I am going to eat a whole copy of my book Scorch Atlas, one page at a time.
This page was the first inside, all black, I think there was a lot of ink on it, it really made me sick feeling. I will continue. The full video was six minutes, so this is like, the highlight reel.
If you have recommendations for sauces, other condiments, ways of preparation, please leave them here.
Ben Spivey came to my house and interviewed me, we talked about David Lynch, Jesse Ball, writing processes, EVER, sleep, fantasy novels, and a lot of other things. Ben is rad.
The inaugural issue of The Rome Review is out now, has a list of mine in it, one of the last that I wrote, and in a way very different than most of the other lists. It is a beautiful magazine, magazine-style instead of usual lit mag shape, and quite a roster for its introduction, please imbibe.
Think I am getting a tattoo over the weekend, and maybe branded in the brain.
Shane Jones and I had a conversation about small press publishing, internet writing, cats n shit that is now up at Powell's. Thanks to Shane and Kevin Sampsell. Words.
Thanks to people who have bought EVER and are buying it. The next three people who fwd me a receipt for it from a time after this posting, I will send supplementary books for free, things you would actually probably want. Added value of maybe $25 or therein.
My CD player finally crapped out in my car. Discs get stuck in and won't go in or out. Need to buy one, but have been subjecting myself to radio for a week or so now. A braineater, of course, mostly except today I heard a song off the new Bill Callahan record that totally made sense, and made me feel okay about the whole no CD experience. I could really use a new musical presence to become obsessed with. It's been a long while. Shit gets old so fast it seems.
I never really 'got' Bill Callahan or Smog until that song. Now hungry for listening to the records in full. Meaning I have to buy a CD player soon. While I'm at it, I think I'm going to hook up my 2x10 subwoofers in the trunk n whatnot. Real shit.
HTMLGiant now has a 'book trade forum,' where I and others have/will list their wants/haves and trades can occur. Please peruse/use: LINK
Finished what is very close to a 'submittable' draft for a new self-contained story yesterday, the first in probably 4-5 months. It turned out being a little longer than I'd intended, 4k words or so, but I'm really happy with it. It felt good to write something smaller like that again. I hadn't been able to in a while. Though of course I have no idea what to do with it now besides see the name of it on my desktop sometimes.
Revising is funny, used to be that things would always get shorter in revision, though now my texts seem to fatten, finding crevices in the sentences to keep expanding, graphs to insert between graphs. I like the 'do the sentence right the first time' method, and have gotten what I think is pretty good at it, but the revisions are nice for fine tweaking and find those holes.
Sure.
Think I am going to keep writing Lynch essays. One coming soon for a sexy website about Lynch's female bodies.
Weekend in Baltimore = rad, life is tired in mind and yet full full of the eat. Reading was super packed and pleasantly hung with blocks of black, I like how Michael Kimball hosts an event, I like how he talks and thinks and is nice, I like Michael Kimball's house, in the house I had very violent dreams again, I am beginning to only have very violent dreams, this is likely as I have not spat out new words since a couple days before Chicago, I have drank / ate bad food more in past two weekends than in a lot of other time combined, which is the rope the child ate to hang himself with to get into the hidden layer of Metal Gear Solid 9, if there is a 9th edition, which if there isn't yet, this blog takes place in the future.
Someone should make a documentary following drunk Adam Robinson: I may need him on my rap record. Justin Sirois is really nice, like a nice guy you want to see around, and funny. Kyle Minor is really nice and his reading reminded me slightly of McCarthy, I like anytime anyone says 'Kentucky' in a story and means it in reference to getting beat, his book 'In the Devil's Territory' is now on my buy list. I liked Kathleen Rooney's reading about being a craiglist nude model for $$, it made me want to be pleased, and be pleased, i want that book too, i think it made me want to write nonfiction more too
books
I think when I am reading out loud to people i start to have dinner inside my body and my body keeps talking while I am having the dinner: I liked hanging out with Shane Jones again, this time more than in Chicago thankfully, and Molly, Adam, Michael, Justin, whatever things inside me i was killing that second night drunk out of mind in which I probably ingested 3000 calories of pizza and chicken before pouring water on Adam while the pizza workers looked pissed and I shouted about dick, this is all on tape somewhere, Adam did a poem called I think 'Steve Reich meets a preacher' that I want to watch in 100 boxes again
At one point drunk shouting I demanded there has never been a Southern writer, that there are only 4 Southern states and no Faulkner is not a Southern writer, O'Connor isn't, Barry Hannah is more than a lot of people but not, other things
Gas stations in the South are Southern writers but Padgett Powell isn't, Cormac McCarthy isn't
the south gets confused a lot by people, I need to do more thinking about this, I think the South exists sometimes but not where it is is is
I am not a Southern writer, because where I sit most times isn't an existenereaer
but I am more a Southern writer than Faulkner, promise
to the extent that I am a writer at all, which I think is not at all
I like candy
books books books people people words talking words books eating candy
I had several experiences in Wendy's's during the drive up to and down from Balitmore, if there weren't already a book about Wendy's I would write it, I am sad there is in the same way I was sad when Steve Almond beat me to writing a candy memoir even though I still could write a candy memoir
I am going to try to not move at all during the 10 days until NYC / Providence / Northampton so that I will still be able to talk by then, not that I need to talk or want to or will or am worth talking to, the best thing I can do is fall on concrete attached to Adam Robinson's back and make guffaw sounds and feel dumb
The arms of my sofa are tired of me stacking new books on them but I still like it
This is a book about insides. With a daring syntax reminiscent of an unfettered Kerouac, a Visions of Cody Kerouac, Butler details the interior of a woman's mind, her house, her perceptions of her neighbors, the inside of light. If you looked up "nuance" in the dictionary in 2010, the entry would contain the full-text of Ever. Subtlety is the game here--potentially surprising to those familiar with Butler's baby-themed stories. The text is set off by architecturally-fascinating pieces by Calamari Press frontman Derek White. Without drawing away from the story, the images move the eye, like light, like a woman and her bathtub titties. At the end of this one, just like the narrator, you'll experience a "slow baptism," the insides of your insides on the outs.
I have a thing in the new issue of Bateau, its a really old piece but i still like it, the issue is beautiful and has been upgraded to perfectbound, it has Kim Chinquee, J.P. Dancing Bear, Jen Pieroni, Pedro Ponce, Sarah Sloat, a lot of other peoples, it is nice
everyone is really nice, its impressive, i like it
i am ready to type the least words I've ever typed
and make a bungee baby out of liquid syrup
on the way home from Balitmore I listened to Young Jeezy's 'Thug Motivation 101' four times straight through
I also listened to the audio book of Scott Smith's The Ruins, which is maybe the dumbest book of all time, even for a book, except for when the girl gives the dude a handjob in his sleep because she is scared of the plant that is going to eat them
I also listened to Pimp C and Liars and Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Johannes Goransson @ Exoskeleton: 'What makes this novel very interesting in this context is that it seems to be written from the other direction - not a murder mystery that loses its narrative, but a narrative-less cinematic body-fantasia in search of a narrative.'
Brandon Hobson @ Clusterflock: 'The music somehow made me want to lie down on the floor and sliver. I’m not sure why. When I told my wife this she asked if I’d taken my medication (which I had).'
Two Lynch references in two reviews = I am happy child.
Dang, Adam Robinson kills it here. I am really excited about his forthcoming book, brilliantly titled ADAM ROBISON.
I just got Shane Jones's LIGHT BOXES in the mail. It is beautiful. You should order it. I am really excited to read it again in its final form. Since I preordered, mine came with a copy of Shane's MLP chapbook 'Black Kids in Lemon Trees,' which I already have as an MLP subscriber. Forward me a receipt for ordering the book from today or later and I will give you my second copy of it.
Brian Evenson's LAST DAYS is out now from Underland Press. I will be posting a full review of this probably later this week, but as anyone who has touched Evenson's ink likely already knows: this is a book for owning, reading, rereading, eating, touching. I can't think of an author who has influenced me more, honestly. I recommend this book as highly as any other book he has written: they are all vital.
Last night I read his story 'The Adjudicator' in the new issue of Conjunctions about a hairless man living in a house after a great conflagration, who is then asked to 'adjudicate' a man who looks, he believes, exactly like him. Evenson's corridors of narrative, always as if chiseled out of something that has existed forever, somehow seem both speaking to you and speaking secondly inside you at the same time, each saying slightly different things that then interweave in your brain meat and then, in the collision, form the narrative. How Evenson is able to portray such complex moods in lines that seem so simple, and yet so timelessly phrased, in their pronunciation, is one of the great many magicks he possesses.
This Friday, doing a small pre-NYC-book-release-party book release party in Atlanta. Friday 8:30 @ Kavarna in Decatur. My boy Jamie Iredell is on the mic, as are a couple bands. I don't think more than a couple Atlantans read this blog, but oh well, it's a mention.
I watched Roy Andersson's YOU THE LIVING the other night. I didn't love it as much as SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR, which is one of my all time favorites, though it was not too far behind, and almost like a sequel.
I love the use of the swastikas on the table after the cloth is removed in this scene, a perfect encryption that somehow gave me goosebumps when I noticed, even despite the laughter:
I kind of am enjoying this year thoroughly thus far.
"19: OS OS OS IS SI, Day of Speak Only in Hymn, for yes, the song is joyous, and in our zoning we yes do indeed enjoy the song."
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.
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.
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.
* 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
* 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.
* 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:
Leave it up to Dead Prez to say what no one else is saying on the Obama shitz (from their website):
"When the axe entered the forest, the trees said, 'Look, the handle is one of us!' Yoruba (Afrikan) proverb INFORMATION AGE DEADPREZ.COM"
What is real will remain to be seen. I mainly wish people wouldn't just get all carried away in the idea of something. People forget their history too quickly, if only in the mind of 'wanting more,' which to me defeats itself. I honestly hope 'change' is real, but at this point, I'll believe it when I see it.
Shilled out money I won from betting people Georgia wasn't going to be blue this year to see Clint Eastwood's latest hunk of shit CHANGELING. I'm not sure what made me forget that I hate Eastwood's movies enough to go see it, but we thought with the title CHANGELING there would be some kind of magic to the story or something at least remotely otherworldly about it.
This film employs a lot of 'violence' but explains away or cute-ifys any angle that might get the comfortable crowd out of their box for too long. Which maybe should have been expected, but some reason near the end of the way-too-long movie I went from 'duh' to pissed off. Too many jokes at the right time, Jolie tits covered over with vague mists in showers, the true stroke of something awful happening 'saved at the last second' by John Malkovich looking like a scruffy golden retriever, serial killers who might as well been brought in from the Hannah Barbera school of theater, etc. This film will likely be touted for its presence simply because of the notes that are being used, when really, what's being offered here could not only not be more warmed over and 'safe,' but sold in the shell its in, actually becomes a weapon against something bigger.
Of course, there are plenty of people out there who want even their 'violence' to be understandable, 'connected,' a thing they can then contextualize and sweep away and feel ok about. It's the same kind of tendency that extremely narrative writers use in their fiction, to make any loopholes of the inexplicable into exploitatively 'heartwarming' 'HUMAN' tales.
I should insert here (from comments):
'I am preaching to the choir maybe, but there's something in fiction and poetry that seems parallel here, i definitely think there are more working in the Eastwood-sized camp than there are in the true violence camp, even in 'indie press circles,' which is a parallel I don't think I hit on the way I meant to in this post'
It's the 'what is human here' question that really fucking makes me want to just shit in paper and mail it to all the right magazines. Maybe the way I fold the paper will make it make a pretty design.
'This is a pretty design! But I'm afraid we're going to have to pass.'
'Want to order a subscription?'
There is a lot of supposedly progressive whitewashing, in all realms, I think, right now, which actually makes it more scary to me than when shit is all right out there on the table.
To counteract the sonic sinkhole that is Eastwood, here is a list of films you should see instead, if you haven't, off the top of my head, films in which violence is portrayed as a thing with that IS, in which no shitty childhood, no explanation is needed, because humans are what humans are.
Most of these are foreign, well, because when Americans do get violent films spouted on us it's either in the Eastwood camp, or it's campy fratboy shit like 300 or Quentin Tarantino hurrah-ism.
I highly recommend the following:
both of Gaspar Noe's films, IRREVERSIBLE and I STAND ALONE (both totally disconcerting even when the violence is not on screen, which is most of the time)
STRAW DOGS, Peckinpah, with the infamous rape scene in which the woman suddenly begins to get 'into it,' an incredible film, with one of the most nerve-wracking endings ever
Herzog's COBRA VERDE & AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, a lot of people talk about the latter but I think CV is my favorite Herzog film
Errol Morris's THE THIN BLUE LINE (which contexualizes, I think, a truer impetus for violence, in that at one point the perp here says, effectively, that he killed people simply because they'd been hanging out, and then they stopped hanging out, and left him hanging.)
FIRE WALK WITH ME & BLUE VELVET, for obvious reasons
THE THIEF THE COOK HIS WIFE HER LOVER, Greenaway is the insane master of stylizing, this film is gorgeous and bizarre
IN A GLASS CAGE, saw this recently, a Polish film, incredibly beautiful and absolutely brutal film, though there is some background haunting, it becomes a beast unto itself
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, duh, but still incredible
CREMASTER 2 & 3, the scene in 3 where the cars in the bottom floor of the Chrysler building beat each other into a mash in a small room, all moving around in tight quarters, systematically crashing until there is nothing left, is one of the greatest images I can remember
ICHI THE KILLER, Yazuka violence, brutal, though most Japanese directors offer 'background history' to contextualize violence, which always annoys me, though sometimes still works
In recent, funny movies, I think BURN AFTER READING did a good job with it actually, semi-contextless violence as humor, yes
That's not enough but I can't think right, I will list more later maybe, when I have my movies in front of me
You can now preorder Shane Jones's LIGHT BOXES, and should. While you are at it, check out his two new pieces on Sleepingfish. The nightmare excerpt is one of my favorite things I've read in a while, it's one paragraph.
Forthcoming reviews: Lily Hoang's PARABOLA and CHANGING & Brian Evenson's LAST DAYS (all three of which are incredible monsters, each in their own new ways)(and a film version of LAST DAYS made by someone who knows what they are doing would be true-made violence of the best kind).
I am really behind on reviews. Like my review stack is up to my waist I think. Time to take break soon.
Today is 'be nice + positive day,' thought of by me, though I am off to a late start, having started the day with stinkin' caused by me, so it's like a trade off.
Anyway,
Here is a dumb poem, it doesnt have a name, its not really a poem, i wrote it in like 30 seconds, while feeling empty on the phone:
Can I have a baby just so there's a baby to kiss sometimes? I just went outside and watched my shadow fling its arms. I fling my arms when I walk back from the mailbox with nothing. Each morning I bet our mailman drinks whole milk: this so he has the energy to keep on coming, though if it were me, you would never get a thing. I would probably go to the bank and sit outside and watch people coming in and out with or w/o $$ and I would hand them everything I had. I wouldn't get to stay a mailman very long, but then there would be days to go home and lay on the sofa and caress the black neon bag that comes built into everyone but that only mailmen know about.
Hey Blake, go fuck yourself.
Thanks, Blake.
Ok, there's also this:
And now here is a Gchat I had with Shane Jones yesterday that made me feel better about things n things. I realize posting gchats is a thing that happens, but it kind of helped me feel a change in momentum, I think, there should be more changes in momentum more, WE TALKED ABOUT ALL THE BIG ISSUES, it's really long, we both get boners, so here, don't look:
PEOPLE
12:46 PM Shane: Funny, your blog reminds me of Blake Butler's, except yours is calmer. - molly gaudry me: haha you do seem calmer 12:47 PM i wish i was calmer Shane: no one wants to be calm i'm one step away from being boring me: haha let's not go ovrboard 12:50 PM Shane: that picture on your last post shook me to the core it's terrifying me: oh god i know what the fuck 12:51 PM Shane: could you imagine driving and seeing that it remeinds me of kafka's in the penal colony some kind of mass destruction like who designs that 12:57 PM someone is in control of that thing ugh me: i bet a mexican Shane: everythign is just so depressing lately me: no english, 3.45 an hour Shane: i got coffee this morning and a woman was yelling at the worker "i want an early gray tea!" she just kept saying EARLY GRAY TEA me: evertyhing Shane: not earl gray EARLY right in my ear 12:58 PM me: that's when you open up your mouth and put your mouth on their mouth Shane: i couldn't do it i was so close to saying something but i'm a pussy me: and show her her teeth with your teeth i gotta be in a real bad mood to speak up Shane: yeah 12:59 PM me: just not worth it usually but its fun when you do fuck people 1:00 PM Shane: fuck most people me: there you go being calm 1:01 PM Shane: i am what's happenign to me i have no sass anymore me: everything is hard
DEATH
Shane: did tao have a post about not carring about david foster wallace then he took it down or something 1:02 PM me: yeah, well, not quite about not caring, but about having accepted death i wrote a long comment to him Shane: what did it say 1:03 PM me: about how it felt disingenuous and then he took it down i felt bad maybe hvaing caused him to take it down 1:07 PM i have to think 1:08 PM if any other author one i didnt care about in that way killed himself like bret easton ellis i would probably be like 'big deal' 1:09 PM Shane: i realize it's hitting you pretty hard, i still get upset when i think of richard brautigan killing himself me: i just wonder if i would be sassy and rude about it with anyone else 1:10 PM probably i would just keep my mouth shut but part of me can undersztand why people are saying things like that they dont have a personal connection to it, why should they care, besides the humanist aspect of it 1:11 PM Shane: people should care, people should have somethign called compassion especially amongst the community of writers but i think people that read dfw, especially you, really had that close connection of reader and writer 1:12 PM but people are shitty, the just are i don't know what i'm trying to say 1:14 PM me: no you are right they should, or should at least keep bullshit to themselves 1:15 PM Shane: but i think, for me at least, it's also really scarry and a feeling of hopelessness...that someone like DFW with his mind and intellect and humor, etc, saw the world that dark and took his own life..i mean, it should feel like a wake up call to people me: yes that is really what it is frightening 1:16 PM Shane: i woke up the other night at like 4am thinking about that and i told melanie the next mornign that i just felt so lonely just really isolated 1:17 PM me: yeah i've been feeling that its really hard to get over like to me, he accomplished the greatest feat in literature and it was not enough so what the fuck are we doing Shane: right 1:18 PM me: though he did have chemical problems Shane: i ask myself that question all the time what the hell am i doing me: every single day i think
MOTIVATION
Shane: i'm putting together a chapbook of poems, well i was last night and i just started laughing like it was just so absurd to me "chapbook" 17 poems 1:19 PM like why am i doing this me: yeah exactly Shane: should we just write more books? i don't know 1:21 PM me: i really dont know keep going for what Shane: i'm not sure 10 minutes 1:32 PM Shane: have you been writting me: very slowly 1:35 PM Shane: i watched the charlie rose interview with DFW yesterday you can stop me if you don't want to talk about this anymore me: no its ok 1:36 PM Shane: but they were talkign about how dfw had a semester off coming up me: i love that interview Shane: and rose asked him what he was going to do and his reply was so great "well, if the past repeats itself, i'll probably write an hour a day and bite my knuckles thinking about writing for eight hours a day" me: haha yes, i remember that perfect 1:37 PM Shane: just awesome and charlie rose was just starring at him me: i want to watch those again, and videos of him reading, but it bothered me too much to see him talk 1:39 PM Shane: i understand that
CREATION
1:43 PM me: so you finished your edits Shane: yeah adam said they were great and he was impressed 1:44 PM me: that is good 1:45 PM Shane: yeah, i'm still excited about it i started writing something else me: a novel? Shane: yeah 1:46 PM me: excellent projects help Shane: i think so i mean, i'm not sure where this one is going 1:47 PM and i'm also worried it's going to suck, etc me: those are fun concerns i like that kind of mode 1:48 PM Shane: i'm kind of concerned with how the text looks on the page i want to do somethign different from light boxes but i'm not sure what to do with this one 1:50 PM me: what have you been doing with it Shane: well, i only have a few thousand words and the format is turning into the same as light boxes which i don't want something will hit and i'll get excited 1:51 PM i plan on going through my bookshelf tonight and looking at text playing around, etc i like the idea of isolated sentences, but then connecting them, twisting them, etc i'm really not sure 1:52 PM me: isolating is really helpful i thin k Shane: i can't just write stacks of paragraphs me: i forget who said this maybe it was delillo or vollmann but they said when they are writing they put each sentence on its own page 1:53 PM then collapse after each is perfect i cant remember who it was but that sounds nice Shane: that sounds really comforting to me 1:54 PM maybe i'll do something like that i have to play around for a while 1:55 PM me: yes 1:56 PM Shane: what novel was written in all columns me: i know books that use a lot of columns, but not one that does it all the way, that i can think of the people of paper has the best use of columns i've seen 1:57 PM Shane: yeah 1:58 PM well i have two characters i was thinking of using columns seems kind of lame though me: sounds like a fun idea cris mazza has a great story that makes columns work really well i think that's where plascencia stole it Shane: hmmmm me: 'is it sexual harassment yet?' 2:00 PM Shane: i just pulled it up the columns idea is interesting 2:01 PM or the idea of two characters and you get two blocks of text on each page from them, kind of playing off each other me: right 2:05 PM i think i just want to make something really brutal like take bleak to the nth degree, pull out all stops 2:06 PM Shane: fuck yeah me: if i am going to be called bleak, i want to show what concept of bleak really is because i've never felt bleak really 2:07 PM i think i can make blood meridian look calm Shane: i like where you're going with this
SURREALISM
2:08 PM Shane: i think about the concept of "surrealism" a lot and writing a book that just explodes the notion of surrealism...like just an explosion of imagination me: yeah surrealism never got done right i think not to its fullest Shane: no, no way 2:09 PM i think i want to explore it more me: i was really concerned with that when i did those two novels back to back Shane: most of the stuff people tell me to read that is surreal really isn't like i don't get it like with that fucker andre breton me: ugh breton is nothing zip Shane: i know 2:10 PM me: its not even surreal in any way Shane: i don't get it the whole movement is interesting, but... me: its just another -ism more talk than rock 2:11 PM have you read any donald antrim Shane: yeah, i have 2:12 PM me: i like how he uses surrealist stuff, its not a full on surreal, but it brushes against it nicely the verificationist Shane: i didn't read that one 2:13 PM me: you read elect mr robinson? Shane: yeah and i read his memoir book me: that one is good, its not as good as the other 2 though i think ugh, the memoir Shane: yeah, the memoir me: fuck that thing Shane: fuck memoirs me: 100 brothers and the verificationist, those are much better than the other 2 2:14 PM though i do like the chapter in his memoir about trying to find the right mattress that was the only good part it hought Shane: that was great and how he sends it back doesn't he spend like twelve grand on some kind of super mattress me: haha yeah 2:15 PM Shane: i wanted to read 100 brothers but never did 2:16 PM me: its pretty wonderful Shane: surreal? me: there really are 100 brothers they all hang out its got a lot of surreal to it, yeah 2:17 PM the verificationist is moreso surreal in execution but still, yeah, not quite what i've always thought of as what the thing could have been/ be 2:18 PM Shane: i'm reading the wiki page on surrealism me: what does it say Shane: Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur 2:19 PM me: "Jeepers!" 2:20 PM Shane: maybe the painters got surrealism down, but the writers didn't 2:21 PM dali did pretty nice shit with it et al 2:23 PM thank you for the talking shane, it made me feel better in several ways somehow Shane: i feel like i have some energy now
I got a rejection today from New Ohio Review, for my story THE DISAPPEARED, which appears in their current issue. That's kind of new. The editorial culling process employed by these bigger magazines is really confusing, so it probably confuses them too. I know the editor from the first 3 issues who had accepted and published the story just got yanked for reasons I am unsure of. Still, I want to send them a copy of their own magazine back with my story in it and the rejection slip attached, and a rejection of their rejection.
Rejection letters now just make me smile, if anything, I have no feelings anymore, the work is what the work is, in fact I think I get more kicks out of rejections than I do acceptances somehow, is that weird?
No Colony went off to printers today. I feel like we shat a baby, Ken and I. Looks like we'll be having a couple of launch parties in the next few weeks or month, one in NYC and maybe west coast and/or Atlanta. More on that soon.
Luna Park Review called NO COLONY "2008's most talked most about and most feared new lit mag."
Whatchu know about dat?
Atlanta/Brooklyn based magazine THE OPEN FACE SANDWICH just took one of the last unpublished stories in Scorch Atlas. Their first issue looks really nice and has work by Deb Olin Unferth, Ariana Reines, etc. People should buy issues and send to them, they read quickly and have a good style, aesthetic.
I am going to post a list of the small presses I found when subbing my longer books recently, ones that are open and accessible seeming. This is a note to self to remember to do this.
The 4th issue of Keyhole Magazine is now for presale and it looks amazing. Keyhole just keeps getting better and better, I can't wait to see this issue. It includes new work by Kevin Wilson, whose story from 2006 in Diagram fucking rules: THE DEAD SISTER HANDBOOK, as well as friends Jason Jordan, T.J. Forrester, more.
Thanks to everyone so far who has had kind words, posts, etc., about LILY HOANG's THE WOMAN DOWN THE HALL, I hope people keep reading it, the story is designed that each page stands apart and they weave together, so reading in splashes is encouraged. It's hard to read long online, so the book will be there for you, gobbbless the interslice. Please more share!
I can't believe I missed these guys in Atlanta this year:
This week at WE HEART 4 THINGS there is a nice 'online literature' profile put together by the massive Shane Jones, featuring IM interviews with me, Brian Foley, Kathryn Regina, and Zachary Schomburg. It is a lot of fun, and I am happy be in the company of these brilliant brilliants. It is a fun read.
There is also short work from each author. Mine, MASSIVE ORGASM, has some raunch, and is one of my excerpts from the much longer work alternatingly written with Justin Dobbs. It is called TWIN MOTHER and I think will be released in the fall by Happy Cobra Books.
Also, mega mouth congrats to Shane Jones's wonderful ms LIGHT BOXES getting picked up by Publishing Genius for release next year. I am happy and excited for Shane.
I think I am almost done with a novella I've been messing with for a while, another one, that I was going to call HOW MANY FLOORS DOES THE NIGHTMARE HAVE?, though I think I don't like that name anymore, its OK, I am having trouble naming it for some reason, I don't even know who publishes novellas or what the hell I'm going to do with it when its done, the way it is spaced makes it long, maybe it's almost a novel? Maybe when I revise it will grow longer. I want the word 'soft' to be in the title.
Really though, who publishes novellas? I like the concept, though I can't remember reading any recently, except Diane Williams's one in IT WAS LIKE MY TRYING TO HAVE A TENDER-HEARTED NATURE, which was published with a ton of other stories along with it, I don't know, maybe, I don't know.
