Floyd Mayweather on Writing
“I’m a gorilla, I’m a dog. I’m a dog, I’m a gorilla. I talk the most shit.”
“I’d blow him out the water like my fists was torpedoes.”
“I’m not in this sport to see how hard I can get hit or to see how many big punches I can take. I am in this game to fight as long as I can. I am trying to dish a lot of punishment.”
“You have to realize that most of these guys get in there and fight on heart. I fight with smarts. There is no fighter that is smarter than me. Most of these fighters are ABC, 1-2-3. I am like.. 4-5-6 levels above them, that’s why I’m able to beat them.”
“I’m running my mouth a lot and I’m looking for a guy to shut me up. If you don’t shut me up I’m going to keep running my mouth.”
“To be honest with you, I normally beat guys with my C game and I don’t have to pull my A or B game out”
“There can’t be two good guys; I chose to be the bad guy — fuck it.”
“I see everything: I box, box, box. They try and get close and I tie ‘em up, lean on them. I take ‘em to deep waters and I drown ‘em. It’s just my experience I’m not bragging or boasting, it’s just my experience….”
“I will say that I’m just appreciative of everything I’ve got but as far as boxing goes, if I wasn’t trash-talking or I wasn’t flashy or flamboyant I wouldn’t be the biggest guy in the sport of boxing.”
“Most people that got an opinion about boxing… you’ve got to realize that most of the commentators on HBO knows nothing about boxing. The only one that knows something about boxing is Lennox Lewis. The rest of the commentators on HBO knows nothing about boxing.”
“I don’t care about nothing. I don’t care about shutting anybody up. I don’t care about shutting anybody up. I’m happy with myself. I’m happy with my career and I’m happy with my family. My daughter is getting an award today. She’s like the number one kid at her school.”
“I’m a harsh critic of myself, so no matter how I go, I always say to myself I could have done better.”
“I don’t know. I don’t even rate myself. Like I said before, I don’t even watch boxing. All I do is go out there and just do my job. I go do my job.”
[Thanks to Shane Jones.]
Blake Butler—
Salt Publishing is looking for recommendations from readers on books they should publish.
8
Approaching Utopia with J.C. Hallman
The great J.C. Hallman–author of, among other things, The Devil is a Gentleman, and editor of The Story About the Story–has a new book coming out in August, In Utopia: Six Kinds of Eden and the Search for a Better Paradise. In classic Hallman style, In Utopia combines personal essay-style reflection with travel journalism and a good bit of history. I’m working my way through the galley right now, and enjoying myself very much. You can read more about the book on Hallman’s website. You can also find a short excerpt from In Utopia, in the summer issue of Bookforum, which happens to be utopia-themed, and also features–among its many wonders–duelling u/dystopia essays by Paul La Farge and Keith Gessen.
Still not enough Hallman for you? Well then turn your attention to The Millions, then, and read two new essays, “Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Utopian Schemes“, and “Drifted Toward Dragons: Utopia Today“.
So that’s the latest in Hallman-related happenings. Look for the book in August.
The Dendrochronology of Packing Books
I’m moving in a couple days and this weekend I finally packed my books, a task which I put off for quite a long time because I was overwhelmed by the thought of transferring so many books into boxes in a stifling hot apartment with no air conditioning. I couldn’t delegate this task to my boyfriend because I wanted to go through my books and organize them in a certain way. I am a ridiculous control freak. Like most people who love to read I am a inveterate book buyer. I buy books because I read a review or because they have a pretty cover or because I like the way the paper feels. I’ll make a purchase based on a whim or a recommendation or out of spite to see if a writer really is as good as everyone says they are.
Tao Lin Tao Lin Tao Lin Tao Lin Richard Yates Richard Yates Richard Yates Richard Yates
I’m baffled by the back cover of my Richard Yates galley. The relationship between the book’s two main characters–one, the Tao figure, 22, and the other 16–is described three times, in three separate paragraphs, as “illicit,” a heavy-handed enforcement of theme which should hold truck with the novel itself: one would expect, going in, that the scandal which supposedly holds the weight of the novel would actually sustain itself as a scandal. Which happens to be so little the case that it’s kind of funny, this negation of the back cover, and is a fascinating, if unintentional, way of diverting expectations: by Richard Yates failing totally in self-description.
Uncategorized / 99 Comments
July 5th, 2010 / 8:06 am
July 5th, 2010 / 8:06 am
Take Two: Firework
Firework by Eugene Marten has one of the most amazing endings I have ever eyed in literature. I read the ending 3 times. Just the ending. It made me feel like a dropped doll or a foghorn playing Tupac or a person who couldn’t draw freehand at all except for horses, could do excellent horses, etc. Amazing. Please buy this book. It is short fuse, independent, G-string, and prayerful–a word people keep using on Facebook. After I read Marten I prayed he will write a similar book and I’ll be alive to read the glow.
But this isn’t about Firework. Rather fireworks. Ah, Scorch Atlas, that ear trumpet. That brushed steel mobile home. A sign of a good book is you can’t kill the thing…but I am stoic and persistent and dumb to criticism, like any good American.
Enjoy:
Raw dog
"Ceci n'est pas une hotdog"
[via Fail Blog] Magritte’s semantic play may have borrowed from the Tower of Babel, or the prophetic man just knew. Every time a pulled-over crack head pleads to the officer “this is not a pipe,” art wins. I knew a guy who deep fried sushi after it went bad, until it became good again. I guess that’s moral relativity.
Marvin On Style
“I hope to refine music, study it, try to find some area that I can unlock. I don’t quite know how to explain it but it’s there. These can’t be the only notes in the world, there’s got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the crack.”
“I sing about life.”
A great tradition would be to make Independence Day into “Independent” Day. Buy one book from an independent press today, I ask you. I went with Pathologies by William Walsh. Keyhole Press. You?
Take One: Lucky Book
My yard needs cutting so I drank bottle-o-vodka tonight and shot at Blake’s book. There is something inevitable there. Missed twice, but bow season isn’t until October. I am happy Scorch Atlas is not a liver or a lung. A longing like 16 and first making out in a car. Failure to listen to reasoning. Etc. This was my first warm-up. I’ll be back, Butler. I’ll be back. (Arrows end at 20 seconds {my peep-sight snaps is why!}, after that just more birds and kids walking into frame {danger!} and stupid shit)
[There will be many takes coming–I will destroy this fucking book]
Also: What is the best way for me to edit iPhone videos? (on a PC) That would solve everything after 20 seconds. [Jimmy? I bet you know]