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The other day, I bought Granta (I’m liking many of these stories), A Public Space (I still have far to go with this one, but I’m feeling a bit lukewarm about it today, maybe tomorrow I’ll feel differently), The New York Review of Books (had to skim the Patricia Highsmith article because of too many spoilers about books of hers I plan on reading) and Gigantic (fun and different – a nice palate cleanser between reading the other journals).
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Hey, do you guys know this site called ireadashortstorytoday.com? I was thinking of starting a site called ireadashortstorttodaytoomotherfucker.com. Maybe because the dude wrote a bad review of one of my stories? Nah.
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Tim Gautreaux’s story “Idols” in the latest New Yorker imagines the continued life of Obadiah Elihue, the character from Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back”, which I wrote about here. Good stuff.
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I know, I know, lots of Susie Bright posts lately, but I have to share what she shared. I really want to buy this book she mentions on her blog, How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry by Adrian Colesberry. It sounds brilliant.
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A new issue of Colored Chalk will be edited by Richard Thomas and he’s accepting submissions for its “heaven and hell” issue (500 to 1500 words) until June 30th. I’m polishing up a piece on heaven for submission.
Diamanda Galas
I’m watching a very dumb movie called Doomsday. I ran three and a half miles today, only the second time since I was very sick. My fucking throat still hurts – I keep thinking I’ll be all better, but no. One of my cats peed blood yesterday. God help me. This dumb ass movie is making me think of Diamanda. After the jump are two videos from the one and only Diamanda Galas. I saw her perform at The Kitchen in NYC when I was in my early twenties. She hurt my mind in the very best way. Shortly thereafter, I was a twenty-something waitress when she came into Orson’s on my lunch shift with great regularity. She was the most polite, grateful and truly sweet and joyful customer. God bless. I never let on that I worshipped her ass, or saw her perform. I am different now. Now I say, “Hey I LOVE you!” I am not cool anymore. What a fucking relief. Here are a couple of crazy ass videos: READ MORE >
Jonathan Allen and Steve Carey
The artist Jonathan Allen (and dear friend, full disclosure) designed the cover for The Selected Poems of Steve Carey (Subpress, click here to see the cover ). Jonathan Allen’s website makes for fantastic browsing. He recently had a painting at The Whitney Art Party and it was featured in Style (which is sort of funny, considering his art questions the values of such magazines, according to me). The man is a massive talent. He’s designed other covers for books of poetry and journals so contact him via his website and get a piece of him before he becomes so huge he retires to a Greek Island or something.Drunk Notes on Vicky Christina Barcelona
A while back, I got drunk and watched this movie. And I took drunken notes thinking of writing a real review. I am not going to write that review. Here are my drunk notes. READ MORE >
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June 14th, 2009 / 10:43 pm
June 14th, 2009 / 10:43 pm
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I think I’ll read Suicide Squeeze by Victor Gischler this week. I loved The Pistol Poets. Anthony Neil Smith, of, among other things, Plots with Guns fame, is guest blogging over at Gischler’s site. Someday, I ‘ll write a longer post on Smith and the fantastic Plots with Guns ( featuring great work by Kyle Minor, Barry Graham, Pinckney Benedict and others in the past years), but check out all the links for now.
Excerpt from “Footnote to Howl” by Allen Ginsberg
The frequent commenter and all around nice man Ryan W. Bradley once told me that his mother gave him Howl to read when he was ten. This made me go buy Howl from the great City Light Books. James Blake will play Andy Murray in the final of Queens, the lead up event to Wimbledon. I just finished reading an old One Story story ( I subscribed at one time, I no longer do, but those little stories are scattered around my house) called “Selling the Apartment” by Danit Brown. It was written in the second person. Wells Tower wrote in the second person once and I liked that story, but it was really short. READ MORE >
From Flaubert in Egypt
As dancers, imagine two rascals, quite ugly, but charming in their corruption, in their obscene leerings and the femininity of their movements, dressed as women, their eyes painted with antimony. For costumes they had wide trousers…From time to time, during the dance, the impresario, or pimp, who brought them plays around with them, kissing them on the belly, the arse, and the small of the back, amd making obscene remarks in an effort to put additional spice into a thing that is already quite clear in itself. It is too beautiful to be exciting. I doubt we shall find the women a good as the men; the ugliness of the latter adds greatly to the thing as art.
Suicide
David Carradine hanged himself in a hotel in Bangkok. He was seventy-two. (It now appears it may have been a sex act gone wrong- click here to read the update.) After the jump, Anna Karenina also ends her life, although by a different method. In the comment section, bring on other great scenes from literature that illustrate a suicide. (Heart of the Matter comes to mind and my all time favorite, Madame Bovary. ) (This is not meant to be a celebration, but a contemplation, so you all know where I’m coming from…)
STORIES by Scott McClanahan
Often, when realistic fiction interests me – and it very often does- it must do what all art can do, and to quote the painter Lisa Yuskavage ( an idol of mine), prove that there is “not an uninteresting person alive.” Scott McClanahan’s collection, simply entitled STORIES (click here to buy) illuminates that concept. I realize this is in exact opposition to Christopher Higg’s comment in his review of the Jello Horse by Matthew Simmons, where he wrote, “…but then again, so few real people are remarkably interesting.” Now, we could quibble about remarkable versus not, but I’ll reiterate: I find it remarkable that I am alive, period, and the minutia of anyone’s life thrills me. (This is not to say I don’t like some books better than others, or some people better than others, nor that there isn’t tons of crappy stuff passing off as literature. I’m just explaining a general worldview I adhere to.) And so the way I walk around this world is different than others, I understand that, because I walk around shocked, amused, moved to pity and rage and mostly baffled, in the most wonderful of ways, at how strange we all are (click here to read a thread that exemplifies our weirdness in regard to food.)
McClanahan’s stories are primarily set in West Virginia and all told in the first person by the same narrator, a narrator who views the seemingly narrow lives of his community and family with reverence. These are not condescending stories. They can be funny, but never treat the eccentric, or impoverished characters as cartoonish or garish; indeed, they celebrate, with honor, the strangeness and beauty of them all.
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June 3rd, 2009 / 4:59 pm
June 3rd, 2009 / 4:59 pm
You want ice cream and bags of chips and chocolate and blood and guts and drugs and sex and cigarettes
A photo essay, inspired by “My Pet Lion” by Juliana Hatfield. (Click here and listen to “kill the bottle”, the story of my life and here and here for random links and a nice album cover where you see the bottom of her lovely breasts.) I’m brain damaged tonight. Tennis killed my brain.
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June Issue of DecomP: A Literary Magazine
I googled "happy day" and this came up.
Jason Jordan has put up another stellar issue of DecomP. Here’s the lineup and a hello from him:
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May 29th, 2009 / 1:16 pm
May 29th, 2009 / 1:16 pm
More on Golden Hemorrhoids and “Emerods in their secret parts”: The Bible
- Ouch! I posted earlier about Ernie Conrick’s wierd, pornographic story involving anal sex, hemorroids and, well, politics. On further, uh, digging, on the subject matter, I discovered Cornick’s not surprising, fantastic Biblical reference, quoted after the jump (King James Version):
Amy King: I’m The Man Who Loves You
I’ve been meaning to write about Amy King’s poetry for some time now and plan on a longer post at a later date. (Click here to go to her blog.) As a non-poet, I find writing about poetry intimidating and as a reader of poetry, I use very loose guidelines in my judgement of poetry. Here are my reasonings, and an Amy King poem:
Seriously Not Safe For Work! Ernie Conrick’s GOLDEN HEMORRHOIDS
This is my second inappropriate post in a row. I feel like a fifteen year old boy with a constant hardon who skips school to look at porn magazines behind the 7/11. Any day now, I’m going to write a nice book review, but in the meantime….what follows is a video of the writer Ernie Conrick reading a very outrageous story called “Golden Hemorrhoids”. I had the great pleasure of hearing him read the story that night- it was very much the highlight of the evening in a “Holy Shit” sort of way. Mixing politcs and anal sex, man. I had a drink with him afterward- I love this guy. He also has a fucking brilliant, different story in the Susie Bright edited anthology, X: The Erotic Treasury (click here to go to the incomparabe Susie Bright’s blog and to learn more about her latest book). Oh, and he’s also the author (under a different name) of The Upside Down Tree: India’s Changing Culture, which you can read more about by clicking here.
