Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf

I keep coming back. The muscles behind my eyeballs feel like they've just gotten out of a cast, like gelatin or something else my mom would use to seal marmalade jars, and yet...I keep coming back to this goddamn computer with bleary eyes that are burning from their hour less of sleep and super late-night Lost session.
I can't even help myself. What else is there to do in a bookstore on a rainy Sunday when business is slow? Clean? Alphabetize? Get serious.

A few months back someone came in looking for a book called Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf. We didn't have it but when I looked it up I saw it was by a guy named Paul Fattaruso. About 8 years ago while I was at UMASS Amherst, I got a kind of funny post card for an MFA graduate poetry reading from my creative writing professor (an MFA student herself). I liked the postcard enough that I lingered for an hour or two after classes and went to check it out. It wasn't perfect but I left more excited about writing than I had been in months. It was Alexander Phillips and Paul Fattaruso's reading. After months and months of being hammered with the idea that including pop culture references turned writing from literature into shit by some traditional professors, Fattaruso and Phillips' reading was proof that I should continue to write whatever the fuck I wanted as long as I always aimed to make it my best.
A week later, I probably freaked out poor Paul while he was waiting for the bus on campus by running out of my friend's car to hurriedly introduce myself, tell him I loved their reading and demand a handshake. Despite his protest that the Doritos he was eating had made his fingers orange and sticky.
Needless to say, after the request for his book I ordered a copy for myself and have been really enjoying it. The thing is there's a blurb from John Ashbery on the back that's been cracking me up. Here's what he writes:
A wild and magical ride in the wolf's mouth, said to be the safest place to travel if you can 'find a wolf who won't swallow you.'

What's so funny about a blurb like that?
1. It has nearly nothing to do with the book
2. It reads like a fourth-grader's book report.
3. It sounds standard issue, like somewhere there's a website where you can request blurbs from Ashbery that says: Please send a money order for $200 and you'll receive a blurb from John Ashbery in a PDF format!
From the quantity and quality of blurbs I've seen from him recently there may actually be such a website. What the hell is that about? If you're going to be supportive of young writers and do them a favor you may as well do it right.
There's also a blurb from James Tate (who was probably his instructor at UMASS) that's very complimentary. But to Fattaruso's credit the book actually is good. A unique approach to a (sort of) novella. You should check it out.