Matthew Simmons
Matthew Simmons lives in Seattle.
Shya Scanlon interview, Part Two
PART 1 OF THIS INTERVIEW AT HOBART
Once upon a time, there was a journal called Monkeybicycle. There is, of course, still a journal called Monkeybicycle, but there used to be one, too. And way back when, one of the guys editing that journal was a guy named Shya Scanlon of Seattle, Washington. And one day I sent a story to Monkeybicycle. And then I waited a while. A while. But, hey. He took it. When the story appeared, it was an issue of Monkeybicycle that flipped over and became and issue of Hobart—a journal I was unfamiliar with at the time. I am now their interviews editor. Small world.
Shya Scanlon’s latest work is a novel called Forecast, which he initially serialized online, each of the 42 chapters on a different blog or journal. Forecast now has a print publisher, Flatmancrooked, and should be available mid-November. I know a bit of the early history of the book, having been a friend of Shya’s throughout the writing of the book and beyond, so I asked him a little about it and his other prose work.
Obituary: n+1
Shit, guys. Apparently n+1 died this week, too. They wrote that thing about learning and college or whatever, right?
(Frankly, those guys were kind of douchey and we’d forgotten to check in on them. Dropped the ball. Yeah, so.)
I don’t know. Maybe send a card to Ben Kunkel’s step-uncle.
UPDATE:
I know I’m supposed to find out when they first published and all that, but seriously. Who gives a shit.
Reading out loud to an audience.
Dear touring authors,
A lot of you are really lousy readers of your own work. I’ve seen thousands of you. I’ve been bored by quite a few of you. Stop doing it.
If you suspect you are really lousy at it, you are. Stop doing it. If you are on a book tour, talk to the audience about the book. Pitch the book to people. Just answer a bunch of questions. Stop reading to us. It’s boring. You are boring us. There are other things you can do. Figure out where your strengths are, and go with them.
If you are an agent and you have an author who is not good at reading to an audience, tell her/him. Seriously. Just say it. And then figure out what the author can do instead. Stop sending them out to bore the hell out of an audience. A small audience. A very small audience that will inevitably get smaller and smaller because so many authors are so damn lousy at reading to an audience.
If you have a friend who is not good at reading to an audience, and her/his agent won’t say anything, or her/his editor/publisher won’t say anything to her/him, cowgirl/boy up and tell her/him. For all our sakes. Tell them to cut it the fuck out and figure out something else to do when given the chance to stand in front of a group of people her/him hopes will buy her/his book.
“Hey…listen. You guys in the front, if you see somebody going down, help them out. It’s what we’re here to do.”
And, really, if you are a terrible reader, but you insist on following the silly ritual, if you think because you are a writer asked to go to a bookstore, you must read something, read something in first person. First person fiction, memoir, maybe some autobiographical poetry. People perk up at the “I.” And you are a lousy reader of your own work. At least you can cover it by appearing to talk about yourself.
MEAN WEEK Writing Prompt
How about you just go write something, asshole? Stop: blogging about writing, commenting on blogs about writing, surfing the web for youtube videos that might somehow “inspire” you to think about your “craft”, hanging out at dull author readings, having a beer with a boring writer after a dull author reading, having a beer (or five) alone when the laptop is sitting right there with a barely considered manuscript on it, starting another online literary journal or blog, playing video games and trying somehow to appreciate them on a “narrative” level, reading a book because you are “researching” something, getting involved in some “project” that is loosely connected to “literary” work, masturbating while high, etc. etc., and write. I mean, you’re a “writer,” right?
Matthew Simmons—
Fuck Tuesday and its fucking MEAN WEEK doldrums. Here: say something mean to me. UPDATE: Or about me. UPDATE 2: added the kitty fist bump since everyone’s going after my cat and MY CAT IS A WINNER!
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Testify.
Let me take a MEAN WEEK—and HTML Giant’s usual apolitical bent—timeout to say how much I love Bishop John Shelby Spong:
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy.
Much more here. Seriously, spread this link far and wide.
Matthew Simmons—
MFA, SchMemFAy. The real scam is the fucking Creative Writing Ph.D. The MFA is a revenue stream. The Ph.D. is the teaching equivalent of indentured servitude.
Matthew Simmons—
What if I don’t want to read about “the way we live now,” because I spend all my time living the way we live now and am getting kind of sick of it?
SINGSONGS: An Interview With Mat Sweet/Boduf Songs
New feature? Maybe. I have been thinking about doing some interviews with musicians about the way they approach what they do, informed by my approach to writing.
A few years ago, I managed to score a brief gig as a record reviewer for a now defunct print magazine. Which meant for me a few free records. Not much else. Some of them were okay. Many were dull. A record called Lion Devours the Sun by a English singer-songwriter named Mat Sweet remains a regular part of my music rotation. I very likely listen to it—or one of the two follow-up records, How Shadows Chase the Balance and the newest This Alone Above All Else in Spite of Everything—or some of it every week. Which is to say I listen to Boduf Songs every week.
Sweet’s music is quiet, dark, intimate. Alchemical. Occult. Not overly serious, but serious when it needs to be. Pretty. Pretty creepy. READ MORE >
This is either “Power Quote: Louis CK,” or “Louis CK on Writing”
“I just wanted to buy a trumpet to learn how to play trumpet. I went in to Sam Ash, or one of those places, and there were all these student trumpets for, like $100. The guy started showing me, you know, here’s like a nickel-plated, beautiful trumpet and it’s got a flawed bell because it was hurt, but they had repaired it. And it was $1400. I didn’t have any of that kind of money. But I went to an ATM and I took out everything I had in the bank, and I bought this fucking $1400 trumpet without having any ability. I’d never even blown into a trumpet before. And then I was walking through Times Square with this fucking thing in my hand, and just freaking out and feeling bad. And I went and ducked into one of those peep shows. Next thing I know I’m in a peep show booth, one of those upright coffins, looking at a chick—a tired Latvian girl, probably—through the window of this peep show and jacking off. And it’s a two-foot by two-foot room. So I jerk off and I came on the trumpet case, which was standing between my legs. And once I came, and I looked at the come on this beautiful, brass-buckled trumpet case, I realized that if I had come to this peep show first, I could’ve saved $1400.”
The very, very funny Louis CK explains the boundaries of ambition. From the October 4, 2010 episode of WTF with Marc Maron.
Begs the questionRaises the question: better that he bought it or better to have headed to the peep show first?
Me? Gotta go trumpet.
UPDATE: Schooled. Thanks for the links.