wake up, rod

Bendi - sorry if this is a little macabre / random / whatever. The Bendi's I found were really dissonant, and I ran with it. I love you wolf-brother. Three ways of looking at a Bendi i. Amateur Psychology After jerking off in the office bathroom and quickly taking two swigs of non-dairy creamer, Bendi sits at his cube, pulls out the DSM, and quietly diagnoses his co-workers. He wears his too small specs on the tip of his nose, is live- updating twitter mid-diagnosis to obtain a differential from the scientific community. His LinkedIn is immaculate, paced, diversified – a paragon of perfection, the Platonic form of professional networking. After work, at Applebee’s with Kathy and her rustic sweaters, he speaks grandly of her co-dependent behavior, gesticulating expansively with his iPhone. ii. “(Are all these alliterative B’s for real?)” “Delicately nuanced” is what they say about you, said about you, what they wrote on your tombstone, our plots facing each other. ...

The Dunning-Kruger Effect on Spinach i. I was going to make Spanikopita tonight. I’d just fuck it up. ii. I’ve made it before. Many times. The eggs, cheese, dill – My hands know the brush- iii. strokes required to cover each phyllo sheet and not leave spare butter. iv. But I wanted to impress you with my skills in the kitchen. I came v. to the conclusion that I have none. No one has told me my greek is vi. exemplary with- out my prompting. Popeye was like me, desperate for vii. compliments, trying to beef up for Olive Oyl. But he’d eat his can viii. of spinach, then no one could ignore his prowess. Grotesque with power, ix. like G-d, or what I imagine G-d to be like. Rabbi Akiva x. Called out to G-d in debates, to prove his rightness. I can call my mom, xi. but that’s a kind of shame that borders religious. Competence never xii. grasps its confidence. I mush eggs, cheese, dill, into the layers, bury it where not even G-d can find it.

hey rodders and voyeurs of rod: I usually don't do this, but I figured if I can't do it here, where can I? I've gotten published at two places that I find pretty groovy, and I'd like to share. I got published in PANK. PANK's pretty rad. And I got to do some weird little audio recordings, so that's exciting too. http://www.pankmagazine.com/?p=1627 Also, I was published in the first issue of WAC. The second issue's up, but the magazine is so bad-ass, you all should check it out. "Organ of Corti" is still messed up, but Gene got in contact with me and told me that it'll be fixed. Really cool mag from a super-passionate writer. http://www.wearechampionmag.com/ That's all, just wanted to be selfish for a sec. I will be double posting this weekend with poems, so yeah, see you then chickens.

RUB RUB Write a multi-part poem about doubt. That's all I'm going to say. Except I love each of you singularly and I miss [plug]. Fuck.

Jon created this tag when he found Alesia's ancient love poem on the internet randomly. I say we run with it. Write a poem concerned with (in any way) something you found while internet stalking another Rod member. Due date: (I'm not making one, you're not going to pay attention to it anyway. Neither am I.) Also, I'm thinking maybe we should do away with the assignment posting order. At best it seems that we do the assignments we want to do anyway and maybe if we have more assignments floating around there will be a larger pool of prompts. You could argue that... I'm rambling, or about to ramble. Long story short: Kate please feel free to post an assignment on top of this on. I love you all and you are in my hearts. -B.