2013 DISINHIBITIONS: JAMIE TOWNSEND

Hey Michael

What an intense year filled with amazing, incandescent, challenging work. Here are a bunch of highlights (some old, some new):

- Steve Abbott's "Stretching the Agape Bra" and "Wrecked Hearts"  

- Drake's "Nothing Was the Same"

- David Brazil's "The Ordinary"

- Spring Breakers

- Chris Kraus's "Summer of Hate"

- Bernadette Mayer's "Midwinter's Day"

- The Mike Kelley retrospective at PS1

- Lewis Warsh's "Information from the Surface of Venus"

- Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories" (and subsequently watching "Phantom of the Paradise")

- Erin Morrill's "On Occasion"

- "Fire in the Belly" & "Waterfront Journals"

- Dana Ward's "Some Other Deaths of Bas Jan Ader", and his incredible reading of said text at Zinc Bar

- David Lehman's "The Last Avant Garde"

- Derek Jarman's "Blue" at MOMA

- Alli Warren's "Here Come the Warm Jets"

- Blood Orange "Cupid Deluxe"; Solange's "Losing You" (really, anything Dev Hynes put his hands on)

- Tamara Faith Berger's "The Maidenhead"

- George Albon's "King" and "Transit Rock"
- "NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star" at the New Museum

- Autre Ne Veut's "Anxiety"

- Rachel Kushner's "The Flamethrowers"

- Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

- David Rattray's "How I Became One of the Invisible"

- Ariana Reines's "Mercury"

- OPN's "R Plus Seven" and seeing Daniel Lopatin perform at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral with video artist Nate Boyce

- Stephanie Young's "Ursula or University"

- "Rituals of Rented Island" at the Whitney

- Room 237

My fall trip to the Bay yielded it's own year's worth of highlights, but here's a quick run down:

- Seeing Keston Sutherland's absolutely spellbinding reading at UC Berkley a few hours after landing at SFO

- Friday brunch, SPD trip, and beach with Brandon, Lindsey, and Steve 
- Reading with the incredible Oki Sogumi at the Bay Area Public School (many thanks to David and Steven for organizing)

- Karaoke with Alli, Brandon, Sara, David, Lindsey, and Steve after the reading (particularly David's fantastic version of 'Torn' by  Natalie Imbruglia)

- Mountain View Cemetery

- Korean feast and then reading with Robert Gluck at Woolsey Heights (on a high for weeks after, thanks to Bob, Andrew Kenower, and Paul Ebenkamp)

- breakfast with you, Michael

- so so many good new books, magazines, and chaps both cheaply bought and freely given away; ran out of room in my luggage

- Midnight tea and amazing records at Sara and David's place, then brunch with David in the morning before my flight back to NY

- 4 days communing with, seriously, the best poetry community on the planet



Jamie Townsend is the managing editor of Aufgabe, and Elderly, an emergent hub of ebullience and disgust. He is author of STRAP/HALO (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs; 2011), Matryoshka (LRL Textile Editions; 2011), and THE DOME (Ixnay Press; 2011), as well as the forthcoming long-player SHADE (Elis Press, 2014).