Category: Uncategorized (Page 30 of 1102)

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Alice

‘Alice lives with its owner Marie Ford in Washington state. This very haunted doll is said to whisper in a ghostly voice if you press your ears close to her porcelain lips. Her eyes will follow you around the room and her expression will change if she does not like you . “This Doll has been in my family for years it was always kept in a locked doll case,” says Marie. “My grandmother said it was possessed by the spirit of her best friend Alice who died by committing suicide at the age of 13. I have captured many Haunted Doll EVP’s from her and the most common statement she makes is, “I want to be left alone to suffer”.’

 

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Letta

‘Kerry Walton, of Brisbane, Australia, stumbled upon Letta while searching for antiques under a dilapidated old house. The doll seemed to behave in unnatural ways as soon as he discovered it. The bag containing the doll rustled in the back of his car. Its facial expressions seemed to change from day to day, and dogs had a vicious response to it. Also, children in the family were having nightmares, and Letta’s head, arms, and legs would move on their own.

‘An Australian psychic conducted a seance and determined a man who was grief-stricken because his son drowned made the doll. The doll was to serve as a type of transference vessel for his dead son’s spirit, and today, everyone who comes into contact with Letta the Gypsy Doll says that it is alive.’

 

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Emilia

‘Emilia is a haunted doll which is at least a 100 years old and is believed to have belonging to king Umberto (king of Italy). The king was assassinated and the doll was given to his best friend Ulvado Belina. Ulvado was also assassinated and the doll was then given to his daughter Marie.

‘Marie claimed that she heard the doll crying and weeping many times and that the doll would change its facial expressions as well. She also claimed that Emilia would open and close its eyes. Marie claimed that she also heard Emilia say a sentence. According to Marie, Emilia said – “It’s not great”. While Amelia was not well known enough to be assassinated, she did die in a hail of bullets.

‘Today, Emilia remains locked in a glass case, and is on display at the Warren Occult museum. The only one of it’s kind, the museum houses haunted artifacts and objects collected from over 50 years of paranormal investigations. It is still reported that while very weak, Emilia still manages to trip, pull the hair, and temporarily blind visitors who walk by her case.’

 

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Okiku

‘Okiku the doll was purchased by a seventeen-year-old boy named Eikichi Suzuki during a visit to Sapporo for a marine exhibition in 1918. The doll was a gift from his travels for his two-year-old sister named Okiku. When she was initially purchased, the doll had a hair style called ‘okappa’ (similar to a bob cut), which is popular on Japanese dolls. Okiku loved her new doll and it served as the little girl’s companion until she died suddenly from a cold-like illness at the age of three. Devastated by their loss, Okiku’s family put her favourite doll on the household altar where they prayed in memory of Okiku. Before long, the family noticed that the hair on Okiku’s doll had begun to grow, as if the hair was on the head of a human. The family concluded that the restless spirit of Okiku, who died so young, was now inside her beloved doll. The doll remained with Okiku’s family until 1938 when they moved to Iwamizawa in Hokkaido and gave the doll to the Mennenji Temple where she remains enshrined to this day. She is now referred to as Okiku after her former owner. Some believe the hair that continues to grow from her head is the hair of the child Okiku.’

 

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Pupa

‘While real haunted doll stories are not uncommon, the case of Pupa is very unique. The original owner had it from the age of 5 or 6 (1920’s) until she died in July of 2005. The doll survived World War II, and many, many close calls to it’s destruction over the years. The owner cherished it always through out her long life. The doll traveled from Italy to the United States then back to Italy and across Europe and finally to the USA once again where it is now.

‘Pupa is said to move by herself. Often she is said to push things around in the display case where the family who owns her keep her. Since the passing of the original owner in 2005 the family reports that the haunted doll has become very active and seems to want to be released from where she is kept in a glass display case. Members of the family, guests, and workers making repairs in their house have reported discovering the the glass of the case steamed white and, inscribed on the steamy glass from the inside of the case by what appears to be a small child’s fingertip, the words ‘Pupa hate’.

‘Still dressed in her blue felt suit, she has also reportedly pulled pranks aplenty on those who care for her. Often, Pupa was placed differently than when the family last saw her. More than once, the family have reported hearing a sound like someone tapping on glass as they pass Pupa’s display case. When they turn to look, they have seen Pupa’s hand pressed against the glass. One member of the family managed to catch on video the doll rising to its feet and walking within the case, but on the three occasions he tried to upload the video onto Youtube, the video was obscured with a mysterious thick white film and the words “Pupa No!” scribbled on the film in a childish handwriting.’

 

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Barbie

‘At the shrine known as Lady Na Tuk Kong Shrine in Pulau Ubin, you will find a barbie doll occupying the place on the altar usually reserved for the statue of a deity. Even some of the offerings left on the shrines altar by worshippers are different from the norm. There are creams, lotions, rouges, powders, small mirrors and combs.

‘According to Literature and History researcher Han Shanyuan, the story behind the shrine begins with a German couple and their daughter. One day in August 1914, the British army came for the German couple and their daughter. The army caught the couple but the girl managed to escape to the mountain behind her family’s plantation. Unfortunately, she fell from a cliff and died.

‘Locals then built the temple in order to pacify the girl’s spirit. According to the temple’s keeper, at first people worshipped a porcelain altar instead of the Barbie doll. The porcelain altar is believed to contain a lock of the girl’s blond hair and a crucifix that is said to be the one the girl was wearing when she died.

‘Three years ago, a local emigrant to Australia had the same weird dream for three nights. In his dream, a western girl led him to a shop. She then asked him to buy a Barbie doll and bring it to the”Lady Na Tuk Gong Shrine”. The man followed the directions given.

‘To his surprise, he found the shop and also the doll the girl described in his dream. He bought the doll and brought it back to Pulau Ubin. Today, a lot of people come to the temple to worship the Barbie doll and it is said their prayers for safety and health are answered.’

 

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The Voodoo Doll

‘A woman in Galveston, Texas bought a real haunted New Orleans Zombie Voodoo doll on ebay October of 2004, It arrived as described Bound and tied in a metal box. Believing it just to be a strange curio she decided to take it out it’s small coffin and display it. “A Real Big Mistake” she says with great fear… the haunted doll attacked her, repeatedly. Afraid for her life she put it back in it;s decorated box casket but it haunted her in her dreams. Afraid to the point of mental exhaustion she tried to destroy it by burning it first, it would not burn. Then cutting it up the Knife and scissors broke and finally burying it at a cemetery. But as she tells the dolls grave was just to shallow and it appeared lying dirty on her front door step once more. She said she even resold it on ebay and the buyer wrote her that the doll had just disappeared from her home, so she sent it back to her when she found it on her door step again. The third time the buyer told her the box arrived empty. Again the evil doll was found at her door once more. The above photo was taken in 2004, right when she had first received the doll through the mail.’

 

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Joliet

‘Anna G. Says this cursed doll has been passed down from mother to daughter in her family for four generations. And each daughter was cursed to have two children a son and a daughter and each son died at 3 days old. The family believes that each spirit of the boy children is cursed to inhabit the doll until Judgment Day. Joliet is said to be heard crying in the night with the voices of several infants at once. Often is heard a piercing scream that sends chills down the spine of any mother.

‘”It can be heard quite clearly”, says Anna. “I lost my only son at three days old from mysterious circumstance in the hospital. My Mother lost a Son the same way as did my Grandmother and Great Grandmother. As I have been told by my mother the cursed Doll was given to my Great Grand mother by a jealous friend for my Grandmother as a toy when she was pregnant with her second child a son who also died at three days old. Each of us in my family have loved the doll and cared for our lost children to this day. My only daughter will do the same one day when she is older. We have not tried to get rid of it because we know the souls of our lost sons or trapped inside and do not want them to come to any harm. It is a haunted curse that my family bears”.’

 

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Emilia

‘This over 100 year old Haunted Doll came originally from one of the royal guards to King Umberto I. Umberto I, King of Italy or Humbert I of Italy (Umberto Ranieri Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di Savoy), (14 March 1844 – 29 July 1900) was the King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his death. He was deeply loathed in left-wing circles, especially among anarchists, because of his hard-line conservatism and support of the Bava Beccaris massacre in Milan. He was killed by anarchist Gaetano Bresci one year after the incident. He was the only King of Italy to be assassinated. This doll was said to be given to Ulvado Bellina one of his most trusted and respected friends and personal Captain of the Royal Guard who was also assassinated. Emilia was gift to Ulvado’s daughter Marie from Humbert I.

‘The doll survived WW I and WW II only losing both her arms and scalp in the second war to a bomb on a train to Udine, Italy. Because she was a prized gift To Marie Bellina from the king no matter what condition she was in the doll was rescued from the rubble. And from that day on she was haunted by the soul of the woman who died trying to rescue her self and the doll for Marie as they fled the explosion. Emilia the Haunted Doll is said to open and close her eyes, and her sound box is still heard at times in the darkness of the night crying for it’s mama. Though her original voice box no longer works.’

 

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‘Robert, the lifelong companion of painter Robert Eugene (called Gene) Otto. Within months after the arrival of the doll in the Otto household, strange things began to occur. Objects would go missing and turn up broken, Gene took to the unhealthy habit of sneaking out of his window and wandering the grounds at night, and his parents began to suspect him of all kinds of mischief. If he was caught in the act, Gene would always hold out Robert and say, “Robert did it!” Soon the doll apparently became bolder. It no longer seemed to require Gene’s company to move about the house. In the still hours of the night, the servants would often wake to the sound of hollow, pattering footsteps. Too frightened to inspect the cause, they would usually cower in their beds until dawn. Weird humming and singing was heard to come from the nursery if Gene inadvertently left Robert there alone.

‘It was widely believed that the death of Gene Otto in 1972 would put an end to the ghostly activity of the haunted doll. It was quickly learned, however, that true evil never dies, and while the house stood empty reports of the awful doll still continued. Many people would hear the sound of singing coming from the house at night and on more than one occasion the gruesome doll is said to have frightened school children by peering out the window in the attic turret and making faces at them. The home was eventually converted into the Artist’s House historic location as it stands today, Robert was donated to The East Martello Museum not far away. It quickly became evident, however, that Robert was still up to his old tricks. Museum workers began to report strange activity after the arrival of the doll, including one volunteer who was terrorized when the doll apparently spent most of a day following her around. Eventually, the doll was encased in a plastic display case in which it remains to this day. Still, there are those who claim that even this cannot contain the evil doll.’

 

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Amanda

‘Amanda the real haunted doll now lives unhappily in Atlanta, Georgia. She has moved around quite a lot since originally being a haunted doll sold on eBay over 3 years ago. Amanda’s recent life can originally be traced back to Ebay but no further then that. Since she was sold 3 years ago she has been bought sold traded and given away more times then can be counted on two hands. The ghost that is said to possess her is very active if she does not like you. Amanda has been known to move on her own and often heard scratching on the glass class she is now housed in. If she is happy then she just sits there staring into space. But when she is ready to move on she begins to wreck havoc in the home she resides in until she is once again sent on her way.’

 

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The Devil’s Baby Doll

‘Originally purchased as a haunted curio gift from a Leather maker this haunted doll with red leather skin and intense blue hot glass eyes is said to have moved on it’s own and is often heard to make strange growling and gurgling noises and worse. The artist Rafael who made it explains that the doll was made for a close friend who had died. The devil baby even went to this persons funeral. The intention was to place it into the coffin to be cremated with the deceased but his family objected. And after that the doll started to take on a haunted life of it’s own. The artist believes that it is inhabited by his friends soul. He heard it speak to him in his friends voice, and he had witnessed it turning it’s head. Since being sold, it literally drove its two different owners insane before the doll was ultimately locked in a lead box by Rafael and sunk in a river so it would never harm any soul again.

‘This is an excerpt from the first owner Tyler Durbane’s diary, kept while he was institutionalized after this average school teacher was diagnosed with psychosis three months after purchasing the doll: ‘My doll is quite honestly deadly, my doll is absolutely mean. My doll is the mighty Devil embodied, the evil red skinned Satan hiding unseen! He was a shadow of a whisper, a ghost in the night that came to me… calling my name and begging me to hold it, rescue it…take it … make it real and very much alive. Each night it crept cat-like hidden into my deep slumbers… asking me to rescue it from it’s eternal black prison of a hell!’

 

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Elsa

‘The Madonia family from Houston found out that “Frozen” is truly inescapable. An Elsa doll Emily Madonia first gave her daughter in 2013 kept finding its way back home after they twice tried to throw the creepy toy in the garbage. The doll, which sings the inescapable “Frozen” song “Let It Go” when a button on her collar is pushed, began only singing and speaking in Spanish instead of English even when it was turned off.

‘”Mat threw it away weeks ago and then we found it inside a wooden bench,” Madonia wrote. “Okay….so we were weirded out and tightly wrapped it in its own garbage bag and put that garbage bag INSIDE another garbage bag filled with other garbage and put it in the bottom of our garbage can underneath a bunch of other bags of garbage and wheeled it to the curb and it was collected on garbage day. We went out of town, forgot about it. Today Aurélia says ‘Mom, I saw the Elsa doll again in the backyard.’ The doll laughed for 30 seconds straight as soon as it saw her. HELP US GET RID OF THIS HAUNTED DOLL.”

 

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— Texts borrowed and/or collaged from Hauntedamericantours.com, Sharon Stajda, Angelghosts.com, wetellstories,com, and Boing Boing.
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p.s. Hey. ** Alistair, Hi. I generally think/say my all time favorite novel is ‘Death Sentence’ by Maurice Blanchot. ‘White Fang’, I read that, I think in college? Huh, I’ll take a look back at it. Thanks! Ouch: sunburn. Twice when I was younger I got so sunburned I had to go the hospital. My face swelled up and looked like a pumpkin. I don’t think I’ve seen a goldfinch IRL, no. Pretty mental picture. Bon day! ** Steeqhen, I do think that people who grew with the internet and social media and those apps heavily romanticise what social interaction and friendship, etc. was like when it was incumbent on telephones and postal mail and so on. I think people have always had the same impulses, but they had to live out their neediness and voyeurism in person. Which isn’t to say those things are exacerbated by immediate international contact and the ability to easily hide and fake everyone out and protect yourself from the consequences, of course. I don’t know. Food for thought. Glad a couple of the books spoke to you. ** Sypha, Hi. I think if I had to pick a favorite Swans it might be ‘Public Castration is a Good Idea’. Or maybe ‘Greed’. **  Dev, Hi, Dev! Inconsistent commenting is A-okay. Great to see you! Big congrats on getting the exams in your past. I’ve never had vegan soul food. I didn’t know it existed. They don’t even have regular soul food over here. I’ll try it when I’m in LA next. Surely it’s available there. Yes, it’s deeply heartbreaking about Michael. There are people caring for him, and I think he’s as okay as he can be. I hope to see you again soon. ** Hugo, Hey. I have my issues with ‘Safe’, for sure, although I’m still proud of the ‘My Mark’ section, but I meant earlier stuff. I published a couple of little books before then that I would vacuum out of wherever they are in the world if wishes could be granted. I still haven’t cracked the new Swans, but it’s staring at me. ‘I Remember’, so great. Brainard was favorite writer of Leve’s, no huge surprise. I do read books in a day, yeah. I like really short books. When I think of my top ten novels or whatever, the vast majority are quite skinny. It’s nice to gulp something down. ‘Naked Lunch’ in one day is pretty impressive. Trusting that your Sunday was ultra-decent, I hope for a beautiful segue into your Monday. ** Steve, Ah, that’s shame about the restaurant. New show! Everyone, The latest episode of Steve’s “Radio Not Radio” is now out. ‘Follow the dream fish into K-hole trip-hop, minute-long DIY songs, film noir samples, Brazilian and South African party music, and much more.’ How can you resist that? Surrender. No, I missed that Arte broadcast. I didn’t know about it. I don’t watch TV unless I’m pre-clued in to something. The ‘RT’ theater release is in France. ** julian, Will do re: the new Swans. I haven’t been the right mood for it quite yet. They played at the Lodge, nice. I’m sure they’ll tour/play over here in Paris. I think they always pay Paris a visit. Amazing about that music redefining moment. For me it was when I was about 13, and I was at school helping set up for a school dance event, and one of the seniors put ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’ on the record player, and I was like, ‘what the fuck is this?!’ I’d never heard anything remotely like it. Standing there, confused and mind boggled listening to that record forever opened music and kind of art in general for me. ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s good. And after ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ it’ll be like breathing easily again. Yes, people went completely wild here. The shouting and fireworks and honking horns, etc. kept me up most of the night. The violence was nearby-ish, but not in my actual hood. ** Carsten, No, the violence mostly happened on and near the Champs Elysee. I can easily walk to the Champs Elysee from where I live, but it’s not at my doorstep. I just got the fun, exhilarated partying around me. I can’t stand Guadagnino’s films. I think they’re really bourgie and perfumey, so I’m going to skip ‘Queer’. I feel 100% certain it would just piss me off. Thanks for the warning. I’m not really worried about the maybe smoking ban, no. Heck, I survived being in Tokyo where you can’t even smoke outside unless it’s in designated random smoking areas. ** pancakeIan, Thank you of your attention to the books. Well, assuming at least some of those slaves are real and using actual photos of themselves, which I think is highly debatable in many cases. It was cool to host the Isherwood reading. And it was quite the event. John Travolta came, and I talked to him a bit and he was actually very nice, and other big celebs too. I’m happy you found and like Bill Henson’s work. See them in person if you ever get the chance. They even much more amazing in person. The black backgrounds in his photos are really rich and extraordinary. ** Bill, Yes, they’re real, David swears. I do like Vollman, yes. And I didn’t know about that doc. And I’ll definitely to find it. Thank you, pal. ** HaRpEr //, Trinidad is a lovely poet. Really singular and focused. Walser’s pretty great, yeah, I agree. His really early work is kind of didactic and clunky, I think, but he really grew into his style. Job hunting, especially now, must be so exhausting and painful. The years Zac and I spent trying to raise money to make our film were miserable, but that must pale by comparison. ** maggie, Hi again. I’d be curious to see my notes too. I agree about that particular allure of that which is wildly popular and which you can’t quite analyse into making total sense. I was pretty interested in the Taylor Swift thing for a while until I got bored thinking about it. And I’m trying to figure out a way to write something that gets at the Timothee Chalamet phenom because that vexes me. But, like, the Paris football/soccer team just won this huge tournament, and Parisians are mad with excitement about it, and yesterday there was this parade on the Champs Elysee starring the team, and I was outside yesterday, and there were just endless amounts of Parisians walking over to it all dressed up in their team gear and looking so thrilled, and it was beautiful to see for some reason — all that happiness, and so many people of every age happy for the same reason and feeling all connected to each other and so on. It was fascinating and very touching too. Thanks about the way I portray or study that in my work. I don’t know why I keep wanting to get to the bottom of it. I’ve never even heard Duster as far as I know. But now I will. You’ve made me ultra-curious. Oh, Sarah, yes. She’s a treasure. Say hi for me. What do you do with your guitar, or I guess what kind of music do you make/play when you play? I have a good friend with Crohn’s. Wow, I hope your case isn’t too bad. My friend has a hard time, although he’s and writer and very productive. but he has it pretty bad. Definitely stay passionate, curious, hungry, confident, etc. There are so many reasons to. That’s how I’ve survived. It’s good starting to get to know you. I’m happy you’re here. Best, me. ** Uday, I’ll look for ‘Petals of Blood’ or ‘The Perfect Nine’, thank you. Yes, I like Gombrowicz, his novels and also his diaries, which get very catty and angry. Enjoy your friend, and no doubt you did and/or will do. ** Okay. I decided to restore this old post about haunted dolls for your possible delectation today. See you tomorrow.

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‘Unai Elorriaga does away with the boundaries and coordinates of conventional literature and takes them elsewhere: to the surprising literary territory of a writer with no hang-ups.

‘In these stories there is a psychological process, a learning curve, a painful jump toward crucial knowledge. In Vredaman that jump takes place toward the end, which helps the story glide along joyously, aided by the novel’s two main strengths: the innocent but brilliant, and almost shrewd language of the child narrator and the abundance of secondary stories.

‘Vredaman must be understood from a double perspective: as an approach to reality from a non-realist position and also as the practice of pure creativity…Thus while Elorriaga seeks to explain reality outside conventional lines, he doesn’t avoid it. The events that take place in the novel are more than uncontrolled inventions: they aim to give the world meaning, and are sometimes imbued with naivety…In other words, Elorriaga does whatever he wants, without concern for convention.’ — El Mundo

 

Unai Elorriaga @ Wikipedia
Unai Elorriaga @ goodreads
‘Plants Don’t Drink Coffee’ reviewed
‘Plants Don’t Drink Coffee’ reviewed
Buy ‘Plants Don’t Drink Coffee’

 

Unai Elorriaga Plants Don’t Drink Coffee
Archipelago Books

‘Four stories narrated from four different perspectives criss-cross throughout this powerful and lighthearted novel. The young Tomas — who wants above all else to be intelligent — draws us into the web of his curious mind, magnifying misadventures and stumbling upon all sorts of small wonders. Through an omniscient narrative, we learn all about his eccentric entourage, from their surrealist creation of a rugby field on a golf course, the mystery of why a couple of forty years never married, and the intrigue surrounding his grandfather’s role in a European carpentry competition.’ — Archipelago Books

Excerpt

Extra

Video Review: Plants Don’t Drink Coffee

Shane MacGowan en Gibela – Unai Elorriaga

 

 

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‘Heaven’s stars are quasi-immortal, while Hollywood’s are fated to fade. Graciously, Trinidad’s page-sized eulogies grant a couple dozen bit players one last flash-in-the-pan. The actors tell their own stories, but Trinidad’s voice floats above them, an angel wearing shades, bestowing epitaphs, footnotes and the harsh irony of glimmer and glamour doomed in a company town. (Capitalism, like time, is cruel.) The lives of these players (including one dog, Toto) end prosaically. Still, they emit elegantly tangy poetry, as does this book.’ — Jack Skelley

Jess Smith: “Every obsession is a mystery that must be figured out.” That’s wonderful. How is poetry a way to interrogate our obsessions? And have you ever found yourself in a moment when you were a poet who didn’t want to be a poet anymore?

David Trinidad: Perhaps there’s a mystery behind every poem I feel compelled to write. Writing for me is not a completely conscious or deliberate act. It’s more of a gnawing, intuitive process. I want to figure out what I think or feel about something—usually something I’ve seen or experienced. After it’s done, the poem will teach me things, help me see differently, from the other side of the obsession, or whatever was eating at me. It enables me to let go, move forward with my life.

Regarding your second question—and a very sharp question it is, Jessica!—yes, I have found myself in that place. I seem to vacillate between not wanting to be a poet anymore, at least a public one, and feeling perfectly comfortable with it all. It’s a balancing act. You have to protect your time, and yourself, find a way of staying honest and vulnerable in your work. And you have to deal with the perils of the poetry world: powermongers, famemongers, gossipmongers, jealousy, competiveness, one-upmanship, pettiness. I guess the latter is the real world, any world. But the poems that matter come from a pure place, an untouchable place.

 

David Trinidad @ Wikipedia
David Trinidad @ instagram
David Trinidad @ goodreads
The Deep, Dark, Seething Tar Pit of the Past
Buy ‘Hollywood Cemetery’

 

David Trinidad Hollywood Cemetery
Green Linden Press

‘No one writes sharp-witted, funny, and sad all in one poem like David Trinidad. Hollywood Cemetery is dishy and soapy—any movie buff’s must-have—but beyond that, Trinidad also considers themes of death and memory. The poems are voiced by various former stars, reanimated by Trinidad’s vast knowledge and his incomparable talent for finding the pathos (and often, too, the delicious irony) in these lives.’ — James Allen Hall

Excerpts

Extra

Readings in Contemporary Poetry – David Trinidad and Joanna Fuhrman

David Trinidad Poet on Tea With Tosh

 

 

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‘Garielle Lutz is an author who makes at least part of her living writing and editing grammar textbooks. For 25 years she has published, as Gary Lutz, short stories with titles like “Sororally” and “Chaise Lozenge.” Her introduction to the Writer’s Digest Grammar Desk Reference is unusually passionate, for that sort of thing. Her favorite unabridged dictionary is Merriam-Webster’s 1934 New International, and one gets the sense that it is always close at hand, turned to words that had not yet been deemed archaic. In her prose, lines like “As for the daughter: she was a dampered little dispatch already orderly in her dolors” have attracted an ardent audience, which over the years has raised her name into the oxymoronic echelon of “indie giant.” In truth, Lutz is a writer’s writer — and the closest thing to a cult figure in American literature, which, thanks to the top-down consolidation of contemporary publishing, is in desperate need of a little more cultishness. …

‘Lutz’s style, though surely difficult to replicate, becomes immediately recognizable after just a few pages. One of the fascinations of her work is its uniformity, and the sense that it was fully wrought and unimprovable from the very first collection. It’s in this sense that Worsted finds its humor as a title, since many of the new stories are updated fragments chopped from Stories in the Worst Way, and seem to have grown outward in the same mordant direction. This makes Worsted difficult to critique as a discrete collection. Each of Lutz’s stories indexes the rest of her work, and maintains its steady posture. Like Giorgio Morandi, she teases out metaphysical subtleties by painting the same still lifes over and over again. …

‘As a grammarian, she understands the ways gender intersects with language (beginning with but going far beyond the delicate matter of the pronoun), perhaps better than anyone else. With the publication of Worsted, Lutz officially shepherds her work into the realm of trans literature, in the same fell swoop as she playfully undoes the completeness of The Complete Gary Lutz. As revised fragments of her former life’s work, these stories are a reminder that the work of the self is unfinished too, and is as available for revision as the stuff that spouts from it.’ — Nolan Kelly

 

Garielle Lutz’s Favorite Books
Gary Lutz @ goodreads
I like Garielle Lutz, a lot.
Sentenced to Life: A Garielle Lutz Roundtable
Buy ‘Worsted’

 

Garielle Lutz Worsted
Calamari Archive

‘Garielle Lutz is one of America’s great writers. Why has her literary genius gone unnoticed?’ — The Nation

‘. . . Lutz displays an innate understanding of the grim compromises of modern life but heightens and glorifies these with [her] dizzying language. [She] refuses to let the dreary world force [her] to write a dreary sentence.’ — The Paris Review

‘Worsted feels illicit, begging to be discussed in hushed tones even amongst hip company. The book’s quiet ravishments of lives brushing up together isn’t incriminating; it’s the style that’ll get you blitzed. Lutz reminds us that sentences themselves can be pleasurable.’ — The Rumpus

‘Lutz is the new sad man of contemporary fiction. [Her] first collection turns the official notion of gender inside out, supplying a new kind of creature—call it a Lutz—which is neither man nor woman.’ — Interview magazine

‘Garielle Lutz’s sentences are among the most original in modern English, their linguistic specificity making them virtually untranslatable.’ — Hyperallergic

Excerpt

Extra

Garielle Lutz interview and reading with Meg Tuite

Obscure Clearly: George Salis Interviews Garielle Lutz

 

 

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‘In 2018, the Poetry Society of America awarded Ron Padgett the Frost Medal, for a distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. A busy intellectual lifetime, reaching further back than its first appearance in an avant-garde literary journal, The White Dove Review, in high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between then and now, a staggering output of publications in prose and poetry (over 20 volumes now)—and awards, including an L.A. Times Book Prize, the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, and the Chancellorship of the Academy of American Poetry from 2008 to 2015— attest to the kind of restless, prolific literary life, the vigilant, upkeeping mind that could make a significant statement about the virtue of a couple hours of frittering.

‘Good poems don’t leave us silent. But they do much more than simply add to the chatter in our minds. The right words, mots justes, become a vehicle to remind us we’re consuming perhaps an awful lot of language; straining at its limits and ripe silences for genuine expression and meaning; expending, per-minute per-day, an awful lot of concentration. It’s good for us to zone out, back off, take a walk. Breathe, as the cognitive behavioral therapists remind us. Who of us, stepping out onto a crosswalk, isn’t potentially in a twilight zone? It’s something beyond the secular sense of things, in our sense however dim that might be of eternity. We’re all, on one level, in the same boat, aged 17, 26, 35, 52, 81 or 90. Life is mortal, we each feel its urgency, pine in its slags.

‘Anne Waldman nails the general feeling Padgett’s late writing, “masterful for its panoramic humanity and mind-stopping verbal wit, its breathtaking power and beauty. We want to stay with the person in these poems all day long.”’ — Michael Todd Steffen

 

Ron Padgett Site
Ron Padgett’s “Pink Dust” — The Joyful Weight of Words
on ‘Pink Dust’
On ‘Pink Dust’
Buy ‘Pink Dust‘

 

Ron Padgett Pink Dust
New York Review Books

‘Ron Padgett is one of America’s best-known and most acclaimed poets. Admired by John Ashbery, Jim Jarmusch, and Anne Waldman, his poems have moved and delighted generations of readers with their inventiveness, their gentle humor, and above all their ability to elicit wonder. These qualities are as evident as ever in Pink Dust, whose title refers to the residue from all the author’s erasers, swept away or blown into the air. Like that dust, this is a book of memories rubbing up against the present. Its poignant reflections on old age shimmer with all the insouciance of youth.’ — NYRB

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Ron Padgett and Tyhe Cooper

 

 

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‘An achievement, in the major category. — Hilton Als

‘This first novel by Joe Westmoreland begins in 1975, when 19-year-old “Joe” leaves an abusive home in Kansas and tumbles across the country, “learning about being gay from the street-level on up.” In New Orleans he comes out, a boy with a punk heart trapped in a disco scene. When he rolls into San Francisco in 1979 he finds a home in the New Wave anti-Castro movement and in the now-vanished bathhouses and flophouses South of Market.

‘The sexual extravagance of the period is sketched with keen playfulness. As Joe’s best friend says, “I’m not bi-sexual. I’m tri-sexual. I’ll try anything once, and if I like it, I’ll try it again and again!” No matter how hard-core his surroundings, Joe remains a romantic, too malleable for decadence to tarnish. He’s a queer Candide, with Bruce Springsteen’s populism and optimism clinging to him like a tattered Old Glory.

‘”Tramps” celebrates community, the support provided by a shifting band of friends and lovers who throw down drugs and booze with the joyful exuberance of a Disneyland locomotive — a party engine that crashes headfirst into AIDS. The panic and confusion of the epidemic’s early days have rarely been so vividly evoked. Remember when poppers were thought to spread Gay Cancer? The way Westmoreland’s party boys and girls switch selflessly to care-giving is very touching.’ — Dodie Bellamy

 

Joe Westmoreland @ instagram
Love and Drugs in the Darkest Days of AIDS
‘Tramps Like Us’ @ goodreads
‘Tramps Like Us’ @ Internet Archive
Buy ‘Tramps Like Us’

 

Joe Westmoreland Tramps Like Us
MCD

‘Abused by his father and stifled by closeted life as a teenager in Kansas City, Joe, the wide-eyed narrator of Tramps Like Us, graduates from high school in 1974 and hits the road hitchhiking. But it isn’t until he reunites with Ali, his hometown’s other queer outcast, that Joe finds a partner in crime. When the two of them finally wash up in New Orleans, they discover a hedonistic paradise of sex, drugs, and music, a world that only expands when they move to San Francisco in 1979.

‘Told with openhearted frankness, Joe Westmoreland’s Tramps Like Us is an exuberantly soulful adventure of self-discovery and belonging, set across a consequential American decade. In New Orleans and San Francisco, and on the roads in between, Joe and Ali find communities of misfits to call their own. The days and nights blur, a blend of LSD and heroin, new wave and disco, orgies and friends, and the thrilling spontaneity of youth—all of which is threatened the moment Joe, Ali, and seemingly everyone around them are diagnosed with HIV. But miraculously, the stories survive. As Eileen Myles writes, “I love this book most of all because it is so mortal.”

‘Back in print after two decades and with an introduction by Myles and an afterword by the author, Tramps Like Us is an ode to a nearly lost generation, an autofictional chronicle of America between gay liberation and the AIDS crisis, and an evergreen testament to the force of friendship.’ — MCD

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Joe on Vimeo

Joe Westmoreland, et. al. @ Pathetic Literature launch

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** rei, Hi. I don’t know what that means, but thank you, I think? ** jay, Hey! There’s actually been a kind of rash of haircut wanting slave guys lately, but forevernotyours has been the only one so far who requested that in an interesting way. ‘Kakegurui’: My fingers are pointed at that search term, and my eyes will be peeled. Thanks! Still enjoying your increased freedom, I’m guessing? ** Misanthrope, Well, people definitely don’t read books like they used to. Even shitty books. So there’s that. I guess that may be true even here. I would guess more people in the US recognise, say, the name Ocean Vuong than Pynchon, et. al. at the moment. It’s all just interesting to notice and analyse, I guess. Yeah, see the orthopedist. So says the guy who’s had two very painful toes for months but has yet to seek out a doctor. But you should. ** Carsten, Thanks a lot, man. Oh, the rubble, that was kind of difficult. There was a building in the town where we shot (Cherbourg) about to be knocked down/ imploded/ whatever, and that kept being delayed, and we had to wait and be ready to rush over there as soon as our spy gave us the word, and it finally did happen, and we had to change the shooting schedule to get there before they cordoned it off to people. So, yes, it was real. Yeah, we’re so happy that ‘RT’ is getting a theater release. Quite unexpected, but this distributor is run by young, daring folks, so we got lucky. Uh, the only bands/musicians I personally know at the moment only do instrumental music. But I’ll try to think further. ** _Black_Acrylic, You just need to find yourself a sexy haircutter maybe. Or maybe just enjoy having your hair cut in peace. I’m on the hunt for the ‘Pee Wee’ doc. It hasn’t hit my illegal sites yet. ** Hugo, Hey. Yeah, Michael is amazing. Bookworm was a major gift to writers and writing. And he and I have been friends for a long time, and it’s all very, very sad. A panic attack and reducing someone to tears … pretty promising initial responses, I must say. Stay confident, or find confidence and stay there as the case may be. If you love writing and are driven to write, those are the most important and aspects by far. If you ever read my early attempts at writing, and you never will, I ‘pray’, you’d probably understand what I mean. Wanting to and doing and keeping at it are all that matter. Seriously. No, I haven’t heard the new Swans yet, but of course I will. How is it? ** pancakeIan, That’s a good 50/50 reaction. I would say that’s how I choose the entries. Excellent careful reading there, thank you. I did envy that mozzarella sticks sentence. I might even steal it. Yeah, Don did a portrait of me when I was much younger. I liked it because he made me look really cute, but he didn’t like it and threw it away, I think. I knew Chris a little. I organised a reading by him at this venue where I was curating readings. He was quite old at that point and pretty grumpy, but kind of charmingly so. One should never definitely believe anything one reads these days. There’s barely any truth ‘in print’ around. ** julian, There are your everyday cruel condoms and then there are the kind that look like they could’ve dug the Eurotunnel. Good news about the new Swans. The last one or two were a little sleepy for me. I’m on it. I really like the early Swans, 80s era, the very assaultive phase, especially. They were crushing live. I quite like some of the early 90s stuff like ‘White Light from the Mouth of Infinity’ and ‘Soundtracks for the Blind’. I appreciate what they’ve been up to recent years, but I can’t say that I’m in love with it or anything. Are you a longterm fan of theirs? ** Steeqhen, I only use social media to link up blog posts and announce book- and film-related things. I never get personal there. I don’t have any inclination to do so. I’m always confused by the people who cathart there about every terrible or good thing they’re doing every day. I don’t understand why they think anyone cares and why they think anyone on social media can do anything to help or celebrate them other than adding a ‘like’ or a sad face-type icon. ** HaRpEr //, I can’t remember my friend’s argument about Dickens’ post-modern influence, but it was curiously not dismissible. Never read that Walser. Huh, now I’m really interested, of course. How curious. I’ll seek it. You mean that France is talking about banning smoking in parks and on beaches? Annoying if that actually comes about, but it’s hard to imagine that being very enforceable unless they started stationing lots of police in the parks, etc., which I don’t they will. Hope not. ** maggie, Hi, maggie! It’s very nice to meet you. Thanks a lot for coming inside and for being kind about my stuff. Huh, ere … as in ‘ere long’? There was definitely a reason, if so, but I don’t remember what the reason was. I have a million little structural and stylistic rules I set up for myself, especially in the Cycle books, and I’d have to look at my notes and so, which are in NYC. Cool question, though. It would have to do with some kind of quaintness or archaic thing that I was hoping for, yes. Sorry I can’t be more specific. I think the vast majority of the music I listen to most and am most excited by is non-viral stuff. I just did one of my gig posts here the other day that has some of the music I’ve been liking lately, and I think most of it is pretty off the big radar. I’m really into experimental music, and the magazine The Wire is really good for finding things that are not covered elsewhere if you want to take a look at it? I agree with you about Royal Trux, of course. Thanks again. What do you do and/or what’s going on with you? xo, Dennis ** Right. There up above are five books I’ve read in recent days and enjoyed enough that I am recommending them to you. See what you think? And I will see you back here in Monday.