Justin Taylor is the author of the story collection Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever, and the novel The Gospel of Anarchy. He is the editor of The Apocalypse Reader, Come Back Donald Barthelme, and co-editor (with Eva Talmadge) of The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide. With Jeremy Schmall he makes The Agriculture Reader, a limited-edition arts annual. He lives in Brooklyn.
When I lashed out at the shallow, willfully ignorant, and overwhelmingly useless NYT review of Jerk, some commenters–in particular a very nice guy named Sean Carman–challenged me to go beyond merely pillorying Neil Genzlinger for the miserable job he did*, and articulate some sort of affirmative vision of the piece and of Dennis Cooper’s work in general–what it means to me, a study of how it functions, and so on. I’m on-record any number of places about my admiration, respect, and enthusiasm for Dennis’s work–so that information is out there if people want it. With regard to Jerk in particular, I want to point people to this review by Kareem Estefan, published yesterday at the BOMB site, which I think says all the things I might have said, only better than I probably would have said them.
Vienne’s Jerk traces a receding path of voices, as scenes of traumatic memory play in the hands of the audience, on Capdeville’s knees, and finally, within the actor’s body. Do we get closer to understanding trauma as we follow this progression? Are we more or less capable of empathizing with the abused, repentant murderer as we read, watch, and listen to such disfiguring acts? Vienne, Capdeville, and their collaborators dismantle the psychic space of the subject much as Cooper jerks from fragment to fragment of an event that cannot be represented.
Estefan seems to be more or less all the things one hopes a critic will be–attentive, perceptive, engaged, and smart. His essay considers the work in all of its nuance: the adaptation of the short story into a performance-piece, the staging of the work in the very basement-y PS122 theater-space, and of course the performance itself. His goal is not to force an up or down vote, as thought the work were an American Idol contestant; he endeavors rather to understand the work on its own terms, and to communicate that understanding for the benefit of his reader. This is the best piece of criticism of Jerk I’ve read yet, and I encourage all of you to read it. This is the first time I’ve read anything by Kareem Estefan, but he’s on the radar now, so hopefully we’ll be hearing from him again soon.
Also, for those of you who expressed an interest in learning more about Cooper’s poetics, you should let him tell you in his own words. This conversation between Blake Butler and Dennis Cooper, conducted by Alec Niedenthal at a cafe in the East Village and posted to our site late last night, is phenomenal. I was sitting at the table, in delighted silence, for an hour while these guys talked shop–it was magic, and that feeling seems to have survived transcription.
*[UPDATE: that post has been removed from this site. A lot of people thought I shouldn’t have posted it in the first place, and still others urged me to take it down. While my position on the review hasn’t changed at all, I’ve decided that everyone was better off without that ugliness in the world.]
Hey this is new and interesting. Also, attractive! Meet Maggy Poetry, a new journal edited by Alina Gregorian, Allison Power, and Adam Fitzgerald–three people whose first names all begin with “A.” Is this how they came to agree on an alphabetical arrangement for their issue? (It’s by last name, but still.) The journal is a perfect-bound 8.5 x 11 volume with a handsome cover–you might reasonably mistake it for an issue of Purple or Flaunt (except that it, duh, the cover says Maggy on it)–and a very impressive and varied list of contributors. Some of the biggest “Names” are John Ashbery, Timothy Donnelly, Jeff Clark, Mark Strand, Fanny Howe, Alice Notley, and Matthew Zapruder. (Just because they do the alphabetical thing doesn’t mean that I have to.) Of the up-and-comers, I was especially glad to see Bianca Stone and New Michigan Chapbook Prize-winner Ben Mirov. Plus translations! We get two Dante cantos from Mary Jo Bang, and some of Richard Zenith’s Fernando Pessoa. Oh and did I mention the previously unpublished James Schuyler poems? Holy Christ there’s a lot to be excited about here. How they’re doing it for ten bucks an issue is beyond me, but that’s not my problem anymore than it is yours. The point is, they’re doing it. They did it. It’s here. You should get it over to where you are, but if you’re still not convinced, look below the fold for some samples from the issue, hand re-typed with love and a hearty cheers to The A Team on the occasion of their auspicious and promising debut. (And with apologies about the space-breaks, which are represented by _ marks–please just ignore them, and know that in the actual issue they aren’t there.)
Top of The Rumpus today is our own Alec Niedenthal on Kevin Sampsell’s A Common Pornography.
Homeboy-in-chief Kyle Minor wrote a massive piece on “A Kidnapping in Haiti” that went up yesterday. You should make time for it.
Ronnie Scott, editor of The Lifted Brow (which we’ve been excerpting all week here) has a long interview with Jonathan Lethem.
Also, New Yorkers, don’t forget that the Giant/Rumpus Event is tonight at Broadway East.
Love!
Hey remember that time something happened about laughing at a poetry reading in New York? Me either. But Craig Santos Perez does. And he sees a connection between Laughter-gate ’09 and the death of flarf–except flarf isn’t actually dead, or something. The best thing about the Perez blog post and/or its comments section–wherein a bunch of smart, otherwise interesting people conspire to take all their (and your) time and energy and drown it in a bathtub of pointlessness–actually occurs in the very first sentence, where Perez links to Dan Hoy’s epic study of flarf from Jacket 29. But again, I stress that flarf isn’t the issue here–nothing is the issue here. There is no issue here. So don’t click the link and don’t read the post. Read Dan’s old essay. Or, if you’re desperately spoiling for a fight, have it about Emerson. That horrendous article that Ken linked to earlier has been drawing fire all day. Our own thread-regular Mather Schneider is tearing it up over there, and I’m on-record as well. No word from the piece’s authors. Yet.
"The Hand of the Desert" by Michelle Blade
Today’s selection from The Lifted Brow #6 is a collaborative short story by Deb Olin Unferth and Clancy Martin. Seriously, what else could you possibly need me to say to you about that? (Except maybe to remind you again that Deb is reading tomorrow night at Broadway East, with me and Tao Lin and several other fine folks, to celebrate the Rumpus 1 Year Anniversary.) Okay, “Nicaragua” begins below.
After the Revolution, when we all live in sustainable green skyscrapers, are insured, and publish our genius works of genius in the all-powerful well-paying collective literary magazines whose basic architecture Alec Niedenthal and I sketched out in the comments on Roxane’s post yesterday, and people like Paul Wolfowitz have all been eaten by wild dogs, we will all sit around and laugh about the Bad Old Days when the IMF’s solution to an apocalyptic earth quake in Haiti was to call for them to freeze public wages. Way to stay classy, neo-liberalism.
Friends, I am incredibly excited and thrilled to announce that this week we will be posting stories from the current issue of The Lifted Brow, fantastic Australian biannual that you must know about if you don’t already. We’ll start things off with a GIANT favorite- the great Christine Schutt. Her story is called:
L I T T L E C A Y M A N
The six-seater plane wobbled onto a back-lot ugly island leeched of colour, the shrubbery burnt. The airstrip was no longer than a city block. The passengers, all three, measured most distances by city blocks. Two men and a woman, they were from New York and travelling together. They were past youth but anyone’s guess how near old age. The woman put out a hand to be helped from the plane, but once on the ground, her manner was hectic. Surely being short, with its many disadvantages, had made her this way. The oldest of the passengers—if grey hair counted—was called Danny. “Danny,” asked the woman, “Shouldn’t there be someone here to greet us?” And the other man, who had no distinguishing features and was not addressed by name, reassured the woman that a ride to the club had been arranged.
“I’m glad somebody thought ahead,” the woman said.
“We’re here by invitation,” Danny said. But the sky was a haze that pressed down on them, and the low, unvarying vegetation was yet another of the island’s limitations. Brittle grasses broke underfoot; the windsock sighed. “So,” Danny said, “this is Little Cayman and that,” he said, “must be our ride.”
Even as the prop plane puttered up and away, a predacious jeep in camouflage was suddenly bounding toward them. The driver’s prominent knees knocked around as he jounced nearer, waving extravagantly, in a manic shirt, shouting, “What took you so long?”
The three travellers only saw who it was when the driver was rattling in neutral: here was Uncle Johnny come for them agrin—and it made sense to the three travellers, now they understood the windburned landscape, the breathless heat.
It’s actually probably more like Rumpus/Giant, but that doesn’t make a coherent sentence. Anyway, as you may or may not already know, we are co-sponsoring The Rumpus 1 Year Anniversary Party, which will be held at Broadway East on Thursday. There will be readings: Deb Olin Unferth, Tao Lin, Rivka Galchen, Stephen Elliott, and that guy Justin Taylor who wrote that book of stories with the long, silly title that nobody can remember. Not that they’d want to. (Though I hear he’ll be reading from it for the first time–which *could* be interesting. I mean, theoretically.) Also, the great Jeffrey Lewis, Alina Simone, and Diane Louvel will make music. Gigantic-editor/NOON-contributor Lincoln Michel will DJ, and just to be on the safe side, Khaela Maricich from The Blow will also DJ. Video art. What else? Girls, probably. I mean at least two of the people I’ve already named are girls, and I didn’t even mention Rumpus-regular Rozalia Jovanovich yet; she will be hosting the festivities. So there you go–we’re talking at least three girls.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mDbNYqio1g&
There’s a new issue of the Home Video Review of Books. The above clip is the middle installment of the HVRB’s three-part review of We Take Me Apart by Molly Gaudry. Also reviewed in this issue: Graham Foust, Angela Veronica Wong, Brenda Ijima, and more.
Don’t forget The Rumpus Sunday Books Supplement. Direct your attention especially to Elissa Bassist’s Imaginary Interview With Elaine Showalter.
Jezebel takes a look at Best Sex Writing 2010, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.
Another standout is Betty Dodson’s “Sexual Outlaw,” about her post-menopausal discovery of a lesbian S/M support group: it’s both a powerful refutation of the notion that women over 50 aren’t sexy, and a sexy exploration of the idea that fucking is all about power. And Janet Hardy’s “The Portal,” about fisting, fingering, and general vagina appreciation, is dirty fun (example: “I do, however, like men. And since they don’t have cunts, we use mine.”).
Slate’s Troy Patterson says “Conan should have seen it coming.” Patterson also offers a Top 10 list of “fun facts” about the history of the Late Night wars.
4. When it seemed possible that Letterman might unseat Leno from Tonight, Leno consciously used monologue jokes about his relationship with NBC as part of a PR campaign, painting himself as a victim. Last week, when he joked, “What does NBC stand for? Never Believe Your Contract,” he was actually stealing 17-year-old material from himself.
There’s a new issue of Diode!
Over at the NYTBR, meanwhile, Ned Vizzini reviews a YA novel, Walter Kirn something something Sam Shepard, and Edmund White really likes Frank Kermode’s new book about E.M. Forster. Also, our buddy Stephen Elliott has an essay at the Times about The D.I.Y. Book Tour. After the dismissive in-brief review his book got a few weeks ago, this might at first seem schizophrenic on the Times’s part, but I think the correct way to read this is as a sign of health: that one critic’s opinion doesn’t sour the whole institution’s relationship with a given author. The Times is commended for their multiplicity of views, and encouraged to maintain this position w/r/t reviewing my book, in light (or, hopefully, not in light) of what I said about their other critic yesterday. Also, since turnabout is apparently fair play over there, when’s the Dennis Cooper op-ed coming? I’ll hold my breath if you hold yours. Whoever passes out first gets their picture taken.
Oh, and Jeremy Schmall passed this along to me. “Lit 101 Classes in Three Lines or Less.” He said his favorite is the Paradise Lost one. I personally prefer the one for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Roger Ebert has apparently been blogging for the Chicago Sun-Times. Who knew–or cared? I would have said “not me.” But then a friend forwarded me this post of Ebert’s about losing the ability–over the course of his battle with cancer–to eat and speak. “Nil by Mouth” is an incredible piece of writing. Ebert begins by detailing his situation, but the piece quickly becomes a meditation on memory, experience, repetition and loss. It’s an astonishing and impressive piece of writing. Will I go so far as to call it a Proustian reverie? Why the heck not?
I dreamed. I was reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, and there’s a passage where the hero, lazing on his river boat on a hot summer day, pulls up a string from the water with a bottle of orange soda attached to it and drinks. I tasted that pop so clearly I can taste it today. Later he’s served a beer in a frosted mug. I don’t drink beer, but the frosted mug evoked for me a long-buried memory of my father and I driving in his old Plymouth to the A&W Root Beer stand (gravel driveways, carhop service, window trays) and his voice saying “…and a five-cent beer for the boy.” The smoke from his Lucky Strike in the car. The heavy summer heat.For nights I would wake up already focused on that small but heavy glass mug with the ice sliding from it, and the first sip of root beer. I took that sip over and over. The ice slid down across my fingers again and again. But never again.
It’s a long piece. But my guess is that once you start it, you won’t want to stop. Also, this apparently wasn’t just a one-off strike of awesome. I’m now deeply immersed in the most recent post, “Making Out is its Own Reward,” in which Ebert remembers the days of universities acting in loco parentis with regard to attempting to enforce student-abstinence, the first time he ever saw a gay kiss in real life, and a whole host of other fascinating memories and bits of half-lost history. He tops things off with a selection of YouTube videos about how to kiss, how to make out, and related concerns. In the clip below, two Asian girls sitting on a flight of stairs teach you how to make a move in a movie theater.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMcI5eMs1JY&
Roger Ebert! Our awareness of your awesomeness is belated, and we apologize. We will be paying attention from now on. Cheers!