Monday, March 30, 2009

Dog Camp + Buttresses

I can not get this sick out of my body, but at least today I am drinking coffee. A friend suggested I try putting cinnamon into the grounds for brewing, to mask the mold taste. He does this frequently regardless. It is a fine thing to do. Today I am drinking coffee for the first time in a month or so.

I have slept more in the past week than I did for probably certain trios of weeks last year.




I found a file with like 3500 words in a similar voice to EVER and have been playing with it some today. I don't know how exactly it relates to the original: not a sequel or prequel or like that, but something. Maybe another person who lived in the same house before or after. Don't know if I'll keep working on it, but the playing is more interesting than anything I've tried to write in the last month. Lots of stops and starts, this voice feels better again, I don't know.




Still behind on a lot of things, trying to catch up.

Particularly behind on readings and reviews of a few things I've been dibbling in over the past few weeks, though planning to get to that this week and next.

Really excited, too, to receive Jeremy M. Davies's debut novel ROSE ALLEY from Counterpath Press today in the mail, Jeremy is too awesome and this book is gorgeous, and from the description + Harry Mathews blurb, this book has me mega excited. More on this soon.




Random excerpt from DECADE novel (the novel I pretty much wrote all in one long diatribe after reading Gert Jonke's GEOMETRIC REGIONAL NOVEL) is here @ Abjective: it is a text box from one page, kind of cribbed out of the middle of several other voices on the same page variously referring to one another, so I believe comes off rather cryptically here as an excerpt, though I enjoy it in that way. Haven't really done anything at all with that novel beyond revising it wholly twice through, and felt strong about it. Don't know where to send a hugely weird typographically fucked novel at this point, whichever.




Feeling slightly more positive today than last week, though still caught under yucktown, missed my Boston readings because of it, which made me sad. I hope a good time was had, and my apologies again to Adam and Jen from Quick Fiction for the missing out. Yarf.




Not having coffee for a month and now full bore again is coming on strong through my veins, maybe the lack of coffee is all that attributed to my rut, plus the sick. I am too quick to let myself join in in a fuckdown of self.




"This is a Formica table."

10 comments:

Brian said...

Blake, you have a lot to be proud of. You're doing very well, (two books out!) and I'm sure your best work is ahead of you. I'm perplexed by the abjective piece, but I like the rhythms of it.

You should think about getting a bike.

Jonny Ross said...

Hey Blake -- I got my copies of No Colony in the mail the other day. They look really awesome in real life, the contributors line-up is beyond sick. Hope you're feeling better. Coffee is the great gift of the gods.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thanks brian, i would like a bike, have been meaning to get one for a while. any recs for not too pricey and dependable on the street?

jonny, that is awesome, i am glad you got and hope you enjoy...

Dan Powell said...

Hey Blake. I found your blog a few months ago and have since been keeping up with your work. Just thought I'd comment and say thanks for all the cool writing (and subsequent inspiration.) I wish I had known Atlanta was producing such awesome people before I left there for college. Keep up the good work, I'm totally jazzed to read Scorch Atlas.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

hi daniel, thanks a lot for the kind words. you should never fault yourself for leaving atlanta. one day i'll follow in your wake... take care my friend

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Yirga Chiefee said...

This past weekend we had coffee literally off the vine. Roasted in the farm house we were staying in. Holy shit. And some other shit from Ethiopia. I'll have to post you some.

A sequel to Ever? Hmmm....

BLAKE BUTLER said...

true to life real shit coffee would be the shit. i drink dunkin donuts for lord's sake

Matt DeBenedictis said...

Fuck fuckdown. I stayed away from coffee for a two months once. Wasn't that great. Water wakes only those about to die up. 'Witness on pg. 56' is full of burning fast rhythms that only a closed mind has inside of it. Kudos.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thanks matt... closed mind for life :)