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‘In his fascinating linked novellas The Garbage Times and White Ibis, Sam Pink exposes the absurdity hidden just below the surface of everyday life. In The Garbage Times, this takes the form of a deep dive into society’s underbelly to reveal the grime most people turn away from when walking down the street: homeless people defecating, rats scurrying, pigeons eating dirty food, drug addicts having illogical conversations. It is all there, and Pink won’t allow the reader to ignore it.
‘The Garbage Times is an homage to the randomness of life, the inevitability of shit, scum, and death, and the beauty that glimmers amid the filth. The story’s unnamed narrator is a man who deals with all manner of absurd behavior as he loads garbage, plunges toilets and sinks, and works as a bouncer at a bar. Despite the character’s peculiarities, readers will likely find his barrage of thoughts, explosive emotions, fantasies of violence, and bursts of tenderness easy to relate to. Most of us, Pink implies, are more like this “crazy” garbage man than we would like to admit as we “plunge” our way through life trying to get rid of the shit — pun intended.
The narrator is diligent in his job. Surrounded by rats and pigeons, he takes on each clog with vigor and an absence of fear or disgust, and this endless drive to clean up the messes of others — shit seems to be everywhere — takes on a hilarious cast. Throughout, Pink’s profanity-laced prose feels fitting, as it places the reader deep in the minds of characters choking on the so-called civilized world’s muck.
‘This is the beauty of Pink’s work — he shows the simple devastations of containment, of beings (in this case animals) living without dignity but still striving toward hope, over and over again, as we all do, wanting things to come out all right. This is the heart of his message, the essence of his book: we will never stop trying to keep moving no matter how confined we are. No matter how random life is, we press on toward something intangible in the distance with only the will to live fueling us.
‘In this quest for life and dignity is an equally powerful desire to succumb to death. Its inevitability curls underneath each page, hides in each scene. Morbid readers will really dig this book. As will lovers of the absurd, though the magic of Pink is that he turns the absurd to a purpose. The novellas are hilarious and unabashedly honest in showing how bizarre life is, how unpredictable people are, and yet how each person craves love, dignity, freedom — the fundamental needs we all share. In its surreality and sadness, The Garbage Times leaves readers with an impression of characters living in the grime of the world, amid constant violence and despair, yet striving to rise above and make sense of it all.’ — Taylor Larsen
Sam Pink @ Twitter
A Seventy-Minute Interview with Sam Pink on Gchat
Sam Pink on Writing and Living in Garbage Times
Sam Pink interviewed @ X-R-A-Y
Buy ‘The Garbage Times / White Ibis’
Sam Pink The Garbage Times / White Ibis
Soft Skull Press
‘From the freezing alleys of Chicago to the dew-blanketed bayou of Florida. From bouncing drunks and cleaning up puke to biking through the swamp laughing at peacocks. Freeze to thaw. Filth and broken glass and black water backed up in showers; lizards and Girl Scouts and themed birthday parties. A baby rat freed from the bottom of a Dumpster becomes a white ibis wandering the wet driveway after a storm. Goodbye, hello, goodbye. It was the garbage times; it was time for something else. A tale of two tales, connected by a mysterious sunlit portal.’ — Soft Skull Press
‘Sam Pink is the most important writer in America. This isn’t hyperbole. In a world of literary Bing Crosbys, Sam Pink is our Little Richard. The Garbage Times/White Ibis is the voice of the new writing underground.’ — Scott McClanahan
Excerpt
I had the next day off.
I didn’t want to be in my apartment so I went for a walk and ended up in my old neighborhood.
Saw this guy sleeping sitting up on a bus stop bench.
It was my guy Keith.
I used to drink and smoke weed with him when I didn’t have a job.
‘Crazy Keith.’
He had on big yellow plastic headphones that only played the radio.
He always wore a leather trench coat no matter what temperature it was, even like over a hundred.
Slicked-back gray hair and a boiled-looking face and that ‘Is he going to bite me’ presence.
He woke up and took off his headphones.
His eyes looked completely clear and he had a huge ring of orange dye around his mouth.
He smiled his tiny busted teeth.
‘No, but,’ he said, then laughed.
He grabbed a sports drink container he had next to him and poured some more of a brown-bagged tallboy of orange malt liquor into it.
He never remembered me.
‘No, but hey, nice to meet ya,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Thanks for stopping and talking to me. Sometimes I feel so alone out here.’
‘Yeah, man,’ I said.
‘Yeah because it’s like, there’s nothing. Nobody basically, ya know?’
He held his drink by his mouth and waited for me to respond, and when I said yeah, he nodded and took a sip.
Sweat dripped down the middle of his face.
He went to take another sip, then stopped the plastic bottle right before his orange lips and smiled and laughed.
He kept looking around, up and down the street.
‘No, but hey, wanna smoke this weed I got? Get your yayas out, ya know? But no. I was just about to head over to this garden over uh, just past Kedzie. Know where I’m talkin about?’
‘No.’
‘Here, come with. I’ll show you. It’s just across the street and down like, half a block. Here, it’s really—ya know it’s really trang-kwell.’
He smiled and laughed with his eyes wide.
‘Very trang-kwell there,’ he said. ‘Ya know, sometimes I go there and drink my liquor or smoke some pot, ya know. No because, it’s nice. Very trang-kwell.’ He laughed and opened his eyes real wide. ‘Get your yayas out, ya know?
Crazy Keith.
‘All right, Keith.’
On the walk there, he told me about his old lady.
He walked as though cross-country skiing, taking pulls off his liquor every few strides.
‘No because, my ol lady, man, oh she’s so sick. I go to see her but it’s sad, ya know?’
Said she was in the hospital dying of pancreatic cancer.
Said he took the train outside the city to visit her whenever he could.
‘Yeah she’s pretty much dying now though. There’s nothing that can stop it, no. They’re cutting her apart. There’s almost nothing left. I mean, ya keep taking parts and soon there’s no parts left, ya know? Come on. There’s like, nothing left of her anyways, ya know?’
‘Yeah. I’m sorry, Keith.’
Keith gestured forward with his plastic container of liquor.
‘No but like, it’s right up here. I think you’ll like it. Very trang-kwell.’
The garden was behind an apartment building.
There were benches, planters, some trees, bushes, things starting to grow, birds, vines and things.
Keith sat on a bench.
I sat on the woodchips.
He took out a half-cigarette from his trench coat pocket.
‘No but hey, thanks for the conversation,’ he said, lighting the cigarette. ‘I get lonely. There’s nothing to do. Sometimes I got work. But no, hey, listen, all day—there’s nothing all day. There’s basically nothing, ya know?
He kept offering me his drink.
‘I’m good,’ I said.
‘No because, ya know,’ he said, ‘it’s just weird drinking alone. But thanks for the company, I get sad and lonely all the time because, I mean, there’s basically nothing, ya know?’
‘Yeah, I know.’
He laughed.
He took out rolling papers and a piece of foil with some weed in it.
‘Here, go head, I’m too fucked up,’ he said, smiling.
I folded a paper and started breaking weed up into it.
Keith told me he had a lot of jobs but wouldn’t say what they were.
Every time I tried to talk to him about one, he’d say, ‘No no, like, it’s not something ya have to worry about, ya know. No because, just, don’t worry.’
At one point it seemed like he was suggesting he painted traffic cones on Lake Shore Drive.
‘You paint traffic cones on Lake Shore Drive?’ I said.
‘Yeah, seventy-five dollars an hour,’ he said. ‘Oh man, but ya gotta be honest. Except, no, if they catch ya stealing, ohhhhhhh man. No because, no, they’ll most definitely fuck ya up. Man, fucking cut your hands off. Paralyze ya by putting a thing in your spine, ya know? Make ya literally fucking retarded. No because, it’s bad news, I’m tellin ya.’
He laughed really hard and loud until he wheezed like heeng heeng.
When he calmed down, he said, ‘No but they’ll fuck ya up, yeah.’
I asked who ‘they’ were but he wouldn’t answer.
‘Wanna hear something weird?’ he said, leaning forward and smiling. ‘Do you think I’m weird? No, like, in your personal opinion, do you think I’m a weird guy?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, smiling.
I finished rolling the smoke.
Keith picked up a rock and held it between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Hey no, but don’t take nothing for granite.’
‘Yeah.’
‘No, look, this is granite,’ he said, looking at the rock.
Neither of us said anything for a little bit.
Keith stood up. ‘No but, let me show ya over here. There was some lightning that hit, right over here.’
I followed him to a corner of the garden.
He pulled back part of a bush.
He pointed to an area where he said lightning had hit.
It looked completely un-lightninged.
‘Yeah, man, ya know. I came here just to get my yayas out and I’m sittin here and this lightning hits. Wow, huh? Left a big four-foot crater over here. See?’ He pulled back a few parts of a bush and pointed behind it and said, ‘See, it’s right here.’
Then he turned and yelled, ‘Boo!’—his hands up, mouth open, busted teeth bared, laughing like herg herg, holding his stomach.
I laughed. ‘Fuck you, Keith.’
‘No, but, I’m just fuckin with ya.’
He picked a few leaves off a bush.
‘This stuff, I think it’s sage. Here, have some. You’ll like this. Tastes like licorice.’
He gave me a leaf.
We chewed the leaves.
I sat down on the woodchips again.
I lit the weed with Keith’s matches and took a big pull and passed it.
We sat there smoking.
I picked up stones and threw them into the bushes . . . to be among the yayas of old.
Keith started looking really extra fucked up.
He was staring straight forward and making sounds like newwwmmmm or gerrrrnk, then laughing until his eyes watered and he lost his breath.
‘Hey but no, we gotta leave I think,’ he said. ‘Should probably go in case they show up.’
He poured the last of his tallboy into the plastic container and threw the can behind a bush.
‘All right, Keith,’ I said.
I knocked off the smoke’s cherry on a large stone.
Sam Pink CLASH Books Reading AWP 2018
“Rontel” by Sam Pink — A Single Sentence Animation from Electric Literature
Sam Pink reading at the Knockbox
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Meagan Day: First off, what is Animal Shelter?
Hedi el Kholti:Well, there are always several narratives that somewhat conflict.
The first answer would be that sometime in 2007 there was a moment when I was working at Semiotext(e) and I felt frustrated with distribution. Contractually, we can’t sell our books on our own website, but I wanted to do something we could sell directly. A lot of publishers rely on direct sales. It was a test. I thought we’d do something and try to sell it on the website — a little journal.
Semiotext(e) also operates under strict rules about when we can announce and publish our books. There’s a delay of almost two years for any project, between the moment we acquire it, to when it’s announced, to when it’s published. We wanted to do things in a more spontaneous way, and so around that same time we decided to start The Intervention Series. Animal Shelter came out in November ’08, and The Coming Insurrection by The Invisible Committee came out under The Intervention Series in early ’09. At first, The Intervention Series was only going to be sold online. Animal Shelter was kind of a test to see how the logistics would work — going to the post office, etc. Thankfully I gave up that idea for The Intervention Series, because The Coming Insurrection ended up being such a big hit that it would have killed me to ship all those copies myself.
So that would be one answer.
But the second has to do with the fact that I’m the one who filters all the e-mail that comes to Semiotext(e). We get a lot of proposals. But then also, I deal with people who write about our books and become friends, and our translators and interns, who are all writers in their own right. And so I thought we could mix some of these people who have great writing that’s not being published elsewhere with interviews we generated that we couldn’t place anywhere, and with whatever other interesting things were floating around. I thought it would be nice to create a little snapshot of who’s in our life and document the direction the press is headed at different moments. That’s really what I wanted to do – to take a snapshot of what the scene around us is now and try to make it really coherent.
But also, the magazine comes from my love of print culture. In the Internet age, there’s really no shortage of interesting things to read. It’s a little bit antiquated to start a magazine. But I like the physical aspect of it. I like an object with a date on it, a material archive. So, I thought of Animal Shelter as a gift for our audience — a sort of bonus track. I also really love music labels . . . Sarah Records, Rough Trade, Creation. Those labels always had these nicely priced compilations — Creation Soup, Doing it for the Kids, etc. I always thought they were great. If you were into one of the musicians in those labels, it gave you an opportunity to discover other things.
Hedi el Kholti Interviewed @ Full Stop
Semiotext(e)
Animal Shelter 3 reviewed @ Bookslut
ANIMAL SHELTER: FOOD, WATER, REPRODUCTION, AND READING
Buy ‘Animal Shelter’
Hedi El Kholti, Chris Kraus, and Janique Vigier, Editors Animal Shelter 5
Semiotext(e)
Semiotext(e) is pleased to announce a new issue of Animal Shelter. Conceived as the journal’s final issue, Animal Shelter 5 closes a decade of publication and hovers, fittingly, around issues of mortality, loss, and trauma—charting existential drift, but also finding new eddies of belonging, homecoming, and hospitality. As Chris Kraus reflects, “Things have to move elsewhere. So I think this issue is like smoke, or signal blocking.” In Issue 5: BRUCE HAINLEY on Hervé Guibert; MASHA TUPITSYN on Ingmar Bergman; War diaries by MICHEL LEIRIS; NATASHA STAGG is lost in the supermarket; A story by COLM TÓIBÍN; JEAN LOUIS SCHEFER on Vertigo; Poems by ARIANA REINES
Other contributors include: Nikki Darling, Guillaume Dustan, Charlie Fox, Hervé Guibert, Raquel Gutiérrez, Jeff Jackson, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Chris Kraus, Clara López Menéndez, Nicole Miller, Julietta Singh, Natasha Soobramanien & Luke Williams, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, McKenzie Wark, Abdellah Taïa, and Janique Vigier.
Art by: Soufiane Ababri, Jean-Luc Blanc, Nicole Chambers, Hedi El Kholti, Matt Fishbeck, Kathryn Garcia, Herve Guibert, Jessica Dean Harrison, Galen Johnson, Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Alan Kleinberg, Patrick Kwon, Michael Oblowitz, Evan Sabourin, Valerie Schultz, Elaine Stocki, and Torbjorn Vejvi.
Excerpts
Otis MFA Graphic Design Lecture: Hedi el Kholti
Chris Kraus Interview: Changing Lives
Semiotext(e) at the Whitney Biennial
________________
‘Poet Dorothea Lasky has published five books of poetry and several chapbooks, including a new one called Snakes, and describes how she works from one poem to many, and from there into a collection on a theme.
‘”Each time, after I finish a book, I tend to keep writing poems at random, with no real focus. I put very little pressure on this work and just write for fun or need or from whatever drive writing poems comes from,” she told Spine. Central to her process: quiet and time. “I am a firm believer that if you give a person time to completely manage a day as they so choose, they will create new things,” she said.
‘Ideally, Lasky finds her time first thing. She pairs her quiet with coffee and “looks at things” on a walk, at a museum, in her home studying objects she’s collected, like tiny elephant figures or a bunch of fabrics doused in fall colors. Ideally is not lately, as Lasky balances writing with family and teaching. Quiet time at present looks like coffee and computer and a PowerBar … and no talking!
“Once I have to speak to anyone in person, with my actual speaking voice, the poems turn into other things. In complete contradiction of this image, however, I will say that I write, or I should say start, lots of poems in a rush, at all times throughout the day, again very randomly.”
As she writes poems and writes poems, a central concept emerges. “It usually has to do with a certain preoccupation, or should we say obsession, that I am feeling at the time, whether it be for a person or an idea, and usually both,” she said.’ — Susanna Baird, Spine
Dorothy Lasky Website
‘Milk’ reviewed @ NPR
Dorothea Lasky @ Twitter
THE POET’S PRACTICE: DOROTHEA LASKY
Buy ‘Milk’
Dorothea Lasky Milk
Wave Books
‘In her latest collection, Dorothea Lasky brings her signature style—a deeply felt and uncanny word-music—to all matters of creativity, from poetry and the invention of new language to motherhood and the production of new life. As much a personal document as it is an occult text, Milk investigates overused paradigms of what it means to be a creator and encapsulates its horrors and joys—setting fire to the enigma that drives the vital force that enables poems, love, and life to happen.’ — Wave
Excerpts
Poetry and the Metaphysical “I”: A Lecture by Dorothea Lasky
The Beast: How Poetry Makes Us Human
Dorothea Lasky, “I Like Weird Ass Hippies”
________________
‘I was initially terrified of this, believing it to be written by a person who had infantilised themselves to such an extent as to have chosen Stupid Baby as a name; and the back cover blurb seemed vaguely suggestive of grown men happily shitting their adult nappies in anticipation of a sexy spanking; and it’s published by Amphetamine Sulphate who don’t look as though they’re going to be reigning it in any time soon. Research revealed that I was thankfully mistaken on a few counts, and that New Juche is a photographer of Scottish heritage and also author of this, a novel called Mountainhead, and a CD called Bangkok Fanny-Rat, amongst other things. He lives in one of the more poverty stricken ghettos of Thailand and very much enjoys having sex with prostitutes.
‘There will inevitably be certain associations which have attached themselves to that last sentence even before we’re done with the paragraph. To tackle the likely questions one at a time, Juche is a Korean word amounting to self-reliance or independence. It also refers to a political ideology described by Wikipedia as follows:
The Juche idea means, in a nutshell, that the masters of the revolution and construction are the masses of the people and that they are also the motive force of the revolution and construction.
‘The name – which the author admits is slightly facetious – seems fitting given that his writing is essentially anthropological but for the inclusion of the observer as very much part of the texture, in other words his testimony is divorced of the clinicality and detachment of anthropology, and facilitates a more thorough understanding of the subject because he’s living it. It’s a little like a more sympathetic Céline.
As to what he’s actually living, the term sex tourist probably comes to mind; but surprisingly that’s exactly what New Juche isn’t, at least not by any usual understanding of the word. His position is succinctly summarised in the question by which his PDF book The Mollusc is promoted on his website:
‘What do you feel and do and why, when you experience the expression of distress by the poor, especially when you’re paying them for sex?
‘New Juche expands on this in an interview on Hoover Hog:
I’m heavily put off by writers who contrive to smear themselves into broader conversations, whether it’s intended to demonstrate piety or cynicism. But – and this is what I’m talking about with this heavy vendetta I have against conversation – I perceive some piety in precisely what I’ve just said. There’s a BBC documentary in which a collection of lazy English middle-class twenty-somethings are chaperoned around Patpong, and have delivered to them a stage-managed encounter with a young ‘prostitute’ in a pole-dancing outfit who relates the usual sob story through an interpreter and then weeps as she takes questions from the group. This all occurs in the heart of it, with tourists and bar girls all around and loud music. Worked up into a pious rage, one of the English females gets into a wild verbal fight with a passing American tourist, who tells her she is a ‘phony’ who doesn’t understand that ‘prostitution’ empowers these girls, and that they all want to be there, etc. Not unlike a Houllebecq character. They both present as obnoxiously ignorant to me, but their platitudes are clearly born out of the respectively limited vantage and degree of their insight. This is demonstrative of how the flimsy insipid social politics of dim-bulbs can rarely come down to rest on the actual ground, especially in places like this. And again why conversation is undesirable. I’ve heard endless nights of rationalisations, justifications, and disgusted condemnations. In the end, prostitution is a country in which I’ve lived for most of my life, and it is as irreducible as any other country.
‘So there you have it. If you’re after an insight into life at the foot of the trash heap in the far east – and you should be simply because it’s interesting and enlightening – then Stupid Baby paints a particularly vivid picture, not only finding the humanity in such places, but revealing that it’s mostly humanity, even if lacking romance in the traditional sense, or even the sense of an Escort letters pages.
‘I was expecting something harrowing and absolutely alien, but I had it all wrong, and if Stupid Baby isn’t exactly pretty, there’s a kind of beauty here and certainly a tenderness regarding its subject. I haven’t bothered to address any potential moral issues concerning prostitution in this review, because the book does it far better than I could and from a position of greater authority, which is possibly part of the reason for it having been written.’ — Lawrence Burton
NEW JUCHE SITE
“Prostitution Is a Country” – An Interview with New Juche
New Juche @ goodreads
New Juche Whores Of Leith
Buy ‘Stupid Baby’
New Juche Stupid Baby
Amphetamine Sulphate
‘I’ve only looked after old faring, fifty sixty years old. But they all fucked me over, every one, after three or four yeas. They stole everything and escaped. All are the same. Farang like this are evil fucking scum. But I’ve never looked after a baby like you. I want to try. Interested? I’m over fifty, alright? You’ll be taken care of all your life. You don’t have to work. Only fuck me every single day. Interested?’ — New Juche
Excerpts
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p.s. Hey. ** DC, Oh, hi. ** _Black_Acrylic, Glad you dug it, B-ster. I saw a few pix of the Seattle show somewhere, on FB (?), and it looks marvellous. Congratulations! Really look forward to getting the post and launching it universe-ward. Thanks! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. That’s certainly my philosophy. Yes, yes, about the spitting out. My actor buddy Christian B. is a model example of a survivor. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Me too about the blog, whew. We didn’t meet/work yesterday because very sadly Zac’s grandmother died the night before last. It was not unexpected, but still, and he is now very occupied dealing with that and helping organise what has to happen. We might work today depending on where is in that and how he feels. I love Charity Kase, and not only for her awesome name. She’s so versatile and shapeshifting. Very impressive, thank you for the introduction. Did your waist make it through your demanding day and rouse itself afresh today? Because the work session got cancelled, I got to meet up with pals/artists/d.l.s Michael ‘Kiddiepunk’ Salerno and O.B. DeAlessi and their little kiddo and future pal/artist/d.l. Milo on the Left Bank for some book shopping and coffee and hanging. Bought two poetry books I know but don’t have actual copies of: John Ashbery’s ‘Quick Question’ and Ron Padgett’s ‘Alone and Not Alone’. And then I went home ands reread them. They’re bliss. Otherwise, I worked on blog stuff and did emails and not too much really. I hope you made it through your long day and psychologist tete-a-tete in perfect shape? How is everything? ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Yeah, the malware attack was bad enough that basically every function had to be restored individually, and reopening the comments was the last (I hope) piece of the puzzle. I read your thing about ‘I Remember the Crows’ on FB, and I’m very curious to see it if that becomes possible. I forgot Rudolf directed ‘Breakfast of Champions’. I’ve meant to watch that for forever. Partly because it has one of the rare biggish Lukas Haas performances I haven’t seen. ** Nik, Hi, Nik! The blog seems to be okay. I hope the new firewall I forked out for will fend off any future attacks. The TV script is just about ready to be submitted to ARTE. This week. The film script has to sadly wait until the TV script is submitted, but it’s very close to finished, and I hope we can totally finish it in the next week or so. Yeah, she’s one of the very few artists working seriously with the gif as a medium. It’s fascinating. Thanks about ‘The Marbled Swarm’. Yeah, it’s not a coincidence that writing it led me into wanting to make fiction with gifs more than with written language. Well, finals are a good excuse. Well, maybe not good, but I mean understandable. Procrastination is so strange, isn’t it? I never procrastinate about writing but I often procrastinate about real world stuff. Really strange effect or state or whatever it is. Well, best case scenario, writing fiction about things you don’t care about will inadvertently teach you some new writing tricks. That can happen when writing becomes a task. So I’ll hope for that. What kind of internship do you hope for? ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff. Yeah, that was spooky, especially after the google thing, and also especially because, just like last time, my new gif book is stored here, and Kiddiepunk hadn’t downloaded its materials yet — which he rushed to do yesterday, I hope — so I had a super fear of losing years’ worth of work and my next book. I haven’t seen ‘Counting’, just the trailer. So sorry to hear your pet’s health is still an area of confusion. That must be so worrying and stressful. ‘Sculptural assemblages’, ooh, say more? Yes, I’m an admirer of Sarah Charlesworth’s work, and I do know and love her ‘Stills’ series. Yeah, it’s different in a sense from her best known work, but the formal connection is strong as well. It’s certainly more emotive. I knew her work early on as I was living in NYC when the ‘Picture Generation’ artists were first showing. It’s very interesting to see her work now outside that context, which really defined how her and other PGs’ work like Louise Lawler, a.o. were understood. There’s a deep haunting-ness to her work that was kind of obscured at that time. Anyway, yeah. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris!!! So happy you found the Jem Cohen post inspiring. I think it was Jeff Jackson who originally suggested it. And obvs glad you dig Dina Kelberman’s work. You’re so kind and generous about the blog, man. But, yeah, thank fucking god it got through that in one piece. I don’t know, and probably never will, if some actually targeted my blog, but it’s weird to think someone would have. Buddy, you rock so hard, and today is going to go all shakey around you like the earth re: the falling of Thor’s hammer, if you ask me, and I predict. Love, DC. ** MANCY, Hi, pal! Yeah, thanks, that was scary, I must say. Cool cool, of course I was thinking about you and your possible interest when I put together that post. Sweet stuff, right? Simple but voluminous. Take care, S. ** JM, Thanks a bunch. Yeah, let’s just say that fucking firewall better do its job. I can only imagine, or try to, how hard it must be to learn ‘Leaves Of Grass’, which, to be perfectly honest, I’ve never liked. Too much declaiming and me-me and positivity for me. Not a Whitman fan. But my Dad says Whitman changed his life, and he’s hardly alone. Man, good luck with that. So, probably impossible to answer, but how are you staging that? Is it presentationally poetic, in an expected or unexpected way? I’m guessing the latter? Great day to you whatever wends its way out of yours. ** Okay. 4 books I loved. Well, one of them is not technically a book, I guess, but who’s counting? See if anything up there intrigues. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Oh! I love these days. I wasn’t aware of any of these, excepting the Sam Pink, which I was excited for (he’s like a 21st century American Celine). Thanks, as always! Hope you’re well, friend.
Jean-Louis Schefer (mentioned in passing by Hedi) is one of the greatest of all film critics
Don’t know that book by Ashes, “Quick Question.”
MUST find a published for “Raised By Hand Puppets” STAT!
DavidE, So glad to hear you mention “Raised By Hand Puppets.” Godspeed, maestro.
Hey, Wine Alert – (just kidding, way too early) – tried commenting last night, but was still getting a bad request – cleared my cache and now it’s fine. Dennis, thought you might enjoy my short story just published on the site The Holy Male, about my cult experience when I was 26. If you have the time, you might get a laugh out of it. I don’t think I’ve ever had something published so quickly – submitted it, and bam – there it was in a day or so. If only publishing could always be like that! Anyway, hope you enjoy if you get the chance:
https://www.theholymale.com/blog/jewish-american-prince-by-kyler-james-book-preview
I’m a fan of Animal Shelter. I’m sorry that there will be no future issues of this fantastic journal. But alas, there is the new one! I love the blogs like above. It’s great to be exposed to new writing, etc.
Wow, I didn’t know there are new Sam Pink and New Juche books. I’m very excited.
Sorry to hear about the hack, Dennis.
Looks like I’ll see Crowd in Berlin in June! Yay.
Bill
Hey, for once I’ve actually read one of these books (the “Stupid Baby” one, which I enjoyed so much that I went out and purchased “Mountainhead” shortly thereafter).
Right now I’m still in my Ellis re-read (halfway through “Glamorama,” a book I haven’t read in over a decade), but that’s wrapping up… I don’t have to re-read “Lunar Park” because I re-read that one in 2016, so all that’ll be left is “Imperial Bedrooms,” which will be easy as it’s so short… I’m also reading that Snuggly Decadent/Symbolist anthology I mentioned a few days ago.
It’s a frustrating time for me right now because I want to start a new novel but physically I don’t feel up to it (my health has been very poor as of late: my GI doctor thinks I have a bacterial overgrowth in my small intestines). I did get one bit of good news yesterday though: a well-respected publisher in the Weird Fiction scene wants to publish a story I sent them last August as part of their chapbook series at some point in the near future. So that (along with the publication of my novel, which should be this coming January) is at least something I can look forward to, though this does mean that I’ll need to delay trying to get my third collection published until after the chapbook’s release.
Ahoy Dennis!
How are you?
I’m back and hopefully here for a while. I’ve been having more health ups and downs, of course, and I’m not altogether better, but I’m trying to act like I am to see if that works. A Voice Through a Cloud was like the finest nursemaid, I must say, like a friend through bad times and what a funny, funny novel.
How’s the TV and movie scripts?
I’ve been eyeing those Sam Pink novellas and may be about to purchase.
I hope things are all as good as they possibly can be with yourself. That malware attack sound nasty and I’m glad you got it nipped in the bud, but sorry about the expense.
Look forward to getting gassing with you again.
Lots and lots of love to you,
Jamie
I had heard about the Sam Pink novellas. Poet Stephanie Gray, whom you have featured here before, has a new chapbook out from a Canadian publisher.
I am waiting for the Nation to publish my Flatbush Zombies review. Alas, they passed on running a review of the forthcoming Ghost album, despite my pitch for the band’s political importance. My review of REVENGE will also come out in Gay City News on Thursday.
How was Xavier Beauvois’ THE GUARDIANS received in France? It opened in New York last Friday, and I plan to see it next week. Despite the bottoming out of the foreign film market, Americans still get to see far more French films than we do from any other country (apart from the Bollywood and mainstream Chinese films that play the AMC multiplex circuits). If Beauvois, Bruno Dumont or Claire Denis were German or Russian, their films probably would not get theatrical release in the U.S.
I miss the themed Semiotext(e) anthologies, like the science fiction collection edited by Bruce Sterling.
Here is the link for more info and ordering Gray’s book: http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.ca/2018/03/new-from-aboveground-press-go-under.html
I’m a definite fan of the Amphetamine Sulphate imprint and that New Juche book looks a must-buy. I never did spring for Mountain Head and I don’t know why, but this looks to be a good introduction to the ND world.
Tonight I impulsively went along to see the Glaswegian comic Limmy at the Dundee Rep Theatre. Alex was jetlagged post-Seattle and Andrew was working so I was there on my own and enjoyed it a great deal. You may recall a few weeks back I was raving about Limmy’s Homemade Show that I thought was a happy melding of humour and the avant garde, all shot using ultra simple means to create something extraordinary. Well this thing tonight was his Vines Show, which is nearly 2 hours of rapid-fire seconds-long video clips that bewilder and disorientate as they machine gun you into submission. There’s a compilation of of some of them here and it’s a small sample of what was projected earlier.
Dennis, Okay, we’re back in action. Good to see Ariana’s poems getting some exposure and love. Love her stuff. Lots of good stuff here today. I like what I’ve read here.
I was MIA yesterday because a close friend was in MD from Japan. Her husband is stationed there, and she’s on the mainland for her sister’s wedding and only had one day available to see us here in MD. I went to our other friend’s house after work and didn’t get home until after 11. We had a good time.
Btw, she and her husband and three girls are in Misawa for the next year and a half.
I’ll have to go over the PSs when I get a chance to see what was up with that malware shit. I hope you weren’t targeted by someone again. If so, I’m highly fucking pissed. Or even more highly fucking pissed than I would be if it was just a random thing.
The bear-mauling video was not inspiring, hahaha. Could really see much. It was from a distance and all you see is the guy just kind of wrestling with the bear. A little dog runs up and yaps and I guess he was trying to help, to no avail. There were a bunch of people standing around watching. I mean, really, pick up a stick or something and throw at the thing. I would have. I guess people have different priorities.
I think the new Avengers movie is worth going to see, particularly in IMAX 3D. It’s a fun movie. I’m a big Spidey/Tom Holland fan now, hehehe. He does have a scene at the end that got me a little choked up, believe it or not.
I think I need to rewrite this eighth bit of mine. Totally went off the rails. Or just edit the hell out of it before I go any further with it. That happens sometimes.
Sympathy with Mr Farley for the loss.
Dennis, great loved book day. I’m behind with the books, but look forward to reading “Animal Shelter 5” and others, of course. Apparently, Joy Williams’ “The Changeling” is republished. Should catch up on that also.
I will be diligent off-blog for a while, so then I can hopefully catch you late May.
Have a nice day.
Stupid Baby definitely intrigues. Where can I find it? I don’t like Leaves of Grass either, or Whitman, though it’s my own presumptuous fault you read ‘Leaves of Glass’ as Leaves of Grass; I forget how much of a giant Whitman is. I’m in the middle of learning Philip Ridley’s massive play which is satirically linked, in title at least, to Grass. I have done staged poetry before, though, though I’d never touch Whitman on the stage, I think, and I guess the presentation is dependent on specific poems. I’d love to do a performative version of Nabokov’s PALE FIRE one day but I’m immediately conscious, even just floating the idea, of how bound that poem is to Kinbote&in turn its textual form. Hmmmmmmm. Now you have my brain firing off all over the place…. I have to admit; I think I’d actually find it *easier* to learn Whitman’s Grass [or at least, a comparative ‘section’ of it i.e. 92 pages ish] than Ridley’s Glass, which is bizarre, because reading Glass I assume it’d be just like the previous approach I had to Moonfleece in terms of flow and such. No such luck. LoG is ridiculously circular, and often finds itself putting an open bracket in a scene that closed a bracket earlier on. Dialogue mimics itself in a way I wasn’t even conscious of before we started rehearsing it and the words were sitting in my mouth and it can often make it hard to keep track of what the hell is going on at any given time. From a reader/audience perspective it’ll be clear clear clear but…. for us, well, another task all together.
I remember a bit of what I spoke about in the pre-malware comment! I saw a production of Tom Waits’ 1992 opera ALICE here in Chch, one of the few avant-garde outfits over on this side of the world. Pretty glorious performance; the best rendition of Jabberwocky I’ve ever seen live (an intensely intelligent poem imo, but it’s easy to make it dumb, or to present it in a way that is either overcomplicated or too simple) – simply two actors holding up a mirror as a light was reflected onto different members of the audience. I played a game with the performers at one point; making a conscious choice to leave my eyes open whilst the light was directly in my eyes and confirmed my suspicion that they refused to shift the mirror until you flinch away from the light. Good game to be playing. Tom Waits is, obviously, a giant. On which note, ish, have you heard about the latest delays in the Gilliam Don Quixote saga? We’re never going to see this film….
have a great day
j
Hi Dennis, nevermind about the New Juche book, found it and purchased (a hefty $36NZD including shipping to get it over here, yikes). One of my concerns about being young + the foreseeable-future-pressure of Moving House Some More Times And Not Necessarily In This City is, like, what am I going to do with all my books, man? And not just books, my movies, too, my music? I don’t trust my parents not to get rid of them all, though if I asked nicely enough I guess they’d hang on to ’em all… but, ah, it is a bit of a concern?? There’s no way I will get the chance to read AND finish Bottom’s Dream anytime soon. New Juche, for sure, considering it’s short. But I want to hold on to all these texts!! ahh!!! ahhhhhHHhHH! What do I do when I’m renting with no property of my own??? etc. etc. etc.
I guess I also like the semi-romantic idea of having a well established arts circle and just circulating texts around between us. My copies of Caryl Churchill plays and Urs Allemann’s Babyfucker are out there somewhere in the nether, annotated by me, for arty folk in my city to come across somewhere somehow one day, maybe they’ll even end up far away….
J
Hey Dennis,
sorry about the delay, had some computer troubles.
Fantastic sweep of books this post round. Definitely going to check out each of these, esp Stupid Baby.
Cyberpunk def seems like your brand of sci-fi. I havent read much but Gibson’s Neuromancer is on my reading list (as well as Sam Pink’s Person, so excited for that one).
Re Delaney, I’ve been reading his book Dhalgren. It’s weird. There’s plot but not plot heavy if that makes sense? it’s more of a character study of the main dude and the weird people in the setting. Unless the plot is just taking forever to come in. Thing’s long: 800 pages. But it’s fun. Im also hoping between this and James’s Valencia.
Do you prefer high concept sci fi or b-movie stuff w your moive-sci-fi? I like both, but the latter is infinitely more enjoyable on screen than the former imo.
The other day, while me and my bf were smoking on our porch, a june bug hit the wall and fucked up its head so it flew around all wonky. Anyways, just as I blow out the citronella candle the june bug dive-bombs the hot wax with an audible thwack. It’s now encased in the candle and we dont want to take it out.
I dont know why i told you that.
belatedly,
cal