the dirt, for what it's worth

I watched North By Northwest, the Hitchcock version, recently and was reminded how I love traveling by train. So me and the four-year-old packed up a gunny sack, strapped on our bindles and tramped on down to the U.S. of A. to visit my newlywed brother.
It wasn't all stealing pies off windowsills, but, man, there's something about America by rail that dusts off all those Tom Waits/Jack Kerouac fantasies from adolescence. Those tin roof shacks with neon signs, redbrick buildings half torn down, "Bikini Expresso" stands just off the highway. Pure Americana.

I'll be one of several guest readers at a launch Thursday night for Mariner Janes's debut collection of poetry, The Monument Cycles. I don't know Mariner or his work that well, but I was very impressed with he had to say in this interview the UBC Thunderbird. I also really enjoyed the poem he reads on that page, "The Ambassador".

If you'd like to attend the reading--also appearing: Aaron Golbeck, Neil Benson, and Danielle LaFrance--shoot me an email at the address over there and I'll send you the deets.