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.

7 comments:

Kendra Grant Malone said...

you dream about the internet?

i worry for you, flake.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i know. i'm down with the sickness.

xTx said...

when you said you feel like you have a bubble in your teeth it made me feel like i have a bubble in my teeth and the feeling is not pleasant.

and now i keep imagining i am getting a paper cut in my eye and my face is squinching up in imagined pain.

sam pink said...

i have accessed your dreams. step one complete. i have work to do.

Stephen Daniel Lewis said...

i read gordon lish a long time ago, and couldn't write for a long time after

he does that shit on purpose

BLAKE BUTLER said...

xtx: ouch.

sam: tonight i will upload a cat to stop you and you will not see.

stephen: i can't tell if the dude is nuts or if, yeah, on purpose. maybe some of both.

Josh Maday said...

i am not going to read gordon lish. i am just going to imagine having read gordon lish based on the comments i've read here. gordon lish as i imagine him.

no, i will probably read gordon lish now. damn you.