The Appalling Volume of Artifacts
WSJ: Does this issue of length apply to books, too? Is a 1,000-page book somehow too much?
CM: For modern readers, yeah. People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore and people need to get used to that. If you think you’re going to write something like “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Moby-Dick,” go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don’t care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different.
In Memoriam Blake Butler (1979-2009)
on the train... receding, receding, receding.... (sniff, sniff)
Yes, sadly, Blake Butler passed away last night. The omnipresent electronic friend-of-everyone expired in an insomnia-induced rage of language and, like the Monty Python parrot in that famous sketch, is now an ex-Blake.
No more, alas, will schoolboy-grinning Blake Butler apocalypse creation in every sentence. No, strike that! In every phrase! No, strike that! In every syllable.
Make room now O Pantheon of young ones ripped from us far too early. Jesus, move over. Joan of Arc, a little to the left. Catullus, get your cock out of JFK’s ass. And give Blake some space. (and Seth, quit gawking).
And, Mr. Chicago pastry-delicacy chef get your ass in gear (so safe on earth) and start on something. Seth was a swan– what will you make of Blake? A peanut butter rabbit? A marshmallow weasel? A treacle beagle? woof-woof!
And just thinking now of Man’s Best-Friend I am bawling. Bawling, bawling, bawling.
What internet void has our great leader Blake Butler left? What cold and massive black hole of rubbish will form around his e-grave?
And, no, Blake Butler is not dead. This is a fake obit.
And I’d like to see more actually. Bring them on.
Greener (and sweeter) pastures now-- bawl, bawl, bawl,.....
Cowering Literary Peons
This post’s a bit apples and oranges. Or rotten bananas and rotten (or as we say “Vrot”) pineapples. In fact it’s not very organized. And it is a response, in a way, to Blake Butler’s 15 Towering Literary Giants.
But, what’s a Cowering Literary Peon??
—a weasel?
—an overrated supposed Giant?
—a talentless p.o.s.?
—a fucking weasel?
—a fraction and no more than a real Towering Giant who came before?
A mix maybe. Or maybe just one of the above. And again, this is all apples and bananas. Etc. Etc.
Rauan Klassnik—
Hello, I’m Rauan Klassnik. My themes are sex, death, violence, God. And love. Yes, I’m also laced, scarred, disfigured and healed by love. Today’s my birthday and my first htmlgiant post. Yeah!!
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Three Cheers for Blake!
Hey remember when Blake posted about how major publishing houses have basically stopped taking on challenging, innovative fiction? Well it looks like big publishing has Struck Back. From Our Man’s personal blog, posted last night-
Sign of good times, indeed. Blake joins a team that already includes Dennis Cooper, Tony O’Neill, Kevin Sampsell, uh me, The Great Short Works of Tolstoy, the Six Word Memoir series, and all those amazing philosophy re-issues originally published in the Harper Torch series. Welcome to the family, brother!
Special Butler+Harper Bonus Reminder: “The Copy Family” at Fifty-two Stories. Remember back when this happened? I think it’s when HP’s love affair with Homebutler began. Which incidentally reminds me that it’s been way too long since we touched based with Fifty-two Stories. Cal, if you’re reading this- I’m on it.
Massive People (13): Johannes Göransson
If I had to make a list of modern forces for the grossvoice, for the kind of language and propagation of a series of imagery and discussion that is continually underfunded or otherwise ignored, Johannes Göransson would being among those crowning the list. An editor and founder of the vital Action Books, as well as its web component Action Yes (both one of my favorite presses and online journals, publishing big voices such as Lara Glenum, Aase Berg, and a high # of books in translation), Johannes is also the author, so far, of three books of new mind and language: Pilot (Fairy Tale Review Press), A New Quarantine Will Take My Place (Apostrophe Books), and Dear Ra (Starcherone Press). This year Black Ocean released his translation of major Swedish poet Aase Berg, With Deer, one of many works in translation Göransson has put together.
Recently I sent a couple of questions Johannes’s way, and he responded in force, as might be expected, about the history of Action, the grotesque, Genet, and !!!!
15 ‘Towering Literary Artists’ Who Are Still Alive
By request, a list of 15 living writers who I would consider ‘towering literary artists,’ even though that phrase itself comes with the baggage of being a little silly, but still. These men and women all spit fire line by line, and have been doing so for many years, and continue to do so, as we speak.
This list, of course, is somewhat arbitrary in its compiling, as I just jotted down the first 15 towers that occurred to me, and there are many others that could have, should have appeared on this list, a list that likely could go to at least 30, maybe 50, and especially had I included authors with smaller yet still growing bodies of work. Here I stuck to people who mostly have published at least 8 books so far (I think here only one of them has less than that) (and if I opened beyond that this list would be easily twice as long right off the bat), and with a dearth of poets as I am not quite as done up in that area as in fiction, and therefore this list also clearly reflects my taste more than would a neutral and objective list of towering authors (i.e. a lot of people would easily switch out Lish for, say, John Ashbery, etc., or perhaps Diane Williams for J.M. Coetzee or Cynthia Ozick or John Barth): this therefore is more those who I feel towering among my own mind, in my history, but who also clearly have made their mark across the world at large. Feel free to comment and let me know all of those I left out, or make your own list, etc.
David Markson
William Gass
Massive People (12): Samuel Ligon
Samuel Ligon is most recently the author of the story collection Drift and Swerve, as well as the novel Safe In Heaven Dead. His stories have appeared in The Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly, New England Review, Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth, Post Road, Keyhole, Sleepingfish, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. He is also the editor of the most excellent Willow Springs, and teaches at Eastern Washington University’s Inland Northwest Center for Writers, in Spokane, Washington.
Beyond all that, Sam is simultaneously one of the most laid back and yet enthusiastic editors I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He is, above all else, an excellent person, while also managing to be a hell of a writer. He seems to me a model for what a person in the world of language should be: courageous and yet open minded, enthusiastic and yet no nonsense, giving, attentive, rad. Wise blood, as it were, and most certainly a massive person.
Over the past few weeks I had the pleasure of talking with Sam over email about his new collection, his inspiration, music, the influence of Willow Springs on his work, and much more.
Poetry! In MOTION!
Hey nerds! Guess what I did this weekend? I played BASKETBALL which is a sport! Also, I watched SOCCER which is also a sport! Also I watched GOLF which may or may not be a sport! but it probably is a sport!
Which got me thinkin about WASHINGTON WIZARDS POWERFORWARDS! Mostly Oleksiy Pecherov but also Etan Thomas! He has a book of poetry called ‘More Than an Athlete‘ which I can totally relate to because while I am a WRITER I am MORE Than a Writer! I am also a man who can make an occasional lay-up (that is when you shoot the basketball from very close range off of the backboard and it goes through the hoop and then you get a high five!) and an occasional grilled cheese sandwich!
Other favorite books of poetry by athletes:
Mike Tyson – Heartsongs
Charles Barkley – Every Angel is Turrible
Tiger Woods – Dare Thy Fearful Symmetry: Poems About Augusta
Darryl Strawberry – Strawberries in Heaven: Translations from Grzegorz Musial
Nice work gentlemen! If only Lauren Conrad could hoop it up; she’d be the ultimate TRIPLE THREAT!
Massive People (11): Peter Cole
Peter Cole is the editor of Keyhole Magazine and Press, an entity that has gone from start up beginnings to massive and all over perhaps quicker than any other literary magazine that has ever existed. Based out of Nashville, Keyhole is not only a magazine, a website, a press for full length books, it also continues to push its horizons with any way it can get words into peoples hands, such as the Nashville is Reads project, which tapes poems to random locations in publics, and Keyhole Digest, freely distributed online and in real life.
In around 2 years they’ve released 7 full length print issues, maintained a steady flow of content on their website, released a full length book (William Walsh’s fantasticly odd and oddly moving Questionstruck) with plans for many more already lined up, several chapbooks, contests… so much output I can hardly even remember to list it all.
I asked Peter if I could ask him some questions about the start up of Keyhole and its ever expanding umbrella, and he kindly agreed.