Sean Lovelace

http://www.seanlovelace.com

Sean Lovelace is running right now, far. Other times he teaches at Ball State University. HOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE THEIR EGGS is his flash fiction collection by Rose Metal Press. His works have appeared in Crazyhorse, Diagram, Sonora Review, Willow Springs, and so on.

Interview: Reader Who Recently Finished Infinite Jest

1.      So how long did it take you to read the book? 

I set a starting date at May 1 and then actually began a week before so I would have a buffer.  I finished around August 1.  So a little over 3 months.

2. Did you ever read the book in public places or leave the book out purposefully when visitors were over?  

Ha Ha.  I certainly read it in public places but I wouldn’t say I purposefully left it out.  It was out tho and people would see it.  I also mentioned it a lot in conversation.  I did this less to brag about the endeavor and more to make sure I backed up my talk about reading it.  I had tried reading 2666 by Bolano and never could get past book 5, I think book 5…Whichever one deals with all the deaths in Mexico.  I hate that, not finishing a book.  And I tend to have ADD and while reading a book will sometimes pick up other easier reading books, articles, chick mags, periodicals…For whatever reason I stayed focused on this book.  I didn’t so much as pick up another book while reading it.

3.     How did you deal with the footnotes, I mean logistically? I know some people like to use two bookmarks. 

Oh yea, two book marks.  I almost never use book marks and actually, it was more one book mark:  just for the end notes.  I did the dog ear for most of the main section.

4. Have you read other DFW? How did this book compare?

I have read a bunch of his nonfiction, which I love.  I had tried reading his short stories about 5 years ago and could not make it through them.  I am currently on a DFW binge though so I plan on picking all that stuff up and rereading it.  I love his nonfiction a lot, but this book…it had such a depth to it that you obviously are not going to get reading his nonfiction.  You can feel the work put into it, and the way it all adds up.  I remember reading somewhere to “trust” DFW while reading this book.  Just know at some point it’s going to click; and it did.

5. Did you ever read the book while on drugs or alcohol? 

I hope you don’t quote my name so my mom sees that I do drugs and alcohol…but yes.

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Random / 11 Comments
August 6th, 2012 / 6:19 pm

14 reaminations of humor and memory

1. The Washington Post has an interesting “How to Save an Indie Bookstore” blog post here with lots of glow links to booky things.

3. Here is your Charlie Sheen metaphor of the day:

My life was a dream I couldn’t wake up from, a train I couldn’t get off of, except that I was the conductor.

The Time I Shot Andy Warhol

14. Oldie but goodie: You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino‘s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveller. Relax. Let the world around you fade.

2. Latest (I think) Charles Yu interview:

Sadness broods
over the world
I fear to walk in my garden,
lest I see
a pair of butterflies
disporting in the sun
among the flowers.

(“Night Rain” by Bruce Lee)

5. Do you like reality shows? Do you like poetry? Well, here you go:

6. An obvious Banksy Olympics thing:

And:

Events & Random / 2 Comments
July 30th, 2012 / 10:55 am

What is the exception to “the book was better than the movie”?

contemp late

No story can be fully described, because the description would have to duplicate the story, and this is an impossibility. A story is only a story, not an abstraction, and it is the ultimate source of all writing; but since “the ultimate source of all writing” is a description of the inexpressible, which leads to making unreal distinctions, in order to speak of it we’ll call it “a story.” Once we single stories out and treat them as distinct from other stories, we find the idea of their opposite. Readable, for example, once distinguished, suggests its opposite, unreadable. A good story, when we think about it, is naturally opposed to a bad one. In fact, all distinctions naturally appear as opposites that get their meaning from each other. “Too abstract” and “like a teenage diary,” “holy fuck, another zombie,” “So what u cut n pasted your banal emails,” “didactic and obvious,” “talking animals doesn’t mean you’re a magical realist” “over earnest and shitty”-all derive their meanings from their opposites. Therefore, the thoughtful writer accepts how it is as how it is.

In seeking to grasp what it is, he does not devote himself to making distinctions that are then mistaken to be separate existences. He does not point out differences, he writes. A story exists, and he sees that nothing is gained by representing what exists by a description, a lesser, diluted existence. If someone interprets the story, he does not trust that interpretation as being equal to the actual story. If no distinctions of superiority and inferiority prevail among indie and mainstream, novelists and flash fiction authors, old fuckers and those annoying 20 year old blogger types, they will devote their attention to the stories rather than to rivaling one another. If no special value is placed on a writer’s awards, other writers will not covet them. If one writer doesn’t appear to arouse envy, other writers will remain satisfied with things as they are. Since this is so, the wise editor doesn’t choose to blackball genres of writing but satisfies the writers’ inner needs. He does not write rejection or acceptance letters. Stories contain nothing over and above the stories themselves. In a story, all nature originates, all conflicts are settled, all disturbances are quieted. No matter how many stories are written or read, more come. To look elsewhere is foolish.

Craft Notes / 3 Comments
July 8th, 2012 / 2:23 pm

the audience laughs the entire reading and ruins the fucking poem

Author Spotlight / 9 Comments
July 5th, 2012 / 10:58 am

Well, there are two ways to look at having a career. One way to look at it is as though there’s a finite amount of attention and praise in this world to be earned and enjoyed, and thus look upon other writers as enemies or Darwinian competitors. The other way is to imagine you’re one of a bunch of lucky people riding a cosmic wave into the shore. Writing is hard. Writing out of anger and resentment is even harder. The best reason to help other writers is to remind yourself why you’re writing anything in the first place: to share something.

Tom Bissell

Power Quote / 5 Comments
July 2nd, 2012 / 2:17 pm

fetal 9

Robert grew a beard and long hair and grew a fetus in his girlfriend and grew tomatoes in the backyard and let his girlfriend grow flowers in little boxes and let his gut grow to fit the pants that had belonged to his father. (Catherine Lacy)

I don’t like too much social life anyway. It is gossip and bad white wine. It’s a waste. Writing is like carrying a fetus. I get up in the morning, have a cup of tea, and come into this room to work. (Edna O’Brien)

He breaks a watermelon over his knee to show somebody, a melon-red fetus curled up inside the rind. Don’t swallow them bones, Grandpa laughs, I don’t know what would happen if you swallowed them bones. (Micah Dean Hicks)

“This,” I think to myself, “Must be what vegans feel when they see a calf with no dancing room.” I think to myself, “This is what the Christians must feel when they see a fetus with no living womb.” (Steven Miller)

9kms    rips out the fetus with the fingernails of his hot fingers

13kms   lifts it up like a torch

1km      opening his mouth the soldier screams

(Juan Felipe Herrera)

 

By the fifth month, you will likely feel the fetus moving. (Bruce Holland Rogers)

He collects our broken pieces. He gathers our abusive fathers, our esophageal tears, our peanut fetuses. (Tia Prouhet)

With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle, (Sylvia Plath)

They put people on the floor, each fetal-positioned in a three-foot cube, for money. (Nicolle Elizabeth)

Also, come to think of it, being pregnant. The fetus nestling against your intestines, bending her ear to the music of digestion…. (Kirstin Scott)

Craft Notes / 2 Comments
July 2nd, 2012 / 10:02 am

jeffrey steingarten on writing

I find that you wake up in the morning and the first thing you want is some alcohol.

I think that it’s bigoted of farmers to get up so early.

What I really meant to say was that I felt doomed and damaged, defective, disabled, and depressed.

On a practical note, I did find that switching from cold lemonade to hot and back again alleviated the mounting boredom.

And what does butter taste like?

What we need is a system of graduated fines and perhaps short jail sentences to discourage the production of totally depressing baked goods.

Grease is good. Grease works.

Yes, we had drunk a nicotine solution in our cocktails.

The Greek are really good at white statues.

People from Colorado are like cholesterol, blocking our city’s arteries.

One snowy afternoon I found myself alone in a room with four pounds of pork.

But I’d had a huge lunch, you know?

What’s so bad about addiction? I can’t remember. Isn’t it something about giving up your freedom? Isn’t freedom an illusion?

Her Pineapple Salad Surprise contains ketchup, fat-free Miracle Whip, lobsters, and Cointreau.

Oh, are you an MSG crybaby?

I apologize for not completing the fast in a responsible and instructive manner.

Author Spotlight / 2 Comments
June 26th, 2012 / 10:20 am

What is the one publication you’ve had and most proud of? And exactly why?