Wednesday, May 6, 2009

OK KO KO OKKO KOOKOK OKOK OKOOK OKOOKKOOO

When I'm ready to die just let me:







I'd been predisposed to certain modes at least:



(see Jimmy Chen's 'Haut or Not' on this bookshelf here)



And then I quickly learned to morph:









I am trying really hard to get my day-mood out of the gutter, staring, I am going to be positive or therein for the rest of this post and whatnot:







In addition to their incredible storage of texts, UBU Web has an enormous archive of video and sound, of which there is so much great I am anticipating the rest of the year in consumption.

Yesterday spent quite a while listening to work on C. Spencer Yeh's page (from Burning Star Core, among many others). His 'Always Been A Storm / Memories of Murder' (2009) ate my lips. C. Spencer Yeh. More on this.






Wigleaf's Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2008 is very live, I don't know how Scott Garson and Darlin' Neal consumed so much in the eating, but very wonderful to see Elizabeth Ellen repping Lamination Colony there, along with several others from LC in the long list, and way too many other rad folks to begin to list. Kind inclusion of my 'Disease Relics' in the top 50, and two other honorable mentions is quite nice. Thanks to those parties.

Looking at 'Disease Relics' again got me thinking again about the novel that it comes from (of which 'The Copy Family'is also a part). I don't know what I am thinking about it but I am thinking at least about thinking about it.






Also kind on the web writing award front: the Dzanc Best of the Web 2009 is up for preorder, and has a boatload of awesome peoples, among which I have two show ups: 'Two Stories' from Action Yes and 'Landlord' from Memorious. I also did a brief q/a about the pieces and web writing in general that will be included in a feature. Fun! Thanks to these parties as well, very kind, and an amazing set of brains to be included with.

The 2009 is now available for pre-order (it will be in stores in late June) at the Dzanc website for $18.00. We are also currently running a special, pre-order the Best of the Web 2009 anthology AND the Best of the Web 2008 and one of them is 50% off (only $30 total)!

Staying positive. Staying positive.






Are you ready for some language porn?



UNSAID FOUR CONTRIBUTORS:

ANNE CARSON, BRIAN EVENSON, BLAKE BUTLER, DAVID OHLE, EVELYN HAMPTON, PETER MARKUS, ALEXIS ALMEIDA, ROBERT LOPEZ, BEAR KIRKPATRICK, MICHAEL KIMBALL, MEGAN LAYTON, DAWN RAFFEL, EUGENE MARTEN, DAVID HOLLANDER, OTTESSA MOSHFEGH, SHELTON WALSMITH, JASON SCHWARTZ, RUDY WILSON, SARAH MANGUSO, PAUL MALISZEWSKI, RICHARD ST. GERMAIN, SAM MICHEL, EMILIA A. PHILLIPS, BRIAN KUBARYCZ, SVEN BIRKERTS, RICK POINSETT, ALYSON JANE, BIANCA GALVEZ, JOE WENDEROTH, M SARKI, JOANNA HOWARD, WILL ENO, JESSICA NEWMAN, PATRICIA O'CONNELL, MATTHEW THOMPSON, CAROLYN ALTMAN, PETER CHRISTOPHER, ANDY DEVINE, DANIELLE BLAU, RACHEL B. GLASER, PATRICK EHLEN, M.T. FALLON, JONATHAN CALLAHAN, LAUREN MCCOLLUM, KRISTINA BORN, JULIA HOLLEMAN, TRIA ANDREWS, VIRGINIA KONCHAN, BJORN VERENSON, MICHAEL STEWART, TRENT ENGLAND, DYLAN T. NICE, BRIAN SCHORN, RYAN MURPHY, SAM PINK, BENJAMIN LANDRY, EMILY MAHAN, SHANE JONES, THOMAS LAVERTY, A. MINETTA GOULD, COOPER ESTEBAN, LINDSAY ANDERSON, JOSHUA KORNREICH, SCOTT GARSON

Dang, mane.

Preorder is available by contacting David at::: info {at} unsaidmagazine {dot} com







Rauan Klassnik did an awesome interview with CA Conrad on his blog. Dang.






Ok I can't be positive anymore, time to go stare.

I want to record my year of online life and make it into a movie played at 100x speed, just the screen and what happens on it, a year of online in like 6 minutes, it would be in a way like those timelapse horizons, as this screen is often my horizon.





Is there anyone who would say that the greatest thing Michael J. Fox has done with his life is get sick? I couldn't help thinking that question while accidentally this morning seeing him standing ovationed on the View, and imagining his reception having not gotten sick, coming on the View. He would not have been invited on the View.

I am not trying to be mean about Fox, I am just genuinely asking this question because I want to know the answer.





Shit.

18 comments:

pr said...

Suffering begets grace, man. So yeah, Fox- everyone.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

But is the greatest thing he has done with his life get sick? that is my question.

peter markus said...

New Unsaid licks, I mean looks, delicious.

pr said...

He didn't "do" his sickness. So, in terms of what he's done, that I wouldn't agree with. Maybe what you mean is how he reacted to it? I'm trying to understand...

BLAKE BUTLER said...

his life inside his sickness is what he is doing, is what i mean.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

actually i don't know what i mean.

no more literals, PR!

BLAKE BUTLER said...

peter, i am indeed going to lick the book

pr said...

haha! you're funny.
I think you mean how he's reacted, or what he's become because of his illness. how it's transformed him. but I'll leave you alone dear leader!

BLAKE BUTLER said...

haha. you dont have to leave me alone. calling me on my retardation is good.

fox was selected as human artbook

pr said...

I like thinking about illness. does it happen to us? do we make it happen? Illness as Metaphor by Sontag is a cool read on the whole thing. We tend to blame the ill. But she draws it out all Sontagy like.

Also I sent my copy of this french guys (name?) book (translated by Julian Barnes) called In The Land Of Pain. It is a seperate universe- a different land. I read half of it, and could't take it anymore--haha. I was sick at the time.

Illness is transformative. Suffering is a hole for grace to rise. yaddayadda yada-

pr said...

I just had a martini. It's 5:30.

How we handle our failures and our pain and the ugliness of our eventual ruin is what makes us who we are.

All the minutia of our lives make us who we are, but moments of truth are often most evident in times of extreme duress.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

i like the PR

margarita will be coming to match yr martini

pr said...

http://www.amazon.com/Land-Pain-Alphonse-Daudet/dp/0375414851

Alphonse Daudet

That is the author of In the Land of Pain. I was in pain so I bought it! Recently, I sent it to someone during one of my htmlgiant giveaways.

Happy Margarita.

I like you to bb.

Anonymous said...

"Disease Relics" is so +infinity.

If "Disease Relics" and "The Copy Family" are indicative of that novel, I would want to eat that novel please.

I think about "The Copy Family" at least three times a week. Sometimes I burp and whiff that burp with my hand towards my nose and sniff.

The old whiff-and-sniff.

I agree with PR: Fox getting that disease was not what he did but he doing that disease is what he did. Not because he got on the View though. I would say because he did charity work and made Parkinson's more public.

See: Christoper Reeve. Not a disease, but same diff.

pr said...

In The Land of Pain is a memoir of suffering and dying.Not a novel. It's rather dry, but detailed, of the gross stuff that happens to us when we are being treated(especially way back when). Or at least, that's what I remember. And I am not a good rememberer. But I could be right.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thanks michael. i hope that novel makes it out there one day. i think it's still the thing i'm most proud of, written in 10 days or not.

chris reeves, i have a pic of a wax him and me somewhere. he's him.

Ken Baumann said...

10 days or not, i think it is the 'best' thing you've ever written, certainly my favorite, especially in parts, blake i haven't slept for a few days

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thanks ken

i been der fo sho on the many days none.

start typin