It is Friday: Go Right Ahead
Life. In the bleachers.
No, no, gibberish with halos.
After a month’s sobriety my faculties became unbearably acute and I found myself unhealthily clairvoyant.
Make me a lovable drink.
Make me toxified.
First, catch the tuna. Then chop the tuna!
I need a pilgrimage.
Put a cork in my lunch, please.
Why does man feel so sad today?
Me? Mirror gloss on a shoe.
Alcohol guarantees that bad news will come true.
I said please!
On “Phone by Darby Larson,” with digression
“Phone by Darby Larson,” by Darby Larson, in the current issue of The Collagist, is one of the most refreshingly original pieces I’ve read in a while. The fading sequence of gray fonts mirrored at both beginning and end make the words, or ‘tips’ of the story, receed along an arc into visual space, as if the story itself were a giant sphere — a circular notion aptly mirrored in the jumpy, overlapping, entropic, and ultimately symmetrical narrative. Here, Larson (also per Abjective’s editorial fancies) is not just interested in telling stories, but writing them. In my mind, the two are different: the former merely a transcript of what one might say aloud to a spectator, the latter being actively aware, pensive even, of its ‘wordness’s’ function, capacity, limitation, and artifice. Oral history is fine, but I prefer writing that is seen, upon which, in this case, the structure looks like an almost palindrome, with wonderful tiny placed errors.
Hart House Event
If you’re near or around Toronto tonight, check out this event. I’d be there, if I had a magic transporter!
Uncategorized / 14 Comments
April 15th, 2010 / 5:37 pm
April 15th, 2010 / 5:37 pm
The Artist Treatment
So apparently, Canada is such a Socialist paradise that they have a hospital devoted *just* for artists. I heard about this last night. This afternoon, rehashing the previous evening’s conversation in the most brutal way, I thought maybe I’d made it up, that maybe there wasn’t really a hospital just for artists, but in fact, it’s true.
Last night, as a friend was telling me about this artist hospital, I laughed, thinking about all the maladies HTML Giant & crew would walk in complaining about (oh my wrist hurts from typing, from masturbating too much, etc), the “special” treatment that artists need over and above “normal” people. I mean, in many ways, it makes sense. Musicians have very different bodily needs than say, accountants. Sculptors are different from mechanics, maybe. But where does this end? Should every occupation have its own special hospital?
SkyMall and the Emerging Writer Image
I can scarcely believe I have never ordered anything from SkyMall. Shopping for ill-advised items—particularly while intoxicated—is what I do best (for example, coming out of a bourbon fog at 3 a.m. and waking up to an infomercial for a personal massage device called the Dr. Ho. Its creator, the human Dr. Ho, has a braid down to the middle of his back and is wearing nothing but biker shorts. I call in and buy one immediately. When it arrives, it does little more than deliver a series of painful electric shocks that feel like bites from a robotic gerbil).
And I am a nervous flier (read: sedatives). You’d think I already would’ve ordered the Bigfoot Garden Yeti Sculpture in slurred speech while suspended 32,000 feet above the ground. The problem is that to order on the plane, one has to pick up The Phone That Lives Inside The Seat. I have a lot of anxiety about doing this. Buried snugly inside the cushion, its curved receiver looks like the fossil of a slender bone that should not be disturbed. Were I to pick it up with fluffy clouds just outside the window to my left, I fear the voice of a deceased relative would be on the other end via some weird heavenly reception, or that my call would be promptly and embarrassingly connected directly to the pilot. Or something even weirder: no voice at all, just heavy breathing that would prompt me to respond “Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret” in a shaky voice and to waft my remaining drink vouchers above my head like they’re Wonka’s golden ticket.
But returning home from AWP, I glanced at SkyMall’s pages with a new mission: how might an emerging writer come to stick out at these conferences? I needed some kind of gimmick, some angle. Then I saw it: the travel bidet.
Yes, I realized. I could be the writer who carries around a travel bidet in a small pink suitcase at all times. When people say, “Who is Alissa Nutting?” others could then answer with certainty: “She is that writer who carries around a travel bidet.” It sounds pretty great; the description promises that “this little wonder, which comes with its own handy travel pouch, provides a refreshing, pulsating spray of water just where and when you need it.” The bidet sales-pitch informs me of the link between sanitation and ego: “personal appearance starts with personal hygiene, something people don’t always like to talk about but that is at the cornerstone of our self-image.” The write-up also assures me that not being comfortable “can affect our performance and self-confidence in important business and social functions.” Where was this little gadget before my panel??!?
I will BeDazzle my bidet briefcase. I will spend all year BeDazzling it, and when I get to AWP 2011, I will be the most confident writer in the room. What worries me is that people might be reluctant to shake my hand, or hug me, when I am carrying my bidet briefcase. This makes no sense because I will actually have a superior level of cleanliness. Perhaps I can write this in jewels across the case-top: FEEL FREE TO SHAKE MY HAND, I AM ACTUALLY CLEANER THAN YOU ARE.
Publication is Not Necessarily a Privilege but it Certainly Is Not a Right
There is a lot of advice out in the world about what it takes to be a good writer but two rarely discussed qualities are maturity and patience.
In my twenties, I was convinced of my genius as a writer and when my work wasn’t being accepted by literary magazines, I was quite certain editors didn’t understand my writing or my project and I subsequently assured myself that the literary world was full of pretension, and held no promise for me. I was severely misunderstood.
I do not know how much of that attitude I have abandoned but I would like to think I’ve matured.
Blake Butler—
Wish I read French so I could buy these books, even if I already have some of them in English: éditions è®e. Also, been thinking about the act of translating, and how much one might do without a speaking knowledge of the language: how effective could you be just using sound and dictionaries and ideas?
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Justin Taylor—
Slate is claiming an exclusive on this list of “The words David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary.” So if that’s something you’d like to know about, you can know about it now.
