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From the Editor's Skull

The Editor's Skull.

Well I am sitting in room 430 Travellodge New Orleans waiting for Rob Swigart to call so we can have our first official Spineless Books meeting of the Board of Directors.

I am listening to radio 92.2.

Swigart just called.

Spineless Books Bored of Directors Meeting

Dinner at K-Paul’s.

Present:

Rob Swigart
Dirk Stratton
William Gillespie
Lorien Carsey

Entrees ordered:

Gillespie: Blackened Louisiana Drum
Carsey: Eggplant Pirogue New Orleans Red Gravy
Stratton: Blackened Twin Beef Tenders with Debris Sauce - rare - Caesar's
Swigart: Blackened Twin Beef Tenders with Debris Sauce - rare -
House Salad with Dill Vinaigrette by Chef Paul Miller

This place is the birthp(a)lace of Cajun cooking, which makes Chef K-Paul the Homer of New Orleans cuisine.

K is the initial of his wife, who passed away 11 years ago. She used to run the floor here. Since her passing, Chef K-Paul has spent less time in the kitchen, and more on tour.

Sheila, Jennifer, Chris, and Nicki, who brought the bread, served us.

The Caesar's is disappointing. The romaine has been soaked too long. The dressing is on the sweet side, which is unusual.

The turtle soup is tasty, but we are concerned that the snapping turtle is an endangered species. Still, if Suttree eats turtle soup, then so too should Spineless Books.

Rob Swigart was born in Cincinnati. He remained there until he had finished his undergraduate degree, working for the Cincinnati Inquirer.

Dirk explains the Cincinnati cow: one of the most refreshing and unusual news stories of 2002.

SPCA is 24 years old. Dirk teaches there. Rob's mother used to be on the board there. Lorien applied there, but moved to Cincinnati.

Rob used to live at 1001 Celestial Street in Cincinnati.

Swigart met William Burroughs at a conference in 1981 put on by psychotic Italians.

He was invited on the basis of Little America.

Filets are served. The Debris Sauce is aromatic.

The board unanimously approved William's unwritten business plan. As is. Without amendments. Or codicils.

Both an oxymoron and a dinosaur. (Perseverance. That's the name of the press.) When you marry an oxymoron and a dinosaur you get a curmudgeon.

Rob's hotel room in New Orleans was a "dump." The hallway ceilings on the way to said dump were so low you wondered how you got trapped in a submarine designed by a dwarf. Or for a dwarf.

Much discussion ensued about the size of William's HP Jornada keyboard upon which these minutes were recorded. Rob made the universal "It is to vomit" hand signal when the Windows CE OS was mentioned.

The secretary in no way vouches for the veracity of these minutes. There is much that has not been recorded.

What do you get when you cross a Unitarian and a Jehovah's Witness? Someone who knocks on your door but doesn't know why.

This was the joke that officially closed the first official board meeting of Spineless Books. The appropriateness of this should be apparent to all. Just substitute Spineless Books in the place of the person answering the door.

Have you thought about grants?

I've thought about grants a lot, said William.

Problem solved, declares Rob. Next?

I used to be a poet, he admits.

Everyone "used" to be a poet. Those who remain poets, those who continue to admit they're poets, those are the ones I admire. When did being a poet become the writerly equivalent of wearing diapers? I used to have no control over my bowels and large people had to clean my nether regions. Now I write fiction.

Rob Swigart is, we decided, president, or CFO (Chief Figurehead Officer), or, better yet MFO (Mere Figurehead Officer)

For the record, at 10:07 CST on March 7, 2002, it was determined that "Spineless Books rules."

Respectfully submitted,
Dirk Stratton
Secretary

Treasurer's Addendum:

New Orleans. We chose this city, and the restaurant in particular, because we believe this is the wellspring of jazz and by extension Twentieth-Century—late Twentieth Century—literature. The French Quarter is almost the anti-Manhattan in its lack of pretense of sophistication. This is not an island, this is the mouth of a dirty river vomiting up Mississippi silt. A party town. Upon a sturdy cement foundation of working class Americans a gaudy balsawood mansion of tourism is erected and destroyed each week. Jackson Square—"the nicest public space in America"—is surrounded by a ring of ad-hoc bluesicians, silver spray-painted men pantomiming robots for change, jaded and cynical palm readers, and deadbeats. Tourists outnumber the citizens two to one every month.

And so I proposed Spineless Books' next major literary undertaking: Invisible New Orleans. Spineless Books representatives would spread throughout the French Quarter and surrounding neighborhoods and give to panhandlers and street performers and merchants dollar bills stapled to notes reading:

"INVISIBLE NEW ORLEANS. Accept this bill as a commission and advance against future royalties and compose a poem to appear in the collection Invisible New Orleans. Mail it to Spineless Books."

Where can we get funding for this project? Say travel expenses and $100. ...In ones?

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