This post is about the performance not the politics

Published on March 9, 2010 in Cool, David Foster Wallace and Readings. 0 Comments

The Ransom Center got David Foster Wallace’s archives. They’ll be up in August or so. Field trip down the street. (via)

Last night was cool. I read from AM/PM a little. It started pouring rain on half the crowd after I started one page but stopped twenty seconds later. I also read an oldie, as requested by the gentleman what escorted me. (Texas Tip: Dance with who brung ya.)

The reading also featured an open mic, with ACC students and faculty reading short pieces. One of the best open mics I’ve seen, actual. Took me back to Maggie Evans’s shows in San Marcos when I was most excited about poetry.

Then, Finn & Porter for Restaurant Week. Pecans caramelized and further crisped in the deep-fry. Seabass steamed over a bed of potato flavored with some manner of umami. A trio of brûlées in tiny cups. Fine company as well. Today I have a date with the gym. After coffee. Fifteen more minutes.

Thanks to John Herndon for inviting me to last night’s reading and to Sarah Wambold for making a note about it on the Austinist.

Next week, I’m opening the Whiskey Rebellion with Southpaw. In later excitement, I’m reading with Teleportal for Fusebox in April. And more good news, we got Michael Kimball and Christian TeBordo for Five Things in May.

This week, I’m watching a dog with a spinal injury who needs to be walked in a sling. On our last trip outside, we made friends with a half-paralyzed corgi. Its useless legs were strung up in a rolling cage. Everybody’s just happy to be here.

Everybody. Everybody.

Published on March 6, 2010 in Five Things and Readings. 2 Comments

thank you

Last night’s show was like a tiny pony pulling a cart of trinkets through a quiet village. I learned some things.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, including The Gary, Aly Tadros, Emcee Eats, The Davis Levels, Greg Koehler, Giuseppe Taurino, Willy Razavi, Gretchen Phillips, Evie Worsham, and Stacy Musynski.

Thanks also to the Art Seen Alliance, to volunteers Sarah and Mike and Jon, and to everyone who came out to hear good stories and music. Pictures will be up at the Five Things site soon.

Other Austin events: I’m reading on Monday the 8th with the ACC Literary Coffeehouse, 7pm at the Austin Java on Parkway. On the 15th, check out 20×2, featuring Owen Egerton, Southpaw Jones, Amanda Eyre Ward and more, delivering two-minute pieces at the Ghost Room. Kicking off SXSW week with a fine who-loves-ya.

Fried Chicken & Coffee is doing a Barry Hannah Memorial Competition. Winner gets copies of Airships, Ray, and Geronimo Rex, plus a $25.00 gift card from Barnes & Noble.

Barry Hannah, RIP

Published on March 2, 2010 in RIP. 1 Comment

1942-2010

I wish I was with my friends James and Sarah today, toasting bourbon and listening to their stories about Barry. He taught at Texas State for a year and lived with James during that time. Little stories emerged from the house: James kept a picture of Bill Clinton on the wall long after Barry plunged a knife into Clinton’s forehead. Barry talked shit about workshop manuscripts and spilled cherry pie on them. Barry lost his dog and went out on his motorcycle to go look for it, bringing his gun, telling them if he wasn’t back by sunset to call the cops. Barry wrote late into the night, listening to Willie Nelson or Tchaikovsky and smoking assorted cigarettes from a freezer bag. When Hunter S. Thompson died, Barry bought a couple carnations and placed them in a juice glass.

The man was a son of a bitch from the old school. He loved to scandalize and delight, which made him the best kind of old man and the best kind of writer. He told a vulgar story about Katherine Anne Porter in front of her grandchildren at a reading. After I heard him read “Mother Mouth” I went into the bathroom and cried. I still believe it is one of the most perfect stories ever written. Barry ripped. That’s all.

Owlet

Published on March 1, 2010 in Cool. 0 Comments

I learned that DIAGRAM was selling their ten-year anthology in the form of a deck of cards and I bought it so fast that my credit card snapped back and hit me in the face. John D’Agata, Brian Evenson, Albert Goldbarth, Sean Lovelace, Ben Marcus, Derek White. The cardlash was worth it.

It is raining pleasantly. There’s another creature running around behind the wall. I feel like I’ve been awake for eight years.

An egg is nothing like a poem

Published on February 26, 2010 in Cats and Cool. 0 Comments

I feel worse eating the pretty eggs from the farmer’s market. Those chickens in factory farms are de-beaked and so drugged up that they don’t even realize they’re laying eggs. Meanwhile, these little guys are the product of a chicken that was hugged by a child in Fredericksburg. Maybe that chicken started thinking something better would come of her eggs, like they’d hatch and become presidents or at least moderately successful in business.

My bedroom is now a cat-free zone. The bed is no longer a spot for all-day naps and Turk can’t make it to third base with the laundry rack anymore. The apartment is weird and small with one door closed and it makes me think about how much a familiar space becomes a part of you. Try moving a chair from one side of your room to the other. Things get weird.

Anyway, I’m sleeping with earplugs now because the cats scratch at the door all night, but I think this is an important part of Becoming a Functional Adult. My allergist, if I could afford an allergist, would be proud.

If you like poetry, you should check out Nick Courtright’s Elegy for the Builder’s Wife, online via Blue Hour Press. If you don’t like poetry, screw you, get out of here.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.

I found a venue for my Dzanc Day workshop. Proceeds go to bring creative writing programs to kids in need. If you’re in the area and you’d like to eat nilla wafers and rap flash fiction with me for four hours, check it out.

Tonight I’m reading some Salinger at the Ransom Center along with ZZ Packer, Betsy Crane, AE Ward, Nick Flynn, and John Pipkin. I hope this one is as illuminating as the David Foster Wallace show. I’m into this reading-party thing.

Listen. At the end of the day, an omelet’s just an omelet.

turd turd turd, turd’s the word

Published on February 23, 2010 in Cool and Total Wreck. 1 Comment

You know you’re doing some high-brow writing when you have to right-click and add “turds” to the dictionary.

I hear that the last of the first-round Paper Egg cleanup might mean some-of-you get a second or third extra copy of AM/PM. Some kind folks are giving their spare copies to friends, which pleases me greatly. If you’ve read the book and liked it at any price, perhaps you could leave a review? I think that helps so let’s try it.

A wintry mix is coming down. My Texas self is pretty sure it’s about to turn into hail and my Arizona self ran downstairs in my socks to try and catch some of it in my hand. It appears to be some kind of not-beautiful clumped sleet-like substance. Turds of snow, if you will. My neighbor is taking a picture of it. I’ve got a real strong impulse to go to the store and buy hot dogs but I believe I will hold off: Texas drivers all simultaneously let go of their steering wheels and are currently letting God sort it out.

CellStories

Published on February 22, 2010 in stories. 0 Comments

My story “These Are The Fables” is up today at CellStories. If you have a phone with a browser on it, point your phone at that website and you’ll be free to read about positive pregnancy tests, burning doughnut shops, and the Corpus Christi Days Inn where Selena was murdered. It is an expanded version of a story I wrote on tour this summer.

From Yoko Ono’s Twitter

Published on February 18, 2010 in Quotes. 2 Comments

Send a paper moon to your friend. Ask him to burn it
about 23 hours ago

People need shadows to rest in. I would advise you to send a bucket of shadow to a friend
9:00 AM Feb 12th

A man who thinks a room is filled with things can only say Be careful
9:01 AM Feb 8th

The colors in your room correspond to heat energy: tension-vibration in your mind
9:02 AM Feb 4th

Tape the sound of the lake gradually freezing. Drink a cup of hot chocolate, afterwards.
9:00 AM Dec 30th

Your room of long standing starts to resemble your mind and becomes symmetrical and/or complimentary to your mind
9:01 AM Feb 2nd

Each time we don’t say what we want to say we’re dying. Make a list of how many times you died this week.
9:01 AM Jan 14th

Listen to your breathing. Listen to your child breathing. Listen to your friend breathing. Keep listening.
9:00 AM Jan 26th

(link)

Ice-T is 52 years old today

Published on February 16, 2010 in Cool. 0 Comments

Jetlag’s got me permascrewy. I go to bed at 8pm and I’m up writing way before dawn. I am a word-farmer. I should make a king cake for my girlfriends today, but I have a lot of words to write for work. “Maybe I can do it all.”

Yesterday and today I’ve been reading and learning about Tallulah Bankhead. There was once a time when being a bad-girl celebrity meant sitting around and thinking up scandalous quotes. A few of hers:

“My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine.”

“I’m not at my best when I start to moralize or philosophize. Logic is elusive, especially to one who so rarely uses it.”

“Here’s a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.”

That Lohan girl should bring this ish back. YouTube turns up an episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour featuring Ms. Bankhead. Apparently Lucille Ball didn’t much like sharing the stage and Tallulah was fairly smashed for the whole day of taping.

Someone found this blog searching for onion ‘expierience’ crying’.

So hard / Too hard

Published on February 14, 2010 in Teaching and privet. 4 Comments

When I got home, I found a tiny plant growing out of my bathroom sink. I admired the delicate green leaf that had been unfolding for weeks, and then I unscrewed the stopper and ripped it out by its root structure.

Home means allergies. I realized in Singapore that I was actually breathing clearly through my nose, which I hadn’t really done in all my years in Texas and through most of my time in Arizona. It allowed me to close my mouth as I breathed, which, in turn, gave me a chance to not look like a huge moron.

we meet again

It was fun to see Michael in Albuquerque. I read and met with some fun UNM and PCA/ACA folk. Michael and I goofed around, went on walks, and found a tumbleweed larger than the both of us. I bought a lovely scarf that reminds me of a fish and a pair of Santa Lucia milagros for vision.

probably holding my breath here

For Valentine’s Day I’m giving my students edits on Paper 1. My sweet gnu is currently yelling at hotel laundry staff members in Bangalore, so the extravagant sentiment must be put on hold. I think I’m coming down with something, anyway.

On the flight back I read a good Steve Almond essay about rock music and Dave Grohl that was randomly in Southwest’s Spirit Magazine. I think I’ll read it to my students, along with part of the piece about how Warren Buffett subverts the cliche in his letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. This issue of Spirit Magazine made me want to subscribe or at least fly more often.