Archive for the 'Five Things' Category

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 Muszynski.

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.

and and and

Published on January 21, 2010 in Five Things, stories and team discovery. Closed

Everybody’s favorite Mary Hamilton won Rose Metal Press’ chapbook contest with her short short collection WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE. That finalist and semi-finalist list is quite the list. I can’t wait to see Mary’s work in lovely RMP style.

This summer I contributed to the playlist up at Wigleaf and forgot about it until it was posted today. And. My book release date got pushed up to August or September.

who's there

Also the winners of the Five Things contest A New Year are posted over there. I’m looking forward to the show. I don’t know who most of these people are. And. I made a poster.

Kim Parko’s incredible Cure All is out at Caketrain. Of it I wrote, “To call these pieces unique isn’t enough. With her fractured shards of advice, sweet little nightmares, tunneled eyes and sprouted scales, Kim Parko presents a twisting puzzle of fire blights and lonely spines. This book will crawl into your house.” It’s weird that it’s only $8.

I know! Let’s blog about it.

Published on September 18, 2009 in Five Things. 3 Comments

It has been the kind of week where I sit and look at all the work I have to do instead of doing any of it. Part of the Glorious Life of a Freelancer involves getting work back for revision and making the appropriate changes, but there are some days when I just can’t handle the concept. I sent you away, blurb. Why do you return to me?

I talked a little bit about ritual over at the ASF blog, and a terrible novel I wrote when I was twenty. This is a true story: I once told Richard Ford about the opening scene of this novel, and he told me it was best that it was at the bottom of my desk drawer.

Christ, what an asshole

Christ, what an asshole.

I’ve been having a conversation with Molly Gaudry using Google Docs. It’s a great idea on her part: one presents a set of questions, the other answers, saves the document, the first goes back and asks follow-up questions in the doc, saves it, and the whole thing ends up looking like patchwork. It’s fun. Stacy and I are experimenting with Google Docs as we plan Five Things and getting a lot of good use out of it.

My mom sent me a package full of Trader Joe’s beef and chicken broth and other supplies. Now I can make Swedish meatballs without overdosing on sodium. The world is mine!

Mom.

Mom knows

Tonight I’m going to an American Short Fiction reading held in someone’s house. Salons are getting popular in Austin, with one or two every month. It’s an excellent answer to the on-stage reading; people get less nervous, the scene is more intimate. It allows, maybe suggests, more serious content. Someone from American Analog Set is playing at this one, then Nina McConigley and Josh Weil are reading.

Cool feelings

Published on September 10, 2009 in Five Things. 1 Comment

Tips for self-marketing writers at the Flatmancrooked today. Dutifully I blog. The big idea appears to revolve around getting a good agent. I only want an agent if he or she can do a really convincing impression of Vito Corleone. Like, better than mine. Also accepted: Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.

"I'm a book man."

We had an awesome Five Things last Friday. It was a really fun crowd, great readers (that’s Rudy Ramirez killing it, above) and bands. A good feeling overall. I think I forgot to introduce myself on stage, proving my top-notch self-promotion skills.

It’s raining. When it rains in September in Texas, you turn off the A/C, open all the windows, and fully embrace the fact that you are living inside a warm and swaddling sponge. The sponge loves you. Feels good.

Blake Butler’s Scorch Atlas is out with a review from Time Out New York: “The extreme subject matter and obsessively rendered syntax will evoke comparisons to writers like Brian Evenson and Gary Lutz, but Butler is an original force who is fearless with form.”

Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel is also out with another TONY review, “a humorous reflection on the instantaneity of Internet-era life and relationships.”

When I was in middle school I used to read the announcements on closed circuit television. This all feels pretty much the same (by “This all” I mean “My life thereafter”).

aniel Day-Lewis

Finishing touches.

Published on August 14, 2009 in Five Things and Zach Dodson. 1 Comment

Man seriously, sometimes I think about completing years of training and dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Adobe Creative Suite and becoming a graphic designer. It’s real fun to do; I like fonts. I could only do it for a living if someone wanted to pay me $65k to screw around and make one smallish poster every two months. I think it can happen. I’m going to move to California in advance.

The poster’s almost done for Five Things. I took a vintage photo and did the old-school cut out thing like in old ads when they had scissors and not the Adobe Creative Suite. I just have to wait on one band to confirm, and then Zach (an actual designer with some ideas about art) will put a logo on it for me (impossible in Picasa, impossible without thumbs) and then I will send it to my venue man Warren and he will have it made into a poster! It takes a village for me to get anything done.

My friend Meagan and I came up with our roller girl names in Eugene while reading a package of bacon: Side Meat and Fatty Part. We have this move where we hold hands and do a clothesline maneuver on unsuspecting members of the opposing team and audience. Say “Fatty Part” out loud. It has a good sound.

I’m thinking of organizing an offsite reading/party for the Texas Book Festival. Trouble is it’s Oct 31-Nov1 and I might have to compete with every Halloween party in town. I could set out bowls of cold spaghetti and peeled grapes.

Catching my breath in Chicago.

Published on July 18, 2009 in Cats, Five Things and Museum of the Weird. 1 Comment

First things: three new little stories up at dispatch. Thanks to PHM for his work. Secondly, I’m reading tonight at The Book Cellar with Patrick Somerville, Achy Obejas, and Derek McCormack. Looking forward to running at them with flaming branches in word form.

It’s hard to express my feelings about being done with the tour. I’m not quite done done yet, since I don’t get to be home until Monday. Meanwhile I am staying with wonderful creative friends in Chicago and talking in half-sentences about gophers and Sprinters and one-eyed cats. I wrote up a brief account of the tour while I was in the van, just the bare details (we ate breakfast at the Waffle House, we read at the Booksmith) and the thing is still ten pages. That’s how I feel.

Anyway it was wonderful to meet so many kind and generous and funny people on the road, from those who put us up in their homes and let us use their towels, to those who took us out after readings and bought us drinks and food, to those who slipped bills into our raffle bag and helped us pay for all the gas we used on the entire trip, insane, plus a surplus of $12. I learned many new names; incredible guest readers in all cities, hosts that gave us peanut butter pretzels or took us to Bourbon Street or found flowers to make our walk a little pinker, kind friends who smiled while we tried to string together a complete sentences after twelve hours on the road. I found myself in cities and states I had never been before, accompanied by the kindest hearts. I’m being blurry and vague. Once I start putting names to things I’ll start feeling it all. Let’s wait on that.

Lots of work to be done. A freelance project kicks into high gear the minute tires touch the tarmac in Austin. I’m working out the final order on Museum of the Weird and making the final edits. My Five Things co-host has been invaluable in deciphering my half-emails from the road and pulling together an exciting roster of readers. I’m looking forward to one last weekend in Chicago, one more drink with friends, and then home.

We are honky. We are tonk.

Published on July 4, 2009 in AM/PM and Five Things. Closed

dollar store logoThe Dollar Store Tour Bus is rolling towards Austin. Excitement grows as I read the Twitter updates.

My mother taught me to clean the house before I go on a long trip. I’m splitting the time between that and packing and finishing the stories for the show. Estimating I’m at 3.5 minutes worth of words currently, two and a half shorts left to go before the arc is more or less finished.

I’ve been happily assigning items to writers for Five Things for about a year now already but I’ve never had the assignment. It makes me even more impressed with the Five Things readers who were all brave enough to take the challenge. Completing the piece and feeling good about it is hard enough, but reading something brand new in front of a crowd is a whole electrifying twist. Lately when I read, I’ve only read stories from AM/PM, all carefully vetted and tweaked. Nothing like getting up there with something I will have likely finished the hour before. Anyway I’m excited.

I’m going to be pen pals with Spork Press while on the road. Looking forward to everything.

Thank you, Internet

The IRS Mission.

Published on June 20, 2009 in Cooking and Five Things. 4 Comments
I owe the IRS $106.64

I owe the IRS $106.64

Nothing is new. I don’t want to read it too quickly or else it will be over. I also felt that way about Slow Wave.

It is hot today in Texas. I used to longboard to work and school when I lived in Arizona and on days like this I could feel the asphalt grabbing the wheels.

I’m getting pretty good at making lasagna. The secret is a homemade sauce with wine and a pinch of sugar.

Thinking of ideas for September Five Things with the help of thoughtful friends. Topics include school, criminals, fetishes. Wolfe suggested Austin neighborhoods, which is a good idea that deserves its own show. I like stories about ideas, but I’m thinking that going back to the visual element is a wise choice. The photograph show went really well. Including an object makes it feel like show-and-tell, which charms everyone. If we’re doing a live reading instead of a podcast or a journal, we should be taking advantage of the extra senses we get. Smell-o-vision.

Interview at The Scowl.

Published on June 4, 2009 in Five Things, Interviews and Teaching. 2 Comments

Today at The Scowl you will find a conversation between Tobias Carroll and myself. I talk about teaching, writing, and Five Things. It was fun; thank you, Toby.

Another squirrel ran by the window with a pancake in its mouth. Somebody in this neighborhood is handing out pancakes.

About a month ago, a few nice folks wrote me long, polite letters referring to my position on the stimulus bill. I think I just figured out why.

Miscellany.

Published on May 17, 2009 in AM/PM, Cooking, Five Things and Reviews. 2 Comments

1. Tearing apart this month’s Bon Appetit and finding some good recipes. Delightful orecchiette, lemon herb dip. Made tasty little shrimp enchiladas last night. Today, a leftovers breakfast of perfect little cinnamon rolls from a friend. Baking banana bread and refusing to write subjects in sentences.

2. An excellent read of my story “Fish” can be found at Emerging Writers Network:

I’ve learned to quit doing that with Amelia Gray and her stories, and after reading that couplet of sentences, decided to scrunch back in my chair and really settle in, as who knows where the hell it was going.

Dan’s the best kind of reader.

3. A review of AM/PM over at Literary License. Nice short-and-sweet approach. They picked some new passages to print too, which is cool. When people tell me their favorite stories in the book, it’s like watching someone pat a baby on the head.

When I was sixteen and working at Ace Hardware in Tucson, I helped an old snowbird replace the battery on his hearing aid. This was before hearing aid batteries came in packages with easy-install tabs; none we sold, anyway. Without those tabs, it’s really  hard for people with arthritis to fit the tiny battery into the tiny hearing aid. We got the battery in and the guy plugged himself back in and declared it worked and I said, Cool. He leaned back a little and repeated “Cool!” and was delighted at the word, gave it an extra-long “o” like he was reading ad copy for Virginia Slims. I laughed but I was embarrassed because everything is embarrassing when you are sixteen.

4. Planning a Five Things that will actively rock until the wheels fall off. The wheels will roll down the street and we will never find them again. It’s a nice day in Texas and I’m feeling optimistic. I wrote another story featuring talking animals.

5. From a recent spacewalk:

Dr. Massimino asked the robot arm operator, Megan McArthur, to move him up a couple of feet.

Dr. McArthur replied, “For you, anything.”