Wednesday, August 29, 2007
opium memoir prize entry
my entry to the Opium Magazine 500 Word Memoir Contest is featured on the site today: A DISCIPLINE OF NO WANT do a look.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
cormac mccarthy and films
today i got these three books in the mail:
but looks like they are going to have to wait because last night i started my reread of BLOOD MERIDIAN and am already in awe of what i'd forgotten. i think the first time i read the book i went a little too fast and if i missed something because my brain started to wander in the same way it does to keep me up all night, i would just run it over. i am being careful to get every sentence this time, because every sentence is pretty much a masterpiece in itself.
as such:
"Already gunfire was general within the tent and a dozen exits had been hacked through the canvas walls and people were pouring out, women screaming, folk stumbling, folk trampled underfoot in the mud. The kid and his friend reached the hotel gallery and wiped the water from their eyes and turned to watch. As they did so the tent began to sway and buckle and like a huge and wounded medusa it slowly settled to the ground trailing tattered canvas walls and ratty guyropes over the ground."
that's on page 7.
and i haven't even really gotten to the Judge yet.
anyone who is interested in violent and/or macabre and/or backwoods wanderer literature should put this book at the top of their list.
i heard a couple years ago that david cronenberg had bought the rights to film this book. i can't imagine anyone being able to do that but i guess he'd be the most likely to pull it off if anyone. the new cronenberg film that's about to come out looks like it could be better than a history of violence, which i felt was a pretty underdeveloped story, even if it looked cool. not to mention the soon-to-come coen brothers adaptation of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which is also kind of potentially scary considering the coens' recent track record, but potentially awesome considering their earlier record.
hrphmhm.
but looks like they are going to have to wait because last night i started my reread of BLOOD MERIDIAN and am already in awe of what i'd forgotten. i think the first time i read the book i went a little too fast and if i missed something because my brain started to wander in the same way it does to keep me up all night, i would just run it over. i am being careful to get every sentence this time, because every sentence is pretty much a masterpiece in itself.
as such:
"Already gunfire was general within the tent and a dozen exits had been hacked through the canvas walls and people were pouring out, women screaming, folk stumbling, folk trampled underfoot in the mud. The kid and his friend reached the hotel gallery and wiped the water from their eyes and turned to watch. As they did so the tent began to sway and buckle and like a huge and wounded medusa it slowly settled to the ground trailing tattered canvas walls and ratty guyropes over the ground."
that's on page 7.
and i haven't even really gotten to the Judge yet.
anyone who is interested in violent and/or macabre and/or backwoods wanderer literature should put this book at the top of their list.
i heard a couple years ago that david cronenberg had bought the rights to film this book. i can't imagine anyone being able to do that but i guess he'd be the most likely to pull it off if anyone. the new cronenberg film that's about to come out looks like it could be better than a history of violence, which i felt was a pretty underdeveloped story, even if it looked cool. not to mention the soon-to-come coen brothers adaptation of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which is also kind of potentially scary considering the coens' recent track record, but potentially awesome considering their earlier record.
hrphmhm.
Monday, August 27, 2007
rhythm clog
i just drank four cups of coffee in about 10 minutes.
i feel like i'm going to combust.
i am working on a new story about a man and a girl walking into the bed where an ocean evaporated and i am typing so fast i'm not even thinking about the words.
once again i am distracting myself from writing while i write by blogging.
i am housesitting for my parents.
they have a dog that i am supposed to feed and let out though she is very old and won't get up when i call her.
they have been gone for 5 days and the dog hasn't eaten any of her food.
i put some cold cuts on the dog food to make her want it more
but she just eats the cold cuts and leaves the rest.
she won't go outside to piss unless i force her with my hands.
last night i couldn't find her for an hour.
she was laying on her belly in my parents' bedroom where she is not allowed to go.
i slept in my sister's old room with a new bed that no one but me has slept in.
every time i sleep in this room i have nightmares and move around in my sleep.
in one of the nightmares i thought i had been locked in the back of a truck.
i woke up naked, beating the window so hard
i am surprised i didn't break it.
i don't know why i still drink coffee because usually any day i drink it
i end up staying up all night.
the caffeine gets in my system and stays there
and i have enough problems going to sleep as it is.
i was up until the sun came up again last night though i tried to lay down and start sleeping around 4 am.
my brain would not shut the fuck up.
i could not lay still on the bed.
i was also afraid i would break the window or walk into something and hurt myself.
i got up and went and laid in my parents' bed.
their bed is very large.
i had taken an over-the-counter sleeping pill that made me dizzy when i walked
but did not shut my brain off enough to put me under.
i slept on my mom's side of the bed.
there was a ridge in the mattress from where she usually lays, i think.
i did not fit into her ridge.
i turned horizontal and arranged the pillows a different way so i did not feel alone.
the dog was still beside the bed and kept moving every few minutes.
she gnashed her gums and sighed and wriggled.
i got out of the bed and put her outside and closed the door
and then the sun came up and i slept.
i feel like i'm going to combust.
i am working on a new story about a man and a girl walking into the bed where an ocean evaporated and i am typing so fast i'm not even thinking about the words.
once again i am distracting myself from writing while i write by blogging.
i am housesitting for my parents.
they have a dog that i am supposed to feed and let out though she is very old and won't get up when i call her.
they have been gone for 5 days and the dog hasn't eaten any of her food.
i put some cold cuts on the dog food to make her want it more
but she just eats the cold cuts and leaves the rest.
she won't go outside to piss unless i force her with my hands.
last night i couldn't find her for an hour.
she was laying on her belly in my parents' bedroom where she is not allowed to go.
i slept in my sister's old room with a new bed that no one but me has slept in.
every time i sleep in this room i have nightmares and move around in my sleep.
in one of the nightmares i thought i had been locked in the back of a truck.
i woke up naked, beating the window so hard
i am surprised i didn't break it.
i don't know why i still drink coffee because usually any day i drink it
i end up staying up all night.
the caffeine gets in my system and stays there
and i have enough problems going to sleep as it is.
i was up until the sun came up again last night though i tried to lay down and start sleeping around 4 am.
my brain would not shut the fuck up.
i could not lay still on the bed.
i was also afraid i would break the window or walk into something and hurt myself.
i got up and went and laid in my parents' bed.
their bed is very large.
i had taken an over-the-counter sleeping pill that made me dizzy when i walked
but did not shut my brain off enough to put me under.
i slept on my mom's side of the bed.
there was a ridge in the mattress from where she usually lays, i think.
i did not fit into her ridge.
i turned horizontal and arranged the pillows a different way so i did not feel alone.
the dog was still beside the bed and kept moving every few minutes.
she gnashed her gums and sighed and wriggled.
i got out of the bed and put her outside and closed the door
and then the sun came up and i slept.
2 new poems
two recent posts from this blog are now poems at 3:AM.
thank you to tao lin for publishing me again.
someone found this blog yesterday by searching for 'perfect anus' on google.
i will continue to be a champion.
dick taint bowling
roger corman snuff film babysitting anime
big cock anime
sneeze baby
cheese dumpling corrosion
lick my child's eyes
john berryman boat ride evening
chapstick dildo
delicious knee tease
thank you to tao lin for publishing me again.
someone found this blog yesterday by searching for 'perfect anus' on google.
i will continue to be a champion.
dick taint bowling
roger corman snuff film babysitting anime
big cock anime
sneeze baby
cheese dumpling corrosion
lick my child's eyes
john berryman boat ride evening
chapstick dildo
delicious knee tease
Sunday, August 26, 2007
ben marcus?
i wonder what happened to ben marcus. his book NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN is one of the greatest things i've read as far as experimental narrative goes. more people should read that book. it came out in 2002. the only other thing i've seen from mr. marcus since then was the anthology of american writing he edited and his essay on experimental fiction as a response to jonathan franzen, which was really well written and interesting. i hope he is working on some ridiculous new book that will arrive soon and help me read more.
here is a quote i like from NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN:
'If all the words of this book are misspelled, but accidentally spell other words correctly, and also accidentally fall into a grammatically coherent arrangement, where coherency is defined as whatever doesn't upset people, it means this book is legally another book.'
also here's a link to an interview ben marcus did with brian evenson that i find really very good: marcus interviews evenson.
i just finished rereading Steve Erickson's RUBICON BEACH and then i read Roy Kesey's ALL OVER which had some incredible stuff in it. now i am going to reread Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN. i think i am going to spend the rest of the year rereading stuff i already know i really like. there are so many books i call favorites that i haven't read in so long it is like i didn't read them. i have a terrible retention rate. there are people i've met 15-20 times and hung out with for hours and still can't remember their first name.
i am also going to reread Nicholson Baker's THE FERMATA, which if you haven't read it, is 320 pages about a man who learns to pause time and then goes around doing perverted shit to women while they are frozen. he does it really well.
i want to get a job teaching a writing class somewhere. or start an online writing school. as dumb as that might seem. someone help me.
here is a quote i like from NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN:
'If all the words of this book are misspelled, but accidentally spell other words correctly, and also accidentally fall into a grammatically coherent arrangement, where coherency is defined as whatever doesn't upset people, it means this book is legally another book.'
also here's a link to an interview ben marcus did with brian evenson that i find really very good: marcus interviews evenson.
i just finished rereading Steve Erickson's RUBICON BEACH and then i read Roy Kesey's ALL OVER which had some incredible stuff in it. now i am going to reread Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN. i think i am going to spend the rest of the year rereading stuff i already know i really like. there are so many books i call favorites that i haven't read in so long it is like i didn't read them. i have a terrible retention rate. there are people i've met 15-20 times and hung out with for hours and still can't remember their first name.
i am also going to reread Nicholson Baker's THE FERMATA, which if you haven't read it, is 320 pages about a man who learns to pause time and then goes around doing perverted shit to women while they are frozen. he does it really well.
i want to get a job teaching a writing class somewhere. or start an online writing school. as dumb as that might seem. someone help me.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
eventually i will be mostly lipid
georgia is so disgusting this time of year
it gets so humid it isn't even worth putting clothes on
or going to the mailbox unless you know there's going to be something good
which there rarely is
the only time i go outside between the months of july and august is to walk to my car and then from my car to wherever i am going and then back to my car and then back to my house
or sometimes i go running
usually i try to run on a treadmill in the summer
or get exercise other ways
but some days i get up and don't think about temperature
and i just put on my women's jogging shorts
(i run in women's jogging shorts because it's the only pair i own)
and head straight on out into the heat
you sweat twice as much as normal when running in extreme humidity
your skin gets so wet and glisteny
i didn't know that my sweat had acidic properties
until i started running in extreme heat and felt it hit my eyes.
most of the day i spend sitting in front of the computer.
my rss feed keeps me up to date to friends' and other writers' blogs.
i look at the same sites every day either because they are bookmarked in the main toolbar or they are in the drop down menu and all i have to do is click even if i know there's no new content there.
often i'll look at the same unupdated site five or six times a day.
in addition to my rss feed sites i look at gmail, myspace, duotrope, juked, 5cense.com, statcounter, pitchforkmedia, facebook, ebay, the websites of any journals i have an entry to a soon-ending contest in, the websites of any journals i have recently been accepted by, sharkscope, diagram, bookslut, amazon, mcsweeneys, google, paypal.
i could probably get done what i do on the internet each day in a total of 45 minutes not counting my email checking but somehow it stretches over a 6-8 hour period.
i do not go out very often unless there is something specifically interesting to do
though there is not often something specifically interesting to do
and yet i still do not consider myself an introvert.
i used to not watch much television.
until 3 months ago, i did not have cable at home for 7 years.
now each week i watch top chef, bizarre foods, whatever new poker broadcasts are on, flipping out, the pickup artist, the soup and occasional movies.
often i watch the same episodes of the same show multiple times in a week, sometimes even in the same day.
i think less now about how i spend my time.
i used to obsess about stuffing my life full with 'productiveness'
if i weren't sleeping or occasionally hanging out with people i would be sure to be working on writing, reading, submitting, sending productive emails, or something else that i could look back on and have palpable evidence of my effort.
now i don't seem to care.
as long as i run each day and write at least a little and send work out a couple times a week and play some poker and see people outside my house two days a week and spend a decent amount of time with my girlfriend, i don't think about much else.
i wonder if this could be considered an improvement or devolution.
i wonder if i am old.
it gets so humid it isn't even worth putting clothes on
or going to the mailbox unless you know there's going to be something good
which there rarely is
the only time i go outside between the months of july and august is to walk to my car and then from my car to wherever i am going and then back to my car and then back to my house
or sometimes i go running
usually i try to run on a treadmill in the summer
or get exercise other ways
but some days i get up and don't think about temperature
and i just put on my women's jogging shorts
(i run in women's jogging shorts because it's the only pair i own)
and head straight on out into the heat
you sweat twice as much as normal when running in extreme humidity
your skin gets so wet and glisteny
i didn't know that my sweat had acidic properties
until i started running in extreme heat and felt it hit my eyes.
most of the day i spend sitting in front of the computer.
my rss feed keeps me up to date to friends' and other writers' blogs.
i look at the same sites every day either because they are bookmarked in the main toolbar or they are in the drop down menu and all i have to do is click even if i know there's no new content there.
often i'll look at the same unupdated site five or six times a day.
in addition to my rss feed sites i look at gmail, myspace, duotrope, juked, 5cense.com, statcounter, pitchforkmedia, facebook, ebay, the websites of any journals i have an entry to a soon-ending contest in, the websites of any journals i have recently been accepted by, sharkscope, diagram, bookslut, amazon, mcsweeneys, google, paypal.
i could probably get done what i do on the internet each day in a total of 45 minutes not counting my email checking but somehow it stretches over a 6-8 hour period.
i do not go out very often unless there is something specifically interesting to do
though there is not often something specifically interesting to do
and yet i still do not consider myself an introvert.
i used to not watch much television.
until 3 months ago, i did not have cable at home for 7 years.
now each week i watch top chef, bizarre foods, whatever new poker broadcasts are on, flipping out, the pickup artist, the soup and occasional movies.
often i watch the same episodes of the same show multiple times in a week, sometimes even in the same day.
i think less now about how i spend my time.
i used to obsess about stuffing my life full with 'productiveness'
if i weren't sleeping or occasionally hanging out with people i would be sure to be working on writing, reading, submitting, sending productive emails, or something else that i could look back on and have palpable evidence of my effort.
now i don't seem to care.
as long as i run each day and write at least a little and send work out a couple times a week and play some poker and see people outside my house two days a week and spend a decent amount of time with my girlfriend, i don't think about much else.
i wonder if this could be considered an improvement or devolution.
i wonder if i am old.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
August Lamination Colony
new update for LAMINATION COLONY is now live, featuring art by IRA JOEL HABER and a short text by JOEL JAMES DAVIS. more joels for your buck.
if you have a short piece you'd like to submit, we're always looking. send to laminationcolony [at] gmail [dot] com
the guidelines on the site are really old.
we basically just like weird surrealist retarded fucked shit.
---
right now i am rereading RUBICON BEACH by Steve Erickson. it'd been a few years but reading ZEROVILLE made me go back.
god damn that guy is good.
if you have a short piece you'd like to submit, we're always looking. send to laminationcolony [at] gmail [dot] com
the guidelines on the site are really old.
we basically just like weird surrealist retarded fucked shit.
---
right now i am rereading RUBICON BEACH by Steve Erickson. it'd been a few years but reading ZEROVILLE made me go back.
god damn that guy is good.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
someone found my blog today by typing in 'pamela's titties' on google. another person found it by searching 'shitting online'. i'm not sure what the second guy was looking for but i hope he found it.
i am now going to up my traffic by 30 hits a day:
dog fluffing
special bistro lotion
no limit hold em slur
what about peter sellers and chico marx
penile haberdashery
perfect anus blog
biggot auction at seven cents a gallon
mark wahlberg's gonads
portrait of a little hydrocephalic baby
corndog euphemism
how to get published in the paris review
ride her velvet liquid pussy
patchwork quilt pattern instructions
free nipple tweak and vibrator donation
ouch ouch panties
cheapest gas
american idol audition atlanta preggers
what to buy your father post-suicide
patty duke show dandruff removal
heineken lamp cure for AIDS
midget erectile dysfunction
preteen nude vacation
googke.com googlr.com googlw.com
i am now going to up my traffic by 30 hits a day:
dog fluffing
special bistro lotion
no limit hold em slur
what about peter sellers and chico marx
penile haberdashery
perfect anus blog
biggot auction at seven cents a gallon
mark wahlberg's gonads
portrait of a little hydrocephalic baby
corndog euphemism
how to get published in the paris review
ride her velvet liquid pussy
patchwork quilt pattern instructions
free nipple tweak and vibrator donation
ouch ouch panties
cheapest gas
american idol audition atlanta preggers
what to buy your father post-suicide
patty duke show dandruff removal
heineken lamp cure for AIDS
midget erectile dysfunction
preteen nude vacation
googke.com googlr.com googlw.com
Monday, August 13, 2007
rescue dawn
i saw the new werner herzog film RESCUE DAWN. it is about a pilot in vietnam who crashes and is kidnapped by vietnamese. the pilot is played by christian bale, who did a very good job, if slightly strange. he always delivers lines in a way that makes them seem different than what i imagined the writer would have imagined the delivery as.
for the first time in forever i felt good about having spent $8 to see a movie. every other time in the last 2 years with few exceptions i've felt cheated, bored or dumber after sitting for two hours in a dark room looking at a screen. RESCUE DAWN kept me compelled and eyes open and forgetful of my outside life for the duration of its playing. that was nice. it also operates much differently than any other way film i've seen. people should go see this movie.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
dumb dumb dumb child
i am feeling bad about the pursuit of writing
i am feeling like i am wasting a lot of my time
i put roughly 5-8 hours a day 5-6 days a week into it
and i think about it probably 68% of my waking hours not including the time spent thinking which causes loss of sleep
and the bursts of pleasure i receive in my head from the writing
and the occasional acceptance of work
and the fine people i've met or e-met as a result
are often in the short run worth it
but i don't have a job
and i don't have income more than the money i make from the record label i half-assedly produce
and i procrastinate as much as i produce by activities such as writing negative-minded blogs
and i have a new mortgage which needs to be paid for and each hour i write
is another hour i am not making money to pay my mortgage and thus decreasing
the money i've managed to save over the past few years
and today i feel like shit.
i feel like shit about a lot of things but right this minute that seems most pressing.
i still can't bring myself to read very much.
mostly i've been reading books that are very short and have small sections so that i can dip out whenever i want to and maybe come back in a few days or a week even and maybe not even remember what was happening.
i read yannick murphy's new collection IN A BEAR'S EYE straight through in about 90 minutes the other day and really liked it.
i read robert lopez's novel PART OF THE WORLD a couple weeks ago pretty much straight through and really liked it.
and i've actually been more prolific with short pieces in the past two months than i've been in a really long time since i've taken a break trying to work on my novel, which i realized will now be the 5.5th novel i've completed some form of draft of, none of which has been done anything with except shown to a handful of editors.
perhaps i am lazy or half-assed.
sometimes i go back and read the things i wrote and thought highly of and just want to cringe and delete them and send emails to the editors i sent them out to and apologize for sending them something so worthless and maybe try to focus my thinking energy into wiping that impression out of their mind even though they probably don't remember me from any of the several thousand others they read every month or year.
i think the presence of a submissions tracking device like the one at duotrope.com is an excellent tool but also causes some amount of stress or nervousness in me.
i think too much about what's where and who and when and how long and what does it matter.
my duotrope says i have a 14.56% acceptance ratio which is higher than the average but i also do not report everything so it's probably much lower.
which doesn't even matter really because having any acceptance at all is pleasant but for some reason i keep thinking about it.
i don't know why i am writing this because most of the time i feel like i am beginning to accomplish something and beginning to write things that are actually publishable and worthwhile to some extent but a lot of the times i just feel like shit.
i will feel better in another minute but i think i need to go run a couple miles and hope that tonight my brain lets me sleep.
i am feeling like i am wasting a lot of my time
i put roughly 5-8 hours a day 5-6 days a week into it
and i think about it probably 68% of my waking hours not including the time spent thinking which causes loss of sleep
and the bursts of pleasure i receive in my head from the writing
and the occasional acceptance of work
and the fine people i've met or e-met as a result
are often in the short run worth it
but i don't have a job
and i don't have income more than the money i make from the record label i half-assedly produce
and i procrastinate as much as i produce by activities such as writing negative-minded blogs
and i have a new mortgage which needs to be paid for and each hour i write
is another hour i am not making money to pay my mortgage and thus decreasing
the money i've managed to save over the past few years
and today i feel like shit.
i feel like shit about a lot of things but right this minute that seems most pressing.
i still can't bring myself to read very much.
mostly i've been reading books that are very short and have small sections so that i can dip out whenever i want to and maybe come back in a few days or a week even and maybe not even remember what was happening.
i read yannick murphy's new collection IN A BEAR'S EYE straight through in about 90 minutes the other day and really liked it.
i read robert lopez's novel PART OF THE WORLD a couple weeks ago pretty much straight through and really liked it.
and i've actually been more prolific with short pieces in the past two months than i've been in a really long time since i've taken a break trying to work on my novel, which i realized will now be the 5.5th novel i've completed some form of draft of, none of which has been done anything with except shown to a handful of editors.
perhaps i am lazy or half-assed.
sometimes i go back and read the things i wrote and thought highly of and just want to cringe and delete them and send emails to the editors i sent them out to and apologize for sending them something so worthless and maybe try to focus my thinking energy into wiping that impression out of their mind even though they probably don't remember me from any of the several thousand others they read every month or year.
i think the presence of a submissions tracking device like the one at duotrope.com is an excellent tool but also causes some amount of stress or nervousness in me.
i think too much about what's where and who and when and how long and what does it matter.
my duotrope says i have a 14.56% acceptance ratio which is higher than the average but i also do not report everything so it's probably much lower.
which doesn't even matter really because having any acceptance at all is pleasant but for some reason i keep thinking about it.
i don't know why i am writing this because most of the time i feel like i am beginning to accomplish something and beginning to write things that are actually publishable and worthwhile to some extent but a lot of the times i just feel like shit.
i will feel better in another minute but i think i need to go run a couple miles and hope that tonight my brain lets me sleep.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
NANO fiction
a short-short i wrote recently will be in the second print issue of the new journal of very short writing NANO Fiction from the University of Houston. they are now featuring my piece on the web to promote the new issue. read it here: THE WAY THE RUIN CAME.
the piece is from a series of reportage from a pre/during/post apocalypse sort of event that i've been working on. i enjoy.
if you have some short pieces (they only take things that are 400 words or less) you should drop by and submit.
strangely, after i wrote a post here a week or two ago about how i never write pieces longer than 1500 words or so unless i'm working on a novel, in the past 9 days or so i've written 3 new stories all about 4000 words.
just bought the collected works of MICHAEL MARTONE this week also. i'd read bits and pieces of him but never a lot at once. i look forward to it.
also looking forward to many journals' submission periods reopening this month and next. i think i'm gonna go on another rampage.
what are some other people's dream acceptances, beyond the obvious clods of big daddy new yorker paristrope blahana?
the piece is from a series of reportage from a pre/during/post apocalypse sort of event that i've been working on. i enjoy.
if you have some short pieces (they only take things that are 400 words or less) you should drop by and submit.
strangely, after i wrote a post here a week or two ago about how i never write pieces longer than 1500 words or so unless i'm working on a novel, in the past 9 days or so i've written 3 new stories all about 4000 words.
just bought the collected works of MICHAEL MARTONE this week also. i'd read bits and pieces of him but never a lot at once. i look forward to it.
also looking forward to many journals' submission periods reopening this month and next. i think i'm gonna go on another rampage.
what are some other people's dream acceptances, beyond the obvious clods of big daddy new yorker paristrope blahana?
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