Triumph of the Exegetes

A professor of negative anthropology and a philosophy of mind professor walk into a bar.

Oof! Who'd guess limbo could be this difficult?

Putting the Cartesian before the horse, Dr. K orients Dr. B: "So here we are. Why the long fascia?"

Dr. B: "It's still a bar in principle. It's your jokes that need a rider."

Dr. K: "Well, on the condition that we've moved beyond all this human guff, I say you make us breakfast."

Dr B: "Ok, I'll be eggs. You be bacon."

Barkeep: "We don't serve breakfast here."

Doctors: "Pish! We're not breakfast! We're poets!"

'Keep: "Then why am I fed up?"

Good question. Other queries needing answers that may be addressed this weekend:

---"Aaron, you're new novel is called The Mandarin. Are we talking oranges or tyranny?"
---"Franklin, you've unpacked Armed Forces from its working title Emotional Fascism. Now can you tell us what Donald Fagen was talking about when he wrote "Brooklyn owes the charmer under me"?
---And alternately: "Is shame a relationship, a procedure or a unit? And if a unit, is self-possession also a unit, and is it divisible by the shame unit?"
---And again: "You've got good pipes, but how's your foundation?"
et cetera etcetera & etc

Well c'mon.

Aaron Kunin is the only fella we know who asserts that 'idea' is a trisyllable. The ideas in his new book The Mandarin are even stranger. They dispose of the objective world like Jakob Apfelböck disposing of the parental stink; it keeps coming back! Help him kill it off this weekend so we can can get back to bar and be done with these zombies and their bookbags.

Franklin Bruno is the only fella we know who thinks Shangri-la is "undercooked", but he's also famous for his quotations. Here's one: "Being a man, for me, is a bit like being a finite set." Okay, but does the new math sing? Does the drummer have a boyfriend? Can I have the setlist?

Enough questions. The gig is almost up.

AARON KUNIN & FRANKLIN BRUNO

Saturday, August 16 2008 at 5:00pm

@ The Poetic Research Bureau

3702 San Fernando Blvd

Glendale, CA 91206
Blog: http://www.poeticresearch.com/
Map: http://tinyurl.com/upperlimitlosangeles

Doors open at 4:30pm

Reading starts at 5:00pm

$5 donation requested

Aaron Kunin is a poet, critic, and novelist. He is the author of a collection of small poems about shame, Folding Ruler Star (Fence Books, 2005); a chapbook, Secret Architecture (Braincase, 2006); and a novel, The Mandarin (Fence, 2008). He is assistant professor of negative anthropology at Pomona College and lives in Los Angeles.

Franklin Bruno is the author of a book of criticism (Armed Forces) and a chapbook of poems (MF/MA). His poems have appeared in The Hat, Faucheuse, Vanitas, and the anthology Intersections: Innovative Poetry from Southern California (Green Integer). He has taught philosophy at UCLA, Pomona College, Northwestern University, and Bard College. A native Southern Californian, he keeps leaving Los Angeles, and keeps coming back.

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The PRB: While Paul counts the almonds, we steal the cashews.