Saturday, October 11, 2008

What year was it when we still had to go away

Tonight in Atlanta we are launching the first reading of Solar Anus reading series, flagstone spoken into by the magnificent JOHANNES GORANSSON and local novelist CHRIS BUNDY, the event is an early one 6 PM at Beep Beep Gallery off Ponce, this will be a monthly thing from here on out though future extension will be likely at a later time and at a more regular venue. If you ever want to come to Atlanta or are coming to Atlanta and want to read, we'd likely love to have you.






The trains outside my apartment today are really loud, it sounds like something metal is being ripped to shreds.

After I typed that the sound stopped.





All I have been able to think about lately is Ricky's Anus. The book is at 31k words now, I think the current section I am writing, Ricky's Blood, is going to be one very long unbroken graph that will maybe last 1/3rd of the book, this book is going to be long, I am sorry I mentioned I was thinking about deleting it, that probably wouldn't happen, I am not massive in that sense, I am done thinking about it outside the moment. I feel really strangely electric and I am not sure why and I will keep it that way by shutting my mouth quick.









I randomly happened on rereading William Gass's afterward to one of my favorite books OMENSETTER'S LUCK, I had forgotten there was an afterword, in it Gass discusses how he had written a different version of the book which had been stolen, and so he proceeded in despair to reconstruct and rewrite: the afterword also contains meditations on his 8 years of rejection before publication arose, grappling with a text's destruction, the feeling of 'why the hell am I going through all the trouble for this?,' and a lot of other things that have seemed central to my mind lately. It is a fantastic little essay.

Here is a section on his rewriting the book:

During the months that followed, I rewrote Omensetter's Luck as if in a series of trances which I almost systematically entered. I sometimes felt I was recovering the lost text exactly, not by trying to remember what it had been originally or how I'd written it, but by becoming weary--weary and unthinking, weary and unfeeling too--eventually so deep in the mine of my past work that the mine worked me.


Wearing, unthinking, unfeeling: it's funny, why does that seem to be a fruitful state? I am deep in something, I'm not sure

You can read the brief Afterword in whole here on Google, and I recommend OMENSETTER'S LUCK as highly as I can recommend something.








I am reading THE LONG TRIAL OF NOLAN DUGATTI by Stephen Graham Jones, according to the acknowledgments I think he wrote the book in 72 hours, it is about a man who works at a helpline for a video game no one ever plays and whose father wrote him a series of suicide notes, failed, I should go finish the book, next I am reading Eugene Lim's FOG & CAR which I am excited about after WASTE and having read the first few setions of FOG & CAR in anticipation.









Interior layout on EVER is in study-mode, we are reaching finalization periods, I hope to spend the rest of the weekend proofing and proofing and proofing, there is something about the final stamp of what words a book will be made of that makes me both anxious and excited and maybe nervous some, like I am going to miss something that I will see the first time I read the book in print that will make me cringe, it seems no matter how many times you look at something over and over and over something new wrong grabs you, I don't want to feel that, I will keep working.













i had a dream about babies being destroyed the past two nights
i should stop talking shit about babies when i am awake

14 comments:

Shane Jones said...

i want to be friends with ricky.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

ask him

Darby said...

I like the idea of destroying. Not that you or anyone should do it, but I would feel better about humanity if I knew there was someone in the world who would. Probably there are people who have. Probably there is an old man somewhere who spent his life writing a 5000 page novel who he will never show to anyone and just before he dies he will destroy it. That man is my hero.

Glen Binger said...

babies

Anonymous said...

Speaking of fucked up babies, I train-spotted last night.

Speaking of anus, here's a nice borehole shot: http://goatrodeo.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/greetings-from-the-dertu-borehole/

We didn't hear trains last night, but I swear toads were raining on our tin roof during the Monster's Ball sex scene.

I hope Ever is laid to your liking.

Matt DeBenedictis said...

Blake, do you have an idea of the date for the next reading? If so can you let me know so I can make sure I'm not having to work that night.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i will announce the date of the next reading as soon as i know, sorry you missed man, it was great

BLAKE BUTLER said...

goat anii

DOGZPLOT said...

something you said one time about a woman and a duck. reminds me of this:

http://www.hobartpulp.com/website/october/zumas.html

ryan said...

ultimately life-affirming

jereme said...

hey what happened to the sam pink/no colony stage play thing video?

did i miss it or are you just being lazy

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i'm semi being lazy and semi forgetting. its still on my camera, it came out pretty decent, i will try to do it by the weekend, thanks for reminding me

brandon said...

i really like htmlgiant blake

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i am glad brandon