'Ejaculation is a waste of valuable resources.'

Thanks to everyone who has preordered EVER so far. I've been really happy about the first two days. The more that get preordered I think the more I will make to include in the free shit, which I will be telling more of soon. Very awesome, anyway, that folks have bothered.

Please check out & order EVER. I am going to keep saying that for a while, bear with me.

God help me I just joined twitter


What text by Zizek should I read? What is his 'most important' work, or at least the one I might like the best? I have always meant to read a full book but in looking at them I find it hard to know which I would most respond to. Comments?


This morning I woke up with 'I saw myself / What were you doing' written on my hand, though it wasn't there when I went to sleep and I don't remember writing it during the night.


My sleeplessness is ramping up again, I sleep two hours and want to get up. I don't. I don't know why.


Here is Derek's book trailer, for those who haven't seen it:



If anyone has readings in the southeast or northeast and would have me for a reading, please email me also. I have some dates set up in NYC, Baltimore, pending Michigan, pending Northampton, Chicago for AWP, and some others pending. I would love to do a bunch.



Awesome website for Shane Jones's LIGHT BOXES



I think I am beginning to give up. No negatives today, despite Rod Stewart coming through the damn wall.











God I can't stand brass instruments.


I think I have said 'fuck america' out loud at least 20 times today, I'm not sure why.



I am going to read Jesse Ball's new book tonight maybe. I have been waiting for the right time.



We saw LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a new Swedish vampire movie: it does a really good job of not overburdening the idea of vampires, and making it something that could fit into the world, which makes it that much more palpable and invoking than the typical retardation of normal vampire films. The shots are really good, there is a bed explosion, there is child violence and blood and Morse code, this is a horror movie I can get behind.


Ryan Call just saved my mind.

The Hand Blender Shat & Looked Upon the Shat & It was 'the place to be'

* Holy shit look at the cover to New York Tyrant 5

* IN THE RAPE YEAR OF THE GHETTO TODDLER THE HOUSES WILL AWAKEN will be released next week. JA says it is almost sold out already, so if you are interested in peeking at toddler violence, you should order now $2. IT IS SOLD OUT NOW, BEFORE THE RELEASE DAY. THANK YOU BUYERS.



* Ryan Call interviewed me for NOÖ Loves Everyone




* Soon I will eat a dog, forget about babies, it is dog time.




* I randomly went through my stacks of books bought and not yet read, which is reaching bad proportion. My goal through the end of the year is to read as much off these shelves as possible.

The first of these was Ken Sparling's DAD SAYS HE SAW YOU AT THE MALL, which, holy fuck, is immediately one of my favorite books. It's from the Lish days of Knopf, consisting of really stripped scenes from suburban fatherhood, really weird and funny, maybe like if Gary Lutz wrote for the Simpsons or something, or semi-like WHY DID I EVER, but those descriptions don't really cut it. I can't think of a single person I know who wouldn't love this book I think.

Here are three random sections from the book, to get an idea:

Tutti and I were living in that apartment when you couldn't put anything in the freezer because of all the ice forming on the freezer walls. I saw my whole life in that freezer. I saw a guy with hairy legs, living in a cave, eating frozen fish-sticks. I saw God in that freezer.



It was having the boner that gave me the boner.



I have never wanted to hang myself, or slit my wrists, if that's what you are thinking. There are certain ways of talking--sometimes I am capable of this--where everyone shuts up and listens. I don't know why they do this.

Here is the interview with Sparling that originally made me want to buy the book, I think it was several years ago.

As well, here is a Sparling story on elimae

I highly, highly recommend this book.




* You can now preorder the 'Handwritten issue' of Keyhole Magazine, is is in full color and every page is handwritten, which is an amazing idea I think. It includes stuff by many amazings, ie: Kim Chinquee, Kevin Sampsell, Elizabeth Ellen, Aaron Burch, William Walsh, Kelly Spitzer, Claudia Smith, Kathy Fish, Laura Ven Der Berg, and scads of others.



My thing is a novel excerpt, from WHERE AM I WHERE HAVE I BEEN WHERE ARE YOU, I am excited to read the reading out of this read.

I fell asleep inside BACK TO THE FUTURE am I okay

1. If someone is smart they will publish SAM PINK's fragmentary prose amalgam: I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF AND THEN KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT. If I had a press, which I might soon, I would give Sam Pink an eight figure advance so he could stroke his shaft with 20000 dollar bills.

Sam Pink is like Russell Edson with much bigger balls and a tendency to aim at the throat rather than the spleen.

Seriously, shit is real. This should be made flesh. Talk to him.

2. THE CUPBOARD is a revitalization of a pamphlet series releasing incisive work, the first released is by Jesse Ball, I am subscribed, it is cheap to subscribe or to at least buy the first issue by Jesse Ball, $5, go support this excellence.

3. Ross Simonini's musical project THE FAMILY DANCES made me feel glad about listening to music again, he is doing something here with this, it makes Animal Collective sound like Staind.

4. Paul Siegel has released POEMERGENCY ROOM through Otoliths books, it seems nice, I am going to touch it.

5. Jeremy James Thompson posted more about the Charles Bernstein broadside I helped annotate.

6. Saw GONZO, the Hunter Thompson documentary last night. Hunter Thompson was a real piece of shit. He didn't even write that much, he just kind of babbled, I like babble, I like FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, he could have done more with himself, he could have done more, I find it amusing that one of America's most 'famous' authors was more famous for his being a dick and doing a lot of coke etc. than he was actually saying things, he 'gave up' I think, maybe I will give up but instead of coke I will slide into throwing babies in the air and catching them and sticking my tongue far up their nostrils.

7. Daniel Bailey started a video blog where writers can do videos of themselves reading, it is here: HERE EXPLODES MY GIANT FACE.

7.5. I want to record an audio book of Roald Dahl's THE TWITS, that is going on my to-do list goddamn it.

8. RYAN CALL posted an excerpt from a conversation we had yesterday. I think Ryan Call was nicely drunk when we spoke again later in the evening, he said things more directly that he usually does, I liked it, he helped me figure out to keep the title I have for the new novella I am finishing.

The novella may be almost long enough to be a novel, it is spaced out with a lot of white space and works in graphs and lines mostly, I think I like it a lot, it is going to remain with the title HOW MANY FLOORS DOES THE NIGHTMARE HAVE? until I have that title beaten from my hand by someone.

I think I am just going to send the novella around all over the place like those Chinese restaurants that stick ads on my doorknob, that must work somehow, they probably at least get a few customers like that, I feel like I can be reckless with this thing. Right.

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.