Matthew Simmons
Matthew Simmons lives in Seattle.
Eyeball it
My friend Ryan has been writing a column about film on The Rumpus for a little while now, and I thought I’d bring it to your attention. I’ve been enjoying it.
Here’s a nice post on the movie Old Joy, a movie I wrote about on the Hobart blog. (Link in the comment I made to the post, if you’re interested.)
Here’s an interesting take on Guy Maddin’s Dracula. (Dracula is currently my favorite Maddin film. I had, until watching it, never really connected with ballet.)
And here’s a post about Lord of the Rings and the War on Terror.
Classic Word Spaces 2: Chekhov’s Desk
I did a search for Chekhov’s desk and the above image was what came up.
There it is, everyone. Chekhov’s desk. As we all know, Chekhov was a physician. Thus, Chekhov cared about the health of his wrists. He wanted to be able to write without pain. This explains his use of a tilt-y desk, I’m guessing.
Remember those kneeling chairs everyone bought during the ’80s? You might not realize this, but in addition to inventing the modern short story, Chekhov also invented those. That’s why so many writers use them. They are good for your back and they also inspire you to write powerfully observed short fiction that limns the human condition in subtle, masterful ways.
Here’s a picture of someone using one. It may or may not be author Cynthia Ozick*:
* Disclaimer: This is probably not Cynthia Ozick.
Classic Word Spaces: Leo Tolstoy
That’s Tolstoy’s desk. I’m not sure where he put his laptop, though. Maybe on top of the blotter. He probably moved all the stuff and put his laptop on the blotter.
He probably also had wi-fi and didn’t have to plug it into his DSL line.
Also—is that a tongue depressor in the cup? Why did he keep a tongue depressor in a pen cup on his writing desk? Do you think he was always pulling out a mirror and checking his uvula for swelling?
The Behavior of Pidgeons
Another short update. Here is a story by my friend Gabriel Blackwell from Portland. It makes me think about math cranks, those autodidacts who pester tenured professors at our nation’s major universities.
I think this is Gabe’s first published anything, and it is on Conjunctions. Way to go, Gabe.
Grace Paley takes heads
She does. Honest. Takes head and doesn’t give them back.
Example from the story “Wants”:
He had had a habit throughout the twenty-seven years of making a narrow remark which, like a plumber’s snake, could work its way through the ear down the throat, halfway to my heart. He would disappear, leaving me choking with equipment.
Here’s what I notice about this: that shouldn’t have worked. The metaphor—the plumber’s snake entering the ear and making its way near the heart—should come off as cliche. Familiar. A little silly. Following it up with “…leaving me choking with equipment,” redeems it.
Writers: push a cliche to the point where it strains to near snapping and you revive it.
Man, that’s a funny line.
Harold Pinter, RIP
Harold Pinter, who used his Nobel Prize win lecture to really give it to U.S. foreign policy, has died.
A few minutes from The Birthday Party:
Andrew W.K. reads Ann Beattie
Go here to listen to Andrew W.K. reading an Ann Beattie story.
Take THAT, Tao Lin!
Take that and, you know, really enjoy it. If you want.
Bob Ross, Avant-Garde Artist
Someone offered Margaret Atwood a machine that would allow her to sign books from her home. It was like a little robot hand with a pen. And it would do what she was doing. She would sign her name, and the robot hand would follow her hand’s motion and sign a book for a fan who came to a robot hand book signing. Atwood would stay home, and the hand would travel around the country. Someone would approach the hand—which would be sitting on a table—and put a book down under the pen. And Margaret Atwood would—somewhere in Cananda, sitting at her coffee table—sign a piece of paper and the robot hand would sign the book.
Dear Leader
Blake Butler—our fearless leader here at htmlgiant—has a novella coming from the mighty Calamari Press. Go here to pre-order it.
That is all.
Zachary, I’m sorry…
I found a copy of Zachary Schomburg‘s The Man Suit at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago.
First, this should be evidence that Seattle has really amazing used book stores. The copy was originally purchased at Open Books, an all-poetry bookstore. (How Open Books manages to stay in business selling nothing but poetry to an increasingly disinterested-in-poetry audience* remains a mystery to me, but I love that they exist.) I tend to walk by the poetry sections of used bookstores because, really, I have The Spoon River Anthology already and don’t need another copy. But this little store—Ophelia’s Books in Fremont—had a book I’ve been thinking of purchasing anyway.
Second, who the heck sold The Man Suit? It’s really good—full of surreal images and dream logic
Here’s an image that stuck with me: a voicebox—removed from its throat—still full of words. A person can pick up said word-filled voicebox, and blow through it to hear what was left unsaid when the voicebox belonged to a body.
I am fairly certain that some time in the future, I will forget that I read about this voicebox in The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg, and I will use it in a story, thinking I came up with it. I’m sorry, Zachary. Eventually I will remember, and then I will feel bad for stealing from you.
(This has happened before. I have an as-yet-unpublished story that features a character named Boy. I stole this from a Peter Markus piece I read on elimae. I thought it had been my idea. There are other examples.)
(Actually, I wonder if this post will serve to stop this from happening. If it will immunize me from the Schomburg voicebox image that could some day infect my writing.)
Is this a bad thing? I’m not sure it is a great crime for artists to steal from one another in this way. Art bubbles up from a subconscious place, and it shouldn’t shock anyone that the things that bubble up are dropped into the stew of the subconscious mind by other artists.
Are you familiar with the concept of sperm trains? Some animals create sperm cells that hook themselves onto one another. They drag one another toward their goal. And move faster. The voicebox, I’m pretty sure, will one day find another idea hooking itself onto it, and they will both swim out onto a page of my writing.
(There’s an image for you: my pages of fiction are covered in sperm.)
Because I feel bad that I will steal from you, Mr. Schomburg, I would like to at least pay you the royalty you should’ve gotten for the book I purchased used. If you would like, I don’t know, five dollars, you should write to me at giantblinditems at gmail dot com.
Please use the comments section of this post to cop to things you have stolen.