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
Showing posts with label awp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awp. Show all posts
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Monday, February 16, 2009
discombobulated attempt to recall becoming discombobulated
1. On plane to Chicago sat next to Indian dude who started singing after we took off: atonal and associative moaning, he didn't have headphones on, just his mind. He sang 30 minutes of the flight, loud enough to be heard for rows, right in my ear, and was fiddling under his seat most of the time, like looking for a button.
2.1 Seeing Shane Jones step out of the rows of shelves at the bookstore with the lit up face made me light up too. Lots of light.
2.2 Seeing Peter Cole punch Adam Robinson in the brainstem (literally) is probably my #1 image recalled from the whole shit. Adam Robinson I think could walk through a mall of milk and come out looking clean and right. Peter Cole speaks from the heart, and is every bit as rad as I had thought. I really like the looks Adam gets on his face.
3. Chicago, do you realize the gift that are those Mexican dudes coming in the night with the coolers full of tamales? I seriously said aloud, "I am hungry I need food" and he appeared. And he appeared again the next night. And he appeared again the next night. Zach Dodson was right, the cheese ones are the ones.
4. Zach and Allison were kind enough to put me up in their lovely home, which on Saturday night resulted in my returning at 4 am (thank god Daniel Bailey had been with me or I would have gotten lost in the city, plus I would not have bought that drunk sandwich from those rude 7-11 dudes). Zach smiles even when woken from his sleep. He's just that cool.
5. Came half an impulse away from barnstorming over the stage with Amelia Gray at the end of 1 of 47 readings I attended: usually ending with poems about pussy is rad, especially when girls are reading, but 'real talk' almost got us exploded. I am really excited about Amelia's AM/PM, you must buy it, Amelia is a total gem.
6. Was still drunk when I woke up Friday morning, and floated happily until it began to come down, at which point the benevolent Dave Clapper maybe literally saved my mind handing me two Excedrins from his pockets. The pills both had an E on them in my palm they read EE which I think washed down with a swig of a water bottle handed to me by EE (+ Aaron, which means Aaron must also have been contained within the pills)
7. Drinking from Conor Madigan's cold homemade vodka from a mason jar (Deaths Door Spirits) got me drunk in like two slugs, and in floating way. That vodka seriously is something else.
8. If I could have more daily doses of conversation with Dan Wickett I am certain I would become that much more efficient, fine, and pleased. I also feel this way about Matt Bell. If you recorded their car conversations from MI to Chicago and back, you might have an audio handbook to 'good job.'
9. I think I managed to stay drunk enough the whole time that I never talked like the awkward goober that I often can be around new people. Evidence of any talking goober is appreciated. I do vaguely remember being sloshed enough to pound the table and etc after Quickies while talking to David McClendon, who is a true true man. His presence helped assuage the miss of Peter Markus, whose sinus infection I dedicated my reading to, and Derek across seas.
10. Buying the $80 bottle of tequila with Gene Morgan probably saved my head from being complete sauce the next morning, though it definitely was enough to wash me into supposedly needing three people to hold me up while I read on the absolutely transcendent El train reading. That was the most fun reading ever, and should be instituted across the nation as the new form. Makes the whole thing an actual experience rather than another sitdown. My main memory of the train ride was trying to punch the train car's ceiling out when Mike Young announced Sam Pink's rise to the mic.
11. Sam fucking Pink = um, Travis Bickle plus your stillborn younger brother plus realest motherfucker you ever met, plus awesome. Drinking $27 beers with him and Gene at Fuckers in the hotel I think I felt the happiest I have felt standing in a chain restaurant with two guys. I need a poster of Gene smiling for in my car. Gene also has a very killer iPod mix.
12. Fuck a book, I am really about to start my rap record: here is a line I made today on twitter: dat mothafucka titty fucked that mothafucka / with da biggest knife you dun eva saw, son / with dat knife knife / with dat goo weed
13. I feel like I aged several years this weekend and also grew several years younger, bringing me back to where I am supposed to be.
14. Those two light up columns with the peoples' heads on them made me want to star in the next sequel of the Neverending Story.
14. God I bought a ton of books. I think I spent $30-50 apiece at the Fence, Action, Dalkey, and FC2 tables each. Plus all the others, though it seems like I didn't even see 1/3rd of the tables. I hardly took anything free. My shoulders are still sore. Between this and my bday and Xmas I have enough to read for 8 years and to also build a small paper extension onto my house.
15.1 I think people were stealing No Colonies, which is fine, if they read them or burn them for heat.
16. We did not play poker and we did not eat nachos, which makes me sad. I really wanted to take Sean Lovelace's money. I liked the way Sean talks, especially in cooperation with his hair and runner's sweaters.
17. Did anyone else see the midget woman ('little person') in the motor car? I want to solicit her work. Was I hallucinating?
18. This photo might sum the whole shit up indeed
19. Apparently amidst the tequila I went bonkers and attacked the ice machine and the towel room? I do not recall this. I do not recall either how we got home from the Featherproof release party at all. I believe there was a treehouse and a bloss of canopy involved?
20. My favorite reader at the Fence event was Daniel Borzutsky, whose poem to his mutual fund I think just wins. I read his 'Port Trakl' translation on the airplane home, which was a nice cap for the event: drunken corridors and sectors of people.
21. Lily Hoang is a sweetheart and we finally got to sit down amongst people barnstorming her to talk about the 30 Under 30 anthology, which is shaping up, and is going to be mega.
21.1 Jesse Ball, hidden elsewhere in the city, is one of the easiest people to talk to ever, and simply put, quite magic.
21.2 Today began reading the wonderful Sam Ligon's new book 'Drift and Swerve' chosen from the piles of incoming, which I couldn't be much more excited about
21.3 and the except of Robert Lopez's new novel in the new Willow Springs has made me more excited for 'Kamby Bolongo Mean River,' even after I thought I couldn't be more excited.
21.4 Too many fucking awesome people.
22. Imma go listen to Bun B
2.1 Seeing Shane Jones step out of the rows of shelves at the bookstore with the lit up face made me light up too. Lots of light.
2.2 Seeing Peter Cole punch Adam Robinson in the brainstem (literally) is probably my #1 image recalled from the whole shit. Adam Robinson I think could walk through a mall of milk and come out looking clean and right. Peter Cole speaks from the heart, and is every bit as rad as I had thought. I really like the looks Adam gets on his face.
3. Chicago, do you realize the gift that are those Mexican dudes coming in the night with the coolers full of tamales? I seriously said aloud, "I am hungry I need food" and he appeared. And he appeared again the next night. And he appeared again the next night. Zach Dodson was right, the cheese ones are the ones.
4. Zach and Allison were kind enough to put me up in their lovely home, which on Saturday night resulted in my returning at 4 am (thank god Daniel Bailey had been with me or I would have gotten lost in the city, plus I would not have bought that drunk sandwich from those rude 7-11 dudes). Zach smiles even when woken from his sleep. He's just that cool.
5. Came half an impulse away from barnstorming over the stage with Amelia Gray at the end of 1 of 47 readings I attended: usually ending with poems about pussy is rad, especially when girls are reading, but 'real talk' almost got us exploded. I am really excited about Amelia's AM/PM, you must buy it, Amelia is a total gem.
6. Was still drunk when I woke up Friday morning, and floated happily until it began to come down, at which point the benevolent Dave Clapper maybe literally saved my mind handing me two Excedrins from his pockets. The pills both had an E on them in my palm they read EE which I think washed down with a swig of a water bottle handed to me by EE (+ Aaron, which means Aaron must also have been contained within the pills)
7. Drinking from Conor Madigan's cold homemade vodka from a mason jar (Deaths Door Spirits) got me drunk in like two slugs, and in floating way. That vodka seriously is something else.
8. If I could have more daily doses of conversation with Dan Wickett I am certain I would become that much more efficient, fine, and pleased. I also feel this way about Matt Bell. If you recorded their car conversations from MI to Chicago and back, you might have an audio handbook to 'good job.'
9. I think I managed to stay drunk enough the whole time that I never talked like the awkward goober that I often can be around new people. Evidence of any talking goober is appreciated. I do vaguely remember being sloshed enough to pound the table and etc after Quickies while talking to David McClendon, who is a true true man. His presence helped assuage the miss of Peter Markus, whose sinus infection I dedicated my reading to, and Derek across seas.
10. Buying the $80 bottle of tequila with Gene Morgan probably saved my head from being complete sauce the next morning, though it definitely was enough to wash me into supposedly needing three people to hold me up while I read on the absolutely transcendent El train reading. That was the most fun reading ever, and should be instituted across the nation as the new form. Makes the whole thing an actual experience rather than another sitdown. My main memory of the train ride was trying to punch the train car's ceiling out when Mike Young announced Sam Pink's rise to the mic.
11. Sam fucking Pink = um, Travis Bickle plus your stillborn younger brother plus realest motherfucker you ever met, plus awesome. Drinking $27 beers with him and Gene at Fuckers in the hotel I think I felt the happiest I have felt standing in a chain restaurant with two guys. I need a poster of Gene smiling for in my car. Gene also has a very killer iPod mix.
12. Fuck a book, I am really about to start my rap record: here is a line I made today on twitter: dat mothafucka titty fucked that mothafucka / with da biggest knife you dun eva saw, son / with dat knife knife / with dat goo weed
13. I feel like I aged several years this weekend and also grew several years younger, bringing me back to where I am supposed to be.
14. Those two light up columns with the peoples' heads on them made me want to star in the next sequel of the Neverending Story.
14. God I bought a ton of books. I think I spent $30-50 apiece at the Fence, Action, Dalkey, and FC2 tables each. Plus all the others, though it seems like I didn't even see 1/3rd of the tables. I hardly took anything free. My shoulders are still sore. Between this and my bday and Xmas I have enough to read for 8 years and to also build a small paper extension onto my house.
15.1 I think people were stealing No Colonies, which is fine, if they read them or burn them for heat.
16. We did not play poker and we did not eat nachos, which makes me sad. I really wanted to take Sean Lovelace's money. I liked the way Sean talks, especially in cooperation with his hair and runner's sweaters.
17. Did anyone else see the midget woman ('little person') in the motor car? I want to solicit her work. Was I hallucinating?
18. This photo might sum the whole shit up indeed
19. Apparently amidst the tequila I went bonkers and attacked the ice machine and the towel room? I do not recall this. I do not recall either how we got home from the Featherproof release party at all. I believe there was a treehouse and a bloss of canopy involved?
20. My favorite reader at the Fence event was Daniel Borzutsky, whose poem to his mutual fund I think just wins. I read his 'Port Trakl' translation on the airplane home, which was a nice cap for the event: drunken corridors and sectors of people.
21. Lily Hoang is a sweetheart and we finally got to sit down amongst people barnstorming her to talk about the 30 Under 30 anthology, which is shaping up, and is going to be mega.
21.1 Jesse Ball, hidden elsewhere in the city, is one of the easiest people to talk to ever, and simply put, quite magic.
21.2 Today began reading the wonderful Sam Ligon's new book 'Drift and Swerve' chosen from the piles of incoming, which I couldn't be much more excited about
21.3 and the except of Robert Lopez's new novel in the new Willow Springs has made me more excited for 'Kamby Bolongo Mean River,' even after I thought I couldn't be more excited.
21.4 Too many fucking awesome people.
22. Imma go listen to Bun B
Monday, February 9, 2009
^^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
i am still too tired as fuck to think about thinking about writing about the world of please & thank you that occurred at the chicago: though notes of some sort will be forthcoming. met and resaw and hung with way too many amazing people, each of whom it seemed like i only got to see for seconds, but the best seconds. brain is hiding now, let's talk later
in the meantime, there's been a lot of internet occurrence, here is some:
1. Michael Kimball interviewed me about EVER for elimae
2. I did the Book Notes feature for Largehearted Boy, which is a slightly different version of the soundtrack that came on the CD i sent with EVER (which I may post soon as a download link or something): EVER book notes
3. Didi Menendez interviewed me for Best American Poetry blog
Also, more reviews surfacing of EVER (which I sold out of at AWP on like the 2nd day, fucking awesome, thank you to all who did the touch):
pr's husband @ HTMLGiant: 'In a hole, filling a hole with holes. Sylvia Plath starving in a crawlspace, stoned on anti-psychotics.'
Adam Coates @ Internettle: 'ever is atmospheric'
Evelyn Hampton @ Lisp Service: 'What really comes out are sentences, perfectly formed and capable of nesting in your syntax for however long.'
The new issue of Action Yes is fucking transcendent.
Too much more to say right now, I'm going to have to come back later, I can still feel the liquor in my teethhhhhh.
I have heard there are lots of pictures floating around, including some from the absolutely transcendent el train reading which my throat is still sore from, but for now here is me looking hungover on my way to redrunk with two of the realest wonders you could ever meet:
as well, here quizzical with Christy Call (most smiles ever, and also a wonder) and Gene Morgan (AKA the 1 man funparty and megabrother for life):
in the meantime, there's been a lot of internet occurrence, here is some:
1. Michael Kimball interviewed me about EVER for elimae
2. I did the Book Notes feature for Largehearted Boy, which is a slightly different version of the soundtrack that came on the CD i sent with EVER (which I may post soon as a download link or something): EVER book notes
3. Didi Menendez interviewed me for Best American Poetry blog
Also, more reviews surfacing of EVER (which I sold out of at AWP on like the 2nd day, fucking awesome, thank you to all who did the touch):
pr's husband @ HTMLGiant: 'In a hole, filling a hole with holes. Sylvia Plath starving in a crawlspace, stoned on anti-psychotics.'
Adam Coates @ Internettle: 'ever is atmospheric'
Evelyn Hampton @ Lisp Service: 'What really comes out are sentences, perfectly formed and capable of nesting in your syntax for however long.'
The new issue of Action Yes is fucking transcendent.
Too much more to say right now, I'm going to have to come back later, I can still feel the liquor in my teethhhhhh.
I have heard there are lots of pictures floating around, including some from the absolutely transcendent el train reading which my throat is still sore from, but for now here is me looking hungover on my way to redrunk with two of the realest wonders you could ever meet:
as well, here quizzical with Christy Call (most smiles ever, and also a wonder) and Gene Morgan (AKA the 1 man funparty and megabrother for life):
Sunday, February 8, 2009
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
More Ever reviewings(s):
John Dermot Woods: 'Ever asks you to vacate your seat - your room - your house - your place, and then it takes that place and wraps it around you really tight and makes you breathe in the darkest, mustiest parts of it that you usually avoid when your room is your room and then it yanks it away from you so fast that you’re bare in the cold and want to be covered again by anything, even if it stinks.' (full review includes an awesome drawing John did in response to one of the text sections)
Jimmy Chen @ HTMLGiant: 'a kind of timeless consciousness that is, remarkably and/or ironically, very relevant to a particular time: now' plus comparisons to Beuys & Beckett & a note on Ever as hermaphrodite. MMMM.
Valerie O'Riordan: 'heart-wrenching and difficult and dense and brilliant'
In one negative review I've gotten, the old man with the British accent at my work looked at the book for a while then put it back on the desk and said he'd give anyone who could get through the book a dollar.
The Atlanta leg of EVER release party went down on Friday really wonderfully, it was packed out and full of so many friends. A surprise and wonderful to have everyone come out in hometown on a Friday night. Jamie Iredell's reading from his 'Atlanta' chapbook was awesome as always, as was the music and drankin. Rad.
Quite excited too still for the March 5th release at Word Bookstore in Brooklyn with Gary Lutz and Robert Lopez. Derek White is flying in from Nairobi, no shitt. Make a plan!
Bunch more readings in Boston, Providence (2x), Northampton and etc are forthcoming.
Including... Wednesday at AWP for Orange Alert:
Thursday at AWP for Quickies:
and Friday at AWP with these insane freaks:
which includes a live reading and short play on the train on the way to the reading.
Come out to 1 or more if you can!
I am going to buy a snakeskin jumpsuit for myself for this week to keep the blood sopped up inside me.
One of my favorite online journals has a new edition: Apocryphal Text
My long review of Brian Evenson's LAST DAYS
Didi Menendez is blogging this week at Best American Poetry blog &, being the saint she is, she interviewed me for a post that will be up in the next few days. Being 1 of 3 she interviewed (next to Ron Silliman and Bob Hicok) is pretty funny and awesome. Didi rules.
Be sure to check out the new issue of OCHO guest edited by Miguel Murphy.
NO COLONY 002 is in hands and I am beginning to pack orders and contrib copies today. For those I already know will be at AWP I will likely hold onto your copies and lick your chest when I see you and stick the book to it there, if is okay. Otherwise hopefully I can get them all out before flying out on Wednesday.
This week is going to be a dog in a blender in the best of all ways.
John Dermot Woods: 'Ever asks you to vacate your seat - your room - your house - your place, and then it takes that place and wraps it around you really tight and makes you breathe in the darkest, mustiest parts of it that you usually avoid when your room is your room and then it yanks it away from you so fast that you’re bare in the cold and want to be covered again by anything, even if it stinks.' (full review includes an awesome drawing John did in response to one of the text sections)
Jimmy Chen @ HTMLGiant: 'a kind of timeless consciousness that is, remarkably and/or ironically, very relevant to a particular time: now' plus comparisons to Beuys & Beckett & a note on Ever as hermaphrodite. MMMM.
Valerie O'Riordan: 'heart-wrenching and difficult and dense and brilliant'
In one negative review I've gotten, the old man with the British accent at my work looked at the book for a while then put it back on the desk and said he'd give anyone who could get through the book a dollar.
The Atlanta leg of EVER release party went down on Friday really wonderfully, it was packed out and full of so many friends. A surprise and wonderful to have everyone come out in hometown on a Friday night. Jamie Iredell's reading from his 'Atlanta' chapbook was awesome as always, as was the music and drankin. Rad.
Quite excited too still for the March 5th release at Word Bookstore in Brooklyn with Gary Lutz and Robert Lopez. Derek White is flying in from Nairobi, no shitt. Make a plan!
Bunch more readings in Boston, Providence (2x), Northampton and etc are forthcoming.
Including... Wednesday at AWP for Orange Alert:
Thursday at AWP for Quickies:
and Friday at AWP with these insane freaks:
which includes a live reading and short play on the train on the way to the reading.
Come out to 1 or more if you can!
I am going to buy a snakeskin jumpsuit for myself for this week to keep the blood sopped up inside me.
One of my favorite online journals has a new edition: Apocryphal Text
My long review of Brian Evenson's LAST DAYS
Didi Menendez is blogging this week at Best American Poetry blog &, being the saint she is, she interviewed me for a post that will be up in the next few days. Being 1 of 3 she interviewed (next to Ron Silliman and Bob Hicok) is pretty funny and awesome. Didi rules.
Be sure to check out the new issue of OCHO guest edited by Miguel Murphy.
NO COLONY 002 is in hands and I am beginning to pack orders and contrib copies today. For those I already know will be at AWP I will likely hold onto your copies and lick your chest when I see you and stick the book to it there, if is okay. Otherwise hopefully I can get them all out before flying out on Wednesday.
This week is going to be a dog in a blender in the best of all ways.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
RR R R RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR R R RRRRRRRR R RRRRRRR RRRR RRRRR RR RRRRRRRR RRRR R RRRRRR R RRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRR
I interviewed Jesse Ball for Bookslut. I love what Jesse says. If I haven't mentioned it enough, everyone with an interest in interesting new fiction should read The Way Through Doors. It is magic. More on that in my Believer review which will be out in May.
Sean Lovelace wrote a long and very kind review of EVER on his blog, including photo representations of selected sentences. This is the kind of review you write for.
If I don't stop bumping my arms and legs and other errant appendages on shit accidentally several times a day I am going to (a) be a very sore and bruised old man and/or (b) slit my face.
Finished reading Zizek's 'Violence' last night: it feels really good to be reading philosophical documents again after so long. This one in particular is fun and constantly packed with ruminations that continue to build. The last chapter on 'divine violence' is something I would hand out to a writing class: it discusses the manners by which applying meaning or intending meaning in a text or other artwork becomes both ridiculous and obscene. He quotes a passage from G.K. Chesterton which comes down to the idea that people want to applying meaning to ideas because what they are truly afraid of is a four word phrase: "He was made Man."
Last night I began reading 'Finnegans Wake' via a page or two before bed. I have had this book for so long and never more than flipped to random sections, but my amazement last night at staring at the pure iconography and gibberish invention and the sheer blocks of new inch by inch throughout made me decide I will require this injection. If anyone wants to join me in the reading you can do 3 pages tonight and then we will go forth on the 1 by 1s.
Secret Chiefs 3 playing a John Zorn Masada songbook = the way Zorn is meant to be played. Forgot about this one for a while but am in the enjoyment hemisphere again.
I hope this person who has mistaken my email for 'Troy's' email, and who keeps text messaging me from her cell phone, keeps it up. It is becoming a motivator of light. The last msg, from yesterday evening:
Subject: Hoe I tried to call
Hoe I tried to call u back and it went to voicemal.
-i.love.troy.*
No Colony is sharing table 673 with Publishing Genius and NOO Journal at AWP next week (next week?). Dang. Come do a look.
Issue 002 has just arrived and will be going to out to purchasers on the jump tip.
Sean Lovelace wrote a long and very kind review of EVER on his blog, including photo representations of selected sentences. This is the kind of review you write for.
If I don't stop bumping my arms and legs and other errant appendages on shit accidentally several times a day I am going to (a) be a very sore and bruised old man and/or (b) slit my face.
Finished reading Zizek's 'Violence' last night: it feels really good to be reading philosophical documents again after so long. This one in particular is fun and constantly packed with ruminations that continue to build. The last chapter on 'divine violence' is something I would hand out to a writing class: it discusses the manners by which applying meaning or intending meaning in a text or other artwork becomes both ridiculous and obscene. He quotes a passage from G.K. Chesterton which comes down to the idea that people want to applying meaning to ideas because what they are truly afraid of is a four word phrase: "He was made Man."
Last night I began reading 'Finnegans Wake' via a page or two before bed. I have had this book for so long and never more than flipped to random sections, but my amazement last night at staring at the pure iconography and gibberish invention and the sheer blocks of new inch by inch throughout made me decide I will require this injection. If anyone wants to join me in the reading you can do 3 pages tonight and then we will go forth on the 1 by 1s.
Secret Chiefs 3 playing a John Zorn Masada songbook = the way Zorn is meant to be played. Forgot about this one for a while but am in the enjoyment hemisphere again.
I hope this person who has mistaken my email for 'Troy's' email, and who keeps text messaging me from her cell phone, keeps it up. It is becoming a motivator of light. The last msg, from yesterday evening:
Subject: Hoe I tried to call
Hoe I tried to call u back and it went to voicemal.
-i.love.troy.*
No Colony is sharing table 673 with Publishing Genius and NOO Journal at AWP next week (next week?). Dang. Come do a look.
Issue 002 has just arrived and will be going to out to purchasers on the jump tip.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
'I celebrate his entire catalog'
Got contributor copies of the new HARPUR PALATE today, they printed my story TOUR OF THE DROWNED NEIGHBORHOOD, another from SCORCH ATLAS, using caps makes UNIT ACHE in a good way. The issue's gots good folks like T.J. Forrester, Jacob Appel, Denise Duhamel, a lot of new names to me, new names, my eyes are, mm, this is the story that FAULTLINE tried to BOINK IN THE REAR and yet here it is printed INTACT AND FULL DELICIOUSLESSNESSLY. IT'S FOR SALE NOW.
I started a new novel two days ago, it is called RICKY'S ANUS, it is about Ricky and his body parts and his mother and his mother's house. It is aggressive in tone and mostly of dream logic and nasty emo violence and it is probably already on the verge of if not completely unpublishable in a normative sense except by someone of grand vision, though it has narrative and is very sexy, I don't care. I am already having the most fun writing I have had in years writing this thing, making yourself laugh is good, for more than a week I had just been sitting staring at the keyboard wanting to throw up on it and now I am throwing up into it, but it feels like new throw up and anyway it is making my eyes bulge, RICKY'S ANUS is going to explode, I like to talk out loud to myself about RICKY'S ANUS, I feel good about it, it fulfills what Wallace was calling for in his essay THE NATURE OF THE FUN, to write from a place that you enjoy, because that is why you started writing in the first place, thank you brother Markus for reminding me to reread that essay.
It is a long way in the future, but I am going to be reading at the Quickies! reading series in Chicago on February 12 during AWP, with Peter Markus (thank you again P), Robert Lopez, Brian Evenson, Kim Chinquee, and Janet Desaulniers. I will wear my pee pants to that one, I will be crying in my under life before I get there and going apeshit in my banana yard as I pretend I have any business among all that wonder.
Looks like No Colony is going to have an AWP table split with NOO Journal and Publishing Genius, we are getting our dunk tank together and a couple of shorties to shred black metal riffs on pedestals behind our table, if not that then at least we will be loud and drunk and have something sickening happening, I suggested to Adam Robinson I dress up as Gordon Lish and sign books and Adam said he would dress up as Ray Carver and sign books and I could cross out his signature and make mine on top of it, regardless, we will have our Shenises on (have you seen this shenis?) and things will happen requiring great intestinal fortitude of our aisle mates, who will hopefully be the Paris Review and like Poetry magazine (does Poetry go to that shit, aren't they building a warhead)?
I really like this: Soak Up The Sun by Dmitry Yegorov on elimae.
When will Peter Berghoef have a book the size of my face, I want to read it, Peter B you are smart.
I started a new novel two days ago, it is called RICKY'S ANUS, it is about Ricky and his body parts and his mother and his mother's house. It is aggressive in tone and mostly of dream logic and nasty emo violence and it is probably already on the verge of if not completely unpublishable in a normative sense except by someone of grand vision, though it has narrative and is very sexy, I don't care. I am already having the most fun writing I have had in years writing this thing, making yourself laugh is good, for more than a week I had just been sitting staring at the keyboard wanting to throw up on it and now I am throwing up into it, but it feels like new throw up and anyway it is making my eyes bulge, RICKY'S ANUS is going to explode, I like to talk out loud to myself about RICKY'S ANUS, I feel good about it, it fulfills what Wallace was calling for in his essay THE NATURE OF THE FUN, to write from a place that you enjoy, because that is why you started writing in the first place, thank you brother Markus for reminding me to reread that essay.
It is a long way in the future, but I am going to be reading at the Quickies! reading series in Chicago on February 12 during AWP, with Peter Markus (thank you again P), Robert Lopez, Brian Evenson, Kim Chinquee, and Janet Desaulniers. I will wear my pee pants to that one, I will be crying in my under life before I get there and going apeshit in my banana yard as I pretend I have any business among all that wonder.
Looks like No Colony is going to have an AWP table split with NOO Journal and Publishing Genius, we are getting our dunk tank together and a couple of shorties to shred black metal riffs on pedestals behind our table, if not that then at least we will be loud and drunk and have something sickening happening, I suggested to Adam Robinson I dress up as Gordon Lish and sign books and Adam said he would dress up as Ray Carver and sign books and I could cross out his signature and make mine on top of it, regardless, we will have our Shenises on (have you seen this shenis?) and things will happen requiring great intestinal fortitude of our aisle mates, who will hopefully be the Paris Review and like Poetry magazine (does Poetry go to that shit, aren't they building a warhead)?
I really like this: Soak Up The Sun by Dmitry Yegorov on elimae.
When will Peter Berghoef have a book the size of my face, I want to read it, Peter B you are smart.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
I KICKED RYAN CALL IN THE HEAD
DEREK WHITE wrote a response to Deb Olin Unferth's MINOR ROBBERIES. In it I eat nachos.
It reminded me that I'd started writing a thing about the trip, sort of in response to Ryan Call's thing about the night at AWP.
Here's what I had.
I KICKED RYAN CALL IN THE HEAD
by Blake Butler
1. I was in New York City. I had been there twice before. I get lost easily. I am easy to lose. On Friday I ate a sandwich with brie and apples. Mike Young ate the same sandwich, then he left and I was alone. I was afraid about getting lost. I called some people whose numbers I had in my phone. I walked in the rain. The rain was cold. I wasn't sure where I should go. I went back to the hotel.
2. I called Robert Lopez. He was in a hotel room. He gave me the number. I went up. I walked down a long hall counting the numbers down to the number of the room I was supposed to go to. I went down another hall. I followed signs. I got to the end of the hall and the numbers ended one before the number that I wanted. I went back down the hall the way I came and saw I'd passed the room before and not noticed. I felt lost a little and a little dumb. I knocked on the door. They said, Come in. The door was locked. I waited. Peter Markus came to the door and let me in. I had met Peter Markus earlier that day and liked him. I came into the room and saw Robert Lopez sitting around the bed with Derek White and Sam Ligon and another man I hadn't met before. I shook hands with everyone. I sat on the floor against a desk. Sam Ligon told me I could have a drink if I wanted it. I made a drink with vodka and ginger ale. I sat on the floor and listened to them talk about Gordon Lish and Diane Williams and other writers. I heard a lot of funny stories about Gordon Lish, including one where he was supposedly passing around pornographic photos at a literary reading. I heard stories about other writers. I said things when I felt I knew what I could say. I liked listening to them talking. I had another drink. I had another drink. We went to dinner. After dinner, we went to another bar. I had a beer and we talked some more. We played blackjack and poker for no money. The waitress was Latino. When she wasn't serving tables, she was reading. We talked about what the book might be. I got up and walked past so I could look. The book was by Sister Souljah.
3. After leaving the other group of people, I walked alone to a bar on Times Square to meet Ryan Call. Ryan Call was with some other people I did not know. My phone kept ringing in my pocket. I was supposed to go to Brooklyn to Tao Lin and Justin Taylor's apartment. I invited Ryan Call to come with me and he said he would and I felt better about not getting lost. We left Ryan Call's other friends and went to the subway and found our way to where we were supposed to go without much trouble. When we got off at the correct stop in Brooklyn, I called Kendra Grant Malone. Kendra Grant Malone was watching us from a window. She asked me if I saw the building. I saw the building. We crossed the street. We stood outside the building and waited for to be let in.
5. Justin Taylor came down to let us in. We talked on the way up to his apartment. Inside his apartment there were people standing. There was a girl I did not know standing with another guy I did not know. There was Kendra Grant Malone. Kendra Grant Malone looked happy. Justin Taylor offered me a glass of wine. I began to drink the wine. After I'd had a couple sips of wine Justin Taylor said there was rum and coke the refrigerator. He said I should drink rum and coke. I drank the rest of the wine to make room for rum and coke. I made him a rum and coke also. I drank mine quickly. I never don't drink anything quickly. If I am holding something in my hand that is a beverage I usually drink it within minutes, just as if I am holding food in my hand that is delicious, I will also usually eat it very quickly. I drank two or three rum and cokes in a short time. Justin Taylor and I were talking about Barry Hannah. We were talking about Will Oldham. Ryan Call seemed happy even though he was in a room full of new people. I was glad he seemed comfortable since I had brought him. I did not want him to feel uncomfortable. I asked where Tao Lin was. Someone said he was at the NYU library. I drank another rum and coke.
6. Tao Lin came into the apartment. He walked in and looked around at all the people. He went into another room, I think, and got his computer. Things at this point tend to get ruined. The problem with drinking things very quickly is that you lose track of what you drank and the effect sneaks up on you before you realize. I remember Tao Lin sitting down with his computer. I remember people talking about things, but I don't remember what they were talking about. I remember my voice coming out of me very loud. I have a loud voice and don't pay attention to it, especially when I am drunk. I do not remember the conversation we had while standing around though I do remember asking Tao Lin about his very small computer. I remember checking my Gmail on it quickly. I remember Tao Lin opening my myspace and pointing to the small drawing that represents his profile on myspace. I remember thinking it was funny that we were checking Gmail and myspace at a party. I remember Tao Lin's computer keyboard on my fingers. His keyboard was very small. I remember asking him about buying a small foreign computer on ebay. I remember bananas being thrown, but I do not remember what direction they came from or who did the throwing, only the fact that they'd hurtled through the air. Ryan Call asked Tao Lin if he ran everywhere. Tao Lin said yes. I said, Tao Lin will you show me your room.
7.
(I took a break between writing 6 and 7. In fact it is another day. I drank a lot of coffee earlier today. I am halfway crashing from the coffee.) All of us were in Tao Lin's room then. We were sitting on his bed. It felt cozy sitting on the bed with so many people. The room was rather small. The walls were white and the bed was directly on the floor. There was a small bookcase immediately to the side of the bed. I remember thinking that it was nice that Tao Lin had his books so close to his bed, and that he didn't have that many sitting out. I remember Justin Taylor and I were talking very loud at one another about Barry Hannah. I don't remember anyone else saying anything. I don't remember anything specific Justin or I said. Later I watched a video of Justin Taylor talking about Barry Hannah during this section of time but the video did not have sound. I tried to turn the volume up several times on my computer before I accepted it did not have sound. I wished that it had sound.
8.
I do not remember anything about the time between being in Tao Lin's room and going to bed.
9.
I remember seeing someone open up the sofa in Tao Lin and Justin Taylor's living room. I do not remember seeing who opened the sofa, only that it suddenly was open and I fell into it. I was pleased. I think I remember the light was coming up in the windows a little. It made the room look muted blue. I don't remember if there were blankets. I don't remember saying anything. I remember seeing Ryan Call laying down on the air mattress on the floor below me. I remember him saying something. I remember a bag of broccoli on the counter, but I think I remember that from earlier rather than from now. I do not remember entering the portal lodged between the two largest cushions on the sofabed. I do not remember meeting Anne Frank. I do not remember finding myself inside a dishwasher made of glass. I do not remember kicking Ryan Call in the face. I do not remember fakefucking the sofa. I do not remember Kim Chinquee.
10.
In the morning Tao Lin woke us up. I still felt drunk and very tired. Tao Lin told me I could take a shower in his shower. He said to use the blue soap. He gave me a towel. I went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I talked to myself quietly in the mirror. I don't know what I said, but I remember the way my mouth moved and that I was holding the towel and looking around. There were two kinds of blue soap in the shower. I used the kind that looked most real.
11.
When I came back in the kitchen, Tao Lin asked me if I wanted a smoothie. I said I wanted a smoothie. I thought about how I'd read Tao Lin talking about smoothies and I was glad that he made them as much as it seemed like he did in his writing. I drank the smoothie. It was delicious. I told Tao Lin about the two kinds of blue soap in the shower and he looked at me and laughed. Ryan Call was waking up. He did not tell me I had kicked his head. He did not tell me I had been moving around in my sleep, or about the portal I’d gone into, or how I’d met Anne Frank. Justin Taylor came back into the apartment. He was talking about food. As a group we got ready to go to the Hilton and we walked out of the apartment. On the way to find a taxi I said things I thought of and Tao Lin told me that I'd already said those things before. Throughout the day and later in Ryan Call's email I was told of things I'd said that I did not remember. I thought people were trying to fuck with me, but in a good way. I thought people wanted me to feel dumb.
12.
People were not lying.
It reminded me that I'd started writing a thing about the trip, sort of in response to Ryan Call's thing about the night at AWP.
Here's what I had.
I KICKED RYAN CALL IN THE HEAD
by Blake Butler
1. I was in New York City. I had been there twice before. I get lost easily. I am easy to lose. On Friday I ate a sandwich with brie and apples. Mike Young ate the same sandwich, then he left and I was alone. I was afraid about getting lost. I called some people whose numbers I had in my phone. I walked in the rain. The rain was cold. I wasn't sure where I should go. I went back to the hotel.
2. I called Robert Lopez. He was in a hotel room. He gave me the number. I went up. I walked down a long hall counting the numbers down to the number of the room I was supposed to go to. I went down another hall. I followed signs. I got to the end of the hall and the numbers ended one before the number that I wanted. I went back down the hall the way I came and saw I'd passed the room before and not noticed. I felt lost a little and a little dumb. I knocked on the door. They said, Come in. The door was locked. I waited. Peter Markus came to the door and let me in. I had met Peter Markus earlier that day and liked him. I came into the room and saw Robert Lopez sitting around the bed with Derek White and Sam Ligon and another man I hadn't met before. I shook hands with everyone. I sat on the floor against a desk. Sam Ligon told me I could have a drink if I wanted it. I made a drink with vodka and ginger ale. I sat on the floor and listened to them talk about Gordon Lish and Diane Williams and other writers. I heard a lot of funny stories about Gordon Lish, including one where he was supposedly passing around pornographic photos at a literary reading. I heard stories about other writers. I said things when I felt I knew what I could say. I liked listening to them talking. I had another drink. I had another drink. We went to dinner. After dinner, we went to another bar. I had a beer and we talked some more. We played blackjack and poker for no money. The waitress was Latino. When she wasn't serving tables, she was reading. We talked about what the book might be. I got up and walked past so I could look. The book was by Sister Souljah.
3. After leaving the other group of people, I walked alone to a bar on Times Square to meet Ryan Call. Ryan Call was with some other people I did not know. My phone kept ringing in my pocket. I was supposed to go to Brooklyn to Tao Lin and Justin Taylor's apartment. I invited Ryan Call to come with me and he said he would and I felt better about not getting lost. We left Ryan Call's other friends and went to the subway and found our way to where we were supposed to go without much trouble. When we got off at the correct stop in Brooklyn, I called Kendra Grant Malone. Kendra Grant Malone was watching us from a window. She asked me if I saw the building. I saw the building. We crossed the street. We stood outside the building and waited for to be let in.
5. Justin Taylor came down to let us in. We talked on the way up to his apartment. Inside his apartment there were people standing. There was a girl I did not know standing with another guy I did not know. There was Kendra Grant Malone. Kendra Grant Malone looked happy. Justin Taylor offered me a glass of wine. I began to drink the wine. After I'd had a couple sips of wine Justin Taylor said there was rum and coke the refrigerator. He said I should drink rum and coke. I drank the rest of the wine to make room for rum and coke. I made him a rum and coke also. I drank mine quickly. I never don't drink anything quickly. If I am holding something in my hand that is a beverage I usually drink it within minutes, just as if I am holding food in my hand that is delicious, I will also usually eat it very quickly. I drank two or three rum and cokes in a short time. Justin Taylor and I were talking about Barry Hannah. We were talking about Will Oldham. Ryan Call seemed happy even though he was in a room full of new people. I was glad he seemed comfortable since I had brought him. I did not want him to feel uncomfortable. I asked where Tao Lin was. Someone said he was at the NYU library. I drank another rum and coke.
6. Tao Lin came into the apartment. He walked in and looked around at all the people. He went into another room, I think, and got his computer. Things at this point tend to get ruined. The problem with drinking things very quickly is that you lose track of what you drank and the effect sneaks up on you before you realize. I remember Tao Lin sitting down with his computer. I remember people talking about things, but I don't remember what they were talking about. I remember my voice coming out of me very loud. I have a loud voice and don't pay attention to it, especially when I am drunk. I do not remember the conversation we had while standing around though I do remember asking Tao Lin about his very small computer. I remember checking my Gmail on it quickly. I remember Tao Lin opening my myspace and pointing to the small drawing that represents his profile on myspace. I remember thinking it was funny that we were checking Gmail and myspace at a party. I remember Tao Lin's computer keyboard on my fingers. His keyboard was very small. I remember asking him about buying a small foreign computer on ebay. I remember bananas being thrown, but I do not remember what direction they came from or who did the throwing, only the fact that they'd hurtled through the air. Ryan Call asked Tao Lin if he ran everywhere. Tao Lin said yes. I said, Tao Lin will you show me your room.
7.
(I took a break between writing 6 and 7. In fact it is another day. I drank a lot of coffee earlier today. I am halfway crashing from the coffee.) All of us were in Tao Lin's room then. We were sitting on his bed. It felt cozy sitting on the bed with so many people. The room was rather small. The walls were white and the bed was directly on the floor. There was a small bookcase immediately to the side of the bed. I remember thinking that it was nice that Tao Lin had his books so close to his bed, and that he didn't have that many sitting out. I remember Justin Taylor and I were talking very loud at one another about Barry Hannah. I don't remember anyone else saying anything. I don't remember anything specific Justin or I said. Later I watched a video of Justin Taylor talking about Barry Hannah during this section of time but the video did not have sound. I tried to turn the volume up several times on my computer before I accepted it did not have sound. I wished that it had sound.
8.
I do not remember anything about the time between being in Tao Lin's room and going to bed.
9.
I remember seeing someone open up the sofa in Tao Lin and Justin Taylor's living room. I do not remember seeing who opened the sofa, only that it suddenly was open and I fell into it. I was pleased. I think I remember the light was coming up in the windows a little. It made the room look muted blue. I don't remember if there were blankets. I don't remember saying anything. I remember seeing Ryan Call laying down on the air mattress on the floor below me. I remember him saying something. I remember a bag of broccoli on the counter, but I think I remember that from earlier rather than from now. I do not remember entering the portal lodged between the two largest cushions on the sofabed. I do not remember meeting Anne Frank. I do not remember finding myself inside a dishwasher made of glass. I do not remember kicking Ryan Call in the face. I do not remember fakefucking the sofa. I do not remember Kim Chinquee.
10.
In the morning Tao Lin woke us up. I still felt drunk and very tired. Tao Lin told me I could take a shower in his shower. He said to use the blue soap. He gave me a towel. I went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I talked to myself quietly in the mirror. I don't know what I said, but I remember the way my mouth moved and that I was holding the towel and looking around. There were two kinds of blue soap in the shower. I used the kind that looked most real.
11.
When I came back in the kitchen, Tao Lin asked me if I wanted a smoothie. I said I wanted a smoothie. I thought about how I'd read Tao Lin talking about smoothies and I was glad that he made them as much as it seemed like he did in his writing. I drank the smoothie. It was delicious. I told Tao Lin about the two kinds of blue soap in the shower and he looked at me and laughed. Ryan Call was waking up. He did not tell me I had kicked his head. He did not tell me I had been moving around in my sleep, or about the portal I’d gone into, or how I’d met Anne Frank. Justin Taylor came back into the apartment. He was talking about food. As a group we got ready to go to the Hilton and we walked out of the apartment. On the way to find a taxi I said things I thought of and Tao Lin told me that I'd already said those things before. Throughout the day and later in Ryan Call's email I was told of things I'd said that I did not remember. I thought people were trying to fuck with me, but in a good way. I thought people wanted me to feel dumb.
12.
People were not lying.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
TELL ME A STORY ABOUT FRANCE
I have no idea what that means.
(for more info, see post below post below this post)
(for more info, see post below post below this post)
I just watched a video I made during Friday night AWP drunkenness at Tao and Justin's apartment. I do not remember taking a video. I do not remember taking pictures. I only thought to look in my camera because a picture surfaced of me (I think) humping a sofa where I am holding camera in my hand. There are 14 pictures of us preparing and drinking smoothies. In the video I am screaming at everyone. I am slurring my language so much I sound like a toddler with a lisp. I do not remember saying anything I say (scream) in the video, which includes something along the lines of "This is like that scene in Pulp Fiction, the deleted scene in Pulp Fiction" when I turn around to find Justin videotaping me videotaping. This means I blacked out during the evening. This means I probably said a lot of things I do not recall, even more so than I previously understood. The video gets even more regrettable when I begin beating Mike Young in the face with a plastic machete until he bleeds from one nostril and one eye. I will make a longer post about this experience soon. Maybe tomorrow. Shit. I can't believe I was talking about Pulp Fiction.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Blake Butler Kicked Me In The Head
I don't know. There's not a lot to think today. Even coffee isn't coming on. I watched the movie PERSEPOLIS last night. It was okay. It was too political and less fantastical. I want more fantasy in movies. I am tired of thinking about political intentions. There is very little anyone can do to change what will occur. I don't know what's going on right now. It's as if I'm riding on a blinker. I don't know what a blinker means. I am still reading TORTOISE by James Lewelling. I like the sentences. I am reading slowly. I've read some of the sentences over and over again. I can't keep things straight. I went to Borders a little last night and walked around and picked up books and touched them. This coffee is not goddamned coming on.
Yesterday RYAN CALL sent me a little thing he wrote about Saturday night at AWP. It documents some of what happened that I do not remember. I do not, for instance, remember talking about Kim Chinquee. I do not remember sleep walking and ending up on the floor. I do not remember kicking Ryan Call in the head. This document is a document to help me remember. This document will win Ryan Call the PEN/Faulkner award for prose.
BLAKE BUTLER KICKED ME IN THE HEAD
by Ryan Call
1.
Blake Butler invited me to a party. The party was at someone’s apartment in Brooklyn, so I followed Blake Butler out there to meet people I had read about on the internet. These people have blogs, and e-books, and online literary journals, and real, tiny books, and other writings of that nature. I felt like I knew them like the way you might know a really talkative person who sits behind you in class and says smart things.
2.
At the apartment, I met a person named Justin Taylor and a person named Kendra Grant Malone and a person named Lauren Something, I think, who soon left the apartment with another person whose name I never learned. Blake Butler introduced me to everyone and everyone smiled and seemed very nice. I felt friendly towards everyone, even though I also felt a little anxious at meeting new people.
3.
Someone pointed at the wine bottles on the kitchen counter, so I drank some of the wine, but from a mug that Justin Taylor gave to me. Blake Butler stood next to me and talked to Kendra Grant Malone. Justin Taylor stood on the other side of me to get something to drink, I think. I told Justin Taylor that I liked that symposium he put together on Donald Barthelme, though I probably did not use the word symposium. I probably said thingy. He said thanks back and asked me what I did. I told him I went to the writing program at George Mason University.
4.
Tao Lin came into the apartment and everyone said hello to him and he said hello back. Tao Lin sat on the couch across from the kitchen counter and opened up his computer. He looked at us. He looked at me and said, who are you. I’m Ryan, I said. He nodded and looked back down at his computer.
5.
Justin Taylor said that he had rum in the freezer if anyone wanted it. I did not want to keep drinking wine, nor did I want to drink rum, because I have had bad things happen with rum. I had a flask full of whiskey, so I poured some of that into my cup and got a few ice cubes out of the tray. Blake Butler said that he wanted rum and coke, so he and Justin Taylor made rum and coke for each of them. I think here is where I began to get drunk. And here is where Blake Butler began to get drunk also.
6.
Short list of some authors’ names I heard while I was at this party:
Donald Barthelme
Mazie Louise Montgomery
Ofelia Hunt
Matthew Rohrer
Barry Hannah
Kim Chinquee
7.
I also vaguely remember a discussion about bi-curious girls.
8.
We moved to the couch and people sat down in various places. Blake Butler and Kendra Grant Malone sat on a lounge chair sort of thing to my left. I took Tao Lin’s computer and logged onto my gmail account to check for emails and see who was online. I do not know if I asked Tao Lin if I could use his computer, but I hope he did not mind. His computer was tiny and had a tiny keyboard that gave me trouble when I tried to type words into it. I liked trying to type on it.
9.
I opened a chat window with a friend of mine from college, and I typed:
me: tao is throwing bananas at us.
The bananas came at us end over end. Justin Taylor and Mike Young and I were sitting on the couch. Two bananas hit the couch, I think, but no one got hurt. Or maybe Mike Young showed up later on? I do not know what happened to the bananas, but I think Tao Lin used them to make smoothies for us in the morning? Thank you, Tao Lin, for the smoothies.
10.
Kendra Grant Malone stood up from the chair to go do something, and Blake Butler fell off of the chair. The chair tipped up like a seesaw, and Blake Butler fell onto the floor. His legs stuck out like a pair of scissors. He stayed on the floor for a while. He flailed his sneakers around a bit.
me: yes
blake is givinghigh fiives to people
John: hooray
skin contact
Blake Butler had gotten to his feet and was now giving high fives to everyone. Somewhere in there I finished my whiskey. Blake Butler shouted words at everyone. Much celebration and cheering.
11.
At various points throughout the evening, Tao Lin stood up and ran back to the other parts of the apartment to get shit. I typed:
me: yes
he is mysize
and he runs around the apt
to get sht
shitt
Once he ran to his room and came back to give me a book of his poetry. He dropped it at my feet and then crouched in front of me. I felt a little confused that he was crouching so close to me, but then I realized that he wanted the computer. He must have said that he wanted the computer. I gave it back to him. I felt glad that I was not talking shit online about anyone in the apartment. I congratulated myself for not being an asshole.
You run around a lot, I said to Tao Lin.
12.
We went to Tao Lin’s room and Justin Taylor talked more about Barry Hannah. Blake Butler and Mike Young talked also. Tao Lin video-recorded Kendra Grant Malone sitting on the bed, and then he recorded everyone else. I looked at the drawings and the books near Tao Lin’s bed. I poked a few books with my finger. I did not know what else to do. My head does this thing sometimes when it cannot process information: it either makes me say things uncontrollably, or it makes me not talk. It did that all evening. It made me not talk. I wanted to say something, to say that I felt happy and comfortable sitting there on the floor next to Tao Lin’s bed. I wanted to say that I felt friendly towards everyone. I wanted to join in and say how much I loved Barry Hannah. But I could not. Instead, I picked up a drawing of a face and decided to take it so I could give it to a friend. I asked Tao Lin to write his name on it. I felt nervous about that because maybe I seemed like I had expected a book signing at this apartment instead of a party. I did not want to seem like that person. So I drew a picture in one of Tao Lin’s small notebooks. There, I told myself, now it’s like we traded pictures.
13.
Bedtime. Blake Butler and I slept in the living room. Surprise! The couch unfolded into a bed. Tao Lin gave us pillows and blankets. Tao Lin gave me the air mattress. He turned off the lights, but he left the light on in his room. I sat on the air mattress and opened Tao Lin’s computer to check my gmail. No one had emailed me between 2:30am and 5:00am. So I emailed them. Later on they emailed me back and asked me why the hell was I writing emails at five in the morning? I did it because I wanted to have emails to read when I got home the next day. Then a person walked back into the kitchen to get something. I worried that someone might think I was accessing porn on Tao Lin’s laptop. I closed the laptop, put it on the kitchen counter, and then lay down on the air mattress. I knocked over a glass of water near the air mattress with my left arm, and then I went to sleep.
14.
I woke up when Blake Butler kicked me in the head. At first I was confused, but then it happened again. I pushed his feet away from my face with my hands, but my wrists were not strong enough. His legs are stronger. Blake Butler is a tall person. I sat up a little and could see, in the dark, Blake Butler halfway curled up at my feet on the air mattress. He was saying jumbled words loudly in his sleep. He said something about being cold. He said something about Kim Chinquee. Blake Butler and Kim Chinquee have recently had their work appear together in a lot of the same literary journals. Kim Chinquee has a Pushcart Prize and Blake Butler has been nominated for three this year.
Yesterday RYAN CALL sent me a little thing he wrote about Saturday night at AWP. It documents some of what happened that I do not remember. I do not, for instance, remember talking about Kim Chinquee. I do not remember sleep walking and ending up on the floor. I do not remember kicking Ryan Call in the head. This document is a document to help me remember. This document will win Ryan Call the PEN/Faulkner award for prose.
BLAKE BUTLER KICKED ME IN THE HEAD
by Ryan Call
1.
Blake Butler invited me to a party. The party was at someone’s apartment in Brooklyn, so I followed Blake Butler out there to meet people I had read about on the internet. These people have blogs, and e-books, and online literary journals, and real, tiny books, and other writings of that nature. I felt like I knew them like the way you might know a really talkative person who sits behind you in class and says smart things.
2.
At the apartment, I met a person named Justin Taylor and a person named Kendra Grant Malone and a person named Lauren Something, I think, who soon left the apartment with another person whose name I never learned. Blake Butler introduced me to everyone and everyone smiled and seemed very nice. I felt friendly towards everyone, even though I also felt a little anxious at meeting new people.
3.
Someone pointed at the wine bottles on the kitchen counter, so I drank some of the wine, but from a mug that Justin Taylor gave to me. Blake Butler stood next to me and talked to Kendra Grant Malone. Justin Taylor stood on the other side of me to get something to drink, I think. I told Justin Taylor that I liked that symposium he put together on Donald Barthelme, though I probably did not use the word symposium. I probably said thingy. He said thanks back and asked me what I did. I told him I went to the writing program at George Mason University.
4.
Tao Lin came into the apartment and everyone said hello to him and he said hello back. Tao Lin sat on the couch across from the kitchen counter and opened up his computer. He looked at us. He looked at me and said, who are you. I’m Ryan, I said. He nodded and looked back down at his computer.
5.
Justin Taylor said that he had rum in the freezer if anyone wanted it. I did not want to keep drinking wine, nor did I want to drink rum, because I have had bad things happen with rum. I had a flask full of whiskey, so I poured some of that into my cup and got a few ice cubes out of the tray. Blake Butler said that he wanted rum and coke, so he and Justin Taylor made rum and coke for each of them. I think here is where I began to get drunk. And here is where Blake Butler began to get drunk also.
6.
Short list of some authors’ names I heard while I was at this party:
Donald Barthelme
Mazie Louise Montgomery
Ofelia Hunt
Matthew Rohrer
Barry Hannah
Kim Chinquee
7.
I also vaguely remember a discussion about bi-curious girls.
8.
We moved to the couch and people sat down in various places. Blake Butler and Kendra Grant Malone sat on a lounge chair sort of thing to my left. I took Tao Lin’s computer and logged onto my gmail account to check for emails and see who was online. I do not know if I asked Tao Lin if I could use his computer, but I hope he did not mind. His computer was tiny and had a tiny keyboard that gave me trouble when I tried to type words into it. I liked trying to type on it.
9.
I opened a chat window with a friend of mine from college, and I typed:
me: tao is throwing bananas at us.
The bananas came at us end over end. Justin Taylor and Mike Young and I were sitting on the couch. Two bananas hit the couch, I think, but no one got hurt. Or maybe Mike Young showed up later on? I do not know what happened to the bananas, but I think Tao Lin used them to make smoothies for us in the morning? Thank you, Tao Lin, for the smoothies.
10.
Kendra Grant Malone stood up from the chair to go do something, and Blake Butler fell off of the chair. The chair tipped up like a seesaw, and Blake Butler fell onto the floor. His legs stuck out like a pair of scissors. He stayed on the floor for a while. He flailed his sneakers around a bit.
me: yes
blake is givinghigh fiives to people
John: hooray
skin contact
Blake Butler had gotten to his feet and was now giving high fives to everyone. Somewhere in there I finished my whiskey. Blake Butler shouted words at everyone. Much celebration and cheering.
11.
At various points throughout the evening, Tao Lin stood up and ran back to the other parts of the apartment to get shit. I typed:
me: yes
he is mysize
and he runs around the apt
to get sht
shitt
Once he ran to his room and came back to give me a book of his poetry. He dropped it at my feet and then crouched in front of me. I felt a little confused that he was crouching so close to me, but then I realized that he wanted the computer. He must have said that he wanted the computer. I gave it back to him. I felt glad that I was not talking shit online about anyone in the apartment. I congratulated myself for not being an asshole.
You run around a lot, I said to Tao Lin.
12.
We went to Tao Lin’s room and Justin Taylor talked more about Barry Hannah. Blake Butler and Mike Young talked also. Tao Lin video-recorded Kendra Grant Malone sitting on the bed, and then he recorded everyone else. I looked at the drawings and the books near Tao Lin’s bed. I poked a few books with my finger. I did not know what else to do. My head does this thing sometimes when it cannot process information: it either makes me say things uncontrollably, or it makes me not talk. It did that all evening. It made me not talk. I wanted to say something, to say that I felt happy and comfortable sitting there on the floor next to Tao Lin’s bed. I wanted to say that I felt friendly towards everyone. I wanted to join in and say how much I loved Barry Hannah. But I could not. Instead, I picked up a drawing of a face and decided to take it so I could give it to a friend. I asked Tao Lin to write his name on it. I felt nervous about that because maybe I seemed like I had expected a book signing at this apartment instead of a party. I did not want to seem like that person. So I drew a picture in one of Tao Lin’s small notebooks. There, I told myself, now it’s like we traded pictures.
13.
Bedtime. Blake Butler and I slept in the living room. Surprise! The couch unfolded into a bed. Tao Lin gave us pillows and blankets. Tao Lin gave me the air mattress. He turned off the lights, but he left the light on in his room. I sat on the air mattress and opened Tao Lin’s computer to check my gmail. No one had emailed me between 2:30am and 5:00am. So I emailed them. Later on they emailed me back and asked me why the hell was I writing emails at five in the morning? I did it because I wanted to have emails to read when I got home the next day. Then a person walked back into the kitchen to get something. I worried that someone might think I was accessing porn on Tao Lin’s laptop. I closed the laptop, put it on the kitchen counter, and then lay down on the air mattress. I knocked over a glass of water near the air mattress with my left arm, and then I went to sleep.
14.
I woke up when Blake Butler kicked me in the head. At first I was confused, but then it happened again. I pushed his feet away from my face with my hands, but my wrists were not strong enough. His legs are stronger. Blake Butler is a tall person. I sat up a little and could see, in the dark, Blake Butler halfway curled up at my feet on the air mattress. He was saying jumbled words loudly in his sleep. He said something about being cold. He said something about Kim Chinquee. Blake Butler and Kim Chinquee have recently had their work appear together in a lot of the same literary journals. Kim Chinquee has a Pushcart Prize and Blake Butler has been nominated for three this year.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
AWP 2
My shoulders are both aching. I came home with two bags full of books. They were very heavy. I walked a lot in New York City. I went a lot of places. I now understand several email addresses as belonging to people with heads and eyes. Nice people. Friends. Internet life. Internet connection.
Massive thanks to Kendra for helping me not die in the city and letting Mike and I sleep in her nice apartment, and to Tao and Justin for another place to sleep and also helping me not die in the city, and to Mike for sticking together.
Mostly I felt comfortable and not embarrassed. And also pleased.
I was informed of many things I said while very drunk on rum that I did not remember saying. I forget where they were now because my whole head is gunked with so much walking and so much words.
Tao and I stood in front of the n+1 table. I pointed at an issue and asked him if he was in it and he said yes. The person working the table looked businesslike and averted his eyes.
I ate an excellent sandwich with brie and green apples and ham and tomato on it. I ate a crepe. I drank a smoothie.
I am very very tired.
I wanted to type things about my trip now so I could remember them later but my head is a little white.
I brought my camera but took no pictures.
Calamari Press had the best looking table. They have two new books out. I am excited to read them both.
What else happened
I am glad I went to New York.
Massive thanks to Kendra for helping me not die in the city and letting Mike and I sleep in her nice apartment, and to Tao and Justin for another place to sleep and also helping me not die in the city, and to Mike for sticking together.
Mostly I felt comfortable and not embarrassed. And also pleased.
I was informed of many things I said while very drunk on rum that I did not remember saying. I forget where they were now because my whole head is gunked with so much walking and so much words.
Tao and I stood in front of the n+1 table. I pointed at an issue and asked him if he was in it and he said yes. The person working the table looked businesslike and averted his eyes.
I ate an excellent sandwich with brie and green apples and ham and tomato on it. I ate a crepe. I drank a smoothie.
I am very very tired.
I wanted to type things about my trip now so I could remember them later but my head is a little white.
I brought my camera but took no pictures.
Calamari Press had the best looking table. They have two new books out. I am excited to read them both.
What else happened
I am glad I went to New York.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
AWP
Heading to AWP tomorrow. Excited. Will see the bitchin' MIKE YOUNG read on Wednesday night. I think master blaster TAO LIN is reading Friday. Also looking forward to LYDIA DAVIS, BRIAN EVENSON, ANDER MONSON, MICHAEL MARTONE, AMY HEMPEL, and etc. Also excited about meeting lots of people I've e-known for a long time now. Should be good shit.
In my absence, the gracious JEREME DEAN is going to be guest blogging at one of my poker blogs. If you play poker, go read. He is a very smart player and I'm excited he'll get to talk it up.
I'm going to try very hard not to blow $200 within the first 30 minutes of walking around the book fair this year. VERY VERY HARD.
Good announcement when I get back, related to LC. It refers to someone linked here and something excellent that came out of them.
In my absence, the gracious JEREME DEAN is going to be guest blogging at one of my poker blogs. If you play poker, go read. He is a very smart player and I'm excited he'll get to talk it up.
I'm going to try very hard not to blow $200 within the first 30 minutes of walking around the book fair this year. VERY VERY HARD.
Good announcement when I get back, related to LC. It refers to someone linked here and something excellent that came out of them.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Phoebe & Etc.
I got my contributor copies of the new issue of PHOEBE in the mail yesterday. The issue looks beautiful. I really like it. The front and back cover art is nice. I've read a bunch of the work so far and it is very well put together. It seems to form a continuum. My story is the last one in the issue and seems to be perfectly bookended by Zachary Schomburg's opening. Ryan Call and company did an excellent job putting this together. There is also work by Aaron Burch, K. Silem Mohammad, Kim Chinquee, Erin Gay, Heather Green, Karen Rigby, Anne Boyer, Brandon Lewis and lots of others.
My story is the longest I've ever published. It is called SEABED. It is in my collection SCORCH ATLAS. Here is the first graf:
Gilbert had a head the size of several persons' heads—a vast seething bulb with rotten hair that shined under certain light. Several summers back he'd driven to a bigger city where smarter men removed a hunk of him due to the wide black cyst that'd laid claim to his brain flesh. They'd said it was on account of the wires that hung over his parents' house. Little Phillip hadn't been so fortunate. The crap ate through the kid's whole head. Radiation. Scrambled cells. One had to be mindful of these things. Now, though, with the woman gone and the baby dead, Gilbert didn't give much of a damn. He kept on living in that house where guilt breathed in the walls. He lugged the kid's last Christmas tricycle everywhere, the handlebars screeching from side to side with rust on account of how Gilbert even brought it in the shower.
To read the rest, please buy the issue. It's only $6.
To receive this publication, I winkum blubvad steerzum cubba ling fwahblip eich non slem, et veer vod auslit peerpeep nigh-jum tiki soldinaffutz.
Also: there was a new story by BEN MARCUS in the latest issue of Harper's. I wanted to read it but I didn't have $7 on me when I saw it. I read a bit of it standing in the store but I was in a hurry. It seemed very different from his other stuff. Much more linear and standard-seeming. It was kind of a detective story. Weird.
Also: the next issue of Harper's has a DAVID FOSTER WALLACE story, which is supposedly also very different than his other stuff. I have to find that damn thing.
Also: Is anyone going to AWP? I know it's sold out but you can volunteer on their website to work 4 hours and they get you in for free. I am trying to arrange it so I can go. I had a lot of fun last year but that was easier since it was in my backyard.
My story is the longest I've ever published. It is called SEABED. It is in my collection SCORCH ATLAS. Here is the first graf:
Gilbert had a head the size of several persons' heads—a vast seething bulb with rotten hair that shined under certain light. Several summers back he'd driven to a bigger city where smarter men removed a hunk of him due to the wide black cyst that'd laid claim to his brain flesh. They'd said it was on account of the wires that hung over his parents' house. Little Phillip hadn't been so fortunate. The crap ate through the kid's whole head. Radiation. Scrambled cells. One had to be mindful of these things. Now, though, with the woman gone and the baby dead, Gilbert didn't give much of a damn. He kept on living in that house where guilt breathed in the walls. He lugged the kid's last Christmas tricycle everywhere, the handlebars screeching from side to side with rust on account of how Gilbert even brought it in the shower.
To read the rest, please buy the issue. It's only $6.
To receive this publication, I winkum blubvad steerzum cubba ling fwahblip eich non slem, et veer vod auslit peerpeep nigh-jum tiki soldinaffutz.
Also: there was a new story by BEN MARCUS in the latest issue of Harper's. I wanted to read it but I didn't have $7 on me when I saw it. I read a bit of it standing in the store but I was in a hurry. It seemed very different from his other stuff. Much more linear and standard-seeming. It was kind of a detective story. Weird.
Also: the next issue of Harper's has a DAVID FOSTER WALLACE story, which is supposedly also very different than his other stuff. I have to find that damn thing.
Also: Is anyone going to AWP? I know it's sold out but you can volunteer on their website to work 4 hours and they get you in for free. I am trying to arrange it so I can go. I had a lot of fun last year but that was easier since it was in my backyard.
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