Book Arts, Yuppies, and Reads

I just signed up for a Book Making class at the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute. I've always wanted to take a book making class after seeing the fantastic pieces that Karla Elling created down at Arizona State University. So . . . I'm enrolled. It should be a hoot.

I've been thinking about what a colleague of mine, David Habbel, said about the impact/significance of poets in cities. He said he read an article about how you can determine the health of a city by its resident poet population. I want to get my hands on that article. We all know, from a previous article, that poets have shortened life-spans. So I suppose that cities would thrive if 1) they attracted more poets and 2) they kept their poets alive.

One of the ways to keep poets in an area is to create eclectic food establishments. Well . . . Outback Steakhouse just opened along a strip of Commercial Drive. That's the major thoroughfare with the mall, Barnes & Noble, and other businesses. I know. It's not eclectic. It's yuppie food. But hear me out. . .. Restaurants such as TGIF's, Outback, and Applebees attract yuppies. Yuppies bring money to communities. Communities which have money will also develop arts enclaves.

Maybe it's wishful thinking. I don't know. Still, the recent urban development in the area is interesting for what is still considered an economically depressed area.

In other news, I've been reading Gaston Bachelard's "The Poetics of Reverie." Actually, I should say re-reading, because I read it a long time ago in graduate school, but I needed something to kick me off the couch. Monsieur Bachelard certainly has. I've also been reading Edward P. Jones's new novel, "The Known World," and I've found it to be pretty harrowing. In between, I've been picking up some poetry collections: "Winter Stars," "Spar," "The Branch Will Not Break," "The Only World," just to fill the brain up.

Summer makes the television a very seductive entity. I've become addicted to TLC and "What Not to Wear." Meredith and I wait for Wednesdays and Fridays when it aires. I'm normally not a TV-head, but hey, it's summer. . . . Tuesday's a good TV day, too.

Egad, but I should read and I should do some writing, eh? In fact, I think I'm procrastinating with this blogging thing. Off I go.