With regards to the Crackademy

The top ten illnesses in our household in 2009 have been: roto virus, lyme disease, sinus infection, common cold, pink eye, swine flu, pink eye redux, occasional faint echoes of a twenty-year old spontaneous pneumothorax, oink flu (the fleeting sound version), and scary but supposedly innocuous test results (not an illness, but recepient of an honorary degree). The top ten books I’ve received or picked up in the past few weeks are: The Queen of The Swords by Michael Moorcock, Fever and Spear by Javier Marias, Impossible Princess by Kevin Killian, The Future is Happy by Sarah Sarai, Escape from Combray by Rick Snyder, From Ritual to Romance by Jessie L. Weston, Light House by Brian Lucas, Let’s Not Keep Fighting the Trojan War: New and Selected Poems 1986-2009 by Edward Sanders, The Essential Middle East by Dilip Hiro, and Expeditions of a Chimaera by Oana Avasilichioaei and Erin Moure. The top ten reviews of the last few weeks are Tyrone Williams’ review in Rain Taxi of The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest read ten times. And the top ten individuals I’d like to thank for material assistance with my last four poems over the past two years or so are: everyone who has ever said “have a good one” in the traditional manner at the end of some kind of interaction, J.R.R. Tolkien, Isaiah Thomas, Bill Parcells, Jim Brodey, the editors of The New York Post, Bernadette Mayer, Erje Ayden, the guy who used to hand out free cell cards on St. Mark’s Place and second avenue until the shop went out of business, The Discovery Channel, Chip Delaney, Homer, Pinau Merlin, Cole Heinowitz, all the people who told me I looked tired, Bear Grylls, termer(s) of pleather, Edward Gibbon, Simon Pettet, Dana Ward, Edmund Berrigan, Karen Weiser, Ann Lauterbach, Albert Notley, Jr., Bob Marley, Miles Champion, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Joseph Ceravolo, Albert Pujols, Neil Gaiman, Tim Dlugos, Nada Gordon, Nayland Blake, David First, Tom Savage, Stephen Malkmus, authors of The Geneva Conventions, Kim Rosenfield, William Blake, the wiffle ball playing drug dealers on my block in 1987, Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, Michael Ray Richardson, some pro and anti-Iraq invasion arguers in 2003 in downtown NYC, Susan Howe, The Poetry Bus, The Poetry Farm, Cathy Wagner, John Bolton, Mick Jagger, Sir Alec Guiness, Robin Blaser, Thucydides, Yao Ming, Ahmed Rashid, Lori Weiser, MD, the nurse who sang to patient 23 at Beth Israel Hospital that one night, Harryette Mullen, Brendan Lorber, Bill Berkson, Rodrigo Toscano, Stacy Szymaszek, Kimberly Lyons, Robert Creeley, Sigourney Weaver, Jared Diamond, Anne Tardos, Brand Nubian, Kristin Prevallet, coiner of phrase “hooker with a heart of gold”, Queen Elizabeth, Michael Scharf, all my ex-bosses, George Steinbrenner, Joe Brainard, Tadd Gero, Sylvie Beulah, some sheep in Jutland, William Carlos Williams, the decider who decided to kill Captain America, Superchunk, Barack Obama, John McCain, Judith Goldman, Paul LaFarge, Ed Coletti, Marina Rosenfeld, Marv Albert, Britney Spears, Joe Strummer, general media usage of “cherry-picking”, Lyn Hejinian, Seven-of-Nine, Data, Steve-O, spokespersons, The Jains, makers of Arkanoid, Lisa Jarnot, James Joyce, Greg Fuchs, Alice Notley, George W. Bush, J. Kenneth Koch, Ovid, Ammiel Alcalay, Guided by Voices, Alison Collins, Corina Copp, Beulah Notley, Marcus Torres, Graig Nettles, Helen Adam, the Reverend Al Sharpton, John Candy, Philip Whalen, The Pixies, makers of Head-2-Head Shootout 2, The Cars, some muppets, Jennifer Moxley, Patrick Thompson, Prince, Michael Bloomberg, Prageeta Sharma, Jay MillAr, Bad Brains, Fela Kuti, Fugazi, Hillary Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, Saturn the Titan, Chris Rock, Arthur Rimbaud, Phil Collins & Philip Bailey, Vince Young, editors at reuters.com, my Great Uncle Bill, Ian Curtis, Satchel Paige, Dizzy Dean, Rob Fitterman, Will Oldham, my father’s Catholic School teachers, Run-DMC, John Coletti, Rob Dibble, Chuck Knoblauch, Geto Boys, Dante, Juliana Spahr, Kenny Daniels, Juan Cole, my old neighbors Dolphy, Leroy, Bruce, and Molly Adams, Dan Marino, Jeanne Liotta, Dale Smith, John Vaughan, Aquaman, Tyra Banks, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Edwin Denby, Ken Singleton, Paul Westerberg, Christopher Smart, Ben Johnson, Filip Marinovic, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Glenn Gould, Anne Waldman, Allen Ginsberg, Frank Herbert, John Wieners, Raymond Foye, Drew Gardner, some food menus, Shawn Marion, Frasier Crane, the cave painters, Coley Jones, Giorgio Morandi, some subway ads, “blowback”, Kim Deal, Phillies fans at the 2008 world series games in Philadelphia, Willie Randolph, Omar Minaya, the guy who gave me the rosary beads at work in 1990, Adam Degraff, George Schneeman, Jungle Brothers, Donovan, Butthole Surfers, Plaxico Burress, John Yau, Mom’s high school piano teacher, Dodie Bellamy, Pig the dusky conure, Dolly Parton, Erasmus, Carla Harryman, Renee Gladman, Hannah Wiener, Ari Fleischer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Kate Berrigan, Joanne Kyger, Iceman, Architeuthis, the red-tailed hawks of Tompkins Square Park, Samantha Power, Heidi Klum, Suzanne Stein, SG of Replacement Level Yankees Weblog, Bob Cudmore, Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Ashbery, various strangers, Wade Boggs, Dick Cheney, Kate Cunningham, Margaret Wise Brown, Abe Vigoda (the band), Mickey Rivers, Muntader al-Zeidi, Ed Dorn, Hoa Nguyen, Stephen Ellis, Eileen Myles, Dgls Rothschild, Allen Iverson, Gary Sullivan, Boethius, Doom screenplay writers, Alasdair Roberts, The Department of Homeland Security, Linh Dinh, and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Thank you all for stopping by, my apologies to those I’ve missed – am sure there’s many – and best wishes to you for the coming eternity.