i've been a shit

review a book, get another book which you could also review, i don't know, this shit could go on forever

2010-03-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

up at corduroy books is a generous, engaged review by weston cutter. thanks weston.

you should review my book too. know why? well, 'cause i'm gonna send you a free book, dummy!

courtesy of calamari press' liquidation sale, i currently have an extra copy of miranda mellis' THE REVISIONIST, peter markus' GOOD, BROTHER, james wagner's THE FALSE SUN RECORDINGS, and david ohle's MOTORMAN.

so if you're feeling foxy, post a review of ONE HOUR OF TELEVISION, link to it in the comments section, lemme know which book you want, and shoot me your address so's i can mail it out quick-like.

you can interpret 'review' however you like, and, of course, you are not obligated to have positive thoughts or be nice or whatever.

NO PARENTS, NO RULES.

zapped

2010-03-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

no brown for me this year. i will have to admire brian evenson's beard from afar. wasn't expecting anything, of course, as i ain't have a whole lot of an undergrad degree, but the fact that there was precedent gave me just a tiny shit-smudge of hope.

trying to decide that it's for the best. i mean, even the thought of loans on top of my loans makes my spine bend. but what now? obviously grad school doesn't guarantee you a job you're probably fucking your own ear if you even think about picking up a pencil etc., but at least i would've had the illusion of some kind of career path.

plus, my mom. oh god, my mom.

(sorry, mom. as long as your third child doesn't burn out as hard as the first two, we'll still be able to put you in a home when the time comes.)

i am shoot the moon & you can too

2010-03-01T16:10:00.000-08:00

this is obviously just a really good idea. derek makes probably the most beautiful books and also seems like just a completely swell guy. plus, all those excuses keeping you from having all of 3rd bed to hold to yourself forever and forever? gone. killed.

blood blister

2009-12-13T13:06:00.000-08:00

stoked! dennis cooper lists ONE HOUR OF TELEVISION as one of his top 15 fictions of 2009. thanks, dennis.

also, the lovely and generous j.a. tyler interviewed shane, blake and i and reviewed the book at the rumble. thanks, j.a.

also, i just finished BOONS & THE CAMP by david ohle, whose insides are as beautiful and fucked as its outsides. you should get it.

down is the new up

2009-11-18T19:00:00.000-08:00

they're here. they're here beautifulling up my head:

blake and shane are the loveliest. i feel newish.

hyyyype

it's a promo video, dummy.

2009-11-01T20:41:00.000-08:00

love fuck

2009-10-06T23:16:00.000-07:00

"To read One Hour of Television is to flip channels between a 50’s science film on the joys of nuclear prowess and a heist-driven road movie set in a late-imperialist apocalypse. In Born’s hands, all social code is a recipe for deadpan horror. Strained domestic tableaus are intimately wedded to carpet bombings and crowd control, and our best chances at intimacy arrive via gruesome medical emergencies. This book is in revolt against language as an anesthesia machine. It's in revolt against an empire in which any vote you cast necessarily ends up as a vote for genocide." - Lara Glenum, author of Maximum Gaga

"One Hour of Television's recurring headwounds make an apt symbol for the work as a whole; urgent and insistent, the oozing gauze on an otherwise lovely skull. Would that all flash fiction be this deadly." - Amelia Gray, author of AM/PM

PREORDER HERE, if you wanna.

butt: a contest

2009-08-31T10:45:00.000-07:00

DIAGRAM 9.4 is here, with my story, JACK TWIG IS THE EVIL PULSE OF CANADA. my earlier challenge still applies: guess the sentence, win my butt.

damn hungry hot

2009-08-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

i'm a little addicted to essays about gordon lish. there's a real good one right now by david mclendon in the collagist, dzanc's new monthly journal. you rock my world, david.

early review of ONE HOUR OF TELEVISION, from my boyfriend:

2009-08-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

"it's pretty good, for a girl."

i have permission from one university to apply to their MFA program despite not having finished my undergrad degree; wondering if i should just apply to some others at the same time without asking. that is probably a waste of money.

moving soon to an apartment where real adults now live. gross.

get out get out get out

2009-08-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

it's official: the canada magazine fund and canadian publishing assistance program are being merged to create the canada periodical fund, under whose new guidelines magazines with an annual circulation of less than 5000 will no longer be eligible for funding.

virtually all canadian literary, arts, and scholarly magazines have an annual circulation of less than 5000.

fuck you so hard, harper. i hope you make yourself a sandwich, and then go out to your porch to eat it, and then realize you have to pee and leave your sandwich outside while you pee, and then come back and take a bite of the sandwich but now it is full of bees.

ONE HOUR OF TELEVISION LIVES

2009-07-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

i am thrilled to finally announce that YEAR OF THE LIQUIDATOR, a new press by face-melters blake butler and shane jones, will be releasing my first book, ONE HOUR OF TELEVISION, in october of this year.

you can read an excerpt at the site, and preorder for a highly reasonable $10, if you like.

i still think this is really important.

2009-07-24T14:54:00.001-07:00

aaron carter.

let's talk about him. let's have a real, genuine, in-person and face-to-face conversation about aaron carter. let's rap. let's debate. let's open up the floodgates and let the words flow.

let's pull up a chair and just start chatting, naturally, like it came to us right then, in that moment: aaron carter. let's brew some tea while the talk is warming up. that way the two things can warm up together. aaron carter and the tea.

let's get passionate, but not too crazy, so we can still discuss aaron carter articulately. let's welcome newcomers to the kitchen, and let them stand there for a minute, in the doorway, listening, and then let's clue them in as to where we are, currently, re: aaron carter. if they have something to say, let's listen respectfully, as if they'd been with us in the kitchen, talking about aaron carter, the whole time.

WIKIKILL

2009-07-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

reading THE WAY THROUGH DOORS, FLET, WITTGENSTEIN'S MISTRESS, and SYNESTHESIA, a new manuscript by my main man jordaan mason, simultaneously. mmm my brain is butter.

i get paid monthly so there is always a little going crazy with the books. first victim: evenson's BABY LEG. it will always be hot, so get it.

moving in september means getting rid of some of these paper bitches. i see you, THE CORRECTIONS, sitting on the very bottom of the 40 books on my night table. i see you, THE CORRECTIONS, who sucked.

there are many good things in the pipeline and i can't get restarted until they come. plus i probably have leukemia, so it's not my fault.

my coworker doesn't like the way i eat blueberries but i think it's fine.

it's me, mario

2009-06-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

the results for DIAGRAM's 2009 innovative fiction contest are up. my story JACK TWIG IS THE EVIL PULSE OF CANADA was chosen as a finalist, schwang. it includes my favorite sentence i've ever written. if you can guess what it is when the issue comes out later this summer, i will send you a jpeg of my genuine ass, which you may disseminate in the manner of your choosing.

ook ook ook

2009-04-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

first! interviews! ever! up at GUSTAF and thunk. thanks, audun and ryan.

I WOULD UNDERSTAAAAAAAAND

2009-04-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

i received my contributor copies of GUSTAF in the mail on friday, which marks the first time i've seen my work in print. (i was technically in NO COLONY first, but i ain't seen that bitch in the flesh yet.) rad!

i like the issue a lot. brandon scott gorrell's story made me laugh out loud for real! and blake butler's itunes story is probably the only good thing about itunes, maybe? itunes keeps asking me to update it, but i won't. i never will, itunes.

hey, you wanna hear something else awesome? of course you do, silent gargoyles of the internet! at our last house show, the band played a cover of third eye blind's "jumper." yeah, we rocked that shit. oh, and that flute solo? that FACE-MELTING FLUTE SOLO? yeah, that was me.

you can also listen to other recordings from that show and from other shows! just back it on up to my roommate steve's website, yo.

no recess

2009-03-12T19:24:00.000-07:00

i wrote for six straight hours the other day and finished a story i've been working on for months and felt like a god. i've decided not to go back to school for now (probably for good. sorry, mom.) and i'm trying to learn how to be disciplined on my own and start writing daily again. it hurts real good.

can i just have a bunch of money so i can quit my job, with which i barely make rent every month anyway? thanks.

recently read: EVER, light boxes, i am going to clone myself then kill the clone and eat it

2009-03-02T19:34:00.001-08:00

man, i can't even. i am so fucking excited about these guys.

like a night night crawler crawling out in the yard

2009-01-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

two stories at opium magazine: EDEN GRAMMAR SCHOOL & COLLEGE right now and THE NATURAL TENDENCY OF SHOPPERS TO MOVE HORIZONTALLY coming up. these are pieces i submitted for the 7-line story contest and that i've now combined into the first page of a larger piece (as yet incomplete; lameness swells). you can start shit in the comment section.

in other good news, NO COLONY 2 is out, and i am in wicked company:

Isadora Bey
Kristina Born
Aaron Burch
Blake Butler
Luca Dipierro
Scott Garson
Rachel B. Glaser
Chris Higgs
Brandon Hobson
Edward Kim
Matt Kirkpatrick
Rauan Klassnik
Lee Klein
Darby Larson
Evan Lavender-Smith
Patrick Leonard
Eugene Lim
Sean Lovelace
Anthony Luebbert
Conor Madigan
Gene Morgan
Bryson Newhart
Christian Peet
Jennifer Pieroni
Kathryn Regina
Joanna Ruocco
Bradley Sands
Ken Sparling
William Walsh
Corey Zeller

i think i might have to quit my job when this and/or EVER comes.

recently read: romancer erector

2009-01-20T04:45:00.000-08:00

unbelievable. this book makes me wonder how good diane williams' ass is. it makes me jealous of the ass before i see the ass. i should say: i have a pretty great ass, but ROMANCER ERECTOR tells me that my ass is a small, discolored pucker next to williams' quarter-bouncing ass miracle.

"I parade around plenty, which means I do have the globular breasts." (30)

"I will kill you if you tell anybody I have no anal intercourse, no art treasures." (39)

what a complete bad(good)ass.

one thing that struck me was a certain use of exclamation points ("I miss you!-and I want to see you!" (66) / "I saw him!" (71)) which reminded me of my own, only superior to my own, obviously. i felt like a snake who sees another snake across the shared glass wall of their two aquariums and realizes the other snake is prettier/glowing/made of crystal.

EVERYONE DOES THAT

2008-12-30T22:40:00.000-08:00

blake butler is a jerk. i think i ordered four books off of his 2008 reading list already. what the fuck, blake butler.

SPD is a jerk. they have this awesome sale and then charge me 14 dollars for shipping because i live two hours north of the border and i figure i've already invested way too much in the transaction to turn back at that point. what the fuck, SPD.

barry graham is a jerk. until january 1st, if you preorder sam pink's I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF THEN KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT, he'll throw in all four achilles chapbooks currently in print. i think this is the worst because how do you even pretend to say no to that? you don't. WHAT THE FUCK, BARRY GRAHAM.

guys i need to buy underpants so bad

stop it

the bell jar, son

2008-12-23T15:29:00.000-08:00

i think the blogosphere is losing it a little. i just used the word 'blogosphere' which is a sign. i am losing it a little. yesterday i followed my mother around while she grocery shopped for ACTUALLY SIX HOURS. i don't understand. i don't even know how it happened even though i was there.

every time i come home i feel like i never left and i get all tight-chested and anxious and smoking a lot. this house is a creative dead zone. it's like in REBOOT when they're downloading a game and that big staticky column drops down over the block.

tomorrow i have to drive seven hours north to visit my grandparents and there will be even more snow and even less to do. maybe i'll break an arm tobogganing? that would be cool.

recently read: black kids in lemon trees

2008-12-18T12:56:00.001-08:00

i finally received/read shane jones' BLACK KIDS IN LEMON TREES the other day and pre-ordered LIGHT BOXES immediately thereafter. i am poor and have the sickness. shane is a funny dude and the way he writes about heads reminds me of david ohle. as of right now, there is still one copy left at powell's.

the next ml press trio should be waiting for me when i get home. i'm especially excited for sam pink's BE NICE TO EVERYONE. coincidentally, sam did the cover art for j.a. tyler's own EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING OF DEATH, which sounds rad and is now available from the achilles chapbook series.

dalkey archive makes me ashamed of my heritage

2008-12-10T16:18:00.000-08:00

i was about to order about a million books from dalkey archive press' holiday sale until i realized it's valid in the US only. thumbs down, dudes. there's still a few hours of daylight with which to read up here, you know.

she put the lime in the coconut

2008-12-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

i am at work and i can't work because my file's audio is missing and it's the weekend which i figured hey i'm not doing anything might as well make the cash but no one is going to reply to my email until monday and i can't leave for another 30 mins because i have to go collect a thing but no one will be home to give me the thing for another 30 mins.

it is snowing really hard outside. i think i just saw a snowflake come through the window, but probably not. i am still wearing my headphones from when i thought i was about to start listening.

shane jones wrote me a comment and it made me feel nice. isn't that gross? thanks, shane.

i think tonight i will do a ton of blow and crawl home in the cold and read SAMEDI THE DEAFNESS again. does it count as crawling if you only use your arms to pull you? if not, what is that?

luscious luscious

2008-12-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

whoa mud luscious press just announced their lineup for the first half of 2009 and, come on. david ohle + brian evenson + peter markus = my six-month subscription pays for itself on those three alone.

also blake butler's EVER is now available for preorder which i obviously also did. ("from in the light i touched the light/i knew the light grew mold inside me"? please.) it comes with a new free life.

I AM RICH I CAN HAVE WHATEVER I WANT

2008-11-22T23:57:00.000-08:00

i think i've figured out the structure of my next thing, which is good because if i don't write something soon i will pull all my back skin off and wear it over my face. i wanted it to be a novella but i think it is more likely a short story, but longer than my usual type. thinking about structure is maybe my favorite part of writing. in my life i get excited about planning and following through is less good. i am too lazy to be skilled at all of one thing. somebody should hire me as their story planner.

lots of things read recently, most notably NO COLONY 1, and i will get to it but jesus doing nothing is so shitty and exhausting.

but good news because unsaid took 'what is allowed' and no colony is having 'the delivery room.' i feel like things are maybe unmelting.

the soul is not a smithy

2008-09-13T23:56:00.001-07:00

david foster wallace has died. fuck fuck fuck

recently read: the singing fish, waste

2008-08-31T02:19:00.000-07:00

i ordered peter markus' the singing fish after reading brian evenson's essay in the latest issue of unsaid. it came on thursday and i sat on the porch and read it through in probably 20 minutes and it melted my face. markus tells the same stories over and over, each time from a minutely shifted angle. key phrases are repeated, especially in the endings, and you end up nodding and grinning like an idiot every time you recognize one of them. you stop reading; you fucking CHANT. the singing fish is your hymn and you believe.

the rest of markus' books are on their way.

maybe five hours later, i sat down again and read eugene marten's waste, which reading, i think, was damaged by the singing fish in the way that any reading of any book would be, so soon after the aforementioned face-melting. that is to say: i know that it was good; i know that it is (or will be) important to me as a writer; but i can't say how i feel about it yet, beyond that, apart from the fact that i really wish there was a carpet in this house that i could rake.

blazeVOX raffle & bake sale

2008-08-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

blazeVOX is 9000 smackers in debt to their printer, booksurge. they have been publishing innovative work for eight years, under the conceptual umbrella of what ron silliman calls "the post-avant," but really: who gives a shit about the aesthetic? they're an independent press and they need help. gaze into the sweet face of geoffrey gatza and buy a ticket or two, fuckers.

"Sam Pink gored his way to the center of the child Russell Edson"

2008-08-13T22:57:00.000-07:00

blake butler has blurbed sam pink's new book, I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF THEN KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT, forthcoming from paper hero press. if this blurb were a dude, he would be way fit. this is probably the first time i feel confident in saying that about a blurb.

the book is probably going to be fit too, if this poem is any indication.

how it's done

2008-08-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

if i say something like hey, hey man, t-RUST me, you do not want to see what went here before, are you the type fucker who wants to see or the type fucker who doesn't?

my type fucker is fun but maybe not completely healthy