Tell all your friends--Pacific Standard poetry contest!

Here's an announcement I'm sending out today to several mailing lists:

Pacific Standard Bar

is pleased to announce

its inaugural Skirmish of Wits in Verse,

or,

Broadsheet Poetry Contest,

on the theme

"Making New York City Home."

Winner to be chosen by Philip Levine.

The prize is $250 plus broadsheet publication.

Deadline: April 1, 2007.

Further details follow.

_______________________________________________

We, the owners of Pacific Standard, a new literary bar in Brooklyn, can't think of any better way to christen our new watering hole than with honeyed lines. We'd like to make Pacific Standard a home away from home for both our patrons and our West Coast expatriate selves. So, for this contest, we thought it would be appropriate to hear how other displaced folks adjusted to the city.

The winner will receive $250, and will be published in our first beautiful limited-edition letter-press broadsheet, which will be sold at the bar. Four other finalists will be heartily commended and given free broadsheets and a $10 bar tab. Some or all of our finalists may be invited to read in our upcoming poetry reading series.

Entry Fee: $5, via check or money order payable to Pacific Standard, Inc.

Submission Deadline: Your entry must be postmarked by April 1, 2007. Winners will be named on our web site (see address below).

Rules: Please send us only one single-spaced poem of 30 lines or less. You may send a poem that is under consideration elsewhere, but we ask that you notify us immediately if it is accepted. We have no preference for style or subject matter, as long as your entry fits the contest's theme. We vow to be as fair as humanly possible, but we do admit that we are Brooklynites, and this is a Brooklyn bar, so we may be unconsciously biased towards Brooklyn-related poems. The contest is open to anyone, even people who don't live in New York City (but, obviously, you'd probably need some experience of the city to write a poem about it). Do not include your name on your poem; give us your contact information in a separate cover letter. Entries will not be returned; include an SASE if you'd like to receive a response from us.

Send entries to: Pacific Standard Poetry Contest, c/o John Rauschenberg, 214 14th St., Apt. 2, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Inquiries may be sent to fiatlux@pacificstandardbrooklyn.com.

About Us: Pacific Standard is a cozy, relaxed microbrew pub at 82 Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, slated to open in early April. We are committed to serving the local literary community with semi-regular readings, broadsheets, and a nice library. Read more about us at www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com.

Stair, Felix, and Kevin

I built most of a stair today. It's slightly off-center, but I have a plan to rectify, or make Jon Stan rectify, that fact tomorrow. While I was building it, I was subject to Felix, our electrician, and his constant shtick about such subjects as contemporary art, where to hide if our bar gets raided by the fuzz, and and Kevin, who was in and out all day. Here's one classic moment:

Kevin: "So bored."
(exits out front door)
Felix: "If a Chinaman says it's boring, it's definitely boring."

Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Also, he's Korean.

I also picked up a coffee table on f*cking Avenue D, walked it all the way back to the R train, rode that to Pacific Street, and walked four more blocks to the bar, where my aching arms finally got a rest. We have to get you more pictures soon.

Oh, and our handicapped accessibility problem has been solved, nearly as soon as it arose. Yet another phantom menace that needlessly freaked us out for a day or so.

The plumber and the landlord

I almost collapsed from the cultural weight of the epic meeting of our Korean landlord and our Italian plumber today. They both have such shtick it was hard to keep from laughing. I wish I could have recorded their converstation as they discussed gas, hot water, and sewage lines. I'll reproduce one choice segment here:

Italian plumber: "You need to get a plumber in here to change the gas lines. I'd do it, but I know you Chinese guys all have your own Chinese plumbers."
Kevin: (long pause)
...
...
"I NOT CHINESE! I KOREAN!"
Italian plumber: "Sorry, don't mean any disrespect."
Kevin: "NOOOOO! IT'S OKAY!"

After the plumber left, Kevin launched into perhaps his funniest rant ever, not about the plumber, but about his sewage line. He pointed out an access cover to me and proceeded thusly:

Kevin: "This very important hole. It's for woman. She clog drain, you know? You have woman in bar, right? You need to use this hole, because they clog drain."
Me: (looking stupefied at Kevin)
Kevin: "You know, woman very messy, put many thing in toilet."
Me: (looking stupefied at Kevin)
Kevin: "You know, she put (making gesture at his groin) many thing in toilet."

It took me until this final gesture to realize he was saying he used that hole to fish maxi pads out of the plumbing. Ah, Kevin.

Anyway, the plumber has plunged us into handicapped-accessibility limbo. We need to figure out what to do about the two stairs that go from the front room to the back room to make them handi-friendly. We thought that wouldn't be a problem, but apparently our architect pulled a fast one on us. We'll talk to him tomorrow.

The discovery of the weekend

was that we have a real chimney! We finally looked behind the faux fireplace, and found a bare brick hole. But when you shine a flashlight up it, you see a long tunnel going, we can only imagine, to the top of our three-story building. How neat, we say. I think our new plan is to trash the stone fireplace cover and let our bare brick fireplace shine, perhaps with a rough-cut wood mantel. Any ideas?

Weekend summary

Mike Stan, Jon's dad, was in town. Matt Medlin, Mike Romanos, and I rented a U-Haul, went to Lowe's for construction supplies, then merrily drove up to Westchester County to pick up two couches for the bar. We also stopped at a furniture store in Queens, where I picked up a nice old yellow bookcase. All in all, a pretty productive weekend.

Another day at the bar...

and more productive work:

--Met with our carpenter, Jon, today, and finalized the bar layout and aesthetics. I think it's really shaping up well. Wait till you guys see the stained glass panels we bought.
--We're getting a U-Haul van on Sunday to pick up more couches. Anyone have any other ideas for us while we have the van? Cool furniture/lumber stores? Places to get bookcases?
--My stitches are out. Aren't you glad to get minute updates about the state of my fingers?
--Electric and plumbing work should start next week.

Routers, circular saws, and us.

Yesterday, in addition to meeting with our walk-in refrigerator guy and our robot designer, we had a company cart away a huge amount of demolished material. It was very satisfying to watch all that scrap wood and metal and bags of drywall get crushed by a thunderous, smoke-belching pneumatic truck. In our new, refreshingly open and clean space, we began carpentry work.

Our first job was the tricky matter of cutting an oddly trapezoidal piece of wood to fit in the hole in the floor of our back room. After much circular sawing and routering, we got a piece of plywood to fit. Now we just need to insert a few 2x4s as support and we'll be done. Next up is patching other parts of the floor and making our staircases less treacherous. This handyman-type work is really fun stuff, and it's a lot of fun to play with our toys. I think I'm going to try building some shelving and a big bookcase myself, now that we have the router.

Wound clinic for me today. I pray my finger will return to health soon. Otherwise I shall send it to Italy for a rest cure.