Friday, February 27, 2009

33333333333 3333333 333 3 3 3 3333333333 333 3 3 33333333333

Just finished reading an absolutely amazing book, EUROPEANA by Patrik Ourednik. At AWP at the Dalkey table I asked Jeremy Davies to recommend me a couple of titles that I should read that I had not yet. He pointed at EUROPEANA and asked if I'd read it, I said no, he said, "Pick it up and read any page." I read half of one page and bought the book.

That kind of confidence: that literally any page in a book could make someone want to buy it: is perhaps all too rare thing in books, and yet with EUROPEANA, it could not be more true. Labeled as 'A Brief History of the 20th Century,' this book is essentially a tour of the grotesque and absurd elements of that period in the world, focusing on concentration camps, consumerism, fucked art movements, psychologies, inventions, and other compilings of the stranger auras of human life. Though the book is still rendered in fiction: if anything, it is Ourednik's even manner of reportage and interjection in the outlaying of such horrors that make it literally almost impossible to want them to stop. Ripley's Believe it or Not could only beg to have half of the resonances here.

Here, I am going to turn to a page and type a couple lines at random:

Engineers called radio wireless telephony, and some elderly people thought that radio was like the telephone and they had paid in advance for someone to telephone them and let them know where a war had broken out. And when they first watched television, they thought it was like the kinetoscope that they had seen at the world fair, and that someone in the building, such as a daughter-in-law or grandchild, was turning a handle and making fun of them. Some elderly people were also in the habit of replying to the questions asked by television or radio presenters, such as when someone on the television or radio said AND WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED NEXT? they would say WELL, I REALLY DON'T KNOW, or when someone on the television or the radio said AND WHAT DO YOU THINK THE WEATHER WILL BE LIKE TOMORROW? they would say IT'S ABOUT TIME WE HAD A DROP OF RAIN, OR IT'LL PUT AN END TO THE HARVEST. Great achievements were also scored in the field of hygiene, because before the First World War people bathed infrequently and when they did, the whole family bathed in the same tub, or the whole family and the neighbors, etc.

The book goes on like this, in short bursts of knowing, often much more brutal and concerned with ideas like phone sex and genocide and communism and bastard children and etc. It is the best 122 page book I have ever read, and does more in those 122 pages than most books of any length, and is a surprisingly smooth and fun and funny read despite its heavy subject matters.







Derek White wrote a long and really excellent post about reading Wittgenstein's Mistress on the beach.






Rereading Johannes Goransson's Swedish issue of Typo makes me want to write more, in power. What an amazing collection of work. I really love the first poem by Gunnar Harding here.







Can I say I love Rauan Klassnik? He has a new ebook out, RINGING, from Kitchen Press, that does new things for ebooks, both in form and content. (a) the book has its own url rauanklassnikringing.com, which I love, and the book is offered as html text only, a printable version, and in flash with illustrations by Ron. Two innovations for ebooks there that make this project exciting before you even begin to read.

The content as well is classic Klassnik, with brash sex and convulsive imagery. I am going to walk around for the next few weeks repeating the line: "Birds like planets——all ripped up." like Rain Man.

He seems to make these little aggressive forts inside of words, half throw-uppy and often childish, half ornate and/or sublime. The closest artist I can think of to compare to Klassnik is Pasolini, for their carcrash sex powerlight and their clear care among the 'profane'.

Here is a page from the book that exhibits this to me:

Curled up against each other we licked and sucked till we came splashing in each other’s faces. A chimp’s running down through the streets in the rain. Suddenly he pulls into a doorway where a woman’s undressing. We must have looked so cool——arched back, waving. Columned. Spired. Domed.

I like how this works in shifting between high and low, gross and high, etc.

Another wonderful read from someone doing something new.






I think I have more things to say about things in a thing way but I am going to save it, it is raining here and the rain makes me want to turn off and go roll under something, I am going to try to focus on reading soon, I have been reading several things at once and though I rarely do that, I am enjoying it.



Coming next week, Thursday March 5 I am reading with Gary Lutz and Robert Lopez for EVER release at Word Bookstore in Brooklyn, if you live in town and have interest please mark the day, I will say more about this later.





There are several big-medium to large sized things in occurrence proceedings, which will be elucidated soon, I hope.




Going now to edit this very long novel I am halfway finished with editing a second draft of.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

WWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWW WWWW WWWWW WWWWWWW WWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWW WWW WW W W W

Matthew Simmons is writing a suitor for the narrator of EVER, which he nails pretty amazingly. I encourage him in this procedure. We should have twin books and go out and read them and then make our hands fuck in reading climax.

I did not approve this fingerfucking reading idea with Matthew before speaking it publicly, so he may abandon said idea in the interim. Or it might spur him on, who knows.




The third issue of PANK is out now and looks really amazing, it has a ton of awesomes in it, including Brooklyn Copeland, Kristine Ong Muslim, Rachel Yoder, Thomas Cook, Ron Burch, Molly Gaudry, Scott Garson, Kathy Fish, an absolute ton of good.

I have another list in it, #43, called CORROSION COMPILER, this one is more 'off the cuff' in tone than most others, I think it uses a lot of lines from this blog as well as others mashed, here are some lines from it:

1. I want to fill a trash bag up with applesauce and throw it at the windshield of a nice car.
2. I feel that empty.
3. There's nothing else to do.
4. I feel like being mean to someone but there's no one around to be mean to.
5. This morning I used a drinking glass against the wall to listen to my neighbor talk to his dog for almost an hour.
6. Mostly he kept telling the dog over and over how he was going to leave but he didn't leave. He cursed at the dog and screamed the dog’s name and said, "Crapola."
7. Yesterday afternoon I sat and looked at videos on youtube of people playing WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE and wished I lived inside them.



Before I went to Baltimore I compiled a draft of the full manuscript of the 50 lists of 50, tentatively titled '2500,' in the mindset of sending it around to publishers. Putting the 50 lists in the right order to make the exact effect of what I want as a full manuscript was/is hard, and took a long while toggling to get even close enough to such semblance to send out, but in the end I think I am pretty close. Many of them went well in the order they were written. I think in the end, too, there is a lot of room for play with the ms, even maybe some of the lists could be replaced in certain spots, though for now it feels good to be getting it out there and seeing if anyone has interest putting out such a strange book. I have tried to think of precedents for it to refer to when sending out, and there are maybe some, I definitely bite Markson when I can, though it is more personal than his books; and there is some amount of stealing from a variety of other places, though none that I can fully pin to elucidate the manuscript beyond itself. I don't know. Interesting. Sending. We'll see.





Also in the near completion mode of collaborative ms with Sean Kilpatrick, which is just something I can't even try to explain. We have more than 40 titles for it so far, including: DIAMOND HYMEN, DEVICE OF OUR LADY SHEDDING GLEE, THIS IS THE COLDEST LAMP IN AMERICA, MOM, HOMEGIRL TONGS, OAHSPE II, STAB PYRAMID, PUSSYBUTT, and YOU WILL BEG TO HAVE YOUR MEAT RIPPED.

I think we started off talking about rewriting Burroughs and Sade (yes, the singer as much as the pervert), but have ended up somewhere putrid beyond yummy, I hope one day people will see this book. In the event this book is published (propulsion unit to soon begin) I will do everything I can to have it banned in America (which would probably only take handing it to a couple people, maybe) and getting arrested for its dissemination.

Oh jeez.

Here I am being held up on the L train while 'reading' (screaming) two graphs from it, thank you to Gene and Ryan and Aaron for holding my drunk ass up (and to Matt Bell for uploading the picture):



I think video is forthcoming, mmmmmmmmmm.



Books books books books books







Promo contest for Scorch Atlas will be announced in a week or two, methinks, we have some interesting things in store, on the come come.






I am going to try to focus enough to read, which hasn't been feasible still since Chicago and Baltimore, I just stare a lot.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Gotdamn, Ho

Weekend in Baltimore = rad, life is tired in mind and yet full full of the eat. Reading was super packed and pleasantly hung with blocks of black, I like how Michael Kimball hosts an event, I like how he talks and thinks and is nice, I like Michael Kimball's house, in the house I had very violent dreams again, I am beginning to only have very violent dreams, this is likely as I have not spat out new words since a couple days before Chicago, I have drank / ate bad food more in past two weekends than in a lot of other time combined, which is the rope the child ate to hang himself with to get into the hidden layer of Metal Gear Solid 9, if there is a 9th edition, which if there isn't yet, this blog takes place in the future.

Someone should make a documentary following drunk Adam Robinson: I may need him on my rap record. Justin Sirois is really nice, like a nice guy you want to see around, and funny. Kyle Minor is really nice and his reading reminded me slightly of McCarthy, I like anytime anyone says 'Kentucky' in a story and means it in reference to getting beat, his book 'In the Devil's Territory' is now on my buy list. I liked Kathleen Rooney's reading about being a craiglist nude model for $$, it made me want to be pleased, and be pleased, i want that book too, i think it made me want to write nonfiction more too


books




I think when I am reading out loud to people i start to have dinner inside my body and my body keeps talking while I am having the dinner: I liked hanging out with Shane Jones again, this time more than in Chicago thankfully, and Molly, Adam, Michael, Justin, whatever things inside me i was killing that second night drunk out of mind in which I probably ingested 3000 calories of pizza and chicken before pouring water on Adam while the pizza workers looked pissed and I shouted about dick, this is all on tape somewhere, Adam did a poem called I think 'Steve Reich meets a preacher' that I want to watch in 100 boxes again




At one point drunk shouting I demanded there has never been a Southern writer, that there are only 4 Southern states and no Faulkner is not a Southern writer, O'Connor isn't, Barry Hannah is more than a lot of people but not, other things

Gas stations in the South are Southern writers but Padgett Powell isn't, Cormac McCarthy isn't

the south gets confused a lot by people, I need to do more thinking about this, I think the South exists sometimes but not where it is is is

I am not a Southern writer, because where I sit most times isn't an existenereaer

but I am more a Southern writer than Faulkner, promise

to the extent that I am a writer at all, which I think is not at all

I like candy




books books books
people people
words talking words books eating
candy





I had several experiences in Wendy's's during the drive up to and down from Balitmore, if there weren't already a book about Wendy's I would write it, I am sad there is in the same way I was sad when Steve Almond beat me to writing a candy memoir even though I still could write a candy memoir






I am going to try to not move at all during the 10 days until NYC / Providence / Northampton so that I will still be able to talk by then, not that I need to talk or want to or will or am worth talking to, the best thing I can do is fall on concrete attached to Adam Robinson's back and make guffaw sounds and feel dumb





The arms of my sofa are tired of me stacking new books on them but I still like it

TIRED SOFA
TIRED SOFA



Jamie Iredell on EVER:

This is a book about insides. With a daring syntax reminiscent of an unfettered Kerouac, a Visions of Cody Kerouac, Butler details the interior of a woman's mind, her house, her perceptions of her neighbors, the inside of light. If you looked up "nuance" in the dictionary in 2010, the entry would contain the full-text of Ever. Subtlety is the game here--potentially surprising to those familiar with Butler's baby-themed stories. The text is set off by architecturally-fascinating pieces by Calamari Press frontman Derek White. Without drawing away from the story, the images move the eye, like light, like a woman and her bathtub titties. At the end of this one, just like the narrator, you'll experience a "slow baptism," the insides of your insides on the outs.




I have a thing in the new issue of Bateau, its a really old piece but i still like it, the issue is beautiful and has been upgraded to perfectbound, it has Kim Chinquee, J.P. Dancing Bear, Jen Pieroni, Pedro Ponce, Sarah Sloat, a lot of other peoples, it is nice






everyone is really nice, its impressive, i like it

i am ready to type the least words I've ever typed

and make a bungee baby out of liquid syrup

on the way home from Balitmore I listened to Young Jeezy's 'Thug Motivation 101' four times straight through

I also listened to the audio book of Scott Smith's The Ruins, which is maybe the dumbest book of all time, even for a book, except for when the girl gives the dude a handjob in his sleep because she is scared of the plant that is going to eat them

I also listened to Pimp C and Liars and Agoraphobic Nosebleed

I want some more Wendy's

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Matthew Simmons's CAVES

New ebook up at Lamination Colony:



Blurbed by Matthew's mother, sister in law, and cousin, CAVES is truly unlike anything else I've read. Here's the first sentence:

This man only dated caves. It was, like, a fetish or something.

Read CAVES here.

I am really excited about this one, it's new in new ways. Please shout it out and blog it up.




Next in line: Michael Kimball's guest edited issue, followed by ebooks from Mark Cunningham and Prathna Lor.




The new issue of Barrelhouse is out, with a huge slew of great work from people like Matt Bell, Rachel B. Glaser, Peter Davis, Michael Czyzniejewski, and a ton of others. It also contains, among its 'The Future' section, one of the longer stories from SCORCH ATLAS, 'The Ruined Child,' about a baby that grows in size inside its parents' attic after they try to mercy kill it when it is infected with a disease that makes it foam.

Right? Right.

Here is the first graph:

They carried the child into the outside by his wrists and ankles, wriggling. His flesh had turned translucent. His mouth would often froth. They waded waist-deep into the sewage past the upended Mustang where neighbor Bill had tried to drive—the engine crusted over now, back wheels high in the air. The rain had wrecked the city, burst the sewers, drowned the roads. Downtown was underwater. Bill, like many others, had still believed in some way out. He'd spent hours out there with a lone rope trying to yank the Mustang free, his crazed face and muscles so stretched and shining it seemed he might burst open or combust. Finally it was the dogs that had gotten to him, mange-mottled packs of ex-pets combing the old neighborhood for blood. They'd ripped him limb from limb, to rib and tendon. Gnats made short work of the remainder.

Anyhow, you can buy the issue here.

Thanks again to the 5 righteous B-house dudes for the paper party.




A couple other new things in new issues of mags, but will save those for next time.





Reading at 510 in Baltimore on Saturday with Shane Jones, Kyle Minor, Rahne Alexander, and Kathleen Rooney. If you are in the zone, come out!

I think in order to keep my blood at the same level as it was on the el reading, I am going to shout the whole 12 minutes. Gotsta.

Monday, February 16, 2009

discombobulated attempt to recall becoming discombobulated

1. On plane to Chicago sat next to Indian dude who started singing after we took off: atonal and associative moaning, he didn't have headphones on, just his mind. He sang 30 minutes of the flight, loud enough to be heard for rows, right in my ear, and was fiddling under his seat most of the time, like looking for a button.

2.1 Seeing Shane Jones step out of the rows of shelves at the bookstore with the lit up face made me light up too. Lots of light.

2.2 Seeing Peter Cole punch Adam Robinson in the brainstem (literally) is probably my #1 image recalled from the whole shit. Adam Robinson I think could walk through a mall of milk and come out looking clean and right. Peter Cole speaks from the heart, and is every bit as rad as I had thought. I really like the looks Adam gets on his face.




3. Chicago, do you realize the gift that are those Mexican dudes coming in the night with the coolers full of tamales? I seriously said aloud, "I am hungry I need food" and he appeared. And he appeared again the next night. And he appeared again the next night. Zach Dodson was right, the cheese ones are the ones.

4. Zach and Allison were kind enough to put me up in their lovely home, which on Saturday night resulted in my returning at 4 am (thank god Daniel Bailey had been with me or I would have gotten lost in the city, plus I would not have bought that drunk sandwich from those rude 7-11 dudes). Zach smiles even when woken from his sleep. He's just that cool.

5. Came half an impulse away from barnstorming over the stage with Amelia Gray at the end of 1 of 47 readings I attended: usually ending with poems about pussy is rad, especially when girls are reading, but 'real talk' almost got us exploded. I am really excited about Amelia's AM/PM, you must buy it, Amelia is a total gem.



6. Was still drunk when I woke up Friday morning, and floated happily until it began to come down, at which point the benevolent Dave Clapper maybe literally saved my mind handing me two Excedrins from his pockets. The pills both had an E on them in my palm they read EE which I think washed down with a swig of a water bottle handed to me by EE (+ Aaron, which means Aaron must also have been contained within the pills)

7. Drinking from Conor Madigan's cold homemade vodka from a mason jar (Deaths Door Spirits) got me drunk in like two slugs, and in floating way. That vodka seriously is something else.

8. If I could have more daily doses of conversation with Dan Wickett I am certain I would become that much more efficient, fine, and pleased. I also feel this way about Matt Bell. If you recorded their car conversations from MI to Chicago and back, you might have an audio handbook to 'good job.'

9. I think I managed to stay drunk enough the whole time that I never talked like the awkward goober that I often can be around new people. Evidence of any talking goober is appreciated. I do vaguely remember being sloshed enough to pound the table and etc after Quickies while talking to David McClendon, who is a true true man. His presence helped assuage the miss of Peter Markus, whose sinus infection I dedicated my reading to, and Derek across seas.

10. Buying the $80 bottle of tequila with Gene Morgan probably saved my head from being complete sauce the next morning, though it definitely was enough to wash me into supposedly needing three people to hold me up while I read on the absolutely transcendent El train reading. That was the most fun reading ever, and should be instituted across the nation as the new form. Makes the whole thing an actual experience rather than another sitdown. My main memory of the train ride was trying to punch the train car's ceiling out when Mike Young announced Sam Pink's rise to the mic.



11. Sam fucking Pink = um, Travis Bickle plus your stillborn younger brother plus realest motherfucker you ever met, plus awesome. Drinking $27 beers with him and Gene at Fuckers in the hotel I think I felt the happiest I have felt standing in a chain restaurant with two guys. I need a poster of Gene smiling for in my car. Gene also has a very killer iPod mix.

12. Fuck a book, I am really about to start my rap record: here is a line I made today on twitter: dat mothafucka titty fucked that mothafucka / with da biggest knife you dun eva saw, son / with dat knife knife / with dat goo weed

13. I feel like I aged several years this weekend and also grew several years younger, bringing me back to where I am supposed to be.

14. Those two light up columns with the peoples' heads on them made me want to star in the next sequel of the Neverending Story.

14. God I bought a ton of books. I think I spent $30-50 apiece at the Fence, Action, Dalkey, and FC2 tables each. Plus all the others, though it seems like I didn't even see 1/3rd of the tables. I hardly took anything free. My shoulders are still sore. Between this and my bday and Xmas I have enough to read for 8 years and to also build a small paper extension onto my house.

15.1 I think people were stealing No Colonies, which is fine, if they read them or burn them for heat.

16. We did not play poker and we did not eat nachos, which makes me sad. I really wanted to take Sean Lovelace's money. I liked the way Sean talks, especially in cooperation with his hair and runner's sweaters.

17. Did anyone else see the midget woman ('little person') in the motor car? I want to solicit her work. Was I hallucinating?

18. This photo might sum the whole shit up indeed



19. Apparently amidst the tequila I went bonkers and attacked the ice machine and the towel room? I do not recall this. I do not recall either how we got home from the Featherproof release party at all. I believe there was a treehouse and a bloss of canopy involved?

20. My favorite reader at the Fence event was Daniel Borzutsky, whose poem to his mutual fund I think just wins. I read his 'Port Trakl' translation on the airplane home, which was a nice cap for the event: drunken corridors and sectors of people.

21. Lily Hoang is a sweetheart and we finally got to sit down amongst people barnstorming her to talk about the 30 Under 30 anthology, which is shaping up, and is going to be mega.

21.1 Jesse Ball, hidden elsewhere in the city, is one of the easiest people to talk to ever, and simply put, quite magic.

21.2 Today began reading the wonderful Sam Ligon's new book 'Drift and Swerve' chosen from the piles of incoming, which I couldn't be much more excited about

21.3 and the except of Robert Lopez's new novel in the new Willow Springs has made me more excited for 'Kamby Bolongo Mean River,' even after I thought I couldn't be more excited.

21.4 Too many fucking awesome people.

22. Imma go listen to Bun B

Monday, February 9, 2009

^^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i am still too tired as fuck to think about thinking about writing about the world of please & thank you that occurred at the chicago: though notes of some sort will be forthcoming. met and resaw and hung with way too many amazing people, each of whom it seemed like i only got to see for seconds, but the best seconds. brain is hiding now, let's talk later

in the meantime, there's been a lot of internet occurrence, here is some:

1. Michael Kimball interviewed me about EVER for elimae

2. I did the Book Notes feature for Largehearted Boy, which is a slightly different version of the soundtrack that came on the CD i sent with EVER (which I may post soon as a download link or something): EVER book notes

3. Didi Menendez interviewed me for Best American Poetry blog







Also, more reviews surfacing of EVER (which I sold out of at AWP on like the 2nd day, fucking awesome, thank you to all who did the touch):

pr's husband @ HTMLGiant: 'In a hole, filling a hole with holes. Sylvia Plath starving in a crawlspace, stoned on anti-psychotics.'

Adam Coates @ Internettle: 'ever is atmospheric'

Evelyn Hampton @ Lisp Service: 'What really comes out are sentences, perfectly formed and capable of nesting in your syntax for however long.'







The new issue of Action Yes is fucking transcendent.


Too much more to say right now, I'm going to have to come back later, I can still feel the liquor in my teethhhhhh.

I have heard there are lots of pictures floating around, including some from the absolutely transcendent el train reading which my throat is still sore from, but for now here is me looking hungover on my way to redrunk with two of the realest wonders you could ever meet:



as well, here quizzical with Christy Call (most smiles ever, and also a wonder) and Gene Morgan (AKA the 1 man funparty and megabrother for life):

Sunday, February 8, 2009

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

More Ever reviewings(s):

John Dermot Woods: 'Ever asks you to vacate your seat - your room - your house - your place, and then it takes that place and wraps it around you really tight and makes you breathe in the darkest, mustiest parts of it that you usually avoid when your room is your room and then it yanks it away from you so fast that you’re bare in the cold and want to be covered again by anything, even if it stinks.' (full review includes an awesome drawing John did in response to one of the text sections)

Jimmy Chen @ HTMLGiant: 'a kind of timeless consciousness that is, remarkably and/or ironically, very relevant to a particular time: now' plus comparisons to Beuys & Beckett & a note on Ever as hermaphrodite. MMMM.

Valerie O'Riordan: 'heart-wrenching and difficult and dense and brilliant'

In one negative review I've gotten, the old man with the British accent at my work looked at the book for a while then put it back on the desk and said he'd give anyone who could get through the book a dollar.




The Atlanta leg of EVER release party went down on Friday really wonderfully, it was packed out and full of so many friends. A surprise and wonderful to have everyone come out in hometown on a Friday night. Jamie Iredell's reading from his 'Atlanta' chapbook was awesome as always, as was the music and drankin. Rad.

Quite excited too still for the March 5th release at Word Bookstore in Brooklyn with Gary Lutz and Robert Lopez. Derek White is flying in from Nairobi, no shitt. Make a plan!

Bunch more readings in Boston, Providence (2x), Northampton and etc are forthcoming.

Including... Wednesday at AWP for Orange Alert:



Thursday at AWP for Quickies:



and Friday at AWP with these insane freaks:



which includes a live reading and short play on the train on the way to the reading.

Come out to 1 or more if you can!

I am going to buy a snakeskin jumpsuit for myself for this week to keep the blood sopped up inside me.






One of my favorite online journals has a new edition: Apocryphal Text




My long review of Brian Evenson's LAST DAYS




Didi Menendez is blogging this week at Best American Poetry blog &, being the saint she is, she interviewed me for a post that will be up in the next few days. Being 1 of 3 she interviewed (next to Ron Silliman and Bob Hicok) is pretty funny and awesome. Didi rules.

Be sure to check out the new issue of OCHO guest edited by Miguel Murphy.





NO COLONY 002 is in hands and I am beginning to pack orders and contrib copies today. For those I already know will be at AWP I will likely hold onto your copies and lick your chest when I see you and stick the book to it there, if is okay. Otherwise hopefully I can get them all out before flying out on Wednesday.

This week is going to be a dog in a blender in the best of all ways.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPP PPP P PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

will somebody who is good at something make me some minimalist rap beats so i can record my rap record? the record is i think called BABY DONOR. i would do it myself but i no longer have software: think aphex twin meets throw up. please help me. i am ready for my c-section and the lift is life.



i am on Apostrophe Cast today, reading the 'bathtub' section from Ever. there is a mod on my voice, it had to be



i am sick it is really hard to write sick, or at least to write out of the hole i am in



i have been working on a new novel for a good while now, i think it is called DECADE, i am in the last year of 11 years (one of the years repeats), writing the last year is confusing me in semi-pleasurable ways: this novel is 'rather ridiculous', in that scrolling through it makes me feel like Jack in the Shining, but it feels new to me and for me, it is very long so far, the longest number of pages i've written, if



I am already in love with Finnegans Wake, it is such magic, i am afraid i am going to want to talk in its language now, though i am going to try to instead hide




i just sent a supposed poetry book to a poetry book contest, i am sure it will be burned in fire, something happened, 'one contest per year' seriously





i deleted some links, it wasn't meant to be mean, there were just a ton of them, i deleted people i don't talk to very often or who hadn't seemed to update much lately, it is nothing personal, i may delete more in the mind of clean, i often feel guilty for no reason





i am supposed to meet Squeaky Fromme from the Manson family at the Majestic Diner at 1 am tonight, if I can find my shoes, sometimes its really hard to find shit




where is that new damn Gaspar Noe movie damn




i wrote DEOD* on my hand in my sleep last night i think, it might have been this morning, what is that supposed to mean



but no seriously i need someone to make me some hot beats, drop me an email, the release will be sponsored by Stacy's Pita Chips

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

RR R R RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR R R RRRRRRRR R RRRRRRR RRRR RRRRR RR RRRRRRRR RRRR R RRRRRR R RRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRR

I interviewed Jesse Ball for Bookslut. I love what Jesse says. If I haven't mentioned it enough, everyone with an interest in interesting new fiction should read The Way Through Doors. It is magic. More on that in my Believer review which will be out in May.



Sean Lovelace wrote a long and very kind review of EVER on his blog, including photo representations of selected sentences. This is the kind of review you write for.



If I don't stop bumping my arms and legs and other errant appendages on shit accidentally several times a day I am going to (a) be a very sore and bruised old man and/or (b) slit my face.



Finished reading Zizek's 'Violence' last night: it feels really good to be reading philosophical documents again after so long. This one in particular is fun and constantly packed with ruminations that continue to build. The last chapter on 'divine violence' is something I would hand out to a writing class: it discusses the manners by which applying meaning or intending meaning in a text or other artwork becomes both ridiculous and obscene. He quotes a passage from G.K. Chesterton which comes down to the idea that people want to applying meaning to ideas because what they are truly afraid of is a four word phrase: "He was made Man."





Last night I began reading 'Finnegans Wake' via a page or two before bed. I have had this book for so long and never more than flipped to random sections, but my amazement last night at staring at the pure iconography and gibberish invention and the sheer blocks of new inch by inch throughout made me decide I will require this injection. If anyone wants to join me in the reading you can do 3 pages tonight and then we will go forth on the 1 by 1s.




Secret Chiefs 3 playing a John Zorn Masada songbook = the way Zorn is meant to be played. Forgot about this one for a while but am in the enjoyment hemisphere again.



I hope this person who has mistaken my email for 'Troy's' email, and who keeps text messaging me from her cell phone, keeps it up. It is becoming a motivator of light. The last msg, from yesterday evening:

Subject: Hoe I tried to call

Hoe I tried to call u back and it went to voicemal.
-i.love.troy.*





No Colony is sharing table 673 with Publishing Genius and NOO Journal at AWP next week (next week?). Dang. Come do a look.

Issue 002 has just arrived and will be going to out to purchasers on the jump tip.

Monday, February 2, 2009

OOOO O OO OOOO O OO O OOOOOOOOO O OOO O O O OOOOOOOOOO O O OOOOOO OOOOOOOO OOOOOOO

Two more responses to EVER:

Johannes Goransson @ Exoskeleton: 'What makes this novel very interesting in this context is that it seems to be written from the other direction - not a murder mystery that loses its narrative, but a narrative-less cinematic body-fantasia in search of a narrative.'

Brandon Hobson @ Clusterflock: 'The music somehow made me want to lie down on the floor and sliver. I’m not sure why. When I told my wife this she asked if I’d taken my medication (which I had).'

Two Lynch references in two reviews = I am happy child.







Dang, Adam Robinson kills it here. I am really excited about his forthcoming book, brilliantly titled ADAM ROBISON.


Kind of flabbergastingly awesome post by Dennis Cooper on board games and writing


I also really like this recipe on Elimae by Nathan Neely







I just got Shane Jones's LIGHT BOXES in the mail. It is beautiful. You should order it. I am really excited to read it again in its final form. Since I preordered, mine came with a copy of Shane's MLP chapbook 'Black Kids in Lemon Trees,' which I already have as an MLP subscriber. Forward me a receipt for ordering the book from today or later and I will give you my second copy of it.






Brian Evenson's LAST DAYS is out now from Underland Press. I will be posting a full review of this probably later this week, but as anyone who has touched Evenson's ink likely already knows: this is a book for owning, reading, rereading, eating, touching. I can't think of an author who has influenced me more, honestly. I recommend this book as highly as any other book he has written: they are all vital.

Last night I read his story 'The Adjudicator' in the new issue of Conjunctions about a hairless man living in a house after a great conflagration, who is then asked to 'adjudicate' a man who looks, he believes, exactly like him. Evenson's corridors of narrative, always as if chiseled out of something that has existed forever, somehow seem both speaking to you and speaking secondly inside you at the same time, each saying slightly different things that then interweave in your brain meat and then, in the collision, form the narrative. How Evenson is able to portray such complex moods in lines that seem so simple, and yet so timelessly phrased, in their pronunciation, is one of the great many magicks he possesses.






This Friday, doing a small pre-NYC-book-release-party book release party in Atlanta. Friday 8:30 @ Kavarna in Decatur. My boy Jamie Iredell is on the mic, as are a couple bands. I don't think more than a couple Atlantans read this blog, but oh well, it's a mention.






I watched Roy Andersson's YOU THE LIVING the other night. I didn't love it as much as SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR, which is one of my all time favorites, though it was not too far behind, and almost like a sequel.

I love the use of the swastikas on the table after the cloth is removed in this scene, a perfect encryption that somehow gave me goosebumps when I noticed, even despite the laughter:








I kind of am enjoying this year thoroughly thus far.


"19: OS OS OS IS SI, Day of Speak Only in Hymn, for yes, the song is joyous, and in our zoning we yes do indeed enjoy the song."

Sunday, February 1, 2009

NNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

There's a lot of people talking in 'hot forums' about what is going to happen to the big book industry. I think its like worrying about what will happen to CNN.

Would it be bad if Borders closed? I go in there and look around sometimes. The employees wear headsets and talk to one another through the headsets?

I think tomorrow I will go in and get near the help desk until someone asks me if I need help and I will say yes where is Charles Dickens I have been looking for him all my life and I will be led to the Dickens and I will take all the copies of his books they have and load them into my arms and then I will go back near the help desk and wait to get asked again if I need help and will say yes where is Bret Easton Ellis I have been looking for him all my life and we will go get the books and maybe I will need to begin sticking some of the titles into my waistband or down into my pantlegs like getting fat, on and on in this fashion maybe to Roberto Bolano next and then maybe Darryl Strawberry and whatever that woman who read that dumb-as-slip poem at Obama's thingamabob, and once I've got all those books and I can't carry them any more I will go back to the guy at the desk who by now has accepted with exasperation that I am being a fuck and yet still being a kind employee will put offer his services and through a crack in the book stacks I will ask him where is Barry Hannah and he will lead me through the store again to show me there is absolutely none.







I saw my sister reading Stephanie Meyer, the first book I'd seen her with in a long while, and took and threw it in the trash. There wasn't any applesauce in the trashbag so she just got it back out again.

My mom says I should be glad she is reading again.




Maybe taking Borders away from people would be like taking the razorblades from the genuinely sad preteen with unabashed will to cut and not for show.





Some article the other day was talking about what online magazines are good and labeled Narrative Magazine as 'the gold standard.' I think Narrative Magazine is exactly what I got interested in online publishing to get away from! I think my bing dow is exploder!

Someone should convince Oprah to start a web literary journal. Oprah's Power Camp, I would read that and look at the words too.



I am not early Ian Mackaye. I like a lot of stuff. But the forum feels like politics to me, it could go either way, $$$$$$$$. But it's also amusing to watch people in a tailspin about it. As if language is a stock market. More often, for many, it is TV.



Contrary to popular belief, you CAN change a person's taste.



I wish there were such a thing as non-theoretical fascism by a creative figurehead with compassion.




Everything will continue until it does not.





I've been finding myself saying 'I don't know what that means' a lot lately while speaking to other people.




I'm ready to get disinterested, but I won't.





I have felt kind of out of control inside myself lately in a fully controllable way.






Something is trying to eat my time by becoming inside my time. If it weren't for 'Music for Airports' I might have thrown my laptop into the pool last week while a dog was watching. I like when you are alone with a dog and you do something that a human would react to by speaking and the dog doesn't even really move and they look at you with 3/4ths of their eyes like they are only partially invested but they were like there to see what you did. Sometimes to break the moment they will hear something else passing near them, but something subtle, and they will bark a little around the corners of their mouth like getting ready to bark.






Are people supposed to agree with people some?




'Negative Nancy' got a hold of me today, sorry.