AD.


Legendary Catasnowpiller crossing the creek – foto Smith

There come those mysterious helping angels again.

Lady prepaid for two $10 blueberry pancake breakfasts with a guided nature walk for dessert at the Holden Arboretum. As we left on the 30 mile trek, a snowstorm hit and the highway went iffy . . . where normally I drive 75 mph we were doing 27 to 40 max. Changed lanes at one point and the car started sliding, with a big semi-truck right next to us. Got the old adrenaline glands pumping away for both of us.

A mile away from our food, on an unplowed country road, we came upon a car at the bottom of a hill of steep snow and ice. She’d gotten partway up, lost control and slid back down. We tried, got a wee bit further before giving up and backing slowly down so we didn’t crash into her.

We gave up, turned around and started back, hungry and foodless, but accepting. Within minutes a snowplow salt truck came by, plowed and salted the hill, so we turned around and made it to the most excellent blueberry pancakes.

Get in trouble and it seems frequently if you don’t lose your cool, reality sends someone or thing along to rectify your situation.

Don’t know why, but I’ve been helped by strangers all my life; enough so that I started helping other strangers myself.

A bad day gone good . . . early this morning Lady did a scheduled HP update to her computer and it crashed it. She called her extended warrantee hot-line and they hassled her because when she bought the laptop with coverage, they’d miss-typed her warrantee number by one letter. She miraculously convinced them it was their mistake and they helped her . . . best they could do was wipe out everything and start her over from scratch. Fortunately her last restorable backup was less than a week old, so she only lost a little.

Tonight we’re reading from our book down at Kent, Ohio, a college town I hope to infect with my memoir-itis. The book is a college student’s wet dream with all the adventure, drugs, and anti-authoritarian antics . . . if I can snare a few students as readers, it might prime the pump.

Event page: facebook.com/events/493319390726421/ =

WHAT: Rick Marlatt “Desired Altitude” Launch Reading with Smith & Lady
-Launch of “Desired Altitude”
-Smith Book Tour of “Stations of the Lost & Found” Memoir
-Readings by Rick Marlatt and Smith & Lady
-Books available for purchase & signing
-FREE to attend

WHEN: Saturday, March 16, 2013 – 7:30 PM

WHERE: Last Exit Books (in back of bookstore)
124 E Main St # 1 Kent, OH 44240? (330) 677-4499

ABOUT “DESIRED ALTITUDE” BY RICK MARLATT

The captain says feel free to move but I’m not going anywhere…

Rick Marlatt’s newest collection opens with this take on modern society in a multidimensional dreamlike void where myth meets math, theology meets technology, and spirituality meets the stagnation of a world saturated in electronic static. Like any intriguing and complex dream, Marlatt’s multi-layered collection is woven together through an impressive number of binding threads that lead the reader through a fascinating loop of reflections on everything from ancestral roots, spirituality, myth, and the natural world to the psyche, tension, and the fatigued technological hangover of a desolate decade of “connected” disconnect.

While readers feel as if smoke signals and spirit animals are leaving a web of warning and igniting the speaker’s anxieties at every turn, they will want to learn whether the speaker successfully navigates the mechanics of this over amped dimension where “the buffalo are all gone” and “pigeons are actuated by satellites,” where even “the microwave wants a little rest. / The light switch pines for solitude.” Subsequently, Desired Altitude will leave enlightened readers relieved to relocate the ability to find simple resolution within themselves. In a unique and subtle man-versus-machine missive, a constant bevy of new discoveries to consider both surprises and pleases with each subsequent read.

ABOUT RICK MARLATT

Rick Marlatt’s first book, How We Fall Apart, was chosen as the winner of the 2010 Seven Circle Press Poetry Award.

Rick is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, Riverside, where he served as poetry editor of the Coachella Review. Previously, he studied English and Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where he also earned a MA in Creative Writing, and he is currently a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

A teacher, poet, screenwriter, and literary critic, Rick’s work has appeared widely in print and online publications. He lives in Nebraska with his wife and their two sons. His website is rickmarlatt.com.

ABOUT “STATIONS OF THE LOST & FOUND” BY SMITH & LADY

The man Cool Cleveland labeled “everything your mother warned you about” (2003) has released an autobiography that continues his tradition of shock and awe.

The book, *Stations of the Lost & Found: A True Story of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle and Leaving the Country* by Smith & Lady, is the story of Steven B. Smith, a Cleveland artist who pursued the outrageous and the good, finally finding meaning in art, poetry and odd life experiences.

The back book blurb sums it up:
Drug orgies, massive refindings of reality, the acceptance of interdimensions. Errant life scout, cultural adventurer, perception tester, court jester, inner seeker, reality adjuster, flow surfer, servant and searcher of Other.

Born in Bitterroot, raised on Paradise Prairie, farm boy, car thief, Naval Academy, expelled for dope, society marriage, armed robbery, jail, illegal loft dweller, Artcrimes, rat attacks, overdose, celibate, remarried, expat. Ran from the cops ten times, got away nine.

ABOUT LADY K (KATHY IRELAND SMITH)

Kathy Ireland Smith, a.k.a. Lady K, is a poet, publisher, artist and surreal photographer from northeast Ohio. She and her husband Smith spent 31 months of traveling in 10 countries on 3 continents from 2006-9, and you can follow their ongoing adventures at WalkingThinIce.com. Kathy is also founder and editor of The City Poetry (www.thecitypoetry.com), a cutting edge art and poetry zine based in Cleveland.

ABOUT SMITH (STEVEN B. SMITH)

Smith was born, is living, will die. He’s been a poet 50 years, artist 49 years, publisher of the Artcrimes journal 28 years, editor of AgentOfChaos.com 11 years, WalkingThinIce.com blogger 7 years, ReverbNation.com/MutantSmith singer & lyricist 2 years.

“Stations of the Lost & Found: A True tale of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle, and Leaving the Country” by Smith & Lady may be ordered at createspace.com/3903652, or via Amazon-dot-com.


Lady dancing in snow – foto Smith

One Response

  1. There is something said to channeling good energy and getting back good results.

    Best wishes on your reading this eve…. may it go well.

    I love Kent… when and if I move to Ohio… Kent may well be were I move… but I don’t know. I like that area very much.. it is a nice blend of tamed and untamed territory….

    May spring be close upon your heels…. it is after all the Ides of March… it won’t be long now.

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