"Twelve Tones" by Vi Hart

Hilarious head-cracking brilliance. It was somewhere between "a lovely burnt umber Segway" and calling Stravinsky a "horse-faced fascist" that I started to research cyber-stalking penalties:

Pam Saulsby Profile in INDY Week

cover photo by Jeremy M. Lange

I wrote the cover story for this week's INDY, learning about "the struggle" of local celebrity newscaster Pam Saulsby, whom I grew up watching on WRAL, after she was fired from that job before landing at WNCN one tumultuous year later. Read it here.

"Ludic" in Drunken Boat

The latest issue of Drunken Boat is online and includes a track from The Lion's Face, my sound collaboration with the poet Tim Van Dyke.

Listen to "Ludic" here.

"That's So Durham!"

Last night I was alone on Parrish Street, waiting. I stood under a streetlight, yo-yo-ing. It was very misty and cool. Out in the country, the storms had felled trees, but the city just looked washed. Eventually a couple walked by on the other side of the street. “A guy with a yo-yo,” the woman cried out, half to the man and half to me. “That’s so Durham!” She seemed really thrilled. I smiled agreeably and made some jokes about a sitcom called “That’s So Durham!” The couple continued to scroll by throughout this exchange, never breaking stride. The yo-yo cascaded down and reeled back up, went out seeking and brought something back. Suddenly it felt like a fishing line in my hand. The street was always between us but Parrish is not wide. We wished each other good night as they flowed out of earshot, although a conclusive roar of “I love Durham!” could be heard down the block. There was a strange vividness to the moment. I had brought my yo-yo with me just to impose some buoyancy on one of those days where a lot of weightless moments had somehow accumulated into an oppressive ton. But it wound up opening this other door too, this other connection, and I was inexplicably glad to play that role for her: the friendly local eccentric (what could be less threatening than a guy with a yo-yo?), the serendipitous vantage. It felt good to momentarily slip out of my perspective and feel myself as a feature in a tableau—some rare local bird, an image with a thought buried somewhere deep inside, a no-doubt dramatic to behold silhouette yo-yo-ing in a circle of light on a dark empty street. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I live in Chapel Hill.

Wax Wroth Reading Series #6: kathryn l. pringle + Tons of Peeps

i’m not saying this to scare you but goodbye.

—from “fault tree” by kathryn l. pringle

Continuing its long, slow trek through Triangle cafes, art-spaces and gutted garages, the Wax Wroth Reading Series returns in a new location—The Carrack Modern Art, Durham’s premier zero-commission gallery—to welcome award-winning poet kathryn l. pringle back to Durham.

4 by Borges at the Atlanta Poets Group Blog

Some metaphysical bedtime stories for you - me reading 4 by Borges with some light musical accompaniment (and a light head cold, unfortunately) at the Atlanta Poets Group's blog. Check out that vintage file photo of me John Lowther pulled from the time when Marcus Slease wrecked my face in Atlanta, and I bled all over John's house.

Three new Pitchfork reviews of really interesting albums, including a well-earned Best New Music for Jon Hopkins' tremendous ambient/dance record Immunity:

Jon Hopkins: Immunity

Eluvium: Nightmare Ending

Cocorosie: Tales of a Grass Widow

Deerhunter Quakes the Carrack Modern Art

by Brian Howe on April 25 2013

If you hadn’t heard that an indie-famous Atlanta rock band was scheduled to play a secret show in Durham by the morning of April 23, you certainly caught wind of it that night if you were anywhere near the Carrack Modern Art. Deerhunter didn’t concede much volume to the small space. Instead, they seemed to greet it with added ferocity, and their clangorous music cascaded through the open windows behind them, down onto a startled Parrish Street.