Anatomy Courses

Available today from Lazy Fascist, cowritten with Sean Kilpatrick.

Many thanks to Cameron Pierce for releasing this slim strange book I never thought would be released.

More information.

Scorch Atlas eats streets today

Today is the official release date of Scorch Atlas, and no better way to kick it off than a glowing review from Time Out New York's Kimberly King Parsons, who writes: "The extreme subject matter and obsessively rendered syntax will evoke comparisons to writers like Brian Evenson and Gary Lutz, but Butler is an original force who is fearless with form."

Also glowing words from the ever awesome Matt Bell at his blog: "Butler excels at forcing the familiar through the a sieve of strange until it is stripped clean of its everyday banality, until it is once again made so fresh you can smell the decay it contains, until you can taste the despair that threatens to destroy not just his characters but also the dangerous worlds they inhabit."

Two kind and killer reviews, both for which I am quite grateful.

Things feel nice. Blessings and blessings. Graciousness from eyes.

Did I mention how amazing Sean Kilpatrick is? His novel excerpts at Spork are black fucking teeth. What the fuck.

Pleasures. Mud.

'The Passionate Male Prostitute'

For my story 'The Ruined Child' in the new issue of Barrelhouse, the dudes asked me to maybe throw over a bonus feature for the web, something like Michael Czyzniejewski's awesome pop-up video style annotation of his story, and the other nice thangs they have compiled

In the spirit of our Scorch Atlas remix competition (which ends at the end of this month), I remixed 'The Ruined Child' by doing a series of Find/Replace and other insertions until it became The Passionate Male Prostitute. It's a big rumblefuck, and includes maybe my favorite sentence I've ever (semi-accidentally) written:

"Anton LaVey opened the labia and saw just a grizzly bear eating Cheerios."

It was interesting to see how dramatically the nature of the story could be changed just by switching some of the major nouns and verbs, without changing the structure of any sentence, or the minor connective words. Made me realize a lot about how important word choice is even in places it might seem minor, which is a good lesson to relearn.

Please get up on The Passionate Male Prostitute.






Congrats to Sean Kilpatrick for having his LC story The Origin of Species Reinterpreted Through Massacre make the 2008 storySouth Million Writers Notable Stories list. Love to see a blood-sniffing text on the powerlist.

Thanks to the judges who picked Sean's piece, and to those as well that selected two of my stories for the list. Very cool. And many cool others in the house as well.






For those in NYC, there is a great event for Noemi Press upcoming:

"Join us at 7 PM on 2 May 2009 for a Noemi Press reading at Stain Bar, 766 Grand Street, Brooklyn NY, 11211 (L to Grand, 1 block west) 718-387-7840

Featured readers: Claire Hero, Shya Scanlon, Mark Tursi, and Lila Zemborain"





If you are in Atlanta (tonight!), Kevin Wilson is reading in Decatur at 730... right now I'm scheduled to work tonight, but trying to finagle my way out. His just released TUNNELING TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is high on my wanting list, and I hope I get to buy it from him tonight. Atlantans, go!






My reading bug is back in me full on.

I just started reading Ignácio de Loyola Brandão's TEETH UNDER THE SUN from Dalkey, and am loving it: my Dalkey count for the year is at 7 now. This book is so far very calm and magical, and easy and fun to read, with simple but power-infused sentences. More evolves.





Just found one of Gaspar Noe's early short films on YouTube, 'Carne,' this could be used as the most effective don't eat animals commercial ever. ** Seriously do not watch this if you are squeamish about animal violence, particularly horses. **

LINK





Finished 1st draft of EVER sister yesterday, maybe to begin noodling now, or something.

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.

what kind of good is the best good if you are going to open the spaghetti do it now i have to be at the sand farm in 15 min & my hair is leaking light

** (people can win a copy of EVER by talking shit here)



Sean Kilpatrick pushes another piece into my top 5 favorites of the year Progress: A Play in _ Acts. I mean, I want to stop talking about the dude, but he won't let me. Such as here is a part from the play that makes me squish ink:

An arm sticks out, aiming a pistol straight up.

CHARACTER A: I'm pregnant.

CHARACTER B: Congratulations. Who's the father?

CHARACTER A: I'll never tell.

CHARACTER B: When you straddle a cannon the whole ghetto perks up.

The gun recedes. Several shots sound.

That's a man, read the rest.





Another recent hero is Brandi Wells. Read her new blog post about a poem she published in her school journal causing a call for censorship. It's a great poem. The poem was also published here at decomP, you have to scroll down: We have been dating so long I feel like I can tell you anything.

Brandi is doing really strong work esp. lately, it makes me happy when I see her new words. The letter from her school reminds me of what school feels like. I thought I missed it. Maybe I do.





I have a big post about the apparent wish for democracy in literature in me coming soon, thinking about it last night kept me up until 630, I thought I would remember what I wanted to say but now I can't remember, I hold my hands in fists when I am sleeping.

Everything is not good. It's ok to be critical.

And it's funny, Ryan and I are just talking about this right now: for all the good you talk about in public, it is the things that are shit talk or are negative that garner the attention. If people didn't like negativity, they would make 100+ comments on the presence of a Kitchen Reading Series. But they don't. What people like is to see other people cut the skin off each other's faces. Me too. Fine.

I am going to figure out what I mean and talk better later.

Why can't the air be made of Mexican food.







Last night finished reading Jesse Ball's forthcoming THE WAY THROUGH DOORS, it is magical and filled with doors and tunnels and stories within stories and is exactly what I needed to read. My review will be coming out in Spring but for now let me say that this book is important and new and old and beautiful and many things, and if you have liked anything of Jesse's before, or like Calvino or Marquez, you are going to be in for it.

There is a definitive thread in the book that says something on par with the idea that: 'Nothing is incidental.' There is a lot of wild energy and new unraveling and dream terror and old wit and maps and drawings and enchantment and etc. in this book. I can't stop thinking about it.






I heard something today about an unreleased chunk of a large unfinished novel that he had given to a very small lit mag to be published right before his death will be coming out early next year. Knowing that is out there and coming makes me feel like I can sit up in this room and listen to the humidifier and put my socks on when my feet are cold.







Let's always be talking about something else.








Like my 3 favorite google searches ending here today:

1. keeping people from touching your infant
2. pink ball in dog's vulva
3. poems about who gives a shit about a little girl

Sean Kilpatrick is lipstick beverages

Sean Kilpatrick interviewed me for his Anorexic Chlorine Sex Toy Museum. We talk about rape and Wigs n Beepers and editing and film and William Gass, et al.

His interview blog has so much reading material on it, including interviews with Daniel Borzutsky, Gene Morgan, Letitia Trent, Mike Young, Tao Lin, Kevin Doran, etc. He asks real questions.

I'm pissed at Sean right now because he apparently did not tell me he has a new book coming out from Six Gallery Press and has work forthcoming in Fence also. He is the new truth, I promise.

If you have not yet read his story HUBBY, you are missing probably my favorite short story of the year.

Sean Kilpatrick's first full length book of poems is free to read online from BlazeVox, and is fucking awesome: THE MAN WHO FOLLOWED ME HOME.

The book we are writing is the best thing I have ever touched. This week the father in it had a latte with David Berkowitz, built a chocolate replica of Auschwitz in the attic, a turtle was set on fire, and a woman got a portal into the universe rubbed into her flesh by a tutu.

It is real.





The Guardian did a piece on Michael Kimball's postcard project featuring 4 samples, including mine. The scope of this project just keeps getting bigger. Michael is a force.







EVER just went to the printers. It is more than I could have imagined. Sneak peeks and bonus shits coming.









The last 20 seconds of this video is almost an excerpt from RICKY'S ANUS. The rest makes me happy as well:











Time to get fat.
Please have a day of caloric rest.

i have a ceramic giraffe fellating an invisible dick on my tv stand no shit it would make a killer tattoo

god am i inside the internet
god are you inside the internet

HTMLGiant

also now No Colony's website got updated, it has info about the new issue, it has an excerpt from the issue in the form of Sean Kilpatrick's story HUBBY, which really by now I have read 8-22 times, Sean is doing new things with words

there are also two previously unpublished and really cool pieces by Corey Zeller and Patrick Leonard, I really like the pieces on the site, please continue to buy issues, we love your knee





Sean Kilpatrick and I are slowly rewriting NAKED LUNCH together, for serious, wait till you see it, Sean is my abuse brother, something is alive inside him, he is eating the toothpaste rotting in my colon







i got a review copy of Lily Hoang's forthcoming book from Fairy Tale Review Press, it is called CHANGING, i literally when i took it out of the envelope said, Fuckin wow, it is a beautiful beautiful book, the style of the interior is like a puzzle, wait till you see this thing, Lily is the shit, I will have a review and more words about the book later, but Joyelle McSweeney's blurb on the back says a lot: "This is an impossible thing, a dream object." it really is








my review of Norman Lock's ebook GRIM TALES is in the Oct issue of the Believer, I mentioned this on HTML Giant, it seems this issue is a semi-Lish themed issue, it has a Diane Williams interview by Kevin Sampsell that I am excited to read, it has pieces with Will Eno and David Ohle, some other

you can read my whole review online the Believer site

a corresponding interview I did with Mr. Lock will be on Hobart before year's end, Norman Lock talks about his work with a pointed intelligence he is a wise man, and wow.





Derek sent me a potential cover for EVER, I cried a little, Derek is too good for me to say anything else







according to a mention in this piece on Michael Kimball's amazing DEAR EVERYBODY, i am a powerhouse international literary agent who represents Nobel winners, that is good to learn, i am not seeking unsolicited submissions because I am sort of a cunt, also Michael Kimball is Das Kapital, what more could I need








the current background on my laptop is a house on fire from a Tarkovsky film, before that it was a photo of a Chihuahua standing on hamburgers, i miss my dog, i want to be my dog and/or this dog