THE BOOKS, RELEASED!

21 BOOKS, RELEASED! or THE SHOW or THE THING is coming up this Saturday, October 24th at the Looking Glass Café in Carrboro, N.C. That evening I will be reading from 21 books I have produced but haven't released over the years, with one copy of each book available for sale.

This really great and awful thing has happened since then, though – several people have asked to pre-order copies and one gent (I mean, this was a real gent!) asked to buy the whole crop. SO – although we will not having additional copies available on Saturday (shipping is a pill) we will try to put together an additional shipping order on the evening of the event, in order to defray the shipping cost (typically as much as $3.99 on a $10.00 book, for shame USPS!) Also – if you are more tactile and a kenetic learner or Triple A member or Type A personality type, you can enter this world:

www.tinyurl.com/rickylulu

and order freely and briskly and secretly to our delight!

Here are the books in order of composition that will be available on October 24th and the prices of that evening, some slightly higher, some slightly lower than online but all without shipping baggage:

I: PEPPERMINT (1995): A short series of prose poems written on holiday in the winter of 1995 in search of Florida’s Devil’s Punchbowl. Along the way, clowns are discovered, snooty art is seen, murderers do murdering things, eel grass commences, manatees are considered, honeybuns are relished and icy pools find a place in our hearts. Nevertheless, no Punchbowl--Devil’s or otherwise--is revealed. This volume was the very first Wing Ding committed to paper. ($9.00)

II: FRED (1998): What can I say of FRED? It is an homage and loving thought tossed at my good friend, Fred, whose name, is not, of course, Fred. Meanwhile, were any book of mine to be counted as a friend, it would be this Fred. It recounts maxims, Italian movies, chows, $1 weiners, perilous adventures where very little happens and breezy reflections on what is and is not valuable--like friendship and unanswered questions and Anthony ‘Tony’ Quinn. And like a good friend, it snuggles. But more than an ordinary friend--FRED is a bud--the kind of book I would take fishing, were I to fish, which I don’t, as I am afraid to death of worms, which haunt me in my dreams. ($9.00)

III: GALL (1998): Where do I begin? Allen Ginsberg was gone, Larry Rivers was gone, Gregory Corso was gone--but my gall bladder? It was still there. But for how long? Read the oft spoke of, seldom seen GALL and you will know for yourself. Definitely for the squeamish! ($9.00)

IV: WEED (1998): MICRO DINGS were a phenomenon in the 101 wing ding hq during the ‘90’s. Delightful morsels that weren’t really books, weren’t really poems, and weren’t really long: just the MICRO. With Christine (2008) l’age MICRO was fini, replaced & rightly so by the MAXI MICRO. Enjoy WEED, this dying breed while it still isn’t dead: delights include goofy illustration of someone who looks a little like W.S. Burroughs, Sad Tale of Sunday in the Park, & The Pancakes of Loneliness Complete, all in a length less lengthy than this description. ($4.00)

V: XIPO (1998): If you take all the dates in the world and put them together, you get Xipo, only with most of the details left out, and ending with the sound of a distant vrroom vrroom of a faraway car driving into an even farther away distance which can feel very haunting or even a little sad. ($11.00)

VI: WARDROBE (1999): A quick breeze through my clothes closet reveals that I own clothes that swing with memories and that I really need to hop on a plane and leave town for a while. Spain sounds nice. ($12.00)

VII: EL HOMBRE DE LA CAPA CASTELLANA (1999): CHAPTER THREE: In which The Hombre de la Capa Castellana continues apace, darting mischievously under a bridge at the Alhambra as a light and mist’d rain begins to fall, obscuring the view of the Miradora and the compelling sanguine hauntingness of the caves to their left (as seen by our heroes.) Oh, also, he sticks out his tongue. Qué malo! Este bad, bad Hombre de la Capa Castellana! ($9.00)

VIII: HOLIDAYS (2000): Sundry odes to my favorite holidays. Be forewarned that my favorite holidays include Arbor Day, Adult Day, and--for reasons that I still can’t properly explain since the Bastille no longer exists--Bastille Day. If you are looking for an Ode to Cinco de Mayo, look no further. It isn’t here, sadly. Seriously. No estå. ($8.00)

IX: PORTRAITS OF INTIMACY (2000): “Mr.Witherspoon was a terribly depressing, old, smelly, uneducated and rather feeble old man who liked to play checkers with school children who beat him mercilessly...” and likened tales of made-up people who protect their Beatles albums from scary hippies, watch the mating bluebirds, wonder about Leslie Gore and misname innocent animals. ($11.00)

X: NEW MUSHROOMS (2001): Twelve Variable Essays on Love, based upon the flights of fighting birds, WALDEN which is nice to read on a bus, Chinese take-out, and worms that seem to spell ‘mortality’ every time that they seem to say Just You Wait when you accidentally smoosh them on the rainy sidewalks of life, or love, or what-have-you. ($14.00)

XI: POMMES FRITES (2002): Do I hate everything in this book? No, I don’t. In fact I even made a separate little book for ‘Chinese Proverbs’ (called ‘Pillows’) and ‘Memories’ was the first poem in ‘Make It Wavy.’ But I can say I hated the rest --until I edited it again, twice. Then I said, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’ And then I edited it one more time and said, ‘But not really good, either.’ I recommend that you read this book once, and only edit it twice. ($10.00)

XII: AGE OF ANXIETY (2003): A symphony of uneasiness, from the choice of fonts to the choice of wrinkly muses. Oh. And let’s not forget the choice of bicycles declared (“Hercules”) the choice of titans chosen (Atlas, for God’s sake) and the inclusion of the words ‘Pinot Grigio’ and even Señor Richmond on a naked romp, all free and dangly. Oh. And there’s more, too. ($9.00)

XIII: BEE STINGS (RHYMES WITH ‘I CHINGS’) (2004): A meditation in stilty prose verse inspired by the 19th century Encyclopedia Britannica on the nature of acquired knowledge and how dumb it is to have it, and how better it is perhaps to be a king or something of that ilk. ($11.00)

XIV: OCTOBER (2004): A poem a day, written every day during the month of October, 2004, that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t work at all, sometimes is perfectly fine. BONUS FEATURE: a trio of prose poems in which the A Team operates under the exquisite accent and infinite tenderness of a honest-to-god Roman Emperor. ($11.00)

XV: À LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS DEPARDIEU (2006): There’s nothing like boarding school to bring out the latent Gerard Depardieu lover in all of us--who knows why. But after a few mind-bending winters, a GQ magazine or two, scary girls riding motorcycles and pretentious teachers and pretentious students and some not tasty butternut squash laced with French Cinema, then you got, well, despair. Loneliness. Mistranslations. Everything but mostly nothing. High School. Love, par excellence--à la Depardieu. ($12.00)

XVI: MAKE IT WAVY (2006): FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “Should I be happy to hear such a beautiful song, or should I be sad that I did not write the song? Ah, to be skinny and write songs, and yet, on the other hand, to eat strawberries and not worry about quality, other than the fleshy fruit quality of strawberries. Ah, to be wavy and do both...” ($11.00)

XVII: MAKE IT LONG AND WAVY (2007): This bad boy clocks in at a mighty 226 pages--a mach 1 of no uncertain g force--at least for me. It is uncontestably the longest Wavy know to man--long and luxurious, though seldom silky smooth. There are slight fairy tales told, loads of food and tender feelings and thoughts as well as interviews. That’s right! An interview! And with a farmer! Just one, though. ($14.00)

XVIII: MAKE IT TOO WAVY (2007): The second in the Wavy trilogy of smooth-sailing poetry collections from 1995-2007. I took up this project kicking and screaming, literally, really super fussy and not easy to live or be with kind of thing, but somehow, now, I like it. Seriously. Not sure why, though, I seem to make everything in the wavy world so, well, orangey. ($12.00)

XIX: COMMENTS WITHOUT COSMOS (2008): “All of my favorite movie stars, authors, superheroes, painters, explorers and smart people including Spencer Tracy and Ernest Hemingway and Cabeza de Vaca but neglecting Burgess Meredith because I forgot and all in one handy, easy to pick up 94 page paperback.” ($12.00)

X: MY FAVORITE FIFTEEN PRESIDENTS (2008): is simply the most I can say about the American Presidents without going over my word limit of, say, 50 words or dealing with anything of import or anything political whatsoever, unless, with, for example, Abraham Lincoln, love is political. This is a restriction that can be a challenge, at times. And that’s why I avoided, say, Ronald Reagan and George Washington in MY FAVORITE FIFTEEN PRESIDENTS. I did, however, as I mentioned before, mention Abe Lincoln, but only when he was going to bed, and only at the end of the book. ($8.00)

XXI: CHRISTINE (2008): On July 15, 1974, Christine Chubbuck, a Sarasota newscaster, took her own life during a morning news broadcast. She had desired a life that she could imagine for others but not for herself; she had believed in her own judgment, and her judgment had told her that she would always be alone. Perhaps as a relief from such thoughts, or from a satisfaction of her new place in history, or for other reasons that no one will ever know, one of the last things Christine did that morning, and in front of the camera, was smile. ($9.00)

XXI + I*: MAYBE WAVY (2009): The satellites and comets of the WAVY series that floated about like little orphans and satellites but have come to become quite beloved by me when all is said and done. This is, truly, the burrito both grande (528 pgs.) and finale (maybe) of WAVYs, so please enjoy. Please. ($20.00)

I know, I know, XXI + I really means XXII or 22. I'm so BAD that way! I just can't keep to the script!