to climate change, unregulated water use, & dam construction · widely available vape products have been found to contain toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, mercury, nickel, chromium, antimony, aluminium, iron, & nickel, along with known carcinogens like formaldehyde & nicotine, according to new tests · ‘Shops will close’: soaring cost of potatoes batters British chippies.