3 things I like a lot
I.
"Echo #6," 8.5"×11", oil & dirt on paper, by JK Keller
Artist JK Keller does a “chronic drawing” of sorts, by replacing a mouse pad with a standard piece of office paper, the result of which is an apparition of presence and self. The dirty ghost of grime is our one untrained vocation, hands down.
Writing: the balancing act between self and other, solitude and engagement, me and world
Hello my little Giants.
I fell out of blog world for a second. A combination of personal turmoil, relocating to Pittsburgh for a month, and buckling down on my novel has left less room for reaching out to my fellow writers via the internet.
In Pittsburgh, I am doing a writer residency at a punk house. Isn’t that interesting? I think more people that own houses and have a little extra space should do DIY writer residencies. Here, they give you a room to live in for free for a month, and you produce something by the end of your stay. The room has a bed, a desk, clean sheets/blanket, and there is a grocery store just a few steps away. They also have a letterpress studio and the equipment to do perfect binding at the house, so they are always making beautiful DIY books and zines. I’ve only been here for a few days, but already I’ve been immensely productive, averaging about 3,000-3,500 words a day on my novel alone. My head feels clear. And one of my best friends from college lives here, which means I have enough socializing opportunities to feel engaged, satisfied and happy, but not enough to be terribly distracted. Virginia Woolf’s thing about having a room of one’s own is starting to seem true. But I still wonder, are such conditions ideal on a more permanent basis?
Here in Pittsburgh, I am thinking about the conditions under which people are able to write. When are you most productive? I am considering the following factors: free time, personal space, emotional stability, routine, environmental, etc. In Baltimore and Florida, I shared a room with my partner. Right now we are both dedicated artists that don’t have “real” jobs and just work on our projects all day. This is completely different from my life several months ago, when I worked 2 jobs while I was going to school full-time and working on my thesis. While my partner and I are living together, every day we continually have to negotiate how to spend our time, where to work, when and what to eat (who should cook), space (she works best listening to loud music, I can’t focus when loud music is playing), our emotional needs (I feel upset right now, will you put aside your work to talk to me?), sleeping schedules (I will often sneakily get up in the middle of the night to pound out several pages [if I have already taken my ambien, you get this]), etc etc. Rather than seeing this as “bad” for my work because I am quantitatively less productive, I see it as something that indirectly enriches my work because it forces me outside myself, makes me more expansive, forces me to learn how to balance self and other. Plus, we always have the opportunity to bounce ideas off of each other, and since we are hyper-engaged and thoughtful about things, we challenge and move each other in unforeseeable directions.
This balancing act brings me to the next issue I am trying to sort out in my mind. The question of living vs. writing.
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A BOOK I LOVED: THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN
a cardinal's instruments
One thing I’ve meant to do more frequently as an HTMLGIANT contributor is simply to post about books I love, especially ones that didn’t just come out, especially ones that don’t get flogged constantly here already. I’ve got a mental list, but when there’s no publication date to which a post is tied… well, shit gets away.
But I read something in the past two weeks that absolutely got me by the throat, and I want to write about it: The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley. It came out in 1953 and I’d never heard of it until a few weeks ago. I’ve rarely read a book that gnaws so thoroughly — and simultaneously — at the intellect and the viscera.
Dolor
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
I Like J. Bradley A Lot
J. Bradley is a poet and fiction writer who wears many different hats. He is the author of two excellent books—Dodging Traffic (Ampersand Books 2009) and The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You is a Robot (Safety Third Enterprises 2010), a slam master for the Orlando Poetry Slam, and the Interviews Editor for PANK. If I were to use one word to describe J. Bradley’s writing, it would be sharp, like a knife. The word “edgy” is often overused when discussing writing but that term is appropriate when talking about J. Bradley’s work. He is often profane and downright inappropriate and yet, his stories and poems are compelling, sometimes funny, and sometimes they’ll tear your heart out of your chest. He’s not writings thing like, “”I’m gonna fuck you so hard, you’re gonna have Down’s Syndrome,” just to be outrageous. There’s always a purpose to the profanity, a method to the madness. When I read Bradley’s writing, I cannot help but think, “Who is this man who dares to go there?”
The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You is a Robot is a curious little collection of words. Each story is unique but possessing Bradley’s distinct voice. He makes frequent use of analogy, forever comparing one thing to another in ways that are surprising or shocking or charming but always engaging. Whether writing about a boy with chainsaws for arms or a man’s wife’s girlfriend or a wedding ring forged into a bullet, each of the very small stories in this chapbook are strange but controlled and cool breaths of fresh air. Bradley’s wonderful stories offer the reader vivid snapshots you would not be able to see from the mind of any writer but J. Bradley. I loved his chapbook so much I thought I’d ask him a few questions about his writing, warped mind, and other literary endeavors.
2 Podcasts I like a lot did episodes I liked a lot.
A couple of my favorite podcasts have had some pretty amazing episodes lately. Go download them if you are so inclined.
So, I loved William Burroughs in high school and the first couple of years of college. I tired of him in my later college years and after for quite a while. And now, I find myself turning back to him again, rediscovering an appreciation for his work. Does Burroughs come in and go out like a tide for the rest of you as well?
(I had a friend who bartended at a place in Lawrence that was, people said, owned by Burroughs’s lawyer, and he used to give me free drinks all the time. This, in some sideways way also makes me think of Burroughs fondly, though he was in no way responsible for me getting free drinks.)
2. Marc Maron—who I, and other people named Matt(y), like quite a bit and have written about in the past—had a really fascinating discussion with a comedian named Moshe Kasher on a recent episode.
The whole question of subculture and identity became the core of the discussion. Kasher is the son of Hasidic Jews who were also both deaf. Both he and Marc are sober, as well. Jewish culture, and a Jewish kid who idolizes Oakland’s gangsta rap (Spice One, Too Short) culture. Deaf culture. The culture of sobriety and therapy. Stand up culture. Really interesting stuff.
Moshe talking about people who use the phrase “there’s really no translation for it in English,” an absurd claim that was always been a pet peeve of mine, as well:
Thank you, Moshe. Thank you, Marc. Thank you, Don.
Grow a spine
Artist Jane Mount paints other people’s bookshelves in her wonderfully playful and strikingly accurate “Ideal Bookshelf” series. That they are (I presume) actual collections and not imaginings, augments the idea of what is “ideal.” A quick click through is very enjoyable. Book designers may find it very instructive how identifiable a book’s spine is, a condensed version of the cover’s visual syntax.
Another one might bite the dust…
This Ain’t Rosedale Library is one of Canada coolest bookstores. Seriously: even the Guardian thinks so. (They said it was #8 in the world!!) I found the bookstore on accident. I was in Toronto to give a reading and had some time to pass, so I walked around until I found this little bookstore, there were hipsters hanging outside (and in), which would usually be a deterrent (I find them intimidating), but then, I saw a glimmer, yes, I saw Rikki Ducornet’s One Marvelous Thing displayed in the window. Next to it, wow, Jesse Ball, and suddenly, like magic, I was inside the store, only it wasn’t a store, it was like looking at the bookshelves I always wanted. The whole store was filled with beautiful indie books, both from the States and Canada. It was a candy store, or maybe one of those medicinal marijuana stores they’re rumored to have in California, or maybe it was like getting to heaven and finding yourself with 72 beautiful virgins: that was This Ain’t Rosedale Library to me.
“This Is An Enormous Amount of Eyes”
I have been stark-raving-obsessed with Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present. I’ve spent hours at MoMA; I’ve interacted with the interactive website; I’ve scrolled through the Flikr; I’ve learned about other obsessives; I’ve read essays and reviews; I’ve watched this nifty video; And yeah, I’ve seen that blog that is just the pictures of people crying. (Love that one.) I know Ken has posted links to it twice since it’s been going on, but I’m posting them again, at risk of redundancy, because to me (and many others) this was a huge moment in art history and I think anyone who is alive and creating things right now should know about it.
Memorial Day was the last day for the exhibit and now Marina has given a pretty interesting exit interview to the WSJ blog Speakeasy. It’s full of such non-native-English-speaker sentences like, They made a lot of interesting drawings of how I pee. I didn’t even have urge. and This is an enormous amount of eyes. The interview also refers to an earlier statement she has made that “nobody ever changes when they do things they like.”
I am not sure if I entirely agree with that but it does raise some interesting questions. I know a lot of writers who say they hate writing, but they do it anyway. I don’t know how to react when someone tells me this. Are they masochists or do they feel like they can’t do anything else? I often find writing really difficult and trying, but I almost always like it. So will I never change or grow as a writer because I enjoy it so much? READ MORE >