25 June 2021> On the train to NYC... 1st time leaving the district b-sides our trip to Chincoteaque + 1st time on public transport since March of 2020. We brought Garielle Lutz on board as Calamari librarian this week to facilitate our move back to Italy, so have been going thru the Calamari site the past few days putting the paypal buttons back up. We took them down before we went to Rome last time + we were too lazy to put em back up when we came back + the dbook PDF buttons we took down during the pandemic, but now that things are more or less back to normal we're putting them back up (so grab the free copies while u can!)... tho sum will remain as free downloads inklooting the first 8 chapbooks from 2003–2005. Oh + dare we mention Calamari is on Twitter, after resisting it's toxicity all these years. Call us hippocrits but now folks might realize we actually still exist. Going thru all these old pages from 2003–2010 + getting rid of dead links u realize that 90% of these hyped-up magazines + sites eventually fold after a few years. What we don't get is why they would remove the content... like Jessa Crispin, fine, whatever, she got a good gig at The Guardian or whereever, but why did she need to shut down Bookslut + remove all the content? Couldn't she of at least left archives up? There was so much content up there, Calamari alone had probly a dozen interviews or book reviews that are just gone, vanished. Wish we had the presence of mind to save those pages.

On the train read Meow by Mark Baumer, a post-humous book Burnside Press put out. Perfect train book, short + absurd enough to disctract out annoying passengers behind us (refusing to wear masks even after conductor told them repeatedly) from DC to NYC.

intresting passage in retrospect

Crazy to ride a sold-out train, pass thru crowded new Penn (or whatever they call it now) + then get on packed rush hour subway... go from a year of isolation to this. Went out to Brooklyn, walked around, met our friends to eat seafood somewhere near Gowanus Canal + then went to a bar after... the 1st bar we've been to in 1½ years.

hanging w/ MM, co-author of Residue, in the flesh

6/26/2021: We were boarding a plane + it was taking every 1 forever to get settled, playing musical chairs so ppl could sit where they wanted to sit + we got the last available seat + finally we got settled but then there was this family w/ kids loitering around in the aisle + then this person in a wheelchair accidentally fell into this crack between the wall + floor + fell 2-3 stories down into the luggage compartment below + our 1st reaction was great, now we're never gonna take off. They got the person quickly to a doctor + had to await status + then we were taxing across the runway + these 4 hoodlums were following beneath the plane harassing us + trying to intimidate us, like they were taking the plane hostage. We were hoping the plane would run them over, they were running in front of the wheels + the plane went faster then they could run. We got to this little clinic where evidently they had taken the women. She came out w/ her doctor + they gave us the thumbs up + then pointed to the 4 hoodlums, as if this was proof that they did it + that's all the aircrew in the cockpit needed, visual proof of liability, + now we were clear for take-off. We were amazed + glad we were gonna take-off on time, but also surprised this would hold up in a court of law, that they didn't need to fill out any paperwork.