Stuff I've Been Reading: All The Time Between Then and Now

I haven't done a Stuff I've Been Reading since December, when I covered what I'd read in August-->October. I'm no Nick Hornby, that's for sure! So this time it'll be:

November
December
January
February
March
Some of April
Oh boy!

If you've ever felt jealous of how much I read, this six-month period will quell your envy.

Howevs, it's occurred to me that since I read a ton of stuff online in addition to about 20 magazines cover-to-cover every month, it's not that I don't read enough, it's that I don't read enough books.

Probs I'm basically illiterate at this point. Where do I begin? I hope at least 2-3 people will read this blog post and maybe if just one comments I will feel good about life & literature. Hey have you seen Autostraddle? It's so cool! We had a team meeting on Sunday. It was awesome. Right now actually I'm reading Keeping You a Secret for a feature Green & I are working on about YA novels for lesbians.

Everyone's talking about this book Wetlands . It reminds me of how people talked about 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed , which was about a teenaged girl in Europe who has a lot of "erotic adventures." Wetlands is also the work of an anonymous European girl who talks explicitly about sex, but more explicitly about her bodily fluids, and my number one feeling Sam Anderson is leading a book club on the topic over at New York Mag . In fact Sam says you can participate without having read the book. Here's a slice:

"For those who have managed to steer clear of the hype, Wetlands is an international bazillion-seller about an 18-year-old girl named Helen who is obsessed, above all, with her sexuality and bodily fluids. It's hard to describe the full mind-blowing extent of its raunchiness: Helen puts, among many other things, dirty barbecue tongs, avocado pits, and a hard-boiled egg in her vagina; she leaves a used homemade tampon in an elevator; and once a week she gets her entire body shaved, with a straight razor, by a total stranger she met at a fruit cart."

Have you had your period? Had an orgasm? Experienced female ejaculation? Urinated? Wouldn't it be funny if I suddenly started talking about that stuff on here? Maybe? Anyhow participate!

Speaking of my book club, um, I will update you soon. Brooklyn Boy will be the first to know. Autumn & Brooklyn Boy have both already gotten the book I want to do (Reborn) so we will definitely do it. Possibly looking at a late May deadline.

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In March, Tao Lin mailed me some books: eee eee eee (short stories), you are a little bit happier than i am (poems), and bed (novel) and Ellen Kennedy's sometimes my heart pushes my ribs . Before I got these books I liked the idea of Tao Lin and even said to facebook that I wanted to read all of Tao Lin's books but I hadn't made any steps towards doing so besides putting "eee eee eee" on my amazon wishlist which my Mother ignored and probably thought "what a strange name for a book, what is wrong with my daughter" which is actually a thought she has all the time so it's not a big deal. I saved the package in case I can sell it on ebay one day, thought 'i bet everyone does this when tao lin sends them packages' and then i 'felt like everyone else' and then I sat on my bed and stared at my hands until I fell asleep.

The voice got into my head and I felt I 'identified' with the 'loneliness and isolation,' also that they're inventing a 'new literary style' as the critics have said. Tao Lin feels very honest, but sometimes when you read stuff about him it's almost like he's daring you to dislike him. Also he googles himself all the time so he will read this. It's like when I said I stole prescription medication from my mother's medicine cabinet and she called me that very afternoon. I was kidding obvs/maybe.

Ellen Kennedy feels like Tao Lin, but also in a way that is not exactly like Tao Lin, but like the IRL acting out of "Better Together - Customers Also Purchased." After reading Tao Lin & Ellen Kennedy's poetry I felt like all my 'thoughts & feelings' were very important, including my g-chats and my meals.

Before I got these books from Tao Lin I was reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. So I have about 25% of this book left to go. So far there has been a mute who I am pretty sure is gay. Actually I think they're all gay, and I am progressively confused when various characters turn out NOT to be gay.

Before starting The Heart is a Lonely Hunter I read On the Road: The Original Scroll by Jack Keroauc, which Crystal gave me for my birthday because I love her. Or because she loves me ... you decide.

On the Road TOS has about 100 pages of critical essays in the front. Because I'm obsessive about books like that (I don' t think you can say you've read a book when you've actually only read part of the book) I had to read all of them before I started but once I got past that stuff I was on a roll.

The first time I read this book I was 12, it was confusing, I remember only the part when he had sex with a Mexican girl and said he loved love and I thought one day I'd like someone to love me like that.

I read OTR again at 18. I was depressed cause the boy I was dating wanted to date someone else, and my BFF Ryan told me I was wasting valuable brainpower on such things and instead should be focusing on enlightenment. I could begin my journey, he said, by reading On the Road.

So I walked to the Border's Bookstore from our apartment and bought it and read it and Ryan was right, I felt better right away and remembered that the stupid boy would never understand me anyway because he only read Tom Clancy books and had no sense of "IT."

It's one of the only books I've read more than once. The voice gets in your head. The original scroll is even better, and it has more gay raunch in it, and you feel crazy too, but in a good way. This time I read it as a Sancho story. I read it knowing Neal was manic, and wondering if he would've been better off on Depakote, wondering about the children and the wives and if they'd put up with that now, and then that made me think about how people like Neal would be on Depakote now, which is better for his potential wives and neglected children and other discarded children but not as good for literature, and how that's fucked up, and I couldn't really reach a definitive conclusion on that.

I don't know if other people spend time thinking about these kinds of things.

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Before that I read AM Homes' This Book Will Save Your Life , which a. told me to read and I didn't really want to 'cause C. said she wasn't that into it, although I love AM Homes (fun fact: she wrote for the l word before it started to suck). At first I was bored like "oh, it's another book about a rich guy who suddenly has an epiphany etc etc --" you know like American Beauty and Fight Club.

But after the first 50 pages or so I just got into it. Like I started to like the guy in a real way, and care and turn the pages in excitement. I can't explain it really, it just became awfully lovely by the end. I read it on my way to Michigan and back on the airplane and stuff. The voice was good, 'cause it made me write good, like the best voices will do for you.

Just like Music for Torching, could've done for a better ending. But it's a good book, read it!

I also read Two or Three Things I Know For Sure by Dorothy Allison, which my brother gave me for Hannukah (I asked for it). It was short and full of goodness. Dorothy Allison is a very magical writer and I love everything she's ever written. Interesting w/r/t sexuality & storytelling & "honesty," three of my favorite topics.

Then Cool for You by Eileen Myles, 'cause she's my favorite poet and I think I ordered it off Amazon 'cause I needed to hear one of my favorite writers talk to me again. It was cool to read two tough lesbians back to back, with all their hard experience and coarse shell surrounding poems & near-insanities. Cool for You has a really embarrassing book cover so I had to hold it special on the subway so no-one would see. I quoted Cool for You when I wrote that letter for my Dad in December. About how not all of us are put here to work.

Before that I read The Best Nonrequired Reading of 2007 , edited by Dave Eggers. Again as per ushe I forced myself to read the entire anthology, and this was generally a rewarding experience. I felt smarter afterwards, and had read a lot of stuff about the Middle East.

Before that An Invisible Sign of my Own by Aimee Bender, which I picked up on a reader recommendation for inspirational books I could read during National Novel Writing Month (I wrote over 30K words, but as publishing began to collapse, I began losing steam on it) and though I did like the voice in a Lorrie-Mooreish way ... it seemed sort of small. Like I don't think it grasped anything larger outside itself. I liked it, I did, and I would recommend it to me too, but I've been thinking a lot about timelessness of literature -- like what of all this will last? What's been cast to the wayside from prior generations?

I don't know if other people think about those kinds of things.

automatic fundamentalist movement of the day: 11.14.2008

I've been feeling weird lately. No words, just weird. No lies, just love. No woman, no cry. Listen up.

1. Hey! Are you a computer programmer/web designer person? Remember that day in February when I screamed at Haviland on the phone, tore down a bunch of stuff from my walls and then took down my website? Barely? Yeah me too. I think I also took down my blog for many minutes, but I might be thinking about another day, that's my number one go-to action in a moment of crisis.

So Stef & Alex, my crack team of "website makers" who really take the time to do things right ... are apparently at a crossroads w/the website that they cannot traverse without ... um, well, here's Stef explaining it: "the one thing i cannot figure out how to do is keep the sections highlighted while you're on a particular page. that's something that i think requires flash, but jade thinks it can be done with php. as i never planned on being a web designer in the first place (tiny violins), i never learned these things. i should! but i didn't."

Anyone? Email: big exit.

I personally have developed an almost violent reaction to any & all offers to work (for me work = write) for "exposure" (translation = unpaid). Until I can trade exposure for a colt and/or vodka and/or an amber wave of grain, I got all the free exposure I need. Luckily I'm not offering you any exposure. I don't know if this is something that takes a long time, but clearly you know -- 'zine, t-shirt, stickers, L Word Season Five on DVD, autographed snapshot of Haviland Stillwell -- just say so. You want to. If it becomes a big project and you need to get paid, um, then maybe we can work something out. I'm expecting at least $20 at Christmas, so. No srsly I am.

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Quote: "I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one." (Douglass Coupland, Life After God)

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Link-a-Dink:
1. Ann Arbor my hometown! Voted one of the most gay-friendly places to live. I don't know anything about this nonsense. (@mlive)
2. Yes, yes they are: is the books world short-changing its bright young women ? (@the guardian uk)
3. Southern voters weren't the only whites who didn't vote Obama. (@slate)
4. n+1 on bolano (adam, it's a party just for you) and Sam Anderson on Bolano. Also someone tell me how to make that accent mark. The one that's supposed to be over the "n." (@nymag)
5. Don't Blame the Journalism - on the decli
6. Amazing interview with Dan Savage (@mediabistro)
7. 350... the most important number in the world that nobody's talking about (@good magazine)
8. Internet is mind control. (@nytimes)
9. Can Obama Save the Media Industry ? (Sub question: Can Dramatic Headlines Like That One from Newsweek Save the Media Industry That Happens to Include Nesweek?) (@newsweek)
10. South of Nowhere Recap! Season Three, Episode 12: Love & Kisses.
11. Susan Powter on "The Morning Show":

Mike: "Here's the thing: I didn't know know you were a lesbian."
Susan: "What planet were you living on?" (@afterellen)

pictures from tapedeck.I totally found all the ones I used to use, the 90 minute tapes to make mix tapes. The internet is neat.

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2. This is a good post so far, yeah? Anyhow, I've given up on blogrolling ever fixing itself ... so I'm fixing stuff in the sidebars myself as I do other work. If I owe you a link and you don't see it up within the next few days, holler.

3. OMG OMG! I just had a brilliant idea about how to keep the internet media going because all these magazines and stuff are closing but it's not 'cause people aren't reading newspapers, 'cause they ARE, they just aren't paying for it anymore, making it hard for good journalists to go into journalism and live off it. And bloggers are quitting left & right and omg. Okay the idea is that internet service providers tack on a like 20 dollar annual tax or something to everyone's internet, and at the start of every year, everyone who gets internet pays that tax and they are given the choice of distributing it to whatever media source they wish. Like you might give $15 to HuffoPo and $5 to the New York Times or you might give $2 to every good blog you read like mine. Yeah?

Okay, the other idea is that someone should put together a gift certificate site in the same way that Justgive.org or Charity Choice operates, except about 5% as noble. So if you have a friend who's big into blogs, you can give here a justgivetobloggers.org "gift certificate" online that she can then use to donate to the blogs of her choice that she really likes and has always wanted to throw some cash to but never been able to afford it. Yeah?

Except really you should probs forget all this and give your money to real charities. Although here's the thing -- you actually could, because you could give to like a noble news provider e.g., truthdig, or you could give to like the free tibet blog.

4. Wanna see what I look like as my alter ego, Hedwig the Fabulous Tinkerbell? The best part is that, ISO a post about actual sex, they had to find their pullquote from the big strip club trip of '07, exclusively covered on Autowin since Lozo doesn't have his blog up anymore sigh.

The Day of Auto-nement-Fun. 10-9-2008.

[i took photos]
Every now and then, I recruit my friends to participate in some brilliant blog post idea I have and then I harass them about getting me the 2-3 sentences I asked for until they do, and then once they do, I take like a week to put my idea into action and write said post. This is one of those weeks.

But when in doubt, auto-fun. Can I just say? That I actually hate the word 'auto-fun,' like it sounds kinda dumb, and everyone knows reading isn't fun. But I sort of invented it and now I have to stick to it. You guys seem to like it. Or maybe you're just pretending to like it. That's fine. Everyone loves a good game of pretend.

When I was a kid, my Mom had us do this thing she called "nightlight time." At 8:30 I'd have to go to my room, sit at the desk underneath my loftbed, turn on my nightlight and read or write or draw until 9. Then it was time for bed I think. I have to go to bed early 'cause I have a date tomorrow morning with Time Warner. He's about as sexy as a tampon.

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quote: "I think what it shows us is the limits of tolerance, that it's not enough to be tolerated, because when the shit hits the fan you find out how much tolerance is worth. Nothing. And underneath all the tolerance is intense, passionate hatred ... power is the object, not being tolerated." (Tony Kushner, Angels in America)

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links:
1) Please. Please. Please for the love of whomever you love the most please read this article, and please forward it to anyone you know who is still thinking of voting for four more years of an entitled, underachieving brat:

Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty. (@rolling stone)

I ask of you that you please read that article for me. The rest of these links will not address the presidential elections -- after all, we've spent all day reading/watching Dowd, HuffPo, Frank Rich, Sarah Silverman, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, feministing, gawker, jezebel, that blonde lady with the curly hair who's always on CNN or MSNBC, talking points memo, Hardball, the new yorker, wonkette, truthdig, and on and on and on -- so I don't need to tell you what's being said today.

So please -- concentrate your full political attention to that article there, "1." Thank you.

2) Twitter Zero: "Attention is a precious resource. Twitter is a distraction. Email is a distraction. This blog is a distraction. Pretty much everything is a distraction on the Internet, either designed to capture an eyeball or rewire a neuron or to short circuit the brain to wallet function. And sometimes the only reasonable response to a thoroughly enjoyable distraction is to make a very visible, very annoying, very painful decision to skip this particular distraction and move on." (@vacuum)
3) ANTM recap: Clark, Barred. (@fourfour)
4) Presidential Debate Mistakes: The Biggest Blunders in Debate History] [Video & Text] (@esquire)
5) Rachael Yamagata Day: New album out at last (@achtung baby)
6) Good For Art: "As her book makes clear, no perfect patronage exists, certainly not in the arts, which offer special problems to any patron and not a few to artists. Patronage in the arts tends to illustrate the cynical proverb that holds no good deed goes unpunished." (@the weekly standard)

"Once artists take federal or state--that is, taxpayers'--money, they are under an obligation to be, at a minimum, not directly insulting. If they feel the need for their art to go on the attack--against the customs and institutions of their country--then logic and decent manners suggest they are under the obligation to create it on their own nickel."

7) Ideally, I'm only the second or third person to tell you about this: Stop sending mail you later regret. If I'm the 9th or 10th person to tell you this, you have a problem. I learned all about problems on the teevee, it's called Intervention. (@google blog)
8) Lesbian Poetry: A Retrospective. (@afterellen)
10) In Conversation: Richard Price and Junot Dìaz from Autowin Book Club #1 interviewed by Sam Anderson. (@nymag)
10a) Algorithm & Blues: The wonder and terror of Google, by Sam Anderson. (@nymag)
11). Sixteen Candles is up in this recording's series about Films Of The 1980s (@this recording)
12) A Brief History of the 21st Century by Chuck Klosterman (@esquire)
13) The Banned Books Quiz (@the guardian uk) I scored 3 out of 12, clearly I'm an idiot.
14) This is the "365 Portraits" project, done by the guy that shot our Hot Blogger Calendar on Sunday.
If you want to experience something lovely that might give you faith that there's something to be said for humanity just because it like, IS -- I suggest looking at all 365 from January to December while listening to music you like. Wash, rinse, repeat. (@bill waldman) (look, that's me up there!)

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[feedback love]p.s. I feel like I should say, if you're new to autowin, I'm not serious when I write these poems. They are jokes. My first poem was inspired by a box of Nerds or mixed nuts. One was the first and one was the second. I plan to one day come full circle and write my last poem also about Nerds. Or possibly about mixed nuts. Subtitle: "People I've Loved, More or Less."

"insomnia" poem #15

I read somewhere
that mice can't handle peppermint
so i've oiled my apartment in it
it turns out neither can i

my eyes burn,
girls yearn
old souls cry

and underneath the floorboard
i've hidden all the parts of me
that need to eat death's edges
to thrive

and i'm telling you neither can i
and i'm inhaling fresh through my eyes
my eyeballs are whiter than teeth, the roof can fly
and i'm telling you it's been days since i've cried
and i'm telling you, in order to live
well you know.
all the dirty feisty things
underneath my skin

well

they've sniffed the air,
and squealing,
died.
*

autophobia is "the fear of being alone." fun! today is 8-5-08

[sarah wilmner]
you should check out her website for real, it's kinda magical work she does

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quote: "Perhaps her mother had never shown Abby affection, not really, but she had given her a knack for solitude, with its terrible lurches outward, and its smooth glide back to peace. Abby would toast her for that. It was really the world that was one's brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was your only sibling in that world." [from ""Which is More I Can Say About Some People." by Lorrie Moore]

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links:
1. FLIRT! is up! I made it! Watch it now! Starring Haviland of course, and featuring Daphne Rubin-Vega, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Rosie and Kelli O'Donnell, Anne Van Cleave, Andrea McArdle, Lillias White, Christine Ebersole, Seth Rudetsky, Tressa and many more! (@broadway world)
2. Clara. By Roberto Bolaño. Please read. It's short, I promise. (@the new yorker)
3. The Battery's Down! w/Havi-land and smokin' hot Cortney!: Episode 6: Ro, Ro Ro Your Boat (@battery's down)
4. 35 Beautiful Music Album Covers (p.s. I heart that pixies album, and the michael jackson brings me back to the 90's) (@smashing magazine)
5. Sam Anderson! How James Wood's 'How Fiction Works' Works: and why it sometimes doesn't. (@ny magazine)
6. 50 Sexiest Music Videos of all Time (highlights include Rilo Kiley,and the video for God-des & She's "Lick It" which's actually awesome and redeems its inclusion in The L Word. (@nerve.com)
7. I am really really confused about this: Irvine Welsh calls 'A Bright Shiny Morning' "an uncompromising affirmation of our humanity."? (@the guardian uk books)
8. In art and politics, 'elitism' gets unfair rap.: "Elitism" also is being sullied in the political arena, where Democratic candidate Barack Obama has been accused of thinking he's smarter than the average guy. To me, this is an astonishing attack strategy. Do we not want the president of the country to be smart? (@the review journal)
9. American Film is Obsessed with Teens but Try as one might to carefully slot teenagers, and adolescence, into designated cubbyholes, some part of the whole is too messy, too real, to fit. (@boston globe)
10. Thank you, finally, someone for agreeing with me: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: In Online Musical Serial, the Mad Doctor Is In (@ny times)

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insomnia poetry #7

open letter to our parents:
we know you meant well &
wanted all best things for us
but wtf re: college?
no, not the college itself, not the learning?
but the certificate at the end, the receipt.
meet, greet, we've got the whole world under our fat feet
it's like clay, like a curtain.
I've got so much paper I should burn 'em.
I just want to be a hiro, kick past august three - zero

I'm starting a 'zine called "the yellow wallpaper."
I've always wanted to use the word "xerox" in a poem.
The word xerox / is in a poem.

Just so you know I think Haviland reported the earthquake first
to me on bbm. not that other girl on twitter.
She said something about it
I was saying something else
like a ship and an earthquake,
passing in a storm.
If you were xeroxing the earthquake
it would be smaller and darker, with little dots
are those people, or rocks?

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So I was thinking earlier about Julia Allison. If you're not familiar with J.A., check out this month's WIRED cover story "How to Get Internet Famous (Even if You're Nobody)" on Julia Allison. I get her Twitter feed now. I don't know, I can't help it. It just keeps coming and I let it spiral out of control. Here's the thing: she has the platform to offer something compelling to the world. What is that going to be?

Like Julia, Emily Gould also writes, primarily, about herself, but she does so with an inventive and curious tone. Her navel-gazing aims for insight, hopes for a breakthrough. I believe Gould has a mission with her work, even if she's still figuring out what that mission is ... it's got something to do with what most of the best personal bloggers are looking at: the impact of pop culture, art, economics, feminism and sociology upon personal identity.

Like Julia, Paris Hilton is also famous for doing nothing, but she has a product to sell -- herself as an actress, herself as a clothing designer and so on. She's got heaps of money, which's a unique trait, and a sort of sassy attitude that can be interesting.

But Julia Allison has no mission. It's not even like she wants to make people feel less alone or sell her handbags to save the whales. She just wants to ... get more people around who want to talk about her? Her new website NonSociety has this mission statement: "Your window into our crazy lives. See what we're up to and what we have to say. Take it or leave it. We hope we inspire you to live differently." This is followed, of course, by a site map of self-indulgent conformist nonsense. It's the same way I feel about "The Hills" or "Gimme Sugar" : you appear to be the people I avoid in real life, why would I pursue you on the internet?

When asked why she does what she does, her answer is both telling and desperately un-interesting: "I'm a writer!" If I asked a Gap salesman why he sold khaki pants, I bet he'd at least try to talk to me about style 'cause "because I'm a retail salesperson!" is not gonna seal any kind of deal.

I always give female bloggers who blog about themselves, especially ones who are often already hated on by gawker and the like, the benefit of the doubt. But I don't dislike her for any of the reasons that gawker doesn't like her. I don't care that she talks about herself or wants attention or makes bad decisions in public. Those things can be pulled off quite eloquently (see: Emily Gould, Tracie/Slutmachine).

I don't judge her for putting herself out there -- but I'm intrigued that she doesn't have a point and she is in and of herself all there is to her. I wish she could get more weird and Elle Woodsy so she could be made fun of in a new/interesting way. My question for Julia Alison is "what's the point?" and the answer cannot be "Julia Allison." I think she could be so much more than she is. I'd like her to be the editor-at-large of The Yellow Wallpaper, my new 'zine. Since I'm much better at telling other people what to do than I am at getting my own life in order.

Anyhow. FLIRT BETTER BE UP TODAY OR I'M CRACKING SKULLS.

Auto-Win Book Club #1, Part 2: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

[Sidenote: this post is for the auto-win book club's first selection The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which I know y'all read, right? And also; I'm still intending to respond to your "I wouldn't like me if you met me" responses, it just might take a little while ...] Okay, let's begin!

I know what you're thinking -- whitegirl, don't do it. You'll make an ass of yourself, chavera, and I mean an ass of yourself, you're no Sam Anderson-as-Barthelme[hell, you're no S.A.-as-Richard Price¹ for that matter] and besides, didn't you learn the first time? Age 12, "Correr" -- your short story that infused clumsy junior high prose with a stolen West Side Story sidestep and the tangy slang you'd ripped off from Little Professor Bookstore's "urban fiction" section¹? Six years later, your high school boyfriend read "Correr" out loud at parties, doing his best Georgia-by-way-of-San-Jùan accent. It always amused a crowd. I promise: I'm not trying to sound like The Watcher. It's just that I can't get that voice outta my head --said I'd re-read it yesterday and only got half it re-read but still ... I apologize for any memory lapses/inaccuracies.

Did you read it once? Twice? What did you get the second time around -- I feel so far like it's a whole different book this time, so much that I missed, and this nasty habit of glazing over during dream sequences ...

Still cringing? Maybe nauseous? Itchy? Omg, what's she gonna speak in -- Spabrew? Hengish? [Spabrew sounds like flavoured water, Henglish sounds like an antacid, I love Jews]. I took eight years of Spanish, si, and Ingrid making fun of my terrible accent all that time ...

Anyhow, nu, who cares. Enough about memememe, this is about Oscar Wao and his celebrated short and wondrous life. I got some thoughts knocking around, I’m gonna give ‘em to you, you tell me what you’re thinking. Good?

Let's begin, bevakasha.

So I’m wondering this: shit was tough –Nazi evil dictator tough, to destroy you is no loss tough – in the DR. “Violence, intimidation, massacre, rape, co-optation and terror.” We’re told straight off that “everybody in Santo Domingo has a fukù story knocking around in their family,” then later that there’s a specific fukù following Oscar’s lineage, originating from Abelard's misstep.

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM
Where, then, does responsibility end and fate begin? And does it matter – why things happen? Humans have been attributing the concrete to the spiritual/abstract since day one, we all know this, the Talmud, Aboriginal mythology, Native American spirits through Mohammed and Abraham in the desert and our friend Jesus with all that prophecy that’s been coerced by contemporary evangelicals to explain condemnation rather than life itself.

Is it those matching dreams -- the ones had by Abelard, Oscar, Beli, and then Yunior, etc. -- that make this particular genetic strand stand out? How precisely does all the talk of superpowers or the supernatural or comics and dungeons, dragons, other worlds and twilight zone insanity ... make this book work so g-damn well?

What exactly about this family’s fate could be chocked up to curses, and how much was just the way things were then, shitty for anyone under Trujillo?

“If you ask me I don’t think there are any such things as curses. I think there is only life. That is enough.”
(Lola, pg. 205)

“The curse, some of you will say.
Life, is what I say. Life.”
(Lola, pg. 210)

Socorro, blinded by grief/postpartum depression, steps in front of a truck -- fukù? Cited as “the very worst kind of luck”? Or physics and Psych 101?

Beli falls for a shmuck in white pants who inspires a punch to the face the first time they meet and is all kinds of sketch from the get-go. Look, I get it, the hunger "to be in love and to be loved back" when you've felt unrequited for so long. But when that guy who cheated on his girlfriend to be with me eventually cheated on me to be with someone else – that’s not a supernatural curse, that’s an asshole.

Oscar – Oscar, who meant well, who we love and believe in – doggedly pursues a woman who tells him every way up and down that she’s bad news, her boyfriend tells Oscar he’ll kill him and he pursues her anyway.

And Abelard – he could’ve made better choices, yes? It’s better to die a revolutionary than to live as a servant to tyranny, but this man didn’t go out blazing – didn’t speak out, didn’t defy on principle (and neither did his father) – never did his family any favours, really, there were better routes than a last-minute panic attack?

Grasshopper, there's nothing I hate more than a game of "who's got it worst," 'cause pain’s relative, and I’m a Jew after all. There are families all over with serious fukù shit going on (hell, take my Mom for example³. Was Oscar a victim of fukù, or was he dealt a hand no worse than your average bad hand?

XXX-MEN

Not to get all Body for Life on everyone but c’mon, the kid could’ve run a little farther, yeah? Did you feel a little frustrated too, like Yunior did, to see Oscar give up so fast? He didn’t need to abandon the writing or the sci-fi, but I know that it wasn’t just dudes back there in the GURPS room at the hobby shop distributing hit points.

Alright – it was mostly dudes. But sometimes those dudes did get laid. Sometimes, yeah? The greasy kid in the trenchcoat always seemed to be doing a lot more fucking with his greasy ruddy-faced girlfriend than any of the hotshots were with their tight cheerleader lovebunnies. The cool kids gossiped in the cafeteria and the Trekkies were in the band rehearsal room and when they came out they looked like they’d had something way more tasty than the girls still powdering. The popular kids went to prom and the geeks stayed home and fucked each other with super-powers. Like they said in Pump up the Volume: “High school is the bottom, being a teenager sucks, but that's the point, surviving it is the whole point.”

Don’t get me wrong – I fully blame an impressive string of trashwhoredom and bad decisions on the pains of my own awkward adolescence, and I came out alright, way luckier than Oscar.
What I'm saying is adolescence is hard, high school is harder. It's tough to be fatherless and have the weight of unlucky generations upon you. I know Oscar's workout regimen isn't the point, but it seemed his will was cursed ... not his way?

DARK KNIGHTS

But here’s the kind of supernatural shit that I believe in (and believe me, I believe, ain Mazel b'Yisrael, in just about everything, I pray, I buy everything except fate and curses) – that possibility of that book, the "exposè of the supernatural roots of the Trujillo regime!"

‘Cause isn’t it fucking scary to think Hitler was flesh & blood like the rest of us, that every generation there’s a human being born who’s so utterly rotten to the core and chock full of dictatorship while entirely free of conscience, a sociopath so sociopathic that he doesn’t mess around with Manson psycho shit but takes over an entire goddamn country, gets his underlings ready to execute unspeakable atrocities in his name?

That kind of evil just doesn't seem fathomable. That’s not any kind of ahavah. I'd like to read that book -- the argument for why Hitler's actually a one-eyed monster. Saddam Hussein was a swamp creature, eventually done in by a more clever & cunning kind of animal (4).

So it's not luck or the paths of our lives that must be controlled by some outer force, but the outer force itself that drives us inward, off bridges, into cane fields. It's the villan that defies humanity and survives, the good guy that goes all too easy into death. We save ourselves. Or ... we don't. Zafa, Fukù -- Lola had the same lineage and she turned out pretty much okay, and I'm wondering if its cause that girl didn't believe in fate and wasn't waiting for magic to save her. Or was it just ‘cause she turned out foxy and Oscar didn’t? Beli dragged Beli out of the cornfield after all. Or was it? Is this magical realism for a new age?

LONG TALL LOLA Speaking of Lola -- I read "Wildwood" in The New Yorker last summer, and enthusiastically toted the issue to the girl who'd asked me to pick it up for her in the first place, gushing about what a good story I'd just read. Oh my god, I'm so glad I got this, and then read it, because you have to read this story, she’s so amazing --

He, she said.

He? I asked.

Junot Dìaz. Is a he.

REALLY?! -- and I guess I'd assumed it was a she 'cause the narrator was a she, but this brings me to my point which is damn can he write women well. Eh, I know that sounds reductive. But chew on it; Lydia the mistress is the one with the plan to get Abelard and family the hell out of dodge, Lola makes her “toto” work for her and enchants Yunior the Player and won’t let Oscar cop out of his life and Beli charges chest-first into everything, forward ... and Yunior can’t seem to help cheating on his girlfriends, Oscar complains that he’s cursed and refuses to fight fate, Abelard does nothing to prevent his death besides panic (and such a smart man! Such a mensch!) ...

But Oscar. Oh, Oscar. You love him anyway, you want him to make it. He means well and he's smart and we all knew a kid that talked like that. And I guess he does in a way, he gets what he wants, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe his life was short and wondrous, emphasis on wondrous, emphasis on chutzpah ...

BUY A VOWEL
Were we supposed to know what words went in the blanks at the end? Hangman?

THE CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE
Lola's daughter will be smart and as brave as The Watcher thinks she'll be, si? And then it will end? So then, is the fukù not bad things happening to you, but the relentless urge to make bad decisions?

ONE MORE THINGBridget brought this up -- that in his interview Diaz noted: "When you're a writer of colour in the US, you're considered a genre no matter what you write". She asked: Do you agree? And, if you do, do you think a novel like this can break down (at least to some extent) those barriers?

I do agree. Oy, the lesbian ghetto, etc ... and the obsessive genre divisions of bookstores ... anyone with bookstore experience got a story of their own? What's "Latino-American Lit," and what goes front & center with "literature" itself (and all that entails, all that suggests) ...

Why The Watcher, why do you think? Do you think Diaz saw himself in that character, do you think that distance made the narrative work? (I do) And Lola, the only one able to tell her own story ...

Yeah, I ain't got answers, I don't even have questions, I just have ... discuss.

AND ALSOALSOALSO ONE MORE THING
Though my Spanish is weak in parts, I do know that sci-fi language, more or less. I mean I occasionally operated as DungeonMaster. I did GURPS. Now we've got computer games -- I wonder how Oscar's life would've gone differently ten years later, with all that World of Warcraft shit, Oscar Wao in Second Life, Oscar Wao the Sim talking about sailboats. But the novels is where the heart is, ultimately.

Working at a lit agency that represented a lot of top sci-fi and fantasy writers, we got piles of shitty sci-fi/fantasy novels every day. Something about creating a fantasy world that far-fetched is just awfully delicious, especially when you're young, or alone ...

Did your relation to that genre change how you read the book?

RAY BRADBURY - "ONE NIGHT IN YOUR LIFE"

I'd like to go walking some spring night--you know, one of those nights that are warm all night long. I'd like to walk. With a girl. Walk for an hour, to a place where you can barely hear or see anything. Climb a hill and sit. Look at the stars. I'd like to hold the girl's hand. I'd like to smell the grass and the wheat growing in the fields, and know I was in the center of the entire country, in the very center of the United States, and towns all around and highways away off, but nobody knowing we're right there on top of that hill, on the grass, watching the night.

And just holding her hand would be good. Can you understand that? Do you know that holding someone's hand can be the thing? Such a thing that your hands move while not moving. You can remember a thing like that, rather than any other thing about a night, all your life. Just holding hands can mean more, I believe it. When everything is repeated, and over, it's the first things rather than the last that count.

"So, for a long time," he had continued, "I'd like to just sit there, not saying a word. There aren't any words for a night like that. We wouldn't even look at each other. We'd see the lights of the town far off and know that other people had climbed other hills before us and that there was nothing better in the world. Nothing could be made better; all of the houses and ceremonies and guarantees in the world are nothing compared to a night like this. The cities and the people in the rooms in the houses in those cities at night are one thing; the hills and the open air and the stars and holding hands are something else.

"And then, finally, without speaking, the two of you would turn your heads in the moonlight and look at each other.

"And so you're on the hill all night long. Is there anything really wrong with this, can you honestly say there is anything wrong?"

"No," said a voice, "the only thing wrong on a night like that is that there is a world and you must come back to it."

DISCUSS WHATEVER YOU WANT. ask your own questions.
THESE ARE JUST THE THOUGHTS ON THE TOP OF MY LITTLE BABY MIND.

---

¹Award-Winner Sam Anderson's review of Richard Price's "Lush Life," written in the style of Richard Price, didn't receive the same level of internet-screamer praise as his review of Barthelme's "Flying to America," written in the style of Donald Barthelme. Personally, I love everything Sam Anderson's ever written, but I concede that I love some pieces more than others.
²In the eighties and early nineties, the West Side branch of the Ann Arbor Public Library was located in the Westgate Shopping Center, along with Little Professor's Bookstore and TJ Maxx. While her mother went 'maxxing,' Riese spent a lot of time sitting on the floor in bookstores and libraries reading books her Mom wouldn't let her get/borrow.
³'Cause I know my own story the best, let me share: my grandfather -- my Mom's Dad and Mom divorced when she was young (and this was the 50’s, it wasn’t like it is now, 50-50 those who make it and those who don’t) – and then my Mom’s Dad had to leave the country for complicated reasons. Mom was 14 when her Mom died, so she raised her sister with help from her grandparents (who both died within a few years of my birth). Long story short my Mom reconnected with her Dad when I was a kid, we went to visit him and his new family in Australia – all’s well, happiness abounds. He gets tongue cancer and passes away when I’m 9. When I’m 13, my parents divorce but they’re still best friends a year later when my Dad dies out of the blue (yup, I was 14, just like my Mom was when her Mom ...) And yeah, I’m her daughter, and I’m more or less a failure, though my brother is gainfully employed, a real mensch. Fuku? Schlimazel? Or just a rotten string of depressing events?
⁴George W. Bush, by some bizarre combination of blue blood and evil crazytown bullshit, became president in 2001 and was re-elected to a second term in 2004, though no one smart actually voted for him. Bush’s decision to wage a “war on terror” in Iraq was so miscalculated and poorly executed that many young people from liberal college towns don’t even realize what an evil asshole crazytown dictator Hussein truly was, I mean, the dude deserved to die for crimes against humanity (though 9/11 was not, even remotely, one of them). Anyway, Bush’s reign will be over soon. He's Mother Theresa compared to Trujillo. YES WE CAN!

Automatrons of the Daylight :: 7-9-2008

t

[ellie brown]

A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.
One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap. --And I found her falling. --And I roughed her up.
I armed myself against justice.
I ran away.
[from "A Season in Hell," by Arthur Rimbaud]

[Jessica Burko]

insomina poem #2.

when i rub off my eyeliner
i get two black eyes.
like i've been in a street fight,
me vs. the street,
no contest,
cause
i'm street-wise, personality
as disguise
my palms are coal full,
joyful, another day older.

i ate all the cashews.
i don't like peanuts.
this is what remains.

when i rub off my eyes
i get two blank stares
like that blink-blink i get
when you don't get it.
clap on, clap off,
blink blink blink blink
slap. i just ate another peanut.
i do things i don't like
all the time.
not people,
just peanuts.
p.s. i'd prefer cashews.

-by Marie Lyn Bernard at 2:40 AM, July 9th

links
1. Clay Felkner's most significant legacy was inventing "service journalism: "Secret service" (@the new republic)
2. Your daily dose of "how the internet is changing how we read and think":"How is the Internet Changing Literary Style?" (@steamboats are ruining eveything)
2. Rex Sorgatz: Oversharing Is Sometimes Okay, Says Oversharer (@gawker)
3. Thoughts About Thinking & Drinking (@jezebel)
5. Re: my boycrush Ira Glass's new book The New Kings of Nonfiction: Who Are the Queens of Nonfiction? (@the chronicle of higher ed)
6. While we're on the topic of my boycrushes, Sam Anderson reviews The History of Hooch. (@nymag)
7. Jaime on Rules of Frugal Living that She Refuses to Follow (@cheaphealthygood)
8. Because There's No Such Thing As Too Much Reality TV: Rich on Britan's Missing Top Model @fourfour)
9. The works that have influenced Obama illustrate that he would be the most literary president in recent memory - and one likely to govern from the center. What Does Barack Read?
10. Diane DiMassa & Cristy C. Road talk about Live Through This.(@feministing.) Which I read and will talk about in the next stuff i've been reading.

Me and Haviland made a Vlog/Advice Column! Wheee! I hope you're on the edges of your seats!

Auto-Fun of the Day:: 6-24-2008

quote:"To explode with flesh, without collapse. / To feel sick in my skeleton / in all the serious confetti / of my cells, and know why." (from "Me in Paradise," by Brenda Shaughnessy.)

---

links:
1. I was going to link to this before I even realized who wrote it!: Obama's Impossible Speech, by Sam Anderson. (@nymag)
2. "Deep Holes": short story by Alice Munro. (@the new yorker)
3. Critics Choose Their Most Loathed Books (@the times online uk)
4. No Clear Winner Emerges In Keith Gessen’s Party To Take Back the Internet: "Gessen had spent the last two weeks on the Internet! he shouted over the din of the crowd. And during that time, he learned that the Internet was a place where people expressed their pain! (“Isn’t that what literature is?” somebody shouted back.) He would continue to express his pain via the Internet, he declared! Eventually, he got off the table." (@gawker)
5. Vote for Muffin!: Haviland stars in a staged reading of VOTE! The Musical in NYC on June 30th, check out THE VOTE! SHOW! "Your Next Prez" featuring Hav in a cheerleader skirt!. (@youtube)
6. Furthermore: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (@the atlantic.)
7. Also, The World of the Used Book. (@popmatters)
8. Oh! AND! One day I'm gonna have a nice website that'll use this technique: Hand-Drawing Style In Modern Web Design - Volume 2 (@smashing magazine)
9. So, She's Got the Look = ANTM (@fourfour)
10. And also. also. also. Thanks, But No Thanks by Will Doig; Same sex-marriage is wonderful progress, but I'd prefer a civil union. (@nerve)

Stuff I've Been Reading: April & May Edition

I'm 26. It's possible I have a few vital organs that've been less-than-impressed with me for at least eight years, I regularly step into busy intersections without regard for traffic's deadly possibilities, I haven't been to the doctor in two years, my teeth are probs rotting out of my skull, and I live in a neighborhood where two people getting shot is a brief aside tossed at the end of an article about a dude opening fire on a crowd and shooting 8 people on Memorial Day 'cause someone took his basketball. I don't remember the last time I ate a piece of fruit.

I work out every day, but that's only because I'm neurotic and anxiety-ridden and 'cause if I didn't, I'd officially never leave my apartment for days at a time. I wouldn't even know what the weather was like.

So, I figure I've got about 10-15 good years left. If you think about it, that's not really a lot of time to read every book I want to read. At this pace, I'll be 40 before I embark on the most recent round of recommendations, including:

This Book Will Save Your Life (AM Homes)
Crime & Punishment (Somethingosky or Soemehingoskyov)
Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts)
Savage Detectives (Roberto Bolando)
Orlando (Virginia Woolf)
The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
The Night Watch (Sarah Waters)
The Broom of the System (David Foster Wallace)
Class Dismissed (Meredith Marin)
Fingersmith (Sarah Waters)
Norweigian Wood (Marukami)
Electroboy (Andy Behrman)
The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)

Is that everything you guys have told me to read? I think so. What if I gave a really bogus recommendation but acted like it was real? If I was like, "You guys, everyone needs to read Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants RIGHT NOW," or like, "Have you ever read Jurassic Park?" We had a convo about Jurassic Park last week actually. Raise your hand if you'd never heard of veloca-raptor-whatevs until you saw the movie/read the book, now raise your other hand if they seemed very real and you used to have nightmares about raptor attacks. Now lower your hands, and gimme a hug. That's right! Hug it out. Model through it. You WORK.

Also; still haven't finished Don Quijote.

---

Welcome to "Stuff I've Been Reading." Inspired by Nick Hornby's "Believer" column by the same name, "Stuff I've Been Reading" examines the wide terrible gulf between what I'm buying, what I'm reading, and how smart I'm becoming.

BOOKS READ:
The Best American Essays of 2007 , edited by David Foster Wallace
Frantic Transmissions to and From Los Angeles, by Kate Braverman
Have You No Shame? , by Rachel Shukert
Drown, by Junot Diaz

BOOKS BOUGHT/RECEIVED:
The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolano
Final Cut Express 4: A Visual Quickstart Guide, by Lisa Brenneis
Have You No Shame? by Rachel Shukert

BAE '07 was given and suggested to me by someone I'm now prohibited to talk about on my blog, so I'll just say that "someone" lent me this book, "someone" took it back, and now I can't reference it or my plethora of underlined passages. What can I say, clearly if I remembered things I've read, I wouldn't feel the need to cart 200 books with me every time I move. I recall! The introduction was golden. David F-W is a superior introduction writer.

First off; The Dog Whisperer. I'm not a fan of animals, but Malcom Gladwell's essay about the Dog Whisperer was pretty engaging ("What the Dog Saw")-- this master-of-movement stuff. How do I get him to come fix Caitlin's dog? It's his birthday today and he bites people. Do we have to move to L.A. to get the Dog Whisperer's help? Anyone know the Dog Whisperer? Tell me.

Due to my "must read everything in an anthology" rule, I was subjected to several unpleasant experiences in this anthology. All BAEs and Best American Non-Required Readings have the same problem; by the time the book hits the shelves, I already know that the U.S. uses torture unethically and that we shouldn't be at war with Iraq. I'm totally over reading anything else on either of these topics, unless the headline is "We Are Getting out of Iraq today." It's just depressing, and old news. Yet I soldiered on. (Get it? "Soldiered on?")

I was reading this book during some of April's cruelest days, and so my attention was erratic. There's entire essays I don't remember reading, though I know I did. I remember most acutely: a study of stage fright called "Petrified" (John Lahr), "Afternoon of the Sex Children" (Mark Greif) from n+1 and "Shakers" by Daniel Orozco, which was about something I don't remember, it was well-written though. Oh yes! Earthquakes. I think. Sigh.

---

I read Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles on my way to and from Los Angeles way back in April, which's poetic, yes? The subtitle, "An Accidential Memoir," drew me to it, as did Kate Braverman's oft anthologized short story "Tall Tales from the Meekong Delta." The book was like a long prose-poem about ice cream and streets that got dirty and women growing up and out and the history of a place that seemed all veneer the first time I went there. I like urban history; until I feel that a city has roots in something, it's easy for me to feel it's just all gloss. It probs subtly affected my impression of the city this time around.

Although I didn't think I would -- I really loved this part: Interview with Marilyn Monroe. If you've ever been intrigued by the dichotomy of image and reality, you'd enjoy it too.

---

At a nerve.com party in December of '05 (which I barely remember, except for the part where, inspired by the sexual avant garde spirit of the party's host publication, I left with a boy I'd just met 'cause he looked good on paper (Ivy League alum, an artist, rent-controlled West Village apartment, friends w/a nerve editor) and good enough in person, at least that night), I met Rachel Shukert. I was thrilled, 'cause I loved her essays muchly.

In a state of disorderly drunken-ness, the following exchange occurred:

Me: "I really love your work."
Rachel: "Thanks!"
Me: "No, I mean, I REALLY love it, you're one of my top ten heroes. You know what I really liked, that essay where you said, [I go on to misquote a section from this essay about how the author's pissed and confused that her boyfriend's not okay about her kissing other girls]."
Rachel; "That wasn't me. I didn't write that essay."
Me: "Yes, it was, I'm sure it was."
Rachel: "No, it wasn't, I'm sure it wasn't."
Me: "It was you."
Rachel [laughing, backing away]: "No, it wasn't me."
Me: "Are you SURE?"
Rachel: "Yes, I'm sure, I didn't write that."
Me [turning away, muttering]: "I think you did."

Humans generally make those mistakes when they don't recognize their conversation partner; but I did know Rachel's work. Her personal essays reminded me of -- well, mine! -- and I'd wanted to make a real connection to express my genuine love. However, like most situations in which I attempt to communicate love, I screwed up big-time.

In retrospect ... I know why I thought she'd written that essay -- she hadn't. It's cause at the time, Rachel's bio photo on nerve (which's changed now, to something more professional and new-book-writer-worthy) and Carrie Hill Wilner's (the actual author of this essay) both featured girls with long brown hair who looked kinda drunk and maybe Jewish. I have this weird photographic "memory" that lumps images together thematically and confuses me. Howevs, it's possible I'm wrong about this too (their previous author photos), my memory clearly isn't stellar, that's why I keep such fastidious records.

I loved reading Shukert's recent excerpt from the book -- "The Anorexic's Cookbook" -- on nerve and so did Haviland ... and so I bought the book. I ate it real fast. It was fun and light and funny but also sad sometimes and poignant and you should read it. In fact, I'd recommend it for the apparently imperative "beach reads" list so many people are making these days. It got me through a one-hour wait for a prescription at CVS and also affirmed many of my opinions about my overall unemployability. I quoted a large section about temping to Natalie, and even LOL'ed a few times.

Shukert deftly mines a (relatively) unremarkable life for gems of comedy and tragedy -- moments of explosive tenderness and LOLity -- displaying brightly how entirely possible it is to write a solid book without making shit up about being in a cult a gang or spending time in jail after a dangerous bout of drug addiction. Her parents actually seem kinda nice. So, James Frey and all ye like him -- write this down: you don't need to sensationalize. Have you no shame?

RKB's recently done an interview w/Shukert: watch it here and here.

---

Junot Diaz - "Drown." Beautiful. "The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao" won every award possible this year, "Drown" was shorter, so I picked it up. I've enjoyed Diaz's stories in The New Yorker on more than one occasion, even though I thought I was maxed out on Latino-American lit after taking an entire course on it and o.d.'ing on Cisernos in high school. Clearly I prefer reading novels and stories about suburban housewives with dark secrets or young girls in big cities with lots of opinions and sexual deviance. To really expand my horizons.

In fact, Drown's compact size means I've carried this book all over the country, but hadn't started it 'til (obvs) recently, 'cause I thought: 'it is time.' There were a lot of characters named "Papi," which's always good. His sense of place is thorough and vibrant, his sentences precise and perfect. If you haven't read his work, then you are stupid and should be drowned in the local swimming pool. It will be a hate crime, but you will deserve it. Read!

I just heard a gigantic explosion, what happened? Maybe it's Al Queda.

---

Thoughts on my Inability to Read as Much as I Should:

I keep thinking I must be missing something on this list; surely that's not the sum of my accomplishments? It is. It certainly is. When left to my own devices, I'm sometimes not such a good reader, and I don't really know what to do about that. I mean -- I feel extra-motivated to start a book when someone near & dear to me forces it upon me, but when people who are far-away & dear, or near & not-incredibly-dear force books upon me, I take my sweet time. Unfortunately that time is running out, so omg, what am I gonna do, someone hit me over the head with a book right now.

I feel guilty as I believe it's my personal life mission to revive the art of reading, which's dying. How do Bookslut and RKB and Sam Anderson find time to read all the books they write about? [Someone] told me that speed-reading is about recognizing words as symbols rather than a series of letters. I've been trying to do that but then I realize I've just "read" four pages and don't remember a thing.

A few other ideas:

Situations that force me to read faster/at all:
-Reading contests (e.g., Tipping the Velvet contest w/Alex)
-Someone I'm trying to impress asks me to read something specific
-A new book by one of my favorite authors
-Beach vacations
-Airplanes
-The subway/train
-Desperate for writing inspiration, facing "the block"
-Waiting rooms
-School
-Eating a lot in the kitchen instead of in my room, usually a result of critter-related paranoia, requiring a book as I must be entertained at all times.
-Stability w/employment and overall position in life, subsequently enabling relaxation and concentration
-I claim to have read something I have in fact read, but it was a long time ago, and so if I'm gonna keep up with this new present-tense conversation, I'll need to play catch-up fast
-A book totally grabbing me -- or a new writer totally grabbing me

Situations that make me not read something I've been told to read:
-A suggestion being contradicted by a counter-suggestion --
Caitlin: "Don't read This Book Will Save Your Life, it's not that good, but if you want to read it, I own it."
Adam: "I would only read The Savage Detectives if you're willing to give a couple of days/a week to it and just do it all in one big rush. The form is just too confusing/convoluted otherwise. I mean...he pulls it off...he really does have a cast of like 25 characters all of whom have distinct voices and can narrate and contribute...but gah... also, I'll prepare you now, after 150 pages of making you like your rather unlikable friend and narrator he's going to take him away and not give him back for another 300 pages."
Haviland: "I could never really get into Night Watch, I don't think I finished it."

Auto-Win Book Club?

Perhaps I should start an Auto-win Book Club to force everyone to read a book with me, like we're all having reading contest. I know fo'sho that Caitlin and Alex would participate, but that's sort of a My Friends Book Club. The thing is it'd have to be a new book so that no one would've already read it, but it'd also have to be a paperback 'cause I'm not going to make y'all go get hardcovers. Perhaps we'd have to choose a new book in trade paperback. I'll think about this and amend this section. Then if you wanna buy it, you'll click through from here and for every book you buy, I'll make .005% of a cent, and when I save up enough I'll buy a dolphin and we can all go swimming.

Suggestions? FYI; no chick lit, nothing about people dressed in period costumes, no Native Americans or really any stories involving native peoples/tribes especially if it's about the clash of the white man and the natives, no pre-electricity lit, no "Bright Shiny Mornings" of any kind, no spiritual quests in Southeast Asia, nothing by a guy who beat up his wife, no memoirs by television actors and nothing over 500 pages. I'll probs be amending this list too.

Also I have another question; is it strange that while you have a visitor from out of town, it's rude to just sit and read in front of them, but it's okay to watch television together? I understand why this is, but I don't like it.

Just Talkin' Nonsense & Auto-Fun :: 5-31-2008

Welcome to "Just Talkin' Nonsense, " a new regular feature from autowin. What can we expect from "Just Talking Nonsense?" Well, you can look forward to the lowest possible interpretations of "form," "content," "art," and "language." Furthermore, you can expect both "deep thoughts" and links to other people's legitimate thoughts. How do we define "Just Talking Nonsense"? JTN = posts both started and completed AFTER midnight. The starting is key -- I usually finish posts post-midnight, but they'll contain writing begun in a more lucid state of mind. The late-night failures aren't substance related, it's just that by that time I've been alone in my room with the door shut for so long that I've become Emily Dickinson, except less good at poetry. (And also it'd seem, less good at grammar) (If I was a Native American, I'd want my name to be Riese LessGood)

Why midnight? 'Cause that's when I turn into a pumpkin. Pumpkins can't write, 'cause they don't have arms, and that's where I come in. The pumpkin speaks, and I am the vessel of his words. The pumpkin has been gutted, it needs me. The pumpkin is always a he. It's not sexist or anything, I don't believe in men or gender at all necessarily, just words. I believe in a whole lot of different ways to be alive. So many ways to be boys and girls and men and women that really, the binary's as old-fashioned as cholera.

Rose & Olive's nerve photo blog is my favorite. I discovered nerve photo blogs while working there. I was interning during Hurricane Katrina and Siege took a break from his usual subjects to photograph New Orleans, his hometown. His family is there, and so on. It was devastating, the photographs are incredible. My brother, who also lives in NO, said: "I'm fine, I'm at my friend's country club in Atlanta drinking beer. Worry about the people who can't leave." Have I mentioned that even though he was born after me, he somehow got older? I must have.

Also during the Autumn of my Internship, Kate & Camilla launched their photo blog. Lo and I went to their launch party in Faraway, Brooklyn. We emerged from the subway and dashed across the wet street and I screamed "Go! Now! Go!" and she said, "This isn't My So-Called Life!" But it was! It was my so-called life. The party was fun, we laughed at everyone. About a year later, I went to a Kate & Camilla gallery opening party with Stephanie, who'd modeled for them. Maybe a year after that, on the subway, I ran into the designers who's clothes Steph had modeled in Kate & Camilla's photographs -- they recognized me and were adorable, snapped me out of the mindset of whatever gross place I was traveling to.

See: life brings itself back around, you just have to stay awake.

Anyhow, Kate & Camilla don't have a photo blog anymore, which brings me back to Rose & Olive. I usually get uncomfortable looking at photos where people aren't wearing all their clothes, but somehow the nudity they employ isn't so much "look at me I'm sexy" as it is, "we were all naked in the womb, what's the big deal." Which also makes me uncomfortable, but life is supposed to be uncomfortable, right? So, they take good photo.

I only look at nerve photoblogs after midnight. Not 'cause I'm killing time but 'cause there's no time to kill. Time is not a pumpkin or a bunny, obviously. Time is a stapler. If time was applying for a temp job, it would list "collating" as a skill.

The photos I've got up here today, all taken from Rose & Olive, look like the houses I imagine sleeping in during that mythical/future part of life between sunrise and the rest of it when Alex and I will be in a car listening to loud heavy sweet popcorn music and the sun'll beat like beating and we'll be driving to California. Except actually some of the houses are more like houses I imagine I'll want to live in, in Eugene or Missoula, when I see how cheap/inexpensive the rent is everywhere but here and say "Pull over." ("If they say in the car that I am insane, I will take over the wheel." - Thomas McGuane, 92 in the Shade) (my "quote" in the senior yearbook) I'll make a CD for the car and name it "California." This'll be the playlist:

California - Joni Mitchell
Hotel California - The Eagles
Southern California Wants to Be Western New York - Dar Williams
California Uber Allies: Dead Kennedys
Goodnight, California: Kathleen Edwards
California Girls: The Beach Boys
Going to California: Led Zepplin
California Sky: Unwritten Law
California: Rogue Wave
California: Rufus Wainwright
Dani California: Red Hot Chili Peppers
California Dreamin': The Mamas and the Papaps
California Stars: Billy Bragg & Wilco
California Love: Tupac
California: Low
California Sun: The Ramones

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Quote: "I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was -- I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon." (Jack Kerouac, On the Road)

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Auto-Fun:
1) Thank you, Rebecca Traister, for this: Female Writers, Emily Gould, Sex and the City, The New York Times: Another Pretty Face of a Generation @salon.com: "It's been a nasty couple of weeks for New York's writing women, both real and imaginary." (Also, cheers to the Elizabeth Wurtzel related graphic.) Here's some snippets:

"What provokes such fury, over Carrie Bradshaw, and -- for a flash -- over Gould (barring a book deal and TV show that will turn her meanderings into cultural furniture) is that in a media landscape in which there are a severely limited number of spaces for women's writing voices, the ones that get tapped become necessarily, and deeply inaccurately, emblematic -- of their gender, their generation, their profession. More annoying -- and twisted -- is that those meager spots for women are consistently filled by those willing to expose themselves, visually and emotionally. And not accidentally, by those willing to expose themselves in a way that is comfortable, and often alluring, to many of the men who control the media, and to many of the women who consume it."

"We have to remember: There is nothing wrong with women writing about themselves, their youth, their indiscretions, their habits and values and personal development. Men have been writing about this stuff for thousands of years; they call it the canon."

2) The latest show: "They all feel the constant, mind-numbing urge to remind us of just how crazy and dramatic and hardcore their lush lesbian lives are." Boobs, Elbows and Asses: Lesbians Get Another 'Reality' Check with 'Gimme Sugar' (@nypress):
3) My hero Sam Anderson reviews Robert Olen Butler's The Sex Lives of Others (@nymag)
4) Seriously, I thought this was my secret trick, and if other people start being clever in their cover letters than I'm back to where I started from, which's "no marketable skills." 'Cause clearly it's worked so well for me thus far ... um.: "It's No Act, I Need a Job" (@the nytimes)
5) I just discovered this blog today; she's gay, is trying to start her own indpendent bookstore in Brooklyn and has an incredible link list/blogroll. (@written nerd)
6) Let's talk about SATC forevs and evs!! Patricia Field on Her Favorite 'Sex' Outfits and SJP's Crazy Hat, (@nymag), Sex Writers on "Sex and the City" (@salon.com), and @entertainment weekly; a 100% SATC issue.
7) Do You Hear the People Sing? The Modern American High School Musical (@the simon magazine)
8) "Thanks to Eggers’ own books, McSweeney’s can continue to bankroll what it wants to publish. " Renewing the Faith: McSweeny's Goes Back to Basics, Making Publishing Fun Again. (@laweekly)
9) In Which Women Are Changing the Sex Industry from Inside. (@this recording)
10) Ian McEwan says that "prophets of the apocalypse have become a new and very real danger": The Day of Judgment. (@the guardian uk)

"Her art inspired me to do my best and,
To paint my music like, like I saw it best.
And she says I grew up well. Well, well I grew up strong,
Cause no one's got my back. No one's gonna write me my songs.
I've been tired for days and days."
-Tegan & Sara, "Days and Days"