PICNIC CANNIBAL

The Chattahoochee Review: I Don't Know What to Think About What People Will ...

2012-01-25T19:17:00.000-08:00

The Chattahoochee Review: I Don't Know What to Think About What People Will ...: I wanted to interview Blake Butler for a number of reasons, but in part due to his novel, There Is No Year , released last year from Harper ...

2012-01-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

Just happen to think of douchebags who say things like, "It wasn't my fault," when talking about their inordinate actions around women that they deem "asking for it" due to dress, or linguistics, or anything at all. And also thought "what the fuck" and "sometimes killing is okay," all in response to guy who walked into bar and said, "Hello, sweetheart" to bartender, and she was obviously offended but too timid to say so.

Review of CVS Pharmacy Lubricating Jelly

2012-01-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

Personal Lubricant Gentle & safe water-based compare to K-Y Jelly enter registered trademark symbol, NET WT 2 OZ (57 g). This lubricating product works pretty well, I guess. It says to compare it to K-Y Jelly, but I've never used K-Y Jelly and I'm not really sure why or why not. I never really had much reason to use lubricants and so now all I can tell you is that the CVS Pharmacy Lubricating Jelly does its job. It is clear and slippery. Or, to be more accurate, it makes other things slippery. I'm not sure that a thing itself can be slippery; only other substances applied to things can make the latter thing slippery. But the slippery-inducing substance itself cannot be slippery, or can it? Feel like this is kind of like where did god come from? The CVS Pharmacy Lubricating Jelly is cold to the touch, but that does not seem to produce adverse effects. The car was not bothered by this fact.

Review of The Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuit

2011-12-20T08:17:00.001-08:00

I think that the Chicken Biscuit's only available for breakfast, but don't quote me on that since I've never tried ordering one at any other time than in the morning. They might be available whenever Chick-fil-A is open--so you can quote me saying that you will never get a Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuit on Sunday because the guy who started Chick-fil-A is big into Jesus and no Chick-fil-A is open on God's day. I'm a pretty big guy and I can't eat 2 of these things. I mean I could do it; I have done it; but I never felt good after the fact. This morning I had exactly 1 Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuit and a cup of coffee and that was a pretty good breakfast. The biscuit part of the Chicken Biscuit is a little crispy on the outside. You know that whatever the dough recipe is in the factory where these things are pumped out it's filled with butter and probably lard or crisco too, cause that's what gives the biscuit this texture. They're more crumbly than flaky, and because of this I don't think I'd want to have the biscuit by itself, or even smothered with country gravy. For that you want soft, pillowy biscuits, the kind of biscuit that cleaves easily when you sink the blunt side of a fork into it. But for this sandwhich, the crumbly biscuit works fine, unless you're driving (and I cannot remember a time when I had a chicken biscuit and I was not driving) because then the biscuit crumbs get all over your shirt and pants, and there's so much grease that these crumbs will spot your clothing not unlike potato chips will spot a brown paper bag should you dump them into a brown paper bag for whatever reason. I saw that on a commercial once, one that I think was advertizing less greasy potato chips. The chick part of the chicken biscuit is pretty good, pretty standard fried chicken, pieced together white meat. A big difference here though when it comes to the white meat chick is that it has the right texture of unprocessed white meat chicken. t's not like, for example, the Chicken McNuggets at McDonald's. Those things are completely unnatural; you can't tell where the nugget part might have come from. There's no striation to the meat; it's just been ground up and pressed into the nugget shape. The chicken at Chick-fil-A still has the strings of meat that made up the breast muscle of the chicken this meat came from, so it feels like you're eating a real chicken. The coffee, also, was pretty good.

2011-12-15T16:52:00.000-08:00

I've got this excerpt from a nonfiction book I've been working on for a year and a half up at Anomalous Press right now. I'm really glad that Anomalous decided to publish the excerpt. I'm really happy that everyone who has accepted or already published excerpts did so: Pear Noir!, The Collagist, Continent, Everyday Genius, Freerange Nonfiction, HobbleCreek Review, Sleepingfish, and Used Furniture Review. I'm happy that they've published these excerpts because I don't have much hope that the book will ever actually be in print. Well, I mean, I doubt that a major New York City publisher will take a chance on this manuscript. I will--fingers crossed--find a small press or specialty publisher for it if all else fails.

I don't think New York would take a chance on the book because it's about California. Despite that state being the largest (in population) among our 50, New York often doesn't seem to acknowledge the West Coast's existence. On top of that the book is somewhat experimental--go figure. It's not too out there, but it blends memoir, history, pop culture, and critique of Catholicism. It's written as a kind of pastiche. All of these elements combined mean (to an agent): no dice.

That is complete bullshit. I'm complaining and i haven't eve sent the book out anywhere yet. But this is my feeling, what my gut tells me. New York doesn't give a shit about literature. It cares about the dollar. so I'm really pleased with those editors who have seen the merit of this book, or at least in the excerpts from it that I sent their way. They at least do give a shit. Wah, I'm a whiny little bitch.

2011-11-30T03:32:00.001-08:00

I don't usually bother to write about this sort of stuff, because it can get annoying when everyone you know on Facebook posts about Occupy Whatever and riot police this, and everything else. I'm not really interested in being annoying, and most of the stuff I see feels pretty reactionary. Most of my friends over there lean pretty liberal and many of the blog posts or news stories they relate come from liberal-leaning websites, as opposed to the presumed objectivity of mainstream news sources. I know that that last bit is horseshit, and that there's really no such thing as objectivity. Anyway, I don't usually write about such things because it seems to me that if anyone is going to write about them with any kind of clarity, it takes time to digest each action and think carefully about all of the details, etc. Like, for example, the First Amendment gives citizens the right to peacefully assemble to address grievances. But that doesn't give people the right to camp wherever the fuck they feel like it. Like my wife (a lawyer) said, "Just because you have the right to free speech, that doesn't mean you can yell 'Fire!' in a movie theater." Simple analogy, yes, but it's telling.

But I am choosing to write about a couple recent things that scare the crap out of me: The New York Times reporting on journalists being kept from the removal of Occupy protests and in some cases arrested, and the Bill passed in the Senate that would give the armed forces the power to detain American citizens suspected of terrorism without due process. And just to be fair, I've not only included the NYT and Huffington Post reporting on these phenomena; here is Fox News and a Fox News affiliate reporting on the same (you can read that the rhetoric is slightly different, too). So, Obama says that he would veto this Bill should it come before him. He says that. Still, it's disturbing that such a bill should even be considered in Congress. And it's distressing to think that local law enforcement would try to suppress the dissemination of information to the public.

I asked my wife at what point we might seriously consider leaving the United States. And of course, since my wife's smart, she said, "And go where?" My response is always Canada, and my wife asks what we would do for work and I say we'd get jobs at Taco Bell, but I don't know if Canadians eat corporate Americanized Mexican food. She says that things could go pretty far and the US might still be best the best place on the planet for us to live. The reality of that is even more distressing than these vague possibilities raised above. Okay, the cops in NYC might have tried to suppress the press's right to cover the news, but we have processes in place for taking care of such transgressions; and because of our checks and balances the president could easily put down a proposal to lock up our own citizens without charging them for a crime. But what really scares me is that these things could come to pass, and there's nothing, really, that my wife and I can do about it. Congress cannot decide what to do about our debt, to say nothing of high and lofty political ideals like the Bill of Rights. So voting isn't really an option. Since we have our two-party system, and it's unrealistic that Independents or Libertarians or Communists, or anyone else, might take a seat in Congress, that leaves Democrats and Republicans posturing and never getting anything accomplished. So attempting to affect change via writing to my Congressperson or voting someone else in is moot. What really scares me is the lack of the freedom of choice. My wife and I cannot simply decide that this "democracy" is no longer democratic enough for us, and we'd like to go somewhere where it's supposed to be democratic, and perhaps not so imperial, like France, or Canada, or Britain. We couldn't get citizenship elsewhere, nor jobs so that we could feed our family. So what's really scary is that things could go to complete shit in the US, and if my wife and I are stuck here, then there are hundreds of millions of Americans stuck even deeper than we are (I mean, between the two of us we speak three languages, and my wife has already lived abroad for many years). That sense of being stuck is the ultimate end of freedom.

2011-11-24T08:29:00.001-08:00

The other day someone I know on Facebook posted that she could not sleep and found the cable for her television out of whack, and in the doldrums of 3 AM was left with no resort but to watch a movie on the DVD player. I was tempted (but did not) comment: "There are these amazing things called 'books,' and for some, while they are extremely interesting, informative, and entertaining, they also work as sleep aids." Admittedly, this Facebook friend (I should probably say "friend" with the quotation marks, because, while I went to elementary school with this person, we have not seen each other face-to-face in at least seventeen years, and we are not "friends" in the truest sense of the word) doesn't run with the literary crowd I associate with, is not a writer and--demonstrably not a reader--which, of course is fine (in fact I champion such freedom of choice), but still: why not just read something, anything? I don't think that in this person's case there was an aversion to reading, or a distaste for it; I don't think reading even popped into this person's mind as an option. That, right there, folks is where we're at. I say all this and I saw this person's Facebook status update on no other place but Facebook, when I was "reading" the newsfeed, and instead should've been reading a book. So, yes, it would be hypocritical of me to be judgmental. But let me say that I'm not trying to pass judgment, but am simply pointing out the possibility that the idea of reading (and I mean really reading, like reading a book) is for the majority not a part of the contemporary American's cultural DNA. Let me add that, while the freedom of choice to be a reader or not is one that I hold dear, for a democracy to function it's important to have voting individuals capable of understanding the basics of rhetoric. So again, I'll just say: that's where we're at. Preposition ending that sentence, and four sentences prior to that sentence. And that last sentence wasn't a sentence. It was a fragment. But that last sentence, the one before this sentence (which is truly the last sentence), the one about a sentence fragment, was a complete independent clause.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.

2011-11-11T13:30:00.001-08:00

I'm at the combination pizza hut and taco bell and everytime I try to type "hut" I automatically type "hit" and that tells you something about modern american architecture.

Never did this before

2011-09-21T06:47:00.001-07:00

Mexico City Noir by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some of these I would not call stories, as they're more like attempts at condensed novels, or episodes from a novel. They don't have to be "stories", obviously, for this anthology series, but those that certainly did read as such were far more interesting and successful reads. The story by the volume's editor (Taibo) stands out in particular. Also, a number of the selections here I would not call "noir" subgenre in the traditional sense; they're closer to the Hardboiled tradition. Overall, this ain't a bad read, it's just, yeah, okay.

View all my reviews

2011-09-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

This is my family's vineyard, where my grandfather tilled petite syrah. The vines are over a hundred years old.

¡Pepita wey!

2011-09-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

I have a whole shitload of dried pumpkin seeds leftover from Halloween last year. I've used a good bunch, made a pumpkin seed salsa and a couple moles, but I'm gonna use up the rest before Halloween rolls around again and I get a fresh batch of pepitas.

To make a pepita salsa I take a cup of pumpkin seeds. Here's the bitch of using these things (hence the reason I still have a ton of them): peeling the shells sucks. I'm sure you can buy shelled pumpkin seeds, but I suppose I'm a purist and I figure if I'm getting them at Halloween anyway I might as well use them up through the year. That obviously does not work out as planned, but anyway. You take a seed at a time and, using your fingernails, peel back each side of one shell from the seed inside. It takes about 20 seconds to peel one seed. So, yeah, 3 seeds/minute = 90 seeds/hour. So to get a cup of seeds should take about 4 hours. You could try to shell all your seeds at one time, but then the seeds themselves will go stale. And of course it takes fucking forever. Like I said, you can probably buy these pre-shelled and I could look that up and link it for you, but I'm basically writing this for the heck of it (it is a blog, isn't it) so you can look that shit up on your own.

Once you've got your shelled seeds you're going to roast them in a frying pan. I use a cast iron skillet, but any frying pan will do. Don't add anything except the heat (medium) and toss in your pepitas, stirring them constantly until they toast, getting browned on each side. They'll pop a little bit so you'll know they're done. Remove them from the heat.

You'll want to have already chopped up half a white onion, some cilantro, a jalapeño, two large garlic cloves, and have roasted three or four tomatillos. Dump this stuff, along with your roasted pepitas, into a blender or food processor. The roasted tomatillos should provide enough moisture to turn the mess into a salsa, but if you need a little more juice, use chicken stock. The consistency should be, well, salsa-like. Add salt to taste. The salsa should be earthy, nutty, a little spicy, and gray-green in color, and some badass shit. And putting it on tacos, or enchiladas, or sopes, or or tortas, or whatever mexican dish you want should make all the life you wasted peeling the goddamn seeds worth it.

2011-08-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think about turning this into a cooking blog, but I never do it. In fact, I hardly ever blog anymore. I don't really know why that is, except to say that it's become easier to post updates on facebook or twitter, simply for the verbal efficiency. That all said, I like cooking Mexican and Italian food the most. What about you?

Lately, these are the cuisines that have filled our dinner plates. Tonight we had a kind of Italian-inspired stew. I can't say that it was any kind of Italian recipe. Really, it was kind of a leftover clusterfuck. Right before my daughter was born I'd marinated some bone-in chicken breasts in spices (oregano, cinnamon, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper). I barbecued that chicken and with it we ate tacos, but I saved the bones and some of the chicken clinging to them (we cut it off, as opposed to gnawing it, just FYI) to make chicken stock. After my baby came her grandparents hooked us up with a bunch of food. But as they are wont to do, they bought a bunch of shit and did not use it. So I found in my kitchen 1/2 a head of cabbage, a poke of red potatoes, three yellow squash, and a few links of Italian sausage. With a little sauteed garlic and onion, I tossed these ingredients into my thawed chicken stock and let it simmer till the cabbage got soft. I froze that whole batch up. Today I defrosted part of it. I didn't want to have a really soupy dish (which was how this looked). So I cooked up some bacon and tossed minced onion into the rendered fat. Then I made with that bacon-grease-and-onion a roux. After sieving the stock from my soup, I tossed it in with my roux making of it a gravy which I then poured over the reheated veggie and sausage and (now) bacon medley and voilà: stew. I had a few leaves of leftover basil in the fridge which I sliced and used as a garnish.

This was pretty damn tasty, if not a summery meal. It's perfect Fall fare, and I think I'll defrost the rest of it for that when October comes around. For lunch we'd had my version of chicken pibil tacos, so altogether it was a pretty festive eating day. Fuck other kinds of writing, for now.

Composition Textbooks

2011-08-07T15:19:00.001-07:00

For a few years now I've been going bookless in English Comp I courses--the equivalent to English 101, freshman composition. The reason: perhaps the worst books I've ever read have been composition textbooks. It seems like comp professors--or those who pen comp/rhet texts--have the worst eyes and ears for what makes good writing. Or they might know what makes good writing, but they cannot do it themselves. I don't want to read those books, and I can't imagine any 17-25 year old college student wants to read them either. These texts are so dry, boring, formal, and disparaging of creativity. In lieu of a textbook I've been culling essays from websites or making photocopies or scanning into PDFs for reading, having class sessions where we play grammar games, etc., and running the class--essentially--as a creative nonfiction workshop. But I'm giving some thought to returning to a textbook. I'm so out of date, though (literally, I haven't used a textbook in about 5 years), that I don't know what might make good options.

Here are some examples of crappy composition textbooks: Wyrick's Steps to Writing Well, Rosa and Eschholz's Models for Writers, Lunsford's Everything's an Argument and The Everyday Writer. There are more that I've used and hated, but I don't feel like listing them all. A couple books (from one author, Bruce Ballenger) that I used to like using were The Curious Writer and The Curious Researcher. He seemed to have a more accessible style. But after 2 semesters or so he wore off on me also. This came about especially as a result of students not finding the writing engaging.

I will still use handbooks such as the Bedford, but don't always require that students buy them.

Anyway, anyone have any suggestions? I'm willing to try a textbook again. Textbooks make for less work on my end. Then again, it's not like it's problematic for me to keep reading contemporary lit, finding essays that I like in lit journals, and assigning those as readings for my comp students. Maybe the model I've been using for the last few years actually works.

About Becoming a Dad, if You're Me

2011-06-23T13:22:00.001-07:00

At the exact moment I began to type this I was sitting at a bar in Midtown Atlanta. My first child was due to expunge herself from my wife's womb on Monday, June 27th. I figured it was as good a time as any to get a few hours in at a bar.

For more than half my life I've spent a significant amount of time in watering holes. I bartended a couple years in college, but mostly sat myself on the opposite side, diligently working through pints and shots, the occasional pool game, sometimes, in Nevada, even plunking quarters into the meaty hole of a video poker machine. Take what puns you'd like from all of that.

I used to smoke. I've often said that the hardest thing I've ever had to do was stop smoking. That shit ain't true. The hardest thing besides living is living without a bar. I love the bar. You decide if I'm an alcoholic.

It's not the booze that keeps me coming back. There's some quality of light in a dimly-lit bar. There's something about the daylight patronage. Since I quit smoking I cannot stand to be in bars that allow that vice. Call me a pussy. But still the bar ebbs at me, gravity sucking me towards the tinted windows looking out on a gray sky, the hush of conversation. See, I like bars. I don't like clubs. I don't like busy bars. In fact, a crowded bar is the last place you'll find me. I don't like a bar at happy hour. I don't like bars on weekends. I like the weekday bar, the dive without a band. The dives, even, at such times include minimal smokers.

I work in bars. I take my computer and my books, papers to grade. I don't talk, usually, to the other patrons, though I often listen to their conversations. When the crowd piles up, I pay my tab. I'd rather not be there with family or friends, or any of all those after-work people. I'm busy.

Speaking of fathers, mine just had a stroke. This stroke occurred after he'd checked himself into the emergency room (on the day we brought our baby home from the hospital, no less) for what he thought was a lingering cold he feared was mutating into pneumonia. Turns out he had congestive heart failure. My pop is not a bar person, but he likes his beer and wine. In fact, it's not uncommon for him and my mom to share a bottle of wine over dinner, and that's after dad's had four beers. I know what this says and what a doctor would think. But I've seen my dad only a little buzzed maybe two or three times in my life. Like me, beer and wine just don't phase him. And yet, I learn on Wikipedia that a contributing factor to congestive heart failure could be a thickened ventricle due to prolonged alcohol abuse.

I knew that upon my baby's arrival I would not be able to spend as much time in bars. Beer makes me tired. I don't want to be tired while my little one's an infant; I need to be alert. And I ain't about to try to calm her, to swaddle and swing her on one arm to shush her to calming, after I've had a few beers. I ain't fucking with that shit. So that day was my last hurrah, as they say, my so long. I kiss you, bar, goodbye. In eighteen years, I shall see you, old and weathered though I'll be, and, bar, most likely some corporation will make you look the same, so that I feel at home. Perhaps at that time they'll pipe in an organic, healthy odor of cigarette smoke.

Selling Signed Freaks + Prose

2011-06-21T05:57:00.001-07:00

Since I'm embarking on this dad venture, I won't be off on book tours or even doing any local readings for a few months at least. That leaves me with a box mixed with fresh copies of The Book of Freaks and Prose. Poems. a Novel. that I'd like to sell to you, special people. The prices here are cheaper than you'll find at Amazon or elsewhere. Basically, you'd get a signed book shipped your way without having to pay for all that shipping.

2011-06-16T09:48:00.001-07:00

I am going to be someone's dad. I've been learning lots of new dad stuff. Today I learned that the fire department is good for some things and shitty for others. What the fire department does best is make light and noise, and some fire fighters are good drivers. I say "fire fighters," but they're more like "fire maintainers." At least, in Atlanta, I haven't seen too many fires get put out. Mostly these public employees keep the fire from spreading and let whatever's already burning burn the fuck down. Perhaps more than anything, they instill a sense of relief in people experiencing emergency scenarios. The real help shows up later in the form of a doctor, at a hospital. But doctors work in another line of incompetence that I'll get to at some other time. Fire fighters and the departments they represent suck at the following:

answering the phone
being around their fire station
caring about helping you
being knowledgeable in their supposed areas of expertise

In particular, my local fire station and the firepeople therein purport to maintain a carseat inspection center. But here are the problems: First, you can't call the fire station, because no one answers the phone. So I jogged down there and walked all over the station, looking in the fire trucks and everything, and finally some guy in uniform on his cell phone, looking very bothered that he had to stop his conversation to talk to me, said that he would inspect the carseat right then. I said, okay, but I had to jog back home to get the car.

So I did and when I came back I couldn't find anyone again until I walked inside the building and hunted around till I found some dude watching TV who also seemed very upset that he had to turn the program down to talk to me. When I said another fireman said he'd inspect my carseat, this guy sighed and went to turn off the TV and get up, presumably to reluctantly inspect my carseat himself. But, lucky, at that moment the original guy I talked to walked into the room, still on his cell phone, saw me, and said "I'll be outside in a minute."

He did come out promptly and looked at the carseat and said, "I think you got it in there pretty good." I took the carrier off and explained to him that there was a base that was the actual part that I had to secure.

He looked at it and said I didn't need the shoulder strap lock because our car's shoulder straps locked on impact. He took it off to demonstrate. I smiled and said okay, but I was beyond skeptical; knew that that was not the case. He saw me struggling to tighten the belt that he had just loosened, said "congratualtions," on my forthcoming child, shrugged, then left, and I reinstalled our carseat base the way I had it before this retarded adventure began.

2011-06-03T13:26:00.001-07:00

I keep forgetting to update and mention stuff. I'm gonna be in Virginia next week! Hail to the Union! I mean the Confederacy! Whatever!

Man Martin has a new novel that will be officially released June 6th, or thereabouts. We talked each other into doing readings, and so that's what we're doing. We'll be at Over The Moon Bookstore in Crozet, VA on June 7th @ 6 PM. Come on out yall!

Next we're in Charlottesville, VA, at Writerhouse. That's at 7 PM on the 8th.

By the 9th we'll be in Baltimore, MD, kicking it with pals Adam Robinson, Justin Sirois, Joe Young, and likely a whole gaggle of othe Baltimorean language stuff peeps. I'll be looking out for you, Jen Michalski, and you, Jamie Gaughran-Perez, and you, Lauren Bender. I think Michael Kimball will still be in the dirty dirty deep south, since he's read for us here in Atlanta, at solar anus on Sunday. We're gonna barbecue pig and drink beer and read from books. There might be whiskey. Last time there was.

Steve Himmer's The Bee Loud Glade

2011-05-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

April 2011, Atticus Books, $14.95

I picked up an ARC of this book in February, at AWP. Took me a minute to get to it with my unbelievable to-read stack, but I'm glad I finally did. Part of the reason I was excited about this book--I freely admit this--is that Steve Himmer has long been a friend to my own rantings, blog-publishing mentions about enjoying the work in my chapbooks and in Prose. Poems. a Novel., as well as selecting a story of mine to appear on Necessary Fiction, the online lit mag Himmer edits, and, on top of that I can tell he's just generally a good guy. Despite this seeming nepotism (which is really ridiculous anyway, right? I mean if two or more people who do the same sort of thing know each other, that's really surprising to you? It's like being surprised that Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley actually personally know one another and sometimes might even talk on the phone), Steve Himmer and I do not personally know one another. We've exchanged some brief emails, but we've never met personally. Anyway. Another reason I was excited about this book is that Himmer and I share some affinities for what is typically called "nature writing," but we might call it "place-based literature," or "ecocritically-friendly lit," or "Post-Thoreauvian Post-Post-Modern American literature." I just made that last one up. I actually have a Master's degree from the University of Nevada's Literature and Environment Program. So, I'm interested in this stuff. After this long preamble, let me say honestly, that while I have some points of small criticism of this book, it is, in all, a fine and enjoyable read, an edifying book, one that satisfies and leaves the reader thinking about our place on the planet in Western society.

It somehow happened that things I want to talk about with this book I broke up into the following areas:

Language/sentence structure/style

I'm a stickler for a fine sentence. I care about verbs, a lack of passive voice, lyricism. I understand a Gardner-esque point of view, that the sentence shouldn't draw too much attention to itself, that it should be easily readable, so we're not distracted from the "vivid and continuous dream" of the novel. But, I want a little attention paid to the beauty of language, too. This is not to say that Himmer has not done that. In some passages, especially toward the end--"After dinner, while the evening sky bruised as if its body, too, had worked a long day, I walked down to the river for a rare sunset swim."--he nails it. Sometimes I just wanted Himmer to get rid of filters: Finch "sees" things (in the sections when his sight isn't failing him), smells things, feels things, etc. I often simply want the sensory detail to be immediate. Instead of "This morning I stepped out of my cave into a world that still smelled like fresh rain and burnt hair"; I want it to be "This morning I stepped out of my cave into a world reeking of fresh rain and burnt hair." This is symptomatic of the kind of tightness I require, I suppose. but let me qualify this criticism by saying that this is a relatively minor point, considering the elements in this novel that supercede such trivialities. Also, for all I know, many sentence-level issues were taken care of with the final product, as I'm reading an ARC.

Politics

This book has a distinct political agenda. Typically, that's not something that I care to read. Granted, it's arguable that anything, no matter what you write, has an ideology behind it, but in this case it's right there in your face: " . . . I turned up the news. It was about the economy like it always was, interspersed with bits about wars that were either good for or bad for economics depending on who you asked, depending on which network you watched and which side you were on . . ." The rest of the scene in which this passage occurs outlines perhaps the ideology of the entire novel: the narrator becomes more entranced with a nature program about emperor penguins because he's bored with numbers, with the heads squabbling over human endeavors.

I don't disagree with Finch--our protagonist, also named after a bird--that the things of everyday humanity are insufferably boring, that the entrapments of our world keep us from tuning in to the non-human around us and thus it's no wonder that we suffer from global climate change, that, very likely, a good portion of the human population has decades of bad waiting for it due to our industrial negligence. But I don't think the solution is dropping out and tuning in--or whatever the fuck that Hippy said in the 60s.

Plot Device

The narrator (a first person narrator, which sometimes brings with it an obligation to explain the reason for the telling of the story; think Lolita, or Invisible Man, or something) uses a simple, but effective device, revealed to the reader about a hundred pages in, as the Old Man, which is a personification of the narrator's man-made river, and is the narrator's "scribe" to whom he ascribes his memory for, presumably, this telling of his story. Why the narraotr decided to do this in the first place is unclear and never explained, although it seems implied that it is an extension of his internal monologue brought on by his employer-enforced (and later self-imposed) vow of silence. This is tremendously interesting in its ironic implications. Here we're reading a novel--the antithesis of silence--written by a character who consciously chooses not to talk to anyone but himself in the form of his "Scribe," who informs the events of the novel, insuring a kind of unreliable/reliable narrator who we can trust/not trust to tell us this version of truth. At the same time it satisfies--however transparent it might be--the basic need for a reader to have a reason for the story being told in the first place.

Structure

The book moves back and forth: at one time the narrator tells us the story of his here and now, after his former employer has met his downfall and the garden has been relinquished to Finch, only to be infiltrated by a couple of hikers; these chapters alternate with Finch's history leading up to this moment. These latter chapters tell of how Finch ended up in the garden, how Mr. Crane asked him to perform certain endeavors such as Tai Chi, painting, woodcarving, and gardening, along with brief interactions with Crane, his wife, and Smithee the butler. This structure works well in that both moments come to a culmination: Mr. Crane meets his fuzzy downfall (we're not sure what happened but it's implied something illegal has gone on); and Finch ends up embracing his new garden companions who seem to have taken on Finch's own hermit-like qualities of silence and self-reliance. One thing we're never told is why Finch is losing his eyesight. It's implied that this simply has to do with age, but you don't get the sense that Finch has been in the garden an inordinate amount of time. Years, certainly, but enough for him to get old?

Very Cool

The only named characters, Finch and Crane--as has been previously mentioned at least for one of them--are named after birds. Finch, of course, being small, delicate, beautiful; and Crane is larger than life, somewhat stoic, representative of ideas more than an actual person. The symbolism here smacks you. I'm actually surprised more reviews haven't mentioned this.

Ultimately, it's no surprise to me that this book, smart as it is, was not picked up by a large New York house. It's too smart. I don't think they like thinky books. Fortunately, it landed in Atticus Books' hands, where they did a fine job producing this beauty. The book is yet more evidence that what popular culture--that what Finch does not sacrifice, but what he disdains--is useless, and won't carry us through the troubling years ahead. The bees, of course, which suggest our downfall due to their own rapidly shrinking numbers (hence our species' inability to rely upon agriculture, which bees' pollination insures), briefly fill this novel with a resounding blue uncertain stumbling buzz.

Book Giveaway

2011-05-03T07:37:00.000-07:00

I want to give away some copies of The Book of Freaks.

I'm thinking that the most entertaining way I might achieve this is to have other people write their own entries to The Book of Freaks.

For examples, some of the entries that I wrote can be found

at Hobart

at the2ndhand

at PANK

at Robot Melon (x2)

at Mad Hatter's Review

at Servinghouse

Write your freakish entry. It can be about anything you damn well please. Post your entry in the comments at HTMLGiant or here. Entries will be judged by Roxane Gay and Mike Young. Three winners and a runner-up will be selected to receive a signed copy of the book and some other junk that I decide to send your way.

Kendra Grant Malone's Everything is Quiet

2011-04-17T05:54:00.001-07:00

$12/ Scrambler Books

Most of the reviews of this book mention the "sincere" "confessional" "tone" and the "artless" "emotions" that this book reflects upon the reader, "the similarities in style" to "Bukowski," and so on. I'm reminded more of WC Williams's "no ideas but in things." Even the line lengths evoke Williams, to say nothing of the subject matter:

the third cup
i fill
using the same tea
bag is so
worthless that
i just watch it

Or take the book's shortest poem, "Faceless," a total of three lines: "he said he wanted to / destroy my face but / he did me no such favor."

Despite that last period (pun intended) Malone's poems go periodless. Perhaps they are post-period. See the dramatic situations of "Period Sex" and "Period Sex Part II."

In an interview with Noah Cicero on Bookslut, Malone says she wishes she could know where everyone who read her book was when they read it, and what they did afterwards. I lay in bed after having a fantastic dinner with my wife and my mother at this restaurant in Atlanta called Parish. My mom ordered the bottomless glass of wine and got loaded. She pissed me off by the time we got home--because she was complaining that I can't hear anything, after she and my dad spent thousands of dollars on my ears when I was a kid and I should respect my parents by continuing to go to the ENT and having fucking operations all the goddamn time and I said that we were not going to talk about it anymore is that clear? and I drove like a cop till we got to the apartment--and it was only like 9:30, but I went to bed and picked up Everything is Quiet by Kendra Grant Malone. I read the book. I put it down and had calmed considerably. I picked up John D'Agata's Halls of Fame and read an essay there. By then my wife came to bed. I turned off the light and fell asleep. I read the book two more times after that first reading.

Here are the lines/moments in this book where I was moved, sometimes almost to tears:

in "A Kicked Pigeon":

while you were
at work
i accidentally
kicked a pigeon
to death

In "Little Girls Are Women Somehow in Some Way":

i cried it
into my pillow
at age 13
when i understood
that a man once
broke my
mother's ribs
for sport

You have to read "My Father's Friends" to get to the click-closed end: "honestly, i look forward to dying again"

In "Hellfire Amongst Other Things": "yes, my cat's face / i would like it in my mouth"

In "Naked with Trish":

...i floated and looked
at the sky
i saw the big dipper
and the milky way
i once dated a
boy who showed me how
to recognize stars

Some readers/other poets might take issue with what another reviewer called these seemingly "artless" poems. Sure, the poet breaks lines somewhat irregularly, on words like "of" or "a." If you're that kind of reader/poet, well, I don't know. You probably won't allow yourself to like this book. You should try learning to take it easy. However, it would be nice to see the form of each poem work more intuitively with the dramatic situation or the speaker's voice a bit more. The poems are often contemplative, so I might expect long, meandering lines. Perhaps, though, what's happening here is that the short lined poems strike an ironic contrast to the speaker's point of view, underlying the violence of each poem, which is itself understated throughout this book.

I was perhaps most moved by "The Third Day," a poem that so accurately describes alcohol withdrawal (experiences I am all too unfortunately familiar with) that it's one I might continually go back to, something to remind myself of me:

you feel incredibly anxious
there is a
cloudiness
around you
it feels a little
like despair

...your limbs feel lucid
like you are swimming
but are not enjoying it
like someone is forcing you

When I finished with this book, I had a similar feeling as that expressed at the end of "The Third Day": "it's alright, it's okay"

It most certainly is not.

Readings in NYC this last weekend

2011-04-11T07:02:00.000-07:00

2011-04-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

I'm in New York. The sky is grey. I'm thinking of Amelia Gray. You can spell that color either way, or wey, I just learned that by looking it up because the Internet is fucking amazing. Blues/soul surrounds me in the form of Otis Redding oh shit Credence just came on it's time to leave. Going to this reading at the KGB Bar tonight. Tomorrow and Sunday I'm reading. If you live in this fucked megacity you should get stuck in traffic to come see me and I'll not swear, my god, I swear.

2011-04-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to say about this review of FREAKS. Comparisons to Voltaire, Joseph Heller, Airplane!, Gummo, and Dr. Strangelove. Shit. Amazing.

Thanks Matt Ferner!

2011-03-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend earlier today and he was like, "You should publicly acknowledge the fact that out of all your classes there's only one that's making you crazy and the rest are great." And at first I was like, fuck that, it's a blog, whatever the fuck. But upon recollection/refiguration a la a transformer, it's true: only one of my classes is certifiably disastrous; the rest are actually amazing. that's partly because I've weeded out bullshit from day one, but nonetheless. I have this remedial writing class (the one with the girl who wanted to "devastate them from the beginning"--probably my favorite quote ever from a student) that, for the most part, has been full of people eager to get the hell out of their "Learning Support" status and on to the actual college writing courses. There has been a lot of dead weight, too, more than half the class either dropped or I had institutionally withdrawn for not coming to class and/or failing. But the ones still around are great. They want to learn. Take a cue, Humanities class. My last class is an English 1101 class that meets once a week. They've got their own problems, like going insane, and because of that not being able to make it to class (I'm not even kidding, that's true: that came from a student who said that she was sad that she couldn't make it to class, but she was being treated for depression/paranoia/anxiety disorder/schizophrenia that day, inadvertently because she had a major attack of something mid-class, another class not mine). Despite that, they're doing pretty well, and are into our class and the reading and writing.

So I've got one class that blows, but I cannot help but focus on that one class. I was talking with the wife about this last night. She was complaining about work. Is it that the bad stories are just better? Is it that we need something to bitch about? What the Fuck? Maybe I should say WTF? Some of my classes are great so don't piss me off.

Another Freak Review

2011-03-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

Awesome: thanks so much to Levi Stahl at his blog, Ivebeenreadinglately, for his kind words about Freaks!

More Shit about Students

2011-03-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm in a difficult position: forced to decision. I have a class that's failing massively, like, to say the majority of the class is failing is understatement. I have, perhaps, a single student out of 15 that does passable work.

I've already had a come to Jesus moment with this class, after it was clear that they weren't doing the reading. I broke down to them the system: colleges are tiered. There's Harvard and Yale, there's UGA and UCLA, there's Georgia State and Michigan State Universities, then there's community colleges associated with state public education systems, then there are for-profit colleges.

I always ask them what they're going to school for. Invariably, their answers are for a job or the money that comes from the job. Sometimes I get a student who says something like, "I want to be a nurse because I like helping people." On those rare occasions a beetle does a somersault in my upper intestine.

About a month and a half ago I told my class that, in many ways, they had it a lot harder than the students in the top-tiered schools. They have to work three or four times as hard as some of their peers if they want to be competitive on the job market.

All this is to say that I told my class that I could make their lives easier by being an easier professor, but that I didn't think that would be doing them any favors. They'd end up leaving this community college and going someplace like GA State and passing or failing, graduating or not, but they'd be under a false pretense: that their education was just as good as the students' of these higher-tiered schools.

Let me first say that I'm not naive enough to think that I could--or should--make the workload in my classes equal to what a Harvard undergraduate likely experiences. I told my class that they've already got it a lot easier than some other students. I told them all this not to discourage them, but to attempt to inspire them. Did they think that they deserved that? Did they think that they could rise above their expectations, that they could do college work, that they could be successful? Absolutely, I agreed as they nodded, "I think you're smart, that you're capable, that you can achieve your dreams if you work hard for them."

We left that class and I had the feeling that things would turn around, the reading would get done, the grades would come up, my students would succeed!

You can infer by referring to this post's first paragraph that that is not what happened. At midterm, a week ago, the class's highest grade was 86%, the lowest score a 22%. Most of the class failed. I curved the exam. Yes, a 14% curve. That spread out the pass/fail ratio far more evenly. Okay, so there's the exam.

They also had a midterm essay assignment. Here's where my dilemma lies. The essays are nearly incapable of grading, not to mention reading. To call them essays is an insult to every student who ever graduated from college ever in the history of college or humanity. It's too depressing to even describe what kind of swill was turned in for an assignment that the class has been aware of since the first day of class in January. We've devoted class sessions to working on essays, to discussing how one goes about research and developing a thesis, incorporating quotes, etc. Let me also point out that this is not a writing class. It's called Humanities through the Arts.

Among my problems is that I've got to decide: teach these people how to write an essay, or teach them about art? I cannot do both in a single semester. Unfortunately, the college's prerequisites for taking this class are passing remedial writing, so there's no help there.

What I'm realizing is that unless I have no qualms about failing an entire class for not meeting my standards--and threatening my job security which does not exist, since I'm an adjunct--is that I have no choice but to dumb down this class. In fact, if I want any students to pass this course, I have to make the class easier than a third or fourth grade social studies class. There's literally no way for me to get my students up to speed for college-level work. Not only can I not do it for a class of 15 in three months, but they have no desire to get there. I'm trapped by ennui. And so I must bend to inadequacy.

This is what scares me, what is my real dilemma: this is happening all over the United States, in community colleges, in State colleges and Universities--certainly in the for-profit colleges. The road to equality in education and income and social stratification is bordered by gas stations full of gas station attendants that themselves are better critical thinkers than those traveling the road. How's that for a mixed metaphor?

I'm afraid, very afraid: our nation is fucked.

Back at It

2011-03-16T11:49:00.001-07:00

Gave a midterm exam today in an arts appreciation course. This young lady who, frankly, has had an attitude since day one (she was texting while I went over the syllabus about texting and I used her as an example of what not to do, but I was being funny about it, only she just glared at me)was on her phone throughout the exam. I'm giving her a 0 for the test. I mean, what would make anyone at all--ever--think it's okay to use their phone during a test? Anyway, it's not like I've had it out for her or anything, but I will say that it's annoying that on the day we review for the exam, a student sits in class for approximately two minutes, then picks up her stuff and leaves. Never mind the fact that the student attends a class in the same classroom immediately following the class I teach, and said student comes back for said second class, as I'm talking to students with legitimate questions. Said student then asks a question related to essay that's due in one day (major question, like, "We need to have citations?") demonstrating the fact that she has clearly not looked at all at the assignment although it's been assigned since the first day of class, two months ago. Said student seemed upset at the idea that the midterm was not going to be multiple choice, and was miffed when I said that multiple choice exams were idiotic and did not give students an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material.

ANYWAY.

My first book, Prose. Poems. a Novel., is now available as a Google ebook. It's cheap, much cheaper than the physical book (although I'm partial to the latter), and I'm donating some of the sales $ to a relief fund for victims of the recent Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster.

After a Book Tour a Formal Feeling Comes

2011-03-14T03:27:00.001-07:00

Mike Young and I had a long, slow, beautiful, blurring, fruitful book tour down the west coast of North America, during which I was powerful hungry and we saw and met the most bestest of friends. Our raft was a silver Mazda minivan packed with jackets and books and plastic and empty coffee cups and water bottles. We braved great weather and a tsunami.

People and places I want to thank:

Matthew Simmons
Tom De Beauchamp
Pilot Books in Seattle
Kevin Sampsell
B. Frayn Masters
Michael Schaub
Ampersand Vintage in Portland
K. Silem Mohammad
Elliot Harmon
Todd Christopher Cincala
Jeremy Spencer
JP Dancing Bear
Todd James Pierce
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo
The Inn at Avila Beach (Thanks for the free night after the evacuation!)
Ken Baumann
Vicki Baumann
Skylight Books in L.A.

Also, thanks to everyone who came out to see us in Seattle, Portland, Ashland, San Francisco, Davis, thanks if you listened to us on the radio in San Jose, San Luis Obispo, and Los Angeles. If you haven't already, find me on Facebook or something. I met some great new people, and got to see friends and family who I already knew were great.

Oh, and I have to add a huge thanks to Mike Young who was a great traveling partner, an amazing reader and a great writer. He's going to set the world afire.

End

2011-03-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

Tsunami. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo hooked us up with a hotel room at Avila Beach, this quaint tiny town, maybe three hundred beachcombers, nestled between ridges that looked like green shoulders. After hanging with Todd Pierce till 2 or 2:30 AM, I crashed hard, but Mike was checking out the Internet, and saw the earthquake that struck Japan, and that a tsunami was headed our way. He woke me at 4 AM to tell me about it, and that they expected the wave to hit N. America around 8 or 8:30, so we went back to bed until the hotel owner &c pounded the door and told us that the town was being evacuated: 7 AM. The hotel owner was really apologetic, though, and offered us a free room for that night, should we be allowed to come back into town. So with our minimal sleep we huddled into the car and I found a cliff overlooking the sea. Everyone said we should head inland, but I wanted to see a tsunami if there was going to be one. We sat on a log and watched the waves come in. The waves were the same as all the waves that ever hit that beach. We watched for about an hour. I tried to sleep in the car. Todd called, said we should eat breakfast, and that sounded good. Driving in to San Luis Obispo, saw that the CHP had closed off the incoming lanes, so we knew we weren't going to be able to get back in to Avila. Ate breakfast at Luisa's. Todd directed us to a used bookstore where in exchange for the facilities I purchased a volume by John D'Agata. I was dragging pretty hard, and thinking about the more than three-hour haul to LA unnerved me. Mike and I hatched a brilliant plan: we should take up the free hotel room offer and stay another night, chill, should there be minimal tsunami damage. Yes, we are that smart. So that's what we did. of course, despite the massive destruction in Japan, the tsunami had lost its power by the time it reached California, and the result was something like the tide coming in in under five minutes, instead of two hours. That in itself is certainly significant, but I don't think it would've been anything to watch.

Our hotel is to the left (duh) in the first shot here. It's a little blurry, but anyway.

So we kicked it that night, went to bed relatively early, after listening to music and eating antipasto. It was very romantic.

Today we headed into LA. The reading at Skylight was cool. The folks there, Noel and Liz, were really nice and supportive, and Mike and I sold some books. Jereme Dean and Gena Mowish came out to hang and we ate diner food. I had a bowl of chowder, and that is something that white people eat. Just look at "White People" in The Book of Freaks, it says so right in there.

Altogether, it's been fun and worksome, and long, but I'm a little sad to see it end, but I want to get home to my baby and my baby's mama. The baby's still in my baby's mama, so it's easy in that I get to see them both in close proximity.

Favorite meal: dinner at my Aunt Liz's house.
Favorite meal at a commercial establishment: Morning Glory, Ashland, OR
Favorite Song: jingles Mike and I wrote for each other: "You might think he's old, but he's . . .MIKE YOUNG!"; "He's not not you, and he's not me he's . . . JAMIE."
Favorite part of Drive: Coming down Siskiyou Pass into California, near Weed.
Favorite Children: My niece and nephew.
Favorite color: sky.

Not Allowed

2011-03-11T17:16:00.001-08:00

Beer Run Bobby is also known as Bobby Piñon

More Tour

2011-03-10T09:35:00.001-08:00

After not sleeping much in Portland had breakfast with Bryan Coffelt and his fiancée and talked about breakfast places of which Portlanders are very fond, something I kinda knew already from Kevin Sampsell and Frayn Masters from when they came to read in Atlanta and they were down for some kickass breakfast but we couldn't get into Ria's Bluebird ever because it's always hard to get in there, and things were pretty much the same in Portland on a Sunday morning with everyone eating before or after church and stuff although I'm not sure how much of Portland is made of church-goers because it seems like a really young city and I know that the people are all highly educated and thus not superstitious. Whilst mid-drive to Ashland we spotted two bald eagles. I bought a six pack of Bud tall boys in an attempt to chill while Mike took the wheel and maybe I could sleep, but I'm not very good at sleeping in cars, so we talked about driving itself and Mike told me how he hit a parked car once. Mike said he gets nervous cause he doesn't drive a lot, which is good. I wish more Americans didn't drive. But Mike said I made him comfortable in the car so we figure if we drove another thousand miles still he'd be a real American by the end of it.

Ashland was rainy and quaint and fun. K. Silem Mohammad met us at his apartment and we then ate latin fusion and the server had trouble knowing what was on the menu that the restaurant didn't have and remembering things we ordered and actually bringing them, but we had mojitos and margaritas and altogether it was good (especially the empanadas) so we left a tip still and the loud drunk girls sitting behind us said that they'd order the same things because one of the girls was the other girl's bottom. The reading there was intimate, which was a nice contrast to the huge Portland reading and I told everyone that I was having a baby, and lots of other very personal things. Mike recited his poem/play, the first section from his poem "Let's Build the Last Song and Sneak Away While Everyone Is Listening" and it went over well. We sold a few books, but more important kicked it with almost everyone who came to the reading at Kasey's house where we re-defined the road novel, created (maybe?) the anti-road novel, talked about the first person omniscient (Whitman), and generally spent the night perusing Kasey's amazing cornucopia of displayed books. Morning brought me Morning Glory, the much hyped (by Mike and Bryan Coffelt) Ashland breakfast Mecca that lived up to its hoopla by serving me a giant chicken fried steak that there was no chance of finishing. I had a bite of Mike's omelette: carmelized red onions, smoked applewood bacon, and fontina cheese: the most amazing omelette I've ever tasted. Mike won.

Drive through the Siskiyous: gorgeous: snow sifting, dusting cedars, big semis. Open vista at Siskiyou Pass and clouded over Mt. Shasta, the peak peeking through. Sagebrush that I miss we don't get sagebrush in Georgia. Or mountains, real mountains, not foothills. Past weed we got a full view of Shasta, to which Mike a funny story told me is tangentially related: Lemurians are an ancient Alien race that live upon Mt. Shasta, according to some weirdos who live around the mountain, particularly around the town of Weed, where a brewery created Lemurian Lager. This cult showed up at the brewery one day, waltzing in clad full in white, carrying a cease and desist letter, claiming "Lemurians are 5,000 years old, they live in the mountain, and they don't drink beer. Please stop production." The delivered the letter then stood around quietly, not saying anything at all in their white clothing. Freaking out everyone, the brewery agreed to stop making the beer but if I were them I would've just changed the name which is what they probably did.

Along I-5 we saw a horse in a pasture chasing a gaggle of geese away like the horse was thinking fuck I'm gonna go fuck with those geese. This conglomeration of blackbirds circled and wheeled over a field and together in unison they made a face of many emotions, a cloud. Mike said it looked like pepper. In San Francisco we saw Jimmy Chen and Chelsea Martin, and that was great to see those old friends. We also saw my pal Todd Cincala and he hooked us up with a couch and cushions. The reading went well there, too, sold books, I got Chelsea to sign my copy of her The Really Funny Thing About Apathy. Jimmy and I talked about making pasta with different delicious sauces and I want to cook with him.

Davis next where we saw Jeremy Spencer of Scrambler Books. Met Mike's parents for dinner and they were really nice. Went to weird college beer bars in Davis that closed at 10 PM, but Jeremy and his buddy Ben were great hosts and it was fun talking to them while in the background one television featured some Hooters things with bikinis tug-o-warring on clouded over beaches, and on another TV snowboarders plummeted from scarped snowy cliffs and performed typical snowboarder antics such as driving RVs and throwing snowballs at one another whilst donning their cool baggy clothing and snowboarding goggles circling their necks and I was reminded of that subculture and how fucking stupid it is. Mike read a sad story in Davis, maybe not really sad, emotional. Mike's dad after the reading said, "I'm surprised. You guys are really good!"

Tour

2011-03-07T08:32:00.001-08:00

In Seattle I got into town much earlier than Mike, so I picked up our rental car, which ended up costing more than I anticipated, and that was a little shocking so I had to think for a while whether or not Mike was gonna be pissed, so I left the airport and found a road with a golf course next to it and that golf course had a restaurant/bar/banquet hall where I sat and ate nachos with brisket and grilled jalapenos that destroyed my mouth's lining while the new bartender took over for the old one and she had some serious problems with customers from the night before who had walked out on their tab and I listened while she adjusted her hair into a bun and made that face people make when they're so astounded by some people's audacity, that look that's like seeing the world's largest donut in your bathroom. Mike wasn't pissed and I think the beer I drank helped. We went to the reading and saw Matthew Simmons. I also saw my cousins and some friends from Reno who now live in Seattle. The people in Seattle were cool. Thanks Seattle!

Me, Mike, and Matthew drove to Portland. On the road we thought up a video game called the World of Litcraft, and my idea of this game involves avatars that grow up in weird ways (like, they pick actual strawberries so their mothers can make fresh daquiris and stuff) and that influences what kind of adult they grown into, when they eventually enter apartments with desks and computers where they sit and write stories or essays or poems or all of it and you get to see what kind of writer you've created. In Portland we were invited to Kevin Sampsell's and Frayn Masters' wedding reception. The were delicious sandwiches and cupcakes at this party. We also met Riley Michael Parker and Marika Haskins. They were really nice and fun. We got a cup of coffee that really fucked me up, because my wife's pregnant so we don't drink real coffee anymore it's been about 6 months and I only drink decaf and I'm in Portland right so the coffee's actually a syringe loaded with caffeine and shoved in my spine. I didn't end up sleeping, or I only slept for 4 hours, and that was after a xanax and 9 beers. But before all of this we went to Powell's where I restrained myself and only bought Chelsea Martin's new book along with Jason Bredle's Smiles of the Unstoppable, that Mike's Magic Helicopter Press put out. Then we had this amazing reading at Ampersand Vintage. Kevin and Michael Schaub of Bookslut. I was just meeting Michael, and he was really nice. He and Kevin were great introducers cause they didn't have anything planned but just talked about me and Mike and about our books, and they were casual and funny and it made this ridiculous crowd that showed up feel comfortable. There people all over that place, and they bought our books. Portland made me feel comfortable high up, like on a ski lift. So then it was I could not sleep.

Reviews

2011-03-04T15:38:00.000-08:00

This

This

This

I just landed in Seattle. The PBR here tastes exactly the same as everywhere else, just like McDonald's, except it's beer and not McDonald's but that actually makes them more similar than different.

2011-03-03T05:19:00.000-08:00

Teaching essay writing class right now, and one of my students, stuck on drafting her personal essay about her mother dying, said, "I don't know where to start. Should I just devastate them from the beginning?" I laughed, and said, "Yes, absolutely, devastate them from the beginning."

Another

2011-02-28T12:17:00.001-08:00

I am here again and today the clouds scrunch up against the sky's dome like they want to snuggle each other. The wind makes me want to make my own wind, so I keep breathing.

Futbol

2011-02-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

I have been in a bar working all afternoon, a bar in which the televisions perpetually display football matches--obviously by the title of this post, not of the American variety. Interestingly, I'm not in a faux WASP pub of the American variety, you know the bar in your town, the only place where wayward Brits, Irish, Scots, and Welsh find employment solely on the merits of their accent? This is an American sports bar. We're in one of those lulls--only the NBA and NHL are alive and kicking which means that sports America has gone into hibernation.

Anyway, I think I perhaps have discerned the difference between Americans and other cultures, based on my observance of football (non American). This is not the first non-American football contest I have observed, I must say. In fact, I am very good friends with a formerly non-American football professional. He is now an American, but he still plays football, but he does not play American football. Americans call this soccer. I realize that that sounds stupid, like when white people say, "Well I have Black friends" when they really don't. So, to provide the details: he's Israeli, he works as a trainer, his kids are three and one years old. Yes, I know the guy.

Anyway (x 2), whilst watching this football contest, with the sound superceding conversation (despite this bar's emptiness on a Wednesday afternoon) I'm assaulted by the constant elaborate crowd chants screamed by hooligans tossing their empty beer cups from the stands of football stadium in said football contest. Said chants at least sound complex. They might not be. But they are definitely multi-syllabic. It sounds like 100,000 people are chanting, "Oh, Healthcare, we love you, but you take away our pay, but still it's kinda good to go to the doctor and not get fucked on the bill, wow it's actually a pain and at the same time not so bad to be European." Sometimes they're not European, but the teams playing right now are--or at least I think they are.

The point is, you never hear such mass coordinated utterance from citizens of the United States. You don't even hear that shit from Canada. Is this Americans' problem? Is it what defines us, what saves us? Go to an American football contest and universally there's no point in sitting down, cause everyone's up and shouting different shit. The guy next to you actually roots for the other team, yells fucked up shit about [enter your favorite athlete's name here], and when he turns to you, he says, "No offense," and he actually kinda means it. He's just that guy. And--generally--it's okay for you to root your thing from where you are. Yes, certainly it's dangerous at an Oakland Raiders game (in fact it's entirely possible you could get shot), but that has nothing to do with your allegiance or lack thereof.

The point is (x 2), American aren't homogenous. Maybe that's why we're so fucked up and have so many problems. Maybe that's why this place is diverse and beautiful and almost no matter where you go you don't have to eat a hamburger if you don't want to.

Small Press

2011-02-19T06:48:00.001-08:00

Molly Gaudry has just announced a bunch of stuff, cool stuff, ambitious and viable stuff. She's working now as an independent publicist. Along with that, she's initiating a small press collective. Molly talked to me about this at AWP and it sounded like a great idea then, but it really was only an idea. In the last few weeks, Molly's run with that idea and has accountants and lawyers helping to get her started. I talked to her on the phone today, and she has innovative ideas for getting books to readers, and not just the small press and literary readership that contemporary lit has niched itself into. Molly's talking about, like, my mom reading Lindsay Hunter's Daddy's, for example. And why not? My mom would love that book. But she doesn't know that it (or Featherproof Books, for that matter) even fucking exists. If you publish books, you should send your favorite to Molly so she can maybe help you sell it. She'll kick ass at this.

In other news: it's no longer cold here. Maybe it will stay that way? It's been in the 70s. I wore shorts to teach yesterday. My students were awesome. They've been reading Nineteen Eighty-four. I know that's a book you normally read in high school. I'm teaching it in English 101. That's mostly because I'd never read it, and wanted to, and knew that I'd never get around to it unless I was teaching it cause I got a stack of to-read that's reaching the moon. I love those ridiculous hyperbolic comparisons you hear on Discovery Channel documentaries. They say things like "Jamie has so many books that he owns but has not yet read, that if those books were golf balls, and you put all of those golf balls in the Grand Canyon, they would fill the Grand Canyon to a depth of three feet. That's three feet of golf balls." My students had all this stuff they wanted to talk about with the book. They've really taken to it. They're all interested in what's happened in Egypt and what's going on in Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan--all over the autocratic world. These are the same students who, a week ago, didn't know what a season was. Next week I think we'll get to seasonings. Maybe we'll eat. Class starts at lunchtime.

2011-02-11T12:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I'm posting all this stuff about my students. I guess it's cause I care about them and their success, but they're also in some ways sadly funny. Today I was talking about critical thinking. I kinda break that down into two components: paying attention to your senses, and asking questions. I had them go outside and record every sensory impression they could for about ten minutes. When they came back the thing they kept talking about was that it was cold outside. So first we talked about describing that in sensory ways, which they did pretty good at. Then I asked them why. They said why what. I said why's it cold. They said cause it's winter. I said why's it winter. They said cause it's a season. I said what's a season and why do we have them. It took them a long time to think about that, but eventually they got saying because the Earth turns on an axis. I said yes that makes night and day for us on the planet but what makes seasons? One student yelled because god made it that way. I said okay but is there a more direct reason what if someone in the class doesn't believe in god that doesn't answer the question for them. The idea that someone wouldn't believe in god was weird to them but they got past it. Finally we got to that the earth wobbles on its axis, and right now that wobble has angled the planet so that sunlight does not hit north america as directly as it does, say, Chile right now where it's summer. They all agreed that that sounded right. I said why. They said why what. I said why does Earth wobble on its axis. Now they were really stumped. So I said that about four billion years ago before Earth solidified another forming planet about the size of mars slammed into what would become our planet, and this cataclysm caused axial tilt and created our moon and that without this violent moment in Earth's early history life would not be possible. They said why would you believe that and not the bible. Then I laughed.

Somewhat related to students (i.e., mine)

2011-02-09T14:50:00.001-08:00

On the way to class this morning listening to NPR I heard this story, which came on the heels of this story.

I thought it weird that no one kinda put the two together, at least directly. The NYU sociology professor at one point said that college professors work hard, but that in many cases the sole criteria for judging their effectiveness is student evaluations. As an adjunct professor, that's certainly the case for me. I had an administrator visit my class once after I got hired, and said admin person sat there for five minutes, took some notes, and walked out and I never heard anything about a "faculty eval."

So in order to get good student evals many professors don't have rigorous coursework, are entertaining, and grade easily. All = happy students = good evals = keeping job = students don't learn.

On top of that there's retention. Whenever they say not-for-profit college or university that's some serious bullshit. They need those people in seats otherwise budget cuts are gonna force layoffs. So it's in the professors' and administrators' favor to be easy in order to keep college enrollments up. All of that = happy stupid unemployable students.

AWP is getting old

2011-02-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

or it's very likely more like I'm getting old because I was fucking hurting yesterday and today. today I jogged and that felt really good cause I didn't do anything of that in washington dc and all I did was eat shitty food and get a little drunk well okay actually especially on friday night I got a lottle drunk and was having trouble standing and slurred quite a bit and saturday morning I asked a bunch of people who I partied with if they made it to the party at all and they were all like, yeah dude, I was with you all night. awp you're fun probably too much for me, fuck i'm going to be someone's dad.

Students

2011-01-31T07:22:00.001-08:00

I asked them to write about their education and reading experience. They were to respond to some specific prompts/questions. They were very honest. Some said they don't like reading very much and haven't read a lot, that most of the reading they do these days is online (mostly Facebook). Some, though, said they love to read and read novels (the biggest author is Zane, whose writing is crazy awesome porn that is marketed as erotica; you should check it out).

I asked them to talk about elementary/middle/high school. Did they enjoy school? Did they ever feel pressure not to be engaged, or to be very active in class, because they would get labeled as a nerd or a ass-kisser, or something like that. Every one of my students responded that they never had trouble speaking up in class, that they were told they were smart, that they were good students, had earned A's throughout, and they never cared what other students thought of them.

This is in a college learning support English class, or, to be politically incorrect: a remedial reading and writing class. These students' placement scores kept them from entering English 101. From what I've read of their writing so far, they have some pretty severe inadequacies as readers and writers, as students in general. For a recent homework assignment only two out of 24 students completed the assignment; everyone else turned in half of it or less, or nothing at all.

What strikes me about all this is that I'm suspicious of something that many American students might be afflicted with: they have a whole lot of confidence, and no skills. Although they say that they don't have trouble talking in class, when I pose a question to the room, even the crickets hear crickets. If they earned A's in high school, my feeling is that there are a lot of high school teachers inflating grades, simply handing them out, without assigning any real work, or having their students suffer the consequences of not completing their work. Why would almost an entire class think it's OK to turn in half of an assignment? I have to ask the class tomorrow morning. Maybe there was some sort of mix-up? I doubt it. Unfortunately, this is not all that uncommon where I teach. In fact, I've dealt with it every semester at the beginning. I have to teach my students how to be students, then I can teach them how to read and write. My students have been under served their entire lives and now they're trying to get a college degree.

I teach at a community college. I teach in south Dekalb County, Georgia. The minority percentage of the zip codes surrounding the college is 93.89%. In my classes this spring, I have a total of 60 students in 3 classes. 13 are males. 1 is not African American. I could go more into the inequities in school districts in GA if I wanted to, but to put it simply: schools in Black communities in GA, generally, get screwed. The people who attended those schools are those I'm trying to teach, to help. But I don't think anyone was helping them by handing out A's in high school.

2011-01-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

Compared to my contemporaries I read slowly, or at least it seems that way to me. Matt Bell is on book #13 for 2011. I'm still on book 3. I don't know what other writers are publicly counting out their reading lists. I'd be curious. Others within my physical proximity I know read pretty fast. It's not like I'm reading particularly long books, either. I'm reading Robert Coover's Ghost Town, which finishes up within 147 pages. I know how to read faster; I had to for graduate school. But if I really want to soak up a book, I have to take my time with it. I know every reader reads his own way, but how the hell do some of you get it done so quickly? Maybe it's because I can really only read what I want to read on my own before I go to bed? I have stuff to read for my classes. Sometimes I get to assign reading that I would normally want to be reading in my free time, but not usually. That's one of the things that sucks about my place of employment. But that's beside the point. I spend the rest of my day writing and getting things prepped for class or grading. What about everyone else? Are you all setting more time aside for reading during the day?

mickey hess be funny

2011-01-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

I will blurb any book within 24 hours!

Freaks Trailer

2011-01-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

Bryan Coffelt and Brian David Smith are geniuses--genii? They're really fucking talented.

Snig diffidy morphine

2011-01-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

You know, I used to take a lot of morphine. I also smoked and shot a bunch of heroin. It was fun. I never got that hooked on that shit. I also used to snort a bunch of cocaine. A few times I snorted a bunch of crank. I've snorted gasoline fumes, but you have too. I've snorted fresh paper. I've eaten an artichoke. I've killed a deer. You've killed a billion chickens at least a million cows, say nothing of the salmon. I've smoked PCP. I've fucking killed your dog. You know what about your dog? Fuck your dog. I hope the first thing you learn about anything is that your dog doesn't give a flying fuck about you no he/she doesn't love you has no idea of a concept such as love I've smoked crack before and when I did I felt really good for a minute but then just as quick it went away.

Man Martin's new book

2011-01-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

My friend Man Martin has a new book coming out soon. It's called Paradise Dogs. It's at once both a very sad and a very funny book. George Singleton says, "In Paradise Dogs, Man Martin offers the reader my favorite type of protagonist: part Willie Loman, part Ignatius J. Reilly, and part Roman Strickland from Brad Barkley’s Money, Love. But Adam Newman is his own man wholly. He’s the true lovable scam artist wishing to do right. This is a great, fun read, full of absurdities, perplexities, and wonderfully cathartic insights. Fun, sad, and more fun." Check out Man's blog. He does and says silly things there. The book will be out this spring from Thomas Dunne

Blurbage

2011-01-05T14:25:00.000-08:00

I just re-read this while going over the book, and it made me laugh so much. A blurb for Freaks:

“When I was 47 I killed a child with a razor bat and a pocket mirror. I had to beat the shit out of that childbaby face so good if it was going to die and I surely wanted it to, for it wore gold slacks, the best slacks to this day still I’ve ever seen. The good thing is that after I killed the child I brought it back to life, but then I killed it again for smiling. Point is, I have the gift of reanimation, which I picked up because I sometimes look at books and can imagine how writing a book works. Jamie Iredell likes fucking metaphors, but this blurb isn’t a metaphor at all. Anything you read in this hot penis-lifting amalgam of Ire-language is meant in private by Mr. Jamie to stand for something else because he thinks metaphors are really powerful. But me, I really killed a child. This is a confession. The child’s name was Spencer and he was clean. Next year when I turn 59 I’m going to unmetaphorically kill your fucking dog because fuck your fucking dog.”
—Blake Butler, author of There Is No Year

Excerptedness

2011-01-03T13:18:00.001-08:00

This thing from a novel I wrote in 2010 @ Dark Sky Magazine.

Other excerpts from the same novel are published

Here

Here

and, forthcoming,

Here

This is the Freaks Cover

2010-12-21T09:50:00.001-08:00

Pre-orders just got up on the Future Tense website.

Books for Buying

2010-12-21T04:49:00.000-08:00

@ Metazen's blog I put up a few words about Mike Young's We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough and Joshua Harmon's Scape. Others also wrote about books that should be bought. Buy them for yourself and others.

New Book

2010-12-16T11:56:00.000-08:00

I have spent all fall drafting the first draft, rewriting that draft into a second draft, and now have about 70+ K worth of words of said draft. Now I started some serious cutting/revision and so far have spent two days and am ready to move on to p. 2. The real work begins.

shnickidy

2010-12-08T12:17:00.000-08:00

I blah smack don't care naw pop poo poo

Stuff

2010-11-29T08:25:00.001-08:00

Leslie Nielson is dead. It's a sad day.

On the cover of the October 2010 Vanity Fair, Lindsay Lohan is quoted in large itallic text: "I'm literally falling apart!" I wonder how much a little toe costs on ebay? An eyelash?

I rediscovered this while rummaging through email. Forgot I made it and another which I'll post later, I guess.

After a Self-imposed Sabbatical

2010-10-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

I will return to the classroom this January. I'm trying to figure out if I should be happy or terrified by this. I feel a little of both. I took a semester off because I was swimming in cynicism. 10 years of teaching almost entirely first-year composition--and most of those 10 years in the South--will do that to you. I also wanted to get some serious writing done. Funny, about that cynicism: the summer before said sabbatical began I taught 2 summer courses. The courses and the students turned out to be among the best I've ever had. They both started at 7 AM. When I put in my request for classes this spring, I asked for that 7 AM slot again. If you're making it to class, not falling asleep, and doing good work at 7 AM, you're pretty serious about said class. It's easy to weed out the bullshit and recommend they drop, find a better slot for their schedule. I hope that I don't get much bullshit, since that's what made me so bitter. Students who, when asked why they're going to college, say, "To make money." Students who, when you're reading something brilliant, amazing, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, say, "I didn't do the reading for today." Students for whom revision is correcting their misspelling on their own name. Last summer I had a student from Ghana who understandably had serious issues with writing in English. But man did he work hard. While he improved greatly, he was in English 101 and probably still did not write at a level one ought to for having passed English 101, but he earned an A. At summer's end he shook my hand and said, "I have so much more confidence now. I know I can learn to write well." (he probably said "good", but whatever). I want every student to be like him. Wishful thinking for Americans.

I have not been submitting work I think I am tired of all that and I only want to do the actual writing part and that's funny cause when I was younger

2010-10-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

I was really focused on trying to publish.

And, the Braves and their fans are racists

2010-10-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not even talking about the fact that they're called the "braves," insulting Native Americans throughout North, Central, and South America, but they're also from Atlanta, which lauds itself as the "City Too Busy To Hate." They would hate, but they're too busy. Maybe in the 60s. Here, today, is what Braves fans have to say:

"Call to Action" at AJC says:

"There is some truth to the weak fan base thing, but the true cause for the weakness of Braves fans is bigger than that. Our stadium should be on the north end of town to bring in more affluent fans. Unfortunately, our corrupt city officials keep the stadium in the middle of a ghetto. Again, it is all about spreading the wealth with the south side. That is becoming a trend in the US. Keep spreading the wealth, keep selling average. One either plays to win or you settle for the scraps you get."

Jesus G.

I don't usually use this for this purpose

2010-10-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

but Atlanta doesn't deserve a Major League Baseball team. There were tickets AVAILABLE for today's playoff game. And we went to the game last night and sat field level for $30. The wait-list just to get tix in San Francisco is ridiculous.

I already posted this on FB, but it's funny. This is my brother. He's silly.

2010-10-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned that Denver sucks my balls?

2010-10-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

If not, let it be pointed out a singular fact: the city of Denver, Colorado blows my fucking balls.

My wife just called Alex rodriguez a "pussy-ass cunt."

2010-09-25T13:59:00.001-07:00

I'm writing a new book, fuck

2010-09-19T13:20:00.001-07:00

2010-09-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

Fuck you. I don't like your poems or the way you dress. In fact, I thought you were cool, but you started dating that one chick. After that, what happened? You are such a douche. Even my grandma says so. She said, "Fuck that guy." And I was like, "Hell yeah, grandma."

Dog Owners

2010-08-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Sarah stepped in dog shit the other night when we were walking on the sidewalk. A giant great dane nearly bit my goddamn face off while I was jogging on the sidewalk and the animal's owner was texting. I lunged into the road to get away from the fucker and luckily there wasn't any traffic cruising by. The owner said sorry passingly and went back to his cell phone. Fuck that asshole, and fuck his dog. Every jerk around our apartment who owns a dog does not clean up their animal's shit, so you're walking through a mine field to go to the store or get the mail. We have friends with a couple dogs, and they take good care of them. The dogs are well-behaved, and they listen when their owners tell them to leave their guests alone. Whenever they take them for a walk they carry several plastic bags to pick up the shit. Great. Good dog owners, and nice dogs. People like the cocksucker who owns the great dane and walks the beast in the park are irresponsible self-absorbed assholes. What if I had kids with me? The guy just says sorry. I need to carry a golf club so I can beat that fucker's head. Not the dog, although I'd probably have to hit it first in order to get at that guy.

I might seriously write a book called Fuck You and Fuck Your Fucking Dog. It'll be about the drug wars in Mexico.

More funny

2010-08-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Queries that led to this blog that include the word "poem": fuck you poems, thinking of you poems, fuck poems, i love you boyfriend poems, redneck poems, thinking of you short poems, i hate you poems, prose poem, fuck life poems, fuck it poems, fuck the world poems, fuck u poem, porn poems. But the best query of all is fuck the duck until exploded

Funny

2010-08-23T05:54:00.001-07:00

I like the photos here.

Everyone's talking

2010-08-21T07:43:00.001-07:00

Stuff about the VQR thing. I know Ted Genoways. I'm not like his best friend or anything, but I've drunk many beers with the guy while at Bread Loaf. That's about all I got to say on that. Very sad story. Everyone started talking about the magazine's operations, it's budget, why isn't it a better magazine, etc. No one gave a shit or talked about that at all before this terrible thing happened.

Saw this movie last night. It was pretty good. Before that I ate this. It was also pretty good.

What else are people talking about? My dad always talks about the weather. Seriously. I don't know why talking about weather is interesting to some people. This one guy I know wrote about Atlanta's humidity on his facebook page, then there were like 95 comments from people all over the country saying, it's not humid here! and I'll ship a box of our weather your way!

shizinimiciny

2010-08-18T11:25:00.001-07:00

I don't like updating this blog anymore blogs are kinda stupid.

This Just In

2010-07-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Silliness @ HTMLGiant.

Cheerleading ruled not a sport. As a feminist, I am furious. [that is not meant to be sarcastic]

What, actually, is art. All theories invited. See comments. I mean. I'll keep posting the same shit until there are comments.

Just Pre-ordered

2010-07-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Mike Young's Look! Look! Feathers! I mean, I got the email from Word Riot like less than a minute ago and ordered immediately. I'm excited about this book. It's going to be bad ass.

Kacey Carneal

2010-07-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

I've found that I really like this folk artist, who gets inspiration from listening to Tony Bennett and from Time Magazine. That sweater! Those pants! This lady would be awesome to listen to for an hour.

Small Presses

2010-07-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

Anis Shivani posted a slideshow featuring 15 small presses at The Huffington Post. Most of them are big small presses (excuse the oxymoron) like Copper Canyon. But, a couple pretty small ones are up there, including C&R Press, for whom I design books. That's pretty cool. He mentions Sybil Baker's Talismans, which the press is readying to send to the printer. Look for it soon at Small Press Distribution and Amazon, etc. Shivani says in his write-up prior to the slide show that over the summer Huffington Post will continue to feature small presses and invites readers to join in the discussion by suggesting what presses they think ought to be discussed. Go plug your homies.

new list

2010-06-25T06:59:00.000-07:00

everyone's been talking about the New Yorker's 20 under 40 list, or they did for a while. Dzanc Books created an alternate list"made up of nearly 100 independent publishers, agents, editors, bloggers and reviewers." I am humbled to be listed up there, along with so many others whose work I love.

Couple New

2010-06-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

Issues of some mags out:

Jellyroll Magazine, a new one in their second issue, is pretty badass. Some great work in their by Heather Christle and Natalie Lyalin. I have a couple of freaks in there too.

There's a new issue of Action, Yes, with some more freaks in it. Other freaks with awesomeness include Christopher Higgs, Shane Jones, Reb Livingston, Kristi Maxwell, and, well everyone in it. Action's always a great one.

Someone told me that I look like this guy

2010-05-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

Resemblance?

new poem

2010-05-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

BAP Quarterly has published a poem in their Space issue. am working on covers for the BOOK OF FREAKS. Fun, but hard. Trying to go with something that catches the book (which is all over the fucking place) and that catches the eye at the same time.

I'm sick of my students, of teaching where I teach. this has been the worst semester I've ever had, worst students. in two section (one composition, one american lit) more than half the students in each class are flat-out going to fail, nothing they can do about it. in one, it's because they decided not to show up. in the other it's because they won't read anything.

in a couple weeks solar anus is hosting Zach Schomburg. Looking forward to that, and to the break between spring semester and the summer. I'm not teaching at all next fall, and I'm really looking forward to that. I need a break, or a new school. Both I think. I need to go hunting.

Thanks Tim

2010-04-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

Tim Frederick just posted about Prose on his book blog Baby Got Books. Thanks Tim!

Also, just got back from AWP and am only now getting back around to some work. I had to grade papers and get school-caught-up before I could actually get back to some writing/research.

I'm researching all this fun stuff about the geology of the Sierra Nevada Mountains for "The Lake." I don't know if I mentioned that already, that the novel-in-progress is likely going to be called "The Lake". Maybe. That's what I'm going with for now. I'm at a stage where I'm culling and synthesizing, putting the draft together as I imagine I'd like it to be presented to an actual reader. In other words, it's starting to take shape. But I'm adding these sections that are like nonfiction, i.e., all about the geology, the flora and fauna of the region of the lake, etc.

So I wrote that silly post about Denver. But, seriously, Denver was a weird town. Weird in a Midwestern Christian Totalitarian kind of way, like I imagine that woman from Jesus Camp must be the Denver city mayor, or the governor of Colorado. "The problem with this country is that we have to give freedom to everyone equally." Johannes Goransson told me a story about the cops stopping him while he was walking down the street, and asked where he was going. He said, "I'm just walking down the street." The cop insisted on knowing where he was going. It was an uncomfortable place.

So let's talk about this shit hole called Denver, CO

2010-04-11T03:09:00.002-07:00

I mean, this town sucks. So this cop that tried to arrest me told me flat out to my face that "we don't like people of color in our town." I said, "huh?" and he was like, "yeah asshole. I don't like you or your people, or anything about you." and then he tried to arrest me for no reason. So I tried to give him a reason I was like, you're the one's with the shitty town, with blow job cops, and, good god, John Elway. It's not like it's my fault your town is bullshit." Not even kidding: I think Hitler was a Denverian

AWP

2010-04-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I leave for Denver, and tomorrow afternoon I'll be doing a book-signing thing at the Copper Nickel booth from 3-4 PM at the book fair. I'm thinking I will also have a bottle of whisky and will be offering people drinks. Why not? Not to step on Aaron Burch's toes or anything.

Bullshit

2010-03-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

Why are some poets such fucking prima donnas? I was working on a collaborative book for a couple of hippies and they are just fucking insane. I started designing and formatting this book in June or July. By August I had a draft completed. Then these two started revising their poems. Usually, one does this before one sends a book off to be considered for potential publication, and this step has often long been taken by the time the book has been accepted and the press is designing it. That was even a minor problem. Now--as of the end of March--there have been two print proofs, and one of the authors wants to change the margins, which would essentially mean reformatting the entire book. And I'm not going to do it. There have been numerous problems while working on this book, a book that has lines in it like "Poetry and smoke . . . —both are so intoxicating and so ephemeral" and "Learning to open our heart to the moon was a vast candle" and "to insure my vitriolic equilibrium" and "We had once been mahatmas too". In other words, it's not a very good book. This book has a section in it called "Star Pie". What the fuck? Fucking new age bullshit. I don't make the decisions on acceptances and rejections, by the way. I just have to make the goddamn thing. It's not even new age. It's like reading a version of the asshole white guy with the shaved head who stops you on a street corner, or--more likely--on your college campus and tries to talk you into buying some twenty dollar book entitled something like "Sri Swami Sivananda and His Mission." Some bullshit like that. These people--the ones for whom I was designing a book--think their book is good and that people are going to buy it. I don't even fucking care about what I'm saying here. Some poets are among the world's most deluded people. They will be the cause of future world wars.

Ever have that experience

2010-03-22T07:43:00.000-07:00

of reading someone, then you get to hear that person read the same stuff, and you have a brand new experience with their writing? I had that happen to me while traveling with Molly Gaudry through Baltimore and New York for readings. I now have to re-read We Take Me Apart. Molly's reading from her book opened up new paths for my understanding of the beauty of the language of that book. I feel like a spoon inside your drawer, or that you're a spoon and I'm also a spoon, and we're totally spooning. That's my bastardization of Molly's way more kick-ass work.

Thanks to Adam Robinson, for hosting us in Baltimore; to Joe Young, for carting us around in his car; to Justin Sirois for letting me play with his campfire; to Jen Michalski and Michael Kimball, for scheduling us to read at the 510; to Peter Brown, who came out to see us in MD; to Brooke Shaeffner and Amanda Nazario, for penciling us in in NYC; to John Dermot Woods, Shya Scanlon, Mark Dockins, Greg Gerke, Meakin Armstrong, John Madera, Dawn Raffel, Andrew Zornoza -- everyone -- for coming out to see us. It was really fun. Now I am going to continue drinking the beer I ordered because my fucking flight's been delayed by an hour and a half.

Readings Tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-03-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

Scott McClanahan, Lily Brown, and Jeremy Schmall at Solar Anus!!!!!!!! At the Beep Beep Gallery!!!!!!! At, I don't know what time, shit!!!!!!! But probably at 7 PM!!!!!!!!!!

I'm reading in Baltimore tonight!!!!!!! With Molly Gaudry!!!!!!!!!! For the 510 Reading Series, at Minas Gallery!!!!!! It should be way fun!!!!!!!!

Thanks

2010-03-16T15:37:00.006-07:00

to Ryan Call who presented my book at NOÖ Journal. They're also presenting writerly stuff by writerly pals Heather Christle, Shane Jones, and Joseph Young. There are also books presented that were written by writers whom I do not know personally, but I kind of feel like I do: Natalie Lyalin and CA Conrad.

Speaking of Joseph Young, he read here in Atlanta last night, along with Adam Robinson, James Yeh, and Alexis Orgera as part of a Solar Anus March Madness thing that's going on around here. In less than two weeks Dara Wier's coming to town!

Just got back

2010-03-10T17:17:00.001-08:00

from Baltimore. It was a great reading there, last Saturday night, with Heather Christle, Ric Royer (who also read from Andy Devine's Words), and Adam Robinson and his band Sweatpants kicked things off with some of Adam's poems and the band's tunes. The night before the reading I cooked a five-course meal at Adam's apartment for his cooking show (the soon-to-air Culinary Genius). Saturday afternoon Heather cooked a brunch dish for her show, and we kicked it around the fire pit at Justin Sirois's house. Then Sunday me, Adam, his brother, and his brother's friend went skiing here: It was the most fun I've had going somewhere to read, I think. I didn't have to tell a soul to get fucked.

Keep forgetting to mention shit

2010-03-04T19:58:00.000-08:00

Reading this Saturday night in Baltimore with Heather Christle, Molly Gaudry, and Andy Devine. At Dionysus (8 Ea. Preston, near the corner of Charles and Preston) at 9pm. Adam Robinson will be jamming some stuff out from the Sweatpants goodness. Sure to be a good time.

A Couple New Reviews

2010-03-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Jason Jordan at decomP magazinE for this awesome and generous review of Prose. Jordan says, "What’s most impressive is the language..." And that makes me feel good, as it was something I was very conscious of, very much trying to be creative with verbs, etc. I even have a writing exercise that my students now do, after reading some of the little sections form that book. I have them write a short paragraph, but they have to try to make every sentence some kind of metaphor. They also have to try to use as many different metaphorical tropes as they can (i.e., hyperbole, metonymy, simile), and can even go so far as to write "notaphors" or metaphors that aren't actually metaphors: "Everything sounded old, just as it was—antebellum, and cotton mill-studded." I also give them a list of nouns that they must use as verbs or adjectives: pavement, toaster, etc. "The officials pavemented our city into the twentieth century"; "she toastered her way through breakfast". Stuff like that. It's fun, at least. Anyway--no more rambling. Thanks Jason.

Also, many thanks to Andrew Wessels, who wrote a wonderful review at The Quarterly Conversation. I am a little bit floored by this one, because Wessels says such smart things, and I'm utterly flattered that I was able to please such a bright reader. Wessels's blog is called A Compulsive Reader, so there you go. Just some short examples of his reading of my book:

"Iredell’s main character does not inhabit condensed, walkable cities. He inhabits expansive American cities and the rural wildernesses in between. The car both embodies and creates the narrator’s relationship to his location. One cannot help but think of Creeley, “drive, he sd, for / christ’s sake, look / out where yr going”, and at the same time think of Kerouac’s On the Road. To be on the road, to drive, is a vital American experience."

and:

"This drifting might make one think of ennui. But although there is a relationship between the spirit of Iredell’s poems and the spirit of Rimbaud’s poems, the precise designation of ennui is not quite correct. A more appropriate term would be one that is entirely American and encompasses what it means to be American at the turn of the millennium. A more appropriate term would be disengaged."

and this last one:

"Iredell’s work skirts many boundaries and traditions: poetry, prose, and the European traditions of the bildungsroman and ennui. But it avoids each of these, if ever so slightly, and marches out on its own. The poems are not coming from a tradition because no tradition is the American tradition. The poems might recall traditions, but Iredell is not using these trappings to tell his story. Instead, he is telling his own singular story, creating his own specific tradition and genre as his story unfolds through this series of poems. A singular, American story. A singular, American poem."

I can only hope such nice things get to be said about my next book. The Book of Freaks (the title may change, not sure) is forthcoming (looks like in November) from Future Tense Publishing. Kevin Sampsell, author of the currently-destroying-all-other-memoirs-memoir A Common Pornography is the editor at Future Tense, and he has been kind enough to love this collection of oddities. So we're going to freak it up this year.

shtoopid

2010-02-26T08:39:00.000-08:00

I'm about 12,000 words into a new-a-so-new novel. It's new in that I'm writing everything from scratch, but not-so-new in that it's basically an old novel that I shelved some years back and have returned to. I was talking to a friend about old writing projects and I remembered this book and started describing it, and my friend was like, that book sounds amazing, and I thought, well yes, I am that kind of genius. Anyway, this feels new, fresh, and completely different that anything else I've written in some time. There are a lot of mountains and guns and knives in it. And there are also lots of animals.

I have a cheating problem with my American Lit students. I teach in a computer lab, and every student has a computer in front of him or her. I also have a computer, and my computer's equipped with a program that enables me to see all the students' computer screens. This technology is apparently inconceivable to my students--even after I tell them about it, and give those who thought the answers to the exam could be found on the Internet a zero. In fact, I have repeat offenders, repeat zeroes. I'm trying to figure out whether they're deaf, just plain bad people bent on subverting The Man (i.e., me), or if they're mildly retarded. In class last night I said that I felt embarrassed for those people who did that because I look at them and think about how stupid they are. Then, I had a student download one of those buyable essays for his essay proposal. All the student had to do was come up with a topic and a tentative thesis--and any of it could change in the future. I mean this was just a proposal. All he had to do was write three or four sentences. But he decided to pay for that instead. Zero for him too. I wrote back to the student and said, maybe you could try having just a grain of self-respect.

When this sort of stuff happens I like insulting those students. It's fun.

Home again

2010-02-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

We had this couple on the plane from Atlanta to San Francisco. We wouldn't have noticed them at all, probably, if the husband had not yelled out "Sherman should've burned farther!" We looked at each other like what the hell's this guy talking about? So I guess he was unimpressed with Atlanta, which is surprising for someone who knows so little about history. He wore a cap like Gilligan did on his island and was pretty much a fucking idiot. I said that this was a certain kind of guy who was a cliche of himself. We talked about writing and books for about a half an hour and then we were quiet for the next three and a half. Before we landed we talked some more about writing, and blake was reading this Kathy Acker book, and he was talking about the dominatrix character in it. Blake overheard this guy's name and whispered that it was perfect and could I guess it? I said "Stanley." Blake laughed and said, pretty close. It was Spencer.

Blake had already noticed that the woman in front of us--apparently Spencer's wife--would squirm in her seat while we talked about the Acker book, and she glanced at Blake when he whispered Spencer's name. So she probably thought we were talking shit, which we kind of were. When the plane landed and everyone stood, this woman said to Blake, "You must have to be quite the egotist if you're an author."

Blake said, "What?"

She said, "I've been listening to you talk about writing the entire flight and all you talked about was yourselves."

Blake said, "That's nice."

She said, "Actually, it wasn't."

I said, "Is there a problem here?"

Spencer's wife said, "Yeah, I've been listening to you two talk about such-and such's magazine, which is nice, and such-and-such other is not, and so-and-so's writing's good, and so-and-so's is not, and it got really really low."

By now the line of people exiting the plane had ended at our antagonist, and everyone behind us stood there, waiting for this woman and Spencer to move.

I said, "Well lady, you can go fuck yourself."

Blake said, "The least you can do is move so we can get off the plane."

Then we left, and that was the first thing that happened.

Holy Shit

2010-02-12T23:57:00.000-08:00

Blake and I had our first truly bizarre kind of question-answer session at a reading, a reading where my bat-shit-crazy-alcoholic ex-girlfriend and her mentally-challenged-alcoholic-claiming-to-be-a-mathematician-who-actually-paints-houses-or-buildings-or-some-shit-now-boyfriend showed up at one of our readings. Has anyone, ever, heard someone attempt for nearly five minutes to get to asking a question without ever asking one or using any logic whatsoever in the process of trying to say something stupid like would you ever write anything political? Yeah, dumb as that sentence. Why do I not keep a diary? and what is the avant garde saying about the war because that's what's really avant garde, you know is saying stuff about the war? What the fuck is the war? World War II was pretty avant garde. We were both like people with very large eyes and all open mouths, and Blake jumped in to rescue and someone from the audience said for these two drunks to shut the fuck up. It was funny.

I am lazy

2010-02-02T10:28:00.000-08:00

and forget to post things here lately. But there have been some cool goings on. Blake and I are off for a week-long West Coast tour. We're doing the following readings:

February 8th at Dogeared Books in San Francisco, at 7 PM.

February 10th I'm reading at the University of Nevada Reno, at 5:30 PM

February 11th Blake and I read at Sundance Bookstore in Reno, at 6:30 PM

February 12th we read in an as-yet-undetermined place and time in Eugene, Oregon

February 13th we read at Neptune Coffee in Seattle at 7 PM

In March I'm also reading on the East Coast, with details about that as they solidify. For now, if you're in California, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington, and somewhat in the above vicinities, you should come out and see us.

Also, there have been a couple recent interviews/reviews come out that have been really fun, and very generous.

John Madera interviewed me at Big Other. Thanks John. He always has really smart questions.

And Robert Duffer wrote a wonderful review at the Examiner, then followed it up with an interview the next day.

A couple weeks ago there was another great review by Wyatt Williams in Atlanta's Creative Loafing.

Thank you to everyone for the great reviews. It's humbling, and helpful. Makes me feel good about what I'm doing.

In other recent lit news, I got the Penguin version of Shane's Light Boxes in the mail, I think as a review copy. I will likely say something here about it soon. I haven't yet re-read the book, but I'm curious as to what--if any--editorial changes Penguin might have wanted to make. The only thing I will say is that I liked the Publishing Genius cover better. The cover's only a small part of anything, though. And I'm sure the book will do well for Shane.

I've Returned from Russia

2010-01-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

There are many things to mention that I've neglected: Piotr Siwecki translated a few things I wrote at Minimal Books. Thanks Piotr. It's an honor. He's also translated friends Molly Gaudry, Matt Bell, Kathy Fish, Robert Lopez, and Kim Chinquee.

A few folks included Prose in their best of 2009 lists. Many thanks to (and I am humbled by) John Madera, Adam Robinson, and Matt Debenedictis.

A short thing from a new book I'm trying to finish was posted at Abjective. Thanks to Darby Larson.

I'm reading in Decatur, GA on January 19th, a Tuesday. It's for the Georgia Center for the Book. It'll be at the Decatur Public Library at 7:15 PM.

On January 16th Ben Spivey and Amish Trivedi read for Solar Anus at 7:30 PM at the BEEP BEEP. I'm excited about that reading, and excited about getting back to readings, and back to work, everything, all very much now that I've had a nice break.

Russia was rad. My wife lived in Russia for four years before meeting me, and she's fluent and has friends who are practically family, so I had what she called a "very Russian trip to Russia." We were staying with friends for a good portion of the time. The friends we stayed with were supposed to join us for tours in St. Petersburg, but Natasha got appendicitis right before we arrived and so couldn't join us. The plan initially was for me to tag along behind all the other Russians and my wife would translate for me what was being said. We'd already paid for these tours and so were kind of roped into sticking with them. I had to sign a form saying that I promised my wife's translations would not interfere with any Russian tourist's enjoyment of said tour. I learned the Cyrillic alphabet and by extension many Russian words, all nouns, a few phrases (most notably, "Sorry, I don't speak Russian," "I'm waiting for my wife," and "May I have another beer?"). I bought a few books that look sure to be interesting, in Russian, by contemporary Russian writers who seem to be on the literary edge over there. My vieja and I are beginning translations. More about all that as it develops. Bye bye.

I am in Russia and will be gone for a while

2009-12-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

Lots

2009-12-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

There are many things to do and say. There aren't enough hours in any day, fuck. Sometimes I wish I'd get hit with a bout of insomnia. Jake Adam York, editor of Copper Nickel, asked me to help spread the word about CN's year-end sale. So you should head over to their website and pick up a subscription, or some packaged copies. This is a very nice lit journal, one that's not afraid to take some risks, and is beautifully produced. In recent issues you can read stuff by Blake Butler, Noah Eli Gordon, Joseph P. Wood, Nate Pritts, Bob Hicok, me, and lots of lots of lots of others. For writers, this is a good journal in which to publish your work, and--as you no doubt already know--it's a good idea to read the actual issues of journals where you might want your own writing to appear. Go pick up some copies.

The end of the semester is upon me, and I've really slowed down with reading, but picked up on watching television (I feel my brains oozing through a drain somewhere), because it's easy to watch TV while grading papers. But I finally--finally, finally--I finished Shellie Zacharia's Now Playing.

There are some real gems in here. Personal favorites include "Uno"--the very first story--"Why This Isn't a Good Story to Tell," "Luckily, Lucy Sims Has No Stamps," "After Carlos, the Continuity Expert . . ." and I have a favorite favorite. But among these I've listed so far, I really love the poetic sensibility and the hilarity of "Luckily, Lucy Sims . . ." The story is a little like a catalogue poem, where narrative isn't the overiding force pushing you through the story. You read these unsent letters and a portrait of Lucy Sims's life--especially her shitty marriage--emerges. Very nicely done. I also love the hint of despair in the director of the movie in "After Carlos . . ." The details of the story are also cleverly dispersed, and funny. Clocks in scenes are not consistent, nor hairstyles, clothing, etc. All because Carlos the Continuity Expert ran off to Costa Rica because he's some kind of amateur ornithologist, and the director of this movie is obviously in love with him. Unfortunately, my details on these stories are a little shaky right now because last week, when I was giving a final exam, I finished the book, and now I cannot find it. I know it came home with me--at least I'm pretty sure. If not, then it's sitting at the desk in that classroom. I'm sure no one will have stolen it, because it's become abundantly clear over this semester that no one at my college reads--ever. But I can describe my favorite story of this collection from memory--although I don't remember the title. A mother and daughter are driving home from the grocery store and the mother realizes she's forgotten something and debates turning around for it. Meantime she thinks about the daughter's acid-fueled conception. Eventually, the mother gets pulled over, after giving her daughter a lesson on how we're supposed to act, morally. This story was probably one of the most subtle and beautifully-expressed I've read in some time. Maybe when I find my copy--or buy a new one--I'll be able to tell you what that title was. But, really, you should buy yourself a copy of this fun, fun-loving, fun-to-read book. Stupid fucking final exams.

Thank

2009-12-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

god, or whatever, for the fact that while when I was a kid I desperately wanted the G.I. Joe Aircraft Carrier toy for Xmas, I never got that shit. It was fucking expensive. My parents were smart.

Review up at The Rumpus

2009-12-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

John Madera wrote a generous--I mean, I feel embarrassed by the nice things he says--review of Prose at The Rumpus.

Thanks John. You may get Xmas gifts from me.

Today was the first day that it has really felt like late fall/winter in Atlanta. Cold, sunny this mornign, but gave over to clouds in the afternoon. I had a hard time running. Everyone else was having a good time. fuck them.

Sick Dog

2009-11-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

The ever awesome Sean Lovelace interviewed me for his blog. He also interviewed Daniel Bailey about Drunk Sonnets.

These were seriously the best interview questions I've ever been asked. I still don't know if Sean was fucking with me about the Dan question, because it's entirely possible that I did bust out a line in a bowling alley and I don't remember it at all. There are lots of things not to remember when you live the way I used to. His questions about flash fiction and choosing to use or not use titles, I mean tough stuff. I had to think and things.

Sean, of course, has his brilliant chapbook, How Some People Like Their Eggs, an object beautiful to hold. You should buy it. You should also buy Daniel Bailey's Drunk Sonnets.

I am no good at promoting things

2009-11-13T07:38:00.000-08:00

I have a reading tonight with Dustin Brookshire and Jenny Sadre-Orafai that Laura Carter's hosting at E2 Coffee House in East Atlanta. So, if you're in Atlanta, come out to E 2 at 7:30.

More in advance: Monday November 16th solar anus has a huge reading, with David Lehman and Josh Russell at Kavarna in Decatur. We get started at 7 PM.

More more in advance: The last solar anus reading of 2009 starts at 7 PM at the Beep Beep Gallery in Midtown Atlanta on Friday, November 20th. The reading will feature Kate Greenstreet, Brigitte Byrd, and Scott Wilkerson.

Up now

2009-11-06T06:47:00.000-08:00

on Deckfight, Josh has posted some of the five best things I had read during a week in October. They're not all actual things I read, but whatever. Now the leaves in Georgia are just a cunthair past their prime, and things are really beautiful outside. It makes jogging fun. I have long since finished The Singing Knives, which is fucking awesome. If Frank Stanford hadn't killed himself, lord. Am likely going to move through book by book so will go on to Ladies from Hell next if I can borrow Tom Lux's copy, cause the only copy for sale costs $750.

Also, Caleb at Outsider Writers Collective posted a review of Prose, where he says that "It’s a mistake to search for linear anchors in the text, as the setting and even the characters are fluid. There is a sense of story that meshes with the reader rather than dictates to him."

Again, these really smart reviews make me feel good. Thanks, Caleb, and thanks again, Josh.

A while ago I started re-writing this book of lined poems and I read some of it out loud to fellow writers last night. Felt really good, felt good to hear it outside of my head. It's really fucked up shit, I think. I'm re-writing a bunch of different poems into a single long poem. Here's a snippet

and if you’ll believe this
Jamie your gums have bled upon my saxophone
when we make it to my place we’ll breathe
like landing on a virgin shore where the natives
call me the lover of lasagna which is constructed
like an aquarium with clean tourists
who would change your name to Nanook
and pile you like driftwood
the fog wraps me in its serape as prisoners’ wives
as luscious shoes mud-splashed poly pants
but my thumb now my thumb is made
of vine and blackberry needles
and my quiver’s full of this finger
know that the Truth shall set me through your cigarette
rolling down the empty boulevards of my fair
church the winds charged full of snakes
I can’t rescue anyone you are fucked

Kerfuffle

2009-11-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

Josh over at Deckfight wrote a generous, lovely review of Prose. I love what he says about the bear: "the narrator is that BEAR, stumbling around trying to navigate an unfamiliar world." He also mentions that he wishes the book were a little longer, and I admit, I struggled with that myself. I had to cut what I felt wasn't the best of all the material that originally made up that book. That said, I feel like if I didn't get bored I could go on writing in a mode similar to that for the rest of my life. Thanks so much, Josh, for such a smart review!

John Dermot Woods also started a conversation over at Big Other. John and others have been saying really wonderful things about the book--both about the text and Christy Call's wonderful art that makes the book a beautiful thing all by itself. Thanks so much, everyone.

I just returned from jogging at Piedmont Park. There's something in the wind today I think. People weirding out all over. A gaggle of kindergartners--like 7,000 of them, or something--was walking along the track I run, which forced me onto the grass and all the kids were looking at me like that giant guy's gonna have a heart attack! which is probably what I do look like when I'm jogging. Meantime, the woman (teacher, I suppose?) who was guiding them, even if she was a good fifteen feet behind the last of them, was huffing to keep up and hollering loud as she could something that sounded like "Get him inside of here! Get him me inside!" I think it was English.

Then a woman and her pit bull came close to me and I don't like pit bulls and I thought about kicking this one in the snout but the woman smiled and threw the dog's shit in a trash can and I rubbed my eye with my left hand, the one that's wearing my wedding ring.

SOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUS

2009-11-04T19:06:00.000-08:00

SOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUS

This Saturday, November 7th. At 7 PM @ BEEP BEEP in Atlanta.

JOHN DERMOT WOODS, author of The Complete Collection of People, PLaces and Things

LAURA CARTER, author of At the Pulse

SABRINA ORAH MARK, author of Tsim Tsum

&

SANDRA SIMONDS, author of Warsaw Bikini

A huge reading. With huge readers. They're not overweight at all. But they are.

Fuck Tattoos

2009-11-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a BBQ place in Atlanta and I am reading Daniel Bailey's The Drunk Sonnets, which looks like this
and two bastools away from me this hipster asshole with tight jeans and the classic, like, I-could-possibly-be-an-extra-in-an-Indiana-Jones-movie shirt is consulting with a tweaker about getting his cool new tattoo done and the tweaker tattoo artist guy won't shut the fuck up about everything from Humphrey Bogart being the epitome of the noir writer (????) to area, circumference, and space (because, even generally speaking, these are ALL different things) when it comes to "people really wanting to see" your stupid fucking tattoo. I'm just saying, tattoos are fucking stupid.

Bailey's got some gems in this fine little book. i say little because physically that's what it is, but I am scared of what Daniel Bailey writes because he's good at it, like this:

THE AIRPORT IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
THE GROCERY STORE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
PETSMART IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
THE THAI PLACE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

MY OWN BED IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
INSIDE MY CAR IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
ALL THESE STREETS, THIS CITY, THIS STATE
THIS COUNTRY IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

IN FRONT OF THIS TV IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
IN THIS BODY IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
IN THIS AIR IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

I'M THINKING ABOUT EVOLUTION AND THE WAY WE CHANGE
AND HOW LONG IT WILL BE BEFORE I HAVE A TAIL AGAIN
AND I CAN STUFF IT BETWEEN MY LEGS

It is a BIG BIG BOOK. You should buy and read it.

The tweaker guy and the hipster guy just left and before he left the tweaker tattoo artist said (and I'm not joking, it really happened exactly like this), "I have this theory about people, and about the way that they look at you." and then he just walked out the door. I think the hipster guy didn't quite know what the fuck to do with himself, but I'll bet you if and when I see him next he'll have some really fucking cool tattoo of something like the ohm symbol on his goddamn forearm.