$650 apartment for $650: The Pretty Shit Contract Press

Before we get down to business, I have two amazing photos to show you. Please note that these are NOT taken off the web, these are childhood photos of my friend's old friend. Apparently his older brothers really had some fun with him. What did you do in the summer when school was out? Oh, just made my younger brother stage a couple'a mass murders:

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Anyways... I forgot to mention one awesome thing on Friday:

Surf guitar music! Michael Leviton is playing surf guitar and all the proceeds go to an animal shelter. Tomorrow:

Friday, Jan.18th
Bar Matchless
http://www.barmatchless.com/
557 Manhattan Ave. at Driggs
Weâ€™re on at 9:30pm
$6 suggested contribution to benefit cute animals

Michael also plays a lot of sea-fairing ukulele songs and you can check these out on his website: http://www.michaelleviton.com/news.php
AND

I forgot to mention one awesome thing happening on Sunday. Sommer Browning and Kate Greenstreet, besides being mindblowing poets, are also the most adorable people, and they are both reading, get this, at the same place! I have friends coming to my house on Sunday expecting to watch movies and eat spring rolls, but I may have to trick them into taking a break from that and coming to this reading with me. This is very close to my house:

440 Gallery and Ellen Chuse host
Brooke Shaffner's Reading Series
Sunday, January 20th from 4:30-6:00 pm
440 Sixth Avenue, between 9th and 10th Streets. TRAINS: F to 7th Ave, M & R to 4th Ave. BUS: B67 to 9th St., B75 to 6th Ave.vist us at http://www.440gallery.com

KATE GREENSTREET
Kate Greenstreet is the author of case sensitive (Ahsahta Press, 2006) and three chapbooks, Learning the Language (Etherdome Press, 2005), Rushes (above/ground press, 2007), and This is why I hurt you (Lame House Press, forthcoming). Her poems have appeared in Conduit, Barrow Street, Pool, 26, Xantippe, and other journals. Her second book, The Last 4 Things, will be out from Ahsahta in 2009. Visit her online at kickingwind.com.

JOSHUA HARMON
Joshua Harmon is the author of Quinnehtukqut, a novel. His fiction, nonfiction, and poems have appeared in many journals, and he has received fellowships in fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. He teaches at Vassar College.

SOMMER BROWNING
Sommer Browning writes poems in Brooklyn. Her poems have appeared in New York Quarterly, spork, Forklift, Ohio and elsewhere. Vale Tudo, her chapbook, will be out with horse less press soon. If you're ever in Williamsburg, visit her at the poetry series she hosts at Pete's Candy Store.

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I've been having weird panic attacks this week about different things. Which basically means I can't, quickly enough, rationalize myself into a calm space. My space is like neon static that clings to every tree limb, pulling at the leaves, looking deceptively windy when there's hardly a light breeze. And there are 1,000 thin red kites dangling from my shoulder blades that I can't cut off nor enable them to catch a cloud & pull me up.

Pat me on the head & bring a hotair balloon basket. Let's go for a spin. And a picnic. I'll trade my panic for your picnic.

Sometimes, though, if you just wait it out, everything you want to have feel okay again actually becomes okay again. I have to remember this. For some reason, I thought looking at photos of elephants in snow would make me happy. Unfortunately, elephants do not usually hang out near snowbanks so this is what I got:
search for "snow elephants":