Tuesday, April 21, 2009

'The Passionate Male Prostitute'

For my story 'The Ruined Child' in the new issue of Barrelhouse, the dudes asked me to maybe throw over a bonus feature for the web, something like Michael Czyzniejewski's awesome pop-up video style annotation of his story, and the other nice thangs they have compiled

In the spirit of our Scorch Atlas remix competition (which ends at the end of this month), I remixed 'The Ruined Child' by doing a series of Find/Replace and other insertions until it became The Passionate Male Prostitute. It's a big rumblefuck, and includes maybe my favorite sentence I've ever (semi-accidentally) written:

"Anton LaVey opened the labia and saw just a grizzly bear eating Cheerios."

It was interesting to see how dramatically the nature of the story could be changed just by switching some of the major nouns and verbs, without changing the structure of any sentence, or the minor connective words. Made me realize a lot about how important word choice is even in places it might seem minor, which is a good lesson to relearn.

Please get up on The Passionate Male Prostitute.






Congrats to Sean Kilpatrick for having his LC story The Origin of Species Reinterpreted Through Massacre make the 2008 storySouth Million Writers Notable Stories list. Love to see a blood-sniffing text on the powerlist.

Thanks to the judges who picked Sean's piece, and to those as well that selected two of my stories for the list. Very cool. And many cool others in the house as well.






For those in NYC, there is a great event for Noemi Press upcoming:

"Join us at 7 PM on 2 May 2009 for a Noemi Press reading at Stain Bar, 766 Grand Street, Brooklyn NY, 11211 (L to Grand, 1 block west) 718-387-7840

Featured readers: Claire Hero, Shya Scanlon, Mark Tursi, and Lila Zemborain"





If you are in Atlanta (tonight!), Kevin Wilson is reading in Decatur at 730... right now I'm scheduled to work tonight, but trying to finagle my way out. His just released TUNNELING TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is high on my wanting list, and I hope I get to buy it from him tonight. Atlantans, go!






My reading bug is back in me full on.

I just started reading Ignácio de Loyola Brandão's TEETH UNDER THE SUN from Dalkey, and am loving it: my Dalkey count for the year is at 7 now. This book is so far very calm and magical, and easy and fun to read, with simple but power-infused sentences. More evolves.





Just found one of Gaspar Noe's early short films on YouTube, 'Carne,' this could be used as the most effective don't eat animals commercial ever. ** Seriously do not watch this if you are squeamish about animal violence, particularly horses. **

LINK





Finished 1st draft of EVER sister yesterday, maybe to begin noodling now, or something.

15 comments:

Adam R said...

I definitely had to stop watching that video. Thanks for the warning. Hurt anything but horses and it's fine with me.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

yeah, horses get me too. i think that might be why he used a horse. ouch

jereme said...

i didn't have any issue with the video.

it's not that bad?

i mean it's a horse. why would a horse hold more "shock value" than something else?

i think the part where the person is cutting the meat at the end is more disturbing than the killing of the horse.

okay some one is eating horse. why is it not okay to eat horse?

is it a religious taboo to eat horse or something?

BLAKE BUTLER said...

horses are cooler

alle santiago said...

you mad-libbed your own story, sick

pr said...

I am not watching that video. BUT- my mother ate horsemeat as a child- she grew up really poor- and it is nasty tasting. So, it's not that eating horses is taboo, it's that the meat is really bad. Like eating possum or something. Which brings me to Jason, my friend, who cooked a possum in a garbage can in his backyard but didn't remove the glands, so it was very, very bad.

Also, I went horseback riding a month ago in the Dominican Republic. I always go on a ride, but I get different horses each time. My last horse was an asshole. Twice, he kicked my son's horse. And then, he rolled on me! Laid down and started to roll (they know they aren't supposed to do that, he was just a fucker, fucking "palomo". My foot almost got stuck. I hollered. I rolled away. My husband said, "that was very James Bond of you." I had to ride that horse for another hour after that. I was so pissed.

Anonymous said...

That storySouth list is power. Thanks for getting /nor on there with "The Disappeared." Love that story, and OU is my alma mater so I like to see that journal get some respect.

"Back in the living room, Anton LaVey found Tammy Faye Baker staring into the staticked back tattoo of the BEEF MONOLITH." This made me laugh, mainly the capitalization and timing of what. Still cannot wait for "Scorch Atlas."

BLAKE BUTLER said...

madlib life

pr, i always get stuck on the bastard horses too

ha, thank you for digging out that sentence michael, it made me laugh not remembering it

/nor rules

Anthony said...

I read Tropic of Cancer in high school, and there's one line I remember, but cannot find again, so maybe it didn't actually exist.

In it, Miller wrote about a vagina, and how you never knew what you were going to find inside...perhaps an alarm clock or an umbrella...

BLAKE BUTLER said...

searching for the vagina image in the miller is, i think, going to prove difficult
:)
its been forever since i opened him

christopher higgs said...

I think maybe my favorite sentence in "The Passionate Male Prostitute" is this one:

"The bitchass motherfucker floated."

Lyndall-O said...

I can't handle horse violence. That is dark. I won't watch it. Having said that I'm pretty sure I ate horse in Paris. I ordered steak and asked for it blue and when they brought it to me it was big, thick and dark; the colour of old red wine. It tasted slightly of metal. It was a good steak, and suspiciously cheap. I'm still haunted by it.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

chris, ha nice, i want to do this replace thing with everything now, before it is published. fun.

lyndall, i feel you. that meal sounds scary. i'm slightly jealous

Andrew Borgstrom said...

Europeana arrived today. I decided to taste the first page before putting it in the to-read pile. I ate the whole thing. Amazing: the repetitive yet expanding structure, the seemingly objective tone, 100 years in just over 100 pages, the horror and humor. I'm satiated. Thanks for the recommendation.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i am glad u dug it andrew: wish there were more books anywhere near that one. lord