Maybe overrated?

INVISIBLE CITIES

Okay, yes I like Calvino, esp. when I first read him years ago. I read most all of his books in a row in a short period, infatuated with someone talking that way. Recently, though, I went back and started flipping through 'Invisible Cities' and realized that what was going on there really wasn't as much as I remembered. Really, was it that difficult a thing to make? Probably not, and that doesn't really matter either, but I have to say that I don't think the weight here is as much as it becomes in memory as on the page.

I actually also tried to reread 'If on a winter's night a traveler...' the other day and got so frustrated with the opening section that I couldn't even make it through, which was odd, considering that the first time I read it, I read it twice in a row.

Perhaps it is how tastes change, or how I have found things since then that do what he does but even more so: Gert Jonke, for example, or Oisin Curran. Still a great writer in my mind, especially 'Cosmicomics,' but the hype particularly on IC and such I think could use a little flagging.




JESUS' SON

Really? Is this book really that huge to so many people? I don't get it. I mean, again, this is something that I enjoyed 5 years ago, but I think people put just a touch too much weight on the evidence at hand. Some of these stories here are actually pretty weak on their own, and more covered over by the strong opening, and the way he seems to have nailed the off-the-cuff-but-literary mode so well, making it simply, to me, more accessible and good than it is just good.

Add to this the fact that any other Denis Johnson book I've tried to read outside this one has been so brain numbingly dull I usually gave up in less than 100 pages, and I have to call nuh-uh on this one, at least just a little bit.




THE MOVIEGOER

This book seriously makes me want to beat myself to death: the voice, the smarmy dick voice. I hate whoever made me touch this.




ARKANSAS

I'm sorry, I have no idea what there is to like about this book beyond the first 10 pages. You'd think a book about drugdealing white hick kids would be the shit, but repeating the same scene over and over and drawing it into another damn love story makes me want to fight.

I wish McSweeney's would put out another one as good as 'The People of Paper,' that is by far their capital achievement I think. Also 'Happy Baby'.




REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

How this relationship drama with a plotline that could be laid on top of 1 of 10000 other books and movies got so popular with the minimalist post-emo kids, I'll never know. It seems as arbitrary as being all about Dr. Phil.

Also, why do writers often have such bad taste in music?

WANTED

Bradley Sands is looking for 2-5k stories to fill out the next issue of BUST DOWN THE DOOR AND EAT ALL THE CHICKENS. See guidelines here and send him some stuff.

Brief review of Brandon Hobson's THE LEVITATIONIST @ HOTBOOKS.

I am looking to trade books. I am bored as fuck today and can't get anything done except staring blankly. I think something is about to happen to the earth.

If anyone has any of these books I want to trade for them, I would buy but I don't have extra $$ right now, I have a lot of stuff I can trade, email me or comment for a list if you have any of these:

BLACK MAPS by David Jauss
KNOCKEMSTIFF by Donald Ray Pollock
THE BLOODY CHAMBER by Angela Carter
THE END OF THE WORLD BOOK by Alistair McCartney
THE MAIMED by Hermann Ungar
THE THING ABOUT LIFE IS THAT ONE DAY YOU'LL BE DEAD by David Shields
TODAY I WROTE NOTHING by Daniil Kharms
THE BALOONISTS by Eula Bliss
PAIN FANTASY by Jason Bredle
REMAINLAND by Aase Berg
TWENTY GRAND by Rebecca Curtis
MURMUR by Laura Allen
PRIMITIVE MENTOR by Dean Young
THE STREET OF CROCODILES by Bruno Schulz
LOG OF THE S.S. MRS. UNGUENTINE by Stanley Crawford
COLOR OF DARKNESS by James Purdy
JOURNAL OF ALBION MOONLIGHT by Kenneth Patchen
IT WAS LIKE MY TRYING TO HAVE A TENDER HEARTED NATURE by Diane Williams
VERA & LINUS by Jesse Ball
FRANCES JOHNSON by Stacey Levine
FLATS by Rudolph Wurlitzer
PEACE by Gene Wolfe
THE HAUNTED HILLBILLY by Derek McCormack
TIN GOD by Terese Svoboda
INCARNATE: STORY MATERIAL by Thalia Field
STORY OF THE EYE by George Bataille
THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT by Jose Donoso
SKIN by Kellie Wells
COSMOS by Witold Gombrowicz
THE TORMENTED MIRROR by Russell Edson
THE CONSUMER by M. Gira
--- more wants added ---
REASONS FOR KNOCKING AT AN EMPTY HOUSE by Bill Viola
THE DIARY OF A RAPIST by Evan S. Connell
THE BEAR BRYANT FUNERAL TRAIN by Brad Vice
JAMESTOWN by Matthew Sharpe
THE VOYEUR by Alain Robbe-Grillet
HIDDEN CAMERA by Zoran Zivkovic
ANAGRAMS by Lorrie Moore
MY HAPPY LIFE by Lydia Millet

I am becoming a moron.

Book Order Blabber

Someone is probably feeling particularly lonely.

Met with FEMA again today. They asked me the same questions the first guy did. They wanted to 'check his efficiency'. Still no update on moving back in. One guy who works on site said it would be 6-8 months for at least two of the buildings. I don't think I blinked when he said that. He said he thought it would be much sooner for my building, but he still did not know. Could be a couple weeks maybe he said.

My awesome friend Bree from Bennington days sent me an Amazon card last night. I was going to replace ERASERHEAD with it. Then I started looking at my wish list and ended up buying a bunch of new stuff instead. I got 5 books by 5 women. I got:

STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN by Kelly Link (I've read a lot of this already but I want to own it. I love MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS and recommend it to anyone. I met Kelly Link at AWP and told her her story STONE ANIMALS is in my top five stories ever, which is true. She blushed a little. She was nice. She asked me what other stories were in my top 5 but I couldn't think of it and can't really think now. Probably 'THE INTRICACIES OF POST-SHOOTING ETIQUETTE' by Brian Evenson, or maybe TWO BROTHERS by him instead. Maybe both of those counting as one. Maybe THE PEDERSON KID by William H. Gass. Maybe MR SQUISHY by David Foster Wallace. Probably definitely something by David Foster Wallace. Maybe THE DEPRESSED PERSON by him. I haven't read him in awhile I can't remember. Maybe THE SWITCH by Stephen Dixon. I don't know. I really like the Lydia Davis story called something like LETTER TO THE FUNERAL PARLOR. 'The cremains.' That wouldn't be in my top five. Julia Slavin something? DRIVEWAY by Jim Shepard is really good, as are several other of his stories. Last night I reread Miranda July's THE MAN ON THE STAIRS from Fence which you can read online HERE and I really liked it again despite some people thinking she's overrated. I don't think she's overrated. Not in my top 5 though still. Fuck what's the name of that one Barry Hannah story in BATS OUT OF HELL that I liked so much. I can't remember. Was it SLOW TIMES IN A LONG SCHOOL? I don't think so. Best title: UPSTAIRS, MONA BAYED FOR DONG. Oh shit, definitely THE BLOOD JET by Christine Schutt. That's top 5. Probably a lot I'm not thinking off of the top of my head here. I miss my books and shelves. Maybe I will think about this again later.)

I also got: OH BABY by Kim Chinquee (hopefully I won't start talking about her in my sleep now)

and CARRYING THE BODY by Dawn Raffel (it's on sale for less than $5 new on amazon, go look)

and FLET by Joyelle McSweeney (I'd read a bunch of it and it was cool and apocalyptic, want to read the whole thing and I'll buy most any new Fence book because they are nice to hold)

and ATLASSED by Jane Unrue (because someone was talking about it on their blog, I think Shane Jones, can't remember, but the premise sounds really good).
Thank you again Bree you are the shit.

I have managed to waste some more time today good.

Time has been moving as it does in an Amos Tutola book lately.

"Cherries. I like cherries in my ice cream. I like the name of cherries. Cherries."

I swear now I'm going to go do some WORK.

P.S. If you are in NYC tonight, you need to go see ROBERT LOPEZ and MIRANDA MELLIS reading together for Calamari at McNally Robinson. I wish I could be there. Two of the best books of last year by far (or any year for that matter). Go. Go. Go.

Apocryphal Text & Xmas shit

There is a new issue of the online poetry journal APOCRYPHAL TEXT now alive. It has a text (OVERHEARD) that I wrote almost a year ago, and which became some of the synthesis for certain ideas in SCORCH ATLAS. It also has new work by Matthew Savoca, Donald Illich, Joel Chace and others. It is an interesting magazine and I am happy to be in it.

To receive this publication, someone was licking the hindquarters of a sand Ferrari in the gorgeous outlaying regions of Smaller Kuwait, Fund Bashir, and/or Meers Manor.

For Christmas gifting, I received the following books: COMPLEX SLEEP by Tony Tost, THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WAS TOO FOND OF MATCHES by Gaetan Soucy (which I started reading already and is most excellent), ACTUAL AIR by David Berman, and AFTER DARK by Haruki Murakami. I have a lot to read.

I also received a white noise machine that sits by my bed and makes sounds like I am in a vast wind tunnel which is seeming very nice.

Sleepingfish Magazine is currently open for submissions.

See You Next Tuesday II, an anthology of 1,000 word sex-themed stories, is open for submissions. I'll have a story in it featuring a Mexican woman spreading her buttocks to show her anus. That's true.

Lamination Colony is now closed for submissions to the pornography issue (which is going to be supremely excellent) and is now open to regular submissions of the ridiculous and/or strange.

I am selling a lot of CDs on ebay. I am going to sell my entire 2500 cd collection over the next 2 months because I do not like music anymore. Except I'm going to keep about 100 that I do like. I guess. Perhaps.

cormac mccarthy and films

today i got these three books in the mail:



but looks like they are going to have to wait because last night i started my reread of BLOOD MERIDIAN and am already in awe of what i'd forgotten. i think the first time i read the book i went a little too fast and if i missed something because my brain started to wander in the same way it does to keep me up all night, i would just run it over. i am being careful to get every sentence this time, because every sentence is pretty much a masterpiece in itself.

as such:

"Already gunfire was general within the tent and a dozen exits had been hacked through the canvas walls and people were pouring out, women screaming, folk stumbling, folk trampled underfoot in the mud. The kid and his friend reached the hotel gallery and wiped the water from their eyes and turned to watch. As they did so the tent began to sway and buckle and like a huge and wounded medusa it slowly settled to the ground trailing tattered canvas walls and ratty guyropes over the ground."

that's on page 7.
and i haven't even really gotten to the Judge yet.
anyone who is interested in violent and/or macabre and/or backwoods wanderer literature should put this book at the top of their list.

i heard a couple years ago that david cronenberg had bought the rights to film this book. i can't imagine anyone being able to do that but i guess he'd be the most likely to pull it off if anyone. the new cronenberg film that's about to come out looks like it could be better than a history of violence, which i felt was a pretty underdeveloped story, even if it looked cool. not to mention the soon-to-come coen brothers adaptation of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which is also kind of potentially scary considering the coens' recent track record, but potentially awesome considering their earlier record.

hrphmhm.