I'm the author of the novels Solip, Say, Cut, Map, The Country, and The City. I've also written the nonfiction books EarthBound and Eat the Flowers. I'm currently publishing my novel A Task via Kickstarter in order to have an hourlong conversation with each of its first thousand readers. For a decade I published books through Sator Press, and for a decade I acted in film and television; now I help students at St. John's College. More info: kenbaumann.com.
Monte Hellman, the brilliant director of Two-Lane Blacktop, has made a new movie. He says: “While I love making things as realistic as possible, I’m interested in stories that are a little more surreal. I’ve always been drawn to, say, what Alain Resnais did in ‘Last Year at Marienbad,’ where there’s a kind of puzzle going on. I love to play with the idea of complex reality and mixing memory with present time and the whole idea of reality versus fantasy. So this is a dream project for me.” If you haven’t seen Monte’s movies, do. And in the book world: Richard Nash, ex-kingpin of Soft Skull and current seer, gives some details on his new startup publishing community, Cursor. Read up on how he’s going to bust things up & build them better.
Mini mess: an interview with ‘MoMA’s Mystery Man’ & Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Collected Works as a free .pdf (via UbuWeb).
In response to this excellent post, Sean Lovelace said this:
I detest the write-or-I will-die-school.
Why can’t people write an intellectually stimulating activity, as intellectual play?
It has to always be ink-as-blood thing?
I don’t get it.
I’m going to suture in my (slightly edited) response here, as well. I would love input from all.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLnmvseCseI
1. The point is that, if we think literature is still worth talking about, every book is part of that debate, which is why reviews of non-blockbuster books should do one of two things: either convincingly shout to the hilltops, “Read this book!” or, in explaining why there’s no shouting, try to find larger truths about literature in a book’s strengths and flaws. … Literature is not about the writer. It’s about the book, it’s about art, it’s about life. … in the madding crowd of narrative, it turns out the big world doesn’t really need a book if it’s not great enough to be truly important, specialized enough to find its niche, or equipped with a secret weapon. When that happens—and it happens far more often than not—it is time for writers to think about what we want out of writing, out of publishing, out of their lives, and make our decisions accordingly. –from a blurb by Eric B. Martin
2. At banks, there are machines for “cash withdrawing” and “cash recycling.” The menus of local restaurants might present such delectables as “fried enema,” “monolithic tree mushroom stem squid” and a mysterious thirst-quencher known as “The Jew’s Ear Juice.” –the problems with Chinglish
3. The room thus becomes a counterpunctual archive of heart rates in space, throbbing like a chandelier in front of you. –about Pulse Room
4. But I think caught in that way they are too weak to convey anything. I think that great art is deeply ordered. Even if within the order there may be enormously instinctive and accidental things, nevertheless I think that they come out of a desire for ordering and for returning fact onto the nervous system in a more violent way. Why, after all the great artists, do people ever try to do anything again? Only because, from generation to generation, through what the great artists have done, the instincts change. And, as the instincts change, so there comes a renewal of the feeling of how can I remake this thing once again more clearly, more exactly, more violently. –a great interview of Francis Bacon
The winners of the weird words for Words contest are Sabra Embury & Sean K. Their entries, respectively:
A fall, it takes, eats–mother crams him, burnt and opaque; her glimpses diamond heavy, dog tired dead, yes–their wall runs blood.
&
Her fall: a tired mother glimpses their dead dog’s burnt, opaque blood, “Diamond, yes!” wall-runs and takes him, eats, crams it.
&
Please email satorpress at gmail dot com to claim your book.
In celebration of Mr. Kimball’s & Mr. Devine’s appearance tonight, I’m giving two copies of WORDS away. Make a sentence out of these words: a, and, it, dog, runs, mother, blood, diamond, tired, heavy, wall, takes, glimpses, eats, burnt, opaque, crams, the, him, her, dead, fall, yes, their. Add your email. I’ll pick two favorites by the 9pm PST.