NON-CHRONOLICALLY LIVEBLOGGING AWP 2011 FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A SOCIALLY-ALIENATED COUPLE (ALTERNATING SENTENCES, BEGINNING WITH MEGAN BOYLE, THEN TAO LIN)

Pointed Tao in the direction of large group of people standing by the “correct” entrance of building.

Talked to Clay Banes in entrance, said something like “he’s distributing your book” to Megan.

While waiting for Tao to poop, looked into crowd of people and tried to discern the most acceptable way to hold MacBook.

Walked past an acquaintance while saying things like “hey” and “this is Megan” in a moderately-loud—for being in a bar—voice.

After writing “BRB” on newly abandoned promotional packet, approached bar to use “free drink” coupon for sparkling water, saw a girl I knew in college and said to Tao, “I know her from high school.”

Felt someone tap my shoulder and turned, vaguely aware of some girls that I don’t know talking to Megan, to hear something like “Jesus, hey, it’s Jesus, I—“

Saw 4 people moving “BRB” packet and looking confusedly at each other.

Said the word “chapbook” 8 – 15 times while looking nonspecifically at the crowd and sometimes hugging Megan.

Adam Robinson sat down on table thing next to us and said “So, you guys are married?”

Walked into a room in which Blake Butler and Gene Morgan and Gene Morgan’s wife, Jenny, seemed to be “chilling,” sat opposite Jenny.

Felt vaguely aware that people knew my name and had thought things about me, maybe, when Tao said, “This is Megan”

Heard someone say “can I say your ‘pizza’ tattoo” for third or fourth time about Megan’s lower-lip tattoo that says “pizza.”

Realized mid-conversation with Jenny that I had no idea how we started talking about Santa Claus.

Heard someone say “eight hours” in reference to snorting ecstasy.

Heard Tao impatiently say, “Oh it’s you again?!” and “You can’t type, are you okay?”

The room “erupted” in people saying “Andrew” with the “rew” part sustained at a high volume.

Thought the room became really quiet when I said “Andrew,” walked to hug him, and felt awareness that the back of my ass was maybe damp or something.

Saw someone I thought might be someone else, waved at them, said “Oh” loudly, then sort of beckoned for Megan to block that person’s view of me.

Timothy Willis Sanders and Andrew Weatherhead are wearing the same hat.

Said “that’s good, that’s funny, that’s the kind of detail people wanted to hear” to Megan, sitting to my left, as we both sort of stared either at the MacBook screen or, beyond that, at Andrew Weatherhead and Timothy Willis Sanders, seated on separate sofas, talking to each other.

Tao said to Adam Robison, “She got in a car accident” and pointed to my head and Adam said, “Car accident?”

Pointed vaguely at two people dancing on a stage, the only two people on the stage, and looked at Megan with a neutral facial expression.

Shortly after Tao ‘flung’ open door to some kind of dance party room and started writing his sentence, said, “Oh I have a good one” and he yelled, “IT’S NOT CHRONALOGICAL”

Pointed vaguely at [previous sentence] and said “it seems mean” repeatedly.

Sort of hugged my head with right arm, then quickly put it down when I became aware of potential sweat stain.

Said “the Get Up Kids covered this” with unfocused eyes.

Saw dancing girl approach a drink next to Tao’s and my water bottle, sat erect, and tilted head with intention to “intimidate.”

Pulled MacBook away from Andrew Weatherhead while he typed “drrrrhtup” from behind the MacBook, his hands sort of determinedly dangling toward the keys.

Tao said, “You look sexy” and I said, “I want to have sex” as we started meandering/peeking into a room where there were a lot of jackets and a girl sitting.

Andrew Weatherhead said “that’s not liveblogging, it’s a Word document.”

Said, “You want to get in on the live blog” and Timothy Willis Sanders moved his head in front of computer and said “LIVEBLOGGGGGG” in a sort of Adam Sandler tone of voice.

Pointed at a comma in [previous sentence] and stared at Megan.

Started talking to someone whose face I recognized from Facebook.

Said “that was freeing?” in a medium-loud voice, to seemingly no response, while within hearing range, I felt, of six people.

When it was my turn to write a sentence, realized Michael Kimball, Melissa Broder, Timothy Willis Sanders and Tao were staring at computer screen.

Felt strong, positive feelings toward Blake Butler as we seemed to stare non-awkwardly into each other’s eyes while saying things about Emory University.

Made eye contact with Lincoln Michel who said, “We’re talking about elephant urine,” to which I said, “Oh. Did you,” no one said anything for ~3 seconds and then heard him explaining something about elephants.

Heard someone say “Yerba ketchup.”

Said to Timothy Willis Sanders, “You went to a transvestite,” to the sentence I now know was “I went to a Chinese restaurant.”

Said “you spelled his name wrong and changed an ‘a’ to a ‘s.”’

Looked at ceiling, guess it’s painted black or something.

Said “seems apathetic.”

Stephanie Barber approached room out of breath and grinning and said between laughs/gasps, “That room, you have to go in that room” and looked at Melissa Broder and Michael Kimball sitting on couch.

Shook hands with Gene Morgan as he said “you guys having fun? yeah? it’s a party, a literature party.”

Tao said, “Where the hell are we” as we approached door with piece of paper that someone had typed “COFFEE POT!!!!!!!!!” on.

Saw someone who looked like Stephen Elliott but wasn’t.

Tao said “Any details?” while turning my body somewhat comedically to left and right and I saw an overweight black man ‘disappear’ into hallway near us.

Random / 92 Comments
February 5th, 2011 / 1:55 am

Lies

Hey, AWP! Which books from the last year are you, when they come up in conversation, pretending to have read? I’ll start, even though I’m not there. If it came up, I’d be telling people I’ve read The Fixed Stars by Brian Conn. (I bought it at AWP last year, started it, enjoyed it, set it aside for something else, and then haven’t gotten back to it. Still, I’d lie and tell everyone I finished it.)

Behind the Scenes / 1 Comment
February 4th, 2011 / 7:00 pm

It is AWP Friday: Go Right the Hell Ahead

A lot of my life is eating soup with a fork

Huge red dirty wall fog

Oh, sod you!

I’d rather be dead than think about death

Drink chose me

Bars are the only sparks

Spouses, money, James Joyce, beer?

Give me my duff. And pour custard on it from a ladle

Bad publicity? Your own obituary

Ah, I never get no snout

I smoked my way half-way through the book of Genesis and three inches of my mattress

Old potatoes, cold

Author Spotlight / 1 Comment
February 4th, 2011 / 3:43 pm

Reds

Does the color red change the way you look at this photograph? It is difficult to escape the received standard ideas of red: Red as an erotic color, red the color of heat, red for danger, red means stop before you roll into the path of injury, red means embarrassment (but in this case later for the lovers who ought not have been together caught by the camera, their transgressions revealed by the resulting prints, which are made in a red-lit darkroom, and developed in a black-and-white developer bath lit red by the darkroom lamp, so the first time they’re seen they’re blushed [a word which means red has come into the cheeks, and therefore blood] by the red lamp, which means the first time the photographer sees them they already carry the color temperature that calls to mind the heat and the shame he means to initiate), and now we consider the role of the blood in the interpretation of emotions or intimacies, the way the swelling or engorgement of vessels carrying red blood reveals READ MORE >

Random / 2 Comments
February 4th, 2011 / 3:39 pm

Transcription of Dialogue Spoken Three Seconds After This Photograph Was Taken

“As Søren Kierkegaard said in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, I shall certainly attend your party, but I must make an exception for the contingency that a roof tile happens to blow down and kill me; for in that case, I cannot attend.”

Random / 5 Comments
February 4th, 2011 / 10:02 am

orange crows, where are they?

Snow/ice/snow, it is so funny, like a parfait without a hair in it, but not ha-ha funny like a parfait with a hair. I’m not at AWP. Damn. So I’m thinning mints now, but later I’m going to watch Woody Allen movies on VCR. Also I have a doze to bull, but that’s personal. Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt, has been attacked! Again!! Everyone needs a hobby, OK. The flickering of the VCR, or even hens. The last one on Earth who likes to track? Who here likes to track?

(This post a serious evidence of an earlier A. Robinson post [I researched, but couldn’t find] that says HTML people basically post anything)

But hey: What are you doing while not at AWP?

Random / 2 Comments
February 3rd, 2011 / 9:40 pm

Looking at the Looker and the Lookee and Thinking About the Looking and the Looking


Sometimes I see a picture of someone looking at someone else in a certain way — the tilt of the head, the position of the eyes relative to the face, the width of the pupils, the relationship of the head to the body, the proximity of one head to another head, the attention implied by the position of the eyes — and I think: I wish someone would right now be looking at me in the way that the person in the picture is looking at the other person in the picture, and that it made me feel the way I imagine it makes the object of the looking feel, and that the person doing the looking meant the looking in the way I imagine the looker in the picture means the looking, and that both of us were as attractive and therefore societally vetted as worthy of giving and receiving looks like the looks that are being given and received in the picture, and that the confidence implied in the giving and receiving of the looks was a confidence that corresponded to my ability to give and receive the looks rather than the confidence that corresponds to my ability to talk about thinking about looking at the people doing the looking.

Random / 9 Comments
February 3rd, 2011 / 5:30 pm

“Make Believe That You Got a Free Throw”: Red Auerbach on Writing

Do what is best for you.

Relax. Follow through. But make it.

Random / 1 Comment
February 3rd, 2011 / 3:00 pm

Behind the Scenes / 7 Comments
February 3rd, 2011 / 2:57 pm

I’m literally making things up.

Every once in a while, I fixate on word usage and hatch wild theories about why a certain word or phrase becomes trendy in conversation. We’re all aware, I presume, of the privileged place “literally” has achieved in our lexicon. It is used most often, it seems, to denote emphasis. I’m not the only one interested in its abuse/overuse. But, like a 70-year-old tweed-clad professor with a pipe and a penchant for pretty coeds, I’m curious about what its popularity might suggest about “the times.” Maybe we are entrenched in an Age of Hyperbole, where everything must be biggened and baddened in order to be heard or believed (see Fox News, etc.). Maybe “literally” signifies some kernel of steadfast truth amidst all of that shouting, a counterpoint to the sensationalism. Or perhaps “literally” is a response to the Age of Irony for the same reasons, where we intend it to denote sincerity. Since my guess is that we’re in the twilight of that age, and are now seeing the quick waning of its companion age, Post-Irony, my hope is that we’ll hear a lot less “literally” and a lot more good, dramatic pause.

Random / 5 Comments
February 3rd, 2011 / 12:21 pm