Artwork by Joseph Mauk

"It’s an odd kind of happy medium human beings live, and I was all too good at it."

Sean Taylor’s Everything To Do With You, recently printed by Seven7h Tangent press (run by 16th Street/Mission’s Charlie Getter and J. Brandon Loberg), is a unique little collection of stories that explore the quirks of what might typically be unexplored moments. Unexplored because of their seeming moderate nature. Those thoughts you maybe don’t write down because they seem all-too-obvious or just not brilliant, you know, and told in a way that is not waxing poetic or in any way trying to be beautiful. He’s like a reporter but without trying to make everything clear. His is a poetry of offhandedness … maybe, what Robert Duncan would have called a “poetry of unevenness.”

“In Europe there is a world market selling our goods.” — This, to me, is the kind of sentence that instantly gives you an extreme case of déjà vu because it’s a simple revelation but one that you’ve had; it seems to tie the whole world together in a personal understanding of what doesn’t really make sense but is, in fact, true.

In one story, a character is advised “to treat the future like oncoming traffic that passed hours ago,” and while this perspective is something I personally believe in (see Whitman: “to write the history of the future”), I think it evokes some of the other aspects of Taylor’s writing: there is a pathos, but it’s very matter-of-fact and somehow detached. This isn’t problematic at all. In fact, it’s somewhat endearing. One gets the feeling that Taylor has a sensitivity he shares only in his writing. Everything to Do With You is an intimate read without being at all sappy.

“Some nights just folding their jeans weighed so heavy on them they sulked on the floor” and “I tripped so hard in Heaven I landed in Hollywood” are just two examples of this.

I love you.
They are telling me that if you say those three words and then abandon them you’re breaking some new law, some eleventh commandment or something.

“They are telling him” may suggest an over-heavy peer influence that we hope does not dominate Mr. Taylor’s behavior. For we are—or at least I am—convinced that he has a lot of originality to offer the world … even if he feels like he’s “an odd kind of happy medium,” somewhere in the middle, compromised. But he ends the story without any judgment (in fact, the quote above is the last sentence), which implies that he’s pretty blasé about the whole affair. I find this encouraging.

For Taylor might not be sure what to say yet, but he’s talking and analyzing what he says, and for a first book I think this is a tremendous achievement: enjoyable, smart, and unique. Also, he has perhaps the best last sentence: “Just before it is over, everyone knows how to pretend.”

Until then, Sean Taylor is keeping it real.
» You can pick the book up any time at Viracocha and I recommend that you do!

Recently, I had a chance to assist (very minimally) in the production of the latest issue of The 16th & Mission Review (Vol III, No. XIII), and I have provided some footage of that experience. It was really something, and I suggest you become a part of it as soon as you can (click on the link to submit). Everyone is welcome.

I’ve been making it to the corner every now and then on Thursday evenings around 10 (this is one of the main reasons I can’t wait to move back to San Francisco, to be honest), and I’ve finally gathered a few clips of performances there. Some of them are incomplete, and I hope the artists and you, dear reader, forgive me for it. The corner is sometimes a circus, as it was on this night in question, July 1 of 2010.

Nevertheless, I have decided to include the videos to give you an idea of what goes on. Even more, I haven’t spliced them as I normally do—per author—so you can get an even clearer idea. I hope you like em, and hope to see you there.

(I have included these videos here because, while Everything To Do With You is not the kind of thing you will normally hear at the corner, it has very much come out of the scene … you can find Sean Taylor at The Circle and his book was published by Seven7h Tangent—a professional, incredible treasure you will hear more from me about soon.)

Charlie Getter

Mike Skott

An excellent first timer (comment with name, if you have it)

Movers + Shakers I'm proud to know

Nic Alea + Charles Kruger

M.G. Martin + Maureen Blennerhasset + Alex Black

I have to say: besides being fairly talented, this guy really harshes my buzz

Irish + Julie Indelicato

Grady + Andrew Paul Nelson

"Love" + Stellar Cassidy + the Unknown Folk Singers

Alan Kaufman

Mr. Charles Kruger has written some words about the scene here, and here is a presentation of many of these poets at Café Royale, called American Street Showcase, which now occurs the last Sunday of every month, free of charge, from 1-4pm. That is put on by Getter and Alan Kaufman, who has this and this to say about 16th Street & Mission.

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