Month: January 2017 (Page 5 of 6)

‘The digital is often framed as a site of contagion—one can contract fatal viruses (or send them). One can suffer the pollution of good ol’ American values—the allure of exotic chrome and pixels from the Silicon Valley proving altogether too enticing. Indeed, the Valley itself was once good ol’ American farmland, before wresting technological eminence from Route 128 in Massachusetts. But one can also “go viral,” become contagion itself; one can colonize digital space as imaginative playground and bend its offerings to one’s own designs, just like a virus; one can even farm online. If the digital can be named any one thing, it is ever-replicating multivalence, which passes from vector to human vector, becoming at once a thing and its antithesis, simulacrum and simulacra, sanctuary from danger but also danger itself.

‘Ashley Farmer’s The Farmacist suggests by its title an affiliation with digital contagion—perhaps as an offering, a written prescription for our complicated diagnosis. Yet there is nothing prescriptive about its approach. Rather than tease a dichotomy between good and bad contagions, Farmer forces her readers to rethink both the charming idealism of a tech-utopia, as well as the privileges afforded “authenticity,” or the real. After all, does the computerized drip-irrigation of a farm render it unreal? And how much of Farm Town—an interactive digital pastoral available via Facebook—actually remains constrained within that fabricated digital?

‘At one point, Farmer’s protagonist is wearing a mask, the classical marker of (in)authenticity: “But when I pulled it off,” she says, “my real face was absent. In its place: an arrangement of hashtags. Put it on again.” There is no cathartic reveal, no affirmation of the real versus the unreal, or triumph of one over the other. There is not even a change of state—the mask returns to the face. There are no truths resting, hidden, behind it. Yet Farmer’s tale resists modernist nihilism as well, and the mask’s failure to unveil truth, health, salvation, does not fatally condemn its wearer, nor her world.

‘Every action in The Farmacist is hemmed in by margins of error, as characters seek “an approximation of heaven,” or are entreated to “walk towards me in beta” (emphases mine), though these margins are perhaps less boundaries and blankspaces than liminal incubators. Early on, the narrator insists that “This Bird of Paradise is not a bird,” a play on Ceci n’est pas une pipe; but where Magritte’s distinction is between pipe and mere image of a pipe, a Bird of Paradise was in fact never a bird, and has only ever borne passing, somewhat idiosyncratic resemblance to a bird. Whatever its image, it is a full organism unto itself; approximations of heaven and walks in beta are not only loose scrawls within the margins of error, but vibrant non-Euclidean spaces in their own right.’ — Mika Kennedy

 

Ashley Farmer’s Site
The Digitally Absurd: The Farmacist by Ashley Farmer
Ashley Farmer interviewed @ The Rumpus
This Modern Writer: Alone in the Dark by Ashley Farmer
Buy ‘The Farmacist’

 

Ashley Farmer The Farmacist
Jellyfish Highway Press

‘Ashley Farmer’s The Farmacist, a meditation on the Facebook game, Farm Town, explores the realm where the “real” world buffets the imagination, and the conscious mind courts the subconscious iterations of desire and distraction. It investigates the liminal space between log on and log off, between rural and urban. Whip smart and empathetic, The Farmacist is fiction crashing the lyric’s slumber party, a reified shibboleth for the age of social media, all of it rendered beautifully, the poet’s ear and the proser’s eye working together to encapsulate and expound. Using the digital farm as a metaphor for the incredible shrinking American dream, Farmer gives her reader the rare experience of understanding human ambitions and aspirations as both futile and necessary. Don’t ignore the invitation.’  — Christopher Kennedy

‘It’s rare to find bursts of prose so laden with the fruit of meaning: city and country, solitude and sociality, leisure and labor all get grafted together into a novel tree of Ashley Farmer’s making. This book is often stunning in its vision of western life, the internet, and alienation—as she writes for us, “These dreams aren’t even mine—I just idle in them.”’ — Ken Baumann

 

Excerpts

Little Bo Peep Comes to Farm Town

It’s God’s day, but I wear thigh highs beneath my Bible. Maybe that’s why He took my flock. My lambkin lost, I feel forsaken. I witness crooks and necks that crane toward this skirt impractical for tending sheep or even nailing up Have You Seen Me? posters. My heart bled once when the livestock lost their tails. Again when I looked out at the hills thinking that they missed me. (That night, I’d find their woolly nubs nailed to a tree.) I’m a girl on the go, owning nothing now, owing on this ridiculous get-up. What good is pretty, petty unemcumberence when you have no reason to be? I find a shitty dive with Photohunt a buck a game. It’s afternoon. In the dark I drink drafts and play addition or subtraction of body parts and black straps and wisps of hair on naked women. I’m foolish, but not so easily fooled: in one photo she’s whole, in the other incomplete.

 

The Wolf

Disguised as a lover, he was all clover. Dressed as a December hunter: a genuine risk. He waited me out in the snowy hedge. I said, Go home, predator, but he became a compulsive visitor. Knock knock, he called with his teeth. Knock knock, he called without knocking at all. He said, I saw those large snow patches and thought you’d need help melting them. I battened the hatches, eyed him through discount curtains. Beneath the moonlight, he poached field eggs, stripped wild grass, drained the milk keg, dismembered the rabbit hutch. He knotted the hose through the branches like sin. The mailbox spilled quills, spit fur at visitors. The Wolf shammed an exit but recurred while I dreamed of cartoon buzzsaws, of rolling pin pursuits, of tarring and feathering him. I discovered fire. You’ll like it, he hissed. But spring made good and caused the ice to crack. The Wolf tumbled toward the big sea coast. He floated out into summer because his mama never taught him manners and he never learned to swim. Autumn now. I still feel fangs through the door: Just this once, he asks without asking at all.

 

Gone to Waste

Purple hyacinths broadcast thirst: empty water droplets linger beside us. I materialize at the inn, beneath the severed heads of bucks to sip water standing up and watch pixilated ladies LOL and appear identical. I can’t tell myself apart any more than I might decipher how this town transmits me to me. There’s outside, and then there’s outside-outside: Saturday night at the reptile shop, the man beyond the Laundromat kicking a tree. These dreams aren’t even mine—I just idle in them. At the marketplace in the drunk of night, Dr. Doomsday’s demanding: are you lost or not? He means the opposite of friendship: he means economics. Just past midnight, I could beg a stranger home or hawk my crops, but I click myself into a tiny plot of rotting pumpkins only to identify the smooth, brown poverty as mine. A slab of river ends at my doorstep. No one I know knows how to move it.

 

Follow Avatar While Walking

Sky zeroed. The trees are bananas. I lose myself beneath them, pluck them up by the trunks and shift and shake them. My farm Population 0 and yet I somehow feel among the juniper trees my old heart beating. I scratch my initials into bark like a math problem: AF + AF + a white chalk heart around it. I’m nowhere to be found and it’s hushed here without me. I throw a cocktail party but don’t show up. I buy an above ground pool but the water surface freezes like a screen. I install a carousel, but the sun ruins the music and protest notes sour from green to brown in midair. Maybe I dipped my toe in the wishing well and fell again. Maybe I’m digging out from beneath something. Maybe I’m in the town square reaping late-night consolation. I wear my laptop like a locket: inside are pictures of myself in miniature. I’ve held ground against droughts, against crumbling acres, against gifts of hammers and roses from mysterious neighbors. I’ve stayed small against seasons. Now I’ve vanished myself against reason.

 

The Farmacist

 

 

_____________

Christopher Kang earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in jubilat, Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast, The L Magazine, Verse Daily, Cimarron Review, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and Open City. He is currently a PhD student in English Literature at the University of California-Irvine.

 

Christopher Kang Website
Christopher Kang @ Facebook
‘The Looms’, by Christopher Kang
Christopher Kang @ Twitter
Buy ‘When He Sprang From His Bed, Staggered Backward, …’

 

Christopher Kang When He Sprang From His Bed, Staggered Backward, And Fell Dead, We Clung Together With Faint Hearts, And Mutely Questioned Each Other
Green Mountains Review Books

‘Christopher Kang’s extraordinary collection, WHEN HE SPRANG FROM HIS BED, STAGGERED BACKWARD, AND FELL DEAD, WE CLUNG TOGETHER WITH FAINT HEARTS, AND MUTELY QUESTIONED EACH OTHER, resists easy classification. A daring, remarkable book that challenges on every read. These 880 stories taken together form a kind of sly, wondrous narrative whole, full in equal measure of humor, sadness, and brilliance. Kang is an ambitious writer, and this book is an achievement. Each of these stories contains a world, tilted on its own axis, strange, remarkable and bursting with heart.’ — GMRB

‘Christopher Kang’s brilliant first book, a steady accretion of Robert Walserian feuilletons, filled me with such quick strobes of delight and confusion and dismay and envy that, in the end, I mostly felt vertigo. This book is sly; it contains its own contradictions. It is a searing indictment of artistic ambition while being nakedly ambitious; it is self-reflective without a steady self to reflect; it is simultaneously starkly clear and confounding; and its intelligence is often punctured by humor and sentiment and near-aphorisms that ring so quietly and personally that I often wanted to write them in permanent marker on my skin.’ — Lauren Groff

‘Christopher Kang’s work is mysterious, lovelorn, philosophical and often very amusing. Its lyricism is matched only by its daring. A remarkable book.’ — Lorrie Moore

 

Excerpts

 

 

 

________________

‘The fin de siècle period in Paris is marked by scandals and remarkable events: the Panama scandal, the Ravachol case, Dreyfus, the fire in the Bazar de la Charité, the world exhibition of 1900. This is also the Paris in which the Norman Paul Duval lived for more than twenty years. He became known in literary circles as Jean Lorrain. This illustrious figure, a ‘dandy de la perversité’ with a taste for sailors and dockworkers, never had his fill of creating scandals. He felt equally at home in unsavoury bars and in the salons, between debauchees, addicts, devil worshippers and spiritualists, and fashion enthusiasts. He wrote scandalous articles in several periodicals about his adventures, repeating these chronicles later in his narrative prose. His style was influenced by idols such as Barbey d’Aurevilly, Huysmans and the Goncourts and their ‘style artiste’.

‘In 1892, Lorrain travelled to Algeria and Tunisia via Spain. In that year, he also opted for a northbound route that took him to London and then onward to Amsterdam. Five years later, he used these experiences for his novel Monsieur de Bougrelon. This novel starts with an evocation of the water that seemed omnipresent in the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam, ‘the Venice of the north’: ‘it is all water, and houses painted in black and white, full of windows, with sculpted pointed rooftops and lace curtains: black and white, reflected in the water.’ He celebrates the northern peoples in a minor key: ‘Dutch men, by the way, are rather ugly, and Dutch women resemble them.’

‘Monsieur de Bougrelon appeared in 1897, at the end of Lorrain’s life, and although it did bring him some degree of fame, there was something ambiguous about his position as journalist with artistic ambitions. He would never hesitate to use texts (even those of others) more than once. His novels were collages of articles and chronicles that had appeared previously. After his death, the Bougrelon story was published a few times in illustrated editions.’ — Koninklijke Bibliotheek

 

Jean Lorrain @ Wikipedia
‘Monsieur de Bougrelon’ @ {feuilleton}
A dandy in aspic
Jean Lorrain @ goodreads
Buy ‘Monsieur de Bougrelon’

 

Jean Lorrain Monsieur de Bougrelon
Spurl Editions

‘In Jean Lorrain’s Monsieur de Bougrelon, an eccentric, outmoded dandy leads ennui-filled French tourists around misty Amsterdam. Guiding them through sailors’ bars, whorehouses, and costume galleries, Monsieur de Bougrelon recounts hallucinatory stories of his past and delves into his “heroic friendship” with his aristocratic companion Monsieur de Mortimer.

‘Monsieur de Bougrelon is a unique character: loquacious, proud, a leftover from an earlier age, wearing garish outfits and makeup that drips. To his speechless audience, he waxes nostalgic about his life as an exile in Holland, as well as what he calls “imaginary pleasures” – obsessions with incongruous people, animals, and objects. These obsessions are often sexual or border on the sexual, leading to shocking, surreal scenes. Monsieur de Bougrelon also enthuses over his beautiful friend Monsieur de Mortimer, making this novella one of the rare works of the nineteenth century to broach homosexuality in a meaningful way, years before Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet.

‘Originally published in French in 1897, Monsieur de Bougrelon is now available in English translation for the first time. Its inventiveness and sheer Decadence find kindred spirits in the novels of Comte de Lautréamont, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and even Louis-Ferdinand Céline, while the novella’s indulgent language and unconventional vision of art and sex embody the best of fin-de-siècle literature. It is, in the novella’s own words, a true “boudoir of the dead.”’ — Spurl Editions

 

Excerpt

Amsterdam, it is always water and houses painted black and white, all windows, with sculpted gables and lace curtains; the black, the white splinter in the water. And so it is always water, dead water, iridescent water and gray water, alleys of water that do not end, canals guarded by dwellings like enormous dominos; it could be gloomy, and yet it is not sad, but eventually it is a bit monotonous, especially when the water freezes and the gelid pewter of the canals no longer reflects the small, pretty dollhouses, upside down with front steps high in the air.

There was a strong wind on the Amstel that day, a wind to sweep away the sweepers themselves. At the Dam, there was the spectacle (which we had already seen too many times) of the tram station and the crowds around it; of fur caps pulled down over violet ears, cabmen and drivers blossoming with rosacea, necks disappearing behind mufflers, and those strange little old men who, with eternal drops of frost on the ends of their red noses, hawk omnibus connections at the highest prices. But everyone needs to live, and the surprise of hearing dangüe for merci, and the surprise of gathering freezing snot from the back of their gloved hands is one of the pleasures of tourism in Amsterdam.

Oh, these people of the North! The Dutch man, by the way, is rather ugly, and the Dutch woman resembles him. Those old women in black velvet hats perched upon caps of lace, embellished at the temple with hemstitched medallions of gold, apparently work better in the old master paintings than they do in the streets. And the Zeedijk (the Rietdijk of Amsterdam) does not come to life until nighttime. As for the Nes – where good, shapely, strapping men, very blond and very pink, innocently approach you from dive bar entrances, their plump bodies bulging out of their long hotel porters’ cloaks and their faces radiant – it had lost its mystery for us: we had already visited it too many times as well. This is surely human ingratitude, because the Nes had so delighted us the first night!

We used to love those heavy doors that opened abruptly to reveal, behind a row of tables, a heap of flesh and spangles, raised like a dessert on a faraway, luminous platform. “Dames françaises! Come in, Messieurs, we speak French,” and this from the decent, chubby-cheeked giants, who bowed and smiled with full lips, but they were good, honest smiles, unknown in Paris; they did not release for a minute the doorkeeper’s ropes they held in their hands. Indeed, at every entrance on Nesstraat there was the same sudden appearance of nudity and dazzling fabrics, the same patriotic offer, dames françaises, and the same salute.

Oh, only French women on every Nes, from the Belgian fogs to the distant parts of Holland, they are in every region!

Oh! How we are happy to be French
When we travel to foreign lands.

Amsterdam’s red-light districts are relaxing and refresh the soul; there is a sense of geniality there that is unknown in the Latin countries, and these devilish exhibitors, these solid doorkeepers to hell, defuse malice with their good shiny faces and their good thick hands in fur gloves, looking like thoroughly honest major-domos under their gold-tasseled caps. But apparently we had seen too much of them.

Nes, Zeedijk, the Dam, and even the museum did not speak to us anymore; there are days like that in life. We wandered through the city like flotsam, along the frozen canals, hurrying around street corners, for the great wind, as I have already said, blew forcefully that day on the Amstel.

It was bone-chilling outside, savagely cold, and the many Schiedammers we had knocked back in every cellar on Kalverstraat had hardly perked us up – there are days like that in life too – and so we meandered under January’s north wind, pitiable and glum, when an odd sign captivated us: Café Manchester.

It was in one of those uniform black-and-white Amsterdam streets: a small old two-story dwelling, very low beneath an enormous roof that crowned it from its gable nearly to the first floor. The lodging seemed packed in on itself, as though squeezed underground, and we had to descend five steps to find the front door and the only window, hung with wide net curtains of taut guipure, which opened just above the ground; on the other levels there were small irregular dormer windows with closed shutters. Café Manchester! It had the look of a lantern. It even had a pulley at the top of its roof to raise supplies and furniture. What did they sell in this café? In this Café Manchester, where apparently they spoke French as well as English.

The cold was intense, the house dubious; we went inside.

 

Jean Lorrain *

Jean Lorrain – Monsieur de Bougrelon

Visionnaire – Jean Lorrain – Lacaze — Beethoven Piano Sonate n°14

 

 

_______________

Think back to when you started writing. What’s an earlier influence you outgrew, abandoned, or turned against?

Mat Laporte: I’m always abandoning. I don’t think my way of doing things is the “right” way; it’s just the best I could come up with at the moment. So pretty much everything I’ve tried I’ve abandoned for something different, or “better,” maybe?

When a piece of writing doesn’t work out, what do you do with it? Discard? Fold it into another project? Salvage parts?

ML: Save it for sure. “The Experimental Boy” poems, for example, are made up of fragments of things I’ve written, or found and other people have written or found, cut-up and re-deployed. My writing is almost never a flowing, continuous thing but an assemblage of disparate particles of things I gather and save. When I end up making something that is cohesive, complete or unbroken, I’m shocked and appalled. I’m interested, right now, in the idea of the ‘serial’ poem. What I like about it is the idea that each poem doesn’t have to be a polished thing, that the point is to move on to the next one, the sequence will have its own narrative thrust that will take even the person who wrote it by surprise. One of my models is Ted Berrigan and especially his work The Sonnets which can be thought of as using a method similar to Cubist art. Fragments from different perspectives are collaged and refracted into a new take on perspective, multiple perspectives, or no perspective? The serial work is always changing and surprising you, the one who is writing it. I like that.

Do you plan out the piece beforehand or find your way as you go along? A combination of both?

ML: “You just go on your nerve,” Frank O’Hara said. Even when it’s a “conceptual” piece, with a pre-planned concept, I have to hit the ground running immediately or it fails me and I don’t want to do it anymore. Nerve, always.

 

Mat Laporte @ Twitter
Mat Laporte: Three Poems
‘Time and Resources’
‘Rats Nest’ reviewed @ Unnerving
Buy ‘Rats Nest’

 

Mat Laporte Rats Nest
Book Thug

‘Mysterious and sometimes hallucinogenic, RATS NEST builds a narrative out of the complexity and dialectical uncertainty that many people feel about being alive in the 21st century.

‘This first full-length book by Mat Laporte introduces readers to a protoplasmic, fantastical underworld, as navigated by a self–reproducing 3D Printed Kid made especially for this purpose.

‘As the Kid descends the layers of a seemingly never-ending pit, its nightmares and hallucinations—recorded in stunning detail—unfold in twelve chilling chapters of unreality that will make readers think twice about what it means to be a human (or humanoid) on the planet we call home.’ — Book Thug

‘RATS NEST is a fragmented and extended transmission from ‘the world’s first 3D Printed Kid.’ It is a dissident, noir, cyberpunk diary that recalls the monotony of service/ office labour and projects that struggle onto the failed tropes of ‘what the future may hold.’ Here, the future is a recursive failure of both affinity and empathy, launched from the outer reaches of a space-time where both identity and narrative are in flux. This is a work that simultaneously calls to mind Ovid’s Metamorphosis and the prose of Philip K. Dick, both Alice Notley’s Descent of Alette and the riotous ‘cut-up’ novels of Kathy Acker. Has Mat Laporte eaten our dreams? Are these texts the cognitive–enteric-cybernetic remnants of a necessarily alienated posthumanity? ‘Bursting forth from the primordial/ id itself . a flickering/non–linear flood of fact and sensory data,’ Laporte has engendered for us an austere and gorgeous horror.’ — Liz Howard

 

Excerpt

 

Mat Laporte’s: Dance With Me Vendetta

| December Book Haul |

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** H, Thank you! ** Jonathan, Thanks, man. Finishing stuff for a show is always the best reason. Outputting art over inputting it forever. Damn that you’l miss Eileen. Man, she is everywhere. She just wished me happy birthday from the campus of my brief university Pitzer in Pomona, West Coast. I’ll go hear that Mary Ocher track. I should try the recent Jóhann Jóhannsson stuff. I got kind of bored of him at one point. I had not seen that video, and now I’ve seen the still-ish first few seconds, and I will return to unpack it when I get out of here. Ooh, writing by you. That will have first dibs on my unpacking abilities, obviously. Cool. Everyone, hit this link and go read ‘Going Dark’, a piece by the artist of sublimity Jonathan Mayhew, why don’t you? Cool, bud! ** New Juche, Ah, you’re back in ‘civilization’ with all its ups and vaunted downs. Welcome back. France does love lots and lots of paperwork, that’s for sure. Nope, I’m still a tourist who has extremely overstayed his welcome. But I do very much need to get some kind of residency status asap, especially given that whatever this year’s election outcome, the country will be swinging to the right, and the borders may not be as laissez faire even for Americans. But, of course, the paperwork and stuff re: getting French residency status is a big reason why I’ve been procrastinating. Sounds quite tough down in Thailand too. Thanks for the good words about my thing about Bresson, man. ** James Nulick, Thank you! Happy my Birthday to you! My birthday was nice. Zac made me cold sesame noodle, which is my favorite food if not even my favorite thing in the world, and we walked around the Marais and looked at gallery art — show about Duchamp’s Bottle Rack (good), 80s period Rauschenberg (meh), Omer Fast (bad), Gordon Matta-Clark drawings and films (great) — then we met up with Michael and Bene at Hard Rock Cafe where I stuffed myself sick with nachos and M&B gave me the new book of Bresson interviews, and then I came home and looked at my gazillion happy birthday wishes on Facebook. So it was good. My piece about Bresson is from both of those books. The sleepover still is from ‘The Devil, Probably’. The kids on the swing is I think from ‘Mouchette’. Jesus Christ, only one Bresson?! Well, ‘The Devil, Probably’ is my all-time favorite film so obviously I recommend that. But you can not go wrong in the slightest with any Bresson film, although I would save his earliest two — ‘Les dames du Bois de Boulogne’ and ‘Les anges du péché’ — for last because he wasn’t really fully Bresson yet when he made those. The song stuck in my head this morning is ‘Dunce Codex’ by Robert Pollard. On those terms you mention, the French don’t like silence either. Love back. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you, Mr. E! Cherish your copy of ‘Antoine Monnier’ away from the eyes of the rest of the world please, ha ha. As I think I’ve mentioned, I was supposed to meet Humbert Balsam courtesy of my French publisher about a week before he died, but he cancelled. ** Tosh Berman, Thank you, Tosh! Yes, I was just given that book of Bresson interviews as a birthday gift yesterday! ** Steevee, Well, no Bresson film, but Zac made me cold sesame noodle, and I ate quite decent nachos last night. So not bad, not bad. Great, I really look forward to seeing ‘I Am Not Your Negro’. I saw a clip from it, and it looks really great. ** MANCY, Hi, man. Did you watch ‘Lancelot du Lac’? That’s my second favorite Bresson film. Cool, with synths. That’s exciting. Where are you in the process of making what you’re making? ** Montse, Hi, Montse! I did like that tumblr. It’s rich. Yeah, the Catholic wing of the far right are emboldened and starting to call for censorship left and right. With little success so far, thank goodness, but with the inevitable swing rightwards by the next government, I don’t know what will happen. Oh, I told James up above what I did on my b’day. It was quite nice. I was and am satisfied that my most recent benchmark in the somewhat unpleasant aging process was marked successfully. I didn’t have a cake, but I had more nachos than my stomach knew what to do with. Did you find out info about the animal shelter volunteering thing? Have a lovely day!!! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Thank you for your birthday happiness generating! Yeah, tell me how the new ‘Trainspotting’ is, and I’ll keep an open mind until then. It’s a very good day that ends up with coziness. Yeah, I think that’s inarguable? I told Mr. Nulick up above what happened on my birthday. It was nice. And it’s not over yet because today I get to dig into the cold sesame noodle that Zac made for me. It’s my extremely favorite thing to eat in the world and a very rare treat over here in Paris. How did you spend your today? ** Frank Jaffe, Hi, Frank! How great to see you! Awesome of you to come on in here. A ‘mine or yours’ favorite Bresson day? Don’t tempt me, man, ha ha. I hope everything is really, really great with you and yours! Love, me. ** Jamie, You’re back! Hey there, buddy! Did you have really excellent holidays? Oh, wait, you fucked your back up, shit! You may already know that I’ve had a shitty back since I was young and grew too fast, permanently making my back a recurring problem, so I’m ultra-sympathetic to back pain. In fact I’m just coming out one of my rebelling back problems right now. I’m doing great. Yeah, the decision on the TV series keeps getting delayed, and it’s driving us a bit crazy even though we keep being told how into the project ARTE is. Hopefully soon, but, yeah, it’s very annoying. Anyway, really great to have you back, my friend. I look forward to ongoing adventure- and art-related sharing. Big love, me. ** Jeff J, Thanks, Jeff. I wonder what the fuck is up with the long, long promised ‘Four Nights of a Dreamer’ restoration and release. Supposedly all the rights were secured and everything is green lit, but they’ve been saying that for about eight years now. I haven’t seen the official video for the XX song — ‘Wondering’ — if there is one, but, yeah, I think it’s a pretty safe bet based on the reason our video was rejected that it will be pretty expectable clip. How did you like ‘Silence’? Early Bernhard novellas? You mean the ‘Three Novellas’ book? Oh, they’re great, but to say they’re superior to his later novels seems like pushing it a bit. Certainly well worth reading if you love Bernhard. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thanks, bud. Yeah, Bresson is definitely not what everyone wants films to be. Oh, that sounds promising re: the V&A. ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick. Oh, my great pleasure, and thank you for the birthday wish. Well, thank you for wanting to write that piece on my gif novels in any case. That would be amazing, and I’m honored by your interest alone. Take care. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Greetings from pretty much halfway (or close) around the world. Yes, I think I’ll take the Mt. Fuji-sized mound of coke maybe, if I have a choice. Thanks! I too have a very positive feeling about 2017, albeit on the art and personal levels only. Mega love right back at ya! Oh, and your kid is so fucking cool and awesome. ** Ferdinand, Thank you, F. I look forward to your first 2017 poem. Short is good. A French visa? Yep, they are a dogged thing to apply for and be rewarded with, that’s for sure. ** Chris dankland, Hi, Chris! Thanks for the happiness! Nachos and Bresson. Wow that is a very odd combination right there, but it could work! Yeah, def., about ‘Balthazar’. Obviously I love that it did that to you. When Bresson does big things to people, I feel a soulmate kind of thing happening with those people. And thank you being so kind, Chris, and writing what you did. That makes me very happy, and, yeah, just thank you a lot. And don’t underestimate the impact of our friendship and thought/ideas sharing on my end too. Love, me. ** Ken Baumann, Ken!!!!! Just last night when Michael, Bene, Zac and I were celebrating my b’day at Hard Rock Cafe we were talking about you and remembering when the former two and I ate dinner there with you and you ordered half the menu. I’m real good, man, and I think I can say that Z is as well. It sounds like things are great with you over there. I’m dedicatedly and happily following what I can via ‘good’ old Facebook. Oh, wow, Aviva’s jewelry looks great! I can’t seen them before. Give her my respect and love re: that re: everything. You guys will be in Paris! Holy moly, at long last! Do you know when in March? Zac and I will be getting ready to shoot our new film in early April, but we should be here most of the time, and I can not wait to see you! That’s splendiferous news! Lots of love from me! ** Bernard, Hi, B! Thank you ever so much! And I finally read your great review of ‘LCTG’ on Amazon. As did Zac. We are very happy and honored. And, wow, I hadn’t looked at the film’s Amazon page before, and there are some seriously Trumpian bad reviews there. So that was fun too. Oh, … what the heck … Everyone, the great Bernard Welt wrote a really smart and nice review of ‘Like Cattle Towards Glow’ on Amazon, and risking self-horn tooting, here’s a link where you can read it if you like.. Love and yet more thanks! ** Matt Black, Hi, Matt. Thanks a bunch, and that is a really pretty and intriguing thing you wrote there for which I express my sincerest gratitude. Have a fine Wednesday. ** Sypha, Thanks a lot, James. ** Misanthrope, Thanks, George, and I hope the busyness and tiredness gets the fuck off your lawn on this very day! ** xTx, Hey!!!!! Yay, it’s so awesome to see you! Thank you, thank you, and happy birthday to my date brother i.e. your dad! How are you? I miss you! Lots of love, Dennis. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal! A sight for are eyes, you are! Thank you very much! How are you, and what’s going on with you? ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Thanks for wishing me the good birthday. No, I’ve certainly read/heard a lot about ‘Mr. Robot’, but that’s far as it’s gone. I’ll peek at it, at the very least, by whatever means I can find. ** Okay. Up there are four books I loved of late that I’m passing along to you as recommendations. You know what to do. See you tomorrow.

 

KayKay lived on the second floor. Her cousin Rachel and I were friends, and when I was short on money after my father and I had parted ways, I said I needed a place to stay and KayKay’s cousin said go see KayKay, she lives in a small complex downtown. She says it’s very friendly. You’ll like it there. So I visited KayKay one evening after work, or maybe it was a Saturday. I called her on her cell and she said be right down. I stood outside the gated complex waiting for her. Welcome to Rainbow Acres, dear. She opened the gate and I stepped inside a dark alcove which led to a courtyard. A kidney-shaped pool, surrounded by tiki torches, was the centerpiece of the courtyard. I talked to the manager about you, KayKay said. She’s waiting to meet you.

 

***

Central Palms had been nicknamed Rainbow Acres by the residents because there were so many queers living in the complex. KayKay was not a lesbian – a black girl in her late twenties, she had once slept with my underage nephew, who was sixteen at the time. He had slid under the locked gate very late one evening to meet up with her, an impossibility if you weighed a hair over 120 pounds. KayKay’s cousin – my friend – told me my nephew had hooked up with her cousin more than once. So he likes black girls, I said. Or maybe just girls, my friend said.

 

***

Rainbow Acres had thirty-six one bedroom units, first floor and second floor. There was a small laundry room, coin operated, at the rear of the complex, near the manager’s apartment. The manager, a tiny lesbian named Diana, was somewhere south of sixty, and lived alone. Rent’s due by the third of the month. Don’t be late – don’t make me knock on your door demanding the rent. Just slip the check under my door by the third, and there won’t be a problem. On weeknights, quiet hours begin at nine. Don’t cause any problems and there won’t be any. We’re a small, friendly community and we look out for each other. Some are working people and some aren’t, but we all respect each other. Got it?

 

***

I was in-between boyfriends. My boyfriend and I had recently split up – the first time – and I was lonely. I’d met another boy, I say boy but he was twenty-nine, and although I liked him, and was willing to go to the gym with him, something I would never do under loveless circumstances, we just didn’t click. I gave and he received, there was no back and forth between us. I once tried holding him in bed, a few weeks into our whatever it was, and he violently threw my hand off his stomach. I was shocked, and lay motionless for hours, not moving, as if nothing had happened. In the morning he said hey and gotta go and I’ll see you after work. It took me a few months to realize his heart was an ice pack and nothing I could do, no matter how much I loved him, or thought I loved him, would change that. I nicknamed him the refrigerator, and would only call him the refrigerator when referring to him in conversation with the few friends I had. It became so bad I started thinking of my old boyfriend. I had to maintain a laser focus to prevent strolling down any familiar paths.

 

***

I was attempting to repair a lamp when KayKay knocked on my door. I didn’t realize you were so domestic, she said. I’m not, but I can’t call my daddy every time something is broken. Why not, she said. I do. I laughed at her frivolousness. She held a bottle in her hand. I come bearing gifts, she said. Got any glasses? Once inside, she set the bottle of Chivas on the kitchen counter. I like my scotch like I like my men, aged twelve years. I burst out laughing. Your cousin warned me about you, I said. That bitch knows I’m right! I took two mismatched glasses from a cabinet over the ancient stove. Girl can’t you afford a matching set? I’m only part-time, I said.

 

***

May – I began stalking the refrigerator. I walked my bike out the apartment door, hunched my butt over the seat, my left foot on the left pedal, my right foot caressing the pavement. I opened the gate, a carefully choreographed motion which prevented the gate from slamming shut. I rode into the May night. It was very warm, at least ninety degrees. I wore black Dickies, a black T-shirt, and a baseball cap – I did not want to be noticed. It was nearly a three mile ride from my apartment gate to his house. I pedaled on streets I had known my entire life, their names clicking off miles in my head. Virginia, Thomas, Osborn, Clarendon. I was the only one on the street; everyone else was sealed away in a dark frosty cave, hidden from the day’s sun. The blue light of television screens peeped through windows, briefly highlighting my anonymity.

 

***

I saw him through the window, a glimpse of him through the curtains. He was on his bed, looking at a magazine of some sort. His hair was cut very short, the stubble on his skull so thick it resembled suede. I must have stared at him through the window for five minutes. He was completely under my gaze, an insect, and he had no idea anyone was watching him. I waited for him to do something, to touch himself, to get lost in the magic of his own body, but he only continued reading his magazine, his lips slightly open. Even alone, he was boring. I lay my bike down carefully and looked to my left, my right. The bedroom window of the house opposite his was dark. I knew his two roommates were not home. I kicked off one shoe and used my foot to pry off the other. I unlooped my belt and dropped my pants, hiding them in the sunburnt grass. I stripped off my T-shirt and wadded it into a ball, tossing it on the ground. My empty clothes were a sea of black fabric that reflected no light. I stood at his window in my boxers and socks. He flipped a page in his magazine, his lazy eyes getting smaller. I traced the outline of his body through his pants, his shirt. I placed my left hand on a windowpane and slowly pulled on the muntin until the window opened, the cool air of the house blasting against my naked chest.

 

***

June – I met him in the no strings attached section of craigslist. He had posted pictures of his penis online. Once I had his email I sent him a face pic. He was Asian, small, with an empty face. His online profile stated he was twenty-four. You big, he asked. Short and thick, I replied. Like a beer can, I wrote, with a smiley face after the sentence. Oh good, thick good. I live in _____, he said. Can you meet at my house? We have dinner here.

He was Vietnamese. His name was Tuan Dong, which seemed appropriate. He looked thirty-five, not twenty-four. Why were queers always lying about their age? The food was ok – bland, warm, too salty. I’m not really hungry, I said. He grabbed my hand and led me to the bedroom. You really live here alone, I asked. Yes, he said. It was a big house for a single man – three bedrooms. I had my doubts – the décor didn’t match his blank page personality. His stripped off his clothes, then undressed me. He pulled my shirt over my head, giving me scarecrow hair. My penis was already hard when he slipped my boxers off. He paid attention only to the lower portion of my body, as if my legs were an instrument designed to allow my penis to move around. I catalogued his body as he knelt on the floor below me – smooth skin, unremarkable features, dark nipples, and a small but hard penis. He worked on me until I became lightheaded – Wait, I said.

We were both on his bed. He rolled over and opened the top drawer of a nightstand. As he did so, I looked at his butt. He had a nice butt. It had been a month since I’d had sex – at least with another person. I massaged his taut balls through his legs as he lay on his stomach, fishing for something in the drawer. He rolled on his back, a fold of blue cloth in his hand. It looked like a soft blue diaper, or a larger version of an eyeglass cleaning cloth. He carefully unrolled the material on the bed. Three thin stainless steel tubes lay on the cloth – each looked to be about twelve inches long, each with a metal bulb on the end of it. Rosebuds, he said. I don’t know what they are, I said. We watch video, he said. You’ll see. He retrieved a remote from the top of the nightstand, pushed a few buttons, and in a matter of seconds a video that had been paused started up where it had left off. On the screen, a man with a hard cock slowly pushed a thin lubed tube into his urethra, while his partner worked the button of his asshole like a telethon matron. I turned away, repulsed. I lifted his arm, kissed his armpit. He was nearly hairless. He continued watching the screen as I rolled his balls between my fingers, took his cock into my mouth. He moved in such a way that his genitals fell out of my mouth and were beyond reach.

You’re boring, he said. Why not try rosebuds? I envisioned my hands wrapped around his neck, squeezing the life from him. Would he struggle? He was small, delicate. He was weak and I knew it would be nothing, over in a moment. I don’t like pain, I said. It’s not painful, he said. It’s good – incredible! No thanks – maybe some other time. He sighed and lay back on the bed, watching the screen reveal its violent images. Having drove this far, I wasn’t leaving with nothing. I spat on his dick and rolled the foreskin over his glans, laughing because his penis was clammy and resembled a rice paper egg roll. He was as white and delicate as Lenox glass. What’s funny, he asked. Never mind, I said. I continued jerking him off, working his balls between my fingers. His upper legs involuntarily tightened, his breath quickened. He came on his belly, on my hand. It was a small amount – he’d probably masturbated earlier that day. As his dick softened he fast-forwarded through the DVD, frustrated that he couldn’t find a particular scene. I was bored. He obviously had no interest in making me come. I tugged on my dick a few times, disinterested in the whole evening, suddenly wanting a drink. Where’s your restroom? I asked. In there, he said. A closed doorway, which I’d assumed was a closet, led to a master bath. I pulled on my boxers, flipped on the light and washed my hands. I closed the door and tugged on my dick again, hard and fast. When I was about to come I twisted my body over an expensive-looking clothes hamper and lifted the lid, coming over a pile of soiled clothes. I pulled a dirty shirt from the hamper and wiped the tip of my dick on it. Fuck you, I said. When I opened the door I gathered my clothes and got dressed. I’ll see you, I said – knowing I would never see him again. See you, he said. His eyes never drifted from the television. As I closed his front door and headed toward my car I removed my car keys from my pocket and dragged a key deeply across the surface of the black Nissan Armada in his drive. I had something growing inside me, a nebulous hatred. I wanted to damage something, to draw blood. What was I becoming?

 

***

July – I responded to his m4m craigslist post. His name was Juan. My complex was gated, so if he was ugly I would simply turn around and head back to my apartment. He didn’t know my name, didn’t know which car was mine in the small lot behind the apartment complex. We agreed to 8pm and he was there, as promised. He was more handsome than his pic, which was rare. The sun had finally slipped behind a few tall palms and was threatening to extinguish itself. I opened the gate and let him in; he followed me to my unlocked door. Would you like a drink, I asked. Sure, he said. I massaged his crotch as he sipped his whiskey. I took his hand in mine and led him into the bedroom.

When I was younger, in my mid-thirties, I was more open to friendships that threatened to go nowhere. A friend of mine at work was a rock hound. My girlfriend and I collect rocks, he said. We go on hiking trips on weekends and set up a tent. Do you find nice rocks, I asked. Oh yes, he said. I’ll bring some in sometime. He was unassuming, in his mid-fifties. He was in good shape for his age. He had wiry white hair and a thin build. He often came to my desk during lunch break and told ridiculously inappropriate jokes. What do you say to a Mexican in a three piece suit, he said. I don’t know – what? Will the defendant please rise? With my Teutonic surname he obviously had no idea I was Hispanic. I tried imagining doing something as simple as camping with a loved one, but I couldn’t. Come to my desk when you have a moment, he said.

The cutting equipment costs about twenty grand, but I got all my equipment on eBay for seven thousand. An empty Crown Royal bag sat to the left of his monitor. Splayed on his desk were perhaps twenty stones. He picked each one up and told its story – a story older than both of us. This one is from California. I found it on a beach outside San Francisco. You ever been to Pacifica? I shook my head no. He told other stories. This one is from Washington state. The good ones sound like glass. He took a small pointed hammer from his desk and demonstrated. The polished rock had a glassy sound when he tapped it. He then picked up a small river rock and tapped it to great effect. Boring, he said. Can you tell? I picked up a greyish-white stone that had been cut in half. What appeared normal on the outside was filled with purple and blue crystals, an amazing world crushed and hidden under a million years of dirt. His cutting equipment had opened it up and exposed its beauty to the world. You cut and polish all these yourself? Yes, he said. I imagined him in his garage, with his rock hound girlfriend at his side. Is this what happiness is? Look at this one, he laughed, looking around to confirm that we were alone. He held a penis-shaped rock in his hand. It was approximately four inches long. I found it in a cave next to this one, believe it or not. He picked up a geode that resembled a vagina, its purple lips exposed to the world. They fit together perfectly, he said.

I climbed on top of Juan and something miraculous happened. As he was fucking me I came on his belly. This had never happened to me before – I had no idea such a thing could happen. I realized at that moment that I would always remember his name, the belt buckle riding below his navel, the way his hair fell on the pillowcase. I emptied everything I ever was onto him. After he came he was very still. He then rolled on his side, his head balanced in one hand. I’m married, he said. I have two daughters. Why do this? I asked. I guess I’ve always been like this, he said. I’ve always known. But my wife, I don’t know. Maybe she’s bored. He was quite handsome, late twenties. His daughters must have been very young. She has no idea? I asked. I don’t think so, he said. Maybe. I looked at his hand and saw the ring. Ever been with a married man before, he asked. Yes, I said. A boy in the army, I said. He was my friend. After we fucked, he never spoke to me again. Typical man, Juan said.

I don’t know when it started, Juan said. I lay next to him, listening. I said nothing. I would go to these clubs, he said. There were men there, dressed like women. Trannies, you know? But some were real men. There were these lockers. You could rent a locker for forty dollars and a little room for sixty. You could walk around nude – people often did. The girls stayed near the bar, which only served Cokes and bottled water. Seven dollars for a Coke, shit like that. I’d always wanted to feel full. I bought a pair of nylons and dropped a golf ball into it. I tied the nylons around it and shoved it up my ass. It took forever but I eventually got the hang of it. I’d do it at home, then go to the club with a golf ball up my ass, walk around. I looked at him, the part of his hair, his lips, the way his chest moved as he breathed. My wife never suspected. Just going out to meet the guys, I told her. She is always so jealous of me talking to women, but she really has no idea. I had a little piece of the nylon, a tail, sticking out of my ass. A guy was blowing me at the club and I told him to yank on the tail when I was about to come. Jesus, it was incredible. So liberating. I thought I was going to come forever. It’s easier now, maybe not so exciting. But that’s how it always is. Juan relaxed into a pillow, his splayed fingers behind his head. I tried imagining a golf ball up my ass but couldn’t. Anything else, I asked. Women’s clothes, he said. Pretty vanilla. You’re not vanilla, I said. I rolled him over on his side. I looked at his ass, the divots on his lower back. No tail tonight, I said.

 

***

Somewhere around fourteen I discovered this wonderful thing. When I wanted to jerk off, which was pretty much all the time, I’d go into my bedroom and close the door, turn on the TV like I was watching it. I’d get completely undressed and lay on my bed. I would concentrate on my breathing, slow it down, really listen to it. It took a lot of practice, but after a few weeks it became easier. I would lift my back off the mattress and slowly drop my legs over my head, my head between my knees. I kept breathing, concentrating on nothing. When my head was sufficiently blank I’d concentrate on my penis – it was only a few inches from my face. I would collapse my back and fold myself further, using the wall for leverage by pushing my feet against it, then dropping back down, working my body until my spine became a warm paperclip. I would mouth the tip of my dick with my lips, stop breathing, fold down further, and collapse into myself. Another few minutes of controlled breathing and my entire dick was in my mouth. I’d suck it for I don’t know how long – time lost all meaning. I’d caress the base of the shaft between thumb and forefinger; bob my head up and down, move with the direction of my spine. It often crossed my mind how ridiculous this would look if my mother were to suddenly walk in, but I didn’t care – I was a slave to the rhythm and pull of my body. Jets crossed the night sky, planets slowly died, people were starving in Mumbai – I didn’t care. I built myself up to the moment of the inevitable, the liquid rush filling my mouth. There is nothing greater than coming in your own mouth, swallowing the ocean that roars between your legs, a sweat-slick ouroboros with your ass in the air.

 

***

Sept / October 2007 – The present became so terrible I began fondly recalling the recent past. I rolled my Free Agent out the door, its nubby tires blackening the carpet. Outside I walked it until I got up some speed, hovered over the seat and rode around the courtyard. It was hot and out of my peripheral I saw four or five people sitting around the kidney-shaped pool in the middle of the courtyard. They were drinking. Someone yelled nice bike! He came rushing toward me on his own bike. Ride to the store with me, he said. Uncle do you mind? A man in his early thirties looked at me warily, then nodded. He was a muscled-up gorilla in a T-shirt. The boy was slight and very young, maybe eighteen. His baseball cap was turned around on his head and his clothes were very baggy, as if he were still kicking remnants of 2002 around. We rode to Circle K and I bought grape blunt wraps. I’m Joey. I’m living with my uncle until I get my own place. His big pronouncements sounded funny coming from such a small body. He was a natural flirt, easy and confident, moving freely among the crowd like a greased ball bearing. We soon found ourselves making regular trips to my younger brother’s house on the west side of town. My brother sold high grade chronic. This shit is stupefying, Joey said one evening. We were in the car headed back to my apartment. Cassadaga was in the CD player, blasting through eight speakers. Joey pounded his fist into the headliner. I love your car, he shouted.

KayKay noticed me riding my bike around the block with Joey after work. Don’t be getting yourself in trouble, she said, admonishing me from the second floor. I looked up at her face, her pulsar crotch. I’m like Alexis Carrington up here! I see everything! She spread her hands wide to indicate her domain. Sometimes Joey would ride his own bike, a Haro Hyper, or if he was being lazy he would ride on my buddy pegs, his fingers tightly gripping my shoulders. Who’s that, he asked. Nunya, I said, laughing as we made our way through a bumpy alley.

It went on for a month, the trips to Circle K, the blunt wraps, the Icees, hanging out in my apartment drinking Pacífico. He sat on the couch zoning to my bootleg DVDs of Sifl & Olly stoned and laughing. When he removed his baseball cap his closely-cropped hair had indents in it from the cap. He rubbed his hand over his hair, waking it up. I got a scar, he said. He lifted his shirt and a zigzag cut across his abdomen like an ice-breaker cutting through forbidden territory.

His uncle knocked on my apartment door on a Saturday evening. It was somewhere around 10pm. I opened the door and he said in a very stern manner Joey needs to come home right now. His words sounded forced, like he wasn’t used to talking to other adults. He’s only seventeen, you know. How old are you? Thirty-six, I said. That was the last time I saw Joey. One day I came home from work and opened the apartment door to escape the world. A small envelope had been pushed under the door. I closed the door and opened the envelope. It was a thank you card, the kind that came in a box of ten. I’ll be eighteen in 6 months, it said. Can’t wait until March! It was his name on paper, one last time.

I googled his name a few years ago and saw that he was serving a life sentence for murder, a drug deal gone horribly wrong. He was twenty-one years old when he was sentenced – LIFE – did I not love him enough?

 

***

November 2007 – I missed Joey. I hadn’t realized how important he had become, despite the minimal amount of time we had spent together, until he was gone. I was imagining March, how terribly far away it seemed. I went on a website called Men4Rent and ordered a hustler whose tag was SK8RBoy. His guest book was recent and complimentary. Lasts long, takes forever to come. Nice lips. Bubble butt. The usual. Two hundred dollars per hour, one hour minimum. We agreed to 8pm. Prostitutes were less complicated – money was exchanged, and there was no useless talk. SK8RBoy reminded me of Joey. How old are you? I asked. Twenty-two, he said. His name was Eric. He took off my clothes. My body was old, flabby. It had once been twenty-two. I felt very far away. Do you mind if I keep your boxers when we’re done, I asked. Sure, he said. I gave him a fifty dollar tip for the trouble.

I took a high school typing class when I was eighteen. I was a senior. I thought if I’m going to be a writer, I’d better learn how to type. Typing without looking, without thinking about the keys. Just let the words flow through my fingers. There was a blond boy in class. Paying any attention to him was unusual for me because I didn’t usually like blonds. On our first day of class he wore a Slayer Reign in Blood shirt. I decided I had to know him, his name. I asked the teacher, a man in his fifties, the blond boy’s name. He considered me for a moment. Michael, he said.

Michael learned how to drive by driving my car, a battered Volkswagen Sirocco with a manual transmission. Find it don’t grind it, I said. Michael was fourteen, a freshman. He had the underdeveloped body of a prepubescent girl. We spent a lot of time together. His father was an engineer, and never seemed to be home. There was a sister, maybe thirteen, and no mother. The sister often had a girlfriend over. One evening as we were watching Night Court on a Trinitron Michael strutted into the living room in his briefs and danced before the girls. He pulled his waistband down and jiggled his dick in front of his sister’s girlfriend. The girls screamed and laughed. Michael was large for his age, his penis surrounded by an untamed bush of dark curls that seemed impossible on his girlish body. I pretended to find Harry Anderson more interesting, but I inventoried Michael with a quick side glance that betrayed nothing.

 

***

I was in love with him, but he didn’t know it, or if he did, he didn’t let on. I let him wear my high school ring. It fit nicely on his pinky finger. His friend Ewell was jealous of our friendship. You guys are always together, he said. We were sitting outside the school cafeteria. Fucking fags. Fuck you man, Michael said. I’m not a fag. We traded Iron Maiden shirts, something I’d never done before. When he gave me his shirt I kept it in my room, inhaling the armpits, the neckline. I wore his Powerslave shirt and he wore my The Number of the Beast shirt to school on the same day. No one noticed. Was our love real? What kind of love was it? Our relationship was odd, like a married but sexless couple who knew everything about each other except the most obvious.

Can you help me run away, he asked. My mother’s being a bitch – she wants to get back together with my dad. I liked it better when it was just my dad. We should change your hair, I said. You could live with me and my sister, I said. Michael shook his head yes. I would ask my sister later, once Michael was stowed in my bedroom. We drove to a supermarket on the west side of town and looked for hair dye. I want to dye my hair black, Michael said. It’ll match my nails. He laughed. I bought the box of dye – Michael never seemed to have any money. He had recently turned fifteen. Can I drive, he asked. He was getting better, smoother. Yes. Be careful, I said.

His mother found us, the hair dye unused, the box unopened. What were you going to do, she asked him. I said nothing. Michael stared at the carpet in my sister’s apartment as if it held all the answers to the world’s mysteries. I can’t believe this, she said. You know we love you, don’t you? I think that’s enough, my sister said, rescuing me from having to open my mouth. I watched Michael get into his mother’s Jeep Cherokee. His sister Jennifer waved from the back seat, her hair pulled back and held together with an elastic hair tie. She was quickly becoming a young woman.

My sister and I got into an argument and I moved out of her apartment. I stole her television while she was at work because she owed me eighty dollars. I moved into a ratty house with a bunch of friends. I had my sister’s off-brand television, a few books, and a bed. My room was a blank. One of my friends, a boy I hardly knew, always walked around the house with his shirt off. He had a habit of riding his Kuwahara up and down the hall. He peddled into my room one evening, dropped his bike and sat on my bed as I watched television. Wanna hit this, he asked. He held a joint in his hand. Sure, I said. After the joint was gone he lay on the bed next to me. We were propped against the wall, a slump block sofa. I thought of my sister sitting in her apartment without her television, my niece and nephew screaming because the box was gone. I feel terrible, my friend said. Me too, I said. I stared at the homemade tattoo on his bicep. It was a girl’s name – Andrea. Who was she, I asked. Just a girl I knew, he said. He was twenty, two years older than me. I miss her like I haven’t missed anyone before, he said. I studied the sagittal hair below his navel. She’s gone and I’m so fucking bored. I was stupid. I’m always doing stupid shit, scaring people away. You’re not gay, are you? No, I said, pretending to watch television. I’ve got another one if you wanna hit it. He dug around in his pocket as I fingered the remote. Sure, I said – anything to keep him in the room with me for a bit longer.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** This weekend we get a real treat because the d.l. and, much more importantly, author (‘Valencia’, ‘Distemper’) James Nulick has given us DC’s readers, maker(s), commenters and lurkers exclusive access to a new short fiction work. Please spend the time you spend here this weekend poring over it, and please say something or other to James in your comments because, as I know I don’t really need to tell you, sharing work here or anywhere is both a generous and courageous act replete with hopes, nerves, and curiosity. Thanks a lot, folks. And, of course, biggest thanks to you, James! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Thanks, man, glad you’re with me on her. Her legendary turn in ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They’ is what originally made me a fan. And her great performances in ‘The Maids’ and Altman’s ‘Images’ more than cemented that. Oh, that former bottom of the sea thing does give Palm Springs a more positive spin. And I guess their film festival is supposed to be better than one might think. I’ve never been much of a fan of Michael Chabon, but his son seems cool. ** Steevee, Hi. Thanks, I’ll search knowing that. I remember, as perhaps you do, when TLC actually was a channel that attempted to provide what its moniker promised before said moniker got shortened to that acronym. I like your idea of what you want your protagonist to talk about at the end. Yeah, that sounds like a really good, exciting idea. ** B, Hi, Bear. Wow, a Friars Club. That’s funny and intriguing. My parents took me to see that ancient insult-hurling comedian Don Rickles perform at one of those when I was young. I remember wanting to punch him in the face even though I was a pacifist at the time. And I remember the club smelled musty. I’ve never been to the Armory, no. Which is quite strange, as I’ve always wanted to. I saw that multiple Cate Blanchett video work in Melbourne when I was down there. I found it very irritating and phony, and I kind of hated it, but people seem to like it, so who knows. What did you think? Have a most fine weekend, man. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi, Dóra! Good, good, I’m really glad you’re feeling hopeful. I’m picking up my new glasses this afternoon. In the meantime, my poor, dismembered glasses and I are still like a seal balancing a ball on its nose, but with a resultant slight headache on my part that hopefully the seal wouldn’t have. Nice about the lovely meeting with your writer friend, but, oh no, about the possible arriving cold. It does seem like half my friends here have a cold or a flu at the moment. I hope it backed off, or, at the very least, takes it very easy on you. My day … Our producer found a promising seeming young physially disabled guy, so we’re going to meet with him soon. That was good. A bunch of other film stuff. I ordered my new glasses. That was good. Then Zac and I met up with the newly returned Michael ‘Kiddiepunk’ Salerno and Benedetta ‘Oscar B’ DeAlessi and their newborn son Milo. That was very nice. The baby seems very cool, although he was having a big crying jag for most of the time we were there. Zac and I brought along an ice cream buche that we bought for them back when it was buche season, and we bought/brought a completely amazing galette de rois, which, if you don’t know, is this cake that basically all French people eat during the month of January each year. It comes with a paper crown on top and a toy baked inside. Whoever gets the slice with the toy in it gets to be the king and wear the crown. Benedetta was the king. We got the galette from the legendarily and truly greatest bakery in Paris, Du Pain et des Idees. Their breads and cakes and things are like going heaven on earth via your mouth. So the galette was insanely delicious and was worth the 45 minutes we spent waiting in line in the freezing cold to buy it. Anyway, we all had a lovely visit, and then I came come and crashed. Nice day. Do you have intriguing plans for the weekend? And fingers very crossed that you don’t get that cold. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Yes, she’s so amazing in ‘The Maids’, right? She and Glenda Jackson: what a combo. ** James Nulick, Hi. First, ‘in-person’ gratitude galore for the gift of your wunderbar story! I don’t think SY wrote. Maybe a memoir or something. Thank you for praising my interview-seeking eye. I’m getting replacement glasses this afternoon, and not a moment too soon. I can say with total objectivity that Zac’s and my new film is going to be absolutely fucking amazing. Word. 37 custom designed pinatas! Have a very, very good weekend! ** Bernard, Hi, B. Oh, okay, understood about the secretive project. Oh, please, please do send me that Domenica del Corriere stuff. A post will result! Henry Fuesli … no, no post thus far. His name sounds vaguely familiar. I’ll go see what’s what. I’m sure I’ll see that famous painting and slap my head in ‘duh’-ness. I don’t know that ‘A Christmas Carol’. I think I skipped her TV work when post-making to save myself some hours. I think you might have mentioned the last time I saw you that Doug Lang’s health hasn’t been so great. I’m so sorry to hear that. Yes, a lot of poet losses recently. David Meltzer just the other day. Requesting old days counts as a question I think? Yeah, surely. ‘Have you rerun David E’s Frank O’Hara day, or the Kuchar Bros, or Perec?’ No on the first two, and I will in those cases. I think I did repost at least one of my Perec posts not too long ago, but let me check to make sure. Thank you! Be as Bernardian as possible until Monday at the very earliest. ** Okay. You know what to do if you haven’t yet done so. Enjoy James’s work and make some noise please. See you on Monday.