Friday Fuck Books, Let’s Have a Cheeseburger
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwRHGHNeOtI
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDJegk88lgw
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A Few Thoughts on Promotion
A few weeks ago Justin Taylor’s book, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever, was threatening the NY Times bestseller list. It was, like, #1000 in sales at Amazon. My first thought was, HYPE. I thought, “Nah, it can’t be all that good, it’s just a book, who cares, he’s not my friend, I’ll buy it but whatever, HYPE.” I’d seen an ad for it on the back of Book Forum. HYPE.
BUT DAMN. READ MORE >
James Franco edited by the Tyrant
[The Tyrant Giancarlo Ditrapano sent us this and we couldn’t help ourselves. With all due respect to the Esquire fiction camp and the creator. Read both, see what you think? – BB]
I just read the James Franco story in Esquire and thought it was great. There were just a couple of things that needed tweaking in my opinion so I started messing with it. You’ve written a good, funny story, Mr. Franco. But now it’s even better. Remember, it never matters who writes it, it only matters that it gets written. Or something like that. Some good stuff in here though. I’d love to work on something with you for my meager little journal. Email me at ditrapano@nytyrant.com. Let’s talk it out.
N.B. This was done with entirely good intention and I meant no harm, as I never have meant harm. Just having some fun and don’t want anyone to get in trouble or angry over this. Who knows? I may have ruined the thing.
yours truly,
Gian
To Air is Human
Air
In 1987 Nike introduced the Nike Air brand, making billions of dollars selling air. A small pocket of air in one’s sole promises levity; this perhaps is even more genius than Coke selling carbonated sugar water. A year later in 1988, Metallica released …And Justice For All, and while air-guitar and air-drums had long since been funneled through the flailing limbs of certain hopeless yet hopeful youth, never before had one had to do it with such precision, a mark of that outstanding album. It has been argued that heavy metal shares many musical properties with classical music, in terms of difficult time signatures and syncopated patterns, so it is not a huge stretch to suggest that when a conductor waves his arms in the air in an exaggerated manner, he is doing the air-symphony. “Airing” is the self-promise of all the notes matching up, a fantasy of mastery we afford ourselves. Guitar Hero and Rock Band‘s commericalization of such intuition provides the nth death of punk.
Links, now with Direct Address
Two from Dennis Cooper: Yesterday was “Neon Angel Day”, celebrating Cherie Currie of The Runaways and her new book Neon Angel: The Story of a Runaway, which is co-authored by one of our main men, Mr. Tony “O” O’Neill. the day before that, one of Dennis’s regular readers/community-members presented a list of 10 Graphic Novels “chosen…as recommendations to Mr. Cooper and his brilliant flock.” The list includes Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls, Derf’s My Friend Dahmer, and eight other fine titles besides, all with descriptions and excerpts. Also, Dennis, if you’re reading this, you were right about Return of the Grievous Angel–duh.
They’re talking about the James Franco Esquire story on Gawker, but here’s the interesting part- instead of burning the story themselves, they make light fun of it and then leave the real burning to us!
The litblog HMTLGIANT says of the story: “If it weren’t by James Franco, this 100% would not be in Esquire… Seems like a pretty typical ‘MFA story,’ if that’s even a type of story.” Burn? We are not literary critics, so let us just say this: James Franco is such a good actor!
Adrian Chen, if you are reading this, thanks for the link! I don’t know whether this is the first time we’ve been Gawker-linked, but it’s the first one I know of, and it made me feel great, even though that wasn’t even my post. According to the Tao Lin/Marty McFly reality-index, my hands are not see-through anymore, and I am allowed to make one facial expression of my own choosing–though obviously I’ll choose not to make one. But seriously, Adrian, I miss Foster Kamer. Also, from all of us to Nick Denton–feel free to start picking us off whenever. Imagine if instead of Ann Coulter, Peaches (naked) Geldof and Steve Jobs, the top stories on Gawker were about Harold Bloom, Natalie Lyalin, and probably Harold Bloom again. WHAT IF?
Lastly, the guy whose doppelganger I am, the other Justin Taylor (or JTO as I like to call him) has a short post called “On Scary Stories and the Moral Imagination.” It’s kind of the same argument Stephen King makes in Danse Macabre about horror as a fundamentally conservative genre, because it is founded on a fear of the other, except made by a believing Christian with a much narrower and more specific definition of “moral,” plus also it’s really short, and just quotes some other things, and so is not really very much like that at all. JTO, if you are reading this, sorry to have put words in your mouth kind of. It’s a big bridge between us, but I’m really committed to building it. What slowed me down, see, is that I can’t get my pdf copy of The Axioms of Religion by EY Mullins to print out properly–I’m trying to do it two-book-pages-to-the-printed-page–and so I haven’t been able to read it yet. But I WILL get there, and then we’ll have that to talk about. Anyway, my favorite part of your post was the Chesterton-opener, the note on which I will end-
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
Tree for Friday
It’s Friday. Have a wonderful description of trees.
When I’m surrounded by trees, a condition I’ve sought out pretty persistently throughout my life I think the thing I might like the most about them is this whisper like all the hair of the world passing through the tunnel of one single breath – if that is a form of percussion. This irregular hiss of trees and wind. I think it is my mother. And I am her son, and you are my dog.
from “Protect Me You” by Eileen Myles.
It is Friday: Go Right Ahead
Visit me! You can come unannounced, drunk, sober, or even leading a giraffe.
Rivers of gin and oysters.
Why did you tell that pretty girl, who was probably your sister, that I was drunk?
Muzzle a dog and he will bark out of the other end.
Instead of banning drink I will ban my limited sense of obligation.
The clouds once more bid me.
How drunk, or how drunkly sober under-drunk, can you calculate you are now?
Hurray for the wine-colored corduroy!
Sorry about last night. A sloth or mudlark would have probably been better.
No, I’m not drinking anymore. Only wine.
Book Pots
![[recycled+pot+books-1.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WyGYQI44Eh0/S6jsc64NsiI/AAAAAAAAAsY/uRvO10GVQDk/s1600/recycled%2Bpot%2Bbooks-1.jpg)
What are the best book/plant combinations you can think of?
The Day of the Triffids is probably too easy.
(via NotCot)