i really super-like MARTIN HEIDEGGER a lot
the book BEING AND TIME (SEIN UND ZEIT) is the most important book i have read. i feel confident saying that because i have thought “this is the most important book i have read” numerous times in the past and it keeps happening. i am pleased even when i just pass by the book in my room, and look at it. it is the only book of philosophy, along with the TRACTATUS, that i felt an immediate change in my life, not just like, “i am somewhat impressed by this” but a condition in which i keep thinking about the application of the book to basically everything that happens to me. when i think about the chapter that discusses something called the THEY-SELF, i feel terrified. sometimes i just look at the name MARTIN HEIDEGGER and start singing the theme song from MARTIN (the television show with MARTIN LAWRENCE), but i picture MARTIN HEIDEGGER walking into a room with a laughing audience.
i 1/2 like CAMUS a lot
i have read THE FALL and THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS and i liked THE FALL but not THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS. THE FALL makes me uncomfortable to read. i like it when i feel uncomfortable. when reading THE FALL, i often think things like, “if this person were real, i would be annoyed but probably not say anything because i wouldn’t know what to say and i would just sit there and listen, like i am doing with this book.” THE FALL does that “here is a really thinly disguised book of philosophy outlined in a social situation” thing but i didn’t feel aggravation or even like i should accidentally spill something on it so i would not have to read it anymore. i did not enjoy reading THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS but i will not say anything else because if Camus finds out he will blog in a mean way about me and htmlgiant will fire me and spit on me all at once (that’s how htmlgiant fires people at meetings, a group spitting). in conclusion, Camus = 1/2 awesome.
i like SOREN KIERKEGAARD a whole bunch
soren kierkegaard was a philosopher in the eighteen hundreds who didn’t think he was a philosopher. i read “the sickness unto death” “either/or” “philosophical fragments” “the concept of dread” “fear and trembling” “repetition” “concluding unscientific postscript” “the attack on christendom” and “the modern age.” i think my favorite of his books is “the sickness unto death.” i have read it probably eight times and every time i read it i still pause in between every few pages and do like, a little air guitar solo thing that represents how much i like what i am reading. one time i was on a train to new york and i was reading it and a man who called himself “the gay rabbi” came up to me and started hitting on me. he called me a skinhead when i ignored him and then he started hitting on this goth kid in the next seat and the goth kid kept threatening to “beat the shit” out of the gay rabbi. the only things i vividly remember from that trip were “the sickness unto death” and the scab on the end of the gay rabbi’s nose. i think that along with “beyond good and evil” and “being and time,” “the sickness unto death” is the most important, concretely applicable book of philosophy i have read. my favorite smaller piece of writing from soren kierkegaard is called “what says the fireman?” if kierkegaard were alive today, i feel that he would be the character in a frat movie that is smart and for some reason helps out a group of kids that are considered rejects but then he would become terrified at how much he is failing as a christian.
i like ARCHIE AMMONS a lot.
archie ammons is a dead guy who used to write poems. he doesn’t write poems anymore because he can’t move his limbs and i think he probably doesn’t have a mind anymore either. but when he was alive and still writing poems, he wrote book length poems, usually with each sentence separated by a colon. of his books, i have read, ‘Glare,’ ‘Tape for the Turn of the Year,’ ‘Garbage,’ ‘Bosh and Flapdoodle,’ ‘Sphere,’ ‘Ommateaum with Doxology’ and i think one other called something like ‘the northcarolina poems.’ he wrote on receipt paper scrolls using a typewriter. he did that because he wanted the experience of writing to seem unimportant. i remember reading something about how when he went on a drive to another state, he unrolled the receipt scroll for his current project and took it with him because he was afraid his house would burn down while he was gone. i understand being that paranoid but it’s usually over something like, a drawing of a horse on fire eating bacon or something unimportant.
HATE YOURSELF MORE THAN OTHERS
it is ok for someone to dislike you based on something of yours they have read.
it is ok to be called a dickhead or any other name by someone you don’t know on the internet.
it is ok to take someone’s work off your site because you believe that will make you feel better.
it is ok to accept someone who does not accept you.
it is ok to try to demean and refute someone in a comments section.
it is ok to write something that no one likes.
it is ok to get rejected.
it is ok to be offended by minor things.
it is ok to dislike something and then feel so insecure that you have to try to persuade other people to dislike it.
it is ok for everyone to hate you.
it is ok if magazines really like your work and accept it all the time.
it is ok if none of them ever care.
it is ok to say nothing in defense of anything else.
it is ok.
things that inspire me more than most literary journals
here is a short, halfway conceived list of things that inspire me more than most literary journals:
1. The Musicmart, State Street, Chicago, Illinois. the music mart is sort of an indoor mall where symphonies play music during the fall and winter. i like to go there and sit down at a table and listen to the music and write down things that will later be called juvenile or silly. feel free to visit me anytime at the music mart and i will buy you a small fountain drink from sbarro. later, i will ask you to have “dibs” on the refill. email me in advance if you’d like to do this because finding me at the musicmart is a game of “where’s waldo” since i have been told numerous times, by different people, that i resemble a homeless man.
2. Evander Holyfield and Boxing in General. evander holyfield seems to have more power than anyone else on earth. sometimes when i am writing something, i think, “would this beat up evander holyfield or would he bounce left then right and uppercut the shit out of me?” also, i saw a match between lennox lewis and oliver mc call the other day in which mc call had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the fight. i felt really weird watching it but also inspired. find the video and watch it, he starts crying in the middle of the fight. i feel like this is how i feel when i know i am writing something entertaining. all i do lately is type and watch boxing.
3. The Blue Line, Chicago, Illinois and The Surgeon. sometimes i just ride the blue line around until it gets somewhere i don’t know and then i get out and walk around. i do the same thing with the bus. which brings me to The Surgeon. The Surgeon is a man who rides the blue line. i often see him sleeping in the back. every once in a while he wakes up quickly and starts doing this sawing motion with his hand. no one is going to cry when he dies. i am at home with people who will not be remembered.
4. A Video I Saw on Chicago Public TV Yesterday. there was a video on public access tv yesterday where an old lady was sitting next to her son. the son was in a wheelchair. the old lady kept saying, “this is my maurice and he is not right because someone gave him a cigarette mixed with formaldehyde. maurice wants you to never do drugs because drugs have ruined my maurice.” then maurice would just groan and sigh and his mom would say, “yes maurice, i love you.” i want a group hug between me, The Surgeon and Maurice.
this post will not receive 85 comments because it does not take a stance on a literary issue and then attempt to dismantle other arguments ultimately resulting in nothing. i do not have any opinions on literary matters that extend beyond myself. you are all silly. j/k everyone, it’s mean monday. i don’t mean any of this.
daniel bailey’s EAST CENTRAL INDIANA is a caulk-gun-i.v. full of morphine
a few weeks ago daniel bailey posted that if anyone wanted to see his new collection of poetry EAST CENTRAL INDIANA they should email him. i emailed him. he emailed me. i read the collection and i am being honest, it is the best book of poems i have ever read. nobody does anything like daniel bailey, and i mean, i’ve probably read close to five books of poetry. colin bassett published it on bearcreekfeed. after noticing that colin bassett published it, i felt close to him, like when you are out with someone and you find out that you both like pink lemonade better than regular lemonade for some reason, and it makes communicating easy for a few seconds. this post is weak. please go read EAST CENTRAL INDIANA. also, i wrote THE DANIEL BAILEY CATECHISM on my blog to celebrate this great publication. i hope that one day the book is in print so i can read it over and over and give it to people. reading it made me feel less inhuman, which is the only way i qualify books now. on a sidenote, i felt really excited about buying these “garden herb” triscuits but now after eating a few, and choking on the little slivers that always fucking catch on your uvula, i regret buying them. unlike “garden herb” triscuits, EAST CENTRAL INDIANA will not piss you off.
Uncategorized / 6 Comments
November 3rd, 2008 / 9:25 pm
November 3rd, 2008 / 9:25 pm
mike bushnell’s “tidal”
mike bushnell just published a piece of writing called tidal. please read it. some say that tidal is cursed. some say, a man just ain’t right after reading it. there was a feller tried reading it and had a seizure and died on the stained carpet in his room he did. another feller’s eyes turned black and fell right out his skull onto his laptop. tidal.
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October 21st, 2008 / 12:50 am
October 21st, 2008 / 12:50 am
barry graham’s “not a speck of light is showing” just beat me up and i am on the ground trying to put my teeth back in my mouth using the tip of my tongue
i just read barry graham’s chapbook “not a speck of light is showing” and halfway through reading it i found myself motioning with both hands upwards, as if attempting to raise the roof from a lower altitude to one much higher. i suspect that was consequent to barry graham locking his chapbook in the basement and forcefeeding it awesomeness. i am being serious. it costs four dollars. buy it. you will laugh and feel a little sickened. when i was done reading it, i felt like barry graham was mr. miyagi and i was daniel-san and i was lying on my back and he was showing me how “paint the fence” could help deflect the shit that barry graham was shitting into my mouth. and i kept trying to swat the shit away, but at a certain point, i just stopped and lay motionless, eyes and mouth open, and there was no light.
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October 18th, 2008 / 7:28 pm
October 18th, 2008 / 7:28 pm