The Week We Stirred the Pot

It’s always a bull market for controversy. This week, if you were buying, Harriet was selling.

As Mayor Bloomberg cranked the thermostat on the amorphous, ubiquitously debated Occupy Wall Street protest, Susan “Translationista” Bernofsky set out to translate Occupied Wall Street Journal, the movement’s official press organ, into Spanish and almost every other language up through Arp. She’d appreciate your help.

Poet and activist Faranak Farid remains in custody of the notoriously touchy Iranian authorities, notwithstanding a widely circulated petition for her release.

Harvard pupil Isabel Kaplan got in line to pick a fight with radio host, avant-garde archivist and “uncreative writer” Kenneth Goldsmith, resurrecting the infamous “typing” dis Truman Capote fired at Jack Kerouac. You’ve made a wily enemy, Kaplan.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., perhaps most recently well-known for squabbling with police officers and then sipping suds with the president, found the time to assemble a massive anthology of African-American literature, and it’s now e-accessible.

Having emerged from the oppressive leadership of Daniel arap Moi, Kenya’s poets are ready to throw down. No birth certificates required.

Icelandic poets are living on the edge as well.

A Belladonna* reading escalated into an involved conversation about poets, their material needs, and the areas in which community arts organizations aren’t delivering.

Meanwhile, Jake Adam York sparks a debate on the state of poetry readings, particularly their oft-oppressive running times.

Jeff Gordinier goes to Scotland, geeks out on a Don Patterson joint, and writes lovingly of “sweet obliteration.”

Our subversive, unpredictable pals at Black Ocean, who once published a collection of a troubled Floridian’s fan letters to Osama bin Laden and company, are putting up McDonald’s numbers with a new volume of foliage-inspired Portlandian Zachary Schomburg’s verse, prompting a reprint. Other BO titles also sell briskly. Black Ocean: pushing pulp like weight.

We found a reprint of a fascinating piece from Peter Lamborn Wilson, a/k/a Hakim Bey, a/k/a the wildly polarizing T.A.Z. author and “ontological anarchist” troublemaker. PLW digs into the mythology of money, invoking King Midas and messianic cargo cults. We suggest you check it out. We think you’ll be glad you did.

There’s nothing controversial about this, however. This just rocks steady.