Lish on Cavett: A Task
According to his Wikipedia page entry, Gordon Lish appeared on the Dick Cavett show in 1991.
Dear readers, let’s us not rest until we have found a full transcript or video of that interview!
Power Quote: Gordon Lish
God, the only thing to do is to have a good laugh at the joke. Ha ha ha. You hear me laughing at the joke? I am laughing at the joke. Ha ha ha. I am having a good laugh at it. Ha ha ha. “This is me.” “This is you.” Ha ha ha.
–Zimzum
O Captain, My Captain: Lish Power Quote #3
Work on your blanks.
– Arcade, p. 172
Tables of Contents for The Quarterly, issue 1 – 25
THE QUARTERLY
_________________________
16 / Winter 1990A Nace Page 2
Cecile Goding / The Big Dog 3
Gary Krist / Bone by Bone 8
Dom Leone / I Have a Stapler 21
Leon Rooke / Drivers 22
Jaquelyn Reingold / Freeze Tag 24
Sam Michel / The Naming 49
Patricia Lear / Solace 59
Richard Blanchard / Dear Miss Wright 105
Barbara Blewer / I Am Safe and Live at Home 106
Thomas Wooten / The Other Side, Radiant 118
Rolf Nelson / The Men on the Ground 123
Dawn Raffel / Table Talk 135
Hugh Kelleher / John, Barney, Van 138
J. R. Rodriguez / Eating the Father’s Penis 140
Lisa Wohl / Magnificat 143
Diane Williams / Four Fictions 152
Christine Schutt / Two Fictions 156
Sandra Stone / Soup of the Evening 160
Rick Bass / Susan 162
Tom Whalen / Murder Story 188
Peter Christopher / The Year of the Purchase 191Another Nace Page 194
Cooper Esteban 195
David Kirby 205
John Allman 206
Marjorie Milligan 209
E. Ormsby 210
Bruce Beasley 213
Al Ortolani 217
Elizabeth Lerner 219
Lynne H. Decourcy 220
Jim Paul 221
Ansie Baird 222
Shahid Hoda 223
M. D. Stein 224
Maurice Eidelsberg 226
Blake Nelson 227
Gregory H. Johnson 228
Ray Halliday 229One More Nace Page 230
Harold Bloom to Q 231
John S. P. Walker to Q 235
Jason Shinder to Q 236
Sharon Korshak to Q 238
Dom Leone to Q 239
William Myers to Q 242The Last Nace Page 246
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December 24th, 2008 / 1:20 am
December 24th, 2008 / 1:20 am
O Captain, My Captain: Lish Power Quote #2
Here is what I wanted. You know what I wanted? I wanted for me not to have to make believe I wanted something.
– Arcade, p. 156
O Captain, My Captain: Lish Power Quote #1
It’s like listening to something nobody else is. Which is what it is when you’re supposed to be the author of it.
– Arcade, p. 136
Massive People (6): Cooper Renner
Knowing of the existence of Cooper Renner in the world makes me feel a little better a lot of days. For all the baggage that comes along with certain types of figureheads or editors, Cooper is not only one of the quickest and most likable sorts of people around, he also has carried the aesthetic of the online lit journal elimae into a benchmark not only for great online writing, but for post-Lish, sentence-driven new work. Elimae, created and launched by Deron Bauman, has been under Renner’s care since the end of 2004, and continually updates once each month with slews of the new. Cooper also is involved with Ravenna Press, who has released books by Kim Chinquee, Norman Lock, Brandon Hobson, and many others important language-driven authors.
In addition to all this, Cooper is also a writer doing the new, with a recent book out of his own poems, Mosefolket, some of which appeared in Lish’s the Quarterly.
A truly massive person (fit in a small frame) I talked to Cooper about a lot of the above, including his editorial leanings, correspondences, future works, and so on.
1. You were in the Quarterly years ago and I believe had mail correspondence with Lish at points? How did his enterprise or presence or etc. affect you as a writer? Who else has affected you?
I am still in contact with Lish. In fact I had a postcard from him either yesterday or Monday. We write back and forth pretty much all the time. I’ve talked to him a few times on the phone, but we’ve never met in person. Most of our contact is on the page. Gordon and Deron Bauman are the two folks who really showed me how to edit my own stuff, zeroing in on the strong language rather than what I ‘wanted to say’. They taught me how to divorce any sociological idea of content from the artistry of how the words work.
More after the break…
New York Tyrant will eat your eyes
New York Tyrant launched their new website this week. It is a very tasteful flash affair jam packed with insane shit and new info, including the aforementioned new issue with the greatest cover ever, which is as such:
Yes, that is Chris March from Project Runway in a bear suit. Fuck yeah.
The line up on the new issue is kind of a feat in and of itself I think: Alex Balk, Eugene Marten, Jason Schwartz, Eva Talmadge, Gordon Lish, Atticus Lish, Sam Michel, Brad Gayman, John Haskell, Cooper Renner, Michael Scott Ryan, Oscar Williams, Ryan Call, Blake Butler, Julian Zadorozny, Ronald Hobbs, M. Thomas Gammarino, Conor Madigan, R.E. Bowse, Justin Taylor, Julian Kudritzki, Pasquino, Greg Mulcahy, M Sarki, S.G. Miller, Joshua Furst, David Nutt, Sarah Manguso, Patrick Leonard, Jeffrey Lewis, Thomas a Kempis, Jody Barton.
You can now order the issue from the site, which I suggest you do soon, as the last two have sold out before they could really even make it on the web.
Also unveiled in the site is the forthcoming Tyrant Press, which will feature titles from Eugene Marten, Michael Kimball, and Brian Evenson. Already a legend and they haven’t published the first book yet.
In addition to all this, submissions have reopened, so all of ya’ll who submit, should get on it. And buy. Buy the issues, esp. if you never have. Don’t be the guy sending blindly to anyone who will read your electronically.
elimae’s Reading List in Archives
Randomly stumbled on an old list of Recommended Reading from the elimae archives, including lists of recommendation by Deron Bauman, Brian Evenson, Michael Kimball, Norman Lock, Dawn Raffel, B. Renner, M Sarki, and several excellent others. The lists form a pretty wonderful net of texts many of which I have loved, and many others I’ve never heard of or have meant to read. I added I think 5 things to my Amazon wishlist off of it. Worth exploring.
A preponderance of Cormac McCarthy reemphasizes the fact that if you haven’t read BLOOD MERIDIAN and SUTTREE by now, well, fuck, get to work.
Deron Baumann, oddly, refers to BLOOD MERIDIAN though specifically only wants pages 5-165, which is about as far as I got the first time I tried to read it. It’s a dense mother. But now that I’ve read it twice and change, and still not quite having absorbed a lot, I have to say, the images near the end with the child in the desert hiding from the Judge as he passes back and forth into the sand are one of the images that has haunted me most in all my reading ever.
Other names that appear on the lists rather frequently: Gordon Lish, Samuel Beckett, Amos Tutuola, Italo Calvino, Diane Williams. Though there is also a lot of hidden nuggetry and apocrypha.
This is a good puzzle, in a way, I love these kinds of lists. I want more.
So, not sure what to read next? You probably can’t go wrong with most of what’s on here.
Old elimae is like scrolls: if you’ve never dug from the early years, jeez. Go.