Monday, August 3, 2009

'black metal'

Web extras for HOBART 10 is alive, including a set of collages the wonderful Guy Brookshire made for my story 'Smoke House,' which have changed the way I see the story in a pleasing way. Also supplemental issue material by Mike Young, B.J. Hollars, Alicia Gifford, JoeAnn Hart, some fun and good things.





Last night I read Dennis Cooper's The Sluts straight through after buying it at a local gay bookstore in heavy rain, for some reason it was the only DC I hadn't read, it ended up being perhaps the most visceral prose experience I've had in a long while, it is about a urban myth-style series of internet sex forum postings that involved Sade body destruction and extreme sex and Clue-like cryptic hysteria, I seriously felt like someone was pressing on my chest at several points, and I could not stop reading. One scene very briefly involving blowtorches on a face I believe I will never forget. If more books felt like this more people would read.

Following from that I had a dream that I believe in dream time lasted 7-12 days, I was locked in a very large building where many rooms had no floors, there were weapons and strange food and people were taking drugs and making gangs and performing odd music, there was some kind of transfusion going on between our bodies, nudity and sometimes calmness or I would not be able to find anyone for hours, in one room I found I was hanging onto the outside of a very large truck, I tried to die by throwing my body off the truck, when I died I ended up back in the house. Even as black and fucked as the house was I did not want to wake up from it, I reentered sleep 2-3 times, the last time I woke up I found I could not get back in.

All of this came into me after a long weekend in which I honestly felt like I could not proceed thinking or speaking in language. I have had this feeling several times since I began writing seriously, each time getting not more intense, but less intense, meaning that I cared even less that I was beginning to not care.

I hope this renewal fuels a longer blank in that blank but I am not sure.





The fact that suddenly now after years of not being able to stand Thom Yorke's The Eraser I have found myself unable to listen to most anything else might mean I am truly losing cells.

Or otherwise:

A Box for Black Paul 9:44 Nick Cave From Her to Eternity Rock 1 8/1/09 12:47 PM
Cabin Fever 6:13 Nick Cave From Her to Eternity Rock 1 8/1/09 12:38 PM
Well of Misery 5:26 Nick Cave From Her to Eternity Rock 1 8/1/09 12:31 PM
From Here to Eternity 5:35 Nick Cave From Her to Eternity Rock 1 8/1/09 12:25 PM
Things Will Never Be The Same 9:56 Black Dice Beaches And Canyons Alternative & Punk 4 8/1/09 12:16 PM
The Door Opens the Other Way 7:12 Belong October Language Indie 6 8/1/09 11:50 AM
Late Night 3:32 Belong Colorloss Record Electronic 51 8/1/09 11:36 AM
Protection 4:30 Liars Liars 4 8/1/09 11:29 AM
Pure Unevil 3:54 Liars Liars 18 8/1/09 11:28 AM
Second Hour 3:33 Flying Saucer Attack Chorus Alternative & Punk 1 8/1/09 11:24 AM
Respect 3:20 Flying Saucer Attack New Lands Alternative & Punk 2 8/1/09 11:20 AM
ELUVIUM / INDOOR SWIMMING AT THE SPACE STATION 10:29 ELUVIUM COPIA Unknown 34 8/1/09 9:53 AM
Zerthis Was A Shivering Human Image 15:37 Eluvium Indecipherable Text Electronic 13 8/1/09 9:53 AM

20 comments:

Keith Montesano said...

Eluvium = Fuck yes.

I got that monster LP boxset, which is still at my brother's house.

Looks badass.

shome dasgupta said...

Hi Blake, have you read any of Nick Cave's fiction? And The Ass Saw The Angel is a great title, but I've yet to read it. For music, Abbatoir Blues is up there as a favorite.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

they good writin musics.

s.d., i read ass saw in 10th or 11th grade, i liked it a lot then, i want to reread, and to read his new one that is coming soon. looks great. he is something else all around. your funeral my trial kills my ass.

Keith Montesano said...

P.S. What did Redivider take? Story? Poem? List awesomeness? I love Redivider. Too bad we once again missed each other in a journal by an issue or so...

BLAKE BUTLER said...

redivider took a 'story,' which is a whole chapter from this novel Decade, the second chapter

we always miss by one. weirdism.

Keith Montesano said...

Oh, awesome!

Let us hope there are many future issues with our work within the pages.

Thinking about sending some of these new ones out before we move, but we'll see...

sasha fletcher said...

really excited for his new book.
firstborn is dead. that's my jam. splits my head open. covers it in a mist. buries me by an old dead tree. sets fire to everything. everything is covered in a flood. then lightning strikes the flood. after that, something else happens.

Brian Foley said...

The Sluts is my favorite DC book.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

man, yes. it is amazing.

Ross Brighton said...

Diggin' on Cave at the mo too. Word up to black dice. Ass & Angel is pretty cool, and the new one sounds like a total soul-fuck.

Goddamn, I came to this post expecting there to be black metal somewhere....

Jack Boettcher said...

Hello Blake Butler,

I "interviewed" Dr. Phil about his poetry. The title of this website inspired it.

Your book EVER rocked.

-Jack

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Jack, that was hilarious. Heart to Ass is the best title i've heard in a while.

thanks for the kinds words. your blog is good.

:) B

BlogSloth said...

There is a documentary about rouged whores I wanted to suggest to you but I forget its name.

You owe me a beer and a Republican.

Sean

Jonny Ross said...

I really like The Eraser. Maybe more than recent Radiohead. More darker maybe. Weirder. Nick Cave is golden magic.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

Sean, what is it

mailing you a beer. you'll need to pour it from the package into a bottle.

Jonny, i think its way better than everything they've done since OK Computer, except for perhaps Pyramid Song. i can't stand their post-techo bullshit. and yet the eraser seems like all those things i hate about them now, but strained down into one album. like a demo. which is why i can't understand why i like it, but its still in my head.

Marcus Whale said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Marcus Whale said...

I take the fact that I gather detail from The Sluts in a really natural way as a concerning indication that i have been raised by the internet. Hooray for the monthly DC's slave rundown.

Paul Curran said...

Hi Blake, cool little 'Sluts' review.

I'm just reading and really loving 'Ever'. And I was really getting an early Bad Seeds feel from the writing, that kind of demented swirling. So it makes sense to see you're a fan. Looking forward to your new one.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

marcus, yeah, internet has definitely infiltrated, that info method felt too good.

paul, thanks man! i am glad you are digging. comparisons to nick cave /bad seeds are about as much as anyone could ask for. :)

sarahspy said...

the same thing happened to me w/ that thom yorke album