Blake Butler
http://www.gillesdeleuzecommittedsuicideandsowilldrphil.com/
Blake Butler lives in Atlanta. His third book, There Is No Year, is forthcoming April 2011 from Harper Perennial.
Blake Butler—
Language Removal Services offer a sampling of people speaking in public, with the language removed, leaving the breathing, the “ums” and “ahs,” etc. Have a taste of William Burroughs, Marilyn Monroe, Louise Bourgeois, Sly, Noam Chomsky, etc., getting into themselves. [via Christian Bok’s twitter feed]
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Blake Butler—
Please help us welcome two new fantastic GIANTs to the fold: Evelyn Hampton, editor of Dewclaw and author of We Were Eternal and Gigantic forthcoming from Magic Helicopter Press, and Alissa Nutting, author of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, forthcoming from Starcherone Books. Put on your party hats!
Frequent HTMLGIANT Anonymous Commenter Revealed, Brought On Board
Look for her new feature column coming soon.
Natalie Lyalin Week (2): Water Experiment in Two Parts
Below is perhaps my favorite poem, though there are likely many favorites, in Natalie Lyalin’s Pink & Hot Pink Habitat. It speaks for itself. After it though, following the break, I’ll say a little more about what it does on me, as a human.
Water Experiment In Two Parts
I.
A scientific study reveals: water is alive.
Equal amounts of water is poured into three identical containers.
Zelig Berken died fighting in world war II.
Equal amounts of rice is poured into each container.
Zelig Berken was twenty years old.
The first container is told “I hate you.” The second container
is told “I don’t care about you.” and the third container is told
“I love you very much.”
While Zelig Berken was away at war his entire town was evacuated.
The rice in the first container turned black. The rice in the second container
bloomed. And the rice in the third container rotted.
II.
Water is poured into two identical containers.
The first container goes home with Scientist A.
The second goes to church with Scientist B.
The next day, a droplet is extracted from each container.
The droplet from the first container shows nothing of significance.
The droplet from the second container shows formations of stars
and giant flowers.
Blake Butler—
Just finished reading Sandra Simonds’s radical and freaky-chugging Warsaw Bikini from Bloof Books. She rips. Do a look at some poems from the book at Action Yes. “Ransom Note Attached to Wolf’s Ear” alone is worth buying three books: “all the vortex neurons poured through / a diamond shaped keyhole, the back door / of black shards bleed black light.” I want to print the whole of “Let Me Out” on the all above my bed. A book of might, this.
Wolf Parts by Matt Bell
Preorder Matt Bell’s limited edition Wolf Parts now, available only until March 21st. $8.
From Keyhole Press, in anticipation of his forthcoming How They Were Found.
Dennis Cooper | Mark Gluth | James Greer Tour
Good news for West Coast kids: Dennis Cooper, Mark Gluth and James Greer will be touring on the west coast in the next few weeks, in support of the Little House on The Bowery. Don’t miss these underground new-post-avant-narrative visionaries or you’ll be catching the rehashed versions of them in 5 years!
Mon., March 15, 7pm
Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA
*Featuring Mark Gluth, James Greer, and Dennis Cooper.Tues., March 16, 7pm
City Lights
261 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA
*Featuring Mark Gluth, James Greer, and Dennis Cooper.Thurs., March 18, 7:30pm
Powell’s
1005 W. Burnside
PORTLAND, OR
*Featuring Mark Gluth and James Greer
Fri., March 19, 7pm
Richard Hugo House, Cabaret Space
1634 11th Ave.
SEATTLE, WA
*Featuring Mark Gluth and James Greer
Cannibalisms, from Mark Gluth
Thoughts today via our Giant friend Mark Gluth:
The pest control guy told me about rats that cannibalize dead rats. He’s seen cats that eat cats. Then I read about this cannibal star that’s eating a planet. It got me thinking about a ton of stuff, and as per usual I started to think about writing, about how I write, about how much the end results of my writing process are built upon cannibalization of the lesser results of previous processes. About thoughts that kill previous thoughts to give rise to new thoughts.
So here’s my question: When’s the last time you cannibalized a piece of your own writing? When’s the last time you revised a character out of a story but reassigned one of his/her lines to another character? When’s the last time you wrote a 30 page story then edited it down to 3 lines describing a story a character in one of your pieces of fiction wrote? When’s the last time you threw a story out, but reused the title because it was the best part of it?
Gustav Mahler on Writing
“A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.”
“I don’t let myself get carried away by my own ideas – I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.”
“Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.”
“I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.”
“Discipline, work. Work, discipline.”
“If you think you’re boring your audience, go slower not faster.”
“The real art of conducting consists in transitions.”
“It’s not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.”
“I embark on this enterprise rather like a soldier who shoots arrows into the dark at an invisible target.”
“The degree to which the word sustains the sound can be measured when you pass from wordless music to text.”
“The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.”
“The pointer of a pair of scales always returns to the center.”