05 April 2004 - 2:27 a.m.

Assorted bits and pieces:

Oh, hee! The Tottenham Hotspurs have a poet laureate. (Via Poetry Daily. I stayed with a Hotspurs fan in Edinburgh four years ago...)

This morning, much to the astonishment of many present (including herself), our minister persuaded the congregation at both services to create several healthy ripples of The Wave (hearkening back to last year's Service of the Lively Tradition at General Assembly). I suspect it will go into the archives as one of the more memorable Canvass sermons delivered at First UU.

The New York Times (registration required) reports that editing manuscripts from countries under trade embargoes (Iran, Cuba, etc.) would be '"not constrained" by regulations from the [Treasury] department's Office of Foreign Assets Control,' at least for the IEEE (but presumably for the rest of the scholarly publishing community as well. I wonder about commercial publishing, though. Must keep an eye on this...) (Not that any of my current projects have anything to do with those particular countries, but given our government's head-up-its-ass approach to foreign policy. . .)

At First UU, the choir is preparing Randall Thompson's Alleluia for Easter Sunday. It was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky. Turns out one of the sopranos had sung it in college - under Koussevitsky's direction. Wow.

During "Joys and Concerns," someone lit a candle for the opening of baseball season. There was some confusion over whether it represented a joy or a concern given that he is a Red Sox fan. (I am not making this up.)

Wrote 600 words (two flash pieces) Friday night. The writing goals for this week are to finish a third flash piece and to draft four poems. (Modest, yes, but every night this week is spoken for, and I have three more notes I need to write before heading to bed...)

Reading-wise, the poem currently haunting me is one sent via Knopf's "Poem-a-Day" mailing list - Mark Strand's "I Will Love the Twenty-first Century." (Email me if you'd like me to forward it to you.) And a Chekhov/Carver poem currently upstairs on the far side of the room to which the sensible half of the household has already retired. Off to finish those notes...

One year ago: "A passion to witness, a talent for fury..."