julie lives here.

Starting fresh in a new space. [insert big sigh of relief here]

You might have followed me here via my old blog tangobaby (RIP), or you’re visiting via i live here:SF or maybe even CALIBER. (Or twitter or facebook or somewhere else I can’t imagine).

Welcome, where ever you came from.

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The image you see above is a self-portrait, taken in one of my favorite places in the city, City Lights Books. It’s a place where you can hole up, hide, be quiet, make endless mental bookstacks on your virtual nighttable. I especially love walking across the old tile floor [fotographia] up to the Poetry Room. Which is really funny because I’ve never been a big poetry person. I might be like you: read poetry in school because I had to (Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and Ode to a Grecian Urn), picked up Sylvia Plath’s Ariel because that’s what girls do, and once in a while come across a poem I could understand and thought “I should really try to read more poetry.”

Kind of like saying I should eat more vegetables or I should get more exercise. Like poetry is good for building strong bones and teeth. Or a strong soul.

And still I didn’t read poetry. But now I know a poet and she’s just the kind of poet I needed to know. Silvi.

She takes found images, photos and art, puts them in a little portable typewriter that she carries around with her, and in three minutes, you have a poem. I don’t know exactly what her alchemy is but she can sense what you want to know or read and then gives it back to you.

Silvi and I collaborated on a few pieces, two of which are going up in a show this month in the Mission. (I’ll give you the dates soon.) But the one you see above is not for sale. It’s in my room and it’s exactly the poem I needed.