Wednesday, February 11, 2009
We Don't use this anymore
Thursday, November 13, 2008
THE ENCLAVE XVII: THE FESTIVAL OF MOVIE STAR TEARS
FEATURING: LYNNE POTTS & JARED HOHL
Saturday, November 22th @ 4 PM
Kenny's Castaways,
For updates and more info go to: www.myspace.com/enclavianmatter
Free and open to the public
LYNNE POTTS has been Poetry Editor of the Columbia Journal and is presently Poetry Editor at AGNI. Her work has appeared in journals including the Paris Review, Nimrod, Hayden's Ferry Review, and many others. She won the HD Poetry Prize from the Bowery Poetry in 2004 and the Backward City Poetry Prize in 2007. She was awarded a fellowship to the
JARED HOHL is from
“Let’s go out together,” La Maga said. “Look, Rocamadour is asleep, he’ll be quiet until it’s time for his bottle. We’ve got two hours, let’s go to that cafe in the Arab quarter, that sad little cafe where we feel so good.” But Oliveira wanted to go out alone. Slowly he began to extract his legs from La Maga’s embrace. He stroked her head, he ran his fingers around her neck, he kissed the back of it, he kissed her behind an ear, listening to her cry as her hair hung down over her face. “No blackmail,” he thought. “Let’s cry face to face, but not with that cheap sob you pick up from the movies.” He raised her face up, he made her look at him.”
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 22nd and find out. You're invited in. Come. Be a part of the Enclave.
Coordinated by The Enclave. For more info email: enclavianmatter@gmail.com
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
UPCOMING EVENT: THE ENCLAVE XV: THE FESTIVAL OF THE MESS

FEATURING MOLLY ROSEN & DORTHEA LASKY
Saturday, September 27th @ 4 PM
Kenny's Castaways,
MOLLY ROSEN's novel "She's Dead I'm Not I'm Yours" will be published by Grove/Black Cat in the Fall of '09.
DOROTHEA LASKY is the author of AWE (Wave Books, 2007). Currently, she studies creativity at the
"What I am saying does not mean that there will henceforth be no form in art. It only means that there will be a new form, and that this form will be of such a type that it admits the chaos and does not try to say that the chaos is really something else. The forms and the chaos remain separate. The later is not reduced to the former. That is why the form itself becomes a preoccupation, because it exists as a problem separate form the material it accommodates. To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 27th and find out. You're invited in. Come. Be a part of the Enclave.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
MOLLY ROSEN, DOROTHEA LASKY & OTHERS READ SEPTEMBER 27th
The Enclave is pleased to announce that our reading scheduled for Saturday September 27th will feature MOLLY ROSEN & DOROTHEA LASKY. The reading will occur at Kenny’s Castaways (
MOLLY ROSEN’s novel "She's Dead I'm Not I'm Yours" will be published by Grove/Black Cat in the Fall of '09
DOROTHEA LASKY is the author of AWE (Wave Books, 2007). Currently, she studies creativity at the
OTHERS TBA SHORTLY
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
We're Back
Best regards,
Sisyphus P. Franklin
The Enclave Writers' Association
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
UPCOMING READING: THE ENCLAVE XIV: THE FESTIVAL OF FAMED FABLES
Saturday, May 31st 3:30 PM
Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker Street, 212-979-9762
For updates and more info go to: www.myspace.com/enclavianmatter
Free and open to the public
FRANK SHERLOCK is the co-author of the newly released Ready-to-Eat Individual with Brett Evans. Publisher Bill Lavender says, "In New Orleans, USA, during the Year 1 A.K. (After Katrina), Frank Sherlock & Brett Evans sifted through the ration fossils to put words where the food used to be. The latest development resulted in a poem that is a State-of-the-City and post-apocalyptic journal, sealed by a retort pouch and blocked from future contamination. The resulting taste and texture are much more realistic and natural than those normal dehydrated and freeze dried histories."
YEW LEONG LEE is a Singaporean writer currently living in the States. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School. His novella, "Gross Domestic Happiness," won the 2003 James Assatly Memorial Prize for Fiction at Brown University. His nonfiction has appeared in the Lives column of The New York Times Magazine, his fiction in the Spring 2008 issue of H.O.W. Journal and Chaise Magazine, and his poetry in Journeys: Words, Home, and Nation: An anthology of Singapore Poetry.
BRANDON HOLMQUEST is the editor of the literary translations journal Calque. He lives in New York City.
“And I shall resemble the wretches famed in fable, crushed beneath the weight of their wish to come true. And I even feel a strange desire come over me, the desire to know what I am doing, and why. So near the goal I set myself in my young days and which prevented me from living. And on the threshold of being no more I succeed in being another. Very pretty.” - ???????
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 31st and find out. You’re invited in. Come. Be a part of the Enclave.
UPCOMING READING: THE ENCLAVE XIV: THE FESTIVAL OF FAMED FABLES
Saturday, May 31st 3:30 PM
Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker Street, 212-979-9762
For updates and more info go to: www.myspace.com/enclavianmatter
Free and open to the public
FRANK SHERLOCK is the co-author of the newly released Ready-to-Eat Individual with Brett Evans. Publisher Bill Lavender says, "In New Orleans, USA, during the Year 1 A.K. (After Katrina), Frank Sherlock & Brett Evans sifted through the ration fossils to put words where the food used to be. The latest development resulted in a poem that is a State-of-the-City and post-apocalyptic journal, sealed by a retort pouch and blocked from future contamination. The resulting taste and texture are much more realistic and natural than those normal dehydrated and freeze dried histories."
YEW LEONG LEE is a Singaporean writer currently living in the States. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School. His novella, "Gross Domestic Happiness," won the 2003 James Assatly Memorial Prize for Fiction at Brown University. His nonfiction has appeared in the Lives column of The New York Times Magazine, his fiction in the Spring 2008 issue of H.O.W. Journal and Chaise Magazine, and his poetry in Journeys: Words, Home, and Nation: An anthology of Singapore Poetry.
BRANDON HOLMQUEST is the editor of the literary translations journal Calque. He lives in New York City.
“And I shall resemble the wretches famed in fable, crushed beneath the weight of their wish to come true. And I even feel a strange desire come over me, the desire to know what I am doing, and why. So near the goal I set myself in my young days and which prevented me from living. And on the threshold of being no more I succeed in being another. Very pretty.” - ???????
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 31st and find out. You’re invited in. Come. Be a part of the Enclave.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
May Line Up Announced!!!
So now everything is official. Our next reading is scheduled for Saturday MAy 31st and will feature FRANK SHERLOCK, YEW LEONG LEE & BRANDON HOLMQUEST. It will be held at Kenny's (157 Bleecker Street) at 3:30 PM. Check out some of the stellar bios below:
FRANK SHERLOCK is the co-author of the newly released Ready-to-Eat Individual with Brett Evans. Publisher Bill Lavender says, "In New Orleans, USA, during the Year 1 A.K. (After Katrina), Frank Sherlock & Brett Evans sifted through the ration fossils to put words where the food used to be. The latest development resulted in a poem that is a State-of-the-City and post-apocalyptic journal, sealed by a retort pouch and blocked from future contamination. The resulting taste and texture are much more realistic and natural than those normal dehydrated and freeze dried histories."
YEW LEONG LEE is a Singaporean writer currently living in the States. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School. His novella, "Gross Domestic Happiness," won the 2003 James Assatly Memorial Prize for Fiction at Brown University. His nonfiction has appeared in the Lives column of The New York Times Magazine, his fiction in the Spring 2008 issue of H.O.W. Journal and Chaise Magazine, and his poetry in Journeys: Words, Home, and Nation: An anthology of Singapore Poetry.
BRANDON HOLMQUEST is the editor of the literary translations journal Calque. He lives in New York City.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
UPCOMING READING: THE ENCLAVE XIII: THE FESTIVAL OF NEVER
Saturday, April 26th 3:30 PM
Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker Street, 212-979-9762
For updates and more info go to: www.myspace.com/enclavianmatter
Free and open to the public
“The dreamers dream from the neck up, their bodies securely strapped to the electric chair. To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each step, each gesture killing and recreating, death always a step in advance. To spit on the past is not enough. To proclaim the future is not enough. One must act as if the past were dead and the future unrealized. One must act as if the next step were the last, which it is. Each step forward is the last, and with it a world dies, one’s self included. We are here of the earth never to end, the past never ceasing, the future never beginning, the present never ending. The never-never world which we hold in our hands and see and yet is not ourselves. We are that which is never concluded, never shaped to be recognized, all there is and yet not the whole, the parts so much greater than the whole that only God the mathematician can figure out...” - ?????
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 26th and find out. You’re invited in. Come. Be a part of the Enclave.
CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN is the creator of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a rigorous storytelling session backed by its own live soundtrack. He is the author of rest area, a collection of short stories, and miss corpus, a novel. Chapman is currently working on the book for a new musical with Grammy award winning musician Bruce Hornsby, titled SCKBSTD – as well as HOSTAGE SONG, a new indie-rock musical with Obie-award winning musician Kyle Jarrow, that is currently being preformed at the Kraine Theater in the East Village.
BRIAN FRANK was born in 1973 in Detroit. As a teenager he was a skateboarder in Nashville. From ages 18 to 23 he lived as a Hare Krishna monk in India and abroad. He later attended Parsons School of Design. Taking inspiration from dressing the deities of Krishna Frank founded and designed for an award winning womens’ ready-to-wear company. He is writing his first book, a memoir that discusses the transition from a punk rock adolescence to monastic life returning to western culture as a fashion designer. Frank currently lives in New York City.
MATTHEW BURGESS veered from a career in musical theater in 1987 after a pitchy performance of the Scarecrow’s “If I Only Had a Brain” at Our Lady Queen of Angels school. He has studied at University of Virginia, Naropa University, and Brooklyn College, where he received a MacArthur Scholarship and an MFA in Poetry in 2001. His poems have appeared in various journals and magazines, including Lungfull!l, Hanging Loose, and Big City Lit, and he’s published three chapbooks: Liftoff (2002), Yeah You (2005), and most recently, a series of photographs and poems titled Day After Labor Day (2007). Matthew has taught creative writing and literature at Brooklyn College for over eight years, and he also works for Teachers & Writers Collaborative as a poet-in-residence in New York City public schools. He is currently pursuing his PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, proving to himself that he has a brain after all. He sings when no one’s around.
Coordinated by The Enclave Writers Association
Friday, April 4, 2008
April Line-UP Announced!!
CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN is the creator of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a rigorous storytelling session backed by its own live soundtrack. He is the author of rest area, a collection of short stories, and miss corpus, a novel. Chapman is currently working on the book for a new musical with Grammy award winning musician Bruce Hornsby, titled SCKBSTD – as well as HOSTAGE SONG, a new indie-rock musical with Obie-award winning musician Kyle Jarrow, that is currently being preformed at the Kraine Theater in the East Village.
BRIAN FRANK was born in 1973 in Detroit. As a teenager he was a skateboarder in Nashville. From ages 18 to 23 he lived as a Hare Krishna monk in India and abroad. He later attended Parsons School of Design. Taking inspiration from dressing the deities of Krishna Frank founded and designed for an award winning womens’ ready-to-wear company. He is writing his first book, a memoir that discusses the transition from a punk rock adolescence to monastic life returning to western culture as a fashion designer. Frank currently lives in New York City.
MATTHEW BURGESS received his MFA in poetry at Brooklyn College where he now teaches literature and creative writing. He is the author of a chapbook titled "Liftoff" (Blue Language Press, 2002) and another one on the way this spring titled "Yeah You." His poems have appeared in Hanging Loose, Lungfull, The Brooklyn Review and elsewhere.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Enclave co-founder James Freed on NPR this Saturday @ 1PM
So what exactly is the difference?
Neighborhood Public Radio is a traveling band of guerrilla broadcasters who bring the power of the airways to the people. Originating from pockets all over the country this spring the Whitney Museum of American Art has decided to put this artist collective up in a make shift pirate radio station housed in a former shoe store as part of the current Whitney Biennial.
This Saturday April 5 at 1 PM Jim will present a version of his short story A Melodrama Composed for my Father on the Occasion of his Birthday that he has edited into a radio play at the NPR studio located at 941 Madison Avenue.
The concept? Composed of arguing voices, the piece is about a writer and his attempt to compose a melodrama - aka the gun in the drawer story.
The renegade actors troupe Amalgamation Extreme will also participate, along with perhaps some musicians as well.
So if you’re around stop on by the studio and say hello. If you can’t make it but happen to be around Madison between 73rd and 76th, flip on your radio to 91.9 FM. Otherwise online goto www.neighborhoodpublicradio.org and pick up the live stream. Note, if you don’t have a live stream player on your computer you may need to download one for free. Go to: http://www.winamp.com
News Flash: Enclave Anniversary a HUGE success
Things got rolling Friday night with a visual collaboration on Kenny’s front windows featuring a painting by Magali Lara and a poem by Carmen Boullosa. The result was an energetic statement that both artists illuminated further following its creation in interviews. While due to an unforeseen window washing misunderstanding the mural was erased before the reading, a video of the artists composing and speaking about their work will be posted shortly.
On Saturday the Sangria was flowing freely at Kenny’s. Things got off to a great start with Bolivian poet Eduardo Mitre’s poems. Then Naief Yehya continued the momentum with a hilarious story examining the economical potential of death rights. After a short break Jose Prieto and his translator read a section of his novel Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire, a beautiful tale of love, and well smuggling. Then acclaimed Mexican novelist, poet and playwright Carmen Boullosa took the stage and enchanted the crowd with a lively reading of her ghost story exploring poetic flatulence.
Afterward the crowd stumbled and stared as The Hot Magic rocked out, droning through a set list of psychedelic jams to the packed house.
Pictures of the event are already up so take a look at what you missed. Audio clips of the performances will follow shortly.
The next Enclave will be held Saturday April 26th @ 3:30PM and feature writers Clay McLeod Chapman, Brian Frank, Matthew Burgess & others. More info to come shortly.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Party with The Enclave on Sat. March 29th @3:30PM
The Enclave celebrates a year of innovative writing with a reading featuring: Carmen Boullosa, Naief Yehya, Eduardo Mitre, Jose Manuel Prieto & musical guests The Hot Magic
Saturday, March 29th 3:30 PM
Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker Street, 212-979-9762
For updates and more info go to: www.myspace.com/enclavianmatter
Free and open to the public
*Free Sangria(until it runs out) and drink specials
“He had meant to shut his eyes. But, when the train came in sight, he kept them wide open, bunched himself together, and held his breath though his mouth was gaping...With a rattle and a roar the light bore down on him, and the roar swelled to such a din as he had never heard in his life before, so tremendous that he almost fancied he was dead already...” - ?????
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 29th and find out. You’re invited in. Come. Be a part of the Enclave.
Carmen Boullosa is one of México's leading novelists, poets and playwrights. She has won several literary awards including the Anna Seghers in Berlin, the Liberatur in Frankfurt and the prestigious Premio Xavier Villaurrutia in Mexico. Boullosa has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the New York Public Library´s Center for Scholars and Writers and a Distinguished Visitor at Columbia University and Georgetown University, among others. She has published twelve novels, among them La otra mano de Lepanto (published by Siruela, in Spain, and by Fondo de Cultura Económica, in Mexico). Her latest book, The Perfect Novel (a science-fiction novel set in Brooklyn), was published this year by Alfaguara in Mexico. Along with Salman Rushdie, in 2000 she founded the Mexico City House for Persecuted Writers in Mexico City. She is currently a Distinguished Lecturer at City College, New York.
Naief Yehya was born in Mexico City. A novelist, journalist and cultural critic, Yehya has written for numerous magazines and newspapers in Mexico and published several works of fiction and nonfiction such as the novel Obras sanitarias (Sanitary Works, 1992), The Transformed Body. Cyborgs and our Technological Heritage in the Real World and Science Fiction (2001), War and Propaganda: Mass Media and the Myth of War in the US (2003), and, Pornografía: sexo mediatizado y pánico moral (Pornography: Mediated Sex and Moral Panic (2004). He has lived in Brooklyn since 1992.
Eduardo Mitre, a poet born in Bolivia, has published his books of poetry, Morada, Mirabilia, Desde tu cuerpo, Razón ardiente, Ferviente humo, Elegía a una muchacha y Línea de otoño, among others, in some of the most renowned Spanish poetry houses (Visor, Pretextos, Vuelta). He is also author of several books on Latin American poetry, among them Huidobro, hambre de espacio y sed de cielo. His most recent book is El paraguas de Manhattan (Manhattan´s Umbrella). He has been a professor at Columbia University, Dartmouth College and Universidad Católica Boliviana. Currently he teaches at St. John's University.
José Manuel Prieto was born in Havana, Cuba. He is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction including the international acclaimed Livadia (which was published in English in 2001 as Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire), Enciclopedia de una vida en Rusia, El Tartamudo y la rusa (short stories), and most recently Rex(a novel), among others. Prieto's work has been translated to many languages with an exceptional critical reception. He has been a Fellow at The New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Prieto has taught at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica (CIDE) in Mexico City and is currently a Visiting Professor at Cornell University.
The Hot Magic is a psychedelic electro band from Baltimore Maryland.
Their website is: www.myspace.com/thehotmagic.
Coordinated by The Enclave Writers Association
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The Enclave Announces Line Up for 1 year Anniversary Party on Saturday March 29th @ 3:30 pm
Carmen Boullosa is one of México's leading novelists, poets and playwrights. She has won several literary awards including the Anna Seghers in Berlin, the Liberatur in Frankfurt and the prestigious Premio Xavier Villaurrutia in Mexico. Boullosa has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the New York Public Library´s Center for Scholars and Writers and a Distinguished Visitor at Columbia University and Georgetown University, among others. She has published twelve novels, among them La otra mano de Lepanto (published by Siruela, in Spain, and by Fondo de Cultura Económica, in Mexico). Her latest book, The Perfect Novel (a science-fiction novel set in Brooklyn), was published this year by Alfaguara in Mexico. Along with Salman Rushdie, in 2000 she founded the Mexico City House for Persecuted Writers in Mexico City. She is currently a Distinguished Lecturer at City College, New York.
Naief Yehya was born in Mexico City. A novelist, journalist and cultural critic, Yehya has written for numerous magazines and newspapers in Mexico and published several works of fiction and nonfiction such as the novel Obras sanitarias (Sanitary Works, 1992), The Transformed Body. Cyborgs and our Technological Heritage in the Real World and Science Fiction (2001), War and Propaganda: Mass Media and the Myth of War in the US (2003), and, Pornografía: sexo mediatizado y pánico moral (Pornography: Mediated Sex and Moral Panic (2004). He has lived in Brooklyn since 1992.
Eduardo Mitre, a poet born in Bolivia, has published his books of poetry, Morada, Mirabilia, Desde tu cuerpo, Razón ardiente, Ferviente humo, Elegía a una muchacha y Línea de otoño, among others in some of the most renowned Spanish poetry houses (Visor, Pretextos, Vuelta). He is also author of several books on Latin American poetry, among them Huidobro, hambre de espacio y sed de cielo. His most recent book is El paraguas de Manhattan (Manhattan´s Umbrella). He has been professor at Columbia University, Dartmouth College and Universidad Católica Boliviana. Currently he teaches at St. John's University.
José Manuel Prieto was born in Havana, Cuba. He is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction including the international acclaimed Livadia (which was published in English in 2001 as Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire), Enciclopedia de una vida en Rusia, El Tartamudo y la rusa (short stories), and most recently Rex(a novel), among others. Prieto’s work has been translated to many languages with an exceptional critical reception. He has been a Fellow at The New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Prieto has taught at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica (CIDE) in Mexico City and is currently a Visiting Professor at Cornell University.
The Hot Magic is a psychedelic electro band from Baltimore Maryland. Their website is: www.myspace.com/thehotmagic.
Cafe Nueva York is a collective of writers who live in New York and produce literary works in Spanish. Part of a lengthy tradition of Spanish speaking New Yorkers, notably Lorca and Marti, they aim to resurrect this rich cultural heritage and enhance the visibility of the flourishing Spanish literary movement of the present through establishing an ambience of critical sociability like that found in the literary coffee-houses characteristic of Spanish-speaking countries dedicated to convoking the Spanish voices of this city.
As always, the event will take place at Kenny’s Castaways (157 Bleeker Street) and is free and open to the public. So plan on being there: Saturday March 29th @ 3:30 PM. More details will follow shortly, but in the meantime feel free to drop us a line @ enclavianmatter@gmail.com should you have any questions.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Douglas A. Martin, Nick Burd, and Others Read Sat Feb. 23rd @ 4PM

Saturday February 23, 2008 4 pm
Kenny's Castaways
157 Bleecker Street
"My mouth is filled with earth... My mouth is filled with you, with your mouth. Your tightly closed lips, pressing hard, biting into mine... I swallow foamy saliva; I chew clumps of dirt crawling with worms that knot in my throat and push against the roof of my mouth... My mouth caves in, contorted, lacerated by gnawing, devouring teeth. My nose grows spongy. My eyeballs liquefy. My hair burns a single bright blaze..." - ????
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 23rd and find out.
The Readers:
DOUGLAS A. MARTIN is the author most recently of a poetry collection, In the Time of Assignments, just out from Soft Skull Press. His prose works include Branwell, a novel of the Bronte brother (Soft Skull 2005), They Change the Subject, a book of stories (University of Wisconsin 2005), and Your Body Figured, an experimental narrative forthcoming this September from Nightboat Books. Outline of My Lover, Martin's first novel, was an International Book of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement and adapted in part by the Forsythe Company for their multimedia ballet and live film "Kammer/Kammer." "The Day Outlying," his essay on the autobiographical and fiction, is included in the collection Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative (Coach House Books). Raised in Georgia, he now lives in Brooklyn. He teaches writing at The New School University and in the Low-Residency MFA Writing Program at Goddard College.
NICK BURD received his MFA from the New School and currently works for PEN American Center, the world's oldest human rights organization. His essay "Afterlife" appeared in Generation What?: Dispatches from the Quarter-Life Crisis (Speck Press). His first novel THE VAST FIELDS OF ORDINARY is forthcoming from Dial Books. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
DAN CAYER works for the NYC Teaching Fellows in Brooklyn. He was recently an intern on the WNYC program, "Radio Rookies," and helped produce several teenagers' stories from the Staten Island workshop. He writes fiction and this is his first reading in New York.
E.N. Clave gets Arrested in Mexico
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
E.N. Clave grows restless in NYC again and heads to Mexico in search of new talent for the Enclave
Hey everybody back in NYC:
Just a quick note to let you know that I'm still alive down here, some 3000 miles south of New York. Today is my final morning in Mexico City before we head south to Oaxaca most likely, though as yesterday we were going to try to rip it straight to the jungle and see about a rumor of a young and gifted psychedelic poet who allegedly resides near Palenque, you never know where we will end up tonight - a testament to the rules of the road perhaps.
I've been in DF though since Monday now and have really dug it. I could easily spend another month here, though I should say that this is all I have really seen of Mexico so far - my wish is that things will get even better the farther I travel south.
To recap a bit: after crossing the boarder on Sunday into Nuevo Laredo we had dinner with some of B's friends and rolled 2 hours south to Monterrey. We didn't get in until late and rolled out early. Originally we intended to take the pan am highway to DF, but once we realized those roads are shit, we headed west toward Saltillo and caught highway 59 south and on a whim (at a rest stop B did a bunch of push ups to rec him up and wanted to see if he could rip it the entire way) we rolled straight to DF in about 8 hours going about 90 the entire way (the Mexican toll roads are a wonderful thing).
After arriving we caught dinner with some of B's friends (where we stayed), and turned in to recuperate from the road. We spent most of the next day exploring DF - everywhere from the centro zolcalo and student neighborhoods to less flattering places like the strip on san pablo where prostitutes of all ages gather in broad daylight along with cops. It's really a trip being here. This city contains all sorts of people coexisting side by side. Of course there are regular incidents, (people get beaten and robbed in the libre cabs everyday), but for the most part it seemed that everyone sort of just minds their own business and is pretty relaxed. Pretty much everything I have ever heard about exploring DF has been wrong.
Yesterday we explored the pyramids north of town, Teotihuacan, where we climbed the temple of the sun, the 3rd highest pyramid in the world. Pretty amazing to be on the sight. Afterward we stopped by this bar, The Red Fly, in the Roma neighborhood for lunch. While we only intended to stay for an hour to eat and maybe walk around the area, before we knew it we had befriended our waiter and the owner and ended up talking and drinking with them both for hours – eventually we even ended up going to one of their friend’s apartments to commemorate the experience of meeting each other by all getting tattoos. I got the enclave logo across my chest and B got a mermaid on his thigh. Overall I must say our last night in DF was pretty bad ass - again an instance I think emblematic of the kindness and openness of most of the Mexicans I'm meeting down here.
To top things off, we had the luck to meet this old guy Jaun who allegedly used to steal books with Roberto Bolano in DF back in the early 70s. We actually met him in a bookstore after getting the ink done where we were unsuccessfully trying to steal books for the road, as the ink had exhausted most of our travel funds. Jaun instantly recognized our inexperience and offered his services as a distraction in order to facilitate our escape. Needless to say the operation was a success. As we had no money to thank him with, B suggested he hop in the van with us. We didn't need to ask Jaun twice. He promptly accepted as it seems that a sort of consortium of vigilante bookstore owners has been forming against him recently, so the time away wouldn’t do him any harm.
Anyway after we worked out the details, B and I headed back to his friend’s place and hit the hay. Now in just a few moments we are off to pick up Jaun and rip it through the mountains further south. I have heard some really great things about a young novelist in Oaxaca who goes by only the name of Nestor. Hopefully we will have a good internet connection there and I will be able to post again shortly. Hope everyone is freezing their asses off in NYC. If things keep going as they are going I’m never coming back.
Best regards,
Edward Nathaniel Clave
Friday, November 30, 2007
THE ENCLAVE X: FESTIVAL of FLORAL DISCOURSE

featuring...
WAYNE KOESTENBAUM
ROBERT POLITO
JESSE DORRIS
The Enclave proudly kicks off its 2008 program with a bang...Come for an afternoon/evening of excellent fiction, poetry, and general festivities...
Saturday
January 26, 2008
4 - 6 pm
Kenny's Castaways
157 Bleecker Street
Greenwich Village, New York
The Readers...
WAYNE KOESTENBAUM has published five books of poetry: Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films, Model Homes, The Milk of Inquiry, Rhapsodies of a Repeat Offender, and Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems. He has also published a novel, Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, and five books of nonfiction: Andy Warhol, Cleavage, Jackie Under My Skin, The Queen's Throat (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist), and Double Talk. His newest book, Hotel Theory, a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction, was published by Soft Skull Press in 2007. He a Distinguished Professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center, and currently also a Visiting Professor in the painting department of the Yale School of Art.
ROBERT POLITO's forthcoming new book of poems is called Hollywood & God. His other books include Doubles and Savage Art:a Biography of Jom Thompson , which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography. He directs the Graduate Writing Program at the New School.
JESSE DORRIS' writing has appeared in Out, Black Book, The Brooklyn Rail, The Salt Silver Review, and the anthologies New York Sex Stories and Latin Lovers. He co-edited the anthology Besame Mucho with Jamie Manrique. He received an MFA from the New School, and is currently at work on a novel.
He believed in suggestion, in the technique of surprise and in victory being irrevocable if one succeeded in frightening the adversary with appearance; he deformed himslef with patches of falsies, he'd arise before the gaping opponents with two nose or with an elephant trunk, red like a pimento, hanging from his forehead like a spring. Want to know where this quote comes from? Join us at the next THE ENCLAVE: FESTIVAL of FLORAL DISCOURSE to find out...
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
THE ENCLAVE IX: THE FESTIVAL OF GHOST-CHILDREN
Featuring: Gerald Hansen, Jon McMillan & OthersSaturday, December 15th 3:30 PM
Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker Street, 212-979-9762
For updates and more info email: enclavianmatter@gmail.com
Free and open to the public
"So the ghost-children marched down the valley and fell into the abyss. Their passage was brief. And their ghost-song or its echo, which is almost to say the echo of nothingness, went on marching, I could hear it marching on at the same pace, the pace of courage and generosity. A barely audible song, a song of war and love, because although the children were clearly marching to war, the way they marched recalled the superb, theatrical attitudes of love."
Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 17th and find out. It's a rare opportunity to hear some of the east coast's most innovative writers on the cutting edge. Come. Be a part of The Enclave.
GERALD HANSEN is the author of the novel An Embarrassment of Riches. He lived for years in his mother's hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland and attended Dublin City University. As a Navy brat, he grew up in California, Thailand, London, Iceland and Germany. He now lives in New York City. His website is: www.geraldhansen.vpweb.com.
JON McMILLAN graduated from the MFA program at the New School University, where he won the Chapbook contest for fiction. His work has appeared in the magazines Dirt and Five Points, and on the music blog stereogum.com. His story "Born on Fire" was selected as one of the "100 Distinguished Stories of 2005" in the Best American Short Stories 2006 anthology. He is currently at work on a novel.
ALBERT CHEN covers major league baseball for Sports Illustrated and SI.com. A graduate of Yale College, he has lived in Nebraska, Maryland, and New York City. He is currently at work on his first novel.
MIKE SANDERSON is a writer who has lived in Brooklyn before it was hip. He has many ideas.
STACEY ROBINSON grew up in a farming community in Antarctica during the great Depression where she subsisted on a macrobiotic diet of mustard seeds, seals and blubber. Her hobbies include falconry, sex toy distribution, and whittling. When she isn't using her free time to mend the ozone layer or clean oil slicked baby seals, she writes.
Coordinated by The Enclave Writers Association
