[1 May 2017 | B'timor> feliz mayday dear Inurnet. Printed out th 1° cumplete d'raft of A Raft Manifest .. well, th last 23 pgs still just sketchy + we still got th foggiest idea how she gunna end, bud pillaging thru her on hardcopy fine tuning + massaging to give continuity (cunsistent in uncunsistenseas) til we figger out how to cumplete her as a hole book objet .. ojalá by end of month .... also work'd on a book this week for InsideOut, th program in D-troit that brother Markus works for .. speaking a wich, he teaching his workshop this summer for those intrested ping us ... + also we recently read his Inside My Pencil—a non-fiction book of s-ays about his xperience teaching poitry to kids in D-troit going on ∫um 20+ yrs now .... hats off to brother Markus, i dont know how he does it. I dont mind kids on paper, i just woont halve payshints for dem day to day + thats got more to due w/ bad pairunting + my usual cumplaint of too many dam ppl pupalating this ere moondough. th kids cant help it tho, they innocent .. + they do say, write + draw th darndist things, far mo intresting then adult artists imho. But this age of innocence gits youngr + youngr—u got 1° graders now already posturing like they rap stars going on about money + girls + th G-word gits throw around way to much in shcools these days ..

winter carrys ova into spring (scene from MARC train on ∆iffrent daze)

Staying up near th JHU homewood campus this time, near Hampden .. from Penn stn walk'd Falls rd along th river (w/ signs warning u not to come into contact w/ th water) past th mills + checked out 36th st .. typickle janky hipster street of boutiquey shops selling cool kitsch bud nada practical. Atomic Books is cool if u like comics + funky DiY zines, but not much in th way of fiction ± literary stuff .. i dunno, every1 hypes up Hampden like a hipster haven but @ th end of th day th housing stock = crap .. shitty rowhomes bilt for mill workers that hipsters try to make th best of, throwing garden gnomes on th porch + embracing vinyl siding as kitch, otherwise looks no ∆iffrent then other parts of B'timor xcept u got tatu'd white folk instead of black .. sure «nice» parts ∃xist in B'timor, but they suburban + u need a car, wich rule th streets in these parts (+ D.C. too). Went back out to 36th later to eat, unfortunately th good restraunts close monday nites so we ate @ sum farm to fork place w/ valet parking, next to suburban families slumming it, entertain'd by strung out junkies flippin out on th street .. still tho, we dig th general vibe of folks in these parts mo then in DC ..

th ole streetcars

th falls

crazed about John Waters

Halal meat, patented medicine, prepaid phone cards .. what more do u need? (down in Remington/Charles Village now)