Sunday, December 21, 2008

Roberto Bolano became the 7th wiccan in the oval office with a cleft eye and something made of Lysol

I am probably not going to vote until someone is on the ballot who has descended from Rommel. Specifically Rommel: an enduring legacy of Rommel's character is that he is also considered to be a chivalrous and humane military officer in contrast with many other figures of Nazi Germany.



I feel like taking a tree 40x my height and finding a way to way pieces of it to certain figures in publishing so that when I am finishing they together own the body of an ex-tree that extends across America. WHICH IS NOT A LINE REFERRING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST BECAUSE I THINK THEY ALL SHOULD BE BURNT OR SACRIFICED IN THE NAME OF BIRTHDAY CAKE.



Online publishing, in the forums where it is the 'democratization of literature,' is the picket sign of literature. It is where people go to throw rejection letter confetti and press fewer buttons to achieve a result that others in other years where there was only the paper button that, in the end, liquidates the signal to the point that some days I can't bring myself to click the Firefox button. My cookie browser queue, when cut and pasted into a single file, can be printed out and worn as pants that when dressed in in certain districts of my home in downtown Atlanta, where the ghetto is being destroyed, will result in the lamination of tomato paste.



The concept of the democratization of literature is like having all the channels sold to the megagroup that produces Friends for all those years so people would need that shelf in their living room for the boxsets arrayed in such a way that the colors when placed in the right order make you grow one strand of new hair out on your ass so far that you have the central strand required for your first child's playnoose.



Last night I argued in favor of Georgia remaining one of two states where you can not buy beer on Sunday, which led me to realize that on certain unannounced days the doors to Borders and B&N should be sealed at peak business hours with goose putty and left as such for an indefinite period. The Starbucks or Seattle's Best Coffee cafes attached the bookseller will be required to feed the contained using least sold items first, up the line to the Frappucchino or Frappucchino marketing substitute.



Calling online literature 'the democratization of literature' is like petting your child on the head when they draw the big picture of the lady with the cookie dress smiling and winking through the slit 2d eyes that you remain hopeful your child will learn to render correctly throughout the years of his schooling, the picture that you leave on the fridge until the new pizza coupons come. At night when the son stays in the bathroom too long teaching himself to touch himself you will knock that much harder on the door to get him to not make scabs. In your own bathroom you eat the sandwich while your wife is in the bed wearing the quim bathrobe.



Online literature wants an auction.



''Online' ''literature'''



Roberto Bolano's real name is Fred Allen. He founded a web journal called Peas and Winkies which published on a monthly basis in columnar format and preferred to save the issues of the work all on one index page saved as .htm rather than .html. The journal encouraged lengthy bios and headshots and resulted in the sales sums of funds used in part to film Back to the Future 3, in which Johnny Cash also makes an unnamed and unrecognizable cameo appearance. Marketing the right place at the right time decision yance makes the art I found while running in the ditch street the other day when it was still warm something someone will hide from when I fold it into the ninja star.




Bill Hicks indirectly prophesizing the state of the state of something of what in the hell I'm not talking about in the above a little, I mean really:



and shit, damn, even maybe more so here, in a totally different way:





I feel really sad today, in a completely antiseptic and self-contained googoo way.

39 comments:

Darby said...

I'm not sure how to think about when people say democratization of literature. In my brain the words confuse each other. It is interesting that in order to have a desire to create new literature, there has to be a kind of dissatisfaction with existing literature so an artist can say, I can do something better than that, or I'm tired of everything out there, the only option is to create it myself if no one else is going to. I've had these thoughts before, that the greatest artist will be a person who despises all existing art.

I don't think online lit democratized it because the number of people who can make a living from it hasn't changed. Online lit, before online, is parallel to a person writing a poem on a big sign and sticking it in his yard so people who drive by can read it. It's costing him more money and effort than what he will probably gain from it but he'll keep doing it every week for the sake of having the feeling he is 'getting it out there.' The internet just provided an easier means of doing this.

Why is everyone so sad lately? The internet needs an injection of something.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i just think democrary is the last word that should ever be wanted in a creative process, and even more so ruined in another context, i think i need a mashed potato

i'm happy mashed with i don't know.

Jamie Iredell said...

The Fascistization of Literature.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

the peepot of literature

BLAKE BUTLER said...

the literature of literature

Darby said...

i need more coffee

BLAKE BUTLER said...

take some out of me and into you, i feel deleterious

Darby said...

puke onto your screen and I'll lick my screen at the same time

BLAKE BUTLER said...

5, 4, 3, 2...

Darby said...

yum

I am not Kek-w said...

"My cookie browser queue, when cut and pasted into a single file, can be printed out and worn as pants..."

"Pants" has a different meaning in the UK. I sometimes wear the PayPal logo as a vest. This does not make me popular.

Brad Green said...

Do you mean democratization or homogenization?

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i meant democratization

Brad Green said...

Do you mean that in such a way as to say that literature is accessible by all or that literature is capable of being created by all? Or something else?

To me, the term democratic conveys a sort of equality. Darby speaks about it in terms of dissatisfaction with what's out there now. I not sure I understand that in relation to the word democratic either.

Of course this happens to me all the time. I'm just not sure what it is you're talking about in your post. My misunderstanding hinges on the meaning of that word: democratization

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i mean all things are not equal nor should they be

Brad Green said...

Well, damn. I agree with that. Does this wreak havoc with those who say literature (the reaction toward) is individual? The individualization of our response to literature is very democratizing, I think.

If literature is not democratic, then certain reactions to it are invalid. We then have dictators of opinion, right?

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i think the only way for me to say what i meant is when i said what i said, i'm not sure of the explanations, but the 'community of literature' is a social function i am not interested in the social function except when i am socializing, which is usually the last thing i want to do, i don't know. i am touching the computer

BLAKE BUTLER said...

just listen to the hicks video, they explain it all

Ken Baumann said...

You edited this in a few places, I noticed, you added more tree hatred.

Brad Green said...

I'll watch the video.

I agree with the social function statement. OMFG, two agreements with you in the same thread!

I just looked out the window to make sure. I think the world is still there. It's Bolano dark for sure. Some thin shapes occasionally stand out but then swiftly retreat back to the blank darkness. Oh well, that's enough to assure me that the world still exists and these agreements have not heralded the end of the world as I've known it.

ryan call said...

this is dumb

ryan call said...

sorry, my head hurts i did notmean to lash out i just dont like this conversation

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i agree, everything is dumb

i am going to stop talking in public soon

DB said...

i like this post.

bill hicks is an incredible badass. you got me started on one of those "watch several hours of one person's youtube videos" things with bill hicks.

god, he is one to miss like hell, even though i was too young to know who he was while he was alive.

i really think bill hicks changed me as a writer.

hearing him scream PLAY FROM YOUR FUCKING HEART helped me change the way i write i think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkA6zugNMQ

wakeup call.

i think i'm more influenced by comedians and bands than i am by "poets and writers."

DB said...

also, i don't care about "democracy" and i don't care about "literature."

just make something and make it good like you want it to be.

people care too much. shut the fuck up. hug a puppy or something. no one will remember your story about how some girl with wavy hair got drugged by herself and then there was a baby in some river somewhere and everything was a little crazy like ten years from now.

let's just ahhhhhh...who knows what we are even doing here?

everyone worries too much about "what we are doing" instead of just doing something for once jesus christ holy fuck.

Brad Green said...

ok then. sorry. i was just seeking some clarification on the terminology employed here. it's my great disease, i guess, that i want to understand what a text is trying to convey.

i'll stop commenting on blogs about this stuff so people can feel free to talk in public. i just thought comments were here, you know, to make comments.

so here's my last comment: dude, rip open my throat and let loose the black spiders. my eyes are sick with fume. the dog carcass on the road to work this morning was a crumpled napkin of a little girl's love. if you're tired, take a pill and go to sleep. mop up the sour vomit with your manuscript and take the rejection letter, fold it neatly, and shove it inside the blasted, red belly of the dead dog.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

the play from you heart bit really is one of the best ever

him talking about celebrities who do ads and how they are then removed from the artist list forever is also awesome

'it's bill'

BLAKE BUTLER said...

brad your responses are fine and welcome. its just hard for me to explicate what i am saying because i am a hole in the cedar chest

BLAKE BUTLER said...

yeah, i had to watch about an hour of bill once i got started, i hate/love those 'i can't get out of youtube' moments

after hicks i did hedberg, it made me want to write

Anonymous said...

blake and brad, i think you're both great! i'd like to graft a hybrid version of you both and grow some mutant venus flytrap that gives off match-point buds of meaningful nonsense.

i'd eat that fruit.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i should say brad that i didn't want to not talk in public because of a feeling you let in me from your comments, i understand the want to understand things. it came more from me wishing i would shut the fuck up and go away for a long while.

jereme said...

democracy is always flawed.

it is the bell curve theory.

worry about yourself and what feels good to you. if being a hipster selfish dick feels good, be that.

if working with select people feels good, do that.

if hugging the world with a giant smile feels good, hug that.

learn to love yourself and all this bullshit goes away.

ryan call is a slavik prince i think.

he is my new chat buddy.

his phone sucks balls. he showed me a picture.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

d cuk paradisese

jereme said...

i completely concur

ryan call said...

my cell phone is lame, yes



i dont understand anything on this comment thread

when i hear 'homogenization' i think of milk

i also had to look up 'deleterious'

BLAKE BUTLER said...

you must be stupid as stupid

ryan call said...

i am really stupid

BLAKE BUTLER said...

good then we are one

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