‘As a self-taught filmmaker and musician, David Markey directed, produced, edited, and photographed most of his films, the majority of which have been self-funded. His work is also noted as documenting the punk scene in Southern California throughout the 1980s, growing to find a larger audience in the 1990s while continuing to produce work throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Markey has worked with Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Redd Kross, Bob Mould, Circle Jerks, The Ramones, Black Flag and the Meat Puppets.

‘Markey made his first film in 1974 at the age of 11 with his father’s hand-wound 8mm Brownie camera, cast from the children of his Santa Monica, California neighborhood. He soon discovered the burgeoning LA punk scene a few years hence through bands like X, Black Flag, and Redd Kross in 1980. Markey was driven to form his own band, SIN 34, in 1981 as well as Painted Willie in 1984. He also started We Got Power fanzine in 1981 along with Jordan Schwartz, spawning Markey’s cinematic Super-8 cult punk scene document The Slog Movie in 1982. Following closely behind was Desperate Teenage Lovedolls (1984) and its 1986 sequel Lovedolls Superstar. These films were distributed underground and critically well-received, putting Markey on the cinematic punk map before he was of legal age.

‘Markey’s work has since been exhibited internationally, including theatrical release in the US and Canada of 1991: The Year Punk Broke, followed by a VHS release by the David Geffen Company. In 2011 Universal Music Group re-released the film in the DVD format with an hour plus of bonus material produced by Markey. Theatrical screenings of his work have taken place in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and elsewhere. His 2008 documentary The Reinactors was included in international film festivals in Argentina, England, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, Angola, China, Korea, Italy and The Netherlands.

‘David Markey has appeared in the documentary films American Hardcore, We Jam Econo and was interviewed for the 20th Century Fox re-release of Russ Meyer’s Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls Special Edition DVD in 2006. He played a bouncer in the 2007 film What We Do Is Secret. He is also seen as an uncredited extra in Penelope Spheeris 1983 film Suburbia and the 1984 film Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

‘In October 2012, he became a published author as Bazillion Points released the critically acclaimed hard bound book We Got Power: Hardcore Punk Scenes From 1980’s Southern California consisting primarily of the photographic work of Markey and his longtime collaborator Jordan Schwartz. The book’s release was timed with a gallery retrospective of the duo’s photos from the early 1980s to the early 1990s entitled “We Survived The Pit” at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica, just mere blocks away from where Markey and Schwartz grew up.’ — collaged

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Dave Markey @ IMDb
Dave Markey’s YouTube Channel
David Markey’s 1991 Tour Diary
DM interviewed @ Subterraneo
Dave Markey: We Got Power!
DM @ MUBI
Book: ‘Party With Me Punker’
WE STILL GOT POWER: THE FILMS OF DAVE MARKEY
Podcast: Dave Markey on THE FILM CULT PODCAST
In Praise Of Dave Markey
Just Getting It Out There: An Interview with Filmmaker David Markey
Nirvana, Sonic Youth and the cult grunge film that shook up the music industry
Inside Sonic Youth and Nirvana’s Epic 1991 Tour
Interview: Dave Markey
We Got Power: The Halcyon Days of Southern California Hardcore
Dave Markey: cineasta punk
Monday Exclusive: Q & A with Dave Markey

 

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Extras

Dave Markey promoting “1991 The Year Punk Broke” on TV

Dave Markey interviewed by Michael Des Barres

WE GOT P0WER! Reading @ Book Soup

 

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Interview

 

It’s the 25th aniversary of the documentary “The Year Punk Broke” Did you imagine that 25 years later it would be a cult movie?
​
25 years ago I was dealing with making the movie, and that pretty much consumed by that for the better part of that year. I didn’t think that far ahead. When the word came that it was getting a theatrical release, that was very exciting. I had pretty reasonable expectations.

In your movie, between so many musicians in the dressing rooms we see a funny Nirvana with Krist Novoselik and Dave Grohl throwing food and bragging. How do you remember this young Dave Grohl that today is Mr. Foo Fighter and a retired Novoselic?

I remember Dave and Krist as being young and totally gung ho for the experience. There was fair amount of partying going on, a lot of drinking and late nights. Everyone was happy to be there and enjoying themselves. Some of the stuff we see is influenced by this fact. I may have egged on their backstage food platter scene.

In her book “Girl in the Band” Kim Gordon said that she remembered Kurt Cobain in those days as a joyfull and fragil Young man who awakened certain maternal feeling in her. How do you remember him? Do you have an anecdote about Nirvana that you would like to share?

I recall Kurt being a quiet guy offstage, but just the opposite on stage. Definitely the artist-type. He had a sense of humor, which I don’t think he is well known for. He really liked the stuff that I had shot of the band and he asked me if he could use it in a music video (“Lithium”). He had me come in and sit in on the edit session for it, in which I recall him making most of the creative decisions. It was interesting to see.

I was also around for the “Unplugged” sessions, and a series of blistering shows in NYC around that time. I was also there when Eddie Van Halen showed up backstage at the LA Forum, asking Kurt if he could jam with the band. Kurt refused. That was nuts.

How did you start your fanzine (today your film company) WE GOT POWER? How did you get to do it?

I just did it. That was the thing about being young (17) and in that time that I sometimes miss. Just the sheer audacity and will to do stuff. Making films, producing ‘zines… But actually I had been doing this kind of stuff since I was 12, pre-punk. So I already had an aesthetic and some experience in place.
Do you have a precise motive or was it rather spontaneous?

I was just into shooting film. Much of it was spontaneous. Some of it wasn’t. Depends what was going on. My narrative films are fairly different from my documentaries.

What do you remember about the time when you were doing “The Slog Movie” and “The Omenous”?

I was young, a teenager, but I remember a lot of that stuff fairly well. “The Omenous” was the last film I did (at 15) that stayed inside my Santa Monica neighborhood. By the time I was doing We Got Power (‘zine) at 17, I was getting out of my surroundings. That was important, and crucial to my filmmaking.

Is there a political reason above aesthetics why you use little HD in your achievements?

High Def? Well, I’ve produced work in HD recently, like music videos for Bob Mould, Heyrocco and The Black Lips. The reason why most of my work exists in standard def, is that this is the format and technology that was available at the time. I worked with what was readily available to me, which was primarily Super-8 film.

Could we say that you are a cultist, master or purist of the analog?

It’s probably it’s just a matter of what I had to work with. But yes, there is a certain feeling from analog that is rather nice. That said, I’m not opposed to digital, or shooting in digital, and I have. I like the way The Reinactors looks. That’s digital.

You have witnessed and documented a part of the history of contemporary music of the twentieth century. You know the backroom of it, I suppose you know many artists who have not transcended and have been forgotten. Like in your movie THE REINACTORS… that shows the celebrities doubles living that same movie every day. What can you tell us about that?

That film basically tells a century-plus-old story about Hollywood and the people that come here to work in it, no matter how small or diminished that may be. It’s basically “Day Of The Locust”, but with people that would have never read the book, or even seen the movie. It’s a documentary, but since the people in it have immersed themselves so deeply into Hollywood on every level, that it plays like a scripted movie. Is it life imitating art, or the other way around? That is what made it interesting to me.

How do you feel when someone from another country wants to see your work, in this case SUBTERRANEO and for a matter of copyright, etc. a company like YouTube doesn`t authorize it for that country?

I hate it when I can’t see something I want to watch and it’s unavailable. But there’s other ways of seeing things. You Tube is convenient, but it’s not the end-all. I still have a large collection of VHS!

How do you manage to maintain yourself solid in a culture so changing in a country and capitalist power as the United States, cradle of marketing, I mean, where everything is business and even more today with the culture of entertainment?

Patience and instinct have seemed to work for me. I just did the things I was interested in doing, my own thing. Maybe this is the heart of the matter. Artists who are busy creating their own work. Business is the reason Hollywood films are less interesting these days. I think the last time there was a healthy ratio of business and art was the golden age of the 1970’s (cinema), where art and commerce intersected. It’s not the same world now in the least, however this is certainly one model to look at. But then again, I have never really worked “In Hollywood” outside of the geographical location. I never would claim to “work in the business”, as I was always outside of it.

Knowing your personal work history, the trajectory with rock history heavyweights, hardcore-punk pioneers, alternative rock, etc. How did you earn your place, to transcend your work in the passage of time, Survive and stay active with your ethics intact?

I don’t know about how I fit into all of that, I never really concerned myself with that. I just stuck to it. I did my work, did the things I was interested in doing, and carried on.

That said. No one really cared about the underground in the US in the 1980’s at the time. The mainstream could have cared less. It was a very real and organic thing because of that. Things clearly got strange in the 1990’s, when suddenly this stuff that was going on beneath the surface and cracks in the 80’s, became such a thing. But so it goes…

Our current president profile is very similar to Trump in terms of crude neoliberalist policies, responding to corporate interests and entities that go beyond the governments like the IMF, etc. Are you aware of the situation in the country, and South America?

Somewhat, but by no means am I an expert. I am very unhappy with the fact that a total asshole is the figurehead for my country at the present time. I don’t think we’ve ever had anyone less qualified to be in that position in my lifetime. It is scary. It feels like the world is laughing at us.

Being part and survivor of the Punk-Hardcore scene in Los Angeles, a boy who started filming in an autodidact manner with an urgency to capture what was happening in his city, his group of friends, favorite bands, context, etc. Do you see something similar happening in California today?

There is a lot of music going on currently in Los Angeles, and I do see a younger generation being clearly impacted and influenced by so much of this music and culture. Some bands have the sound and attitude down pat. Check out The Side Eyes. I am not really up on all of it, I just don’t have the tenacity to get out there and check bands out like I used to. That said, I still do see a fair share of live music. But really, this is such a different world… Comparisons are not really fair, or even that interesting. But I will say the music here is thriving right now.

It were Ronald Reagan’s years, against whose conservative policies teenagers rebelled, the counterculture gave beautiful gems such as punk, hardcore, fanzines, DIY culture, and a long etc. that many young people inherited in subsequent generations. Do you think there is a musical scene today that is worth documenting for its spirit and ethics?

While it’s true that Reagan helped spread Hardcore across the continental United States by default, I heard rumblings around the time of the latest election that this Orange Buffoon was supposedly going to make punk rock great again, or some such nonsense. I’d rather not have to deal with this on any level. It’s not worth it, and it’s not going to make anything great.

You came to the country in 2005 under the festival Bafici in its seventh edition … What memories do you have of that visit?

I really enjoyed myself. I would have never imagined screening something like “The Slog Movie” for an international audience, so many years after it was made. I was very pleased and surprised with the audience reaction to my films. The Lovedolls films especially seemed to go over well, I returned again to BAFICI in 2008.

How does it feel to be part of an entire artistic-musical scene, of a generation that managed to reflect a cultural brake in your country? Did it get to be a burden? Do you think about it?

I don’t think of my work in relation to someone else’s. It was interesting watching the culture in the 1990’s, and all that happened there. But now, all of that is so far away in the past. It’s almost like it never happened, in a sense.

With a brief appearence of Babes in Toyland and a little bit more of protagonism of Kim Gordon at The Year Punk Broke (that appears more in the sequel “The Blue Scale”). How was it to see a woman in a band between so many men? Do you remember how the audience behaved? How do you see Kim Gordon’s rock influence in the girls of today?

Well, Kim definitely is a huge influence on me. But the music I know and love, women have always been directly involved. I myself (as a musician) have been in bands with girls. And girls invented punk rock, so…

 

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21 of Dave Markey’s 28 films

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The Slog Movie (1982)
‘The original version of the 1982 Los Angeles hardcore punk scene document by Dave Markey, shot on Super-8 film for We Got Power Films. Filmed over the span of a year or so (beginning in June 1981), The Slog Movie captures many a So Cal hardcore historical moment including Henry Rollins’ first show with Black Flag; West Hollywood Sheriff’s busting up another night at Oki-Dogs; Circle Jerks and Wasted Youth at the Whisky, Red Cross (before they became Redd Kross) and Sin 34 live on the Santa Monica Pier; TSOL, The Cheifs (intentionally misspelled), Fear and Circle One (featuring the late John Macias) all shot at Bards Apollo. Also includes homespun sketch comedy and a commercial for the original Black Flag / Ray Pettibon skateboard.’ — WGTP

the entirety

 

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Desperate Teenage Lovedolls (1984)
‘In the mid-1980′s Dave Markey and his WE GOT POWER crew were an unstoppable force in the Los Angeles underground scene. Armed with a Super-8 camera, together with the brothers MacDonald and their band Redd Kross Markey made what can only be described as a monument to the rough and tumble lifestyle that the genre embodied – DESPERATE TEENAGE LOVEDOLLS. A fiery tale of the meteoric rise of a group of all girl shredders known as The Lovedolls and, of course, their subsequent plummet back to the unforgiving streets. All told at a breakneck speed and accompanied by a fistful of hits for a soundtrack.

‘When Kitty Carryall and Bunny Tremelo decide to comb the mean streets of LA looking for a drummer to complete the line up of their band The Lovedolls, they have no idea what’s in store. With their pal Alexandria busting out of a mental institution to join their ranks, the girls think they have it made. But trouble strikes in the form of none other than Kitty’s mom when she comes looking for her dear lost daughter. Ms. Carryall has her own run in with a gang of street toughs and is quickly dispatched with by one Patch Kelly who will become their third member. Trouble rears it’s ugly head once again when sleazeball mogul Johnny Tramaine signs the girls and they learn the true price of fame.’ — Spectacle

the entirety

 

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Lovedolls Superstar (1986)
‘Not two years later, Markey and company were back in action and managed to outdo themselves in nearly every area with the follow up LOVEDOLLS SUPERSTAR. Bigger gigs, higher stakes, hotter tunes, cults, assassinations, and more. Rising from the their own ashes like a filthy gutter pheonix, The Lovedolls return! Patch Kelly has turned Patch Christ and together with her acid-casualty followers she rescues Kitty Carryall from a boozers life of on the street. Teaming up with Alexandria Axethrasher they reform and begin their climb back to the top. But the obstacles start mounting all around them. Relatives of enemies previously squashed come out of the woodwork to settle the score. Be on the look out for appearances from Jello Biafra and Sky Saxon, too!’ — Spectacle

the entirety

 

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Macaroni and Me (1988)
‘Short film from 1988, originally created for a concert introduction, showcasing Los Angeles rock band Redd Kross. The title is in reference to the 1988 film “Mac And Me”. Features cameos from Ann Magnuson & Jennifer Schwartz.’ — DM

the entirety

 

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w/ Raymond Pettibon Citizen Tania (1989)
‘Raymond Pettibon and David Markey collaborated on this 1989 shot on video feature film. Ray’s version of Patty (or Tania) portrays her as a brat who welcomes her induction into the SLA whole heartedly. Cast includes Shannon Smith, Pat Smear, Dave Markey, Jennifer Schwartz, Joe Cole, Dez Cadena, & Tuesday Deneuve.’ — DM

Excerpt

 

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Sonic Youth ‘My Friend Goo’ (1991)
From the album Goo

the entirety

 

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Reality 86’d (1991)
‘While Black Flag has yet to see the full-scale documentary treatment, too much bad blood I expect, David Markey from Painted Wille did make a documentary on the band’s final tour called Reality 86’ed. While it’s far and away my least favourite phase in the the band’s seven year career, it’s a fascinating document for sure. The documentary has never been officially released and Mr. Ginn frequently has it pulled down.’ — Music Ruined My Life

the entirety

 

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Sonic Youth ‘Mildred Pierce’ (1991)
‘One of the first songs Sonic Youth ever wrote. In fact, it’s in standard tuning. Lee mentions it in a 1984 Forced Exposure interview: “We’ve got other songs, like ‘Mildred Pierce,’ that could be strictly commercial.” Thurston’s scream on the LP version is actually lifted directly from the original demo (released on the “Goo Demos” CD). Name taken from the Joan Crawford film “Mildred Pierce”. Performed live in August 1990 specifically for the Dave Markey directed video. Sophia Coppola also appears.’ — SY

the entirety

 

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Sonic Youth ‘Cinderella’s Big Score’ (1991)
‘This song and video is the true dialogue between Kim Gordon and her little brother who disappeared for many years and was living on the streets.’ — Juan Fifarek

the entirety

 

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1991: The Year Punk Broke (1992)
‘Once in a while, there is a documentary that manages to capture a special moment, just before a great cultural revolution. David Markeys 1991: THE YEAR PUNK BROKE is one of them! A raw, off-the-cuff, 8mm recording of a euphoric tour of European summer festivals (including Pukkelpop) by Sonic Youth. And in their wake, the guitar violence of support bands, like Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Babes In Toyland and the then-unknown Nirvana. Three months later, Kurt Cobain and his buddies let NEVERMIND loose on the general public, at which point “grunge” conquered the music scene.

‘Headliner Sonic Youth dominated the on-stage component (it was the time of their most grungy album Dirty), while Nirvana still swaggered around without the immense pressure that would destroy them in three short years. Off-stage, director Markey paints a truthful picture of boredom, drink, nonsense and one-liners, such as OUR AUDIENCE IS EXPANDING; MY MIND IS TURNING INTO A FINE GELATINOUS BALL OF PEPPER.’ — Hendra Sihombing

the entirety

 

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Grunge Pedal (1993)
‘Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Julie Kafritz and Mark Ibold try out a new effects box called “The Grunge Pedal” and make all sorts of knowing faces then make sarcastic comments about it. They also do some other stuff.’ — The Essayist

the entirety

 

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w/ Spike Jonze, Lance Bangs, Steve Paine, Angus Wall Sonic Youth ‘The Diamond Sea’ (1995)
‘This is one of those songs that you can just turn out the lights, lay down and close your eyes and just let your mind drift away.’ — GmJunky87

the entirety

 

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Meat Puppets ‘Scum’ (1995)
‘Music video directed by David Markey from the Meat Puppets underrated 1995 album “No Joke”.’ — DM

the entirety

 

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Blast off! (1997)
‘Travel the USA with Osaka Japan’s beloved Shonen Knife, and see the sights through their eyes and hear the band at their best. Dave Markey hits the road with the band on their 1997 US tour and documents an amazing assortment of concerts, record in-stores, plus tons of behind the scenes footage. Join Naoko Yamano, her sister Atsuko Yamano, and Michie Nakatani on stage and off, performing “Explosion”,”Wind Your Spring”, “E.S.P.”, “Fruits & Vegetables”, “Frogphobia”, “Buddha’s Face”, “Lazybone” & more. Watch them win over American fans, and play to the biggest audiences of their career stateside.’ — WGTP

the entirety

 

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(This Is Known as) The Blues Scale (2004)
‘While the doc 1991: The Year Punk Broke originally saw limited release in 1992, legal disputes with Nirvana’s estate kept the film from making its way onto DVD – that is until 2011, when Universal coincided the release with Nevermind’s 20th anniversary. Eyeing its eventual reissue, Markey began to assemble a postscript companion piece made up of unused outtakes and other footage from the documentary, titled (This is Known as) The Blues Scale. The name originated from a statement that Cobain yelled to Markey while ripping through a guitar solo on stage.

‘Since it is all b-side material, the film presents a unique look at another side of the tour – more-so how these performers were ‘performing’ offstage. There are a few live cuts, but since they were originally excluded from the opus concert doc, it’s more focused on the hijinks and personalities of the tour. And in that sense, Blues Scale is an even more raw and honest look into 90’s rock history. Like, for instance, there’s a story about how Nirvana got kicked off MCA after Kim Gordon wrote “Fuck You” on a card the label left in their dressing room. Or that Kurt Cobain thought up a gimmick that involved him hanging himself onstage. There are also scenes with Sonic Youth at an amusement park, a giddy Cobain playing spin the bottle, Thurston Moore’s take on emocore (“Mick Jagger is the king of emocore”), and cameos by Courtney Love, J. Mascis, Epic Soundtracks, and longtime Black Flag roadie, Joe Cole.’ — Dangerous Minds

the entirety

 

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Stoner Park (2006)
‘Short film by David Markey from the DVD “Cut Shorts”. Satan Teens versus the mellow Zeppelin Stoners in a battle to the finish. Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?’ — DM

the entirety

 

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The Reinactors (2008)
‘Director David Markey’s entry into the 2008 International Film Festival of Rotterdam, “The Reinactors” follows the lives of individuals who perform as film characters on Hollywood Boulevard. Freddy Krueger works alongside Superman, Marilyn Monroe, Shrek, Lucy Ricardo, Batman, and Borat. Competing Chewbacca’s, Spidermen and Captain Jack Sparrow’s vie for a spot on The Walk Of Fame. These street characters have big dreams of breaking into the big-time, in the meantime they forge a living one-dollar at a time, posing for photos with tourists. These characters are literally right out of the movies, yet the unforeseen drama of the people underneath the make-up eclipses the Hollywood film icons they appropriate.’ — WGTP

the entirety

 

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Dinosaur Jr ‘Bug Live at the 9:30 Club’ (2012)
‘Through an online contest, six fans are selected to film Dinosaur Jr. performing “Bug” in its entirety at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC, June 2011. Experience the fans’ joy as they witness a classic performance and meet their heroes face to face in an exclusive interview with the band. Under the awesome direction of Dave Markey (The Year Punk Broke), “In the Hands of the Fans” brings the fans closer to the band and the music closer to you. Includes bonus footage of Henry Rollins speaking candidly to Markey about the the band, and interviewing them on stage before the show.’ — inthehandsofthefans

Trailer

 

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Circle Jerks – My Career as a Jerk (2014)
‘Dave Markey of We Got Power films/zine has dusted off his camera to make this documentary and he did an excellent job with it. The film tells the entire history of the Circle Jerks from its inception and what the band members were doing leading up to the band forming, right up until what the status (or lack of status) of the band is now. This documentary is told first hand through current interviews with almost all the key surviving members that have ever played in the band. Band members that were interviewed were Keith Morris, Greg Hetson, Lucky Lehrer, Earl Liberty, and Zander Schloss. Keith, Greg and Lucky were 3/4 of the original band (the fourth being Roger Rogerson who died of a drug overdose many years ago), Earl played bass with the band for a couple of years after Roger left the band and Zander replaced Earl when he left and has been the bass player of the band ever since (and was a co-star of the legendary movie, Repo Man). In addition to the band member interviews there are interviews with people from other bands as well as Lisa Fancher who owns Frontier Records which was the label that put out the first (and best) Circle Jerks album, Group Sex.

‘The movie goes in chronological order telling the story of the band. They go through the bands formation, the history the members had with other bands before starting this one, the heat they got from their peers for “stealing” parts of songs, recording their various albums and playing shows and touring. They give great detail the how and why various band members left the band, the substance abuse problems some members had, and they even are quite honest about what did and didn’t work in the band and their various recordings. Interspersed with the interview footage is a ton of live footage from over the years including some really old stuff from the early years which was pretty amazing to see considering how expensive and uncommon video cameras were back then. Some of the footage is of questionable quality and some of it is surprisingly good.’ — Punk Vinyl

Trailer

the entirety

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Shane Christmass, Hi, Shane. Yep, I sure did. No, I haven’t read ‘Something Gross’. I’ll find it, thanks. ** G, Ha ha, no, but I did declare his toilet piece to be too ubiquitous for my blog, I guess. Whew, relieved that you like ‘Gone’. That was a close one, ha ha. Oh, is my Gysin piece not in ‘Smothered in Hugs’, I forget? I just checked, and it doesn’t seem to be online. Oh, well. Thanks about the post. My weekend was much less eventful than ‘Gone’, ha ha (for the third time, yikes). xo. ** maggie siebert, Aw, that’s so nice of you to say. Well, you wrote a fantastic book, and I’m just bright enough to recognise that, I guess. No, I was super honored to see that you mentioned me in that interview. Thank you. Yes, see/meet you in NYC whenever that time comes very happily. Love back. ** Misanthrope, Thanks. That is a fine, fine feeling, for sure. Yeah, so awful about Chris. Hard to know what to say. ** Bill, I think they are relying on you, Bill, so you had better figure that out. Yes, about Chris, very very sad. ** JM, I loved your piece in SCAB, and very excited for the totality. Great lit is really erupting, yeah. Well, I loved ‘Bonding’, like the post said. Oh, man, so great that your novel is imminent. Late this year brings such an avalanche of exciting books it’s almost unbelievable. Hooray, pal! Love, Dennis. ** chris dankland, Howdy, Chris, so lovely to see you! Thanks about the podcast. Paul is a wonderful host and conversationalist and dude. Yes, about the publishing talk. I think increasingly fewer writers are dead set on major publishers, but that’s been the predetermined goal for so long that it’s not surprising it has to be unlearned or whatever. I think your and Jennifer’s answer to your question is basically right, although presses have always needed to survive financially so I’m not sure why they’ve gotten more cutthroat about that. But then again presses didn’t used to be corporations, did they? It wasn’t that long ago that even a corporate owned place like Harper Perennial was publishing oddballs like me fully knowing I wouldn’t make them rich and au contraire. I don’t know. Anyway, I like your guess. I don’t think the really big publishers stick with non-selling but critically acclaimed writers anymore. That’s really different from the days when a publisher would stick with an author either for the prestige or because some big wig there personally loved the writer’s work. I can think of two recent writers whose first novels were critically acclaimed and buzzed about, etc. but who were dropped by their major publishers afterwards anyway due to said books having not brought in sufficient buckage. Not sure about the second edition question. The trend is towards print on demand so, theoretically, books wouldn’t go out of print. Xray publishing books is an exciting idea, obviously. Cool! I hope you like ‘I Wished’, and thanks a whole lot of coming in here, my friend. All the very best. ** Dalton, Hi, Dalton! Ugh, yeah, hopefully yours will fade like mine did, although you might have to skip hot, spicy food eternally or something. Of course your interests sound like they match mine. Which, naturally, I applaud. Such tastes have served me very well, at least. That’s very cool that you’re interested in writing novels. It’s a good time to be a daring novelist. And totally understood about not feeling right talking about it. I’m not either, actually, it’s just that once you start getting published, you’re kind of forced once in a while to figure out an acceptable (to you) degree and style of doing that. I’ve generally found that the fear of sounding like your influences is mostly just a fear. That’s the weird thing: it’s hard to recognise your own voice’s distinctiveness. One good thing about getting published is that others clue you in about that. Anyway, I would say try not to worry about that. If you’re excited and inspired by what you’re writing, it’ll be original at least in some way. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get such a charge out of writing. I think that’s how you know. I look forward to reading your work at whatever point that becomes possible. I’m happy you found this place. Please do hang out and talk whenever you like. Great week’s start to you. ** Dominik, Hi!!! My pleasure. I loved Josiah’s piece, and I liked the other one a lottoo. Kudos and thanks galore! I ended up walking to the health food store, and, of course, it was pleasant. I think my malaise was a quickie. You’re writing! Ooh! That’s excellent news! Are you still? Your love was both canny and kindness incarnate. Your love’s friendly competitor selling very realistic looking and wildly popular gigantic gravestone costumes that fit over tall buildings and skyscrapers, G. ** James, Hi, man. Thank you for the good vibes. My pleasure on the successful love I showed to those oh so worthy books. Thanks about the podcast. Paul’s great, yeah. I’m a total fan/addict of his podcast. I think there are some amazing writers published by major presses, but I guess they do seem like the exceptions. Expat is super exciting, that’s for sure. Thrilled to be among their beneficiaries. Take care, pal. ** jamie, Ah, you saw that Akerman film. And in Brussels itself even maybe? It is a real drag getting all the great US-born books over here. I’m lucky because publishers and writers sometimes kindly send me them or pdfs of them, but there are still lots I have to order and then hope make it through the eccentric, let’s say, French postal system. My weekend was nice, good weather, talked to friends, made plans, did my biweekly Zoom bookclub thing, etc. Yours sounds lovely and lively, a combination that is increasingly realistic! I’m pretty sure the Eno demos are real. I remember reading an interview with Verlaine where he talked about how unsatisfactory they were, so I assume those bootlegged recordings are the real deal, but of course I don’t know. And may your Monday be perfection-transcending, man. Love, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. Yeah, tell me about it. Hey, I’m guessing your second jab was a flying colors kind of experience, yes? ** T, Hi, T, good to see you! My blog so appreciates the poetry it inspired in you. As do I, natch. Congrats on finishing the uni course. What now? Apart from hanging out here, I mean, I hope. Thank you for the kind words about Chris. Yeah, it’s tough, as it would have to be. That said, Happy Monday to you! ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff, really great to see you! Thanks about Chris. Oh, man, yeah, ongoing best hopes and hugs about the stuff with your dad. The print we saw of the Akerman wasn’t new, but it wasn’t too bad. A little faded, but almost charmingly so. I don’t think think it’s becoming more available. It was a fairly thorough retrospective, and it got shown for that reason, I think. It was a real find, though. Are you writing? What’s going on? ** Steve Erickson, Hi. At FSG? I don’t know. The Originals series was what was exciting to me about FSG’s goings on, and that’s because of Jeremy Davies’s editorship, but they ‘let him go’, so that can’t be a good sign. I’m not sure which Bing films are playing. Zac knows. I’m planning to see the related exhibition and find out there. People seem to be returning to movie theatres in pretty big numbers here, from what I’ve seen. No real fear of them apparently. ** Paul Curran, Thanks, Paul. Amazing indie lit windfall going on, for sure. Are you writing on your tome? Ah, you know about the Chris circumstances. Yeah, sad is definitely one word for it. Take care, pal. ** Brian, Hi, Brian. Cool, glad the book array intrigued. ‘Jeanne Dielman’ is a good place to start with Akerman. Her work’s so great, and you’ll be in for a treat when you dive in. No weekend booty for me either, if that helps, ha ha. I haven’t seen ‘8½’ in years. I can believe that your assessment is sensible. I guess I never expect a whole lot of depth from Fellini. When he does go deep, it tends to get a bit sentimental for me. ‘Satyricon’ is by far my favorite. Thank you about ‘Frisk’. Well, yeah, I’m long since accustomed to people having content-blinded, misconstruing responses to my books. I don’t like it, but I’m powerless to change that. Thank you for saying that, man. My weekend was pleasant but no big treasure-filled whoop, I guess. This week could get busier and better, or it’s possible. Here’s me waving the chequered flag in hopes yours will zoom into existence. ** Okay. Today I present to you the films and videos the often post-punk and grunge associated filmmaker Dave Markey. Have fun. Fun is up there if you want it. See you tomorrow.

MM) Coming from a multidisciplinary background and having such a broad palette of tastes in other mediums, it’s interesting to me that you have a book coming out (interesting for anyone). What made you gravitate toward the written word and stay for literature? Have you always been an avid book reader?

Maggie Siebert) Writing a book is the first thing I can remember really wanting to do. My grandmother, whom my mom and I lived with until I was 5 or so, was a voracious reader and had a house full of books. My mother was pretty cool about letting me read whatever I wanted, so I was exposed to a lot of grim stuff at an early age. I was experiencing early symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and was besieged by a gnawing anxiety pretty frequently. The only thing that spoke to me at the time was horror fiction. It’s a realm where people experience dread, foreboding and terror, and it helped personify the causes of those feelings, or at least made them more digestible. So I made the jump from RL Stine to Stephen King to Supervert to Dennis Cooper, (who writes horror novels in the same way Philippe Grandrieux makes horror movies). And all the while I was reading these things desiring first to match their extremity, and eventually to exceed it. My brain chemistry forces horrible images on me all day, so why not turn that into something? It doesn’t exactly help; I’m still afraid of the same things that inspired the stories in Bonding. But I at least feel confident exploring them.

MM) Your book’s milieux is often that of the working stiff. In “Messes” and “Smells” you inhabit in great detail these menial occupations adjacent to depravity.

MS) Throughout this book’s assembly I was pretty broke and miserable. There’s essentially nothing more humiliating than working a shitty job and struggling for money, and the things I’ve been willing to endure for a paycheck were already pretty horrific in and of themselves. In hindsight I’ve realized that a pretty significant portion of this book is devoted to exorcising the jobs I’ve hated most from my brain. The jobs my characters have are the material that skews closest to “autofiction” or whatever in this book. In “Messes” the narrator is a janitor at a gay sex club and is accosted by a hooded masturbator — most of the non-body horror material in that story happened to me. (I quit after one shift.) In “Smells” the narrator works as a telephone sales rep for shit money — I also did that. I cleaned someone’s opioid diarrhea explosion with paper towels and Windex when I worked at Sears. You devote so much of your life to places and people that treat you like garbage, and the sensory details of the things you endure so you can pay rent tend to stick out in my memory the most. Now I can just think of the stories I got out of them.

 

Maggie Siebert @ Twitter
EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE BY MAGGIE SIEBERT
Podcast: The Suicide of Judas Iscariot with Maggie Siebert
Six Questions for Maggie Siebert and B.R. Yeager
Buy ‘Bonding’

 

Maggie Siebert Bonding
Expat Press

‘Welcome to the new normal. The narrative is inevitable, these books are not taste trophies- they’re a novel species of sensory apparatus, a big ticket item for a dark age, a semblance of the yawning now. We’re dragging you toward a thermal intensity, an uncanny nightmare conjured of collective hallucination and puncta of panic couched in hypnotic reveries. In BONDING, Maggie Siebert evokes unreality as visceral experience, situates you in private fears and raging emotion for a freefall through bizarro humor and hardship, body horror, gore and fantasia, subversion and satire, mnemonic wreckage and tight-gripped pulp. Shift to clutch, Siebert is the doyenne of the legitimate counterculture, poster child for this season in hell. The ecstasy of mind bursts a blood vessel, and the discomfiting is a seductive siren song calling all crackling auras to desublimate their extremes and take a ride. 12 shots of the unspeakable sublime from the most indomitable force of nature, an erudite zine enthusiast/multidisciplinary icon who lives for the sounds of pages smoldering with fresh ink visions. Here are fascinations, heartfelt observations, lurid, liminal spaces to dwell in. Crumple prostrate and let dissociation drive. BONDING is beyond four walls and linear time, it is flesh and blood made hypersensitive to the soul. Don’t chasten your appetite for spiritual revelation before terror is wrung inside out to paint a new cross to the godhead.’ — Expat Press

Excerpt

“Wake up.”

No light shone through the bedroom windows. When the police would come, later, the mid-morning sun would bore itself deep behind his eyes, heating the folds of his brain until they were sticky with dew. Now, a matte darkness shrouded him, but not so wholly that he couldn’t see the wet silhouette of his father standing in the doorway.

He arose. He knew this day was coming, had known for years. He didn’t know when, and neither did his father. But the knowledge sat with them constantly, a fourth family member at the dinner table. At baseball games, school plays, birthdays, heart-to-heart conversations, it was always present, the gnawing dread of knowing what needed to be done.

They moved through the house, careful not to wake his sleeping mother. She would not understand this, the necessity of it, what was at stake. The two of them weren’t sure they did either, at least not fully. As they neared the sliding glass doors that led to the backyard, he wondered how she would feel in the next few hours, what thoughts would go through her head when she saw what he had done. He stuffed those thoughts down.

Now, outside, the door clicked into place, the motion-detecting light switched on, he saw his father’s work: a wide circle, burned into the lawn. He looked deeply at his father, fully visible, and saw the same man he’d seen every day: the kind, doting American History teacher, always quick to understand and generous in offering comfort. His outward stoicism belied kind eyes, and sadness over what they were about to do beneath them.

“Once this starts, we don’t stop for anything.”

The night before he started third grade his father had asked him to come into the living room. His mother was out picking up a take-and-bake pizza, and they sat alone on the couch, the warm glow of lamplight making him feel safe. His father told him they needed to talk, that he wasn’t in trouble, but that this wasn’t going to be a nice talk. He told him it was time to tell him the truth about what happened to grandpa.

“I need you to know that I love you.”

They stepped into the circle.

His father lunged forward, throwing him to the ground and pinning him with both knees on his arms. A torrent of pain as a fist sinks into his nose, his vision filled with exploding stars as blood and snot cascaded from his billowing nostrils. Another blow sends the resonating crunch of broken facial bones sounding into the night air. It hurts so much he can’t even scream. His father mercifully rolls off him.

“We have to do this. It hurts tremendously and you will carry it with you for the rest of your life, but it needs to be done,” his father had said on the couch.

He thought of how the pizza tasted after that conversation, after he learned that in just five years he too would have to kill his own father. He thought about how he wept, how his mother teased him for years for crying over not wanting to go to school, and how his father, in his eternal kindness, simply placed his hand over his.

With one last look at the night sky he shot up from the ground and found his father’s form. He charged him, sending a knee into his stomach before wrenching both thumbs deep into his eyes, the slick, oily feeling both disgusting and exhilarating him.

Father abruptly leaned into son’s thumbs, sending them deep into his sockets. Caught off guard he pulled them loose and was quickly met by the deafening crack of his father’s skull against his. Staggering around, senses in chaos, they flailed blindly before their hands met. Like dancers they fell into each other, then began to claw. They tore strips from each other’s flesh, broke fingernails and left them embedded in limbs. In between they landed punches, kicks, slaps.

He let out a massive cry. Lights turned on in nearby houses but neither noticed. His father breathed raggedly, his movements drunken and erratic, his brain beginning to fail as he swiped aimlessly at his son. Weeping, he grasped his father’s hair with his fist and dragged him to the fence. With all the force left in his body, he forced his face into the maroon planks of wood, then again, then again, until his father’s body went limp.

Vomiting, falling to his knees, he moaned in agony as the last of the night sky melted into an effervescent orange. The deep red of the sun poured through the clouds, and before collapsing to the ground he caught a glimpse of his mother watching silently from the window.

Extra

Trailer: ‘Bonding’

 

 

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“It is rare to encounter people who not play a role, even when they are alone.”

‘A great piece of fictional journalism that drags you down the twisted road of drug and occult mania, stuffing you full of satirical philosophies and dadaistic nightmares along the way. Boris’ cultural references are as far-ranging and eclectic as they come, but even the artists and intellectuals that are usually placed on pedestals are not safe from his scathing criticism of middle-class self-flagellation. This truly was a fun piece of work to read and try to decode; very digestible and with no shortage of humour, it makes for an impressive debut novel.’ — Elliot Carter

‘Hilarious, compelling, a countercultural classic. A work of sublime order. Fear and loathing in occult Paris. The author has created a world that is profoundly humorous, while managing a deep sincerity throughout. Join Lester Langway, a British Journo, for an odyssey into the bowels of the Parisian occult-underground. Walk deep into an eclectic textual-tapestry; one that is both hallucinogenic and fulfilling. As a reader, My Week Without Gérard is an extremely pleasurable experience.

‘It is a fine novel, one that deserves much more contemporary attention. I mean, where else can we go and see Breton, Uri Geller, and Arsène Wenger all in one place. If you have sense, all Morbid Books releases should be on your radar.’ — Callum Berry

‘Darkly comedic, absurd and disorientating My week without Gerard weaves surrealism and the occult into a journalists bizarre investigation throughout Paris. Reminds me of Inherent Vice if it took place in the modern day, but centered round a deplorable human being.’ — Laurence

 

Ivan Boris @ goodreads
Adam Lehrer Reviews ‘My Week Without Gérard’
Podcast: The Temple of Surrealism
Hill of Dust Books
Buy ‘My Week Without Gérard’

 

Ivan Boris My Week Without Gérard
Morbid Books

‘A surreal, slapstick nightmare set in the end-times of countercultural journalism.

‘In search of France’s superstar philosopher who has mysteriously vanished, Lester Langway, a young, bedraggled freelance reporter for the failing London style bible Down N Out! magazine, is sent to Paris to solve a hallucinogenic detective mystery involving demonic Kantian philosophy, identity politics, the history of Surrealism, secret societies and mind control. Both a scathing satire and a sincere romance, My Week Without Gérard is so squarely at odds with the culture it mercilessly lampoons, it’s little surprise the author writes under a pseudonym.’ — Morbid Books

“Any book with bathroom drugs, coffin sex, awkward romance, conspiracy theories, thinly veiled characters based on people I know in contemporary euro society, and my bloody death scene, has a spot on my bookshelf.” — Rick Owens

Excerpt

Extra

 

 

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‘While involved in the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley during the Sixties, activist Jack Weinberg became famous for coining the phrase, “Don’t trust anyone over 30”; few novels personify his quote as sharply as You Will Love What You Have Killed, the first novel by Canadian Millennial author Kevin Lambert. The story is set in Chicoutimi, a small French-speaking town in Quebec where children more often than not end up dead at the hands of their elders. On the surface, Chicoutimi is a town that appears like any other—with its glad-handing politicians, eccentric locals, and seemingly benevolent grandparents—but in reality holds a bevy of dark secrets. This fact becomes apparent for the reader as soon as the local children begin to die, one after the other and in often unspeakably gruesome ways, whether it be a freak snow plow accident or a stabbing by a deranged family member armed “with a long knife right out of a horror film.” Is it any wonder that our narrator—a young boy named Faldistoire—vows, “…it is I who will destroy you, Chicoutimi…You are the abscess festering in the void, the tumour gnawing away at nothingness, Chicoutimi, and when deliverance will come, all will cheer your disappearance.”

‘But Chicoutimi will not go quietly. Since the town harbors enough evil to resemble Stephen King’s fictional locale of Castle Rock, Maine, it’s fitting that Chicoutimi displays certain supernatural abilities as well. “How far would my native city go to uphold its infamous saintliness?” the narrator poses. “Far enough to bring back dead children.” It’s no exaggeration: the children who die throughout the course of the novel crawl their way back out of the ground, in the cemetery where the croaking toads stand their not-so-silent watch. (The toads serve as a motif throughout the book.) These resurrected youngsters resume their previous lives like a modern-day Lazarus, behaving as though they had never died in the first place.

‘It should come as little surprise that Lambert’s novel makes for uneasy reading—the lives of its youthful characters prove brutish and short, and in this instance one wonders how much of a mercy it is that the children of Chicoutimi are brought back to life if it means they have to endure the town’s abuse again and again. But as out of control as the murderous adults may seem, Lambert proves very much in control; and while there’s little hope to be found in its pages, Faldistoire’s crusade suggests that sometimes the only way to overcome a corrupt System is to rip it up and start again.’ — Zack Ravas

 

Kevin Lambert@ goodreads
First Fiction Friday: You Will Love What You Have Killed
A thrilling debut novel takes revenge on smalltown homophobia
Excerpt: YOU WILL LOVE WHAT YOU HAVE KILLED
Buy ‘You Will Love What You Have Killed’

 

Kevin Lambert You Will Love What You Have Killed
Biblioasis

‘Faldistoire’s grandfather thinks he’s a ghost. Sylvie’s mother reads tarot and summons stormclouds to mete her witch’s justice. Behind his Dad of the Year demeanour, Sébastien’s father hides dark designs. It’s Croustine’s grandfather who makes the boy a pair of slippers from the dead family dog, but it’s his father, the cannily-named Kevin Lambert, who always seems to be nearby when tragedy strikes, and in the cemetery, under the baleful eyes of toads, small graves are dug one after the other: Chicoutimi, Quebec, is a dangerous place for children. But these young victims of rape, arbitrary violence, and senseless murder keep coming back from the dead. They return to school, explore their sexualities, keep tabs on grown-up sins―and plot their apocalyptic retribution.

‘Surreal and darkly comic, this debut novel by Kevin Lambert, one of the most celebrated and controversial writers to come out of Quebec in recent memory, takes the adult world to task―and then takes revenge.’ — Biblioasis

Excerpt

MACHINES MURDER CHILDHOOD

Kevin is on his way back to the Rue des Tourterelles aboard his deafening monster, speeding through Des Oiseaux: the machine’s metal squeals loudly when the snowplow passes over a hole in the frozen asphalt. He’s well into his twenties but looks sixteen, he reminds you of those teenagers on television sitcoms played by actors who are much too old, you tell them to drop their pants below their bums, put their hats on backwards, you give them skateboards so they seem to have come “right out of high school.” You can sense Kevin’s hairless chest under the jacket he’s wearing in the truck’s heated cab, it feels like a furnace in there, but he’s kept his toque on to free his face from his long blond hair. Before starting work he lights a cigarette, looks at the big pile of snow he has to clear, an iceberg in the middle of the street, it’s dangerous, it will block the road when people are leaving for work or coming through the traffic circle. Kevin doesn’t know that in a few minutes little Sylvie, buried there, will be torn to pieces by the blower’s sharp-edged screw, turning over mechanically on itself, gobbling everything in its path. Sylvie is buried in the snow and it’s a real shame: children do not always have the wisdom to respect even simple instructions. Even if she knows she lives at 2008 Rue des Tourterelles, that her right hand is on the right, her left on the left, that she’s lefthanded and that in her grandmother’s time left-handed people were shut up in cages beside the road and left there to be eaten by horrible black crows, that you mustn’t take candies from strangers, not say “Marie noire” three times in front of the mirror, that you have to listen to Viviane when she tells you to go to bed, that you must never tell the truth on the internet, even on the game sites where you’ve made a friend, because this friend is certainly an old man who wants to do all sorts of things to you that you can’t talk about at school, even if Sylvie knows all that, excited as she is by the snowfall, she may have forgotten that you must never tunnel into a snowbank.

Sylvie’s tunnel is exquisite. She’s dug it right at the bottom of the pile, and it goes in deep. Her idea was to cross through it from one side to the other. But her architectural skills are limited, and it collapses as soon as she enters it. Sylvie is trapped, stunned by the weight of the snow dropping so heavily onto her little body that’s cocooned in a thick snowsuit. She tries to move, but she can’t, she cries with her little voice, snow is weighing on her mouth, her nose, her eyes, her entire body, it’s cold, she turns on one side then the other, she tries to dig herself a path, push away a bit of snow, she manages to find a little hole for her face where she can breathe without swallowing ice. She is able to cry a little bit louder, but around the traffic circle nothing can be heard but the low-pitched growling of the snow blower. The packed snow smothers the little high-pitched sound Sylvie is making. Her hands are trapped under her body, her thumb is twisted inside her mitten, she tries to turn her head, she tries with all her strength to move her feet, but the snow is too heavy.

The snow blower is coming, Sylvie, you’d better move. Do you hear the machine? Maybe you think it will take away the snow and you’ll be able to escape. You hear the blower turning, sucking up the snow to spit it out farther on, into the centre of the traffic circle, near the street lamp: you’re afraid. You cry, you cry some more, you yell, and your little tears run down your cheeks. It’s dark. You swallow snow when you open your mouth to cry out your distress, but all your sounds are smothered, they don’t reach past the hard lumps that are holding you down in the depths of Chicoutimi. You don’t know what to do, you’re suffocating, you push with all your body, but nothing moves, you’re angry, desperate, deafened by the growling motor, the mechanical shovel. Its pistons are making the whole street shake, are pounding the ice-hardened ground. Exhausted by your efforts, you grow calm for a moment. It’s there, Chicoutimi, everywhere around you, it has swallowed you up in its snow. Think, you have to get out of this fix, otherwise you’ll never have the two dollars for the tooth you lost this morning that’s sleeping on your pillow. Cry, Sylvie, cry that you want to see your papa and mama again, your little cat and the Mickey Mouse posters in your bedroom, howl that you want to be babysat again by Viviane. Hammer this black snow with your feet as hard as you can, fend off the cruel mechanics of the snow blower, insist that it’s not its decision to make. The pitiless snow is obliterating you, Sylvie. You give a few feeble kicks, then you stop, frozen stiff by winter. Out of strength, of breath, of courage, your voice is lost beneath the grumbling of the snow blower, beneath the heavy layer of snow. In despair, you murmur, “Marie noire” three times. You hope to call up a spirit, an avenging ghost, a soul in pain, you want to sell yourself to the devil for the rest of your life, if only to carry on a little bit longer. Even the evil spirits have abandoned you. The blower spits out a brief jet of scarlet snow, with Sylvie pulverized inside it, onto the snowbank.

Soon the whole city will learn of your death. Your mother will weep for a long time, will break her favourite knick-knacks and her prettiest framed photos of you. Your coffin will be buried in the Chicoutimi cemetery. On your grave will be carved a little Mickey to remind you of the posters in your bedroom. And the vile toads will come, every night, to sing in your memory.

Extra

Trailer

 

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‘Even from its opening sentence, Elle Nash’s new story collection, Nudes, shapes the reader’s expectations. “It began when she moved in below their apartment,” Nash writes, “or maybe it began a week after when the boyfriend came downstairs to ask for a cup of sugar for a cake, or maybe it began a week after that when the girlfriend knocked on the door…” Though the narrator of the opening story, “Ideation,” is a third-person outlier in a collection that leans heavily towards first, even this narrator is unreliable, reluctant to pin down when “it” all began, or to specify what “it” even is. When they later tell us, “This was how friendship worked as an adult: an exchange of goods or services for other goods or services,” we’re not sure whether it’s their thought, or the main character’s. We’re also unsure if it’s true.

‘Ambiguity and uncertainty are repeatedly used throughout Nash’s work, encouraging the reader to reflect rather than handing them clear answers. It’s an effective pairing with the content of Nudes, which is often dark, high stakes and built on conflicts of love, intimacy, sex, drugs, violence and self-worth. By working in the implicit and unsaid, Nash is able to maintain interest and write with nuance on topics that might otherwise become too heavy, or melodramatic. In the title story, a painter overhears her alcoholic fiancée, Michelle, confide in a friend over the phone: “‘No. No wedding. None of that… She’ll be fine. No, I don’t know when I’ll tell her.’” The words are clear enough to convey the stakes of the conflict but ambiguous enough to allow for misunderstanding, or indecision. There’s a similar uncertainty as the main character grows closer to their friend’s neighbor, Thomas. When she eventually tells Thomas, “‘Some people will do anything to be taken care of,’” the words feel true, but unverifiable. No resolution is given for the situation with Michelle, and “Nudes” ends with the main character examining photos of herself, telling us that she “looked regal.” But we are still left considering everything else she must be feeling, and what might become of her relationship.

‘Another great showcase of this effect is “Cat World,” a standout in the collection. The story is narrated by a fourteen year-old girl who is largely ignored by her distracted, divorcing parents. She eventually begins dating a girl in her class, Mikaela, while frequenting an AIM chat for catgirls, where the user ExxonMobil6 keeps asking her for pictures. Her relationships are complicated. On their first night together, before they start dating, Mikaela’s dad picks her up, alongside Mikaela and her older brother Mason, taking them to a motel room to drink liquor and smoke. The scene ends with the click of Mason’s camera as Mikaela kisses her. Little access is given to the main character’s interiority in this scene. We learn only that she realizes “[Mikaela]’s never mentioned her mother” and that she thinks of ExxonMobil6 after Mason asks about her first kiss. The story ends with a realization, a sudden understanding of a phrase that had come up in her earlier AIM chats. “I know what it means, now,” the main character thinks. But the reader still doesn’t understand entirely how she feels about the revelation; we’re left to go back over the story, to synthesize and reflect.’ — Jefferson Lee

 

Elle Nash Site
Elle Nash @ Twitter
Elle Nash interviewed @ Full Stop
AGENCY OVER ANYTHING ELSE: TALKING WITH ELLE NASH
Buy ‘NUDES’

 

Elle Nash Nudes
Hobart Pulp Press

‘Beginning with a story of an ex sex-worker drifting through a small rural town in the south, and ending with a young woman’s wedding night, who learns from her new husband what it takes to kill a man, Nash writes across the complications of working class women, rendering their desires with visceral prose and psychologically dissecting the fundamental root that threads her work: craving and the conflicts within.’ — Hobart Pulp Press

‘Nudes is a collection that feels multigenerational. It crawls across the soggy cigarette ash carpets of single wide America to upscale apartments and the discolored bathtubs of suicide motels. Elle Nash shows the ugly venal addictions of a post-last call society.’ — Jake Blackwood (Twitter)

Excerpt

from ‘Cat World’

Eventually Mikaela turns fifteen. School lets out and I walk in the heat til I see spots. Mikaela doesn’t call for weeks. I sit in front of the PC for hours, my eyes burning out like light bulbs. It’s not Exxon’s normal time but I’ve told him school was out so I’m waiting for him to show up. The problem is you find a place you think you might belong and want to violently wedge yourself into any open space warm enough to welcome you.

ExxonMobil6: my little neko

dErAnGeDkItTy69: *cocks head to the side, squints at your silhouette in the sunlight. my silky tail uncurls to greet you*

ExxonMobil6: you’re not as graceful as other nekomimi, but thatsuffices. I dont want to have to takeyo u to the pound.

dErAnGeDkItTy69: please don’t! *crawls up to you and nuzzles on your knee, waiting for your pets*

ExxonMobil6: *scratches the soft fur behind your ears* tell me about what you’ve been up to.

I tell him I’m applying to colleges, that I don’t want to go to college but my parents are making me.

“Do you always do what your parents tell you to do?” he asks.

“No…” I say. “Not always.” I type that I lick my wrist and wipe the top of my head with it, cleaning one of my catgirl ears. I send a kaomoji that looks like a devil face:

((( ←～（o ｀▽´ )oΨ

I tell him my parents are going on a second honeymoon, that they used to fight a lot but finally realized how much they love each other and decided to celebrate their love in Jamaica, all summer. I’ll have the house to myself—the house on the beach, in the Keys. Exxon says “I’d come visit you, but I’m nowhere near the coast.” I ask him where he lives and he says “College would be good for you. What do you want to study?”

I change my avatar from a catgirl with blue eyes to one with green eyes. The new catgirl still has short black hair, but instead of a schoolgirl outfit, she’s wearing a black triangle bikini with white edging and her breasts are huge. Exxon has an anime avatar of a man with blonde hair, pointy chin, and glimmering square glasses. I think of him as sophisticated and poised. I type to Exxon that I curl up at his feet. I type that I lick my paws, but my ears are pointed back. Exxon types that he scratches the soft patch of skin behind them. I imagine myself radiating warmth into his hairy legs. I imagine him as human, not as cat. Like an owner. When I don’t purr, he asks what’s wrong.

“I don’t know what I want to study,” I tell him. My tail moves back and forth but not in contentment, more like frustration. I tell him I want to study writing. I tell him how I imagine my future: living in New York City, writing poems. He sends me poems by Charles Bukowski and I write them all down in my journal. I type that my catgirl ears flick in a happy way. The gentle rhythm of our red text, blue text fills me with confusing, erotic need.

Exxonmobil6: will you ever send a pic?

dErAnGeDkItTy69: parents home. g2g. sorry.

ExxonMobil6: i thought your parents were on vacation?

dErAnGeDkItTy69: ヽ(ー_ー )ノ i know I said that…

ExxonMobil6: don’t talk to me again until you send me one.

ExxonMobil6 has logged off

On July fourth, my dad moves out. It’s been a week since Exxon has talked to me. Mikaela and Bobby and Mason come get me in the Bronco and a new person sits in the front passenger seat. I squeeze between Mikaela and Mason and look at the man up front, who introduces himself as Shawn. Down the highway, I watch the wind whip my face pink in the rearview. I don’t want to ask Shawn to roll his window up. Car dealerships pass by, then the paper mill, red and green warehouses, the train yard filled with abandoned cars. What I like about cat world is that we type out our body language so it’s easy to tell what someone’s thinking. When a catgirl types that her ears are flat and back against her head I know that means she’s angry or scared. We drive beneath an overpass and exit near downtown where the road holds nothing but motel after motel. I wonder about the people inside them, their cars parked in front of their rooms, if they’re traveling in and out of cities, if they, too, smoke meth and drink in the middle of the night. If any of them are Exxon. If they’re older like Mikaela’s dad or young like me.

At the motel Shawn stays close to Mikaela. He grabs for her hand and she holds his finger with one of hers. In our passed notes, she considers me her girlfriend, but that is school world. Maybe in motel world our relationship is different. In motel world she means girlfriend, like, a friend who also happens to be a girl. But it’s hard to imagine other friends I would kiss the way she kisses me. Shawn pours drinks—rum into plastic cups of Diet Coke with bagged ice kept in the bathroom sink. I hide my hot cheeks behind my cup. We play an SNES hooked up to the tiny TV and Mason breaks out a bag of cocaine and starts cutting it up on the dresser. He asks if I want some. I don’t know, I tell him.

“I would never let you do anything that would hurt you,” he says. He’s bent over, the heavy bottle of rum next to him, his sharp little teeth in his wide, sappy mouth. When I take a bump Mikaela takes sips from her cup. I rub my face and my eyes suck into the back of my skull. I want to smoke a cigarette so I go outside with Bobby and Shawn to the gritty sizzle of tires on the road. I roll onto the tips of my toes and back to my heels as fireworks pop in the distance.

“Sounds like the ‘burbs are being shelled,” Bobby says.

Shawn laughs, then he coughs and spits.

“America’s over,” Shawn replies. His hair is Cobain-blonde and some spit gets stuck to the scrabble of his beard.

“Yeah, fuck this country,” I say. Shawn brings his cigarette to his mouth, looks in the direction of the boom-then-crackle of a firework.

I go back into the room and feel his indifference on my skin. The sun sets behind the mountains tinging the sky in orange before bruising inside out. Mikaela dances in front of the bed and I join her, wondering if Shawn or Mason will watch as I dance, if Shawn would become aroused or upset. The Weather Channel is muted, and Shawn puts on house music. I take another bump and imagine my catgirl self dancing for Exxon in her school uniform, a big bell on a collar around her neck. Mason snaps pictures with his camera. Mikaela hooks her finger into the bracelet on my arm, twists it tighter, pulls my wrist up to her face. She licks it, pushes into me, and we fall onto the bed. Shawn pulls out what looks like a whip cream canister, girthy and silver, and Mikaela puts her hand on my chin. She says, “You’re gonna be a porn star one day, I can feel it.” Her mouth speaks against my neck, forceful and wet. Mason’s camera flashes as Mikaela unbuttons my pants. I sit up and stop her, point to Shawn. “What is that?” I ask.

Shawn puts his mouth on the tap of the whip cream and sucks. A slow, monstrous laugh three octaves too deep leaves his chest. He hands me the canister. I place the plastic tip to my lips, pull the trigger, and breathe in. “Hooch” by Everything blares on the stereo, and I forget where I am. I lean against Mikaela and lick my wrists, then nuzzle into her neck.

“You make me purr,” I say.

“What the fuck,” Mikaela laughs. She pushes me away, breathless and manic, and starts jumping up and down on the bed. I jump too, watching myself in the mirror. I’m just a normal girl with jeans and a thrift store t-shirt, a girl without cat-ears or a tail. I want to go home to my computer. My head starts to feel like a deflated balloon and I lose sense of space and time. I feel a cloud of hair against my face, the smell of pink shampoo. I put out my tongue, searching for skin. I can’t remember if it’s a weekend or a weeknight or if I have to be back at school tomorrow. I’m more afraid of Mikaela’s feelings than her touch. It’s men that frighten me; their blunt actions like impersonal violence.

Mason does another bump, then holds the key beneath my nostril, cradling my head like I’m a baby. I take the bump, he touches my face, and it’s the closest I’ve ever been to a boy. He shoots another photo of me, my eyes lolling upward, into a painful dark. The room is lit only by the Weather Channel, displaying damaged homes on the beach after a hurricane, like rotting teeth in the mouth of the ocean. I read the scroll of closed captions as fast as I can, but most details are lost.

Shawn looks at the TV and I see the tattoo on his larynx: a woman, classic pinup style, between two nautical stars. She’s blonde with blue eyes; her skin is his. Shawn coughs again and the woman’s body undulates with his throat. I envision my avatar, the red text of my name burning bright against the computer screen, sending Exxon all the photos: I know what it means, now. Mason frames another shot as Shawn sits down on the bed and takes my hand, resting it on Mikaela’s stomach. The tattoo girl’s legs are spread open, like the wings of an eagle.

Extra

The Story of a Book: Elle Nash

 

 

______________

Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Candice Wuehle: The main questions I’ve been exploring in for the last few years (especially in Death Industrial Complex and MONARCH) all deal with identity formation in the context of a consumer culture. How does the messaging we’re exposed to dictate or even generate our desires? How do we know for certain we want what we want and we are who we are when we’re persuaded and manipulated so insistently to buy X, look like Y, aspire to Z. Are there any forces that exist outside consumerism? I’d like to think that magic, spirituality, and the occult all still retain pockets of freedom but it’s also apparent that large portions of even that which traditionally exists only on the interior, and therefore comprised our “true self” or “identity” no longer does.

The current question, for me, is about who we are in private. Do we have a private self any more? Do some of us have more of it than others? Do we value our interior lives less than ever before? Why? Shoshanna Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (2018) thinks about this within the context of social media and surveillance policies and all the quick click “opting in” we do. She says, “When the fact is if you have nothing to hide, then you are nothing. Because everything that you are, the place inside you, your inner resources from which you draw your sense of identity, your sense of voice, your sense of autonomy and moral judgment, your ability to think critically, to resist, even to revolt—these are the capabilities that can only be grown within. Jean Paul Sartre calls it the will to will. And that will to will grows from within and you should hide it. And you should cherish it. And it should be private. And it should be yours.”

What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Candice Wuehle: I don’t think all writers have the same role. When I was in my late teens/early twenties I was really into reading every book that had ever won the Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award. I wasn’t really aware of the idea of prize culture or the way these prizes often perpetuate normative structures. Instead, I got the sense that the role or purpose of the writer was to inspire and entertain while documenting some kind of cultural truth from a thoughtful or empathetic or possibly melancholy lens in order to provide the reader with a way to, I don’t know, reflect more deeply on what it means to be an individual or a human. This still seems to be what most authors try to do. I think this can be a totally wonderful role for a writer to fulfill—Jeffrey Eugenides is one of my favorite authors and I think he embodies the positive aspects of this more traditional role.

The role of the writer in larger culture that I’m more interested in right now, though, is the author who is willing to be imperfect in a way that often reflects the imperfection that they’re writing about or within. I’m simply much more absorbed by writers who are both looking at fissures in culture and allowing their work to be part of that fissure, and also be fissured. I appreciate this as a resistance to an otherwise pretty homogenizing industry.

 

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Buy ‘FIDELITORIA: Fixed or Fluxed’

 

Candice Wuehle FIDELITORIA: Fixed or Fluxed
11:11 Press

‘Fidelitoria: Fixed or Fluxed navigates interior landscapes, personal cosmology, and the manner in which language shapes our being and being shapes our language via acts of séance, tarot, alchemical interpretation, and psychoanalysis. These are poems written in the wild swing of the scrying stone, poems that ask how to create an identity in the way of perpetual change, constant self-interrogation, and ever shifting psychogeography. What does it mean to live in the orb of uncertainty? To be neither here nor there, neither fixed nor fluxed?’ — 11:11 Press

‘THERE IS AN IRRESISTIBLE MELANCHOLY OF CHAOS LIVING HERE, BINDING AND UNWINDING LIKE TREE’S LEAVES AND SEASONAL DIURNAL GOWNS, NOT RESISTING A FLUORESCENT MEDIUM OF ABUNDANCE AND SNOW. HERE THE SPEAKER TRAVELS THROUGH HER OWN TONGUE TO FIND HERSELF OVER AND OVER, IN HERBS, IN ALIENS, IN THE QUIET SPECTACULAR. IN THE BANQUET OF TAROT AND BUCOLIC POETRY, WHERE THE LEXICAL GRASS GROWS THINGS SUCH AS PROHILIL AND EXNIHIL WHILE THE POET TAKES US THROUGH HER UNDERTONE OF LUGUBRIOUS SURRENDER. TIMELESS AND ELONGATED, WITH REPETITIVE MANTRA THAT BEHAVE HYPNOTICALLY LIKE FALLING FLORAL FAUNAS, CANDICE WUEHLE HOPES, IN THIS WILD SPELLBINDING OF LEXICAL RESTFULNESS, TO ACHIEVE ACCRETION OF SELF THROUGH THE ORACULAR AMNESIA OF SELF.’ — VI KHI NAO

Excerpt

Demiurge

As if a blueprint of author’s imagined
garden could begin without the 28 leathern paws
of 7 unassigned dogs halting, holding
their howls at the edge. If you draw me a map
I won’t find you. This poem is for the cartographer
offering an alternate arcadia, I mean, a third
arcana. I mean I believe in spoil, wineskins accelerating
unlit wars, ending ends. As if this poem
isn’t populated with obese angels and outsized
stars, muzzled strong-men. But this poem is also
for black smart phone screens not networked
or worked and inelegant without intelligence,
molly-mirror unreflective of the un-shiny other’s
intent, only an idea in abstraction upon lack
of electrification. This poem is clearly for myself
alone. My mother may have wrapped me in
a cloud. Because of this arrangement, I have
insisted on some theories regarding Ash and Hair.
Instead, I ask myself if I mean Vapor and Ocean,
Air. I got good at this somewhere and now I need
to get de-skilled; I am now only a spouse
to my true nature, a digger of foundation, fence
posts. True. I have stayed here long enough to
achieve, and now my arms are the arms of evident
strength. I really want to be the one in the kitchen,
inhaling mint, wetted basil: artifacts of exposed
hearth. Upon first encounter,
sugar was qualified as honey without bees. This seems to
suggest that strength—for a Cashiered Soldier or Bad
Poet—is only intention without integrity. Howls
echo in the uncharted empty even if the animals are
not near; the nature of the canyon is to act and act again;
reverberation. I mean to admit I remain
in the self-styled wild

not out of an attitude of endurance
but in avoidance of the ultra
charted zone, the solid city
structured and clay-hardened.
Upon identification of the subject,
I collapse. Just as I cannot kiss the counter,
I cannot, cannot caress the fur of the domestic dog,
I cannot even accept
the rope
that made the animal so,
can only
insist a cloud
cannot be contained
or rent

 

Soft

Sort of error. My real hair, unhinged
from my head. Was I a blonde-girl
anymore or an experimental light, a
way for others to see through water,
ashes? I have already said what I am afraid
of. Yonder. I ask my father on the other
end about procession, peaceful
parting: Candie, keep yourself and give
your things. He means give up, give
way. Keep falling from windows
in order to assure the greatness of your
own height, if only to be the wreck
of your own pure lightness. Only
on a second story hotel balcony, bonds
can be broken with the world one
can come to skim, to see as surface. Chlorinated,
incalculable current unbearable without
tallied reflections. Stop. In the rented
room’s mirror, the face I deserve and under-
neath, another atmosphere I have never
endured: I doubt it is oceanic, operable
by infallible salts or expanse of warm blues,
cool blues. An indigo, a lapis, a lazuli. Instead
I suspect a smallness
No—a clarity
No—a clarity
No—a clarity,
a cross at a crossing,
a dryness delivering, upending as does specifically dirt
in demand of a grave. Just
a thin yield, as earth under blade, giving
to pressure within freeze, shale.
I know the odd dumb organ breaks
beneath my breasts, never showing
and only even aware of itself because of the
occasioned hand pushing back my hair to comment
I can hear your
self. Have I already said
what I am afraid of; I have already
tried to fuse this, this
bare flicker
nude synapse

Extra

Demiurge by Candice Wuehle

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi, D!!! Wow, yes, that’s a Freud field day confession right there, ha ha. Oh, wow again, that’s a great SCAB leak! I can’t wait! Everyone, Dominick’s masterful and crucial zine SCAB has just leaked its new entry, and it’s a piece of a novel-in-progress by none other than the fireball great writer Josiah Morgan aka blog d.l. JM, so, need I even say, a trip through this green, phrase-shaped portal is a must! (There was also a new SCAB piece dropped on Monday, too, by M. T. Coombe, so go find that too.) Excellent! Given that love was thought up by me, he probably would have preferred his poem to have wound up in some obscure harsh noise track, but he would probably also appreciate the big bucks that came along with Beyonce’s hit. Yes, the sad Casebere toilet, sigh. Love taking pity on how lazy I feel this morning and transplanting the health food store all the way across Paris that I need to shop at today such that the front door of my apartment is its entrance, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yes, the TP hoarding phenom. It didn’t really happen in France, which I guess gives credit to the French, although … what if the hoarders been right? France would have been … nasty. ** Montse, Hi, Montse! Nah, I’m still doing the p.s. while my morning coffee kicks in. I am seeking possibilities to go Primavera. I might need to be in LA then, but maybe not. Would be awesome. Oh, whew, I’m glad your COVID bout is ancient history. I can’t believe I never got it, although I guess I still could, at least until my second jab on the 11th, or, well, I guess even after that it’s still possible. Eek. I downloaded ‘The Magic Kingdom’, so I’m going to re-visit it. Excited to, actually. Big yay for you!!!! Have a lovely, lovely weekend, my friend! ** G, Hi, G. Thank you about my toilet curation. I always avoid examples that I think are too well known and overly familiar, so Duchamp and Cattelan’s golden toilet and a couple of other things were not invited, ha ha. A few of the recipients of my bad reviews got very pissed off. I was told that Ryu Murakami said if he ever saw me he would punch me in the face, but luckily he lives in Japan. A handful of Brion Gysin worshippers tried to get me banned from ever writing for Bookforum again for the crime of besmirching their God. Ha ha, gotcha. Rock your weekend, okay? ** Tosh Berman, Hi, T. Making those posts does go some way to satisfying my love of actually curating IRL art exhibitions, which I haven’t had the opportunity to do in ages. I’ll go find that Verlaine/Dylan cover, thanks! Me too, re: the Fox Venice. Hey, I even got married there. I don’t think I knew you yet then. Well, not officially married, but married nonetheless. ** jamie, Hi, Jamie. Oh, wow. That was a thematic idea where I thought ‘this’ll never fly’, and then I started searching for toilet art and was pleasantly surprised. Thanks. Eek. Man, I’m glad you got over whatever that malady was. But it sounds like you made the best of it. Not TMI, no. Dude, I’m Dennis Cooper, don’t forget. Huh, nice, that example you linked to. Strange I didn’t see it in my searching. Thank you. I did like the tracks/video, and I knew immediately it wasn’t the Eno ones. If you ever come across the real ones, you’ll see. Weirdly limp. I did get the cinema! Zac and I ended up seeing a really great Chantal Akerman film I had never seen before, ‘Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels’. Fantastic, and the star was this non-actor teenage girl who is just phenomenal. So that was great. So, one last locked down weekend for you, and then after a quick tick-tick you’ll be free. Hang in there. Max out your weekend’s limits. Love, me. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. Yeah, I liked it a whole lot! Great that you’re near the end of your carpentry education. Such a great thing and skill to know/have. Paris is still feeling magically open. Anything surprise and delight you this weekend? ** Misanthrope, I think you probably need to want really badly. But I bet the ‘really’ will sneak up on you. A lot of guitarists with daydreams out there, you know. Well, writers too, I guess. Fuck it. Lesson learned on the meds thing, and, yes, golden rule right there. Been flounced by making that mistake a few times myself. ** David Ehrenstein, I saw a production of Baraka’s ‘The Toilet’ ages ago, but not with Mead. Yes, the Carax/Sparks film plays at Cannes soon and then will rush immediately into Paris’s cinemas, so I’m excited. I may have mentioned that Gisele advised on the film, so I’ve been privy to the inside scoop for, gosh, at least two years. ** Brian, Hi, Brian. The other theatres in NYC/Brooklyn I know about but have never been to that seem to show really good films are Metrograph, Light Industry, and Spectacle. ‘PGL’ had its brief NYC run at the latter. Like I told Jamie, we ended up seeing a fantastic Chantal Akerman film instead, and that was a very happy experience. Wang Bing = soon. Yeah, I’m actually interested in the era of porn in the 70s when the directors used a lot of narrative and even experimental techniques. It rarely works, but the aspiration to try to see if people who just want to get off would be seduced by cinematic things was/is quite interesting. I want to get the Japanese Breakfast record. Note to self. Friday wasn’t bad. Weekend could be good. The possibility dangles. And yours? Did you find booty and/or treasure therein? Best back to you, pal. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Japan is the toilet kingdom or heaven or something. Yes, I know about Chris’s suicide. I had long talks with his boyfriend/husband both before and after. It’s very, very complicated, which is one of the reasons I haven’t talked about it here. I’m a bit in shock. It’s terrible, just terrible, and so tragic. He was an amazing artist and a good friend of mine. Ugh. I hope you’re doing good, man. Love, me. ** Dalton, Hi, Dalton! Welcome and thank you for entering! It’s great meet you. No, there’s no etiquette here. It’s a free zone. I had GERD pretty bad fora couple of years in my early 20s. That sucks. It took what felt like forever of Mylanta and yoga and dimming my diet way down before I got better. I still have to avoid onions sand stuff. I hope your can sort that out into relative nothingness easily and soon. Thank you about ‘Closer’. Ha ha, sorry about the raunchy entrance. Yeah, my blog kind of zooms all over the place. And it is weird, yes. I did read that about the invisible sculpture. It’s crazy, but art collectors paying millions for shitty memes right now, so craziness abides, I guess. How are you? What do you do or most like to do or want to do or … ? ** Bill, Hi. Yes, there are lots of Trump and Boris Johnson and Matt Gaetz and etc. toilets, which I avoided like the plague, of course. I didn’t watch the stream and hoped for an archiving, and I’m happy to have those hopes realised. You watch it yet? ** Corey Heiferman, Hi, Corey! Oh, man, I would have grabbed that urinal gaming thing for the post if I’d known. Thanks. Maybe for a sequel. I’m so, so sorry about your father. I’m happy you were able to be there, but, oh man, that’s so hard. I’ve been there. Are you still planning to do that reading series? How are you faring? ** Right. This weekend I present five books I just read and loved to you with the thought that one or more of them might wind up existing under the auspices of your love. Check them out. See you on Monday.