Thursday, November 20, 2008

Bacon sweater

Something had been wrong with a few weeks. I was sleeping right. Out 10 min into head on pillow. Dreams all normal, at least for me. Usually my sleep is so scattered and violent, I actually started to get scared when I was just having normal person dreams: if I got stuck in that permanently I don't know what I'd do. I need the raw.

However thankfully, my post 3 AM bedtime has returned, and last night I can't remember what happened, but I know I had on the bacon sweater.

I usually sleep with my hands in fists. When I do not cut my nails sometimes my hands will almost bleed.





Final version of EVER has been turned in, and now I am on to editing SCORCH ATLAS for publication. I think I have 2-3 more weeks until it is due, I should probably check on that.

I spent about 5 hours yesterday line editing the first section of 2 sections in the longest story in the book, 'Seabed,' which was one of the first stories I wrote in the collection, and before I had fully gotten into the mind of what the aura of it would become. Editing in that way is grueling, but I am really beginning to see the texture of the whole thing take shape. Fortunately a lot of the stories feel mostly right where I want them, and it's more just the ones that I didn't have the full-on mindset for when they were created that I am trying to make exactly right.

I think this kind of encombing method for the stories has come out of my recent drive to buy up all the Lish-edited Knopf titles from 1977-95, and seeing how a lot of those books have such a singularity of pitch and 'this is a whole' to them even though the stories are often so widely toned and of different natures. I really want this book to have that object feel to it, and studying those singularities of text has been really great and invigorating. So we shall see.

Editing is such another beast to germinating to me, in a way I think I like it more, as you really begin to see the thing under the thing, but I think also my that disruption in my sleep pattern came from spending more and more time on editing rather than getting new words out: as if my blather contained made me more normal. A rash of new stories though has got me back in the bubble, though I am going to try to put those aside for the next two weeks at least and really get this into what it should be.







Also continuing to work on the collaborative book with Sean Kilpatrick, which is essentially at this point the script for a very destroyed anti-porn blacklisted by Stalin for how the slum grease would appear on his necktie when he watched, then pushed through several gelatinizing devices that were then stored in the brain cells of an 8 year old Autistic child to be deformed by their terror puberty.

When I was reading through what we'd done I thought: if my employers, or my mother, or anyone who knows me sees this...






I am talking to myself.

We are going to go see Synedoche New York in a couple hours.



It looks pretty interesting. I am by no means a Charlie Kaufman buff, though I really like BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ETERNAL SUNSHINE, but you can't really go wrong with Phillip Hoffman. 'Adaptation' I thought had a great start but I hate the meta-unraveling of the story into a Hollywood style script, even though it was a funny idea, it seemed too forced to me. Plus I hate Nicholas Cage. Goddamn I hate that guy. He reminds me of someone coming through a burning room to save you wearing no shirt and with pantyhose on and with his face stuck in one endless 'impregnate me' expression.










I reread party of RICKY'S ANUS for the first time the other day since finishing. What in the name of god have I done. If anyone ever sees this, something will happen: either my scalp will be removed or my scalp will be removed and there will be a tiny white donkey cooking grits.

OK I will say it: God it's fucking good.

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17 comments:

Ravi Mangla said...

I heard Lorrie Moore's an insomniac. Or maybe I made that up. Are you going to publish any Ricky's Anus excerpts in the near future?

BLAKE BUTLER said...

hi Ravi:

if i can find anyone will to take such filth when i am done editing it into shape, i would definitely like to publish it.

Keith Montesano said...

let us know how synecdoche is. i feel the same way about c.k.

could anyone else have describe nick cage more perfectly? i think not.

Anonymous said...

Are you going to take Lish's workshop now that he is coming out of retirement?

Nicholas Cage was at his best in Raising AZ. And he has his moments in Moonstruck. I did a stage dive at a circle jerks show and landed on him, back in the early 80s in the bay area. People used to give him shit for being Nick Cage before he was even Nick Cage.

Matt DeBenedictis said...

Nicholas Cage hides in the closets of children's bedrooms. He takes their dreams and turns them into nightmares. Their screams are the currency to which he pays off the devil for his film roles. No one can destroy Nicholas Cage but himself. He will outlive us all. Fuck.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

prayers can be answered?


i bet he goes by 'nic' with his good good buds

christopher higgs said...

Do you have a complete list of all the Lish-edited Knopf titles from 1977-95? I would love love love to have that list. I've googled to try and find such a list but came up short.

Thomas Lynch (the writer slash funeral director) was here at OSU a few weeks back and he mentioned that Lish edited his first few books. I thought - you know, I wish I knew all of Lish's people.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

chris, i have a list i have been making for a possible article. i will send it so you can look. there is a lot.

Adam R said...

What did you think of Synecdoche? I saw it last night. I thought it was kind of mindblowing.

I like Nicholas Cage (pre facelift) more than PS Hoffman.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i'm thinking i'll write something long about how i felt about synedoche. during the first half i was thinking 'this is the best film i've seen in 10 years.'

as usual, though, kaufman, to me, mucked up certain things and went a lot of directions i wasn't all about.

overall i think it is a fantastic movie that could have been even more.

p said...

what is the best gordon lish novel to read first?

what do you think of when you hear the phrase "INTIMATE CRAFTS"?

BLAKE BUTLER said...

my favorite is 'Epigraph'

i think of beaded sweaters and kitties

Adam R said...

I agree about the first half. I was happiest watching the movie when I didn't know what was going on. There were a lot of beginnings that didn't get followed up. WHY DID SHE HAVE BRIGHT GREEN POOP.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

yeah. i really wanted the movie to go even deeper and off the tracks. but instead it switched into everyone repeating how we are going to die.

everybody by now knows we are going to die, dude.

jereme said...

i always dream of dying violently.

brain is a weird thing.

Anonymous said...

I die violently in my dreams, too. Most of the time it is in a car crash on the freeway, but other times I'm mauled by rabid dobermans or fall from very high places. Most of the time I wake up as I'm dying, but one time I kept on dreaming, and the afterlife was one big room with mirrors instead of walls, and someone was speaking to me through an intercom.

Going to see "Synecdoche" tonight. I like that reviews have been mixed, at least that means there's something going on there. I had begun to read the first draft of the script a while ago but never finished it. It was either see this or "Quantum of Solace," but there's no way I'm going near the cineplex with "Twilight" coming out and fighting through flocks of pre-teens who want to suck Mormon vampire cock. No thanks.

I changed my mind: burn the damn thing.

christopher higgs said...

Thanks, Blake. I would greatly appreciate it. In return, next time we see each other I will buy you a coke or a juice box or give you money to buy lottery tickets.