Tuesday, December 28, 2010

you don't have to beg a dog to shit in the house they just do it

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Luger

"The Make-A-Wish Foundation ceased granting hunting trips in 1999, amid criticisms from animal rights groups. The Foundation explained that the decision was based on the danger of having a child in a weakened state handling firearms."

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

i finished reading foucault's history of madness today, it was spectacular beginning to end













00

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

need room

trying to pare down my home, i have too many boxes

if anyone wants to buy some books, i will throw in some other books

$10 each for Scorch Atlas or Ever, including shipping

if you buy one i will include a free chapbook or drawing or something
if you buy both I will include a free bonus book worth reading

you could also buy Kristina Born's One Hour of Television ($8), or No Colony #1 ($5), which is almost sold out. Issue 2 is sold out. Issue 3 will be coming by the end of the year. it is ridiculous. i will include free stuff with those too

my paypal is my email address which is my first and last name all one word no space at gmail

Monday, November 22, 2010

odd anchoring of twin but different ache in both arms: Left, a sore node on the bulb on top of the shoulder; Right, a longer running, more slowly throbbing warm glow near the elbow, months along; forced to sleep mainly on my back as one side or the other aches the other harder

everything is mostly fine; i am eating a lot of meals consisting of saltines paired with something i.e. honey or shredded cheese; those are actually the only two things, so there are two modes too

i've been sleeping rather fine. tired earlier than ever most nights and sleeping heavy without waking which i have not done in years and seems to spill over also into waking still, like more tired because of the backlog of approaching rest; i think we are going to go to kentucky for a minute next month and i am looking forward to old rooms

i wrote this thing about wallace

i have a new piece of a long novel in the new issue of this, an earlier chapter from the same piece that was in redivider last year or earlier this year, whichever that was, i can't tell what a day is anymore; i feel kind of itchy

just began a second section of what i think will be a five part novel that is different from whatever else i've done if i can remember anything about that

how bout ice cweam

Sunday, November 7, 2010

"LaBianca had on pajamas, and I later found out that his wife had pulled the blue dress she was now wearing over her pink nightgown after Charlie had suddenly appeared in her bedroom."

Saturday, November 6, 2010

wrote three paragraphs this morning
went to help move my father's things out of half of his room at the rest home, which will result in $1000 deducted from the rent, and will open the space for someone else to move in and share a room with him in the event the place becomes filled; he seemed upset my mother, sister, brother in law, and i were all there; he kept saying "I don't know what this is;" he did not at all notice the room's alteration
wrote one more longer paragraph between the moving and going to dinner with the same people except dad, washed my clothes
my mother and sister ordered the same thing to eat: tofu, vegetables, and sauce
i ate very much sushi wearing three shades of blue and a green shirt long as a dress
after dinner we stopped at a used store and my mom bought a beckett play, i bought nothing, my sister bought something i can't remember
returned to mom's and got in the bathtub and read the first half of christian hawkey's ventrakl until i felt so warm i put the book down and fell asleep in the tub
getting out standing in the mirror noticed a large vein seeming larger, darker
mom asked why i did not tell her she'd been wearing three earrings all evening
left my mom's house to go home, forgot my clothes in the house, had to come back
still feel too warm
going to run 6 miles and come back and read the rest of the hawkey
drink the rest of the diet ginger ale in my fridge, maybe the gin, maybe watch a movie, probably sleep early if i can

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Porn star "Savannah" aka Shannon Wilsey killed herself at age 23 in 1994 after recording the following films:

All American Superstars (1998) (V)
Direct Dial (1997) (V)
Bums Away (1995) (V)
Where the Boys Aren't Part IV: Boarding House Blues Too (1995) (V)
Savanah Unleased (1994) (V) (as Savanah) .... Angel, Nurse
Sinderella 2: The Stepsister (1994) (V)
Summertime Boobs (1994)
Battle of the Superstars (1993) (V)
Deep Inside Racquel Darrian (1993) (V)
Hollywood X-posed (1993) (V)
Hustlers, The (1993) (V)
Naughty Butt Nice (1993) (V)
Savannah Affair, The (1993) (V)
Secret Fantasies 3 (1993) (V)
Starbangers 1 (1993) (V)
Superstars of Sex: Racquel Darrian (1993) .... Biker Chick
Superstars of Sex: Savannah (1993)
Wet Event (1993) (V)
Angels (1992/II) (V)
Best of Footworship 3 (1992) (V)
Dixie Dynamite and the All-Star Tit Queens (1992)
Flash Floods (1992)
Hot Holes (1992) (V)
House of Sleeping Beauties (1992) (V)
House of Sleeping Beauties 2 (1992) (V)
Indian Summer (1992) (V)
On Trial 3: Takin' It to the Jury (1992)
On Trial Part 4: The Verdict (1992) (V)
Savannah R.N. (1992) (V) .... Nurse
Sinderella (1992)
Art of Desire (1991) (V) .... Alexis
Autoerotica (1991)
Autoerotica 2 (1991)
Blonde Forces (1991) (V)
Blonde Savage (1991) (V)
Camp Fear (1991) (as Shannon Wilsey)
Ecstasy (1991) (V)
End Results (1991) (V) (as Silver Cane)
Execu-Comp #169 - Classic Super Sex (1991) (V)
Forever (1991/I) .... Kim
Happy Endings (1991) (V)
Hot Savannah Nights (1991) (V)
Hurts So Good (1991) (V)
Indian Summer 2: Sandstorm (1991) (V)
Laying the Ghost (1991)
Legal Tender (1991) .... Mal's Gals
Made in Heaven (1991) (V)
Nasty Reputation (1991) (V)
Naughty Nymphs (1991) (V)
New Wave Hookers 2 (1991) (V)
No Boys Allowed (1991) (V)
On Trial 2 (1991) .... Ellen Fargo alias Scarlett
On Trial Part 1: In Defense of Savannah (1991) (V) .... Savannah
On Trial Part III: In Defense of Savannah (1991) (V) .... Savannah
On Trial Part II: In Defense of Savannah (1991) (V) .... Savannah
On Trial Part IV: In Defense of Savannah (1991) (V) .... Savannah
Roxy (1991) (V) .... Roxy
Savannah Superstar (1991) (V) .... Savannah
Spectacle, The (1991) (V)
Surf City Sex (1991) (V) (as Silver)
Virgin on the Run (1991) (V)
Vision, The (1991)
Vow of Passion (1991) (V)
Invisible Maniac, The (1990) (as Shannon Wilsey) .... Vicky
Racquel's Addiction (1990) (V) (as Silver Kane)
Sorority House Massacre II (1990) (as Shannon Wilsey) .... Satana
Trouble Maker (1990)
Every Man's Fancy (1988)
Reflections of Innocence (1988)
Telemates (1988)
Turn Up the Heat (1988)
Tight Fit (1987)

1963

INTERVIEWER: Now, when you say like, it takes about an hour--do you spend most of your time painting?

ANDY WARHOL: No.

INTERVIEWER: You don't. What do you do? Besides, I know you've made a movie and you're going to make another one.

ANDY WARHOL: I don't know.

INTERVIEWER: You just live.

ANDY WARHOL: Right. No, I don't live.

INTERVIEWER: Do you want to qualify that statement?

ANDY WARHOL: No.

Monday, October 18, 2010

"If I've written about my dilemma with this highhanded treatment of details and lack of concreteness, hiding behind a stiff, somewhat old-fashioned voice, it's because I'm embarrassed, shy--and afraid. Because I'm not free. Because I am what I am. Because I'm a member."

Sunday, September 19, 2010

walk to my house

i am not inside my house, walk to it anyway, open the purple curtain

behind the purple curtain someone is making pie

it will be a delicious pie when it is sursurrated hard and long against the open sweetness of your bald throat, sure

so have some of the pie

come back when i am tired and i might be actually inside the house, i will be warm

i will negate you for your asking for the warmth of me also but i will give it, it is not a warm warm, it is a sash

it is the longest sash anyone inside this country with a shirt has ever put across his left breast laughing in this year, this is a thing you can believe

there are many things you might believe about the color of the circuit system above your heart's mash, but this is a mistake, it is not a mistake i'd prefer to correct in you most likely as when it becomes correct you might have something sharp to say

i don't need the sharpness, or the knocking, or your food or any shirts

there will be a great circus that comes to town soon, surely, and when that comes you will be an ash inside the the ash, blur thrown by the circus friendlies for a great gnashing when their teeth respond in tandem to the color of your maximizing flesh exposed to rain

all this rain i ate might make me heavy someday but i am done with that

i have the surface area divider on lend from koresh and judson

i have the box

come back here to the house and look again

come back and ask a question for god if you have the fuckmaster cojones, which you don't

"no god"

"no god"
blah blah blah beckett blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah beckett blah blah blah blah blah blah

Saturday, September 18, 2010

the remainder of this year in my life belongs to joey f. snordsen, and he alone.

5 Selected Goodreads Reviews of Scorch Atlas

"This was maybe the worst book I've read in five years. The author is trying too hard to be unique, but doesn't have the talent to pull it off. Instead the book ends up feeling adolescent, indulgent and clumsily written." - "Kristen" 1 of 5 stars

"A novel featuring all-new scenes, Scorch Atlas is literature." - "Mickey" 5 of 5 stars

"The prose is quite good, and the premise is interesting, but wow is it ever disgusting. Some of the descriptions were so vile that I could barely make it through the book--and it gets more repulsive as the book goes along. I think the author is talented, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone." - "Sarah" 1 of 5 stars

"It's amazing that a book this poorly written could actually get published . . . These stories read like a bad imitation of Samuel Becket. Artsy, self-indulgent, pretentious, and just really, really bad. The kind of stuff I used to read and make fun of in my undergraduate writing workshops. Wish I could give this one less than one star." - "Lee" 1 of 5 stars

"Makes the characters from The Road look like a bunch of pussweeds." - "Andrew" 5 of 5 stars

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

"In polite stories the world had been made acquainted with the picturesque lives of these commonplace but worthy people. In detail their story had been told. Over the precipice in Yosemite the Bridal Veil Falls had been launching its water for a thousand years and ignorance was fattening his belly apace."

William Carlos Williams, The Great American Novel, 1923

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

SCORCH ATLAS BIRTHDAY DESTROY CONTEST

via Featherproof, on the forthcoming 1 year anniversary of the book:

Once upon 2009 we decided, since Scorch Atlas was a destructive force, to offer destroyed copies on pre-sale, to the brave few who would let us mangle their copy. That looked like this:

Scorch Atlas (destroyed) by Blake Butler from featherproof books on Vimeo.



We got a surprising amount of requests for mutilated books, and happily complied. Blake was so happy he got hungry and started to eat the book. That looked like this:

Blake Butler eats Page 1 of Scorch Atlas from blake butler on Vimeo.



Despite a few protests from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Everything, the idea spread. Mike Kitchell exploded one:



Sean Lovelace shot some arrows at one:



And it became clear. The only way to truly finish Scorch Atlas was by destroying your copy. Thus: we propose a new contest. Destroy your copy. Better than any has destroyed before you. Smash it smear it, pepper it with flak, and digest it thoroughly. We want you to do your worst. Also acceptable: creative methods of destruction that don't necessarily destroy the book physically but endanger it, terrify it, or brutalize it. Like humiliating the book in public, or changing the text, or reading it aloud to your grandmother wearing a gas mask.

Post your video to YouTube or Vimeo. Let us know you did so at contest@featherproof.com by September 9th, 2010 (Scorch Atlas's birthday.) Then we'll pick a winner based on criteria of Risk, Bloodlust, Derring-do, Internet research, Smarts, and Pheromones Released.

ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER will receive: the complete featherproof fiction catalog of books, including a signed, first edition (blackened edges) Scorch Atlas, in clean/perfect/mint condition, Ever by Blake Butler, both issues of No Colony, a t-shirt that says 'Knife That', mini-books, Kristina Born's One Hour of Television, stickers, a packet of Blake's hair, a book that Blake loves destroyed just for you, and a drawing he made in his sleep. It sounds like a joke, I know. But this grand prize package is SO NOT A JOKE. It's for real.

FIVE FIRST PRIZE WINNERS will receive a signed, first edition (blackened edges) Scorch Atlas, in clean/perfect/mint condition. To replace the one you mangled.

THE REST OF THE LOSERS just fucked themselves.

Have at it.

Monday, August 16, 2010

issue 7 of The Lifted Brow is out, it has some freakshit, cover my Matthew Furie, words by Diane Williams, Matt Bell, Ryan Call, Jimmy Chen, Brian Evenson, Kim Chinquee, Mike Meginnis, Zachary German, Gabe Durham, Sam Pink, and a shitload of lot other. A section from Ricky's Anus serves as an introduction to the issue.

I don't have anything else to say about fucking life

Thursday, August 12, 2010

small year in Disgaza w/ my seizure
glowdoze slicing the house into what i can fit & can not fit
smaller than a life coach with white hamstrings
the zap will kill one of 11 mimes in me

Sunday, August 8, 2010

my inner black child is exploding

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

today at the home when we came in there were four women singing together in a room full of older people sleeping. they were singing words without music, "oh i want to go home now, but the water is too high, oh i want to go home now." their voices were old and out of tune and strange in the room following my mother to wake my dad who almost never looks up these days from the ground.

later my mom told me that the song was a song one of the women had written and begun singing to herself around the home for weeks. at church sermons in the home on sunday she would sing it instead of hymnals, though on the days outside of church she would steal the tune. in this way others began to pick the song up. now they sing it often in long loops.

later in his own room my father recognized the first thing i've seen him recognize without prodding in the last few times i've seen him, the brief prechorus of an old 60s soul song that goes "oh oh oh." he sang it as if he had been cued to join in, then went back to trying to put the cookie on the floor.

Monday, July 19, 2010

there must be 8 more replicants of 7 to complete the 7 sets of 7 sets of 7 comprising the fourth section of the text which has no beginning and no end

Friday, July 9, 2010

nobody really actually believes anybody else or often listens
many of the things i have loved best i have never even seen
tonight the light coming through the red curtains has it apple-shaded enough to want to bite through, i think of someone's skin, i think of my skin
any hour i don't talk to my mother i am growing very old
though often when i am actually around my mother my skin makes such loud noise i can hardly think
another house
i should probably bite the skin and eat it and digest it, it would birth a set of clothes
i would wear the clothes and go near people, it would stink loud
today at the glass door to the backyard the blue bird from yesterday appeared again he seemed to knock twice i was looking for food
two bananas and various forms of pretzel dipped into wettish substance i read your instructions for how to not want to eat, the worm of slight repetitions under long mind, something stretched in big sound of fire at an asp
in the bathroom i read john cage saying in so many words because there is no message there need not ever be response
the buttons on this machine could find a way to type a message to someone larger than this home i'm sure but i don't have the sight inside me any more this year or i am too smushed or stupid or there is the color of my bones
i don't think i need to be any body ever over numbers, there could exist a perfect mall, another one and i could buy a machine that stitched itself against this one here and sent itself into the center of the lock
the rhyming machine the color machine the ten boxes of brownie mix
my father's ring somewhere hidden in the house unless mom found it, i can't not remember which, i can't not remember if i actually can not remember or if i am willfully allowing disambiguation in the name of saying something more indirectly in the hope that something like a hole or god could find its way into the stupid typing these days do not even demand but more likely give me something i can bend, something worth laughing at in public and ignoring every night now that i have been remaindered now that everyone is grease
can't even remember the last time i saw an insect other than the one i crushed the other night under a soft book
i had not read the book and likely never will

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

the machine in my house won't stop beeping, someone is there
around 4 am i climbed onto the bathroom again and tried to hoist
black shit on my arms, found pieces of the swiffer under my pillow
sometimes there is this weird dark dust on the seat of the toilet
i think i talked to the two men in the guardroom for 15 minutes about god
but they were talking about ladders and i kept trying to close the door
"Here he moved, to and fro, from the door to the window, from the window
to the door; from the window to the door, from the door to the window;
from the fire to the bed, from the bed to the fire; from the bed to the fire,
from the fire to the bed; from the door to the fire, from the fire to the door..."
i need to begin again at something, no food, no light, no speech, no persons outside
get a little longer in your mind's bitch before i come back and there's a darker knob
make a sandwich have a baby bring me the plastic doll i asked for age three to have something to beat the shit from and did not get until it was too late

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

"what we were then each for himself and for the other

glued together like a single body in the dark the mud

how at each instant each ceased and was there no more either for himself or for the other vast tracts of time"

Saturday, June 12, 2010

I had microsoft word summarize the sections I have deleted so far from my nonfiction ms about sleep into 100 words or less, here's what it said:

In my head the light went white. I lay face-up in my bed, the room full of a soft light. The color of all sound. The light contained infinite terror, growing slick up my insides. The light continued. A gone light.
The circuit woke.

The horror of bodies, speech. If the sleepwalker walks through unknown cities then there must also be a language for the people there lit inside the tunnels of the head.

Dern shoots again. The same light. Piano sound. Dern shoots again. Exits.
i have changed my name to joey, please only refer to me as joey from now on if you refer to me which isn't required

pretty much on the desk here there are a few things including a letter from my mother about why her computer does not work and a red marker and a black marker and a chip clip but no chips

i can't stop saying the phrase 'they were eating it up like dowgs' which is something that a now dead person said in one of his several hundred recorded songs. the phrase has learned to override the words coming out of other people too

the other day my mother put her hands on both my sides and said that i looked very thin

i have already this year read more books than i read last year because of the bike machine which by the time i am finished with each session has two huge pools of sweat beneath the parts where my arms are above it during the time i ride on the bike that does not move. many of the people who bike or lift or run will come and wipe down the machines they've touched when they are finish but i don't do that. the other night there was a corner of a piece of velveeta cheese on the concrete it made me sad

i don't like the guard guy who won't ever raise his hand or speak to me no matter how directly i say hello or wave at him, i think he talks to other people fine

i think big boi was grillin out with some of his dudes by our pool the other day, he was turning meat with a large silver thingie

there are games you can make up it is fun when you make up games it is like there was something waiting to be played all this time and you found it just like that

i am conie the sellfish punk but i would rather be conie at the stroke of midnight like my sister is

have you read prunebomb

have you eaten anything great

things are pretty nice if you like them

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

"there is also disappearance, contagion, military murder, telekinetic fire, hurricane, catastrophic subsidence, infant death, mutation, being eaten by animals, oceanic evaporation, suicide, glutinous rain, quicksand topographies made of mud, sky lesions, a massive wall overtaking the earth and total flooding of the landscape... Far from an escape into some sort of monumentalism of destruction, this anti-realistic concentration of ruin perfectly zeroes in on our inveterate inability to actually picture the end, to consider its lobster. It’s in this act then that the true momentous dismay and oppressive compulsion to want to avoid disaster that the inevitability of apocalypse should spirit into us (but doesn’t) is recuperated in the form of an apocalypse of such total immensity it could never come telling us that we risk facing not the impossible but the all too possible."

--- David Rylance, from an essay on my body of work, The Darkest Fits of Light: on dwelling in Blake Butler's de-compositions

Massive thanks to David for this beautiful, generous, and transcendent (beyond myself) text.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

the emotional monologue about speed eating in Taxidermia is the big light

Thursday, May 20, 2010

"Will you forget when I forget / that we are come to that"

Sunday, May 16, 2010

coming up out of the pool water opening my eyes at the same time today i saw my father in a fraction half-deleted standing halfway between me and the house turned profile and much younger with his head down he was wearing all white the gray of the house in partial shade matched exactly the shade of the concrete of the deck and in the instant of his pixel damaged body disappearing again in the shaking off the water from my face skin and my hair it was as if i had become living in a version of the house left otherwise somewhere else which in the lapping level of the water at my chest was the year my mother found me facedown in the deep end and the gray was also on the air

Thursday, May 13, 2010

"A girl who's riding with neither spurs nor stirrups is trying to make her white mare go into the ocean; the mare is shying water is spurting out from all sides under its shaking hoofs among the clear laughs of the Amazon whose body is as sharp and bright as metal, suddenly, what I see, in this shifting light this."

Monday, May 10, 2010

i gave blood to the red cross eleven times today
i drew up a bunch of badges with different names and costumes
the one lady with the cookies recognized me after the 6th giving and wouldn't let me have any more cookies
she winked about the blood part, she had diamond grillz
now i'm emptied out pretty good
i hired a mexican woman to drive me home, her name was portcullis, i shit you not
i'm going to have a baby

Friday, April 30, 2010

Courtney Love's titties

Dazed & Confused Magazine did a page on me in their Jan 2010 issue, the one with Courtney Love's titties in it. Thanks to Tony O'Neill for the props.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

14 rap artists i have been listening to a lot lately + 2 showers

QUASIMOTO how much can you delete i can delete a lot, the way madlib trades verses with himself as quas in shifted pitches hurts my gristle like a good light
GUCCI MANE jumping big rocks in the street even the dogs here will walk out in front of your car like who's this mofucker
BONE THUGS the subs in my car make the metal go like the car is dead inside, it sucks to rolls the windows down cuz it kills that ouch, makes me breathe my air over and over
THREE SIX there are clear castles between the traffic lights, you can go in the stairwells where the bums piss and it's like something rising through you, across the street from that is the sub shop where they give you love for coming in the door
TUPAC even while you get an older body there's the year you drove late in florida and that street wouldn't come back now if you went looking for it but it's out there
BIG BOI don't need a largess need a game machine and someone for sundays, some grits and cheese and a doughnut and a mouth to see it beside
FAT PAT grillin up in the white apartment closet laughin and makin candy out of days that felt like nothing "see a different level of the game fo sho"

most days i take two showers, one when i get up and one covered in sweat
sometimes i combine the two into one

DOOM i would be better off with a set of sweatpants for sure, or a tattoo of the pants along my knee; hide out and make money for your child, even if the child doesn't exist
PROJECT PAT this room could be even smaller than it is, there are never enough cookies, get a houseparty started in your kitchen, sweatpants
Z RO let the game squirt w/o you, show up when it's hot, get a box and take some home
MIKE JONES today my father pulled a black hair out of the pad holding him in his wheelchair and held it up at light, said "we need to make me a dress out of this one"
DIZZEE RASCAL don't leave come back sit on the bed with me smile and let's have cookies and come around or do what you need i want to
BUN B "ain't nothin changed everyday aint nothin chay-ange" the long rhythm of the tree that isn't under this house and the rat that ran wet through here and died so i came home to smell, i don't plan on leaving again lately, it's still small
T.I. the roof on the building i walked into looked like it had been set to the edge with a big bic lighter and clicked and dragged, lunchmeat shaderoof and an erased playground, they had ice cream inside

Saturday, April 17, 2010

this year can eat my #2 pussy
chont dont motherhoue
i am the large as
as wouelad

neighbor scared
she has dog of
she is scared is
i ate 2 doughnuts

margarietas and the nachoe
with chips plus cheese
ran a car
girl looked said go back to friends
girl looked and was a lez

i have nothing for it
i have no dogs
dead mouse smelled like me

i was going to eat dinner with mom
she was late
she saw my father pushed behind a desk couldnt move
he had teeth still
i am going to not go

hung out with the cat hastings
he didnt want to talk
threw a ball for him to look at
he half ate
he stayed in the stayroom

i left

i have a friend york he's nice
we rode the white van
we disliked similar
and liked similar
there was a mexican band

two doughnuts is trouble
if you are trying to drive and peopple have problems
bithcass neighbor with the blackheaded dog
saw me coming didnt front like she wasnt going inside cuz she saw me
just went on in

cool
good move ill rep it too if i can get my hard shit
tupac is dead
bone is trying
i am dogs
i am tots

no more candy for fuckface

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Where

I am guest editing Everyday Genius for April, have a lot of fun and messed up googa to throw at you, beginning today with Laura Carter. Look on there weekdays this month and words will be there.


Thomas Kendall wrote about reading Scorch Atlas at Transductions, which has become one of my favorite sites. He goes, "Scorch Atlas punches evolution in the kidneys."



going to Houston tomorrow to hang with Gene at the Houston Book Fair, then we ride in a van to the AWP. scheduled a lot of crap in many arenas over a breadth of time, whoops, here's where i will send a body of me:


Thursday, April 8, 2-4pm at Stella's Coffeehaus - Dewclaw w/ a ton of friends, Mike Young, Claire Donato, Dottie Lasky, Matt Salesses, Jen Tynes, Amina Cain, Jac Jemc, Matt Simmons, some other freaks


Event Title #2: Orbiting Salt: A Quarterly West/Western Humanities
Review/Barrelhouse/Versal Reading
Scheduled Day: Thursday, April 8
Scheduled Time: 4:30 PM to 5:45 PM
Scheduled Room: 111 - CCC
w/ Cris Mazza, some other freaks


Thursday, April 8, 2010: 9 PM - A Reading: Northwestern University Press, &Now Books , and Artifice Magazine The Celtic Tavern, 1801 Blake Street, w/ Lance Olsen, Christian Bök, Jeffrey DeShell, Davis Schneiderman, Teresa Carmody, some wildnesses


Event Title #1: Indie Mags: Publishing Outside of MFA Programs and Other
Institutional Support
Scheduled Day: Friday, April 9
Scheduled Time: 12:00 PM to 1:15 PM
Scheduled Room: 108 - CCC
w/ Aaron Burch, J. Wang, some other freaks


friday, at 7pm (maybe 8) at the Skylark:: Featherproof w/ the Featherproof crew Shorts n Shots and some freaks




live it

Friday, March 26, 2010

swordfishies

some sofa opened a can of bacon on me in pretend last nite on the sofa where you used to sit and i would sit on the other sofa and




everyday in the wall on the opposite side of my building a man comes and opens a box and puts abodhfoaiusdofiuasodifuoasiudfoiuasodifuaposidufpoiausdpoifuaposidufpoiausdpofiuasopdifuopaisudfpoiuasopdifuaopisdufopiajsd;ofja;skdjf;lkajsdl;fkja;slkdjfl;kajsd



why am i bothering to pretend i care about anything but tacos today or yesterday and not even tacos but the negative image of them leaving me in the gym room where every night for the past two weeks this kid has come in right after me around 11 pm and turned on the tv as loud as it will go to watch espn while i am on the stationary bike reading a book because i fucked up my ankle kicking the wall in the bathroom out of terror even if that's not really what i did

with the tv on and running my muscles there are two sets of words

i can place the brain on one or the other mostly and sometimes there are whole walls that get made

the kid always comes in before and leaves after me

the other night another guy told me not to drink the water from the cooler because there is black mold in the spigot, i have been drinking the water every day for as long as i can remember since we moved back in, except for the weeks they blocked the gym to do landscaping though i never saw anybody doing any work

that one night there was the naked woman having pictures taken of her in the window and i was walking past below and i did not stop even when she had her hand on the glass between us and was smiling

when i came back after exercise she was gone

i know i went and stood a second near the brick beside the pool and there wasn't any smell

the night we had to leave and go see a movie because the a/c broke

yellow undertone of bathroom light that isn't really a color at all




you took one mirror i kept the other
please come get mine
or bring yours back





boy aphex twin mostly sucks
but a lot of people still have him on their computers





not going to say anything else about anything else except the crap ringing my ears from the blue earstopper things i got from jamie's wife that block out so much sound, it's like sleeping in someone's armpit, i still haven't washed the sheets since the last day your stuff was all over the floor

the color of the floor is dark enough that when you scratch it it really shows

in the ice machine there is one huge crag of ice that almost all the cubes that come out stick to, and then there are the dozen or so cubes that hang out around and underneath that and are easy to pick up and use to cool a drink

i bought three kinds of soft drink last time i was at the grocery but two of them have caffeine though they did not seem to have caffeine when i bought them so now there's only one kind i feel ok enough about to drink at night, and i still don't stay home in the day, so






the neighbor's dog started barking again
i guess she took off the machine that squirts it
in the face when it makes noise

in bed i think about cutting a hole into her apartment
so i can go sit beside the dog and look into his mouth
when the other neighbor lived there for a while i thought
he was making meth in the bathtub and maybe the station might blow up
that was before the tornado hit the building and after that you moved in
i'd put an official count here of the number of days
but i have no ideas

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Joyland published the first to exist excerpt from Ricky's Anus. It's from somewhere near the end of the first third of the book. Don't know what else to say.


Yesterday was probably a benchmark in my life and i barely went outside

I got some new popsicles tho

Thursday, March 18, 2010

"That’s right, wordshit, bury me, avalanche, and let there be no more talk of any creature, nor of a world to leave, nor of a world to reach, in order to have done, with worlds, with creatures, with words, with misery, misery."

Sunday, March 7, 2010

shitdick central

no one was what god is what god is what god is
gos god is gog gog is gods godds is is is is is is i
looked in the window of the window and the window was
was was window was was i looked looked hard and
and was window where was i am no one was anything to me
there there i was
look at the window of i i am am am am i was is is is is
i could have seen you so hard
could have licked that where the ice
and the time was
was
was
was
was
nothing looked long enough in eyes
in eyes of god of gos of no one looking
eating ashing crud of mother of the shit
cried in a bar this night at someone saying go off
for wanting to die when
when when was was was was was wwas was was
i don't have the wherewithall to be the person i know i am
i have the no door in the ass
i can't even say hi to the one room
saying
saying
saying hello saying hi or no
the smell of my clothes the touch of half legs halving
having nowhere to know for dinner
wads of say

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

bopdump

The Believer has shortlisted Scorch Atlas for their Believer Book Award, up with 4 superfreaks, wow, feels really nice.

The new issue is the film issue and is repping a new Heather Christle poem as well! Boom Heather!



Susan Tomaselli interview me at 3 AM, about Scorch Atlas, what destruction is, Beckett, my insomnia book, The Black Gazebo, editing, and other.




Foot is kind of fucked, not sure how but have been limping for two weeks. Switched to stationary bike in the meantime, which is actually giving good results in change of moves. Also able to read fatter books in the process there, about halfway now through Joshua Cohen's Witz, which is just something I've been waiting for for a long time, and delivers even more than I expected. Review forthcoming.




The 2nd issue of Gigantic is out, and I have a list in it, along with a slew of amazing others. The design on this issue is just insanely nice and new. $7 is unbeatable. They are doing it right.




Problemz this week.
Ok.


Come watch Dorothea Lasky read live tonight at HTMLGIANT, 9 PM Eastern. Her new forthcoming book Black Life is just gorgeous, and power.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Western schools

12/17/09 Mike Kitchell typed: "i’ll make a video of myself setting a copy of scorch atlas on fire amid the snowy landscape of northern illinois after i finish reading it if you send me a copy to read"

12/18/09 I put book in mail

3/28/10



3/28/10 Anyone else interested in reading/burning/filming please inquire

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Jobs by Steve Jobs

900% of persons appearing are to be appeareing ierjeirj aij jijijijijijijijiijijij

800% of persons sodijoidjroaijsdkfjaskdjfakjsdfkjal sjdkfjalskdjlf ajslkdjfa

700% of any persons who have done the talk

600% fhisdfioasjdofijaosidjflakjsdlfkjasldkjf;askjdf;lkjas;ldkjf;alksjd;fkja;lskjdf;lkjas;kd f;ajsdl;kf jal;skjdfl;akjs ;dlkfj;alk sjl;kfja;dskjf;l kajsdlkfja;lksjdf;ljasd

500% give back any inch you had planned to give back to give back to

90ei990ir9iapoipofkpajsdfkijasjdfl;ajsl;krjl;kj% is peraaeirjlkajsdlfk alksjdfl kajsldkfjlaksjdf;lkjal; skjdlfk ;laksjdkfl jal;ksjdflkj

Let's have a walk to the Tunica

2222222 ni ininnni ninnninn ninin KA ka ca cacacacacacacaca


Barrettes in the bareijarlkjs lkdjf a;lkjds; kjas;lkdjf;lkajsdlk
Batons in jiafjd oiajfo;ijsa odj;fojah;sldjf;lajsl;kjd lkjasldkjflkajsdlkfj kj
Badges for aoils aj oil will have dinner if
Beebees for BB
Baabaablacksheep if you alihjsdl fjao shofhaojdhf;oahjsd;ljf;lajsld;kjf
Hornbucket
Past person

#11 diuretic stimulus pancreatic dementia sundowner tablet box

Today I watched my dad pour OJ on cereal, he said it was good
The cereal went in the fridge
Still haven't found the OJ


Easy click kat no hello no buybybybye
Instant message

Instance messagedgdafsdf aspoidu foaisd;oifjaso djfha;s hdf;ljha s;ljdhf; lajs;ldfj ;lajshd ;jfha; sdjhfkajs
dpfia
s[odkf
a[sd
f[as
df
asdf[

p
[;
][;
P#
${#$P$
#

$#
$
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#
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#
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#
#



port authority panbeep

box o babs

boods if u r r r rrrrrr rice



the letter e


the letter e



ajdfiua osiduhf oahjsdo;fha;osdhf;oah;osidhf ;aoihsjd;oifj
osdi
foais
dpofi
a9er8t9ri9 ur9u iu iuj
iu
apoudpifua
pisoduf
poiju

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

-----*&&*

being home is good. feel kind of like a moron a lot. had a good time out west though. saw some people i'd known a long time and never met, relaxed, ate food, ate mexican food every day but one, played live cards for the first time in more than a year and won $, spent $ at powell's which was a very nice store, spent 4 hours at city lights and bought nothing on purpose, had a car campout, petted simmons's cat who i liked even though i couldn't breathe him, talked some, slept some, didn't drink that much, liked the west coast feel.

jamie blogged about an odd thing that happened on our flight to san francisco.

i probably won't be going anywhere for a while.



while i was out Molly Templeton wrote a review of Scorch Atlas for the Eugene Weekly that is very excellent and kind indeed: "I think I fear it — its relentless and overwhelming vision, and the power Butler has to drill a hole in my chest with language. But Butler’s strange masterpiece doesn’t ask for your love. It demands your attention."

Nicolle Elizabeth wrote a review for The Brooklyn Rail that is also very kind: "Performing as an ashen, crumbling work in our hands, the work urges us to push forward before it—and we—turn to dust."





having returned home i am on a new regimen. no drinking, except special occasions, which was pretty much true anyway. running 7 miles at least 4 days a week and 3.5 miles the other three days. reading a lot. putting final edits on this novel, very close i think. more sleep book work and beginning a collaborative project that is very exciting and that will stay quiet for now, except to say it is with two people i admire massively.










something something fuck it

Monday, February 1, 2010

pear-0ae9ra04

A chapter from my completed-last-year novel-in-waiting, Decade, appears in the new issue of Redivider. It's the first long section of the book to be published, maybe the only. There's some weird typographic layout shit going on in it, which looks nice in the Redivider style. There are at least 5 voices going on at various times. It is called, "Our Anniversary, Repeated." Thanks to Brooks Sterritt and Matt Salesses for the time.

Michael Kimball, Dan Chaon, and many other excellents also appear.




A week from today Jamie Iredell and I are going to the west coast for a brief-ish trip, doing some readings.

Here are dates:

February 8 - SAN FRANCISCO - Dogeared Books 630PM w/ Meg Pokrass
February 9 - SAN FRANCISCO - tba
February 10 - RENO - some college I forgot to ask Jamie
February 11 - RENO - something else I forgot to ask Jamie
February 12 - EUGENE - Live Lit West 4. 6:00-6:45 at Tsunami Books on Willamette St.
February 13 - SEATTLE - Neptune Coffee 7PM


Hey, shitty job putting dates up Blake. I know.

Hey, shitty we aren't going to L.A. or Spokane or Portland, dude. I know.

We will stop in Portland for a lil though for sure, and hang out.

If you are around these places come out, or email me or something?

We are probably going to be thrown into a squat of pioaer.















um, editing editing editing
hide hide hide
life

Thursday, January 28, 2010

&&@@@(((@@@(((((((((((

crod in the box
box dad
dad was a weeblo before me in the same cult
cutting little ones for strip bars
eating dice
i am hungrier when u r
when u u would have
hey
hey i am seven dollars short of a biggurl pony to take away
america is the best
of the best of the weeblos when we eat those cakes shaped like trees
that aren't trees but have lights on them also
shit
you shouldn't say crod in the box when you are a box dad
and will never have a son
except to go to clubs with
throwing animals out of the way to get to the big door
the bigger door than that

Monday, January 25, 2010

OO#r9u89

fine tuning this novel is making me dizzy. near the end of turning in a draft. i think it is called The Black Gazebo.

in the editing and fine tuning it is gathering some kind of exponential gathering i had only guessed in knowing as make, it is funny to stare and sudden click after many peerings




read this past weekend in Ann Arbor for the kickoff of Great Lakes Great Times reading series with Brian Evenson and Joanna Howard. was very calm and nice and good, good crowd, felt exciting

the first night i had nachos. the second night Brian ordered nachos and i felt glad




i am reading Wayne Koestenbaum's biography of Andy Warhol, called Andy Warhol, which is really interesting. i didn't know Warhol had made an early adaptation of A Clockwork Orange where his worker Gerard plays Alex and is subjected to drugs, actual drugs, during the treatment, a torture scene of sorts. i don't know where if anywhere you can find this

oh, it's called Vinyl. it's on youtube. there. not that cool. don't watch it. just think of what you think it could have been.


last night I watched the movie Sugar, it's probably the closest thing I've seen to a film version of Ever, at least in parts, though there is murder in it. it's a woman locked in her apartment. it's worth seeing, some amazing tactile scenes



very nice review of Ever by Angela Stubbs at The Collagist, thank you Angela and Matt







listening to Acid in the Style of David Tudor a lot, especially while editing, it makes me feel itccccccccccccc

c



ccc
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc


# version too many times to give a dingdong





days measured in days

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Ujdjjjjdjj

Dash Snow freaks me






Crackshit on Vice with Gian and Ken




At 31 today, still feels nice to hear my mother say she doesn't know what she'd do without me

At 31 I feel ahead of where I'd planned to be and that is nice

I am thankful, could always be more thankful




My father said something else today to me that I know I won't forget, pointing at himself, the room, the backyard




Ever bestselling fiction of 2009 top 25




Sitting in this particular chair makes my head spin






New Sleepingfish has massive amounts of great, a piece of what is i think a companion to Ever, a draft here somewhere

thankful for Derek and people like him who continually give and make




the new John D'Agata book is beautiful and new





Creative Loafing listed my HP novel as among most anticipated of 2010, the working title they have there is not the final title










Depeche Mode






margaritas






sorry

Thursday, January 7, 2010

MURRRRMLANNAMURRRRRRRRRRMAMAAAA

"Sourcebook" (from Tyrant 7) is published now at Vice

it is long, but maybe the story length thing i am most happy with of mine

it has an illustration by Atticus Lish, thanks to the Tyrant

it has more eating in it also

eating



i don't know what else

Monday, January 4, 2010

" "

TABLE 1
Most Commonly Used Torture Methods Applied to Victims
Seen at the Danish Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims

Physical Torture

Beating, kicking, punching (with fists, rifle butts or truncheons)
Electricity (via cattle prods, pointed electrodes or metal bed frame to
which victim is strapped).
Burning with cigarettes, hot oil or acid
Submersion of the head in water until partial asphyxiation occurs (also called "submarino" or banera".)
Forced positions
Prolonged standing
Rape and other sexual assaults with foreign objects
Cold exposure
Dental torture
Repeated blows to the ears rupturing the tympanic membranes (also called "telefono").


Psychological Torture

Witnessing torture of others
Sham executions
Sleep deprivation
Continuous exposure to bright light or noise
Solitary confinement
Total sensory deprivation
Threats






------







Kevin Sampsell incluced EVER on his 9 Best from Small Publishers of 2009. Thanks Kevin.

Flavorwire goed that i'm a hipster

i have a profile in the new issue of Dazed and Confused, courtney loves shows her tits in it too or whatnot



i hate ringing phones
i see email and see it




trying