My favorite living singer/poet; David Berman is now blogging. Long ago I wrote the only fan letter I think I have ever written and sent it to this guy.  For some reason all I remember writing was this long and true story I had heard about Walt Disney. Apparently when Walt was a little kid he was playing under a tree and a baby owl fell out of the tree and landed on young Walt. It scared him to death, he was so startled he grabbed the owl and flung it against the trunk of the tree, hard. It died and Walt felt very remorsefull. Which is why if you watch the old Disney films that were made when he was alive there is always the theme of owls and death. Two subjects Disney was obsessed with.

Dave Berman wrote back postmarked the day after September 11th. He just enclosed a broken airline frequent flyer mile card.

Take a trip to Dave Berman’s Menthol Mountains.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
-Newton

Working on a possible collaboration with Jason of Floating World comics for Arthur Magazine. Tentatively titled “Weirdo Comix”. Should be fun. More on this shortly, right now it’s just a twinkle in the mind’s eye and I shouldn’t even be mentioning it. Shhh!

While proofreading the rough draft of the novel I am working on, I have come across a boatload of words in my book that aren’t in my spellcheck. Here are a dozen of my favourites, some of them surprising.

1. glossolalia

2. androgyne

3. Meth

4. nutballs

5. Bardo

6. SpaghettiOs

7. hobosexual

8. Aryurvedic

9. metamorphosize

10. cantrip

11. synesthesia

12. Robotussin

13. sinopia

After a long period of inactivity I expect to be posting here a little more frequently. I am changing the format of Axe Handle Collective to quarterly only. So, I will have more time to focus on my own projects. Like revising and editing my full length novel! A process I have been up to my neck in lately. More on that soon.