Forty Stories from Harper Perennial
Fifty-Two Stories, as you might know, has dropped forty at once (downloadable now as a free PDF, and as a free ebook on July 17). The forty include sick fictions from Lindsay Hunter, Shane Jones, Scott McClanahan, Catherine Lacey, Kayden Kross, Blake Butler, Brandon Hobson, Roxane Gay, Adam Wilson, Kyle Minor, +30 more![!!] Somewhat related: has anyone ever walked into a physical bookstore to acquire a free ebook? Did you get your free Slurpee on 7/11/12?
Clancy Martin and Amie Barrodale’s “On Bathing” Column @ VICE
A new column, “On Bathing,” at VICE follows Amie Barrodale & Clancy Martin around the world as they explore bathhouses in a variety of exotic locations. So far it’s full of nuggets like, “When I entered the steam bath for the second time I walked in on some poor guy jacking off.” Tune in:
Week 1: Amie Barrodale and Clancy Martin at the Russian Bathhouse
Week 2: Dirty Water Dogs
While you’re at it, the 2012 VICE Fiction Issue is mostly online now, and includes a grip of familiar faces: Michael Kimball, Robert Lopez, Tao Lin, Amelia Gray, Paul Maliszewski, etc.
An Attempt at an Unedited Transcript of Thought Processes Preceding the Purchase of Grow Up by Ben Brooks
KRAMERBOOKS
1517 CONNECTICUT AVE NW
WASHINGTON DC 20036
05/29/12
10:34:54 A.M.
what is that? that is eye-catching. what is this cover? i like this cover. oh. ben brooks. i know ben brooks. this is a great cover. the skull + clown makeup + clown nose + Xed out eyes + Clockwork Orangey hat. i think. “cross out the eyes.” someone had posters of tom morello and britney spears and he Xed out both their sets of eyes and it was funny, and ironic in the case of tom morello because he actually admired him. oh. dennis cooper. good vibes. this blurb is punchy. one single solid blurb. a novel. a novel. white on black. grow up. hmmmm. little penguin in the corner. is the font for “Ben Brooks” the same for “Dennis Cooper” and do they differ from the red of the clown nose. little penguin in the corner. black and white on orange. $14.00. damn. independent bookstore though. $14.00. damn. square author photo. “careens.” “teenage debauchery.” the design here, the package. “Ben Brooks is a magical imp…” that is a bad-ass cover. $14.00. “Ben Brooks is a magical imp who pumps out dark nuggets…” “get high with friends, finish his novel [this novel?], alleviate his best friend’s suicidal depression, seduce…” “…dark nuggets of poetry…” wait a second. i think i actually met ben brooks. pretty sure i met him at the pop serial party at AWP chicago and said “aren’t we facebook friends” and he was like “i wouldn’t know, i have over 1000!” what the fuck. gloucestershire? fuck this shit. maybe that was someone else. actually, pretty sure that was someone else. oh, a quote from Los Campesinos! is that like Against Me! or something? pretty sure i saw them at Warped Tour as a child. hmmmmm, checking phone:
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Ill I’ll OK For Ilk 4
It’s easy to ignore a heat wave when you’ve got the big questions. Such as: can’t people be wrong about why they believe things? But even big questions aren’t foolproof. There are storytellers, fuckers, etc. Get caught in the wrong heat and you turn all hymn of the yawn you. Swedes start calling things thigh cookies, and others engage in the practice of mapping and naming lunar mountain ranges. So this is a heat for you to fit yourself under yourself, for green honey in the heart. For us to start saying things like “When I say you are my one and only I mean it in the way I mean it when I say I know how to change a tire.” For ramming into the blank and unblinking of heat with a wishful thinking wrought in anti-oppression declarativeness: “The quality of rain is that it occurs first of all where we are.” Wingspans become appetites, the future becomes a mystery school for adults. The grocery store becomes the grocery stores from all your favorite movies. Your horse becomes a horse you would like to have pictures with, and cereal bars a stand-in for affection. Last time I checked, this is an upturned-pocket kind of world, and why would you keep your matches in a world like that?
Someday Everything Will Matter: Shit Fancy Writers Say
When I read interviews with fancy, famous writers, I am somewhat bewildered. These writers discuss craft and process and influence in near-spiritual terms as if they exist on an alternate plane where they are perpetually able to articulate profundity. There’s writing and there’s being a writer and the more success you achieve, the more you have to spend your time being a writer—being interviewed, writing op eds and essays, getting your picture taken, coming up with pithy lists of what you are reading or cooking or how you are spending each hour of the day and maybe, just maybe, writing new books. All this business of being a writer must have some purpose. There must be an audience with an insatiable desire for the marginalia and minutiae of famous writers or it might be that this is part of the game—write book, sell book, sell book, sell book.
There is writing and there is being a writer and you can’t have one without the other. Helen Dewitt, author of Lightning Rods, alludes to this in a comment on the Paris Review blog when she notes that, “the industry requires the professional to put writing on hold not just for a day or two, or a week, but for years,” and that after he wrote Freedom, “Franzen then had to do a roadshow to shift copies of the artifact. The fact that his editor saw him as the most important writer of his generation did not mean that his editor thought his time would better be spent (gasp) writing.”
It must be exhausting being a writer, all that blah blah blah. I read interviews with fancy, famous writers and wonder, “Do they ever watch television or are they spending that valuable time thinking up intelligent answers to interview questions?”
Oprah’s Book Club Two Point Oh
This afternoon, Oprah announced she was reviving her book club as Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. Her first selection is Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. What does this mean for most writers? Absolutely nothing! You can, though, resume your fantasies about being selected for the book club or line up your complaints about what Oprah is doing wrong and that’s pretty exciting.
Regardless, it’s great to see Oprah once again bringing attention to books. Hopefully, this time around, she’ll be more diverse in the titles she picks.
ii ii uh o
After reading the new issue of iO, I know some new things. Like some people will forgive you right to your face. Like every pier is out to get you. Like animals get into the distillery just fine. Like one thing you do is you want to hear someone say “that’s the one I want.” And the other thing you do is you know that, as you age, your desires start to feel less unusual. Then the way you know it’s real is when no one’s dreamed about you so much, or told you they dreamed about you so much, and in such detail. The way it is is a sad song about oranges. No one really cares about germs. The world moves even if you don’t take it out for a walk. My cereal tastes funny does your cereal taste funny? Some things I still don’t know, even with iO to help me. I still don’t know what roll tide roll means. Or how many corporations does it take, anyway, to make a dark that shreds the citydark like a bed of incriminating documents? How many years does running in the wrong direction become, if not right, at least something people stop niOticing?
Pop Serial No. 3 Contributor Quiz
Hi. Stephen Tully Dierks here. The third issue of Pop Serial is being serialized online here. A print edition is forthcoming. The magazine also has a regularly updated tumblr with news and things concerning past, present, and maybe future contributors.
The third issue features writing and/or visual art by the following people: Tao Lin, Luna Miguel, Ben Brooks, Sam Pink, Steve Roggenbuck, Blaise Larmee, Frank Hinton, Timothy Willis Sanders, Richard Chiem, Ana Carrete, Crispin Best, Poncho Peligroso, Andrew James Weatherhead, Cameron Pierce, Shaun Gannon, Michael Inscoe, Cassandra Troyan, DJ Berndt, Madison Langston, Zachary Whalen, Liam Bjartrun Adams, Spencer Madsen, Elaine Sun, Jackson Nieuwland, Omar De Col, Stacey Teague, Meggie Green, James Duncan, Cassandra Nguyen, Marshall Mallicoat.
To celebrate, I asked random questions to friends of mine who were on gchat at the time. Omar De Col and I came up with some questions while intoxicated. I gave each person a choice of question. The vague topics/subjects from which to pick were: bloodthirsty Lappet-faced vultures; otters; poop; Omar De Col; fish butt-rape. Some people picked the same question as each other. Fish butt-rape was the most popular question. Below are the questions and responses.