Month: September 2022 (Page 5 of 13)

 

‘For more than 30 years Jon Behrens worked as a film artist. Since the age of 16, Behrens made well over 100 films of various lengths, subject matters and approaches, from documents of the early Seattle punk rock scene to poetic film experiments in which the celluloid film stock itself has been manipulated. Behrens ceaselessly realized a practice of creating visually stunning films that combine painterly concerns with acute photographic observations.’ — Exploded View

‘Jon Behrens was a Seattle based filmmaker/composer. His films have been screened at film festivals, colleges and museums throughout the world since the early 1980’s including screenings at Antimatter Film Festival Canada, Seattle International Film Festival, TIE Film Festival Colorado, London Underground Film Festival, Crossroads Film Festival San Francisco, Festival International des Cinemas Differents et Experimentaux in Paris, Alternative Film and Video festival in Novi Beograd Serbia, Sydney Underground Film Festival, Festival des Cinémas Différents de Paris and many many others. His work ranges from personal film diary’s to abstract hand painted optically printed works. In addition to filmmaking Jon Behrens was also a composer and created sound designs for most of his own films starting about 10 years ago, as well as non film related compositions.’ — Counterpath

‘RIP Jon Behrens (1964-2022). The longtime Canyon artist member was a prolific filmmaker and an analog film magician. In addition to his creative work, Jon co-founded Seattle’s Interbay Cinema Society, the Engauge : Experimental Film Festival, and the LightPress digitization grant, which have benefitted so many. Jon was also a wonderful friend to Canyon and a quiet pillar of the West Coast experimental film community for decades.’ — Canyon Cinema Foundation

‘The vibrancy of Jon Behrens and his cinematic output was unmatched. A man dedicated to his craft, an experimental super hero whose creative life seemed to be endless. For many, many years he held together the outpost of Seattle’s experimental film community organizing dozens of shows and rallying support for filmmakers. I met so many people whose work I’ve grown to love and admire through Jon’s efforts. And his kindness knew no bounds. I was lucky to share time, space and the screen with him. A true friend in cinema and life. I can’t believe he’s gone.’ — Le Weatherman Sekuler

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Jon Behrens Site
Jon Behrens’s blog
Psychotronic 16
Jon Behrens @ IMDb
Jon Behrens @ MUBI
Jon Behrens @ Soundcloud
Jon Behrens @ Letterboxd
Jon Behrens @ Vimeo
The Handpainted films of Jon Behrens

 

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Sounds

 

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Jon Behrens on The Cycle Savages (1969)

With its sleazy violence, psych-rock soundtrack and wooden acting, The Cycle Savages (1969) ticks all the boxes of the outlaw biker gang film. Trashy even by the standards of this trashy genre, it wheels along without a hope of being a leader of the bikesploitation pack – unlike The Wild One (1953), with its iconic performance from Marlon Brando, or The Wild Angels (1966), featuring Peter Fonda’s famous nihilistic ‘we wanna get loaded’ speech. The Cycle Savages instead brings up the rear alongside roadhogs such as The Born Losers (1967), She-Devils on Wheels (1968) and Satan’s Sadists (1969).

Yet it is also a film about the power of art. Clean-cut, law-abiding Romko (Chris Robinson) is an artist who witnesses a sadistic biker gang called Hell’s Chosen Few terrorizing customers at a local diner. He makes speedy sketches of the criminals at work. The drawings are formally stiff, heavy on workman-like shading, but made remarkably quickly given the circumstances. Rumour of his sketches reaches Keeg (Bruce Dern), the gang’s psychotic leader. A local bartender warns Keeg about Romko. ‘He’s been drawing pictures alright. Plenty of ’em. You give him any trouble, he’s got pictures of you and your whole gang he can take to the cops.’ Hell’s Chosen Few are involved in running a prostitution ring and Keeg’s paranoia grows: ‘What’s gonna happen when The Man gets hold of these, huh?’ he asks his greaser hoods. ‘If they get hold of these pictures they’re gonna start connecting things up, right? The automobiles, the trips to the border, even the girls! Now you think we want pictures like this, huh, hanging all over town?’ He hatches his cruel revenge: ‘We gotta find a way to get these man’s hands, and wreck ’em. ’Cos without his hands, he ain’t gonna make any more drawings.’

Remarkable throughout is the bizarre and unquestioning belief on the part of everyone involved – from bikers to cops – in the veracity of the drawings. Never is it suggested that the artist may have made up the scenes he depicts. Romko’s art is treated as hard evidence, his pencil and paper as good as any photographic proof. The Cycle Savages is, in its own schlocky way, about art speaking truth to power, a fantasy of art having a clearly defined and practical social role.

Romko is fearless, and stands by what he makes, as all artists should. When the gang tries to intimidate him outside his apartment, and Keeg pulls out a flick-knife, the artist, unafraid, sneers at him: ‘My friend, the art critic.’

 

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14 of Jon Behrens’ films

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KODACHROME REVISITED (1987)
‘I made this film by shooting around 180 rolls of 35mm slide film. I then hand processed the film in a very sloppy manner. I never mounted the film into slides I simply took the 35mm strips of film and spliced them together. Some of the rolls used in this film were shot by random people I sent a roll of film to that they shot and sent back to me. The Throbbing Gristle provided the films soundtrack.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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UNDERCURRENTS (1994)
‘This film was the third and final installment of my Urban Landscape Series and is my personal favorite of the three. In this film I utilized all the techniques that I had learned over the years and put them all into this film. I finally felt that my mission was complete regarding structures and that I could move forward and try other ideas. RUBATO provided the films sound track.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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GIRL AND A BICYCLE (1995)
‘This film was made in collaboration with fellow filmmaker and friend Rasha Refaie.The film was inspired by a dream that Rasha had about a girl and a bicycle and a silver colored egg. The viewer sees Rasha peddling all over Seattle through city streets, parks, all over and ultimately ending up a graveyard were she begins to experience the nosebleed of her life. This film was going to be the first in a series of films based on Rasha’s dreams; however, shortly after this film was completed Rasha moved to New York City and this was the only film that was made. Rubato composed the films sound track.’ — JB

the entirety

 

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DESERT ABSTRACTIONS (1997)
‘This is a film that I had wanted to make for many years. It was not until the summer of 1996 that I actually got it together and shot it. Again with the help of Steve Creson we packed up all our equipment and loaded on to a plane and flew to Arizona were we rented a car and drove around the desert for week and filmed everything that we thought looked interesting. This film is similar to the films in my urban landscapes series, only this film was shot in eye popping full color and there are no man made elements in this film at all. Lots of rock formations, colors, and shapes only things made my mother nature. This film also has a film score by RUBATO.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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STAN’S SALON (1997)
‘I was in Boulder Col. on a film shoot when I attended one of Stan Brakhage’s film salons that he hosted. I saw some very incredible images that night and got to meet the grand master himself. I was so inspired by what I saw and the people that I met that the moment that I returned home to Seattle I made this film. My first fully hand painted motion picture, and the techniques that I used in this film are the beginning of an entirely new faze of my filmmaking and I hope to master this technique some day.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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THE LAST TEN MINUTES OF EXISTENCE (2000)
‘This is a film that I had planed on making for more than two years before I began to shoot it. The Idea was to shoot an entire 400 ft. magazine of film from start to finish without stopping. When news came that they were going to destroy the King County Domed Stadium I thought that this would be a perfect subject for this film. I got up at 3:45 am on that faithful morning and loaded up my beloved Auricon Pro 600 movie camera and made my way to the location that I had seeked out weeks prior. I set up my camera and framed up my shot and began shooting exactly 5 minutes before the Stadium was due to be imploded. My Idea was to document the last moments before destruction, the moments during destruction and the moments after destruction, a full 400ft of film shot in one take from one angle with out stopping. The film was shot in black and white and printed on color stock with a royal blue tint. I had always wanted to make a film this way and pay homage to one of my early film influences the late great Andy Warhol.’ — JB

the entirety

 

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THE FLICKERING OF THE MINDS EYE (2001)
‘This film is made up of hand painted and batik sections of film that I then step printed on an optical printer. I also used fingers, potatoes, sponges to print textures and patterns. The film was then cut into a rhythmic pattern that may play a few tricks on your brain.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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ANOMALIES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS (2003)
‘This is the second film of the Anomalies Cycle. It is a hand Painted and manipulated film. I also used the technique of bleaching and batiking of the film emulsion. The footage was then step printed on a J-K Optical Printer. Although similar in style to The Flickering of the Minds Eye I began to experiment more with other colors and different textures such as dried leaves and flowers, hair, insect parts, and a variety of different types of inks and paints. The sound track for this film was preformed by NEGATIVLAND.’ — JB

the entirety

 

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THE ASTRUM ARGENTIUM (2006)
‘Is the third film in a series that is being called the Anomalies cycle. It is mostly a hand painted and step printed film. This time I used stained glass dyes and also experimented with photographing growing crystals with time laps cinematograhy. I also created the sound design for this film.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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PSYCHORAMA (2006)
‘This film is far different than all other films that I have made. I more less put this film together from existing footage. It is a collection of film trailers from the psychotronic film genre of the 50’s through the 70’s. I pieced together from my own personal collection of 35 and 16mm films along with collections of friends and even was even invited to take a trip down to LA to rummage through film vaults. I worked on this film secretly for more than 5 years . This film simply pays homage to all the great studios like AIP and Republic Pictures who cranked out loads of these films during the old drive-in days when film was cheep.’ — JB

the entirety

 

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THE PRODUCTION AND DECAY OF STRANGE PARTICLES (2008)
‘In this film I began to experiment more with creating mats with liquid latex directly on the film emulsion then bleaching of all the excess image around the latex and using the clear bleached sections of film as a canvas to paint my film poem I used special inks that were custom made just for me called Keneville Dyes I then to re-photographed it all on my beloved JK optical printer. I also created this films sound design.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED (2009)
‘This is a film that I put together early 2009, after I made the film I did not know what to do with it because it is so much different than the Experimental art films that I am most known for doing. I am by no means abandoning my avant-garde filmmaking, I just thought this would be fun to do.

‘Almost as long as I have been a filmmaker I have also been a film collector. I have for many years wanted to assemble a collection of vintage toy commercials into a flowing little feature length film, that feature all of these wonderful toys from 1950’s 1960’s and 1970’s all of the major toy companies are represented in this film. Matel, Ideal, Hasbro, Marx, Aurora and many, many others. These commercials were made in a time when children would use their imagination while playing. So strap your self in and take a trip back through your childhood and you may discover a commercial for a toy that had a kid and my hope is that it will spark pleasant memories from those days.’ — JB

the entirety

 

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A BEGINNING A MIDDLE AND AN END (2013)
‘Reconstituted found footage hand painted optically printed wonder, with a begging a middle and an end.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

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A CITY IN FOUR PARTS (2016)
‘I made this film from a 100ft roll of film shot entirely in one take taken on my Arriflex S camera . I trained my lens on to the city skyline and began shooting. At the end of the 100ft roll, I back winded the film to the beginning of the roll. I then re photographed the skyline from a slightly different angle and blended the two exposures with my hand. I then printed the section 4 times and gave each section its own treatment , each section becomes its own part. a portrait of a city – a City in Four Parts.’ — JB

Excerpt

 

 

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p.s.Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Oh, wow, I honestly like every single thing in the new SCAB, which is pretty wild. Very hard to pick favorites. Off the top my head, … I love seeing the new works by the great Alex Rose. The Jamie Giles piece, Nicholas Alexander Hayes, Pedro Minet (and not just because his piece is titled after a GbV song), Thomas Spiers, Travis Jeppesen (he’s great, awesome to see him in there). I really liked the Josh Peterson video. Oh, and many others I’m forgetting. Pretty 100% stardom filled. Ha ha, I could develop a pimple fetish were that the case. Or … a bigger fetish, ha ha. Love making the present I want to buy for a friend’s birthday tomorrow about 150 Euros cheaper so I can buy it, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Dude, you are the toughest cookie there is, I swear to god. And yet you remain such a stylish Zeus head of delights. ‘Mothercare’ is great and not too, too overwhelming. ** Tosh Berman, Though your and Lynne’s stories are very different, you’ll relate, I’m pretty sure. I did, and my mom situation was very, very different. ** Jack Skelley, JS = Jumpin’ Septarian! Well, my ears caught on fire and burned to a crisp on Saturday night, which confused the hell out of me until just now. Oh, man so wish I’d have been at your shebang. Waah! Someone surely video-ed it, surely? Getting close to figuring out my LA dates, I think, finally. Yeppers! I wonder how and why that internet communication company came up with the name Zoom for their service? Like … distant locations zoom into proximity thanks to them? Seems weird. Or maybe it’s coffee. Or my lack there of. Anyway, Zoom! Yes, let’s fucking Zooooom! ** RANGUSRAZE, Hi! I’m … pretty okay today. Nice story. Listen, old ladies know their shit. They’ve got nothing to lose. Or gain either. Wow, you are twunking yourself into twunkdom. Maybe even hunkdom itself. Enjoy the two weeks. Don’t take any wooden nickels. xo, me. ** l@rst, Hey, bud! Hooray for you for keeping the venerable genre of swirling script alive. I was just reading the other day that there’s supposedly a whole generation of new people now who can’t read cursive anymore. It’s staring into the sun for them our something. I don’t believe it, though. Sounds like the usual youth hating. But anyway, sweet! ** Okay. Jon Behrens is a very interesting experimental filmmaker who died just the other day. I’m guessing the vast majority of you don’t know of him and his works at all thanks to the film world’s and cultural media’s psychotic conservatism. But here’s your chance, and I hope you’ll take it. See you tomorrow.

Michael Bullock: I read in an interview that you once moved a junky friend from Times Square in to your house to help him recover, then another moved in and eventually you had to leave because the whole house was full of junkies. I can’t image that happening here?

Bruce Benderson: It was still happening here at the beginning. I was in love with a murderer who lived here from time to time. I shouldn’t say murderer. I don’t know if he actually killed anyone, but he put two people in critical condition. He’d get friendly with someone, start to respect them and then stab them. It happened three times.

MB: You let him stay here?

BB: Yeah, he stayed overnight sometimes, I mean, I was in love with him. He wasn’t psychotic, like kill you in your sleep type of thing. You’d have to be relating to him and something would upset him. It was off and on for years. The last time I saw him he wasn’t well. He had HIV and started to get so angry about it. We were in the kitchen and he was looking at a knife saying, ‘It’s not you, I’m not mad at you’. I thought ‘Oh god it’s really going to happen’, so I said ‘Let’s go out and get something to eat’. We went downstairs. He went out the door ahead of me and I slammed it shut. We talked several times on the phone after that. He wanted to be a writer because of me. We wrote a story together and it was really good – he had talent. I don’t know where he is now or if he’s still alive. I’ll show you the video of him.

MB: I’d love to see it. I feel strange asking about interior design after that.

BB: Don’t. Maybe what you want to know first is why a writer should be so interested in design and visual things. In my experience it’s incredible, most writers, serious writers, have no eye for anything. They understand ideas and they understand language, but they don’t understand design. I think they repress it. They cut it out. They can go to a museum and talk about a beautiful painting, but somehow design is beneath them. Their ideas are too lofty to be concerned with such things. I believe that artists – and writers are artists – should concern themselves with aesthetics in every area of life: the eye, the ear, the nose. They should be interested in perfume; they should be interested in design, in music. Artists should be like that, but very few are.

 

Bruce Benderson @ instagram
Bruce Benderson @ goodreads
BRUCE BENDERSON INTERVIEWED ABOUT PARANOIA, GENITALS, BORING HOMOSEXUALS AND CELINE DION’S HORRIBLY OBNOXIOUS AUTOGRAPHY
Goodnight Manhattan
Buy ‘Urban Gothic’

 

Bruce Benderson Urban Gothic: The Complete Stories
ITNA

‘For more than five decades, with relentless candor, biting wit, and striking imagery, Bruce Benderson’s fiction has celebrated the warped beauty of our megalopolises, including their clashes between the classes and their subcultures of sex and drugs. Oppressed but flamboyant, the voices of his subterranean worlds have become just too intense to be ignored.

‘Now, for the first time, all his short texts, including 21 never before published, appear together in the same volume. Included is one of the first post-Stonewall coming out stories, written in 1970, decades before such narratives developed into a full genre. This, then, is the complete and definitive Bruce Benderson reader.

‘Benderson’s most well-known book, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, was awarded the prestigious Prix de Flore in its French edition. Other publications include the essay collection Sex and Isolation, the short story collection Pretending to Say No, and the novels Pacific Agony and User.’ — ITNA

Excerpt

Extras

A Very Libidinal World

Writers Who Love Too Much: Bruce Benderson Introduced by Kevin Killian

 

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‘The pain is usually felt in the late afternoon and evening, just before dinnertime.

‘Once the pain begins to settle, it is common for the subject to sit down, or to lie down, and remain at rest to avoid dizziness or vertigo.

‘Simple activities will present the same difficulty in being completed as they can present to a child. Even automatic actions, such as reading or playing an instrument, will be challenging.

‘It is also likely that the subject prefers a room in the house without any source of bright light, be it electrical or natural.

‘Sight is often impaired. Panic episodes may follow. A “scary feeling of impotence” is usually reported, alongside nausea.

‘As the pain progresses, subsequent symptoms are usually less associated with psychological states than the inability to control fine motor skills, and crying spells characterised by shedding tears without any irritation of the ocular structures.

‘(DINNER WITH THE TELEVISION ON): Elizabeth Taylor kisses Van Johnson. He embraces her. Her right hand grabs his back. Her left hand follows. His head presses against her neck. He looks up. She smiles. He talks to people at the bar. She walks off screen. He follows her. He sits at the table she’s sitting at. She hands him a drink. He grabs her hand. He takes a sip of his drink. He puts the glass down. He leans towards her. She is not smiling anymore. He caresses her hand with his thumb. He looks down at his hand holding her hand. She doesn’t seem to move. He looks up. He looks down. He looks up again. He takes a deep breath with his mouth. He frowns. She smiles. She gets up. She starts to walk away. He gets up. He turns towards her. She turns towards him. She lays both her hands on his chest. She smiles. She moves her hands from his chest to his shoulders and down his arms. He puts his hands around her. She turns her head towards the screen. She walks off screen. He looks at her walking off screen. A man behind the bar takes a drag from his cigarette. She walks outside. It is raining. She fastens up her coat. He comes after her. He holds his coat shut. He takes a couple of steps forward. He takes a couple of steps back. She puts her hands inside her pockets. He checks the time on his wristwatch. She looks at him. She smiles. She shrugs her shoulders. He gently grabs her arm. She looks away. She looks back at him. He shakes his head. He kisses her on the cheek. He takes some time to let go of her arm. He leaves her. She looks away. She looks back in his direction. She walks away.’ — Adrian Bridget

 

Adrian Bridget Site
Adrian Bridget @ instagram
ARCHIVE
TEXTHOOKER
Buy ‘Child’s Replay’

 

Adrian Bridget Child’s Replay
self-published

‘Child’s Replay is a hallucinatory homecoming. As we follow THE CHILD in a series of private re-enactments, the present self is revealed as the past’s fragile construction. Pursuing the banality of trauma, a first-person character juxtaposes childhood events with internal misrepresentations, reflections on the emotional toll of migration, psychoanalytic theory, Brazilian history, and literary criticism. An exploration of the impact that language and fiction have on real bodies, Child’s Replay assembles a hybrid portrait of memory and anti-memory.’ — AB

Excerpt

JESUS IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH

(The head, which is thought to have been wrapped in felt and loaded into an ambulance, asked to be brought closer to the window, to see the mountains.)

First go back to the hands, disgusting handwriting, digesting it, but I couldn’t. Neck instead, yum yum. Not completely unrelated as he did grab me by the back of the neck with his hands, as far as I can, if my memory does not fail me, remember. A second remembrance pertains to a second time my neck was grabbed but this time around by the front, or back, not sure it even matters, so as to finally arrive at the recurring, present sensation of there being something stuck in my throat. It goes, I never ate breakfast as a child for the thought of breakfast as a child would make me into a sick child. Blackout. Why don’t you just collapse already, says Grandmother. This Grandmother character is created by another character, who writes here as a character, who has never used the word character before and now wants to use it up at once, who sleeps all the time, all pussy-pussy-rolledup in blankets and the like and probably very likely quite possibly in its own excrement. That’s really what I want to see, the character says, a character’s excrement! What does it look like, Grandmother asks. Shush, I am trying to see if I can shit as a character. Character-shit shouldn’t be like fake shit, and it shouldn’t be canned like artist’s shit, no no no no: character-shit should come down hard-sounding like a piano being hammered to bits, to nothing. Beuys-beuys.

This text is written from the perspective of THE CHILD, who is abnormally scared of dying, who has inherited the motherfear of a difficult pregnancy, who, from very early on, sees motherfear on its mother’s face.

When THE CHILD is alone, it is afraid of dying. Death can come anytime it is alone, since death is something that happens to someone alone in a room, in an apartment, in a garden, in a theatre, etc. That is to say that THE CHILD wants to be close, in both physical and psychological senses of the word, to its mother at all times. It is a way of avoiding death. THE CHILD hopes that death won’t latch on to it, while it waits, for example, on the other side of the bathroom door for its mother to come out.

Motherfear is always displayed on THE CHILD’s mother’s face. Enough times a day for THE CHILD to have a motherface where its usual face should be. Alone in a room, THE CHILD looks for its own face while looking like motherface.

motherface wants daddyface to love motherface but daddyface is always sad, too sad to love motherface or THE CHILD that looks like motherface.

THE CHILD wants to say bye-bye to motherface but THE CHILD loves motherface too much to say bye-bye.

APR. 5. PM 1:05 — TV ROOM

THE CHILD is lying on its side, on the white rug that covers the laminate flooring. It stretches both its arms up and then cries. motherface crouches next to THE CHILD.
—Get up, motherface says.
—Give it to me, THE CHILD says.
—Get up if you want to put the perfume on, motherface says.
—Be careful you don’t spill it, motherface says.
—THE CHILD raises its torso to a sitting position. motherface gives THE CHILD the perfume bottle.

Extras

 

 

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‘Eleven years can be a staggeringly long time. This is how long the novelist and short story writer Lynne Tillman spent caring for her declining mother — an exhausting period of her life compressed into a brief but harrowing new memoir, “Mothercare.”

‘“I dreaded the future, this ghost of time coming,” Tillman writes. “I even felt, ridiculously, I was aging faster. My possibilities and fantasies were being stolen by Mother, whom I didn’t love.”

‘The vagaries of caregiving can be shocking to those who haven’t done much of it — though many have. With parents living longer and children coming later, an entire generation has become well acquainted with the double duty of caring for children as well as elderly parents. There’s even a name for this group: the sandwich generation.

‘“Mothercare” is revelatory not only for its honest discussion of this thankless task, but also for Tillman’s candor about having her life drip away in service to someone she cares for more than she cares about.

‘The cultural assumption is that caregiving work of all kinds should be done by women. We are told, time and time again, that women are not just obligated but inclined — programmed, really — to care for others. Daughters should love and care for their parents and mothers should love and care for their children, full stop. And these roles should come before any others.

‘But for Tillman, “Mother had been the opposite of a loving, caring mother.” Tillman’s mother is competitive and jealous. “She hated my getting attention for my writing.” One day, “she said, out of nowhere, as it’s always said, but it wasn’t, ‘If I had wanted to be, I would have been a better writer than you.’”

‘Because of this, “about Mother, I never felt guilty,” Tillman insists. “Anything I gave her was more than she deserved. That sounds awful.”’ — Jessica Ferri

 

Lynne Tillman @ Twitter
‘Mothercare’ excerpt
‘Mothercare’ Takes a Hard Look at What Happens When Duty Outlives Love
Lynne Tillman Explores How Her Mother Was Transformed by Aging and Illness
Buy ‘Mothercare’

 

Lynne Tillman MOTHERCARE: On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence
Soft Skull Press

‘When a mother’s unusual health condition, normal pressure hydrocephalus, renders her entirely dependent on you, your sisters, caregivers, and companions, the unthinkable becomes daily life. In MOTHERCARE, Tillman describes doing what seems impossible: handling her mother as if she were a child and coping with a longtime ambivalence toward her.

‘In Tillman’s celebrated style and as a “rich noticer of strange things” (Colm Tóibín), she describes, without flinching, the unexpected, heartbreaking, and anxious eleven years of caring for a sick parent.

‘MOTHERCARE is both a cautionary tale and sympathetic guidance for anyone who suddenly becomes a caregiver. This story may be helpful, informative, consoling, or upsetting, but it never fails to underscore how impossible it is to get the job done completely right.’ — Soft Skull Press

Excerpt

Mother was a smart, resourceful, attractive, tactless, competitive and practical person. She was what was called a girl with promise, and if times were different, she might have fulfilled that promise. She had wanted to write and paint, but instead she married and had children. She worked for a while before marriage but as soon as my father was making good money, as they called it, she quit, fulfilling an American 1950s ideal – women whose husbands do well will stay at home with their children, content to be wives and mothers. Mother was not, and she was angry, and for that I don’t blame her.

When many Americans in the postwar period moved to the suburbs, my parents did also, from the family’s comfortable apartment in Brooklyn to a house on Long Island, one partly of their own design. It’s where I grew up from the age of five. Mother hadn’t wanted to move to the suburbs, but my father insisted on the American dream. It was, in my opinion, a nightmare for Sophie, the city girl used to speed, museums, parks, taxis, subways – she didn’t like having to drive – and sidewalks, which our street didn’t have, ever. It was all forest with a swamp at the end of it.

My parents retired to Florida, where she had never wanted to live; again, my father insisted. With her husband dead in 1984, alone in Florida Mother was miserable and bored, but with the help of my Manhattan sister, about three years after my father died, Mother moved to Manhattan. My sister found a great apartment for her on Second Avenue and Twenty-third Street. It was convenient, central, and, because she didn’t need to get anywhere fast, crosstown buses were fine.

Her daytime doorman, Ray, told me that, in her first month, he thought Mother couldn’t adjust to city life. He thought it would be too hard for her. After another month, Ray said she was doing fine, and they developed a sweet friendship. Ray was a very kind man, avuncular with her, though she was years older.

Almost seventy-nine, Mother discovered a new life, became reacquainted with the city, an old friend – they had met in school when they were twelve years old – watched movies at MOMA, saw plays, and walked everywhere. Mother was Kazin’s walker in the city, she loved walking. In Florida and the suburbs walking was eccentric.

Mother had seven and a half good years as an independent character.

Then, at eighty-six and a half, Mother showed unusual behavior, symptoms of trouble.

I’d been away almost four months, from September to mid-December 1994, as a visiting writer in the English and American Literature department at the University of Sussex, Brighton, England. During those months, we had no contact. I returned in December, and Mother and I met for breakfast at our usual Polish café. I entered, saw Mother seated at our usual table, and approached, but she didn’t look up. She was staring vacantly at the tabletop, and didn’t greet me. I said, ‘Hi, Mom, I’ve been away, aren’t you happy to see me?’ She glanced up. ‘Sure,’ she said, indifferently. Distant, hair disheveled, she appeared out of sorts, even depressed. Mother was not a depressive; for one, she expressed anger frequently. Her affect now was atypical, puzzling.

We walked uptown to her apartment on Twenty-third Street. On the corner of Thirteenth Street and Second Avenue, we passed what appeared to be a homeless man. Mother commented, ‘He’s waiting for someone.’ Her interpretation was a kind of identification with him or a projection, and unusual from her mouth. Later, I thought: she’s waiting for her husband, my father.

That night or the next morning I phoned one of my two older sisters, I forget which one, probably the New York one. She had noticed the change, also.

Out of the blue, Mother was desperately sick, and it happened to our entire, small family. Each day, in the beginning, the first year or two, seemed urgent. How to handle her condition, what was the right course to help her, what could be done differently and better.

(cont.)

Extras

Lynne Tillman – On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence

Lynne Tillman in Conversation with Christine Smallwood

 

 

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‘The teenage girls in Kelly Krumrie’s Math Class could well be aspiring saints or geometers, with their transfigurative arcs and extremities, keen diagramming skills, shared visions, and acute bodily suffering. Can one chart an intricate web of friendships or unravel the track of a catastrophe? Adolescence is a vexed condition fraught with metamorphoses both terrible and holy, but these girls know how to plot the coordinates of their finite struggles and watch over one another with a sagacity that’s as intimate and precise as the hand-drawn grid of a note passed secretly at the back of a crowded classroom.’ — Pamela Lu

‘Kelly Krumrie’s Math Class makes mathematical thinking tender, charming, full of longing, and strange. This book reminded me of things I love—Georges Perec’s writing, Amina Cain’s, Guillevic’s Geometries—but reading it was also something fresh and new.’ — Danielle Dutton

‘If I didn’t know Kelly Krumrie wrote Math Class, I would guess it was a phenomenological reduction of Madeline fan fiction co-authored by Raymond Queneau and Judy Blume in a parallel universe. Or an elaborate story problem from a geometry textbook détourning Lives of the Saints. What are the girls learning in Math Class? That the body is unsolvable. That God and Euclid never answer their questions. That adolescence has happened and is about to happen but is never that which is happening. Krumrie’s language proceeds via precise abstractions and marvelous mundanities, creating infinite new locations for the experience of anything at all.’ — Joanna Ruocco

‘Math Class is a taut imbrication of storytelling and philosophical investigation thronged with a cohabiting sisterhood, at a place called St. Agatha’s, where they are engaged in reflections on perception; bodily dissolutions and repairs; and the poiesis of logical operations of mind. Nothing abstract is alien to them. The institution is no passive setting of study, but instead a kind of aporia. How are you, a counselor asks a student. “I’m— basically hollow, or a plane on which to graph something, the sound of a shell on the beach (your own blood), a machine, a piston, my arms oars, my mouth a nest, my chest a drum for turning concrete.” Interleaved throughout this elegant speculative fiction are drawings that recall the recessive and delicate geometrics of Paul Klee. These subtle sketches chart a course for the story’s alterity, glimmering with conjecture and truth-seeking.’ — Miranda Mellis

 

Kelly Krumrie Site
Kelly Krumrie @ Twitter
Any Viewing Demands Imagination
Jo considers water’s fractions
Buy ‘Math Class’

 

Kelly Krumrie Math Class
Calamari Press

‘Somewhere in the gap between correct answers and questions that can’t be formulated, girls are learning math. They aspire to seeing without taking notes. Girls go blind, do math, wage hunger strikes, weigh themselves, take field trips, do more math, eat or don’t eat, crochet, sprawl, swim, imagine electricity, wink, fail to understand the meaning of a wink, take photos of each other, and think. Everything is being measured and tracked, yet something mysterious remains, flickering, at the edge of what can be analyzed, known, or even registered in symbol systems. It isn’t yet clear what’s been lost. MATH CLASS is meditative, fascinating, unnerving, a precisely rendered dream of a book, a wondrous gem reflecting mysteries and meanings wherever it goes.’ — Stephen Beachy

Excerpt

Jo’s hair shortened into something clean. It was black-blue like an insect. Her eyes, too, dark and sharp. When she turned sixteen she developed an exoskeleton, an outer frame made up of limbs and eyes and skin. Her hair trimmed straight along the jaw. Nails stopped at the quick.

She reflected on her mind’s operations, how it went from one thing to another. She looked up logic, systems, circuits and kept a journal. Which was she more like? What was a machine?

Or an insect. She felt like she had more than two eyes, but the others were impossible to locate. They weren’t on her body at all, not like a fly or a spider. She studied her own weights and measures. Seeing is understanding. Her vision was in development. The other eyes expanded and retracted. What was this body?

Jo would be a machine. She saw it in the mirror. Her hair’s color, its sheen.

In the kitchen, she practiced repetitive motion. She held a bowl and stirred a batter. She aimed for economy.

In her bedroom, she folded tight corners, rubbed her palms together like a mantis.

What would you like to be, her school counselor asked.

The hallways were always crowded, and she and her friends had a running joke that they were all tiny fish. When they saw each other in the hall, they made swimming motions, puckered up their lips into fish-faces.

Why did I become a human being and not something else? I would like to be two people.

The counselor frowned. I mean for a profession, she said.

Jo practiced having visions. In her room she made repetitive motions, turning her wrist and ankle in circles. She imagined the bones inside as ball joints, or something like a marionette. She thought she might will them to take other shapes. She cut short bangs and became more angular.

In becoming a woman there were things she ought to consider, she thought.

An entomologist, she answered. Or an engineer.

Great, great, said the counselor.

Her friends each had hobbies like band or a sport. When school let out, Jo walked its perimeter, on the outside of the fence. Her fingers grazed the chainlink, sometimes catching. She had taken to wearing tighter clothing.

She hadn’t meant to say two people, but two things, two separate ideas. She clacked her teeth together. Her body was mostly quiet.

Has anyone talked to you about your weight?

Her locker combination was out of reach. If she formed into the mechanism itself…

Jo’s friends took her down to the creek. You’ve been distant, they said.

Her skin was becoming softer, not harder. What skeleton was this? A worm-skin, soft, pinkwhite. An engineer would have control. An engineer would calculate the length of time it took for her blood to pump, for her period to ever arrive, to make transformation more efficient.

She was always a girl, and it stung.

Extras

 

 

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‘In his story collection Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret, Chicagoan Tim Jones-Yelvington zestfully recasts gay men and boys in the central roles of a surprisingly wide array of literary vehicles, including an American Girl-ish story, a Raymond Carver-ish suspense tale, a Heart song, Dawson’s Creek-ish plots, the movie All About Eve, and the Bible.

‘In his biblical imitation, The Book of Sarah, presented in five sections, familiar scriptural stories are wildly contorted and reimagined with four characters serving in every role—Sarah, Hagar, Abraham, and Isaac, all of whom are men. They’re randy in a pretty graphic way, so this isn’t for the easily scandalized.

‘But, for the open-minded, it’s fun to see what Jones-Yelvington does, such as in this homoerotic echo of the Song of Songs, a description of Isaac, an alehouse bartender and a savior of some sort:

“His teeth were white as sheep, recently shorn and fresh washed. His lips a scarlet ribbon, and his mouth inviting. His neck as thick as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes. His thighs a paradise of pomegranates with rare spices.”

‘Jones-Yelvington’s stories look at what it means to be a gay boy and man from a wildly varied set of perspectives and a seemingly constant fluidity in the expression of a gay orientation.

‘There are dark aspects to this, such as the predators, but also great joy and wonder, such as Alex watching the moonlight kiss Daniel’s cheek. In this dark and sparkling way, Don’t Make Me is a celebration of all that it means to be a gay male in these United States of America.’ — Patrick T. Reardon

 

Tim Jones-Yelvington’s Site
TJ-Y @ goodreads
FIGURES UP AHEAD, MOVING IN THE TREES
TJ-Y @ instagram
Buy ‘Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret’

 

Tim Jones-Yelvington Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret
Texas Review Press

‘The stories in “Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret” are linked by their exploration of queer evil. The mystery of desire and sting of rejection drive a child to violence. Boys enter the forest, naive to what lurks within. A pack of pop stars-turned-lovers strike a terrible bargain to preserve their youth. Its characters are gnostics and mystics, ogres and queens whose defiance of the normative both liberates and confines.’ — Texas Review Press

‘This book is a confrontation. It makes direct eye contact, and then there’s no looking away. I laughed so much, with joy and wonder and fear. God, I loved every bit of it.’ —Jac Jemc

Excerpt

Extras

Book Trailer — Strike a Prose: Memoirs of a Lit Diva Extraordinaire

Stranger Danger (A Christmas Carol)

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Tea, Hi. Thank you for the expansion. And for the three facts of importance. We share two, and possibly the embarrassing one too, who knows. Yeah, I mean, basically the only thing therapy really did with me was to make me completely understand that I have that need. After that it’s just been up to me. But knowing for sure did make a difference. Happy that the piss hit home, so to speak. I look forward to getting to know you better, if you wish to get into the know/known thing, of course. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, yes. What is that saying about? Piss and vinegar? I guess I can look it up. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Oh, shit, I never want my posts to collide with anyone’s existence’s bane, sorry. Ha ha, that Grimsby thing is nice. Lou Reed > The Queen without hesitation. ** Dominik, Hi!!! The new SCAB is so great! I’m almost finished with the issue. The best yet? I think maybe so? What do you think? My weekend … the usual film-related hell. Eileen Myles was here and did a reading and we hung out, and that was awesome. Mostly trying to catch up on emails because I”m extremely behind. And some writing. Like that there. Zac seems to be virtually recovered now and out and about again, thankfully. I think a divorce party would be so much more fun for everyone but the divorcing couple. And maybe even for them actually. Love making a squirt of Febreze the magic cure for everything, G. ** Bill, Cool, piss was your friend. Chicago! I was going to ask if you saw Carl Stone play in SF the other night, but you were probably gone. Quimby’s needs landmark status. What a dream of a place. ** T, Hi. Ha ha, indeed. Me too, but my only ‘known’ namesakes are a ‘famous’ harmonica player, the guy who wrote ‘Miami Vice’ and ‘Chicago Hope’, and the host of some true crime podcast, and so I’d rather just stay me unfortunately. Yes, I have almost maxed out the body fluid thematics or at the ones that have enough related entries to make a post. I’m still hoping saliva will pony up with bunch of art at some point. Yay, the best things are always the things on which the jury is out. Ooh, I’ll take that Tuesday. There used to be this TV series in the US called ‘Supermarket Sweep’ that was basically your wish but filmed and requiring high speed on the sanctioned looters’ part. I hope your Tuesday turns the abandoned metro station on the 9 line between Strasbourg St. Denis and Republique into the Paris branch of Cafe Oto. xo ** Steve Erickson, Ugh. Hope springs eternal. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Dimes Square. So probably not. I’ll look it up. ** Robert, Indeed. That would be in a Time Machine’s Top Five initial destinations easily. Yeah, that is a conundrum. Unless you’re really steely in your determination to be original, or unless your goal in your writer’s life is to get a good review in the NYT and a berth in the New Yorker, I would be very cautious about an MFA program. The part time job in a place where rent is 200 dollars jumps out, but Kansas? I don’t know, man. But then I don’t know Kansas. Just be sure to keep your writing as the tiptop priority whatever you choose. Ach, indeed. ** Okay. Today I show you five books I’ve read recently and loved and recommend. I apologise for the watermark on the Bruce Benderson except. It’s the only copy I have. Look and/or shop around please. Thanks. See you tomorrow.