Earthly Delights

Drink Me.

Rhapsodomancy, a Reading Series in Los Angeles, announces the writers reading on August 27, 2006:

TONY BARNSTONE MIKE SONKSEN TESS. LOTTA KATE SOTO

Sunday, August 27, 2006
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:15pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com
$3 suggested donation at door; a portion of the proceeds will benefit a nonprofit organization.
There will be a cash bar.

Tony Barnstone is Associate Professor of Creative Writing and English at Whittier College, and has published his poetry, fiction, essays and translations in dozens of major American journals. His books include Sad Jazz: Sonnets; Impure: Poems by Tony Barnstone; The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry; Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry; Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei; The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters; and the textbooks Literatures of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Literatures of Asia, and Literatures of the Middle East. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, Barnstone lived for years in Greece, Spain, Kenya and China before taking his Masters in English and Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English Literature at UC Berkeley. His poetry, translations, essays on poetics, and fiction have appeared in dozens of American literary journals, from APR to Agni. He has won poetry awards from the Paumanok Poetry Award, the Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize, The Sow's Ear Poetry Contest, the Milton Dorfman Poetry Prize, the National Poetry Competition (Chester H. Jones Foundation), the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry, the Cecil Hemley Award, and the Poetry Society of America. His forthcoming books are a translation of the selected poems of Han Shan as well as a number of textbooks for Prentice Hall Publishers, including The Pleasures of Poetry: An Introduction, World Literature (two volumes), and Modern Poetry: An Anthology with Contexts, among others. He is currently marketing on two new books of poems and a critical book titled The Poetics of the Machine Age: William Carlos Williams and Technological Modernism.

Mike Sonksen, also known as, Mike the Poet, is a Los Angeles-based writer spoken word poet, widely acclaimed for his live performances, contributions to international publications & legendary city tours. For over a decade, Mike has performed at numerous venues: bookstores, museums, nightclubs, art galleries. From the page to the stage his work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Kotori, Anthem, L.A. Weekly, L.A. Citybeat, L.A. Alternative Press, O.C. Weekly, and the Long Beach Business Journal. Mike's energy was instrumental as co-founder of the webzine Getunderground.com. & the last 4 years with Jointz magazine. His poem "I've Seen the Best Minds of My Generation, was licensed by Scion. Mike's forthcoming book I Am Alive in Los Angeles! captures the energy of the City of Angels. The CD of the same name was given 4 Stars by URB Magazine & UK tastemaker magazine Straight No Chaser says, "The appeal of I Am Alive in Los Angeles is its effortlessness. All lovers of intricate wordplay, add this to your list." Over the last decade Mike has also become known for his L.A. City Tours. As a 3rd generation LA native, his tours of Hollywood with Red Line Tours & the Museum of Neon Art incorporate poetry & L.A. history.

Tess. Lotta is an artist, musician, and writer of poetry and journalism. Her writing and photography have appeared in such publications as Clamor, BUST, Moxie, Rockrgrl, Knock, The Raven Chronicles, poeticdiversity, and The Stranger. She curates the Literati Cocktail reading series at the Space at Fountain’s End and publishes Experimental Candy, a lit and art webzine. Tess. is finishing her MA in English at CSU, Dominguez Hills while revising her poetry for publication. Information on her many creative projects can be found at www.litparlor.com.

Kate Soto is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles. Her poetry and essays have appeared in various journals, including Poetic Diversity, Andwerve, Women of Action Network, ValleyScene, Distinction Magazine, and an anthology of Los Angeles poets entitled Literary Angles. Her poetry explores desire and disillusion through language-infused lenses. She teaches creative writing to high school students through Spoken Interludes Next, blogs at booklust.wordpress.com, and is working on a start-up literary magazine entitled [sic]. She has an MFA from Antioch University.

local satisfactions

We had already begun practicing eating all meals in last week. Everyday there was a salad to prepare and the clicking of plastic containers as lunches were prepped and taken away to work. Our menus were planned since Sunday, and each night there was a short bout of cooking and the enjoyable dinner afterwards. So when the news came that one of our jobs had to likely slash hours in the coming months, the need for cooking every meal and abstaining from the decadence of ordering in or eating out became much more absolute.

This last Sunday, we planned a week of meals in our pajamas and decided to forage in our neighborhood rather than drive out to Trader Joe's. The afternoon was hot, but not as humid or suffocatingly hot as the weekend before. As we walked up the street I was reminded of how little time I really spend on the streets of my neighborhood, how often I become easily annoyed by the trash and the slim sidewalks with no room to carry us all except single-file, and how often I simply get in my car and drive away, only to come back loaded down with grocery bags that I must negotiate from blocks away to the apartment and up three floors.

We walked up 3rd and purchased our grocery list items at one of the smaller stores of the three big supermarkets in the neighborhood. A salsa played, then a crooning love ballad in Spanish over the loudspeaker as we made our way through the aisles. While in search of cardamom, I realized what a treasure trove of spices we have in our neighborhood--I saw rosebuds, yerba mate, and other colorful, feathery, spindly, dried herbs in hundreds of bags all throughout the produce section. We found the Arabic bread, fresh basil, cucumber, zucchinis, chicken thighs, yogurt, brown rice, yellow onions, cilantro, scallions, tomatoes and ginger. At the cash register, our three canvas bags filled, the total was only $13.81. This was so absolutely satisfying. Here is our key to squeaking by while in this time of financial unknowns.

One more block up and we were at one of the numerous Halal groceries in our neighborhood, where we finally found the cardamom. I was pulled by the other spices and the sacks of dry chickpeas, split peas and rice, but our list was complete. A couple of hours later, my sweetie was downstairs in the backyard firing up the grill for the succulent grilled chicken breast seasoned with cilantro in pitas lined with cucumbers with cardamom yogurt we would have later.