“There are always new darknesses to rally against. But should I choose to revisit those old stories, the stories that dealt so specifically with that period of darkness, a darkness that almost took me but for the books that showed me what it was to survive, I know now how to write the ending.” — Chris Newgent with a poignant blog essay, “The Why Behind Vouched,” at Vouched Books
There’s a scene in that movie High Fidelity (based on the Nick Hornby book, I guess, which I didn’t read) where John Cusack’s character reveals to Dick, his record store employee (played quite brilliantly by Todd Louiso), that he (Cusack) was in the midst of reorganizing his record collection–in autobiographical order.
I’ve always loved that idea. READ MORE >
Norman Mailer’s apartment is for sale and I will confess that I just drooled a little while looking at these photos. Anyone have 2.5 Million?
photograph and photograph preparation by Jeremiah Gould
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” — Jessica Dovey “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bill Knott, perhaps in response to a suggestion on this site that he make his already-free digital editions of his books available as text files for convenience of e-reader types, published a first draft of mythkitty, a new selection of his poems, on his blogspot site. I copied it immediately to a text file, and sent it to my Kindle.
From Knott’s introductory notes to mythkitty:
The opening story in Levi’s The Sixth Day and Other Tales, “The Mnemogogues,” was my introduction to Levi. In it, Dr. Morandi, a young physician, arrives at his outpost in a small town in order to take the place of the aging Dr. Montesanto, who speaks to Morandi “about the defnitive prevalence of the past over the present, and the final shipwreck of every passion, except for his faith in the dignity of thought and the supremacy of the things of the spirit.”
Excited this morning to notice an update to the Calamari Press website listing four new forthcoming titles after somewhat of a hiatus, including: Gary Lutz’s Divorcer, Derek White’s ARK CODEX 0, and two debuts, A Mortal Affect by Vincent Standley and Sister Stop Breathing by Chiara Barzini.
"quote from Pasternak (if the poet's chair is not empty, beware)," Bill Knott, 2009 (media unknown)
Steven Breyak lives in Osaka, Japan. He writes:
Three months ago I sent in the final version of my manuscript to Amanda and Joseph at Caketrain. To celebrate this accomplishment I bought a PS3 and a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which I played for nearly every day until about a week ago when hackers completely shut down the Playstation Network, suddenly dumping me back into reality.
In the resultant silence, I returned to books, reading in two days the entertaining Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat, which I recommend. I read In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan during two consecutive lunch breaks at work. And then I reread a favorite, Stories in the Worst Way by Gary Lutz, to finally recharge myself.