Bun B saved me from grousing around like a total dick today I think

I don't know if I have the wherewithal yet to say I had a blast in Ann Arbor for the Hobart readings, and thanks to all those who put me up, pulled me around, and hung out. It should happen four times a year or something too much good.

Highest of high points maybe was watching Matthew Simmons's mother watch Matthew Simmons read from his book A Jello Horse, she looked so proud and invested in every word he said, it made me teary eyed a little, the reading was also good.

Matthew's drunken snoring (which he later declaimed as only when drunk) was the most explosive thing I've ever heard, it would be intense for a few minutes, then enter a period where it sounded like he was chewing something, then he'd explode in the throat. It was 'incredible,' I wasn't even upset that I couldn't sleep through it.




Sam Pink is a funny sleeper, with shoes on, facedown, no pillow/blanket, probably not by choice but both nights I looked to see this, I think the first night I kept rubbing my feet on his head.

At some point on night two I remember putting on 7-10 shirts and freestyle rapping, then spraying Sam in the mouth with the sink nozzle, and getting into a wrestling match with Adam Robinson, somewhere in there he smeared 4-5 bananas in my face and mouth, my clothes the next day looked like someone had ejaculated on me, I had to keep saying "It's bananas," during the fight Adam's old friend Benji or something thought I was hurting Adam or something and got me in a headlock, he decided he didn't like me after that and kept asking me what my drunk babble was supposed to mean, I kept telling him "It is what it is, if it's for you, it's for you, or not," which seemed to make him madder, sometimes people just don't like me I guess, that's understandable.

So much other good and good people I can't even recall it all, lots of great reading and talking and staring drunkenly through sun, I am ready for action.

Thanks especially to Elizabeth Ellen, Aaron Burch, and Matt Bell for setting things up, driving me around, making me feel at home, and facilitating the writer weekend madhouse, it ruled.

Thanks as well to everyone came out to the reading, in particular Sean Kilpatrick (finally met my filth man, a gentleman for weeks), and brothers and sister Peter Markus, David McLendon, and A. Minetta Gould.




David McLendon said the new Unsaid is 500 pages long. Holy wow.




In the airport waiting for my flight I walked the length of the Detroit airport 5-7 times while reading the last 70 pages of 'Human Smoke,' what a fucking book that is, I kept noticing the same people noticing I was walking past the same point over and over again while reading, on the plane I sat next to a woman bigger than I am who had on a body shawl and kept trying to fix how she was sitting on/inside it, and situating herself in the seat, she also had a brown paper bag on her lap that she kept crinkling with both hands like she was giving it a massage, I never saw what was in the bag.

Every time I am on a plane, when they ask what I want to drink I get ginger ale, and about 3 out of 5 times if the person I am sitting next to has already ordered, they will stop and change their order to ginger ale.

On the plane I read most of 'Natural Novel' by Georgi Gospodinov, it was fun and interesting, Dalkey wins again.




I am glad I came home w/o a tattoo.




I need to get my brain/act together.

WWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWW WWWW WWWWW WWWWWWW WWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWW WWW WW W W W

Matthew Simmons is writing a suitor for the narrator of EVER, which he nails pretty amazingly. I encourage him in this procedure. We should have twin books and go out and read them and then make our hands fuck in reading climax.

I did not approve this fingerfucking reading idea with Matthew before speaking it publicly, so he may abandon said idea in the interim. Or it might spur him on, who knows.




The third issue of PANK is out now and looks really amazing, it has a ton of awesomes in it, including Brooklyn Copeland, Kristine Ong Muslim, Rachel Yoder, Thomas Cook, Ron Burch, Molly Gaudry, Scott Garson, Kathy Fish, an absolute ton of good.

I have another list in it, #43, called CORROSION COMPILER, this one is more 'off the cuff' in tone than most others, I think it uses a lot of lines from this blog as well as others mashed, here are some lines from it:

1. I want to fill a trash bag up with applesauce and throw it at the windshield of a nice car.
2. I feel that empty.
3. There's nothing else to do.
4. I feel like being mean to someone but there's no one around to be mean to.
5. This morning I used a drinking glass against the wall to listen to my neighbor talk to his dog for almost an hour.
6. Mostly he kept telling the dog over and over how he was going to leave but he didn't leave. He cursed at the dog and screamed the dog’s name and said, "Crapola."
7. Yesterday afternoon I sat and looked at videos on youtube of people playing WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE and wished I lived inside them.

Before I went to Baltimore I compiled a draft of the full manuscript of the 50 lists of 50, tentatively titled '2500,' in the mindset of sending it around to publishers. Putting the 50 lists in the right order to make the exact effect of what I want as a full manuscript was/is hard, and took a long while toggling to get even close enough to such semblance to send out, but in the end I think I am pretty close. Many of them went well in the order they were written. I think in the end, too, there is a lot of room for play with the ms, even maybe some of the lists could be replaced in certain spots, though for now it feels good to be getting it out there and seeing if anyone has interest putting out such a strange book. I have tried to think of precedents for it to refer to when sending out, and there are maybe some, I definitely bite Markson when I can, though it is more personal than his books; and there is some amount of stealing from a variety of other places, though none that I can fully pin to elucidate the manuscript beyond itself. I don't know. Interesting. Sending. We'll see.





Also in the near completion mode of collaborative ms with Sean Kilpatrick, which is just something I can't even try to explain. We have more than 40 titles for it so far, including: DIAMOND HYMEN, DEVICE OF OUR LADY SHEDDING GLEE, THIS IS THE COLDEST LAMP IN AMERICA, MOM, HOMEGIRL TONGS, OAHSPE II, STAB PYRAMID, PUSSYBUTT, and YOU WILL BEG TO HAVE YOUR MEAT RIPPED.

I think we started off talking about rewriting Burroughs and Sade (yes, the singer as much as the pervert), but have ended up somewhere putrid beyond yummy, I hope one day people will see this book. In the event this book is published (propulsion unit to soon begin) I will do everything I can to have it banned in America (which would probably only take handing it to a couple people, maybe) and getting arrested for its dissemination.

Oh jeez.

Here I am being held up on the L train while 'reading' (screaming) two graphs from it, thank you to Gene and Ryan and Aaron for holding my drunk ass up (and to Matt Bell for uploading the picture):



I think video is forthcoming, mmmmmmmmmm.



Books books books books books







Promo contest for Scorch Atlas will be announced in a week or two, methinks, we have some interesting things in store, on the come come.






I am going to try to focus enough to read, which hasn't been feasible still since Chicago and Baltimore, I just stare a lot.

Matthew Simmons's CAVES

New ebook up at Lamination Colony:



Blurbed by Matthew's mother, sister in law, and cousin, CAVES is truly unlike anything else I've read. Here's the first sentence:

This man only dated caves. It was, like, a fetish or something.

Read CAVES here.

I am really excited about this one, it's new in new ways. Please shout it out and blog it up.




Next in line: Michael Kimball's guest edited issue, followed by ebooks from Mark Cunningham and Prathna Lor.




The new issue of Barrelhouse is out, with a huge slew of great work from people like Matt Bell, Rachel B. Glaser, Peter Davis, Michael Czyzniejewski, and a ton of others. It also contains, among its 'The Future' section, one of the longer stories from SCORCH ATLAS, 'The Ruined Child,' about a baby that grows in size inside its parents' attic after they try to mercy kill it when it is infected with a disease that makes it foam.

Right? Right.

Here is the first graph:

They carried the child into the outside by his wrists and ankles, wriggling. His flesh had turned translucent. His mouth would often froth. They waded waist-deep into the sewage past the upended Mustang where neighbor Bill had tried to drive—the engine crusted over now, back wheels high in the air. The rain had wrecked the city, burst the sewers, drowned the roads. Downtown was underwater. Bill, like many others, had still believed in some way out. He'd spent hours out there with a lone rope trying to yank the Mustang free, his crazed face and muscles so stretched and shining it seemed he might burst open or combust. Finally it was the dogs that had gotten to him, mange-mottled packs of ex-pets combing the old neighborhood for blood. They'd ripped him limb from limb, to rib and tendon. Gnats made short work of the remainder.

Anyhow, you can buy the issue here.

Thanks again to the 5 righteous B-house dudes for the paper party.




A couple other new things in new issues of mags, but will save those for next time.





Reading at 510 in Baltimore on Saturday with Shane Jones, Kyle Minor, Rahne Alexander, and Kathleen Rooney. If you are in the zone, come out!

I think in order to keep my blood at the same level as it was on the el reading, I am going to shout the whole 12 minutes. Gotsta.