then i'm goin fo they sista

'The Gown From Mother's Stomach,' originally published in Ninth Letter, is running this week at HP's 52 Stories. This seems to be the most common 'favorite' of the texts in Scorch Atlas for some reason. I'm OK with that.




Halloween I saw a Black Sabbath cover band and a Misfits cover band, both did a good job, H and I dressed as pregnant Floridians and spent some like $100 on booze, I am told I did pushups on the dance floor alone, both of my knees feel fucked up.

If you want to dance let's dance.




Approved final proofs for Kristina's One Hour of Television, they should be printed up and done by the weekend, then shipping. In the meantime, K has made a video promo, it kind of freaks me out:



Next 3 people to preorder will receive a special bonus magical insert in their package.




Reading on Friday night in Athens with John Dermot Woods and Sabrina Orah Mark, if you are out there come widdit, 700 PM at CINE.




Um, this week is mine.

Kodscrew

Tobias Carroll posted a very awesome article on Scorch Atlas at Flavorwire: "Butler’s decaying worlds resemble the vistas of Steve Erickson in their dreamlike logic and those of J.G. Ballard in their sense of the subconscious eroding restraints mental and physical."


Cari Luna also weighs in at From Utopia: "My god... this book."




The remainder of the tour was excellent and awesome, thanks again to everyone who helped out and came out, it was refreshing and relaxing and this time I did not gain 10 pounds from beer, which is good.

Here's a shot from Baltimore, where thereafter I took down the poker prize of cash and a metal eagle:






Last night watched Philipe Grandieux's Sombre, some of the best static shots and filmwork I've seen in a while, if still a serial killer story, and often quite so lauding of Lynch you could meld the two, which I will take as a good thing, need to watch more of this guy's stuff. The opening driving scenes cut with the children howling in a theater will stay with me for a long time.




Fun, grody.

Now time to start peeling some of this backup work off my neck.

Some exciting news very soon.

Scorch Atlas Tour | Reviews | Dog n Cat

More Scorch Atlas hype

Reviewed in the Boston Phoenix by Nina Maclaughlin: "Scorch Atlas doesn't make its point with narrative arc or character development or paragraphs or even the lovely, terrible sentences. Instead, it's the heaping of words — mauled bubbled clods knotted clogged rot foam mold growth cragged bugged curdle boils lumps ooze gunk stung and on and on — that press on you, as if you were being buried, drowned, dissolved, as if you were about to swallow your tongue."

Review at Pank by Roxane Gay: "Scorch Atlas is a fine example of experiment with purpose (writers, take note!), of world building, of decadent, detailed and innovative writing. This is a book that should be read, and widely." + "...if ever there was an argument for the importance of the book as a physical object, that argument would be Scorch Atlas."

Tweeted by @LairdHunt: Just got my copy of Scorch Atlas -- nicely "destroyed" by the author. A few pieces in. Both delirious and controlled. Highly recommend.

Profiled @ Three Guys One Book






Leaving tomorrow morning for reading dates with Robert Lopez and Samuel Ligon, please come out if you are around, would be rad:

9/12: Brooklyn, NY @ Barbes @ 6 PM
9/14: Portsmouth, NH @ River Run Books @ 7 PM
9/15: South Deerfield, MA @ Schoen Books @ 8 PM
9/16: Boston, MA @ Brookline Booksmith @ 7 PM
9/17: Providence, RI @ Myopic Books @ 7 PM
9/18: Clinton, NJ @ Clinton Bookshop @ 630 PM
9/19: Baltimore, MD @ 510 Series @ 5 PM
9/20: Philly, PA @ The Dive Bar @ 8 PM





Bye!

Scrawl ass w: 100 wicked

Leaving on Saturday for random sporadic trip to France & Italy for about 8 days to see some shit with master Ken. Going to buy a tree and scrape it with my face.

In case of trouble, REF: Warszawa by David Bowie and Brian Eno from the album Low.

Think I am going to take The Great Fire of London by Roubaud, maybe another very fat book too. Fat books are the only books.





Soon after that, will be on tour in support of Scorch Atlas with Robert Lopez for Kamby Bolongo Mean River also out that month and Sam Ligon for Drift & Swerve already out. Here are what the dates look like for now:

12 - Brooklyn, NYC - Barbes
14 - Portmouth, NH - River Run Bookstore
15 - Northampton, MA - TBA
16 - Boston, MA - Brookline Booksmith
17 - Providence, RI - Myopic Books
18 - Clinton, NJ - Clinton Bookshop
19 - Baltimore, MD - 510 Series
20 - Philly, PA - TBA

Mark it?

Here is a brief review/presentation of Scorch, focusing mainly on design, and including lots of pictures.




Excellent post today on DC's regarding Gaspar Noe and his father Luis Felipe Noe. How much longer will I have to wait to see Enter the Void??? Excited to hang out with Dennis in Paris.




Today will reach 40k word mark on a new novel about a black field that spreads, a twin brother who speaks tongues, a horse with very long hair, a series of 10,000 fences, a flat pyramid, and quite a bit of blood.




Watch After Hours if you haven't seen it. Scorsese's Lynch. Loved.




Life is poodles.

Dollar Store Pregnancy

Home. Feel kind of crazy, vanfever, vanced. I seriously think I gained 10 pounds in beer, booze, and tacos, as well as doughnuts, whiskey, and 3 am FEED ME shit. Simultaneously missing my Dollar Store freaks and glad to be home getting my run on, drinking water, home. Home.

Was pretty amazed at the quality and size of crowds that came out to the shows, I had been expecting many nights of slim pickins, but almost every night there was a nearly full house. Thanks to everyone who came out said hello bought books bought drinks got crunk, I really don't think it could have gone better than it did.

I'd like to post more about more cities following the first half but I don't think I have the head for this right now. Let me try.

In the van I read

Degenerescence by James Chapman
Jerusalem by Goncalo M. Tavares
Ray of the Star by Laird Hunt
God Jr. by Dennis Cooper
Death Sentence by Maurice Blanchot


In Atlanta:

Home friends, swimming in warm light, destroying several copies of Scorch Atlas in the street outside the show, setting them on fire, punching, jumpkicking, throwing copies under cars (one guy got out and looked to see if running over the book had fucked his shit, he didn't realize it really had, a baby is now in the gastank) (preordered copies of SA (option coming soon) will have the option of coming all beat up by hand), read drunk in front of my parents, said titties a lot probably, took the crew to the Clermont for weird strippers and more beer, actually got stopped by a cop driving home at 3 am which made my van-lidded heart go wah, but dat girl just said g'on.


In Baltimore:

Another long delirious haul, though I already miss the van under my butt, I think it was on the road to there that we ate at a middle school mixed with a old folks home that I laughed at, then got goodfed on ham and scramp and chickens, in day of Balitmore we went to the BMA and saw some like, contemporary sheeit, a woman who had handdrawn exact copies of pages from Proust book, fucking nuts, we went to a corner store and asked for 'the largest bottle of liquor you have,' bought 6 20ozs of Coke and poured them half off, drank most of that before the show even started, minus a couple cups we handed to some young entrepreneurs who saw us drinking and hurried to McDonald's so they could have some cups to get a swig of our drank. This might have been the most fun of all the readings, everyone was electrical and powered up, we proceeded to more fun rooms and hanging and everyone was so nice, and everyone was.


In New York:

Ate sushi dinner with Derek and Jess, tried sushi I had never tried and really enjoyed, showed up at the club for $9 jack and cokes and a house full of rad friends, talked some shit, said the hello, ate the pizza, had a cab decision, got my ass handed to me shooting pool against a hustla, I think Aaron hit top party level this evening while wearing a Mormon style backpack, Aaron is now named Snack Pack, understand. NYC went so fast it felt like, we could have used at least another day or two, bonus cash. In van next day I read a draft of Amelia's forthcoming FC2 and my brain went holy shit magic lives. The van the van the van. Friendses.


In Philly:

Went to Mutter museum of oddities, saw some cleft babies and ruined organs, basked in light, read at a large bar for many more friends, finally met Lee Klein who I think was my first ever internet-land book-related connective tissue bit, Lee was a kind and smiling man, I think the room went still after I made an Anne Frank joke, we opened for a transvestite named Needles who did a cover set of Nico songs more sniffing than singing, looked like somebody took Iggy Pop aged him 15 years made him a grandmother and covered him in powder, weird crowd good people, we walked across the city for cheesesteaks, it was worth it, I think at one point I ran off by myself up a road and made people worried, I peed on a dirt field looking at the cops, Sasha Fletcher drove us home kindly, a kind man indeed. This night I passed out the second the futon hit my head.


In Boston:

Only late-ish show up on the tour, we came in five past, having spent time at Zach's aunt/uncle's, which I could not stop thinking of as that French house in Apocalypse Now (they were French, it was a port in the storm, etc), another amazing packed house at the amazing Brookline Booksmith, seriously almost as many as Austin, Aaron and I took 5-8 shots of whiskey apiece in 10 minutes right before coming in with the books, I think I had a baby, I read a piece about redneck pussy written in two different voices that I wrote sitting hungover on a curb in Baltimore sun while waiting for the van to fill, "This pussy smells like America," I think I scared some people, I think I was most happy I'd felt ever reading, afterward I lurched into some books. Afterward Gene Kwak and crew threw down. Boston being my last night had a weird sense of loss and homecoming at the same time, I went a little looloo and cut my hand partypiling in a bush, again everyone was so kind and awesome, that reading tours could be like this I had no idea.



Though I am glad to be home now and resting and letting my body eat the caloric reservoir I have in 2 weeks acquired, building a visible gut I never had, so fast, Dollar Baby, and drinking water (I think in NYC I realized I hadn't had a glass of water the whole trip), coming out of the long light, I can't say enough how much it really lit me up being out there with my dear friends funning, "for reals."

Partygirlin

I was

Profiled by L Magazine.

Profiled by Willow Springs (2 new lists of mine appear in their new issue #64 along with Kim Chinquee, Dean Young, Jeremy Voight, etc, one of the lists is available online at the profile)




I

edited Ocho 25

Open publication - Free publishing - More mipoesias

had 12th Evenson Fugue State review appear at Dogzplot for 'The Third Factor'

review project also mentioned in interview with Evenson by Drew Toal at Bookslut





I am

in Atlanta on the near halfway mark of the Dollar Store, having too good a time to even begin to explain really, van of freaks! You can get a good feed of brief freakisms from our Dollar Store twitter.

Briefly:

In Nashville

read at a mall bookstore as a result of a late booking and a notreallyliterary town, it was still fun reading among $100 handbags, Peter Cole kicked it out, Todd Dills sang, we drank way too much and set the bar for drinking to the point of partygirlisms every single evening thus far, went to a honky tonk, watched a band play Johnny Cash and repeat between every song "this is real country music, can't hear this on the radio," tried to go to a live nude karaoke event, failed, 3 hrs of sleep, threw up on side of road on way out of town



In Austin

ate crazy good BBQ served by a guy who grunted like Sling Blade and wouldnt talk, went to best truck stop ever in the spirit of Willie Nelson, ate breakfast tacos in a full meal for $2.50, Texas wins in the food world, had a standing room only reading, saw some old friends, 2 day taco count = 9, 2 day beer count = ?



In Houston

Gene Morgan Ryan Call party, more tacos, another great reading freakshow crowd outside of the best artbook boutique I've ever seen, Gene read a prayer that has henceforth protected our barky asses, got crunk and screamed "Bicycle Birthday!" at girls in the bar carrying bikes, drank abstinthe, wished I had not drank absinthe, laughed a lot, debate over whether its Kool Aid Man or Kool Aid Guy, slept in a small room with 8 people



In New Orleans

best food of whole trip soul food yumm, great reading for smaller crowd but good one, listened to rap made by 11 year olds, switched to liquor over beer for feeling fatboy, went into French quarter late in the evening, drank quite a bit too much, screamed about eating babies next to a table of scared locals who transcribed, big red drinks, ended in assdancing club till 3 am, some male dude rubbed his dick on me in an attempted courting ritual, watched assshaking and weird dj woman, shitty thugrap makes the good dance



more on these things later, now we're here back in my hometown with the van's AC half out and enjoying it that way, tonight is Atlanta, if you are here please come, Atlanta Scorch Atlas release party n whatnot!

Dollar Store Tour + Ever 2.0

I am leaving town on Friday for the Featherproof Dollar Store Show, so probably won't be blogging much.

I will likely be drunkenly tweeting here slightly more often to keep the bug in my eyes, unless I decide to bring my laptop, which I am kind of scared to. Is bringing yr laptop on the road to bars a good idea? I can't decide.

Either way, we will have Scorch Atlases, which the best way to get one before Sept, if you'd like.

Here are dates I will be where, would be really great to meet see talk confabulate with some heads.

Friday JULY 3 : Nashville
Sunday JULY 5 : Austin
Monday JULY 6 : Houston
Tuesday JULY 7 : New Orleans
Thursday JULY 9 : Atlanta
Saturday JULY 11 : Baltimore
Sunday JULY 12 : NYC
Monday JULY 13 : Philadelphia
Tuesday JULY 14 : Boston

If you are those spots, please come out! For full info on where/when/with who, check the Dollar Store Show site.





The first printing of EVER is now sold out, except for I think some copies at Powells and SPD.

The second printing is already underway, so don't go paying $60.49 for it used on Amazon just yet.

Thanks again to everyone who has bought / talked about / supported the book, it is beyond appreciated, as always.





Ok, hope to see you.

'my mother's letters addressed to nonexistent hotels'

People wondering about the results of the Scorch Atlas Remix contest: I've been slowly reading and things are coming together. We plan to have the results to you announced in early July, and the publication of the remix book coming shortly thereafter. More on that as it arrives.

The Scorch Atlas books themselves are about to be on their way: shipped from the printers door tomorrow.

Anybody interested in reviewing who isn't already on my list, please drop me a line with where you think you could place a write up. I'd love to send you a book.




Also, will be on Featherproof Dollar Store tour from July 3-14th, selling early copies (it won't hit stores until Sept.), check dates from Texas to NYC and elsewhere here.

Also will be doing another tour in September mostly in the Northeast with Robert Lopez and Sam Ligon, more on that soon.








A huge honor to have Dennis Cooper name EVER in his candidates for his Best of 2009 Top Ten Lists.

An insanely cool collage of art objects and powerhouses, from the man himself.








My review of the 11th story in Brian Evenson's Fugue State 'Invisible Box' is up at the Identity Theory blog Book Rate








I feel behind on so much, it is impossible to keep up, how does anybody do anything









Telling you now: Mike Young's MC Oroville's Answering Machine is a power energy monster. So happy to have that series of texts together in one place. It's $3.5. You just have to buy it.





Attila Bartis's 'Tranquility' (from the incredible Archipelago Books) is also stroking me inside:

But what would you do, Mr. Writer, if at pig-slaughtering time they handed you the blood bowl to hold, eh? You'd drop it like a hot potato, wouldn't you? About that, Mr. Principal, you are mistaken; I'd just get a better grip on it.









I'm really going to try now to write on this paragraph-turned-novel that is now entering 15k words from having meant to be 500 | saving in the filename 'black fields.doc' | I am really going to pay attention |

"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':

White House

Sitting at an airport in Boston waiting to go home, have 2 hours until takeoff, there is some kid sitting across from me playing with an enormous Rubik's cube that lights up and squawks in this robot woman voice and counts and says incomprehensible shit, with his other hand he has a yo yo that he has let fly off his hand twice under my seat, sometimes he puts it down and swings this enormous stuffed bear around and shit, his lisp is killer, his brother just I think tattled on him because he was trying to get him to take a picture of his dick.

People have children everyday.

The parents of these two are dope, one is a dude who calls the kids 'dude' and has on a Godsmack tee shirt and is eating from under his nails and looks sort of like Henry Rollins but not well spoken.




If it were not for this $7.95 internet connection I would was would going to have to kill to kill a person, etc.




My last 5 days have been very long and very fun and very composed of things in thinging, I have thanks to Justin, Mike, Claire and Jeff who housed and transported me, and many others, I wish I could think better.



If this kid hits my laptop with his yo yo or his bear I am going to take his mother by the very large hunk of hair she has whooped up in a lock over her forehead, you will know that this has happened if this post ends somewhat abruptly, or maybe I will come back.




While I was in NY I read for Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball's new 60 WRITERS 60 PLACES series, which is seeming amazing, Time Out NY wrote it up, here is a trailer:




Justin read in a pastry shop, it was fun. Justin also posted pictures from Thursday night here.

There were lots of readings.

Reading with Gary Lutz and Robert Lopez, Gary was very kind and quiet but funny when he talked, he had a turtle neck and stood up when he shook my hand, I wish Derek and Jess would return to America and live down the street, they are too good.



William Walsh is a very kind and quiet man, the Keyhole release was very nice, if already in my daze mind, I get tired in like 3 days of movement now, it is easy to feel erasers.







Here is another video from when I was in Balitmore, Adam is reading a very excellent drunken poem, which I defeat in power competition, this is before or after I poured water on him?, there was magic, Michael Kimball's filming and editing makes me peas and carrots in my hair:







In Amherst Mike Young did intros for people with a xylophone, it was in the fun room, I read from the gross book Sean and I are almost finished with, we read in a public deli and so it was rather awkward I think, * I pushed ahead * I said the naughties into the room and at first people were laughing a lot and by the end it was dead quiet, I think they started getting quiet during the part where the father is building the replica of the Holocaust in candy, all the readers were really good.

Bradley Sands is one of my favorite new people to listen to talk, I like the way he talks. Rachel Glaser is a good listener and funny, things are made of $$$$ in air

TTB and Mike Bushnell came through for a couple, Mike gave me a psychedelic portrait of Jesus, they disappeared quick.

Brian Foley is really funny and fun

I can't think anymore, i like all of all of so many people, I bought a ton a books n stuff, n stuff

tired




The kid is asking his mother about her blood, while rolling around in the floor with chocolate milk, 'how many windpipes do you have?': I am going to ask this kid to cowrite a book with me soon, I wonder if he has gmail.

Sorry, thanks to everyone who came out to things and talked about things to me and helped me, thanks to the kind nice peoples and to the mean peoples too, if there were some, I didn't find them.

Grostbodulism

Some very nice recent blog responses to EVER by Ken Baumann & J.A. Tyler.

Thank you to everyone who has continued to read, mention, and comment about the book. It's really awesome.



On other fronts, pretty much the day after EVER was finalized I turned around and worked on finalizing SCORCH ATLAS, which is now in the design phases.

Zach from Featherproof and Bleached Whale Design asked me if I had an idea of what I wanted the book to look like, and I said something like one of those philosophy or science manuals from the 70's: he took that and made it look 'destroyed,' as if it had suffered through itself:





This image is for the distro catalogs and all so may not be the final book cover, but it will be hard to beat in my mind, as being exactly exactly what I wanted. I want to kiss it on the page ends and cut my tongue good. Zach is goddamn wizard.

I am also really stoked about Featherproof's new enterprise, Paper Egg Books, which sounds blisteringly rad, not to mention Amelia Gray's also beautifully covered AM/PM, which will be out in time for AWP!



If you are in Atlanta, tomorrow night our SOLAR ANUS reading series will be featuring a rad duo in Bruce Covey and Matt DeBenedictis, 7 PM at Beep Beep Gallery at 696 Charles Allen Dr. Come do that!



Friday after tomorrow, the 30th, I will be reading at Emory University's What's New In Poetry series with Jen Tynes, 8 PM at Harris Hall Parlour, if you happen to be around. Come do that!



This has been an entirely utilitarian blog post.



I will go back to making a mess soon.

Unilateral suction of child into ex-glargennum passage, say goodbye

* If you are in Birmingham area by chance tonight (Friday 7:30 pm) come to Greencup Books for their Zine Music and Arts fest, it is going to be a big party apparently, with books and bands and booze. I am reading with local Atlanta mastermind Jamie Iredell as well as Todd Dills of the 2nd Hand and his wife Susannah Felts, T.J. Beitelman, and Al Burian from Burn Collector.

Kind of awesome to me to be reading with Burian having been reading Burn Collector on and off since I was like 18, and having seen his band Milemarker more than a couple times back in the day as well. Cool shit.




* The Fireman and the Caper by Justin Dobbs, I really like this piece by Justin, our dually written chapbook TWIN MOTHER is in design stages and coming on, it is chockfull of masturbation and molestation





* Sam and Shane have never eaten clean pussy




* SIR!, best new litmag debut this side of Lasverrunum, it has so many good people in it: Chad Reynolds, Noah Falck, Blake Butler, Ryan Walsh, Scott Garson,Mike Young, Juliet Cook, Brooklyn Copeland, Rauan Klassnik, Peter Berghoef, Elisa Gabbert, Carl Annarummo, Peter Schwartz, Zachary Schomburg & Emily Kendal Frey, Sean Kilpatrick, Julia Cohen,Charles Lennox, Shane Jones, Spencer Troxell, Brandon Hobson, Nicolle Elizabeth, Nathan Logan, and William Walsh. Massively excellent. My thing is a brief and random excerpt from WHERE AM I WHERE HAVE I BEEN WHERE ARE YOU, the 10 day novel and such.



* I am getting obsessed with finishing these lists now, and sent out about 25 subs today, which is more than I've sent out probably in the last 6 months combined. List sub blast will continue throughout the weekend most likely if I can keep the momentum. Submitting is hard. I need to hire Keith Montesano.




* Michael Ives is a badass, seriously




* Rewatched Lynch's short film 'The Grandmother' last night, hadn't seen it in a while, it is pretty jarring and different than a lot of his later stuff, there is a lot of use of animation and stop motion, you can watch it in parts on YouTube, if you haven't seen it, it's like 30 minutes, it's about a kid whose parents bark at him so he grows a grandmother out of dirt on his bed, here's part one:






* Something else I can't remember

'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.

No man might control the pellet of uterine destiny w/o first cod crammed ewruweifoijf

Keyhole Magazine's still-new website is running a feature to highlight the release of Michael Kimball's incredible DEAR EVERYBODY. This site includes an interview, excerpts and my review of the book.

DEAR EVERYBODY, as predicted, is already taking heads off around the nation.

There is also a new issue of Keyhole Magazine on the racks now, I read more than half of it this afternoon and really enjoyed it, they continue to do new things in a high quality burn em up fashion, things are moving,

The reading in Atlanta last night went really well, I couldn't have asked for more from a town pretty spare in the way of readings, we had a great turn out, thanks to everyone who came, and to the bands and Zach Plague and Todd Dills, who were both awesome to hang out with. I am working with some folks to make it a more regular thing very soon.

The reading of Sam Pink's play went down really well, big ass steak knives and all. The video turned out pretty good, it's going to take me a while to get around to uploading it, I will do it.

Umm, more to talk about therein quite soon.



There's also a new Games themed issue of Hobart on the way out which looks like it will be the best thing they've done yet, including work by friends Kim Chinquee, Barry Graham, Matt Bell, Jennifer Pieroni, Brandi Wells and many excellent others. They launched a bonus-features site to go along with the issue wherein I wrote an alternate ending for Barry's story about texas hold em, which was a lot of fun, you should buy the issue of read the story and all else.

There is a lot to read there, I really like Mike Alber's thing on playing Magic, i don't give a fuck what you say Magic is the best game ever created, i played it when i was very fat, I had to cash in my cards to be allowed to lose my weight

it makes risk look like a thing a granny could destroy with one scooch of her's v-v.

I feel like I can't focus today at all

I am done with beer for at least 3 weeks I promise myself

I used to say beer tasted like either piss or soy sauce

Now I know it can also taste like bad fruit juice or bad water

I promised myself I wouldn't say anything about babies today

How about kitties and titties instead



okay and babies

This Sunday: Zach Plague, Todd Dills, NO COLONY, bands

If you happen to be in Atlanta this Sunday September 7, I'm hosting a reading at WonderRoot on Memorial, with reading by Zach Plague (author of 'boring boring boring boring boring boring boring' new from Featherproof), Todd Dills (who edits 2nd Hand and wrote 'Sons of the Rapture' also from Featherproof), plus I'll be reading something from the new No Colony issue and selling them). In the midst of that will be two bands, one I used to be in Sleep Therapy and an awesome weird ambient joint called Lyonnais, it bodes to be a fun shit, it starts at 8:00 pm or so, please come, please fly from your locale, I will lick your face, have a baby with you (dinnerstyle), punch a goggle in the neck, yes.



BTW, if you haven't check out Zach's boring book yet, you really should. It's really one of the best looking books I've seen in a while, with all kind of weird font stuff and wild paper designs occuring, it clearly took a ton of typographic work and makes the text electric and exciting, I am reading it now and really getting kicks out of Zach's way of spinning, I've not seen much of anything like this before: it is something to hold in yr hands.



Also reading right now: Deb Olin Unferth's VACATION, man it is excellent. It's broken into a ton of little wild graphs and narrative windings, people following people following people: it is kind of perfect to read right now and I suggest you find one. Derek White was right a lot to compare it to Auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY, in that it has that weird enrobed air about it, but it also has those compacting Unferth sentences that leave you thinking after each because of how they turn. Excellence. Buy.



Shipped some more NO COLONYs out today: they are on de way. Kickin it.

Got my first blurb for EVER this weekend, from one of my absolute fiction idols, it made me giddy and eyes sweaty, it made me want to buy my own book. Doinks.

Other things becoming large.

Something is poking out inside my scrotum, I feel happier than yesterday

Matt Bell said nice things about my Ninth Letter story, Matt has an excerpt from his novel coming out in the next Lamination Colony (which I am about to begin building) which will claw you on the knee in a way that bleeds until you get to read the rest of the novel when it is released upon the public, you will go Oh

Man the new Of Montreal record sucks, I used to really like those guys, the new record is hyper-sexual in an off-putting way, he talks too much silly, I have to throw it out the window, I should have never taken cLOUDEAD's 'Ten' out of my cd player, I just need a two disc changer with that and 'Remain in Light,' I wish that wasn't a title already I would use it, it doesn't feel like I title one could steal

The story I am writing right now about a baby leaking to fill a house will the last story I write about bad things happening to babies, at least for a minute, what got me started on that?

I watched a thing about Jeffrey Dahmer the other day, it was good, I don't know

Here's a good interview with Sam Pink

Beer costs money what's the big deal about beer what happens with water you can get fucked up on water water is free some places

When is everything going to be free

Everything that is shit happens at once then everything that is good happens at once and in between those there's just a lot of waiting

Crispin Glover's What Is It?

Last night saw Crispin Glover do a live performance and screening of his film WHAT IS IT? at the Plaza in Atlanta. Plaza is a perfect place for such shit, as it's the only independently owned theater left downtown and has been held over from I believe the 50's, with the old style long curtains and deep screening rooms held over.

Glover started by coming out and reading excerpts from six of his books. He basically delivered a dramatic monologue using images from the text (which varied from erasures, to weird photos with inscriptions, to scrawled drawings and architectural images, etc.). His reading added a lot to what would have otherwise been easy to misunderstood text. A couple of the books in particular hit me for the way he was able to evoke a lot from little mental snippets, kind of like Dennis Cooper meets Edward Gorey or something. It was also quite funny, and Glover's mannerisms (which seem truly him, and not just a theatric b/s) added another layer to the crypticism of it.



Then they screened the film WHAT IS IT?, which is about 72 minutes long, and features Glover in a cast almost entirely of actors with Down's Syndrome. Later in the Q&A, Glover was very emphatic that the characters did not necessarily have Down's, but the actors did, and it was one of his stipulations for the film, which was adapted by him from a script offered to him that had been written by another physically handicapped author (who was held against his will in an asylum for 10 years), who plays a central character in the film. The film was surprisingly narrative, if highly skewed, for all of its bizarre imagery, which included at various points (1) salt being poured on snails up close, making them shrivel (2) Nazi insignia and a man painted in black face (3) the song 'Some Niggers Don't Die' by Johnny Rebel, played during a scene where the author actor, who is handicapped, is laying inside a clam getting a handjob from a nude woman with huge tits and a animal mask over her face) (3) a Down's couple making out and simulating sex (4) Down's kids beating the shit out of each other with shovels and talking about Michael Jackson (5) organ music by Anton LaVey and songs by Charles Manson, etc.



At some point I turned to my girlfriend and said, "This has everything."

I liked the film. And for all of its obviously intentionally taboo imagery, Glover was extremely particular and concerned over its reception, which he said is why he tours with it, so he can 'protect' the work, as it clearly stirs certain people to the point of anger in frequent spots. The imagery was really well done and the shots were crafted with care.

The Q&A then led into Glover offering extremely long answers to questions (he pointed out that the answers were long so as to answer many questions he used to getting at once, to save time, which I understood, as he's been touring with it for more than 10 years). He spoke a lot about how the film was made as a stab at the film industry's effect to smother out all instances of taboo, which has created the stilted yard of shit in theaters now. He explained an extremely detailed vision for the film, in which his taboos were selected specifically to evoke certain responses, rather than just piss people off. He was very articulate and clearly had put a lot of thought into the film, and to the roles the Down's actors played, and their experience of the film. His reception by the actors' families and others with Down's who'd seen the film was one that suggested they were glad to see such imagery in the film and that it was not exploitative. I got the feeling that the place the imagery came from was 'genuine' and that Glover knows exactly what he's doing, and isn't just weirding around.

In fact, perhaps my favorite part of the night came during the Q&A, when some girl in the audience, who obviously had pegged Glover as 'weird for weird's sake' and thought she could hang, raised her hand and asked, "Which would you rather swim in: a pool of scabs or a pool of kittens?"

Glover snickered a little, then looked at her more directly and kind of grimaced, and essentially said, "I do not understand this question or why you are asking it. I would not like to do either of these things." He did not play into her joke, it was slightly awkward, funny.



Glover was so explicit in his statements that eventually, after about an hour of the rather dry q&a, we ended up having to split out early to meet some friends from out of town, so I didn't get to meet him, and I was rather glad to exit without the full barrage of q&a, as I didn't want it explained away to me. Enough context was given, and Glover seemed almost so concerned about the correct reception that he went on even beyond needed, but overall I was happy I saw his work and where it comes from.

I wish I'd gotten a chance to ask about the presence of LaVey and Manson in the film, as well as some of his method of creating the text in the books, but fuck, hm, next time.

Now back to editing.

Cut the Baby's Smarnitt

The masterful and righteous Elizabeth Ellen recently interviewed me about insomnia for Hobart.

EE is the fuckin champ, believe dat. If you haven't bought A PECULIAR FEELING OF RESTLESSNESS or BEFORE YOU SHE WAS A PIT BULL yet, what's your deal?

I am going to Birmingham today to read @ the Bottle Tree with Todd Dills, Sean Carswell and Jim Murphy. 7 PM. If you are in the area come say hi and watch me learn to lick myself correctly. I think I am going to read some sections from the 10 day novel but that might change, I don't know.

Enter Jereme Dean's NO COLONY issue 1 freebie promotion! by Sunday.

elimae etc.

My dreams recently have become so long and vivid and brutal that I am usually more tired when I wake than when I went to sleep. It's beginning to get to me. I feel ripped to shreds.

New elimae. I have a paragraph in it, sort of from a new thing I am working on: DO NOT LOOK INTO THE MOTHER'S HEAD. A lot of interesting stuff there as always, haven't read most yet, but Matt Bell's novel excerpt in particular is strong and exciting.

Other recent good reading online: NONE OF IT GRACE by Mike Young @ Pindeldyboz and LOVE YOUR FRIENDS AND NOT YOUR LOVERS by Kendra Grant Malone @ Bore Parade.

I am returning THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES after quitting at page 150. Fuck that. Death worship. No.

REMAINDER & THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES

I've been reading a lot lately to fill the void between finishing a project and starting a new one. I think I found the next thing I want to work on but I am still in reading momentum. My floor is covered with so many new books, and my list keeps getting longer.

I am really trying to understand all the hype around Tom McCarthy's novel REMAINDER. It's been getting huge reviews and awards from lots of venues I respect. I read the book several months ago on a strong recommendation. I don't get it. Yeah, the book has a great concept (guy gets a ton of money in settlement after getting hit in the head and losing his memory, doesn't know what to do, starts buying places and stuff to recreate feelings he remembers from before the accident) but the execution of the book is so bland. Not even bland to the point of 'I want to stop reading this' but bland just like 'I am here.' I like the conceptual execution of the book and the lack of resolution but so much more could have been done with this. The writing itself had little to offer. It felt like something I would have read in a workshop and thought, yeah he'll probably sell this. The same compelling situation kept happening over and over with slight variations, and the explanation of this in the reviews I've read compares it to visual art, but really, this is a book I feel like anyone could have written if they thought of it. It has no 'personality.' It feels like a good idea drawn to its full execution without too much imagination. Maybe like a computer wrote it? Did a computer write it? That would be neat.

Anyway, if someone I know with similar taste read this and liked it, I would be interested to hear why.

Right now I am reading Roberto Bolano's THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES, for the same reason I read REMAINDER, that being that I wanted to see what all the hype is. I like Bolano's writing okay so far, and the story has me turning pages, but I still haven't seen why he is such a revolutionary. I swear if this book turns into a rebellious romance, I am going to cut someone open.

Eugene Marten's IN THE BLIND

Just finished reading Eugene Marten's novel IN THE BLIND from Turtle Point Press.



I have to say that on a sentence by sentence level this is one of my favorite books in recent memory. Marten's sentences are chiseled beyond teeth. It seems like every single line in this book was worked on for hours, and hours spent connecting them, and yet the story flows so smoothly, almost with an peculiar eloquence you can't help but swallow hard at.

IN THE BLIND follows this narrator around, a man who gets out of prison for a drunk driving accident and gets a job at a locksmith's. A lot of the book is filled with him thinking about locks, learning to break them, opening rooms for people, dealing with the strange, all of it in clipped and gorgeous language, actually similar in a way to SEAVIEW by Toby Olsen which I talked about a few months ago after it cut me.

I learned a lot from reading this book, in the way that Marten leaves things out, things most other authors leave in, allowing the reader to jump with him over the baggage and get to the meat, and in the transition leaving these weird gaps of air that make the surroundings that much more pushy and compelling. Certain sections of this book seem to travel out into a branch of nowhere, sort of like searching for a combination on a lock, if you'll allow the comparison. There's one section where the narrator moves through a dark part of a moored ship that is among my favorite scenes in any recent book I can think of.

I remember an interview with Donald Antrim where he was talking about how sometimes he gets the most glee in finding the ways he moves a character through a room. Marten has this in his teeth. Really. Fuck. Every paragraph is precision. I am going to stop gushing now.

I am going to open to a random page in the book and type the first paragraph I see.

I found a long one. I am going to type it anyway.

- - -

Lights out at ten. The switch that started the dark stopped the clock and you press your bunk, bury your head under your pillow, stuff your ears with cotton or foam rubber. You sleep two or three hours and you can hear it in your dreams, nightmare within a nightmare, the screaming, chanting, moaning, singing, rhyming, sobbing, preaching (Let me talk to you about God! What's He got I don't? Well it might be bigger and a whole lot sweeter!), howling of wolves, crowing of crows, knock knock jokes, someone jerking off at the top of his lungs, shouted conversations about sports devolving into death threats and gibberish, mothers, wives, and girlfriends cast in a contest of lurid punchlines (Nigger your mother's titties hang so low she got wheels on her bra, Nigger your family so brokeass poor they brush they teeth for breakfast, swallow they spit for supper), how someone's gonna toss someone's salad, how they're gonna and they're gonna till it's time to smooth your sheet, for forever till first light, The bitch cut me in my face, she cut me in my face, she ain't cute enough to cut me in my face.

If you wanted to sleep, the saying says, you shouldn't have come.

- - -

If that excerpt doesn't sell a book I don't know what will.

Every graph is that nice, often much less brutal, but still full of the refined power. You can feel the work here, you can smell it, and it made my blood tingle a little most every line.

I can't tell you how good this book is. I am trying.