Rauan Klassnik fondles Seth Abramson
Before Rauan Klassnik joined the team here at HTML Giant, he did a little blogging in the realm of parody with a stream of posts that involved, in a semi-veiled way, the recently hotly discussed character of Seth Abramson.
Rauan provides the adventures of Sex Ableton.
They are pretty graphic, and obscenity laden, and freely riff of Sex’s wife and cock and etc, but also delve further, in the way much of Rauan’s work does, to larger ideas of identity, fucking, and, yes, love.
Here’s an excerpt:
She drops to her knees. Unzips him. There in the moonlight. In the corn.
And two hairless testicles pop out at her.
O, how cute, she exclaims, you wax!
But where’s the cock? she ponders.
And then it hits her: a house mouse cock!
O, My God she exclaims so loudly that the breath from the elongated twangy syllable she made of the word “God” swept over Sex’s balls and on to his tiny hidden cock. And it all tingles. Tingles like all the stars. All the stars crushed into a dot. A scorched waiting primordial dot.
It was as though the hand of God or some other great power or creature had touched them. He was petrified. Primary. Excited beyond the capacity of anything that measures. Mass or girth. Demons or Colin Firth.
Against Transparency
It’s become a pretty popular complaint here and elsewhere: writers getting upset because there’s a literary magazine or journal who isn’t being up front about who they are and how they work. The primary complaint seems centered around the idea that editors should make themselves known to their potential writers and readers, so as to supposedly more clearly define the way the selection of work goes down, as well as lend some manner of culpability to the ramifications thereafter. As in, an editor can’t be a cock in a rejection letter, or have a real big backlog of responses waiting, without the attached weight that this will then affect their ‘reputation’ in the community. This is supposed to, I think people think, clean up on the editorial end any possible wrongdoing or ill treatment. When editors don’t do this, certain types like to claim they are “hiding behind” something, or otherwise somehow not operating on some kind of common ground of lit creation.
Who gives a fuck?
Treating Poetry Like it Matters: A Hearty Cheers
I want to get this up here before MEAN WEEK kicks off tomorrow. It’s a rider-thought attached to the previous post where I mentioned in passing that a Knopf publicist sent me a few poetry books this week. I don’t want to leave our readers here with the mis-impression that I was merely gloating over having been gifted with free stuff. Indeed, all three books were sent to me because I requested them, on the promise of consideration for review–a promise I intend to honor in all cases. But the interesting thing is how I found out about the books in the first place. Lena, the publicist in question, may or may not be a regular reader of HTMLGiant–I don’t know. But I do know that she decided to get in touch after reading Michael Schaub’s “Any Wonder We Tried Gin” post, which mentioned the poet Philip Levine. She wrote to say hello, mentioned that Levine has a new book of poems out, News of the World, and invited me to an upcoming reading in Brooklyn. Presumably, she wrote to me and not Schaub because she’d done enough leg work to know that I live where the reading was happening, and he doesn’t. Point for her. In any case, I couldn’t go to the reading, but I offered to take a look at the book, and invited her to keep me posted on Knopf-related poetry stuff. Since that time, not quite 10 days ago, she’s suggested a few other books she’s working on that I might be interested in–didn’t get irritated or write me off when I said no to stuff–and invited me to at least one other event. As it stands today, I now have three books to look at- the Levine, Marie Ponsot’s new collection, Easy, plus an oral biography of Robert Altman that I absolutely cannot wait to dig into (The NYT loved it) and which you, gentle reader, should expect to hear about at some length in the days and weeks to come. Lena has done an amazing job of making me feel like I–as a blogger–and poetry–as an art form–matter, two things which are more or less unheard of for a major press in these sad times (except of course at HarperPerennial, the forward-thinkingest imprint at any outfit great or small, advertiser on this website, and happy home of yours truly). The result of her efforts, which in total couldn’t have taken up more than fifteen minutes of her working week, is that I’m now not only inclined to actually read and thoughtfully consider three books I didn’t know existed this time two weeks ago, but my interest in Knopf has been piqued, and where and what that will lead to, who can say? Lena the publicist, a hearty cheers! Here, here!
Is Masocriticism the Only Way?
When I teach undergrad lit classes, I often start with a little chat about why we read, what poetry and stories do for us, or, in other words, why they are required to take the class. A few times, I’ve brought up the Kafka quote about a book serving as an ax for the frozen sea within us, or the Dickinson one about how she knows something is a poem if she feels like the top of her head has been blown off. Invariably, my students fail to see why either of these is a desirable outcome.
Yet there is certainly an enduring trend in some circles of reviewing and back-cover-blurbing wherein the highest praise for a book is how much injury it has done to the reader-critic. “That book destroyed/killed/frightened/destabilized/wrecked me” seems always to be a compliment. It’s trendy to say that reading oughtn’t be therapy, or comfort, or safety, or anything other than terribly, personally debilitating.
Is this mere trend, a new way to say the same thing, or is it really this way? Are we all so desensitized that we’re happy for any kind of feeling? Or are writers (who tend to be the ones behind this particular brand of criticism) engaged in elaborate sm rituals, in which we get to be sadists when we write and masochists when we read? Is there room for reading good prose or poetry to act as a stopgap, however illusive and broken and temporary, against impending death, and betrayal, and loss?
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October 22nd, 2009 / 5:56 pm
October 22nd, 2009 / 5:56 pm
Circumcision
On our way to the Mall today (DC) we passed some Circumcision demonstrators holding up signs like “Circumcision Decreases Sensation” and “Circumcision is Torture.” And, indeed, Circumcision is a touchy subject with many interesting ethical pros and cums. But, honestly, when it comes to circumcision there’s only one legitimate question:
Does Circumcision make you a better or a worse writer? (it must have some effect, right ??)
If it makes you a worse writer then I want the procedure reversed. I want to be uncircumcised. And I want to talk to that cold-hearted bastard of a rabbi who took the knife to me 42 years ago and who therefore was no true patron of the arts.
If it’s better to be circumcised then great. And, thanks Reb (Rabbi). You did a great job.
And keep snipping !!!
Another dead person whose work I miss
Just let me sleep, woman!
So I’m making my way through this forthcoming Raymond Carver biography, and really enjoying reading it alongside Where I’m Calling From, the stories in which, I think, are arranged chronologically. It’s interesting to see how Carver’s ideas and fears manifest themselves on the page. I hadn’t read Carver for a few years, so most of the stories seem pretty fresh. Also, I’m really amused by his dialogue, which could’ve been taken from my own life. For instance, in “The Student’s Wife,” Carver writes:
“I’d like us both just to live a good honest life without having to worry about money and bills and things like that. You’re asleep,” she said.
“I’m not,” he said.
“I can’t think of anything else. You go now. Tell me what you’d like.”
“I don’t know. Lots of things,” he mumbled.
Well, tell me. We’re just talking, aren’t we?”
“I wish you’d leave me along, Nan.” He turned over to his side of the bed again and let his arm rest off the edge. She turned too and pressed against him.
“Mike?”
“Jesus,” he said. Then: “All right. Let me stretch my legs a minute, then I’ll wake up.”
In a while she said, “Mike? Are you asleep?” She shook his shoulder gently, but there was no response.
I mean, who hasn’t been there? Sometimes I just want to sleep and dream of sexy female robots and stealing a car and driving it down to Miami and joining the Hurricanes (a team I don’t even like, which makes the dream weirder) and picking off not one but two errantly thrown passes over the middle and returning them for touchdowns against hated rival Notre Dame, and I guess just not waking up to talk about life and stuff. Too much to ask at this hour goddammit?
But this post actually wasn’t about Carver or my aborted dreams of football glory. It was about the late John Leonard, who died late last year from lung cancer at the age of 69. Leonard’s book review section in Harper’s was always the first thing I turned to when I’d get the magazine. Guy always had quirky, wide-ranging book choices, and his reviews were beautifully written in their own right. Benjamin Moser has since taken over for Leonard, and I’m just having a really hard time getting excited for his New Books findings. It’s just not rocking. Anyone have any favorite reviewers?
Edge
Some writers (like me) need to be on edge to write and sometimes life just naturally gets ya so with weddings, funerals, fiery and rainy days. But sometimes you need to get yourself an edge. Manufacture it.
–Porn, music, drugs, exercise, sleep-deprivation, medication, meditation, masturbation, punching a wall, self mutilation, punching a dummy, travel, unsafe sex, hunting, gambling, binge eating, purging, murder, torture, puzzles.
who of yall needs this “edge” and what do y’all do to set yourself thusly? (just wondering on an early sunday morning in D.C. — was at the Mall last night and feeling quite patriotic. a bit edgy, actually,…..)
Swallowing &Now
Just got back from a long weekend at the &Now Conference in Buffalo. It was a great long trek with many heads and panels, focused on the termed ‘experimental’ end of things. Lots of discussion and reading going on and heads chomping. The social elements aside, here’s a report from the field of things I attended.
Creative Writing 101
Tuesday, 10/13. Shredded Text Day.
For Tuesday we read a few brief excerpts from Naked Lunch (Dr. Benway’s “aesthetic surgery,” and “have you seen Pantopon rose”) plus four selections from Gentle Reader! a collaborative book of poetry written by Joshua Beckman, Anthony McCann and Matthew Rohrer. If you’ve never heard of this book, it’s because it was privately (or, if you want to be a dick about it, self-) published by the three poets, and hence is not generally available. (I cadged a copy from Rohrer.) The poems are not written collaboratively–I don’t think–but they’re all unsigned, so you have to guess who wrote what. Also, each poem is an erasure of a Romantic-era text. There’s a key at the back. Since I don’t have the materials ready-to-hand (I’m posting this from a writers’ retreat in Breckenridge, CO, where I’m serving as writer-in-residence for the weekend) I can’t tell you much about the poems, other than that the one called “I Was Alive” is an erasure of Frankenstein, and that it was written by Anthony McCann–both of which things I know because McCann first published the poem non-anonymously in the Agriculture Reader.
Anyway, we didn’t do a lot of textual analysis, and so you won’t be getting the usual slate of close readings. I was more interested in presenting a variety of non-narrative forms, and in talking about the technical aspects of the processes used to create the works. Then we busted out the scissors, Sharpies, and photocopies, and got down to the good work of fucking shit up.
No User
Let’s talk about the cult of the anonymous comment. Seems like a significant portion of the comments in forums of this nature where someone actually comes out and says something directly criticizing another person for something they feel strongly about, it is done in an anonymous context. No link, no email, usually a goofy name. Being able to see the ISPs behind the comments, I can tell you that a lot of the time these comments come from people who had posted before while supplying their real name and links, and their veiling only began when they actually had something to say.
Which is, obviously, confusing, supposedly being a group of ‘writers’. [For the record I hate referring to people as writers, because every person is a writer. It’s like saying I’m a breather.] But these people who under the guise of the idea that they write regularly and more seriously than people who are just writing down grocery lists or whatever, it seems like these would be the kind of people most willing and fully ready to associate the words they are saying with their personas. Right? You are a ‘wordsmith,’ you say things that other people are supposed to want to listen to, so why go anonymous when you are actually saying something with some balls behind it?
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October 20th, 2009 / 11:15 am