Thursday, February 28, 2008
IS HE BITING HER
I am laying on a futon watching WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE. I just ate a lot of raisins. Last night I slept in my apartment with the heat off and according to my space heater the room was 45 degrees. I had three blankets. I didn't want to move my arms outside my blankets to touch my computer. Last week Mike Young and I made a list in Google documents that categorized all the online literary journals we could think of into groups. THREE NAMED POETS was one of the groups. I really want to talk some shit online today but I am not going to do it because after I do and I leave my computer I will feel stressed about the idea that I can't delete the post immediately if I decide I want to. The woman on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE right now looks like one of my old writing teachers. There is a skylight in the ceiling above me but someone put a piece of cloth over it so instead of a window it just kind of glows. From where I am laying I can see a piece of art my sister made a while ago where she took a dress she wore when she was very little and put it on a canvas and slathered it with beeswax. It looks scary. I hate when I read the contributor notes for a journal and every single contributor has either written several published books or is the editor of a journal or is someone everybody knows already. I like reading writers I know but I also like to read new people. Sometimes on this futon I am laying down and sometimes I am sitting up and I never feel completely comfortable in either position. The woman on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE just answered the $25,000 question correctly after using her 50/50. Then she missed the $50,000 question although I was saying the answer at her into the screen. Coffee has not been making me shit lately. One of my favorite things about coffee is the way it makes you shit. Pretty soon I think I am going to get a tattoo. It will be of a gibberish word and will cover my entire left arm on the top side of the arm. I am typing in the dark and everything looks a little orange. WHO WANTS TO BE MILLIONAIRE just switched episodes, leaving me hanging on the last contestant and beginning in the middle of another episode. I can't concentrate enough to finish more than the first 30 pages of a book. The guy on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE now just said he was sure the answer was not this certain answer and then then 64% of the audience said that was the answer, which it was, and then the guy tried to explain why he really knew that was the answer even though he said he was sure it wasn't. I want to be in a room with a ceiling fan right now so I can put my hand into the blades but I do not feel like moving. As soon as I finished typing 'I do not feel like moving' I lifted my computer off my lap and set it aside and got up and walked into the kitchen and ran cold water on my hands and put it on my face. I like to wash my face every time I go into a bathroom which sometimes makes people look at me funny in the men's room, which I mostly do not understand, but maybe I understand a little. I want to be working on a story I have been working on for two weeks now instead of writing this blog but I have reached a point in the story that I don't know what to do because the story is about nothing and I don't know if it is time to stop but I think it is. I realize I am talking about nothing right now but most every day is mostly nothing, mostly in this case referred to probably close to 65%. The current WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE question is about Pizza Hut. I have a headache. I want a dog to play with that I can make disappear when I am done. I want to go into a room where I can touch the ceiling with one hand and the floor with the other. I want to eat.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Baltimore is Reads
The third issue of Balitmore is Reads is now (mostly) live. BIR is a journal that puts words up in public places in Baltimore so that people will run into them on the street or wherever. It also puts the words online, with pictures of one of the places the words are and a map of Baltimore with locations. It's a good idea. This third issue has some cool shit, including Zachary German and Michael Kimball. Also me. A short thing called "ALL I WANT IS SOMETHING TO CHEW ON," which is true.
Click the names on the CONTENTS page to read and see.
Today feels much nicer than yesterday, I think.
Click the names on the CONTENTS page to read and see.
Today feels much nicer than yesterday, I think.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Dickface
I went to sleep last night trying to read Gordon Lish's DEAR MR. CAPOTE. It is one of the few books of his I haven't read yet, and I think his most popular. It made me want to stay awake. I hadn't read any Lish in a couple years. About 2 years ago I read 4 or 5 of his books in a row: I think it was Epigraph, Mourner at the Door, Zimzum, and another I can't remember. At the time I was trying to write a novel. I ended up getting into his rhythms and getting fucked by them. Everything I wrote while I was reading him turned to shit. At least in my mind. I read back over what I wrote after him days later and remember feeling strange. I eventually threw my work away.
I haven't been able to keep reading again lately.
I am at a coffee shop listening to David Byrne on my headphones. I can still hear the music they are playing in the background and it is not good. I can hear people talking also. When I bought a muffin the alternative kid who took my order asked me if I wanted it heated up a little. It made me feel weird the way he said it and the expression on his face. I had a dream last night that Sam Pink published a letter to me on a nonexistent online journal that was written mostly in gibberish except I knew how to decipher bits of it to find the message he had encrypted.
I don't like listening to music while I'm writing but the music they have in here in worse than the music on my iTunes so I'm going to keep listening to it. I find it hard to pay attention to what I'm doing when there is music on. I am going to take these headphones off.
No, their music is stupid.
Now I'm listening to Aphex Twin. I haven't listened to Aphex Twin in at least 4 years. I feel like I have a bubble in my teeth.
It rained so hard last night and the wind was blowing in a way that I could feel a light mist raining down over my face on my pillow.
The room leaked a little in one place. It had never leaked before.
A woman with a pink shirt and a matching pink bluetooth just walked by outside the window. She had a fake tan and was carrying a brief case.
Today I wrote this sentence: "Some said inside the 3rd stall on the right in the men’s restroom on a certain exit of I-285, the light could make you young."
I haven't been able to write much else.
Even older women still have tits. What are tits.
I want to drive somewhere in a car. But I don't want to actually driving, or the time to pass, I just want to end up somewhere. I guess I don't want to drive somewhere in a car.
I am not saying anything.
More coffee.
I haven't been able to keep reading again lately.
I am at a coffee shop listening to David Byrne on my headphones. I can still hear the music they are playing in the background and it is not good. I can hear people talking also. When I bought a muffin the alternative kid who took my order asked me if I wanted it heated up a little. It made me feel weird the way he said it and the expression on his face. I had a dream last night that Sam Pink published a letter to me on a nonexistent online journal that was written mostly in gibberish except I knew how to decipher bits of it to find the message he had encrypted.
I don't like listening to music while I'm writing but the music they have in here in worse than the music on my iTunes so I'm going to keep listening to it. I find it hard to pay attention to what I'm doing when there is music on. I am going to take these headphones off.
No, their music is stupid.
Now I'm listening to Aphex Twin. I haven't listened to Aphex Twin in at least 4 years. I feel like I have a bubble in my teeth.
It rained so hard last night and the wind was blowing in a way that I could feel a light mist raining down over my face on my pillow.
The room leaked a little in one place. It had never leaked before.
A woman with a pink shirt and a matching pink bluetooth just walked by outside the window. She had a fake tan and was carrying a brief case.
Today I wrote this sentence: "Some said inside the 3rd stall on the right in the men’s restroom on a certain exit of I-285, the light could make you young."
I haven't been able to write much else.
Even older women still have tits. What are tits.
I want to drive somewhere in a car. But I don't want to actually driving, or the time to pass, I just want to end up somewhere. I guess I don't want to drive somewhere in a car.
I am not saying anything.
More coffee.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Juked
On JUKED today. Words that originally appeared here as blabber last Halloween. Please observe and read at leisure.
Got a new MacBook Pro yesterday. It is my child. I will kiss it and love it. I will love it and mush it with my shoulder. I will enjoy neighbor wireless in bed. I have never had wireless before and it is kind of stroking my face right now.
Got a new MacBook Pro yesterday. It is my child. I will kiss it and love it. I will love it and mush it with my shoulder. I will enjoy neighbor wireless in bed. I have never had wireless before and it is kind of stroking my face right now.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
CHRIS FARLEY
Chris Farley died wearing sweat pants and an open button down shirt. Chris Farley watched sod grow on his childhood bedroom's ceiling. Chris Farley made seed fall from the sky by touching the bridge of his nose with a certain kind of wood. Chris Farley thought a hole straight through Nebraska. Chris Farley could not roll snake eyes. Chris Farley had a gray mark through his thumb nail. Chris Farley swallowed Big League Chew. Chris Farley wished to stand forever on the stairs down to the kitchen. Chris Farley watched his father become liquid. Chris Farley saw himself in a scene in Poltergeist. Chris Farley unpeeled orange flesh in an apple. Chris Farley dug through the box of Apple Jacks and found a small carved locket with his name inside it. Chris Farley paid for a car inside his mind. Chris Farley opened his front door before sleeping. Chris Farley paid a small man to stand at the foot of his bed. Chris Farley peeled the billboard. Chris Farley ran through a field without his legs. Chris Farley coughed up a whole cotton T-shirt. Chris Farley shook hands with himself. Chris Farley pressed his tongue against the window. Chris Farley reaffixed the rearview mirror with his spit. Chris Farley popped lightbulbs in Kansas City while in Norway. Chris Farley dove into the sea. Chris Farley had a small patch of acne in the crook of his foot from age three to seventeen. Chris Farley bubbled in warm water. Chris Farley caressed the button. Chris Farley folded the paper until it became a bedroom and then he laid down on the bed.
TELL ME A STORY ABOUT FRANCE
I have no idea what that means.
(for more info, see post below post below this post)
(for more info, see post below post below this post)
I just watched a video I made during Friday night AWP drunkenness at Tao and Justin's apartment. I do not remember taking a video. I do not remember taking pictures. I only thought to look in my camera because a picture surfaced of me (I think) humping a sofa where I am holding camera in my hand. There are 14 pictures of us preparing and drinking smoothies. In the video I am screaming at everyone. I am slurring my language so much I sound like a toddler with a lisp. I do not remember saying anything I say (scream) in the video, which includes something along the lines of "This is like that scene in Pulp Fiction, the deleted scene in Pulp Fiction" when I turn around to find Justin videotaping me videotaping. This means I blacked out during the evening. This means I probably said a lot of things I do not recall, even more so than I previously understood. The video gets even more regrettable when I begin beating Mike Young in the face with a plastic machete until he bleeds from one nostril and one eye. I will make a longer post about this experience soon. Maybe tomorrow. Shit. I can't believe I was talking about Pulp Fiction.
Monday, February 18, 2008
CHRISTA McAULIFFE
Christa McAuliffe died attempting to enter outer space. Christa McAuliffe may have had a drinking problem. Christa McAuliffe kept a small tong of metal under her left armpit. Christa McAuliffe had a birthmark under her tongue in the shape of one configuration of her back. Christa McAuliffe would have used the restroom 25,604 further times if she had not died so early. Christa McAuliffe was born in a small blue room. Christa McAuliffe thought about filling in her backyard swimming pool but never did it. Christa McAuliffe liked to sweat. Christa McAuliffe. Christa McAuliffe. Christa McAuliffe wanted a window in the floor of her bedroom so that she could see the dirt she slept on top of. Christa McAuliffe did not understand the moon from certain angles. Christa McAuliffe had aspirations to become a sculptor or a dentist before settling on the field of aeronautics. Christa McAuliffe preferred Kool Aid to coffee. Christa McAuliffe soaked her hair. Christa McAuliffe had a dream where she crawled back inside her mother full-bore and kissed her father on the mouth. Christa McAuliffe looked at women. Christa McAuliffe had a growth. Christa McAuliffe wrote sentences on paper that she did not understand. Christa McAuliffe invented one kind of plastic. Christa McAuliffe liked to chew things she picked up in the street. Christa McAuliffe did not believe in locking windows. Christa McAuliffe sometimes woke up beneath her bed. Christa McAuliffe faced the wall.
EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD
If you have not yet done so already, read Zachary German's new Bear Parade book EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD. It contains some of the most direct narration possible.
While in New York, Zachary and I stayed up after others went to sleep and shared a forty while discussing Lil Wayne.
Also, the Calamari book I mentioned last week, TORTOISE by James Lewelling, is now for sale.
This week needs to glow.
While in New York, Zachary and I stayed up after others went to sleep and shared a forty while discussing Lil Wayne.
Also, the Calamari book I mentioned last week, TORTOISE by James Lewelling, is now for sale.
This week needs to glow.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Quitting Books & Monica Drake & 'Canon'
I hate stopping reading a book once I've started. It feels like blue balls. I want to complete. I have to be really bored or in a bad mood to stop reading a book after I've made it past 30% of the pages. Usually I'll at least skim the remainder to see if it changes or gets better before I just dump it. After I give up on reading a book I have to get rid of it immediately. I either return it to Borders for credit or trade it to Book Nook or give it to goodwill if nothing else. I don't like having a book that did not fulfill me sitting in my apartment. It makes me feel moldy or something.
I just had to give up on a book I bought recently. It came with really high praise, and was published by a press with a very high reputation, whose books I most often enjoy. The first three pages of this book were excellent. I laughed and was intrigued. The high point of the book was contained in those first three pages. It quickly turned into a narrative book where nothing happened. Like twiddling of fingers, with no investment, nothing interesting happening, and completely unrelatable circumstances. I like books where nothing happens, but if a book is narrative-based, something should probably happen, I should at least feel 'entertained' or somehow 'connected' or enjoy the language.
I am trying to figure out why this book was published. I can't think of any reason. The first three pages could have been published by themselves and the effect would have been much greater. I would like to ask the publisher why this book was released. I would like to ask questions. I am not going to name the book or the publisher because I do not like to give bad reviews. I don't see the purpose in a bad review, unless it is of an author who has already had a great deal of success and seems to be slipping. Return policies at stores like Borders protect people from spending money on books they don't want because you can return almost anything there are get something else. It's like a library with brand new things.
Now I am reading CLOWN GIRL by MONICA DRAKE. This book had a blurb on it from Chuck Palahniuk. I have read several of Chuck Palahniuk's books years ago when I was on vacation and there was nothing else around. He is entertaining a little, easy reads, I think I always read straight through without stopping, but he seems like he keeps writing the same book over and over, with the same shtick, at least somewhat. Though he definitely is entertaining. Monica Drake studied in the same workshop as Chuck Palahniuk, but then she went and studied with Amy Hempel and Joy Williams. So far I really like this book. It is funny and innovative in language but still tells an entertaining story.
After this I want to read some 'older' literature. I have been reading so much 'contemporary' work in the past year, I feel like it is time to go and fill in some gaps. I hear a lot of good things about Thomas Mann's MAGIC MOUNTAIN. I want to do some reading that feels like work. I want to exercise a little, I think.
Maybe I'll read the new Stephen King book and stop at the point when it starts getting 'out of hand.' He always builds suspense then makes it ridiculous. They should sell his books with those sections cut out, and then put all those sections together in another book. When I was in 6th grade I walked home from school reading the climax of MISERY without looking where I was going.
What do people think are some more 'classic' works that aren't quite 'classics' but should be read more?
I want to make my own anthology.
Today I am coasting on the edge of boredom, but still feel good, I think, a little.
I just had to give up on a book I bought recently. It came with really high praise, and was published by a press with a very high reputation, whose books I most often enjoy. The first three pages of this book were excellent. I laughed and was intrigued. The high point of the book was contained in those first three pages. It quickly turned into a narrative book where nothing happened. Like twiddling of fingers, with no investment, nothing interesting happening, and completely unrelatable circumstances. I like books where nothing happens, but if a book is narrative-based, something should probably happen, I should at least feel 'entertained' or somehow 'connected' or enjoy the language.
I am trying to figure out why this book was published. I can't think of any reason. The first three pages could have been published by themselves and the effect would have been much greater. I would like to ask the publisher why this book was released. I would like to ask questions. I am not going to name the book or the publisher because I do not like to give bad reviews. I don't see the purpose in a bad review, unless it is of an author who has already had a great deal of success and seems to be slipping. Return policies at stores like Borders protect people from spending money on books they don't want because you can return almost anything there are get something else. It's like a library with brand new things.
Now I am reading CLOWN GIRL by MONICA DRAKE. This book had a blurb on it from Chuck Palahniuk. I have read several of Chuck Palahniuk's books years ago when I was on vacation and there was nothing else around. He is entertaining a little, easy reads, I think I always read straight through without stopping, but he seems like he keeps writing the same book over and over, with the same shtick, at least somewhat. Though he definitely is entertaining. Monica Drake studied in the same workshop as Chuck Palahniuk, but then she went and studied with Amy Hempel and Joy Williams. So far I really like this book. It is funny and innovative in language but still tells an entertaining story.
After this I want to read some 'older' literature. I have been reading so much 'contemporary' work in the past year, I feel like it is time to go and fill in some gaps. I hear a lot of good things about Thomas Mann's MAGIC MOUNTAIN. I want to do some reading that feels like work. I want to exercise a little, I think.
Maybe I'll read the new Stephen King book and stop at the point when it starts getting 'out of hand.' He always builds suspense then makes it ridiculous. They should sell his books with those sections cut out, and then put all those sections together in another book. When I was in 6th grade I walked home from school reading the climax of MISERY without looking where I was going.
What do people think are some more 'classic' works that aren't quite 'classics' but should be read more?
I want to make my own anthology.
Today I am coasting on the edge of boredom, but still feel good, I think, a little.
Monday, February 11, 2008
LAMINATION COLONY Feb 08 Parody Issue
The new issue of LAMINATION COLONY is now live. Please enjoy.
It contains text work by Sam Pink, Louis E. Bourgeois, Sean Kilpatrick, Colin Bassett, Edith Dunham, Sam Oborne, Justin Dobbs, Catherine Lacey, John Dermot Woods, Mark Cunningham, Ryan Downey, Brian Foley and Peter Berghoef.
It contains parodies or 'creative criticism' of Michael Martone by Josh Maday, David Markson by William Walsh, David Foster Wallace by Jimmy Chen, Mike Topp by Chelsea Martin, Gordon Lish by Michael Hemmingson, William Burroughs by Bradley Sands, Russell Edson by Matthew Simmons, Dean Young by Claire Donato, Tao Lin by Justin Taylor and Lydia Davis by Tao Lin and Brandon Scott Gorrell.
It contains more 'longer' work than has ever been on the site. Lots to look at. A wide variety of stuff: a Gmail chat, a found letter, a Spam submission, a Wittgenstein form, an ebook, a prose poem cycle (or two), text messages with footnotes, a story with Ralph Fiennes in it, an essay with bibliography found in a bottle, an excerpt from a comic book novel, a text based on find/replace, and otherwise a bunch of fucked and excellent writing.
It also contains the first Lamination Colony ebook by Brandon Scott Gorrell: ALIENATED AFRAID OF FURNITURE IN BEDROOM, if you haven't heard yet.
It also contains a feature wherein contributors to the issue provided video or photographic representations of themselves preparing for quarantine. Included in these videos is Chelsea Martin putting on condoms and Jimmy Chen circling his nipples. Peter Berghoef's photos of teeth brushing greatly disturb me.
This issue is fat and full of life and has a lot of fun reading for your pleasure. I am very happy with it.
Please enjoy and tell me what you think.
It contains text work by Sam Pink, Louis E. Bourgeois, Sean Kilpatrick, Colin Bassett, Edith Dunham, Sam Oborne, Justin Dobbs, Catherine Lacey, John Dermot Woods, Mark Cunningham, Ryan Downey, Brian Foley and Peter Berghoef.
It contains parodies or 'creative criticism' of Michael Martone by Josh Maday, David Markson by William Walsh, David Foster Wallace by Jimmy Chen, Mike Topp by Chelsea Martin, Gordon Lish by Michael Hemmingson, William Burroughs by Bradley Sands, Russell Edson by Matthew Simmons, Dean Young by Claire Donato, Tao Lin by Justin Taylor and Lydia Davis by Tao Lin and Brandon Scott Gorrell.
It contains more 'longer' work than has ever been on the site. Lots to look at. A wide variety of stuff: a Gmail chat, a found letter, a Spam submission, a Wittgenstein form, an ebook, a prose poem cycle (or two), text messages with footnotes, a story with Ralph Fiennes in it, an essay with bibliography found in a bottle, an excerpt from a comic book novel, a text based on find/replace, and otherwise a bunch of fucked and excellent writing.
It also contains the first Lamination Colony ebook by Brandon Scott Gorrell: ALIENATED AFRAID OF FURNITURE IN BEDROOM, if you haven't heard yet.
It also contains a feature wherein contributors to the issue provided video or photographic representations of themselves preparing for quarantine. Included in these videos is Chelsea Martin putting on condoms and Jimmy Chen circling his nipples. Peter Berghoef's photos of teeth brushing greatly disturb me.
This issue is fat and full of life and has a lot of fun reading for your pleasure. I am very happy with it.
Please enjoy and tell me what you think.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
PINK ENORMOUS ROOM
Last night I found myself in a pink enormous room. The room was so large that you could not see the ceiling or more than two walls. It was very quiet and very pink. I was forced to leave the room and move to other rooms. I did not want to leave. Over the course of some time I began to find my way back to the pink enormous room. The way back required a extensive, systematic method of negotiating space. I had to leave many others in other places. There were many corridors and holes. I did not make it back to the room a second time, though I deciphered exactly where it was. I could see the room in my head still. The walls went up forever. I think the title of my next long work will be PINK ENORMOUS ROOM. Does anyone have any questions? There are some places you never see again.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
TORTOISE by James Lewelling
I just finished reading TORTOISE by James Lewelling (Calamari Press 2008). It was a very strange book. I read it mostly on the bed or in the bathtub today. Saturday night. It was an appropriate book to read alone on a Saturday night. If someone told me that TORTOISE by James Lewelling was really written by another author under a fake name I would think maybe it was written by Gordon Lish. TORTOISE has a lot of short, looping sentences. Fragments from some sentences show up in other sentences as a continuation of the same thought refracted. The sentences are often short and very logical and convey a specific meaning, even in settings where the 'real' is subdued. As in: there is very much an absurdist undercurrent to this book. Things happen that can not happen, but all delivered in a very even, clear voice, which makes it very pleasant to read.
I read TORTOISE with a little slip of paper as a bookmark so that I could note sentences or sections that I like. Usually I just write straight in a book, but Calamari's books are so beautifully made that I can't bring myself to do that to them. So the bookmark: instead of taking notes the way I usually do (which varies, but often I write out things I would say if I were going to review the book, 'snippets' or something, because usually the only reason I take notes is to review) for TORTOISE I found myself writing down 'ideas'. The main trajectory of this book is about a man who gets on a plane to go visit a man and woman in an unnamed country. He sits in places and thinks about things. Each place he is in triggers things he remembers, which range from very common to very weird. There is a lot of thinking in this book. Here are some of the things I noted that were 'thought' about, as listed on my bookmark:
insomnia pp 54-55 (I started my notes late, I had no pen)
sick babies 60-61
age and sanity 93
pissing money 95 ("You work all day and piss your money away at night and then get up in the morning and make some more.")
two people in one 99
father's head 102
doppelganger 106-107
The book ended on page 124. The ending was very strange and somehow soothing. I don't want to talk about it.
As you can sort of tell, this book is about death. Every book is about death in a way but this book seems about being alone and confused in a small claustrophobic space while dying without knowing you are dying. This book is clean and nice to read.
It being Saturday night, almost midnight, and with TORTOISE on the desk next to me, with the weird orange and blue cover and the little box that you don't always notice is there, I feel very contained by the lines of the room. I feel like the room is buzzing a little and my body is not buzzing. There is a desk calendar on the desk and I can't believe what day it is. In the middle of reading TORTOISE I sat down and tried to write something short and abstract about becoming someone else and when I was finished I deleted it without reading it again even though I felt like what I had written was true. You need to do that sometimes, maybe, I think.
You should buy this book.
I read TORTOISE with a little slip of paper as a bookmark so that I could note sentences or sections that I like. Usually I just write straight in a book, but Calamari's books are so beautifully made that I can't bring myself to do that to them. So the bookmark: instead of taking notes the way I usually do (which varies, but often I write out things I would say if I were going to review the book, 'snippets' or something, because usually the only reason I take notes is to review) for TORTOISE I found myself writing down 'ideas'. The main trajectory of this book is about a man who gets on a plane to go visit a man and woman in an unnamed country. He sits in places and thinks about things. Each place he is in triggers things he remembers, which range from very common to very weird. There is a lot of thinking in this book. Here are some of the things I noted that were 'thought' about, as listed on my bookmark:
insomnia pp 54-55 (I started my notes late, I had no pen)
sick babies 60-61
age and sanity 93
pissing money 95 ("You work all day and piss your money away at night and then get up in the morning and make some more.")
two people in one 99
father's head 102
doppelganger 106-107
The book ended on page 124. The ending was very strange and somehow soothing. I don't want to talk about it.
As you can sort of tell, this book is about death. Every book is about death in a way but this book seems about being alone and confused in a small claustrophobic space while dying without knowing you are dying. This book is clean and nice to read.
It being Saturday night, almost midnight, and with TORTOISE on the desk next to me, with the weird orange and blue cover and the little box that you don't always notice is there, I feel very contained by the lines of the room. I feel like the room is buzzing a little and my body is not buzzing. There is a desk calendar on the desk and I can't believe what day it is. In the middle of reading TORTOISE I sat down and tried to write something short and abstract about becoming someone else and when I was finished I deleted it without reading it again even though I felt like what I had written was true. You need to do that sometimes, maybe, I think.
You should buy this book.
Blake Butler Kicked Me In The Head
I don't know. There's not a lot to think today. Even coffee isn't coming on. I watched the movie PERSEPOLIS last night. It was okay. It was too political and less fantastical. I want more fantasy in movies. I am tired of thinking about political intentions. There is very little anyone can do to change what will occur. I don't know what's going on right now. It's as if I'm riding on a blinker. I don't know what a blinker means. I am still reading TORTOISE by James Lewelling. I like the sentences. I am reading slowly. I've read some of the sentences over and over again. I can't keep things straight. I went to Borders a little last night and walked around and picked up books and touched them. This coffee is not goddamned coming on.
Yesterday RYAN CALL sent me a little thing he wrote about Saturday night at AWP. It documents some of what happened that I do not remember. I do not, for instance, remember talking about Kim Chinquee. I do not remember sleep walking and ending up on the floor. I do not remember kicking Ryan Call in the head. This document is a document to help me remember. This document will win Ryan Call the PEN/Faulkner award for prose.
BLAKE BUTLER KICKED ME IN THE HEAD
by Ryan Call
1.
Blake Butler invited me to a party. The party was at someone’s apartment in Brooklyn, so I followed Blake Butler out there to meet people I had read about on the internet. These people have blogs, and e-books, and online literary journals, and real, tiny books, and other writings of that nature. I felt like I knew them like the way you might know a really talkative person who sits behind you in class and says smart things.
2.
At the apartment, I met a person named Justin Taylor and a person named Kendra Grant Malone and a person named Lauren Something, I think, who soon left the apartment with another person whose name I never learned. Blake Butler introduced me to everyone and everyone smiled and seemed very nice. I felt friendly towards everyone, even though I also felt a little anxious at meeting new people.
3.
Someone pointed at the wine bottles on the kitchen counter, so I drank some of the wine, but from a mug that Justin Taylor gave to me. Blake Butler stood next to me and talked to Kendra Grant Malone. Justin Taylor stood on the other side of me to get something to drink, I think. I told Justin Taylor that I liked that symposium he put together on Donald Barthelme, though I probably did not use the word symposium. I probably said thingy. He said thanks back and asked me what I did. I told him I went to the writing program at George Mason University.
4.
Tao Lin came into the apartment and everyone said hello to him and he said hello back. Tao Lin sat on the couch across from the kitchen counter and opened up his computer. He looked at us. He looked at me and said, who are you. I’m Ryan, I said. He nodded and looked back down at his computer.
5.
Justin Taylor said that he had rum in the freezer if anyone wanted it. I did not want to keep drinking wine, nor did I want to drink rum, because I have had bad things happen with rum. I had a flask full of whiskey, so I poured some of that into my cup and got a few ice cubes out of the tray. Blake Butler said that he wanted rum and coke, so he and Justin Taylor made rum and coke for each of them. I think here is where I began to get drunk. And here is where Blake Butler began to get drunk also.
6.
Short list of some authors’ names I heard while I was at this party:
Donald Barthelme
Mazie Louise Montgomery
Ofelia Hunt
Matthew Rohrer
Barry Hannah
Kim Chinquee
7.
I also vaguely remember a discussion about bi-curious girls.
8.
We moved to the couch and people sat down in various places. Blake Butler and Kendra Grant Malone sat on a lounge chair sort of thing to my left. I took Tao Lin’s computer and logged onto my gmail account to check for emails and see who was online. I do not know if I asked Tao Lin if I could use his computer, but I hope he did not mind. His computer was tiny and had a tiny keyboard that gave me trouble when I tried to type words into it. I liked trying to type on it.
9.
I opened a chat window with a friend of mine from college, and I typed:
me: tao is throwing bananas at us.
The bananas came at us end over end. Justin Taylor and Mike Young and I were sitting on the couch. Two bananas hit the couch, I think, but no one got hurt. Or maybe Mike Young showed up later on? I do not know what happened to the bananas, but I think Tao Lin used them to make smoothies for us in the morning? Thank you, Tao Lin, for the smoothies.
10.
Kendra Grant Malone stood up from the chair to go do something, and Blake Butler fell off of the chair. The chair tipped up like a seesaw, and Blake Butler fell onto the floor. His legs stuck out like a pair of scissors. He stayed on the floor for a while. He flailed his sneakers around a bit.
me: yes
blake is givinghigh fiives to people
John: hooray
skin contact
Blake Butler had gotten to his feet and was now giving high fives to everyone. Somewhere in there I finished my whiskey. Blake Butler shouted words at everyone. Much celebration and cheering.
11.
At various points throughout the evening, Tao Lin stood up and ran back to the other parts of the apartment to get shit. I typed:
me: yes
he is mysize
and he runs around the apt
to get sht
shitt
Once he ran to his room and came back to give me a book of his poetry. He dropped it at my feet and then crouched in front of me. I felt a little confused that he was crouching so close to me, but then I realized that he wanted the computer. He must have said that he wanted the computer. I gave it back to him. I felt glad that I was not talking shit online about anyone in the apartment. I congratulated myself for not being an asshole.
You run around a lot, I said to Tao Lin.
12.
We went to Tao Lin’s room and Justin Taylor talked more about Barry Hannah. Blake Butler and Mike Young talked also. Tao Lin video-recorded Kendra Grant Malone sitting on the bed, and then he recorded everyone else. I looked at the drawings and the books near Tao Lin’s bed. I poked a few books with my finger. I did not know what else to do. My head does this thing sometimes when it cannot process information: it either makes me say things uncontrollably, or it makes me not talk. It did that all evening. It made me not talk. I wanted to say something, to say that I felt happy and comfortable sitting there on the floor next to Tao Lin’s bed. I wanted to say that I felt friendly towards everyone. I wanted to join in and say how much I loved Barry Hannah. But I could not. Instead, I picked up a drawing of a face and decided to take it so I could give it to a friend. I asked Tao Lin to write his name on it. I felt nervous about that because maybe I seemed like I had expected a book signing at this apartment instead of a party. I did not want to seem like that person. So I drew a picture in one of Tao Lin’s small notebooks. There, I told myself, now it’s like we traded pictures.
13.
Bedtime. Blake Butler and I slept in the living room. Surprise! The couch unfolded into a bed. Tao Lin gave us pillows and blankets. Tao Lin gave me the air mattress. He turned off the lights, but he left the light on in his room. I sat on the air mattress and opened Tao Lin’s computer to check my gmail. No one had emailed me between 2:30am and 5:00am. So I emailed them. Later on they emailed me back and asked me why the hell was I writing emails at five in the morning? I did it because I wanted to have emails to read when I got home the next day. Then a person walked back into the kitchen to get something. I worried that someone might think I was accessing porn on Tao Lin’s laptop. I closed the laptop, put it on the kitchen counter, and then lay down on the air mattress. I knocked over a glass of water near the air mattress with my left arm, and then I went to sleep.
14.
I woke up when Blake Butler kicked me in the head. At first I was confused, but then it happened again. I pushed his feet away from my face with my hands, but my wrists were not strong enough. His legs are stronger. Blake Butler is a tall person. I sat up a little and could see, in the dark, Blake Butler halfway curled up at my feet on the air mattress. He was saying jumbled words loudly in his sleep. He said something about being cold. He said something about Kim Chinquee. Blake Butler and Kim Chinquee have recently had their work appear together in a lot of the same literary journals. Kim Chinquee has a Pushcart Prize and Blake Butler has been nominated for three this year.
Yesterday RYAN CALL sent me a little thing he wrote about Saturday night at AWP. It documents some of what happened that I do not remember. I do not, for instance, remember talking about Kim Chinquee. I do not remember sleep walking and ending up on the floor. I do not remember kicking Ryan Call in the head. This document is a document to help me remember. This document will win Ryan Call the PEN/Faulkner award for prose.
BLAKE BUTLER KICKED ME IN THE HEAD
by Ryan Call
1.
Blake Butler invited me to a party. The party was at someone’s apartment in Brooklyn, so I followed Blake Butler out there to meet people I had read about on the internet. These people have blogs, and e-books, and online literary journals, and real, tiny books, and other writings of that nature. I felt like I knew them like the way you might know a really talkative person who sits behind you in class and says smart things.
2.
At the apartment, I met a person named Justin Taylor and a person named Kendra Grant Malone and a person named Lauren Something, I think, who soon left the apartment with another person whose name I never learned. Blake Butler introduced me to everyone and everyone smiled and seemed very nice. I felt friendly towards everyone, even though I also felt a little anxious at meeting new people.
3.
Someone pointed at the wine bottles on the kitchen counter, so I drank some of the wine, but from a mug that Justin Taylor gave to me. Blake Butler stood next to me and talked to Kendra Grant Malone. Justin Taylor stood on the other side of me to get something to drink, I think. I told Justin Taylor that I liked that symposium he put together on Donald Barthelme, though I probably did not use the word symposium. I probably said thingy. He said thanks back and asked me what I did. I told him I went to the writing program at George Mason University.
4.
Tao Lin came into the apartment and everyone said hello to him and he said hello back. Tao Lin sat on the couch across from the kitchen counter and opened up his computer. He looked at us. He looked at me and said, who are you. I’m Ryan, I said. He nodded and looked back down at his computer.
5.
Justin Taylor said that he had rum in the freezer if anyone wanted it. I did not want to keep drinking wine, nor did I want to drink rum, because I have had bad things happen with rum. I had a flask full of whiskey, so I poured some of that into my cup and got a few ice cubes out of the tray. Blake Butler said that he wanted rum and coke, so he and Justin Taylor made rum and coke for each of them. I think here is where I began to get drunk. And here is where Blake Butler began to get drunk also.
6.
Short list of some authors’ names I heard while I was at this party:
Donald Barthelme
Mazie Louise Montgomery
Ofelia Hunt
Matthew Rohrer
Barry Hannah
Kim Chinquee
7.
I also vaguely remember a discussion about bi-curious girls.
8.
We moved to the couch and people sat down in various places. Blake Butler and Kendra Grant Malone sat on a lounge chair sort of thing to my left. I took Tao Lin’s computer and logged onto my gmail account to check for emails and see who was online. I do not know if I asked Tao Lin if I could use his computer, but I hope he did not mind. His computer was tiny and had a tiny keyboard that gave me trouble when I tried to type words into it. I liked trying to type on it.
9.
I opened a chat window with a friend of mine from college, and I typed:
me: tao is throwing bananas at us.
The bananas came at us end over end. Justin Taylor and Mike Young and I were sitting on the couch. Two bananas hit the couch, I think, but no one got hurt. Or maybe Mike Young showed up later on? I do not know what happened to the bananas, but I think Tao Lin used them to make smoothies for us in the morning? Thank you, Tao Lin, for the smoothies.
10.
Kendra Grant Malone stood up from the chair to go do something, and Blake Butler fell off of the chair. The chair tipped up like a seesaw, and Blake Butler fell onto the floor. His legs stuck out like a pair of scissors. He stayed on the floor for a while. He flailed his sneakers around a bit.
me: yes
blake is givinghigh fiives to people
John: hooray
skin contact
Blake Butler had gotten to his feet and was now giving high fives to everyone. Somewhere in there I finished my whiskey. Blake Butler shouted words at everyone. Much celebration and cheering.
11.
At various points throughout the evening, Tao Lin stood up and ran back to the other parts of the apartment to get shit. I typed:
me: yes
he is mysize
and he runs around the apt
to get sht
shitt
Once he ran to his room and came back to give me a book of his poetry. He dropped it at my feet and then crouched in front of me. I felt a little confused that he was crouching so close to me, but then I realized that he wanted the computer. He must have said that he wanted the computer. I gave it back to him. I felt glad that I was not talking shit online about anyone in the apartment. I congratulated myself for not being an asshole.
You run around a lot, I said to Tao Lin.
12.
We went to Tao Lin’s room and Justin Taylor talked more about Barry Hannah. Blake Butler and Mike Young talked also. Tao Lin video-recorded Kendra Grant Malone sitting on the bed, and then he recorded everyone else. I looked at the drawings and the books near Tao Lin’s bed. I poked a few books with my finger. I did not know what else to do. My head does this thing sometimes when it cannot process information: it either makes me say things uncontrollably, or it makes me not talk. It did that all evening. It made me not talk. I wanted to say something, to say that I felt happy and comfortable sitting there on the floor next to Tao Lin’s bed. I wanted to say that I felt friendly towards everyone. I wanted to join in and say how much I loved Barry Hannah. But I could not. Instead, I picked up a drawing of a face and decided to take it so I could give it to a friend. I asked Tao Lin to write his name on it. I felt nervous about that because maybe I seemed like I had expected a book signing at this apartment instead of a party. I did not want to seem like that person. So I drew a picture in one of Tao Lin’s small notebooks. There, I told myself, now it’s like we traded pictures.
13.
Bedtime. Blake Butler and I slept in the living room. Surprise! The couch unfolded into a bed. Tao Lin gave us pillows and blankets. Tao Lin gave me the air mattress. He turned off the lights, but he left the light on in his room. I sat on the air mattress and opened Tao Lin’s computer to check my gmail. No one had emailed me between 2:30am and 5:00am. So I emailed them. Later on they emailed me back and asked me why the hell was I writing emails at five in the morning? I did it because I wanted to have emails to read when I got home the next day. Then a person walked back into the kitchen to get something. I worried that someone might think I was accessing porn on Tao Lin’s laptop. I closed the laptop, put it on the kitchen counter, and then lay down on the air mattress. I knocked over a glass of water near the air mattress with my left arm, and then I went to sleep.
14.
I woke up when Blake Butler kicked me in the head. At first I was confused, but then it happened again. I pushed his feet away from my face with my hands, but my wrists were not strong enough. His legs are stronger. Blake Butler is a tall person. I sat up a little and could see, in the dark, Blake Butler halfway curled up at my feet on the air mattress. He was saying jumbled words loudly in his sleep. He said something about being cold. He said something about Kim Chinquee. Blake Butler and Kim Chinquee have recently had their work appear together in a lot of the same literary journals. Kim Chinquee has a Pushcart Prize and Blake Butler has been nominated for three this year.
Friday, February 8, 2008
DRUNK
Tao Lin wrote a poem about me for DRUNK blog. I think it's true but I don't totally remember: I SAW BLAKE BUTLER DRUNK
ALIENATED AFRAID witnesses and LC think
RE: ALIENATED AFRAID OF FURNITURE IN BEDROOM, death-hustler writes: "a tremendously uncomfortable little book, or better, a procession of agonies. direct application of dread to the senses and general corrosion of the universe. disgusting! harmful! moved by dimension of huge utility."
RE: the long interview between Brandon and I on the ebook, Justin Dobbs writes: "The day I saw Brandon was at the Capital Hill library in Seattle. I got on the computer and emailed Tao Lin. At that moment I saw Brandon Gorrell in front of his computer. I felt nervous. I gmailed Brandon "Where are you?" Soon, he gmailed that he saw me. I didn't see him see me, but then I looked at Brandon and I was scared, because he had maybe a sort of shit-eating grin. I smiled and tried hard not to laugh since there were people around me. I gmailed him that I would come over to him pretty soon, but I had still had the adrenaline shot in my bloodstream running through me. But I did go over and saw him typing. He said that he was interviewing with Blake Butler for his e-book with Lamination Colony. I told him I was out of computer time, so he gave me his library card and his password, so I returned to the computer. Later, he gmailed "I'm going to eat lunch. I will get my library card." Soon he came and got it and said "Lots of people waiting for the computer, huh?" I agreed and gave him the card. When he came back I was reading a book by Charles D'Ambrosio. I showed him the book, but he said nothing about it."
If you want to make a 'blurb' or provide a 'testimonial' or help spread Brandon's book or something, comment or send it to me.
RE: several questions about future LAMINATION COLONY ebooks, yes I plan on doing more of these. Ultimately I'd like to release 3-4 a year. Feel free to send me manuscripts to laminationcolony (at} gmail {dot) com. I will read them. I will probably be picky.
For the record, putting together this ebook, as well as the LAMINATION COLONY emagazine itself (the new issue of which is now finished and will be up next week sometime and is totally fucking killer) is NOT a 'labor of love'. I do not do it 'with time I could have spent on other things'. I do it mainly because it is fun. It gives me something to do and I like having the opportunity to put up work by other people that I think is awesome and/or interesting and/or would not be shown elsewhere. It helps me cure my own boredom and genuinely excites me. Often when I am sitting at home I will just sit and stare at the site and click on people's words and look at them and smile. Sometimes I like to smile.
RE: the long interview between Brandon and I on the ebook, Justin Dobbs writes: "The day I saw Brandon was at the Capital Hill library in Seattle. I got on the computer and emailed Tao Lin. At that moment I saw Brandon Gorrell in front of his computer. I felt nervous. I gmailed Brandon "Where are you?" Soon, he gmailed that he saw me. I didn't see him see me, but then I looked at Brandon and I was scared, because he had maybe a sort of shit-eating grin. I smiled and tried hard not to laugh since there were people around me. I gmailed him that I would come over to him pretty soon, but I had still had the adrenaline shot in my bloodstream running through me. But I did go over and saw him typing. He said that he was interviewing with Blake Butler for his e-book with Lamination Colony. I told him I was out of computer time, so he gave me his library card and his password, so I returned to the computer. Later, he gmailed "I'm going to eat lunch. I will get my library card." Soon he came and got it and said "Lots of people waiting for the computer, huh?" I agreed and gave him the card. When he came back I was reading a book by Charles D'Ambrosio. I showed him the book, but he said nothing about it."
If you want to make a 'blurb' or provide a 'testimonial' or help spread Brandon's book or something, comment or send it to me.
RE: several questions about future LAMINATION COLONY ebooks, yes I plan on doing more of these. Ultimately I'd like to release 3-4 a year. Feel free to send me manuscripts to laminationcolony (at} gmail {dot) com. I will read them. I will probably be picky.
For the record, putting together this ebook, as well as the LAMINATION COLONY emagazine itself (the new issue of which is now finished and will be up next week sometime and is totally fucking killer) is NOT a 'labor of love'. I do not do it 'with time I could have spent on other things'. I do it mainly because it is fun. It gives me something to do and I like having the opportunity to put up work by other people that I think is awesome and/or interesting and/or would not be shown elsewhere. It helps me cure my own boredom and genuinely excites me. Often when I am sitting at home I will just sit and stare at the site and click on people's words and look at them and smile. Sometimes I like to smile.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Long Interview With Brandon Scott Gorrell
A couple days before ALIENATED AFRAID OF FURNITURE IN BEDROOM went up online, Brandon and I had a long "interview" style discussion about it on Gmail chat. It is very long, though it stays mostly on topic. We talked for about 90 minutes. I think Gmail chat is a good way to interview someone because it's like a conversation but you can take long pauses to think and write what you want to say the way you want to say it but you also don't sit and "compose" an answer. It is an honest and efficient form of interview. In this interview we talk about masturbating. Even if you did not read Brandon's book you are probably interested in masturbating. If you read the whole thing you probably win. Okay good.
BRANDON AND BLAKE GMAIL INTERVIEW FOR FEBRUARY 2008:
4:26 PM me: ok this is the beginning of the interview
Brandon: okay
me: when did you write this book
4:27 PM Brandon: i think i wrote the book like two months ago. at the end of november. but it took a long time to finish because i edited alot. i finished it right before i sent it to you, that was in the middle of january i think.
me: how long do you think you worked on it
hour wise
or how long each day
4:29 PM Brandon: i would say it took me no more than 12 focused hours. the document was usually always open, but i only 'picked at it' for a very long time. i hardly ever sat down and focused on the whole thing. at the end i did. so it was maybe like an hour or two of extreme focus a couple times a week but only on like one sentence or one section, and with distractions, and dispersed over my entire internet day.
4:30 PM me: i like to write like that too. it seems like you get a lot of little bursts of energy
like you keep writing and get up a lot
and so your energy doesn't deplete
Brandon: yeah
me: and you can drink coffee
Brandon: i agree with this
me: and little things happen that influence sentences
4:31 PM Brandon: i think thats how i write all of my things. for the ebook i shitted the bulk of it out in one session but after wards i was just picking at it. if i go to piss or walk to the store i will become influenced and get and idea, like you said. i agree
4:32 PM me: 'i am on the bed and everything feels wrong' is the first sentence in the ebook
Brandon: you are correct
me: how did this sentence occur to you? was it just in your head? did you just think it and start writing?
4:34 PM Brandon: i think it was 'the first thing in my head'. i sat down to write the thing with the image of me 'bludgeoning the king size bed with my claws and reeling fists' and that was the only idea that i had for the thing, and i felt shitty on my bed (i write everything on my bed because i don't have a desk), so i wrote that. it was true i was being honest
4:35 PM me: you sit on the edge of your bed when writing?
Brandon: thats a good idea
4:36 PM me: do you lay down?
Brandon: i never thought of doing that. i sit either cross-legged on my bed and hunched over my computer with horrible posture, against the wall with pillows and the laptop on my lap, or laying on my stomach with my torso supported by my elbows
4:37 PM i also lay on my side but that makes it really hard to type
i lay on my side when i watch youtube videos
me: i think it would be hard for me to write like that
Brandon: now i am at the library because i worry about my posture
me: i tried it once, laying down while writing
and everything turned babbling.
4:38 PM but the sentences here are very clear and precise
if strange
Brandon: hm
i always write on my bed
because i dont want to move
4:39 PM its the only place that i have in my room to sit. my couch is full of clothes and there are blankets on my bed and pillows and everything is comfortable there. i consider myself a 'diverse' writer though, in that i can write in many different positions and locales
body-positions
me: diverse is good
i am the opposite
4:40 PM i wish i could do that
Brandon: i try to switch my body position alot becuase i am afraid of the posture thing
me: but now there is only one room i ever get anything done
Brandon: really?
which room?
me: a room in my parents house, where i lived from age 16-19
i drive 30 minutes to their house to use the room
i wish i could write somewhere else
but i cant
Brandon: that is interesting
4:41 PM what do they say
what do you say to them
me: they are used to my routine now
they talk to me when i come out to get water
Brandon: that seems like a healthy habit
me: it helps to be away from the place i live
it makes me think of it with more rigor
Brandon: yes
me: but it also constricts me
because i have to be there to feel productive
you are lucky to have your bed be your place or work
4:42 PM of work
Brandon: i would like to sit on a sidewalk in the middle of downtown and write
i think i would make something good
i would be afraid of people attacking me though, stealing my laptop or something
me: new positions are worth trying probably
what do you feel looking at the front page of your ebook
4:45 PM Brandon: i really like how it looks. i feel a sense of 'pride' because it looks professional and organized and 'deep' to me. i like seeing my name there and my little picture. i feel a sense of expectation that more people will like my writing. i also feel a sense of, something. i cant articulate it. a feeling of wanting to tell someone, 'we worked on this, and here it is, and i want you to like this.' i also feel a little afraid. i feel interested too. i look at the faces, especially the middle one, and feel a disquiet.
4:46 PM me: we have agreed there is something evil about the book, especially the way it fits together and the photos i inserted
i think the front feels like the start of evil
Brandon: the front is the start of something horrible
4:47 PM i feel like the front is horrible too. i forgot that.
its really, really horrible
me: i agree
i cant place why
Brandon: yes
me: but i feel an evil that begins here and grows as i read through the book
Brandon: i keep thinking 'black hole' and 'enter the fun house'
me: black hole
4:48 PM black lodge
Brandon: also, i kind of keep thinking something about wierd porn, and this old playstation 2 game where you went around and made footage for snuff films
me: those are good thoughts. like moving into a fucked video game
4:49 PM Brandon: where you play out strange and base emotions
me: i like how it is pointed out on page one that the shampoo and conditioner do not move
'not an inch for anything'
that is ominous seeming
Brandon: yes
i put that in at the 'last second'
me: you seem to mix the everyday with the ominous
which is why it's even more scary
because it is real
it is real everyday evil
evil in any house
Brandon: yes i think thats a good point to make about the book
4:50 PM i think it is because it is true, in a way
me: houses and rooms scare me in general
i like to think about houses
and rooms
4:51 PM like placeholders
4:52 PM Brandon: i dont know. i've been umemployed for awhile and i moved up to seattle with no friends almost a year ago, and i still don't have that many friends, so i spend a lot of time in my room, and some things start to feel very bad and bleak and desperate, like the idea of your room, or the image of your bed when you are getting coffee. like you are getting coffee and then all the sudden the image of your bed pops into your head and you feel horrible because you are there so much and there feels like nothing else. maybe that is something that explains the book a little.
me: that's very good
good
4:53 PM everyday things are more scary than monsters
that is why most horror movies fail
they fail to be scary because they can't exist
but rooms and houses are everywhere
Brandon: yeah
4:54 PM me: you wrote this on your bed. that scares me.
fuck
Brandon: i become afraid sometimes, when i am on a plane and descending on a city and can only see suburbs. that frightens me because i think of the people inside sitting on their couches and watching TV and doing this endlessly until they die, with TV dinners, and computers, and trampolines and shit. i dont like that.
yes that idea kind of scares me too now, that you say it
i can understand your fear
4:55 PM it is another component of 'the horror' that is the ebook
me: yes
we talked already about the yellow crap on the chin of the face on the second page
Brandon: yes
the skid mark
me: i dont know why it is there
you have to look very closely at the right angle
4:56 PM Brandon: it was created in a toilet stall in a truckstop in rural kentucky or something
thats how i feel about that
me: i also really like the line about wanting to masturbate but being too tired to move your arms
i feel like that often
why do people want to masturbate when they are too tired
4:57 PM Brandon: yes, i think someone else gave me that idea
4:58 PM im not sure, i have that feeling. wanting to masturbate when too tired. like 90% of the time i will wake myself up enough to do it. i don't really know why. it's a feeling like there is nothing else to do and it will help me get to sleep and it feels really good, which are all good things, and can be done easily, so. it should be done. it is like 5 or 10 free minutes. like you get a prize every day that is 5 or 10 minutes of being relatively not bored.
5:00 PM me: sometimes when i am falling asleep i will be on the edge of sleep, which is hard for me because i have a lot of sleeping trouble, and i will somehow think of masturbating and i will get stuck on the edge of sleep and i will hang there for a while and i cant go forward until i come back out and try to masturbate
but i almost always masturbate in front of my computer
so then i have to get up
and it wakes me up
Brandon: another benefit of computer on bed
me: and i lose interest in masturbating halfway through
and then i am awake and not horny
Brandon: really?
me: and not fulfilled
5:01 PM i'd say about 20% of the time i lose interest while masturbating, if i've woken myself up to do it
i dont know why
Brandon: i have lost interest in masturbating in the middle of the process like .75% of all times i have masturbated
me: i think because i am mad i woke myself up for it
haha
in normal masturbation, yes, i rarely lose interest
5:02 PM but mid-sleep masturbation, i dont know why, it moves up to 20%
Brandon: this is funny
im trying not to laugh because there are people around me
me: laugh
Brandon: sitting like 3 feet away from me
i can't
i did
a little
me: and when they look at you, stop laughing and say 'i was laughing about masturbation'
5:03 PM and then turn away
ok
back to ebook
what do you think of the mask picture on page 3
why do you think it is there
5:06 PM Brandon: i thought you put it there because of what i said later on, about putting the chinese war mask on my wall to quell the green emoticons. but i dont know. i have a lot of thoughts about all the pictures and the corresponding text. i think every picture you put in the ebook corresponds with it's text in an unspeakable way. in a way that i understand emotionally but not 'verbally'. with the mask on page three i always feel very connected to the mask when i read 'and i know my face will stretch into something fantastic' and also when i read the word 'chandelier' and think about looking into a mirror and it reflecting the room at an angle. the mask makes a certain 'sense'
5:07 PM to me
me: it makes sense
rooms
the mask looks sort of like a chandelier
it also looks like it might speak
5:08 PM Brandon: it looks frightening to me
it reminds me of the mask from the film 'the mask' with jim carey
the mask that he found in the water
not the one that his face turns into
me: jim carrey
5:09 PM they showed jimc arrey at the super bowl last night
he looked shrunken
Brandon: really
me: hold on i have to piss
Brandon: i want to see that
ok
a shrunken jim carrey
5:10 PM me: tell me about alienated afraid with no comma
while i am gone
5 minutes
5:15 PM Brandon: okay, the title. it's like that because i thought it like that and i originally titled the word document that. i like typing things in caps because it seems belligerent and idiotic and sometimes a little 'ominous' and kind of loud and also i feel it adds sarcasm. there is no comma because i feel like yelling the title. that's all. if i would have thought of a word that meant both alienated and afraid i might have used that. maybe the title is sort of idiotic and feels anxious which makes it go along well with what's actually in the book. it 'fits the theme'. "alienated and afraid of furniture in my bedroom" is too nice and calm. taking some of the words out, making it like it is i think added a feeling of being 'frantic' or 'anxious' or 'miserable' or 'miserably frantic' or 'panic' or 'chainsawed'
5:16 PM 'horribly chainsawed'
me: yes it does have that effect
a lot of the effect of this book is muted like that
and builds slow
which is good
or feels good
5:17 PM a package appears on page 4
and is thrown out the window
Brandon: yes
me: and i dont think it appears again
what is in the package
5:19 PM Brandon: it appears again on the page with the chair picture (one of the 8's). i was afraid of what was in the package. i didn't know what was in the package. i knew kind of what was in it but i knew if i opened, then i would have an obligation. i felt horrible about it. i didn't want that package to exist because it only imposed anxiety on me.
me: it does have anxiety.
5:20 PM you try to destroy the package
Brandon: i wanted to get rid of it
it was a real package in my room, i just barely opened it
it was unopened for like 4 months
me: a real package
where did it come from
5:23 PM Brandon: yes, i mean the package was like a 'real character', it was based on a real character in my life. which was the package that was in my room for awhile. the package had a microphone and two cd's in it. my friend sent it to me because he wanted me to record my voice for him for some of his songs. i said i would and that he could send me the mic, but i misunderstood him a little because i thought he was only going to take one of his old mics and send it to me. later, he sent me an email, saying 'hey, me and my girlfriend paid for it, all you have to do to pay me back is use it,' and i didnt want that, because i was completely anxious about recording for him in the first place, so when i got the package i just avoided it and put it on my couch and it sat there for a very long time
me: avoidance
Brandon: yes
me: couch
5:24 PM Brandon: complete avoidance
me: covering up your furniture
ok good
then there is a woman with cleavage and a lion
in the picture next to the text
Brandon: ;yes you did a very good job
the connection seems very clear
me: take a look at her cleavage
Brandon: it is like a picture-word metaphor
not a word-word metaphor
i looked at the cleavage
5:25 PM me: you can see that she doesn't tan uniformly
Brandon: i enjoy it
yes she has pale boobs
me: she has tan marks on her cleavage
that end high on the breast
as if she doesn't usually expose that much tit
Brandon: i dont know if i can see that
im not sure
me: she is looking at the lion
Brandon: i see a sort of vertical line on the high boob
me: and kind of kissing it and sort of talking to it maybe
Brandon: is that the tan line
yes
me: i think its a tan line
5:26 PM it might be something else
Brandon: the picture is calm
but afraid
me: yeah
conflicting mixture
ok fuck
Brandon: what
is everything ok
5:27 PM me: im just looking at the evil of this book
Brandon: yes
you know
me: the next page is evil
Brandon: i almost typed 'this book is making me feel horrible insane'
me: the sound of the ashtray
Brandon: when you typed that
me: when we were chatting while i put it together i felt really afraid
we did it from about 2 am to about 530 am
5:28 PM we were both frightened
Brandon: yes, i was frightened
can i ask you a question
can we just make this a dual interview
me: ok
yeah
we should
ask
Brandon: this is already long i dont know if people will want to read all of both
me: you're right
long
Brandon: but its good and i am very interested
okay
me: i feel interested so far
5:29 PM Brandon: sometimes when i scroll through the book my internet connection takes a little while for the pictures to load and before the pictures load i see funny things written in the boxes where the pictures are about to appear. i can't remember any of them right now. do you know what i am talking about? can you say what those things are and recall all of them or some of them?
5:30 PM keep typing im going to piss
5:32 PM me: those are the comments that you can input into the html coder so that if for some reason the images dont load there will be text there instead. in some browsers you can see the text by scrolling over the image. in other browsers you can right click on them and it will tell you in the properties box. the reasons for why i put whatever text is there would change. sometimes it had to do with how i found the image.
for instance,
5:33 PM i put in hole
for the image on page 5
5:34 PM but mostly they are just syllables that appeared in my head when i found the image
some of the images i found by writing long sentences into the google image search
i would write long sentence, the first thing i thought of
5:35 PM i think one was 'I DO NOT KNOW WHERE I AM'
and another might have been 'SOMETHING ELSE IS GOING TO HAPPEN SOON'
or sometimes more gibberish related
5:38 PM Brandon: haha, thats funny you write syllables that appeared in your head. that syllable poem thing you did was really funny, that you posted on your blog the other day. i really liked it. you said 'cod eye' and like 'bop beep bip beep' or something. that made me feel 'giddy'. i think we can both ask eachother questions. that it should be mixed from now on. when i was pissing i thought 'blake chose me, blake chose my e-book, that is good, he worked on it a long time, it is not really only me that did the e-book, it is in a sense very collaborative'
5:39 PM me: i liked what you sent me. i felt like i could 'respond' to it. i didnt realize i could influence the feel of it as much as i did until i started working on laying it out
but then i did feel like i was interacting with the text
and it was an electric feeling
Brandon: did you feel frightened when you were reading it in the email i sent you? as just plain text?
or did you start to understand 'the horror' once it was put into the ebook format
me: i didnt quite feel frightened. i did feel a bit displaced
5:40 PM Brandon: displaced
?
me: yes, like removed from myself
i dont know how else to explain it
Brandon: hm.
me: alienated
but in line with the alienation
because the title tells you that
5:41 PM so i felt displaced from my normal self but in line with somethign else
if that makes any sense
5:42 PM Brandon: i think it makes a kind of sense. i want to ask you another question now. i used a weird tense in the book. it is like past perfect continuous or present perfect continuous or something. during editing i changed the tense of the entire things like 5 times and one time it was more of a narrative. what do you think of the tense?
5:44 PM me: yes the tense is strange. in a way it is absorbing because it brings you into the action like first person normally does but then it puts you even more so into the text by switching from saying 'i am sitting' and then 'i have opened.' it's like someone is dictating their actions to you from a remote location in the immediate present rather than telling you a story
5:45 PM which definitely enables the evil
Brandon: yes, i just thought that. it is an 'evil enabler'
me: why did you switch the tense so much
what made you want to
5:48 PM Brandon: i originally had it in the tense that it is, right now, in the book. but sometimes for me it sounded very awkward. i felt conflicted. i also changed the format a lot. first every page was a paragraph with no line breaks. then i was thinking about submitting it to 3AM because chris killen edits fiction for them and i think he would have accepted it, but i felt that for 3:AM it should be a little more 'traditional' or something (there is no value judgment on 3:AM in that sentence) so i changed it to some other tense, maybe just past tense, and put it in paragraphs with some dialogue and indented beginning of paragraphs and shit. i sent you a 'preview' that was like that. then i felt bad about that and broke it up into different lines and changed the tense again and it felt alot better
5:49 PM me: the sections are important
why did you number the sections the way you did
1,2,3,4,5,8,8,4000 and so on
5:50 PM i mean 1,2,3,4,5,8,4000,8
5:51 PM Brandon: because i felt very sarcastic about numbering sections. i have read things that were numbered and didn't really understand why they were numbered. but i like numbering. it is easy. it's like a more important 'blank space' in your writing. so after a couple sections i just started typing the same number and 'this sucks' becuase i felt stupid about numbering but also wanted to number. i didn't mean for it to confuse the person reading. i only realized it might when i first saw it in the ebook. what did you think about the numbering when you first saw it in the email? were you amused? i was amused by it but also a little afraid it was stupid
5:53 PM me: yeah i was a little amused and a little like 'this is silly' but more amused and then when i began setting up the book i started to really like it because it was confusing, but in a way that went along with the text. i imagine it will confused people reading through it online. it confused me a lot when i was trying to set up one page after another
it also adds to the disorientation of the story somehow
there are lots of minor things about the book that add to it without direct reasons why
particularly in the formatting
5:54 PM Brandon: yes i think the numbering feels very good, it goes along with the text. yeah, that is a good thing to say. i want to ask you another question.
5:55 PM on your blog you solicited people to submit for lamination colony for author parodies and maybe, 'bad writing' and i think, the sense i got, was that you wanted to see different formats. how does this e-book coincide with what you were soliciting for? i was afraid it didn't, after i read your post. why not another issue of LC?
6:00 PM me: i wanted to make an issue that had a whole ton of stuff that other places would not do. i like the idea of the ebook being another part of the issue, but i also like the issue to stand alone. i am now beginning to lay out the issue and at first i had the ebook in the 'table of contents' area at the top of everything else, but now i have moved it to be separate but still on the same page. i think too many magazine have defined their borders as in 'we can print fiction and we can print poetry and we can get crazy and print nonfiction'. i want to provide something different. this issue will have your ebook and the parodies and a gmail chat and a letter someone found written from their cousin to their mom and a thing i think was meant as spam but reads as writing and an essay with a bibliography and a very violent except from a text that is not finished.
i want the issues to continue to get more fucked
i want people to send me naked pictures
i want people to send me things i cant figure out how to format
i want people to send me stuff written by their 5 year old brother
or pictures they drew in their sleep
etc etc etc
Brandon: haha
6:01 PM i laughed a little and no one noticed me
hm
i like your idea for lamination colony
it feels more 'artistic' in a way
but also like a circus
me: yes a circus
Brandon: i think the idea goes along with how you like david lynch so much
6:02 PM me: yes. your book reminds me of lynch a lot also
it has a lot of the same resonances as twin peaks or inland empire
lynch combines camp with bizarre with mystery with nudity with commonplace with surreal
6:03 PM a little taste of everything, and in a way that doesn't quite resolve
Brandon: i really like him
do you know what day the new issue of LC will come out?
me: i just laid out the 'table of contents' area today.
6:04 PM it is full and has a ton of stuff
i want to put more but it would be crowded
so as soon as i can lay it out, it will go up
hopefully in the next 2 weeks
but your book will go up first, on ash wednesday
which also seems evil
Brandon: ash wednesday
yes
me: fuck
Brandon: i am glad that ash wednesday is the day it will be published, i like that
me: i just saw the line about the package sitting on the floor
the package reappears
that is fucked
6:05 PM you are fucked
good
BRANDON AND BLAKE GMAIL INTERVIEW FOR FEBRUARY 2008:
4:26 PM me: ok this is the beginning of the interview
Brandon: okay
me: when did you write this book
4:27 PM Brandon: i think i wrote the book like two months ago. at the end of november. but it took a long time to finish because i edited alot. i finished it right before i sent it to you, that was in the middle of january i think.
me: how long do you think you worked on it
hour wise
or how long each day
4:29 PM Brandon: i would say it took me no more than 12 focused hours. the document was usually always open, but i only 'picked at it' for a very long time. i hardly ever sat down and focused on the whole thing. at the end i did. so it was maybe like an hour or two of extreme focus a couple times a week but only on like one sentence or one section, and with distractions, and dispersed over my entire internet day.
4:30 PM me: i like to write like that too. it seems like you get a lot of little bursts of energy
like you keep writing and get up a lot
and so your energy doesn't deplete
Brandon: yeah
me: and you can drink coffee
Brandon: i agree with this
me: and little things happen that influence sentences
4:31 PM Brandon: i think thats how i write all of my things. for the ebook i shitted the bulk of it out in one session but after wards i was just picking at it. if i go to piss or walk to the store i will become influenced and get and idea, like you said. i agree
4:32 PM me: 'i am on the bed and everything feels wrong' is the first sentence in the ebook
Brandon: you are correct
me: how did this sentence occur to you? was it just in your head? did you just think it and start writing?
4:34 PM Brandon: i think it was 'the first thing in my head'. i sat down to write the thing with the image of me 'bludgeoning the king size bed with my claws and reeling fists' and that was the only idea that i had for the thing, and i felt shitty on my bed (i write everything on my bed because i don't have a desk), so i wrote that. it was true i was being honest
4:35 PM me: you sit on the edge of your bed when writing?
Brandon: thats a good idea
4:36 PM me: do you lay down?
Brandon: i never thought of doing that. i sit either cross-legged on my bed and hunched over my computer with horrible posture, against the wall with pillows and the laptop on my lap, or laying on my stomach with my torso supported by my elbows
4:37 PM i also lay on my side but that makes it really hard to type
i lay on my side when i watch youtube videos
me: i think it would be hard for me to write like that
Brandon: now i am at the library because i worry about my posture
me: i tried it once, laying down while writing
and everything turned babbling.
4:38 PM but the sentences here are very clear and precise
if strange
Brandon: hm
i always write on my bed
because i dont want to move
4:39 PM its the only place that i have in my room to sit. my couch is full of clothes and there are blankets on my bed and pillows and everything is comfortable there. i consider myself a 'diverse' writer though, in that i can write in many different positions and locales
body-positions
me: diverse is good
i am the opposite
4:40 PM i wish i could do that
Brandon: i try to switch my body position alot becuase i am afraid of the posture thing
me: but now there is only one room i ever get anything done
Brandon: really?
which room?
me: a room in my parents house, where i lived from age 16-19
i drive 30 minutes to their house to use the room
i wish i could write somewhere else
but i cant
Brandon: that is interesting
4:41 PM what do they say
what do you say to them
me: they are used to my routine now
they talk to me when i come out to get water
Brandon: that seems like a healthy habit
me: it helps to be away from the place i live
it makes me think of it with more rigor
Brandon: yes
me: but it also constricts me
because i have to be there to feel productive
you are lucky to have your bed be your place or work
4:42 PM of work
Brandon: i would like to sit on a sidewalk in the middle of downtown and write
i think i would make something good
i would be afraid of people attacking me though, stealing my laptop or something
me: new positions are worth trying probably
what do you feel looking at the front page of your ebook
4:45 PM Brandon: i really like how it looks. i feel a sense of 'pride' because it looks professional and organized and 'deep' to me. i like seeing my name there and my little picture. i feel a sense of expectation that more people will like my writing. i also feel a sense of, something. i cant articulate it. a feeling of wanting to tell someone, 'we worked on this, and here it is, and i want you to like this.' i also feel a little afraid. i feel interested too. i look at the faces, especially the middle one, and feel a disquiet.
4:46 PM me: we have agreed there is something evil about the book, especially the way it fits together and the photos i inserted
i think the front feels like the start of evil
Brandon: the front is the start of something horrible
4:47 PM i feel like the front is horrible too. i forgot that.
its really, really horrible
me: i agree
i cant place why
Brandon: yes
me: but i feel an evil that begins here and grows as i read through the book
Brandon: i keep thinking 'black hole' and 'enter the fun house'
me: black hole
4:48 PM black lodge
Brandon: also, i kind of keep thinking something about wierd porn, and this old playstation 2 game where you went around and made footage for snuff films
me: those are good thoughts. like moving into a fucked video game
4:49 PM Brandon: where you play out strange and base emotions
me: i like how it is pointed out on page one that the shampoo and conditioner do not move
'not an inch for anything'
that is ominous seeming
Brandon: yes
i put that in at the 'last second'
me: you seem to mix the everyday with the ominous
which is why it's even more scary
because it is real
it is real everyday evil
evil in any house
Brandon: yes i think thats a good point to make about the book
4:50 PM i think it is because it is true, in a way
me: houses and rooms scare me in general
i like to think about houses
and rooms
4:51 PM like placeholders
4:52 PM Brandon: i dont know. i've been umemployed for awhile and i moved up to seattle with no friends almost a year ago, and i still don't have that many friends, so i spend a lot of time in my room, and some things start to feel very bad and bleak and desperate, like the idea of your room, or the image of your bed when you are getting coffee. like you are getting coffee and then all the sudden the image of your bed pops into your head and you feel horrible because you are there so much and there feels like nothing else. maybe that is something that explains the book a little.
me: that's very good
good
4:53 PM everyday things are more scary than monsters
that is why most horror movies fail
they fail to be scary because they can't exist
but rooms and houses are everywhere
Brandon: yeah
4:54 PM me: you wrote this on your bed. that scares me.
fuck
Brandon: i become afraid sometimes, when i am on a plane and descending on a city and can only see suburbs. that frightens me because i think of the people inside sitting on their couches and watching TV and doing this endlessly until they die, with TV dinners, and computers, and trampolines and shit. i dont like that.
yes that idea kind of scares me too now, that you say it
i can understand your fear
4:55 PM it is another component of 'the horror' that is the ebook
me: yes
we talked already about the yellow crap on the chin of the face on the second page
Brandon: yes
the skid mark
me: i dont know why it is there
you have to look very closely at the right angle
4:56 PM Brandon: it was created in a toilet stall in a truckstop in rural kentucky or something
thats how i feel about that
me: i also really like the line about wanting to masturbate but being too tired to move your arms
i feel like that often
why do people want to masturbate when they are too tired
4:57 PM Brandon: yes, i think someone else gave me that idea
4:58 PM im not sure, i have that feeling. wanting to masturbate when too tired. like 90% of the time i will wake myself up enough to do it. i don't really know why. it's a feeling like there is nothing else to do and it will help me get to sleep and it feels really good, which are all good things, and can be done easily, so. it should be done. it is like 5 or 10 free minutes. like you get a prize every day that is 5 or 10 minutes of being relatively not bored.
5:00 PM me: sometimes when i am falling asleep i will be on the edge of sleep, which is hard for me because i have a lot of sleeping trouble, and i will somehow think of masturbating and i will get stuck on the edge of sleep and i will hang there for a while and i cant go forward until i come back out and try to masturbate
but i almost always masturbate in front of my computer
so then i have to get up
and it wakes me up
Brandon: another benefit of computer on bed
me: and i lose interest in masturbating halfway through
and then i am awake and not horny
Brandon: really?
me: and not fulfilled
5:01 PM i'd say about 20% of the time i lose interest while masturbating, if i've woken myself up to do it
i dont know why
Brandon: i have lost interest in masturbating in the middle of the process like .75% of all times i have masturbated
me: i think because i am mad i woke myself up for it
haha
in normal masturbation, yes, i rarely lose interest
5:02 PM but mid-sleep masturbation, i dont know why, it moves up to 20%
Brandon: this is funny
im trying not to laugh because there are people around me
me: laugh
Brandon: sitting like 3 feet away from me
i can't
i did
a little
me: and when they look at you, stop laughing and say 'i was laughing about masturbation'
5:03 PM and then turn away
ok
back to ebook
what do you think of the mask picture on page 3
why do you think it is there
5:06 PM Brandon: i thought you put it there because of what i said later on, about putting the chinese war mask on my wall to quell the green emoticons. but i dont know. i have a lot of thoughts about all the pictures and the corresponding text. i think every picture you put in the ebook corresponds with it's text in an unspeakable way. in a way that i understand emotionally but not 'verbally'. with the mask on page three i always feel very connected to the mask when i read 'and i know my face will stretch into something fantastic' and also when i read the word 'chandelier' and think about looking into a mirror and it reflecting the room at an angle. the mask makes a certain 'sense'
5:07 PM to me
me: it makes sense
rooms
the mask looks sort of like a chandelier
it also looks like it might speak
5:08 PM Brandon: it looks frightening to me
it reminds me of the mask from the film 'the mask' with jim carey
the mask that he found in the water
not the one that his face turns into
me: jim carrey
5:09 PM they showed jimc arrey at the super bowl last night
he looked shrunken
Brandon: really
me: hold on i have to piss
Brandon: i want to see that
ok
a shrunken jim carrey
5:10 PM me: tell me about alienated afraid with no comma
while i am gone
5 minutes
5:15 PM Brandon: okay, the title. it's like that because i thought it like that and i originally titled the word document that. i like typing things in caps because it seems belligerent and idiotic and sometimes a little 'ominous' and kind of loud and also i feel it adds sarcasm. there is no comma because i feel like yelling the title. that's all. if i would have thought of a word that meant both alienated and afraid i might have used that. maybe the title is sort of idiotic and feels anxious which makes it go along well with what's actually in the book. it 'fits the theme'. "alienated and afraid of furniture in my bedroom" is too nice and calm. taking some of the words out, making it like it is i think added a feeling of being 'frantic' or 'anxious' or 'miserable' or 'miserably frantic' or 'panic' or 'chainsawed'
5:16 PM 'horribly chainsawed'
me: yes it does have that effect
a lot of the effect of this book is muted like that
and builds slow
which is good
or feels good
5:17 PM a package appears on page 4
and is thrown out the window
Brandon: yes
me: and i dont think it appears again
what is in the package
5:19 PM Brandon: it appears again on the page with the chair picture (one of the 8's). i was afraid of what was in the package. i didn't know what was in the package. i knew kind of what was in it but i knew if i opened, then i would have an obligation. i felt horrible about it. i didn't want that package to exist because it only imposed anxiety on me.
me: it does have anxiety.
5:20 PM you try to destroy the package
Brandon: i wanted to get rid of it
it was a real package in my room, i just barely opened it
it was unopened for like 4 months
me: a real package
where did it come from
5:23 PM Brandon: yes, i mean the package was like a 'real character', it was based on a real character in my life. which was the package that was in my room for awhile. the package had a microphone and two cd's in it. my friend sent it to me because he wanted me to record my voice for him for some of his songs. i said i would and that he could send me the mic, but i misunderstood him a little because i thought he was only going to take one of his old mics and send it to me. later, he sent me an email, saying 'hey, me and my girlfriend paid for it, all you have to do to pay me back is use it,' and i didnt want that, because i was completely anxious about recording for him in the first place, so when i got the package i just avoided it and put it on my couch and it sat there for a very long time
me: avoidance
Brandon: yes
me: couch
5:24 PM Brandon: complete avoidance
me: covering up your furniture
ok good
then there is a woman with cleavage and a lion
in the picture next to the text
Brandon: ;yes you did a very good job
the connection seems very clear
me: take a look at her cleavage
Brandon: it is like a picture-word metaphor
not a word-word metaphor
i looked at the cleavage
5:25 PM me: you can see that she doesn't tan uniformly
Brandon: i enjoy it
yes she has pale boobs
me: she has tan marks on her cleavage
that end high on the breast
as if she doesn't usually expose that much tit
Brandon: i dont know if i can see that
im not sure
me: she is looking at the lion
Brandon: i see a sort of vertical line on the high boob
me: and kind of kissing it and sort of talking to it maybe
Brandon: is that the tan line
yes
me: i think its a tan line
5:26 PM it might be something else
Brandon: the picture is calm
but afraid
me: yeah
conflicting mixture
ok fuck
Brandon: what
is everything ok
5:27 PM me: im just looking at the evil of this book
Brandon: yes
you know
me: the next page is evil
Brandon: i almost typed 'this book is making me feel horrible insane'
me: the sound of the ashtray
Brandon: when you typed that
me: when we were chatting while i put it together i felt really afraid
we did it from about 2 am to about 530 am
5:28 PM we were both frightened
Brandon: yes, i was frightened
can i ask you a question
can we just make this a dual interview
me: ok
yeah
we should
ask
Brandon: this is already long i dont know if people will want to read all of both
me: you're right
long
Brandon: but its good and i am very interested
okay
me: i feel interested so far
5:29 PM Brandon: sometimes when i scroll through the book my internet connection takes a little while for the pictures to load and before the pictures load i see funny things written in the boxes where the pictures are about to appear. i can't remember any of them right now. do you know what i am talking about? can you say what those things are and recall all of them or some of them?
5:30 PM keep typing im going to piss
5:32 PM me: those are the comments that you can input into the html coder so that if for some reason the images dont load there will be text there instead. in some browsers you can see the text by scrolling over the image. in other browsers you can right click on them and it will tell you in the properties box. the reasons for why i put whatever text is there would change. sometimes it had to do with how i found the image.
for instance,
5:33 PM i put in hole
for the image on page 5
5:34 PM but mostly they are just syllables that appeared in my head when i found the image
some of the images i found by writing long sentences into the google image search
i would write long sentence, the first thing i thought of
5:35 PM i think one was 'I DO NOT KNOW WHERE I AM'
and another might have been 'SOMETHING ELSE IS GOING TO HAPPEN SOON'
or sometimes more gibberish related
5:38 PM Brandon: haha, thats funny you write syllables that appeared in your head. that syllable poem thing you did was really funny, that you posted on your blog the other day. i really liked it. you said 'cod eye' and like 'bop beep bip beep' or something. that made me feel 'giddy'. i think we can both ask eachother questions. that it should be mixed from now on. when i was pissing i thought 'blake chose me, blake chose my e-book, that is good, he worked on it a long time, it is not really only me that did the e-book, it is in a sense very collaborative'
5:39 PM me: i liked what you sent me. i felt like i could 'respond' to it. i didnt realize i could influence the feel of it as much as i did until i started working on laying it out
but then i did feel like i was interacting with the text
and it was an electric feeling
Brandon: did you feel frightened when you were reading it in the email i sent you? as just plain text?
or did you start to understand 'the horror' once it was put into the ebook format
me: i didnt quite feel frightened. i did feel a bit displaced
5:40 PM Brandon: displaced
?
me: yes, like removed from myself
i dont know how else to explain it
Brandon: hm.
me: alienated
but in line with the alienation
because the title tells you that
5:41 PM so i felt displaced from my normal self but in line with somethign else
if that makes any sense
5:42 PM Brandon: i think it makes a kind of sense. i want to ask you another question now. i used a weird tense in the book. it is like past perfect continuous or present perfect continuous or something. during editing i changed the tense of the entire things like 5 times and one time it was more of a narrative. what do you think of the tense?
5:44 PM me: yes the tense is strange. in a way it is absorbing because it brings you into the action like first person normally does but then it puts you even more so into the text by switching from saying 'i am sitting' and then 'i have opened.' it's like someone is dictating their actions to you from a remote location in the immediate present rather than telling you a story
5:45 PM which definitely enables the evil
Brandon: yes, i just thought that. it is an 'evil enabler'
me: why did you switch the tense so much
what made you want to
5:48 PM Brandon: i originally had it in the tense that it is, right now, in the book. but sometimes for me it sounded very awkward. i felt conflicted. i also changed the format a lot. first every page was a paragraph with no line breaks. then i was thinking about submitting it to 3AM because chris killen edits fiction for them and i think he would have accepted it, but i felt that for 3:AM it should be a little more 'traditional' or something (there is no value judgment on 3:AM in that sentence) so i changed it to some other tense, maybe just past tense, and put it in paragraphs with some dialogue and indented beginning of paragraphs and shit. i sent you a 'preview' that was like that. then i felt bad about that and broke it up into different lines and changed the tense again and it felt alot better
5:49 PM me: the sections are important
why did you number the sections the way you did
1,2,3,4,5,8,8,4000 and so on
5:50 PM i mean 1,2,3,4,5,8,4000,8
5:51 PM Brandon: because i felt very sarcastic about numbering sections. i have read things that were numbered and didn't really understand why they were numbered. but i like numbering. it is easy. it's like a more important 'blank space' in your writing. so after a couple sections i just started typing the same number and 'this sucks' becuase i felt stupid about numbering but also wanted to number. i didn't mean for it to confuse the person reading. i only realized it might when i first saw it in the ebook. what did you think about the numbering when you first saw it in the email? were you amused? i was amused by it but also a little afraid it was stupid
5:53 PM me: yeah i was a little amused and a little like 'this is silly' but more amused and then when i began setting up the book i started to really like it because it was confusing, but in a way that went along with the text. i imagine it will confused people reading through it online. it confused me a lot when i was trying to set up one page after another
it also adds to the disorientation of the story somehow
there are lots of minor things about the book that add to it without direct reasons why
particularly in the formatting
5:54 PM Brandon: yes i think the numbering feels very good, it goes along with the text. yeah, that is a good thing to say. i want to ask you another question.
5:55 PM on your blog you solicited people to submit for lamination colony for author parodies and maybe, 'bad writing' and i think, the sense i got, was that you wanted to see different formats. how does this e-book coincide with what you were soliciting for? i was afraid it didn't, after i read your post. why not another issue of LC?
6:00 PM me: i wanted to make an issue that had a whole ton of stuff that other places would not do. i like the idea of the ebook being another part of the issue, but i also like the issue to stand alone. i am now beginning to lay out the issue and at first i had the ebook in the 'table of contents' area at the top of everything else, but now i have moved it to be separate but still on the same page. i think too many magazine have defined their borders as in 'we can print fiction and we can print poetry and we can get crazy and print nonfiction'. i want to provide something different. this issue will have your ebook and the parodies and a gmail chat and a letter someone found written from their cousin to their mom and a thing i think was meant as spam but reads as writing and an essay with a bibliography and a very violent except from a text that is not finished.
i want the issues to continue to get more fucked
i want people to send me naked pictures
i want people to send me things i cant figure out how to format
i want people to send me stuff written by their 5 year old brother
or pictures they drew in their sleep
etc etc etc
Brandon: haha
6:01 PM i laughed a little and no one noticed me
hm
i like your idea for lamination colony
it feels more 'artistic' in a way
but also like a circus
me: yes a circus
Brandon: i think the idea goes along with how you like david lynch so much
6:02 PM me: yes. your book reminds me of lynch a lot also
it has a lot of the same resonances as twin peaks or inland empire
lynch combines camp with bizarre with mystery with nudity with commonplace with surreal
6:03 PM a little taste of everything, and in a way that doesn't quite resolve
Brandon: i really like him
do you know what day the new issue of LC will come out?
me: i just laid out the 'table of contents' area today.
6:04 PM it is full and has a ton of stuff
i want to put more but it would be crowded
so as soon as i can lay it out, it will go up
hopefully in the next 2 weeks
but your book will go up first, on ash wednesday
which also seems evil
Brandon: ash wednesday
yes
me: fuck
Brandon: i am glad that ash wednesday is the day it will be published, i like that
me: i just saw the line about the package sitting on the floor
the package reappears
that is fucked
6:05 PM you are fucked
good
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The Believer Feb 08
I have a review of YANNICK MURPHY's new collection forthcoming from Dzanc Books next month in the February 08 issue of the Believer. You can read the first bit of the review on the Believer's website.
I talked about Gordon Lish a little in the Believer. Weird.
This book is excellent.
I am excited about the Peter Markus and Robert Lopez books coming out from DZANC in the next while, as well as several other titles they have coming out.
Right now I am reading TORTOISE by James Lewelling which is coming out from CALAMARI PRESS pretty soon. It is excellent and fun to read so far.
I have a fuckton of new books to read now. Good.
I just watched a video of JIMMY CHEN circling his nipples with a Sharpie.
Coffee helps me feel alive.
I talked about Gordon Lish a little in the Believer. Weird.
This book is excellent.
I am excited about the Peter Markus and Robert Lopez books coming out from DZANC in the next while, as well as several other titles they have coming out.
Right now I am reading TORTOISE by James Lewelling which is coming out from CALAMARI PRESS pretty soon. It is excellent and fun to read so far.
I have a fuckton of new books to read now. Good.
I just watched a video of JIMMY CHEN circling his nipples with a Sharpie.
Coffee helps me feel alive.
LAMINATION COLONY ebook
LAMINATION COLONY is proud to announce that in the year of our lord 2008 on Ash Wednesday, the same day 35 years ago that black ash shat from the mouth of some sky over north Nebraska, LAMINATION COLONY will release its first EBOOK, or electronic booklet, written by someone inside the fleshy body known as BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL. This LAMINATION COLONY EBOOK is thronged with evil. This LAMINATION COLONY EBOOK contains pictures for the dumb. This LAMINATION COLONY EBOOK is sore and ready to lie down.
Thank you and please be ready.
While I'm at it, submissions for the next issue of LAMINATION COLONY are now closed. I think I said one time they'd go longer, but the issue is stuffed full. I mean full as fuck. So much so that things that I would have liked to had can not quite fit and it is still almost twice the size of the last issue. All as yet unresponded and/or future submissions will be considered for future issues. The issue will probably go live one week after the LAMINATION COLONY EBOOK by BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL.
Thank you and please be ready.
Thank you and please be ready.
While I'm at it, submissions for the next issue of LAMINATION COLONY are now closed. I think I said one time they'd go longer, but the issue is stuffed full. I mean full as fuck. So much so that things that I would have liked to had can not quite fit and it is still almost twice the size of the last issue. All as yet unresponded and/or future submissions will be considered for future issues. The issue will probably go live one week after the LAMINATION COLONY EBOOK by BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL.
Thank you and please be ready.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Willow Springs 61
The new issue of WILLOW SPRINGS is out. I have a story in it. There are 3 stories in the issue. DEREK WHITE is also in it. There is a lot of poetry. I read a lot of it on the plane. I liked everything I read. I read several things twice. There are three poems by a guy named DENVER BUTSON that I really liked. I wish my name was DENVER BUTSON. Paul Guest and a translation by Joshua Beckman are also in the issue. They did an excellent job putting this together. I am happy.
Some of the issue is available to read as a PDF online. My story is available. You can download it here.
The story is from my collection SCORCH ATLAS. It is called EXPONENTIAL. It was written in a sort of trance. It is the first thing from my collection that is available online, I think. It is 2300 words.
The end of the story has a typographic thing that at first I put in without thinking. I was just touching keys. Then I moved it around and put short sentences in. Then it seemed the only way to end the story and I couldn't delete it and it is there.
I would like it if people read this story.
Some of the issue is available to read as a PDF online. My story is available. You can download it here.
The story is from my collection SCORCH ATLAS. It is called EXPONENTIAL. It was written in a sort of trance. It is the first thing from my collection that is available online, I think. It is 2300 words.
The end of the story has a typographic thing that at first I put in without thinking. I was just touching keys. Then I moved it around and put short sentences in. Then it seemed the only way to end the story and I couldn't delete it and it is there.
I would like it if people read this story.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
AWP 2
My shoulders are both aching. I came home with two bags full of books. They were very heavy. I walked a lot in New York City. I went a lot of places. I now understand several email addresses as belonging to people with heads and eyes. Nice people. Friends. Internet life. Internet connection.
Massive thanks to Kendra for helping me not die in the city and letting Mike and I sleep in her nice apartment, and to Tao and Justin for another place to sleep and also helping me not die in the city, and to Mike for sticking together.
Mostly I felt comfortable and not embarrassed. And also pleased.
I was informed of many things I said while very drunk on rum that I did not remember saying. I forget where they were now because my whole head is gunked with so much walking and so much words.
Tao and I stood in front of the n+1 table. I pointed at an issue and asked him if he was in it and he said yes. The person working the table looked businesslike and averted his eyes.
I ate an excellent sandwich with brie and green apples and ham and tomato on it. I ate a crepe. I drank a smoothie.
I am very very tired.
I wanted to type things about my trip now so I could remember them later but my head is a little white.
I brought my camera but took no pictures.
Calamari Press had the best looking table. They have two new books out. I am excited to read them both.
What else happened
I am glad I went to New York.
Massive thanks to Kendra for helping me not die in the city and letting Mike and I sleep in her nice apartment, and to Tao and Justin for another place to sleep and also helping me not die in the city, and to Mike for sticking together.
Mostly I felt comfortable and not embarrassed. And also pleased.
I was informed of many things I said while very drunk on rum that I did not remember saying. I forget where they were now because my whole head is gunked with so much walking and so much words.
Tao and I stood in front of the n+1 table. I pointed at an issue and asked him if he was in it and he said yes. The person working the table looked businesslike and averted his eyes.
I ate an excellent sandwich with brie and green apples and ham and tomato on it. I ate a crepe. I drank a smoothie.
I am very very tired.
I wanted to type things about my trip now so I could remember them later but my head is a little white.
I brought my camera but took no pictures.
Calamari Press had the best looking table. They have two new books out. I am excited to read them both.
What else happened
I am glad I went to New York.
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