"slam poetry was invented in chicago," said jessica with distaste.

FROM October 2, 2005

Flanked by an absurd seven-foot-tall wooden racquetball racquet that Miles had leaned against the bookcase and which made me feel like the incredibly shrinking woman, hit it or quit it's editorial braintrust stood today, together for the first time ever since Michiganfest 2002, in jr and miles' living room, and read verse aloud to one another from such books as the "left behind" series and the spin alternative record guide. impromptu salon or standup comedy?

j.r. recited some of hunter s. thompson's gonzo letters, including one tearing apart tom fucking wolfe and his honkey white suit, gallivanting in italy on a thousand-buck per diem, while hunter shits away in a mountain range avoiding the tax man, in perpetual 32-dollar exile, or something to that effect, with spikier words and a more finely targeted stream of vitriol. j.r.'s face flushed red when he got to the tax-man part, and jessica said "you could make a living reading thompson's words aloud." so you should hire him for that.

then he pulled out the ole back issues of forced exposure and read steve albini's road musings from big black's euro tour in like 1986, which appropriately detailed fucking, chicks, his unelaborated-upon disdain for french people, and fucking. of note: an archetypal rockstar proto-god-complex moment in which the groupie in his fantasy would call him "mozart" mid-climax. he also wrote of homosocial belgians in lederhosen who, reportedly, copped noticible boners in the front row for big black's set. "whatevs dot gov" is what i say to steve albini's 1986 penis fixation.

now we're making dinner. i had to ride jessica's bike to the supermercado for garlic and ginger cause we forgot, but yesterday we scored the last of the late-harvest peaches in all of chicago from the farmer's market. WHAT!

i just mashed some celery root with a whisk!