This blog post title is taken from one of the links below, a new slew of minor hits, this time using the single word “Toadex” in Google.

Nothing incredibly revealing here except that there is a “Toadex” appearing on a few forum pages (Newgrounds, for example), and there seems to be more evidence of actual correspondence between Mr. Toadex and a few blog authors.

These links are a mess; some are already from my previous post but I don’t feel like weeding out the doubles.

Geegaw
Some literary analysis of a recent Dagmar Chili post:
http://www.geegaw.com/archives/0111.shtml
Correspondence with Toadex?
http://www.geegaw.com/archives/0302.shtml

Apathy
I think these are in the previous post:
http://apathy.pitas.com/06_18_2000.html
http://apathy.pitas.com/04_09_2000.html

Newgrounds
Someone named Toadex contributed to these forums (probably more if I really searched):
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/128663/14
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/310812

Sylloge
More correspondence:
http://www.sylloge.com/the_past/2001_03_01_not_recent.html

Amiright
Nothing to do with our author, I think, but the cane toad chemical called Toadex:
http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/johndenver44.shtml

Synthetic Zero
Another Toadex watcher from back in the day:
http://69.93.195.170/may2001a.html
And folllowing, some correspondence:
http://www.syntheticzero.com/jan2002.php
http://www.syntheticzero.com/dec2001.php

Webwasp
Someone named Toadex contributes to this as well:
http://www.webwasp.co.uk/forum/index.php

Metafilter
This has nothing to do with our author, but the great line that forms this post title is from here. Bonney’s translations of Baudelaire are interesting.
http://www.metafilter.com/63023/Sean-Bonneys-Translations-of-Baudelaire

Green in Australia
Information on “Toadex,” a spray for killing cane toads:

Control of cane toads is extremely difficult. Reproductive potential is high. Traditional techniques of dispatch are painful for the animal. Toadex is a new commercial spray product specifically for cane toads. However freezing is the most humane way to kill them. A CSIRO research program to investigate possible biological control options is in progress.

Evon Evonchoo
The Google search for Toadex led me to this blog which also engages in some strange language play, for example:

toadex went sch , supposed tuu miit ddear e lorhx , bud she cant make iit , den neber go , ad fiirst iintend tuu skiip sch and go shopshop wiiv her !!! L0ls ..
had sum funn iin e recess , chungg told miie tat e church hab dunnoe wad iindustriiex programme , den she saex iie can joiin e fashiion iindustriiex , bud e fuckiin edna saex tiis : afta e LV iinciicdent , can she stiilll make iit ? iie wanna roar !! iie hab alreadiiex regreated wore lyetat and euur hab been laughiin ferr almost 1weeks le lehx !!! L0ls .. home-ed and catch sum tv and chated on phone wiiv edna jux nao ..

Athica
Dagmar Chili included in an online web gallery — without permission, of course — created by a group in Athens, Georgia.
http://www.athica.org/virtualart.php

Some time ago, when I posted a .pdf version of “Name: A Novel” on /ubu editions, I noted that there were exactly 4 Google hits for the author of the book, Toadex Hobogrammathon. Memory being what it is, I can’t remember what those links were, but I gave it another shot recently to see if I could dig up something about this mysterious personage. To date, I know of only the following which can be directly attributed to him/her, or at least to this pseudonym — there might be others out there. Two are weird blogs, one is the novel.

The primo blog to read by Toadex H. is Dagmar Chili Pitas. I’ve already linked to this blog from FSC, but haven’t as yet done any serious writing about it. The real title might just be “Dagmar Chili,” “Pitas” being simply the name of the service provider. But like Kleenex and Xerox, the name seems to have stuck.
http://dagmar_chili.pitas.com/

What appears to be a test run up to Dagmar Chili Pitas is Doxo Wox. I found out about it on a blog that seemed to be following Toadex H. back in the day. I haven’t seen proof, other than a similarity of style, that this is by Toadex H., but the similarities are strong (or more particularly, with the early part of Name, the next link).
http://doxowox.org/

And then there is Name: A Novel, which I describe in some detail on the following page.
http://ubu.com/ubu/toadex_name.html

I can’t find the original page on which “Name” first appeared. I don’t remember who among us (mostly like one of the ubuweb folks) discovered it. But I do remember exchanging an email or two with Toadex about putting it up, all lost in one of several crashed or stolen hard drives.

In any case, I’m trying to, uh, research Toadex Hobogrammathon for some writing I hope to do on digital poetry and the whatnot. Below are the only links (not including links to the ubu page, of which there are several) that come up with “Toadex Hobogrammathon.” Appears that, at some time, he/she occasionally dropped a note on some blogs regarding some issue (Zukofsky one time) that needed addressing, though in typically off-beat fashion.

One poster writes that “Mr. Toadex is a friend” of his/hers, that person being listed only as “a” (with no email address). So I’m hardly hot on the trail. But if any of you out there (does anyone read this blog anymore? If not, I understand, it’s sucked for so long) know anything about Toadex, drop me a line.

Erswhile.net
http://erstwhile.net/?t_z=1091343600&t_s=2678400

Apathay
(Hmmm… didn’t realize that apathy was housed at pitas.com, maybe this is the break I needed.)
http://apathy.pitas.com/compconc.html
http://apathy.pitas.com/04_09_2000.html

Bellona Times
http://www.pseudopodium.org/ht-20011014.html

It’s at this website that Toadex asks about Zukfosky:

thro yr Ardent urgency, have I can come to Z;
accidental Ctrl-b, close window, I wrote a something to Ray, … ;;;; What may I be writing an Rutgersial anthological comment on Zukofsky, do yo have any bookings to recomment,?? Or articles?? Are you attributed to him?
I mean, I’m drafted by class, to write by an anthology of Rutgers, what Z did and said, and so forth. I got a goddamn refridgerator the last guy had to assault me with some whirr less than buzzing, when one dranks enough to listen.

And before a four days ago, I didnaot know tha te emoeuseic of A24 is H via C, so enough of tracking up and through the left,

good days to you and thakn yuo of all the

Gewgaw
http://www.geegaw.com/archives/0111.shtml

Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast
(It’s in this one that one of the commentors mentions that Mr. Toadex is a friend, in the same sentence as recommending Kenneth Goldsmith’s Fidget for a conceptual audio project.)
http://www.miettecast.com/2006/09/30/the-scarlet-ibis/

[Postscript: the word “Toadex” brings up several more hits that are relevant, but I don’t have the time right now to post them. Will soon.]

I can’t believe the absurdity of the Best American Poetry series’ “Write and Inaugural Ode” contest. Could there be any “integrity” in a project (see list of magnilquent abstractions that they require be used in the poem) that requires that a line from the poem be taken from a poem in this year’s edition (or from the foreword or introduction). This, I am guessing, is to prove that you indeed have a copy of this year’s edition — a marketing ploy!

I suppose poets aren’t to be trusted to write inaugural odes on their own, uncoached by the aesthetics of Hallmark or the 30-second campaign ads available on YouTube. So much for going in “fear of abstractions” (as Pound suggested) — the Best American Poetry asks you to bathe in them. And why don’t they just ask you to write a poem about Barack Obama — must we be so sly? The election’s over!

This really did depress me, coming from such a visible and often provocative publication series. This is just asking poets to be dumb.

THE CHALLENGE: Write an Inaugural Ode

http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/

Write an inaugural ode, suitable for reading aloud on January 20, 2009. It must consist of sixteen lines broken into four quatrains, rhyme scheme optional. The ode must include one line lifted from a poem in The Best American Poetry 2008 or from the book’s foreword or introduction, and it must also include at least three of the following words: honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power.

&tc. &tc.

According to my air conditioner repairman here in Los Angeles, this guy used to live in my apartment with his mother (who died last year at the age of 91 or so). Maybe not as exciting as living in the house that Syd Barrett lived in, but it’s nice to know the history.

Eduard Y. Gufeld, a chess grandmaster and prolific chess writer who coached many Russian players, including the former women’s world champion Maya Chiburdanidze, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 66 and had lived in Los Angeles since 1995.

Mr. Gufeld’s death, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, occurred two weeks after a stroke, said Dr. Anthony Saidy, an international master and a friend.

By the standards of the Soviet Union, Mr. Gufeld was only a moderately successful chess player. His best finish in the Soviet Championship was a tie for seventh place in 1963.

Still, Mr. Gufeld was among the few Soviet grandmasters allowed to travel freely outside the Soviet Union in the 1970’s and 1980’s, a privilege usually reserved for the best players.

There were rumors that Mr. Gufeld was permitted such freedom because he was working with or for the Soviet secret police, but friends and people who met him on his travels discounted that.

”He was the good-will ambassador for Russian chess,” Dr. Saidy said.

A large man with an engaging personality, Mr. Gufeld had a childlike obsession with chess, friends said. When he lost, he often threw tantrums and even cried.

He wrote more than 80 books, including an autobiography, ”My Life in Chess” (Inside Chess Enterprises, 1994).

Some reviewers said he sacrificed quality for quantity, reusing material from book to book.

Eduard Yefimovich Gufeld was born on March 19, 1936, in Kiev, Ukraine. He became a grandmaster in 1967. In the 70’s and 80’s, he trained the Soviet teams that dominated the Chess Olympiads.

He is survived by his mother, Eva Yulievna Novak, and his sister, Lydia Valdman, who moved to Los Angeles with him.

He was married to a Georgian woman and had a stepson. Dr. Saidy said that Mr. Gufeld had had no contact with his wife and stepson for many years and that he did not know whether Mr. Gufeld was still married.

Mr. Gufeld summed up his feelings about chess by saying: ”For me, chess is life, and every game is like a new life. Every chess player gets to live many lives in one lifetime.”