Monchhichis: monkey-like, but not quite monkeys

For some reason Monchhichis popped into my head today. Perhaps because I've been painting my son's nursery and thinking about how I want to decorate it with monkeys and what exactly that means. My love of monkeys is no secret and I have no doubt that folks will probably give my little guy monkey paraphernalia at the baby shower and maybe the rest of his or my life. One thing not everyone realizes is that not all monkeys are cute. Some are downright freakish, like the Monchhichi. I had one of these as a kid. It was the girl Monchhichi with a pink bow in her hair. One of the doll's features was her ability to suck her thumb. At least, hypothetically, since cramming her hard plastic thumb into the hole that was her mouth in her hard plastic face was quite the challenge.

According to Wikipedia, "Monchhichis were monkey-like creatures who lived in the forest land of Monchia at the very top of tall trees well above the clouds. The tribe's leader, Wizzar, was a magical wizard who could make up spells and potions to defeat their enemy, the evil Grumplins of Grumplor."

WTF?

Hey, little girl. Stop loving your Monchhichi or you'll never get a date to the prom.

"Can you actually disassemble a monkey?"

Saw this comic strip while over a friend's house today. Theirs is one of the few houses that still gets a physical newspaper delivered. I miss reading the so-called "funny pages." Of course, very little of it is actually funny. Most of it is dumb. This is a mix of both.

"Gossip Gorilla" by Tom Gliatto

I stumbled upon this while browsing through the archives at McSweeney's Internet Tendency. I remember reading a gossip column when I was a kid and it made no sense to me at all. Such columns still make no sense to me since I don't know or care who they're talking about. It turns out I just needed to read one written by a gorilla.

"Gossip Gorilla"

What Bengal tiger doesn't want you to know that he used to work with Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas? ... The python has gone on the Zone diet—didn't like the portions on Jenny Craig. Whatever she tries, it's better than when she was doing the coffee enemas ... You've been wondering why a certain lady giraffe is always hiding behind a tree. I'll tell you why. Now that she's of a certain age, as they say, she's ashamed of the way her neck is wrinkling. Heard it from the tapir, and if there's anyone you can trust it's a tapir ... Question going around: Why is the leopard's fur so mangy? It looks like shag carpet in a porn movie ... OK, you know how the elephants Bilbo and Nimrod are best buddies since infancy? Then they get to a certain age and they start walking around holding trunks and blowing on each others' ears and hosing down each other in the fountain? Maybe it was puberty, everyone figured. Now they're putting their coconuts into a joint account. They've exchanged peanuts. The guys say it's no big deal, that it's spiritual, like Oprah and Gayle. All I know is, you haven't seen the elephant elders so worked up since Dumbo's mother had her breakdown ... The chimpanzees, Mabel and Mack? They think intelligent design is when you push a button in your cage and you automatically get an oatmeal cookie through the food slot ... Today's wisdom is from Coquette the meerkat: "You live in a zoo, the only natural predator you got to worry about is yourself. My brother gnawed off his own foot, and now he's got the sepsis. Why'd he do it? We'll never know. He doesn't know. But now he's got the sepsis." ... Here's why you zookeepers trained yours truly, Miss Opposable Thumbs, to text-message, whereas you give the polar bears a plastic milk carton to turn over and over like it's a Rubik's Cube. Mimsy the polar bear complains she's losing sleep over global warming—she's scared she's going to melt. This is the same genius who rejected her cub because she didn't recognize it as a baby—she freaked and thought it was Mini-Me ... The zebra is off to the vets, I hear. Ingrown stripes ... Those aren't crocodile tears leaking out of the crocodiles' eyes: With the market tanking, they've got as much chance to build equity in that fancy new reptile house as they do to eat the foot off Michael Phelps ... The penguins started out marching. Next thing you know, they're running in formation. Then they're goose-stepping. And now George Stephanopoulos reports they're lobbying to meet Hugo Chávez. And you ask me what is it I have against penguins! ... Advice to Hilly the lemur: Your friends are sick of you and your "I am the missing link" shtick. The only thing missing is your marbles ... The toucan finally figured out the $64,000 question. You know the melody the kiwi is always massacring? Everyone thought it might be "Born Free." Wrong. "I Believe I Can Fly." Cute or pathetic? You decide ... Weekends, Glenda and Joey, the llamas, work at the petting zoo down the street. Nothing to be ashamed of, right, being petted? ... Spotted at the baboons' party last night: baboons! ... Kimba the cougar gums his meat ... Liz Smith came by today, tried to bribe me with a banana. Sorry, honey, I don't share sources. And next time try an oatmeal cookie.

(Tom Gliatto, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, 11/24/08)

Not for Mothers Only: Contemporary Poems on Child-Getting and Child-Rearing Edited by Catherine Wagner and Rebecca Wolff

As a poet and a mother-to-be, Not for Mothers Only: Contemporary Poems on Child-Getting and Child-Rearing (2007 Fence Books) has been on my radar screen a long time. I remember coveting it at the Fence Books table at AWP last year, in fact, well before we were actually pregnant ("we" meaning me and my wife, not me and Fence Books, an entity with which I have no children). I had first read about the book online, so I was surprised at its heft when I physically held an actual copy. It's over 460 pages, which makes it comparable to carrying around a copy of the New Testament - another book that some might argue goes on too long.

But the Bible it isn't, nor is it one of those Hallmarky collections of overly sentimental poems about little feet and new beginnings. Though, I admit, I am a sucker for sentiment, done well, of course. And I think Not for Mothers Only could've benefited from a little more warmth. A lot of these poems feel like overly academic explorations and/or cooly removed ruminations of "child getting and child rearing" (the poems from Norma Cole and Akilah Oliver are a good example of this). I think some further paring would make this a tighter collection. Also, I noticed a good number of typos throughout.

Not that there aren't good things to be found here. I discovered Pam Rehm, for one, and am eager to read more of her work. You can read her poem "Indebted," which is included in the collection, at durationpress.com.

Susan Holbrook's "Nursery" was a surprising favorite. Surprising because it is really dense and really long (meaning there are no line breaks so the text just engulfs the five and a half pages it spans). According to the book, after giving birth, Holbrook "decided to make her mothering life work for, rather than against, her writing, and started composing a line every time she nursed the baby." Every line starts with "Right" or "Left," depending on which breast she's on. Here are the first two lines: "Left: Trace pictograph of an elk in the fine veins of your temple. Right: If it were a Virgin Mary we'd be on the news." Not all of the lines are this brilliant. Some are only two words ("Left: not again") or feel more like what one mom might Twitter to another ("Left: Ugh, plugged ducts"), but the over all concept is awesome and the result is a surprisingly intimate ride-along, if you will, of the nursing experience between these two people.

Michigan is well represented in this collection: Thylias Moss and Amy Sara Carroll from University of Michigan, Christine Hume from Eastern Michigan University, Carla Harryman from Western Michigan University.

At least two poems in Not for Mothers Only mention monkeys: "At the Door" by Jean Valentine ("Chimpanzee of longing, / outside the light, / wrap your long arms / around the globe of light") and Maxine Chernoff's "Identity Principle" ("...twins, those clever monkeys, allowed to eat at table").

Maureen Owen's "Bedtime" is one of my favorite poems from Not for Mothers Only, and incidentally one of the shortest.

Bedtime
I have this power     At night
I kiss three people     minutes later
they are all sound asleep     the bizarre
& the miraculous     are the same thing.

(Maureen Owen, from Not for Mothers Only, 2007 Fence Books)

The secret lives of poets

My friend Claire sent me this quote from Overheard in New York (if you are not familiar with this site, go there and get acquainted. It's a wonderful thing):

Man reading Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?: "What? Poets do not write poetry all day! They work shitty jobs in design firms and sell things to assholes from San Diego! (turns page) And writers don't write all day! They pick up laundry for Park Slope bitches!"
--Overheard by: Amused Bookseller, Children's Section, Barnes & Noble, Court Street

The Tangled Line by Tod Marshall from Canarium Press

Book-length collections of poetry aren't usually an easy read for me. It usually takes me a very long time to read a book of poems, most likely because I know too much about poetry now so reading also takes on a "studying" quality. It's like that Aerosmith song, "I don't want to miss a thing." Sometimes it hurts my brain. The slow reading, not Aerosmith.

So reading The Tangled Line by Tod Marshall was a good change of pace for me in that I read it straight through in a short amount of time. It's a good book. Not great, not life changing, not something I will be revisiting over and over until I'm familiar with it on a know-it-by-heart basis, but good, solid writing.

The Tangled Line is one of the first books published by Canarium Books, which was spawned by Josh Edwards with the help of the University of Michigan Creative Writing Program, which is where Josh and I got our MFAs. (I say "Josh and I" like we're BFFs, but we're not, though we did attend the program together. He's a good guy. A handsome guy. A fine writer. But not my boyfriend. Just to make things clear lest I be accused of misrepresenting.) Josh and Canarium were mentioned in the latest issue of Poets & Writers in the "Small Press Points" column. So that's pretty cool.

If Marshall's book is any indication, I expect further handsome little volumes of smart, interesting, maybe even a little hip poetry to follow.

My favorite poem of Marshall's from his new book is "Describe Wildflowers to Ethics." I love the incongruous imagery and the sounds of the thing. Perhaps, also, it's because I, too, will have a little boy soon and will have to deal with all sorts of penis-related issues I have never before had to consider.

Describe Wildflowers to Ethics

The ground gives a push. Rocks applaud,
and nearby, waterfalls like rivers of joyful tears--
that time laughing so hard at my son
toddling around the house
with an erection on which he'd hung
the friendship bracelet from the Bible People
that said "What Would Jesus Do?"
Answer that one and you might be able to see
those purples, reds, and yellows
the subtle lavender gloss, sheeny pinks,
even the over-the-top oranges,
and not be tempted to pick the explosive petals
to press into a notebook
with the desperate hope
you could one day open the pages
and say as it was, so it shall be. Try again,
write scribbles of smoke against the sky--
fillyum trillium birdfoot violet blueflag.
Try paintbrush, buttercup, try please. Try
fire and tears. Try greeny green green.

(Tod Marshall, from The Tangled Line, 2009 Canarium Books.)

Patton Oswalt for Poet Laureate

If Patton Oswalt is making fun of poetry, doesn't that mean that poetry is hip? Kind of? I mean, he name drops Kay Ryan ("a fearsome, Sapphic wordsmith"), Stanley Kunitz, Wallance Stevens, and Hart Crane!

Patton Oswalt for Poet Laureate - watch more funny videos

Primate crack down in Connecticut

After the Travis the ape episode, Connecticut is not the place to be if you're keeping monkeys in your home.

The solution: no monkeys in the home. Get a dog.

"Sometimes a joke about monkeys is, well, just a joke about monkeys."

Response from Daniel Luzer on the Mother Jones blog regarding the Feb. 18 New York Post political cartoon by Sean Delonas that has some folks up in arms (yes, I'm a little behind the times on this) is the best response I've read so far:

"The truth is, it's not a good cartoon. Because it is an awkward attempt to combine two unrelated news stories, it doesn't resonate....You many not even get the cartoon at all (stimulus=monkey?), but that's understandable because it's not that funny; it's just not racist either. Sometimes a joke about monkeys is, well, just a joke about monkeys."

"Diplomacy by poetry..."

Hillary Clinton: diplomacy poet?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Asian Provocateur

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Feb. 26, 2009 was a very fruitful episode of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Poetry and monkeys!

"Just to clear the deck, I own no monkeys..."

Congress at work. Engaged in actual monkey business.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Felonious Monkeys

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Monkey jokes

Last night I went with my friend Lisa and her husband Alan to see Tenacious D at the Nokia Club in Los Angeles. I am not a Tenacious D fan (I think they're over rated and not that funny), but Alan is and since I am out visiting I was invited to come with. After seeing them live, my opinion of TD has not changed, except for a solidification of my previous feelings. They have a very good back up band, though.

I did like their opening acts, Craig Robinson (known and loved by me for his role as Darryl in The Office) backed by his band The Nasty Delicious, and comedian Nick Swardson. The whole thing was a fundraiser for The 24th Street Theatre, which seems to be a pretty cool organization.

As for what this has to do with poetry or monkeys, well, you may remember that horrible chimp attack story I posted about. Nick Swardson made jokes about it. He was also apparently in a movie called Grandma's Boy that had a monkey co-star, which he joked about as well. And he told a story about losing $300 in Vegas on Monkey High Five.

Hanging out at the Los Angeles Public Library

When I come to Los Angeles (where I am now) I often hang out at the Los Angeles Public Library while my best friend Lisa is at work. I do not come to LA for the library, I come for Lisa, but she has limited time off and works just a few blocks away from the library. It's the biggest library I have ever been in and I love to read so it's a fine way for me to spend my day. The only negative thing about the library is that it's the #1 favorite spot for LA's homeless. They come in and fall asleep in the comfy chairs, the police wake them up and they move to another spot to sleep. Sometimes they read or, as I saw frequently, intensely study papers they have brought with them. Don't get me wrong, the library should be free and open to everybody and I don't begrudge the homeless from using the library as a place to get out of the sun or to chill out and read. But it's hard to get engrossed in a book when I have to frequently move because the guy sleeping next to me smells like pee and sweat and all manner of "earthy" scents and has started to snore.

In any case, I spent two days at the library and my first day involved both monkeys and poetry.

On my reading list for quite some time has been The Adventures of Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey. It is now happily crossed off my list. It's weirder than I thought it would be, but not as good as I had hoped. Basically a toy monkey and toy crow drink heavily and get shot at by toy cannons. And there's enough tragic-comic death to be had by all.

Looking through the library's collection of current lit mags I found that Linda Gregerson just had a knockout poem published in the Winter 2009 issue of The Kenyon Review titled "Dido Refuses to Speak."

Also, Francine J. Harris is in the newest issue of Ploughshares. Her poem, "because when all is told, i love objects. even the threatening ones," is below. And is awesome.

"because when all is told, i love objects.
even the threatening ones."
-agnes nemes nagy

every few minutes, through a metal flue
the throat bursts into flames from the furnace
above my bed. it's the color
of fire. i can see the chokeholds catch.
fire ants carry off the heat
down the metal ducts, and the vents
push out the heat, which falls
down the walls behind me
in drapes.

i try to imagine
my mother's hair on fire.
that under her flame colored skin
were bones. that a skeleton smiles
on fire. that if a bone skeleton
tried to hold you, you would
run. that a bone
stack of fire would not run
but would come to you gently, outstretched
arms ablaze, flames still lapping at eyeballs
that were no longer there. that through
the rib of the bones you could
see her throat catch fire
every time she tried to explain
why she called the time operator at night
to listen to her voice. in her sleep
she would call out to her mother.
her throat on fire. the bones
churning the pillows.
people said she was a sweet woman.
sweet
was stuck to her
the way smiles are stuck
to skeletons.

someone had to tell me
you are supposed to put the pilot light out in spring
and turn off the gas.

(Francine J. Harris, from the Winter 2008-09 issue of Ploughshares)

Oh, great

David Orr argues in the New York Times that "for the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may be about to run out of greatness."

Ouch.

Killer chimps

Another good reason why chimps shouldn't be kept as pets.

Warning: this will wreck your day.

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