"A pig was transfixed by a flying splinter of wood and a rooster was killed. That is all."

Heading to Ann Arbor tomorrow afternoon through Monday for Hobart weekend reading and the Ann Arbor Book Festival: if you are in the area, come out to a reading! Flyer is a couple posts down...



2/3rd done with Baker's 'Human Smoke,' I've never been so engrossed by historical texts before, it is an incredible work, like he took all the good parts out of 150 other WW2 books and put them in order. Amazing. I think I am finally going to have to read his 'Double Fold' now, soon.



We are watching the first season of Dexter over here, it is pretty ok; on the other hand, 'The Fall,' by that dude who did 'The Cell,' was a turd bath, like bad Peter Greenaway written by M. Night Shyamalan. There are things worth destroying.



My story 'Bath or Mud or Reclamation or Way In/Way Out,' which originally appeared in Avery Anthology, is reprinted in the new issue of Proximity as an insert: beautiful magazine, do a peek to it n whatnot.



Just saw final cover version, back and all, for Scorch Atlas: jesus, Zach Dodson is the captain of magic. Seriously, I can't wait for people to see what he has done with it. More than I ever thought it could be.



People talking about Lost makes me wake up inside a urinal cake.



Exercise rooms are strange when there is no one in them.



Ahh goddamnit I've said it before but I can't wait for this film: Gaspar Noe's 'Enter the Void':

ben marcus?

i wonder what happened to ben marcus. his book NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN is one of the greatest things i've read as far as experimental narrative goes. more people should read that book. it came out in 2002. the only other thing i've seen from mr. marcus since then was the anthology of american writing he edited and his essay on experimental fiction as a response to jonathan franzen, which was really well written and interesting. i hope he is working on some ridiculous new book that will arrive soon and help me read more.



here is a quote i like from NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN:
'If all the words of this book are misspelled, but accidentally spell other words correctly, and also accidentally fall into a grammatically coherent arrangement, where coherency is defined as whatever doesn't upset people, it means this book is legally another book.'

also here's a link to an interview ben marcus did with brian evenson that i find really very good: marcus interviews evenson.

i just finished rereading Steve Erickson's RUBICON BEACH and then i read Roy Kesey's ALL OVER which had some incredible stuff in it. now i am going to reread Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN. i think i am going to spend the rest of the year rereading stuff i already know i really like. there are so many books i call favorites that i haven't read in so long it is like i didn't read them. i have a terrible retention rate. there are people i've met 15-20 times and hung out with for hours and still can't remember their first name.

i am also going to reread Nicholson Baker's THE FERMATA, which if you haven't read it, is 320 pages about a man who learns to pause time and then goes around doing perverted shit to women while they are frozen. he does it really well.

i want to get a job teaching a writing class somewhere. or start an online writing school. as dumb as that might seem. someone help me.