Monthly Archive for April, 2010

Salt licked

Published on April 29, 2010 in Jac Motherfucking Jemc, Readings and Reviews. 2 Comments

Jac Jemc‘s new story in FRiGG is a serious ouch feeling. Must read.

Kind stuff at Outsider Writers Collective, a review of AM/PM. Thank-you to Nik Korpon.

Last night’s Teleportal reading was a lot of fun. I still have this cold so I tried to sequester myself and not touch anybody while simultaneously practicing good hand-washing techniques. But it was nice out, I enjoyed being out. It’s warm in Austin and we’re all taking advantage of it.

The flavor of my illness is salt. Fish sticks taste like fishy salt. Chamomile tea tastes like corn chips. Obviously the thing to do was to purchase and devour a package of Ramen as quickly as possible. Fifteen cents. Sodium: 66% RDA. My lips feel funny.

I may or may not have done an interview with Dark Sky Magazine while hopped up on DayQuil. It brought me to the conclusion that the fiction writing I’m doing this week is bad but the interviews are good. It will post soonish.

Laughing at Sarah Silverman’s twitter archives. I’d go to her BookPeople thing tonight but I don’t want to sicken the world.

It would be fun to have a reading that was also a pool party.

Lanks

Published on April 25, 2010 in Behind The Blog, Reviews and well anyway later. Closed

Check out a Singapore subway map mingling with an early draft of a new story from a page in my journal, up with the collection at Di Mezzo Il Mare. Also up is a page from my friend Mark Barr’s journal, with a cool excerpt, quote, and what looks like an excellent recipe for yam salad.

Also, “Babies” gets a nice personal touch at Short Story Reader. I feel like the Short Story Reader should be a mini-column somewhere, online or off.

A pair of people will always act as opposing forces, one pushing and the other pulling. The key is figuring out at which frequency you most like to be pushed or pulled. We’re all harp strings with the freedom of choice. Well anyway later.

Deathmatched in Austin

Published on April 24, 2010 in Pictures and Readings. 3 Comments

Judging with John Pipkin while spelunker Spike Gillespie reads

Death match fun in Austin. There was a location mishap with one of the judges and so I filled in, sitting between an erudite John Pipkin and a gregarious Owen Egerton. It was a wild fun night and I got another chance to see a seasoned host in Todd Zuniga. I held Owen’s chair steady while he stood on it to holler. Everyone had a great time and wants to see the show come back again soon.

Owen Egerton & co look on at Tyler Stoddard Smith in Sarah Bird's dress

Todd and I took the taco/threads tour of Austin the next day (Tamale House, Stag, Buenos Aires Cafe) and he kindly helped Jon move my old futon out to the curb. We also got to experience some classic Texas weather, with clear night skies yielding to a ten-degree drop in temperature marking the arrival of a sudden thunderstorm.

This little scratch in my throat makes me afraid that all this busy is catching up with me. Time to nap frequent and lay low until Tuesday’s Teleportal.

When in doubt, add pratfalls

Published on April 22, 2010 in Readings. 2 Comments

Girls update: girls rule
Kind of obsessed with watching doubled youtube videos of rotting fruit
I’ve been working on a project for Everyday Genius this week that requires multimedia and some physical comedy
If you work at an am/pm I will send you a copy of AM/PM on the condition that you send me a picture of you reading AM/PM behind the counter of the am/pm
Lit events in Austin: Literary Death Match on Thursday, Writing Club for Youth Reception on Saturday, Teleportal 4 next Tuesday. More fun than a bowl of rotting fruit!

Shipdream

Published on April 19, 2010 in Behind The Blog, dream and team discovery. Closed

I had a dream that I found a bullet on the ground and brought it to the police, and everyone was mad that I had picked it up. It was a spent slug. Then I dreamed I was in Singapore, but Singapore was simultaneously a pirate ship and a pirate-ship-themed restaurant, and I kept walking up flights of stairs and moving past higher and higher levels of diners until I reached the crow’s nest, which was also a small table. It had the best view of the water and the people shooting at each other on the deck.

A kind of dining hall? Tell me more.

Published on April 19, 2010 in self snap. Closed

After I got back from Denver my pals Angeline and Johnny arrived, and we went on many food-based adventures (Tamale House, Salt Lick). Then I spent some happy time with Jon’s parents, and we chased wildflowers and traveled to the Bastrop State Park, where we saw some cabins and buildings constructed by the CCC. One 87 year old who had worked on the massive stone refectory as a young man was quoted as saying “I think everyone should come look at those rocks.”

here it is from the inside

Now I’m sleepy but glad to have spent time with friends. Also I learned the word “refectory.” I need to spend about eight years doing laundry.

I made the finishing touches on my contribution to Spork 9.1. Can’t wait to see what Drew and Richard do. The completed book sounds like it will be an object you should hold in your hands.

There are a lot of writers who like to run
There’s a journal that has had a story of mine for 1,507 days
I feel pretty dumb lately
Maybe bullet points will help

AWPed

Published on April 12, 2010 in Adam Robinson, Blake Butler, Dan Wickett, Featherproof Books, geeking out, Justin Sirois, Matthew Simmons and Readings. 4 Comments

Denver happened. I yelled about driving an Iroc-Z in New Mexico for a restaurant reading with Matt Bell, Elena Passarello, Kevin Sampsell, Matthew Simmons, and Rachel Yoder. I marveled at Molly Gaudry‘s perfect twin braids and she said it was the work of her training as an only child. Mary and I bought the biggest dreamcatcher we could find and I read with it in an elevator. Lindsay and I drank milk out of jugs while Patrick played the banjo and Zach slapped his thighs and sang along.

I just woke up from a dream I had about the breakfast place where I went with Sarah, Nick and Michael. There was a sizable Austin crowd and I felt at home in scenes fancy and non-fancy alike. I hugged Dollar Store tour friends and read with them, put faces to names/said hello again to Kyle Minor, Justin Taylor, Brian Evenson, Jim Ruland, Justin Sirois, Roxane Gay, J.A. Tyler, Dan Wickett, and Elisa Gabbert. I walked the bookfair floor with Adam Robinson and spent a chunk of cash.

excitement

I caught the shuttle and avoided making eye contact with a trio of lovely poet ladies from California who spent the trip to the airport talking about a panel they saw on poetry saving the world. The ladies were wrapped in golden shawls. I considered writing a story about chapped lips. I graded on the flight all the way home and navigated the damp community college campus to teach for three hours about the departmental exam. At the grocery store I bought turkey sausage, turkey breast, lean meatballs, and egg whites. I went home and made a glass of chocolate milk with extra egg whites. I unpacked my books and photographed them.

home.

AWP Deals

Published on April 6, 2010 in Readings. Closed

Here’s where I’ll be reading in Denver:

Thursday

1:30pm, HTMLGIANT Table, AWP Bookfair
Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens Elevator Reading Series
Elevator-permitting, a few of our contributors will read their short work during various times throughout the book fair. Meet at HTMLGIANT’s table at the specified times if you would like to be a listener. Space is extremely limited.

7pm, Mercury Cafe, 2199 California St
VERMIN ON THE ROCKY MOUNT
Hosted by Richard Nash and Jim Ruland
w/ Matt Bell, Elena Passarello, Amelia Gray, Kevin Sampsell, Matthew Simmons, Rachel Yoder

Friday

7:00pm, Skylark Lounge, 140 S Broadway
Shots ‘n Shorts, Featherproof
w/ Nicolette Bond, Blake Butler, Zach Dodson,, Amelia Gray, Mary Hamilton, Lindsay Hunter, Jac Jemc, Caroline Picard, Aaron Plasek, Patrick Somerville, Christian TeBordo & Jess Wigent

10:00pm, (Secret) Gallery, 901 W 7th Ave
MAKE/ACM Afterparty
w/ ACM (Fred Sasaki, Amelia Gray) # Artifice Magazine (Rebekah Silverman, James Tadd Adcox) # Canarium Books (John Beer, Paul Killebrew) # featherproof books (Patrick Sommerville, Lindsey Hunter) # Green Lantern Press (Caroline Picard, Devin King) # Hobart (Adam Novy) # Knee-Jerk (An Editors’ Town Hall) # MAKE (Aaron Michael Morales, Dan Wuebben, Peter Richards, Dara Wier) # Rose Metal Press (Adam Golanski, Elizabeth Ellen) # The 2nd Hand (Harold Ray)

Check out more AWP happenings here.

Will we see whales today?

Published on April 4, 2010 in Kyle Beachy. 1 Comment

I finally figured out (stumbled over accidentally) the name of the edu-video played nearly nonstop when I was elementary school: The Voyage of the Mimi. My old school was so into it that they painted a whale on the parking lot asphalt.

it is still there

Now that I see it from a satellite viewpoint, it seems pretty clear that the entire parking lot became a whale and ate some cars. In the video below, you will find a young Ben Affleck.

I was in St. Louis this week. I visited the Arch and knocked on it as if to determine its quality. I made up a game wherein I have the means to travel to a new city for the sole occasion of reading a novel based in that city. (This game has one round.) For this round I picked The Slide by Kyle Beachy and read the whole thing over the course of two days. It’s an exciting book, full of imaginative bounds and small experiments and other freshness. I had an incredible feeling reading about downtown as I experienced downtown. The book was in my bag when I knocked on the Arch. Recommended.