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Sunday, March 07, 2010

Thanks for reading. You've helped accomplish the first goal of Toylit

Your rate of readership has put Toylit on track for 2k unique reads this quarter. I want core readers to know who else is reading Toylit, because I find the stats pretty cool: Since Feb 25 Toyit has had readers from 102 cities around the world. Joao Pessoa, Hyderabad, Islamabad, Sana (Yemen), Port Louis (Mauritius), London, NYC, LA, SF, Portland, etc. Strangely enough, no Chicago yet. 248 unique readers as of this moment, with what looks to be another 40 newsfeed subscribers.

If you approve of Toylit, please help promote it or feign interest in sponsors' wares. Both will ensure quality reading material for the (m)asses reaches critical mass.

Speaking of which, is there a reason you haven't bought the first edition of Toylit? You know it's going out of print, right? The point is to make it an instant collector's item. Should I hit my 10k readers this year, don't you think owning an out of print book is a good bet as far as a collectible is concerned? I thought so, but of course that assumes you believe in me as much as I do.

In short, thanks for reading. If that's all you want to do, I'm happy w/ that. If you feel some greater connection to Toylit and want to help out, consider one of the above means.

Thanks.

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A One Way Trip on Virgin Galactic [Bonus News Poem, March 7, 2010]

A One Way Trip on Virgin Galactic (or Tricks in Post-Apocalyptic Space) [Bonus News Poem, March 7, 2010]

“Iran's Defense Ministry introduced a new domestically-manufactured cruise missile that will significantly improve the deterrence capabilities of the Iranian military forces, the local satellite Press TV reported on Sunday.”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-03/07/c_13200992.htm

“SpaceShipTwo will be unveiled after darkness has fallen over the Mojave Desert to the sound of a space-themed anthem from Britain’s biggest DJs, Above & Beyond. Fittingly titled “Buzz” the track will sample Buzz Aldrin’s original moon landing dialogue. Following the naming by Governors Richardson and Schwarzenegger, the DJs will also perform an exclusive set at the celebration cocktail party which will follow and feature the first ever IceBar in the desert hosted by Absolut and the world famous Swedish IceHotel. All the guests will be protected from the desert cold by designer space jackets supplied by PUMA. Finally, to close off the celebrations, all the guests will have the opportunity to view the stunning night skies using specialist telescopes supplied by Ron Dantowitz of the Clay Observatory whose unique tracking cameras followed SS1 into space during the epic flights of 2004.”
http://www.zimbio.com/Sir+Richard+Branson/articles/6Oa9PZL7ymz/Virgin+Galactic+SpaceShipTwo+1st+Commercial

“Cyrus is also working on an album of her own, which she said will be out later this summer.”
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1633359/story.jhtml

The royalties won't pay for air
Much less a berth, a bite to eat—
I've waited long to touch your hair,
To paint the nails on pretty feet

Since puberty. I've thought of you...
I'm sorry does that make you shy?
I'm lonely. Since the earth's been through,
I've cursed this metal in the sky.

Celebrities like you survived
To love your fans (for price, by bit);
Though true on earth, with wealth you thrived,
In space you live by famous slit.

Your wealth on earth is molten slag
In space, your skills? They have no use.
On earth they might have let you drag
Them down, but here you'd best be loose.

Your refuge is our prison now
And servant's master, switching bows;
Now act as if it's Oscar-night
And come to me for Tantric-rites.

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Want a Bonus Poem?

I'm on for the rest of the day. Throw clicks in the hat and I'll keep crankin' 'em out.

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Fauna2.0 [Today's News Sonnet, March 7, 2010]

Fauna2.0 [Today's News Sonnet, March 7, 2010]

“Could this Chinese Year of the Tiger be the last one with actual tigers still afoot in the world’s wild?”
--Bill Marsh, The New York Times, March 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/weekinreview/07marsh.html

For every peer we've ever had—we've slain,
Enslaved, diminished—well, we have their plans.
The charismatic megafauna wanes
And yet we've archived what they were. Life's span
Extends quite well: magnetic drives, by code.
In symbol... signs emerge until the two
Are one. Both data, matter: simply modes
Or monads, swimming ignorant in brew,
In petri dishes we've devised to scope
The evidence of God in every cell.
In every scrap of living parts we hope
To find the proof that we are what we tell
Ourselves we seek: that we are what we saw—
The savior human! One of nature's laws.

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Working on Today's News Poem and End of Feb Edition

I will start working on Today's News Poem now and will hopefully finish it before the afternoon's contingencies truncate my work.

The End of Feb Edition is lots of work. It's not going to be filled with 'true' final drafts after all. I think by the end of March however, Jan/Feb's News Poems ought to be edited to their true potential. This means additional verses, new images, elimination of problematic metaphors, better wordplay and so forth.

I'm too immersed in the actual activity to see the News Poem aesthetic mutate very deeply; however, I can see some changes. Before, I think I let the news (mostly) guide my verse. The News Poems were more literal. As of late, I'm getting sick of the repetition of the News (which is why it pissed me off enough to write News Poems in the first place) and have been trying to engage it on my terms. I can't tell how that looks to a reader, but hopefully it's doing what I want it to do.

Pretty much, the bulk of the feedback I get from you, my readers, is in the form of web traffic. But you can be harsher. I can take it. The deleted comments you see are merely spammers... I will not censor your response to Toylit unless you spam without my permission (I don't consider regular posters and readers spammers though, so if you'd like to promote a relevant page of your own, feel free to link it up w/ the appropriate link on Toylit... but make sure you also write. I refuse to let this page turn into a place of mute link-trading). Only a few of you are challenging the poems. Even if you like my verse, don't you think I'd get better, faster if you let me know what did/didn't work for you?

Anyhow, too much yapping, not enough composition.

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