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'I am resolutely apolitical: I don’t believe in politics and I abhor the use of politics or the application of political theory in literature. Art is art because it is useless. As soon as art becomes useful it becomes decoration or propaganda or something else other than art. A good analogy would be sex. As soon as sex becomes useful it becomes procreation. To say that a piece of writing should have a purpose or should be about something or should convey something or should do something is akin to saying sex should have a purpose, that sex should produce a baby. (Here we can see the connection between conventional realism and crazy fundamentalist Christians, not to mention product-obsessed capitalists.) I humbly disagree. For me, sex is valuable in-and-of-itself. Art, too, is valuable in-and-of-itself.
'In terms of it being personal, I would say it is personal by virtue of being written by me. However, the content—which is always secondary to me—is completely fabricated. I revel in falsification. This whole notion of “honesty” or “truth” or whatever it is conventional realists find so appealing about “writing what you know” or “keeping it real” makes me gag. To me, the attempt to replicate reality in literature is as much of a complete waste of time as the last season of Battlestar Galactica. Mimesis is no more relevant today than bloodletting: you could do it, but why?' -- Christopher Higgs, from an interview with Blake Butler
Christopher Higgs The Complete Works of Marvin K. MooneySator Press
'Exegesis as genesis. Metapostheartenism. No—this novel is stunning, a sublime attack on cultural and critical institutions, a lyrical song of self, a brutally candid confession and admission of not-knowing; it's an emotional trip that is unparalleled in my mind. I could not be more excited for you to read this book in paper or digital form, and listen to the incredible and multi-sensual audiobook. 352 pages, paperback. Limited first edition, 1000 copies. (Featuring a limited cover and presale price—you won't see either again.) Official Release: 10/5/10. Shipping immediately.' -- Ken Baumann, Sator Press
Excerpt:
Christopher Higgs' chapbook Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously (Publishing Genius) contains a section of the novel, and it can be read online and gratis in eBook form here
book trailer
two or more people reading page 243 of the book
two or more people reading page 243 of the book
two or more people reading page 243 of the book
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'Writing for me has been an exercise in therapy, without wanting to sound reductive or dismissive about the stories. I don’t share a lot with people — it’s never been my style. But in the writing, I guess I tend to share everything; it’s just masked and skewed and filtered through a very very weird, perverse universe of characters who seem to play out human dramas, but underneath so many layers of oddity.
'Creepy, for sure. But in my opinion, they read as creepy first on the surface — a story about a person with an unnatural and unrelenting desire to cut off an otherwise healthy limb for the sake of sexual gratification or the realization of personal identity is certainly creepy. But I think that goes away fast, or else our obsession with and attraction to death and destruction takes over and makes that initial creeped-out reaction go away. Then — the characters I create are just like us — they’re not really that creepy emotionally. I mean, they’re confused, they’re sad, they’re searching — but in those emotional states, they’re very real, easily identifiable people.' -- Matty Byloos
Matty Byloos Don't Smell the FlossWrite Bloody Books
'I was kittied to death by these stories. Matty Byloos’s fiction doesn’t go down smooth, and that’s a good thing: his sentences are hot blurts that bust rudely and hilariously into the reader’s consciousness. The revelations of Byloos’s book are many: I’m very glad I now know about ‘Momma’s little ham-glazing sessions’; I’ll never forget that ‘my couch is like a soap opera….’ -- Andrew Leland, The Believer
'The dictum a rock and a hard place has shifted in the hands of Matty Byloos. Now as readers we find ourselves between a sponge and a wet blanket. The brains behind the Byloos engine are good, odd brains, rambunctious, what you want in a narrative pilot, where conscious errors abound, and unreliabilities are lavish, exact, extreme, and deader than the coyest pan of dead. Byloos is a mischievous man… they still make them in our country. They’re just hard to find.' -- Benjamin Weissman
Excerpt:
Letter to My Ex-Wife, in Need of an Explanation
Dear Boo-Boo,
----I am guessing you have been wondering where I went to lately, given the fact that I haven’t been home for a while. So – I am staying with a friend for now, somewhere in the neighborhood, actually, but don’t try to find me or anything. I will be looking for my own apartment soon, so don’t worry about my accommodations. Hey! I just realized this is really the first time I’ve written you a letter! I mean, there were of course the little love notes in the beginning, but that was so long ago. Just so you know, I will never be coming home again, and I thought that maybe I would tell you why. I’ve evolved! Oh my God, finally – I’ve become someone more complete, almost entirely fulfilled now, so changed that our friends who knew me before might not even recognize me anymore. But I’m proud, really – so no freak-outs, please. Plus, because the things that have currently taken hold of my attention are relatively new for me, I thought that this letter might give me a chance to put down in ink some ideas about why I have taken such a fancy to my new hobbies. Since you haven’t seen or heard from me in about a month, you have to be wondering what the heck happened. Furthermore, because we didn’t have sex for the last sixty-four days of our relationship (and I know how you feel about such lapses in what you currently refer to as “momma’s little ham glazing sessions”), I am guessing that matters have been greatly complicated in your mind. I know the tendencies of your imagination quite well, what with all those evil gnomes of self-destruction pushing their nubby little fingers around in your cerebral cortex, conjuring up the most unholy of thoughts. After all, I would want and expect the same from you, where explanations are concerned. We did love each other, in my estimation. Maybe you actually even still do! We cut each other’s nails, for chrissake. How much closer to someone can you be?
(continued)
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'Chris Goode is a writer and maker working in theatre and live performance. He has amassed a significant body of unpredictable work in diverse formats: from large-scale theatre-based projects such as The Consolations (1999) and Speed Death of the Radiant Child (2007), to intimate solo storytelling pieces like Kiss of Life (2002) and We Must Perform A Quirkafleeg! (2006), one of a series of performances made specifically for audiences’ own homes; and from script-based pieces like King Pelican (2009, nominated for a TMA Award for Best New Play) to more obviously experimental works such as Hey Mathew (2008), and Glass House (2009), a performance installation for Deloitte Ignite at the Royal Opera House.' -- artsadmin.co.uk
Chris Goode The History of AirportsGanzfeld
The History of Airports brings together for the first time writings for performance from across the whole span of Chris Goode's work. Extracts from his critically acclaimed theatre works, and stand-alone texts for a more fugitive nature, sit alongside examples of his dazzling late modernist poetry and a handful of pieces that seem to defy classification entirely. Many of these texts have never before been available in print. Published by the press Ganzfeld, it can be ordered exclusively and only through Chris Goode's blog. Scroll down a little and look to your right.
Excerpt:
from An Introduction to Speed Reading
Aloha Generalissimo! your speed-reading dollars, your plenty, it is to serve you on a platter, thus taking these advice. How to approach the text: The text is devil-sticks. The text is "what goes down stairs" i.e. Slinky. The text is one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand monkey on the council lungfish farm. Tip: The eyes should move independently. The left eye should overtake the right eye on the straight. The mouth should blow indolent spit globes, the correct embouchure is shown in fig. 8. Tip: Hold the text as you would hold a bad red cabbage i.e. away from you and preferably out of the window. Scold it without remorse, say BAD CABBAGE, say that. Stick it in the shredder marked Deutsche Bank. Tip: The text is an ornery slut you push a starting pistol up its gaping wimbledon hole it will moan like a blind calf shove it on up. Ways of disabling the text: (1) pin-down (2) half-Nelson (3) "Matt Thorne, the idiot novelist." Tip: Make the cat read it. Getting started: First read the page as a bitmap. What is a text what a image so on adplasmam. Readers possessed of "the funk" (see fig. 9) may use multiple algorithms to analyse the stroke edge: oh mother she will go wandering off. I've never had a multiple algorithm. Well then baby take an average. Plunder the good earth. Reading myths, #1: "Reading is linear." Au contraire Claire, reading is in a bent hoop belle of oval what blatant Valerie blent is what that, obviously. How to get more out of the text: In the first stages of reading, the objective is to obtain as much meaning as possible from the text. Synthetic word-splitting enzymes such as Phonemase can help improve meaning yield by up to 98% per cent / exploded banana republic. Throw me a dry-loving bone here mailman / the pulp wash process: make sure jellification of the text is avoided during concentration. During what. During concentration I think he said. It's more of a blip. If that's a blip I'm Quincy. Pod: There is in the town of Coblenz a poor man who is bewitched in this way. In the presence of his wife he is in the habit of acting after the manner of men with pamphlets, that is to say, of practising reading, as it were, and he continues to do this repeatedly: nor have the cries and urgent appeals of his wife any effect in making him desist. And after he has read two or three pamphlets, he bawls out: "We are going to start all over again." After an incredible number of such pamphlets, the poor man sinks to the floor, utterly exhausted. Tip: Hey! Have a shit fit. Do a benny. Do a brassica. Replace every fourth thought with "Bo Diddley" ...
Photos from the launch of The History of Airports
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