'I wrote the first draft of the book kind of in a daze of ten days, letting each image eject itself from the one prior, and in a mostly sleepless state. As a result, a lot of the landscape and presence in the book seems definitely a reflection of what I felt flooded by, if in a more psionic way than directly linked to where I was. My father at this time was in the midstages of dementia and I was living with my parents after my apartment had just been hit by a tornado, all my stuff in boxes, so really even the act of writing and being was fraught with this silent claustrophobia, every inch loaded. That terror seems to have just poured out of me even though I was really just sitting in a room: I think that still feels like every day to me, even on days when I am calm. The most terrifying terrors for me are those that have no name and often not even a face or way they manifest themselves; they are just there. It makes common objects seem to have two heads: the bed, one’s clothes and skin, other people. The more you let yourself begin to acknowledge such ideas, the more loaded it becomes. This book, and the writing of it, is maybe a direct manifestation of mirroring all that air and trying to put a hole through it and see what’s on the mirrored side there. I have no idea what you can do about them but in this case I typed them into a machine.' -- Blake Butler, BOMBLOG
'The problem with realistic writing is there is no such thing as realism, not unless we’re simply looking for Platonic cave reflections. This isn’t to say life is wholly incoherent: there is a logic inherent in any natural object or occurence, I think, and yet not one someone with a human skull can encode on paper. Maybe a handful. Maybe Saramago did it, though Saramago, in his realistic feeling modes, feel to me as distant as something as far into the hypermud as like late Beckett, or Byrne shouting, “I got a girlfriend that’s better than that and nothing is better than you.” Really all writing is transcription, I think: there is a logic in error reams coming off of machines that have malfunctioned and are ejecting code, as used to happen when as a child I’d try to print out banners in Print Shop emblazoned with the names of bands I like. The use of supposed nonsense, then, kind of drops the bridge between the human parser and the real, at least as much as possible over the supposedly more literal translation of the real you find in straight fiction. I feel much more connected and identified by the noise my refrigerator makes than scenes of fiction trying to attach itself to human sense. Human sense is not a portrait. The logic you are able as a machine yourself to parse out of the inexplicit in relation to your own position or life to me is more vital and gorgeous and real than someone handing me a photograph of their life on a plate and waiting around for me to eat it and shit in the color they expected. Long years.' -- Blake Butler, Redivider
The Blake Butler Rap by s.das
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Aloud
Blake Butler reads from 'There Is No Year'
Christian Peet's 'Big American Trip', read by Blake Butler
Blake Butler in 60 WRITERS / 60 PLACES, a film by Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball
Blake Butler reads from ''Where Am I Where Have I Been Where Are You'
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Be an Open Node
Blake Butler on Literary Citizenship
from Brevity's Nonfiction Blog
1) When you read something you like, in any form, write the author and tell them. You don’t have to gush or take forever. Just tell them you saw it, you read it, you liked it. It’s a supportive feeling. It’s better than not saying anything.
(2) Write reviews of books you like. Short review/long review, whatever. It’s not that hard. It takes a little work to think about it clearly, but what goes around comes around. You can’t expect to be recognized for your work if you aren’t recognizing others for their work. Open the doors.
(3) Interview writers. New writers or well known writers. You like somebody’s work a lot? Ask to do an interview with them. It doesn’t take a ton of effort. Write up some questions. Let them talk. Spread the word. Talk. Say. Get. Eat.
I have done this for years and have made friends by doing it, have ‘opened doors’ so to speak: in other words, by helping others, you are also helping yourself. If spreading others’ work isn’t enough in your mind, think of it as ‘connections.’ (I hope you don’t have to think about it in this way to justify it because that is sad, but, well, some people…) Things often can/might happen as a result of these things, on both ends, even if they are just small things, small things add up, small things can be good things, haven’t you read Carver, momentum.
Energy. Power cock.
(4) If you have free time, start an online journal. Start a blog, a review, an anything. If you don’t know how I’ll help you. Say stuff. Mean what you say.
(5) If you have a journal already, respond faster. Pay attention to your inbox. When someone asks a question that feels dumb or unnecessary maybe, answer it anyway. Don’t be a fuck. Yeah, we’re all busy. Yeah, things take time. Work to take less time. It’s okay to move forward at a wicked pace. (And yes, as an editor, I too struggle to adhere to this advice, but I struggle at least, everyone struggles, but you can always struggle more. I am so tired of seeing journals with 200+ days response time, why do you even exist? Does it really take that long to like something? People should stop sending to these places. Seriously. Just stop sending.
Yeah I know the flood comes strong. Stand in the flood. (Me too.))
Seriously, Conjunctions/Ninth Letter/Subtropics: these 3 journals get just as much work coming in as anybody, and they all respond often in less than a month.
To everyone: Push the fucking envelope even harder than you do. Be an open node.
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Resources
Blake Butler's blog G D C S + S W D P
BB interviewed @ Bookslut
Photos from BB's 'TINY' marathon reading
BB & Ken Baumann's magazine 'No Colony'
BB's posts @ HTMLGIANT
BB @ Twitter
'Blake Butler and What Happens When a Novelist Lives on the Internet'
BB's 'Insomnia Door' @ DIAGRAM
BB's 'I Do Love God' @ Guernica
BB & Michael Kimball talk acoustics
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Book
Blake Butler There Is No YearHarper Perennial
'Blake Butler's inventive third book is dedicated "For no one" and begins with an eerie prologue about the saturation of the world with a damaging light. Suitably forewarned, the reader is introduced to an unexceptional no-name family. All should be idyllic in their newly purchased home, but they are shadowed by an unwelcome "copy family." In the face of the copy mother, the mother sees her heretofore unrealized deterioration. Things only get worse as the father forgets how to get home from work; the mother starts hiding in the closet, plagued by an omnipresent egg; while the son gets a female "special friend" and receives a mysterious package containing photos of dead celebrities. The territory of domestic disillusion and postmodern dystopia is familiar from other tales, but Butler's an endlessly surprising, funny, and subversive writer. This subversion extends to the book's design: very short titled chapters with an abundance of white space. Not so much a novel as a literary tapestry, the book's eight parts are separated by blank gray pages. To Butler (Scorch Atlas), everything in the world, even the physical world, is gray and ever-changing, and potentially menacing.' -- PW
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Excerpts
from The Collagist
What the Mower Found
The mother mowed the yard again. She mowed the yard, the yard, a prayer. The mother was slick with sweat. Her skin was red in certain places from sun and where she’d scratched herself to keep the ants and bees off. The insects swarmed her head no matter how fast she moved. They had wings and teeth and eyes. They swarmed the yard, the street, the long horizon. The mother had mowed the yard twenty-seven times in the last week. Sometimes she’d go on for hours. Her biceps and pectorals were getting meaty. The grass was going dead around the edges from where the mother had pushed the mower so much. The mother kept her eyes wide and turned her head back and forth from side to side. Where was the man who’d fixed the mower? What else could he put a hand to? All those surrounding lawns on all those houses.
The father was still gone. That morning he’d left sometime just after 4 a.m. and he would probably not be home till after midnight. His face seemed to be sinking into his features. The mother tried to think of the father’s name. She could think of lots of other names it might have sounded like, but not quite the right one, she knew. She mouthed out things she’d said before—she reversed her rehearsed vows, teasing her tongue toward the father. She mowed the yard in wicked zigzags, reckless with her aim. The mower devoured her newer flowers—begonias, ivy, mums. They were dying anyway. She ripped up one long sod piece, spurting mud off on the walk. Underneath the sod, the insects hung, spaghetti. The mother kept pushing, head up, chest out, scrunching her face best into something someone watching could sometime want.
The mother did not see the son watching through the window on the second floor where there may not have been a window once before.
The mower soon grew heavy. The handle hurt her hands. The mother went on garbled grunting, as if trying to push something from her insides. Around a corner by the chain fence, she felt the mower suck something up. Metal clanged against the blades. There was a whirring, choke and smoke. It spat something out its side. The mower whirred a little longer and then got tired, then was gone. The mother squatted on her haunches in the trampled mud-mushed grass, her eyes stung with gasoline and sweat, the sky behind her slightly hulking. In the grass there, slushed with clippings, scarred, the mother saw the egg.
What the Son Did With His Information
The son was in the kitchen when the mother came back in. The mother had grass clippings all clung to her body stuck in the glisten of her sweat. She left a trail behind her on the carpet. She had it in her teeth too, where she’d licked the clippings, where several gulls had nipped her neck. She looked slightly like another person. She weighed nine pounds lighter than that morning.
The son had emptied the refrigerator. On the kitchen floor he’d spread the milk, juice, eggs, several cheeses, tortillas, bacon, cold cuts, margarine and butter, ketchup, lettuce—all the other things the mother had just bought. Everything had already either wilted or gone sour. Some had grown a slight rind of mold. The son had also cleared the freezer. He’d dumped the popsicles, waffles, yogurt, ice cream, ice in massive slushing piles. The veal cordon bleu and veggie medleys and tiny cheesecakes in countless stay-fresh packets, an off-brand box of frozen dinners bought in bulk some evening for the son at his request. The melting had made a puddle that spread across most of the kitchen floor and turned the edge of the carpet leading into the dining room several shades of color deep.
The son had taken out the plastic and glass shelving and the drawers that held the food. The fridge was now one large empty box with two tiny light bulbs gummed with glow. The son was standing in the freezer part of the refrigerator. His shoulders fit the width precisely. The back wall seemed to stretch so deep. Just as the mother came into the room, the son moved his hand and closed the door. Their eyes met briefly in transition, like electric light. A shutter shut. The room was still.
Later the mother would wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t come in at that exact moment. She would consider it a sign from god. She would seal the fridge with tape and bring another smaller fridge to sit in the parents’ bedroom so that the son would not feel the urge to repeat. She would not think about how the son could just go climb into the freezer in the garage, or in the magic trunk stored in the attic, or how everywhere there were roads and overpasses, and cars driving under, piloted by whomever.
The mother went to the freezer and pulled it open and saw the son. The son looked tired, the same way everyone else she’d seen looked tired. Everyone everywhere at every moment as tired as they could be. The mother asked the son what he was doing. Her voice came out much higher than it did most days. The son said something wadded. The son had something in his mouth. The mother asked him to repeat. It came out more off. The son was trying to talk in the same voice as the voice that had called him on his cell phone, but the mother couldn’t know that. The son had abrasions grown in beneath his hair that the mother would never find.
The mother did see, though, how the son now had long brown streaks worked under his eyes—so brown they looked like makeup. She rubbed one with her thumb and made a smudge. The son looked like a tiny warrior, or a linebacker. The son’s eyes were whirling, as had the gulls'.
Hey, the son said, staring at her. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.
The mother clasped her grass green hands.
----
*
p.s. Hey. It's cleaning/exile day at the Recollets, so ... the usual, although there's a new cleaner who's pretty fast, so it's not as bad as it used to be, and blah blah blah. ** Tender prey, Hey. Yeah, the 22nd comment happened in the split-ish second between my giving the comments a last refresh and my clicking the 'Publish Post' button, which is the eeriest way it could happened in the long run, I guess, so I declare victory for that post. ** Misanthrope, I swear to God or Whoever that your story is the first thing I'll read when I push the aforementioned 'Publish Post' button. Yesterday ended up being an out and about day, and I, well, suck, sorry. Anyway, tortoise and the hare and all that, right? ** Schlix, You were #22? Dude, I congratulate you. However, I was joking bitterly about the prize that the 22nd commenter might have won, I'm sorry. I got nothing except my loving friendship to offer. Really glad to hear you'll be back in Berlin so soon and squared away Tanja at last. Man, I know how that depression thing can be, yeah, or I know in my way/version at least. The sneakiness, the omnipresence, the weird and unpredictable tides. Maybe just the relocation to Berlin will help a lot or even break the spell entirely. I hope so. ** Chris (British), That is weird about the new gap in our time frames. But, sure, that's right, you guys are all ... settling gradually into winter, I guess, whereas as we are vaguely feeling that summer feeling up here. Tattoo sounds ever cooler. I'm going to google those Maori symbols and try to imagine them collaged onto an arm. ** David Ehrenstein, Contemporary porn is missing old porn's self-reflexivity. Porn use to have more brains or tried to mix brains and crotches. Now that's so rare. Sigh. ** Allesfliesst, Hey, man. Wow, those Jan-Holger Mauss pieces are really nice. I didn't know them. Hm. Yeah, a post, good idea. It can be, like, a p.s. or follow-up ghost post to Bernard's series finale or something. I'll do that. Thanks for the idea. Nice. Hm, okay, about that hand readers performance. Push comes to shove, it sounds kind of cool. I've mentioned here that one of my brothers is a healer/guru guy, and he reads and cures people over the phone a lot, he says. I walked in on him accidentally when he was doing a phone healing once, and he was kind of white-eyed and spasming and stuff, or as much as you can with a cell phone in your hand, so I guess he believes in it. ** Bernard Welt, I noted and admired that 'Fair Trade' thing too. I thought about commenting on its meta-ness, but I couldn't think of anything that clever to type or whatever. Additionally, there was only one image in the batch yesterday that's also in my own 70s porn collection, and that was impressive to me. Usually, I share about 70% or so percent of the posts' goodies. Ha ha, you are so not James Lipton. Wow, even thinking about James Lipton causes hilarity. I'm going to have to remember that the next time I'm moping around. I so want you to do that Albee post, I can't even tell you. Please. Please. And the Peter Brook/Beckett thing sounds amazing. You know he has this theater here, not too far from where I live actually, but he never does anything here, like ever. ** Bollo, No, getting 22 comments was like pulling teeth, ha ha. They were stalled out at 20 for what felt like months. No doubt that was all part of some mystical plan. Got to get those new Groupers. ** David, True enough, and Blogger has certainly proven itself capable of hiccuping whenever it jolly well pleases. ** Alan, Really? If I'd known about that factoid months ago, I would have used it in my novel. Stop the presses! ** Kiddiepunk, Oh, we're not going to die, you poor, easily frightened little thing. Let's have a coffee today and you can tell me all about it. ** JOHNS IN BRAZIL!, Hi, welcome, and more. You're not interrupting anything. If I'd known you were out there, I would have turned on my retractor beam. Anyway, you're just so totally kind, thank you very much. That tattoo making guy looks like he really knows his stuff. You should do it. I love that culinary post on your blog. It made me hungry, and I just ate a cheese crepe, so that's pretty good. Everyone, new guy JOHNS IN BRAZIL! has this cool blog, and currently it is forefronting a very good post about the culinary delights of Brazil with photos and descriptions and opinions. It's really nice. You'll like it, and you'll learn stuff too if you're not Brazlian. Check it out. So, good to meet you. Do hang out here and comment and stuff if you feel like it. That would be cool. Why are you in Brazil? ** Statictick, Hey, Nick. Great to see you. You were vacationing? Where? Yeah, that definitely would make for a Day here, for sure. I encourage you to bloggerize that stuff here. I would be most grateful, pal. ** Pisycaca, Hey, Montse! I've missed you, my buddy! Well, yeah, there's this Utrecht thing I need to do, but I'll be back in the early afternoon on Sunday the 24th, so, if you can and want to, I would really love to see you that day before you leave. Is that possible? If so, let's make a plan. Just so you know, the last of the three 'TIHYWD' shows is on Friday not Saturday. Anyway, I really, really want to see you guys, so I really, really hope you'll have time that day. Let me know. Excellent about seeing Deerhunter. Wow, are they playing here? I'd better go check the listings right away. I haven't heard anything. I can't miss them again. Tons of love to you. ** Thomas Moronic, So, what did you end up doing on your birthday exactly? I always think low key is the way to go on birthdays. ** Steevee, Hey. No, I haven't seen 'La France'. It's kind of legendary to me, though. I did see 'Mods'. It was really, really interesting. That Bob Seger's work ever had balls is big news to me. Now that you mention it, I do remember that he had early albums before he took off or whatever. And I vaguely remember that critics were kind of positive about them. I don't think it's stalkerish or will seem stalkerish at all if you approach that actor. Not at all. ** Math, Hey, M. I'm really glad things are good with you, and I hope whatever life stuff gets sorted out. Love and luck if you need the latter. ** Casey McKinney, Hey, Casey. Dude, very proud if this place helped grease that wheel. I just linked over and read the first page of Jim's piece, and it's great! Let me ... Everyone, depending on how closely you read the p.s., you might remember that the honorable Casey McKinney asked for someone within the sight of this blog to review DFW's 'The Pale King' for Fanzine, and that the honorable James Greer heeded the call, and now that review is finished and up for all to read on Fanzine, and I've started reading it, and it's a great piece, so you should go read it. You really should. And here is where. I think it's okay to address James as Jim as long as you're discrete about it. Just don't call him Jamey. Holy shit, don't even think about it. Anyway, all thanks that don't go to James go to Fanzine and that means you, buddy. Details on your Europe trip when it's time, yes, please. ** Sypha, Someone once explained to me the whole thing with the title 'Dahlgren' and why it's called that, and it was a very interesting explanation, but, sadly, I can not recall a thing about it. ** Chris Cochrane, Excellent news! On the Kickstarter thing. I'll do my Facebooking part, you bet. Yeah, I will see you in a week. Trippy. ** Andrew, Me neither. When I read or hear the word numbers, my first two associations are with the old 60s code word for marijuana cigarettes and a hustler bar in LA that has that name. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, That's interesting that your uncle wore grease monkey clothes at one time. Maybe my psychic powers were kind of half-working. Startling, indeed! About angry giraffes. No, Chris isn't really in the novel anymore. He was in a bunch of early try-outs. And if my first blog weren't a decimated ghost town, you could go look at the very beginning of my life as a blog maker in, uh, 2004, I think, and see that the, like, fifth or sixth post was a scrapbook thing about the Chris/cannibal novel I was starting to write. He almost kind of made it into the novel. There's one character who started out as Russian porn star, but then he turned into a French ballet dancer, but almost all of his scenes got cut. I've started looking at the Paris Review thing. It needs so much editing that it's making me feel really daunted, so I'm going to need to force myself to really work on it. It does seem like all cats are strange. Like pretending to be nice and caring in order to get food stresses them out so much that they end up freaking out sometimes. I'm sure that's not true, though. About their pretending. Cats are strange. Do you know that I have never ever seen even a tiny fraction of 'Facts of Life'? Not even a promo ad for it or anything. Talk about strange. That scene about you and your friend and talking and not talking was so beautifully written. I doff my hat to you. My favorite Russ Meyer movie? Hm. I think it would be a tie between 'Mudhoney' and 'Common Law Cabin', if I had to choose. My my favorite of all is the first fifteen or so minutes of 'Faster Pussycat'. What's your fave? Lady Gaga fell down? I can't believe I didn't see some news story about that. All I saw was endless news about Kirstie Alley's shoe falling off or something. I don't think I can watch that 'Melancholia' trailer 'cos it'll put me in a bad mood. No, no, your writing has been really wonderful lately. Seriously. You don't know your own literary strengths right now is all, I think. My day: First, writing and blog. Then I met up with Gisele and Jonathan at Point Ephemere to rehearse the English version of 'Last Spring, a Prequel'. Jonathan's allergies are really acting up, and he looked and acted and felt half-asleep the whole time due to some allergy medication he was taking, so, even though it went kind of okay for a while, we had to stop early because he kept staring off into space, so now we have to rehearse again next week. I came back here and did that phone interview I think I mentioned yesterday about 'Horror Hospital Unplugged'. It was for Fader Magazine, and the guy who interviewed me was really cool, and it was actually a really nice, pleasurable conversation, so that was a boon. I got two books unsolicited in the mail: (1) the galley of Neil Strauss' 'Everyone Loves You When You're Dead', which I started flipping through, and it's really fun and addictive. (2) Scott McClanahan's new book 'Stories V!'. I haven't started reading it yet, but I love his work, so I'm thinking it's going to be pretty great. I found out that they're going to announce the line up for the Cannes Film Festival tomorrow, and they're going to show the announcement live on TV here, so I got excited and looked at a bunch of websites that are predicting what will get picked, and they all think 'Tree of Life' is in, and I sure hope so. And it looks like the new Bruno Dumont and Christophe Honore films are likely too, and that would be cool. I ate stuff. I was thinking of going to see a music show, but then I lost my desire to make that trek, so I stayed home and watched this TV show about French kids with weird neurotic tics and weird behavioral patterns, and that was interesting and kind of sad. And I think I just got sleepier until the predictable bed + me event happened. That was my day. Naturally, I'm looking forward to sharing in your Wednesday. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, You don't have a neck? I guess I have one. I don't think it's very impressive though. Necks are one of my favorite body parts on other people. I think I write about necks in my novels a fair amount, I can't remember. I sleep face down too, but I fold both arms beneath the pillow. Or sort of at the top of the pillow so my head doesn't weigh them down enough to make them get numb. Oh, I remember 'Discipline'. Okay, I'll try that one first. I don't remember what it sounds like much at all. Thanks! ** Alter Clef Records, Hi, Nick. Oh, man, I'm so sorry about the breakup. That's hard, man, no matter what. Oh, I'm sorry, man. Hugs across the channel. Yeah, maybe Paris would help. It's been known to do that. I'll be here, let's see, well, I'm not exactly sure yet about May because I'm planning to make an LA trip then. But I'll be here from late May onwards for almost sure. I think I'm going to London for a tiny bit in earlyish June. Other than that, I should be here until the big wedding in late July. Okay, cool, yeah, I'll do everything I can to write that thing. It should be okay, but I'm just nervous because the maze piece text is really big and daunting. New tracks, great! Everyone, the ultra-fine songwriter and recording artist Nick Hudson aka d.l. Alter Clef Records has some new and no doubt amazing tracks up at Soundcloud that you can and really should listen to and so easily by just clicking this. Lots of love to you, Nick, and talk soon, I hope. ** Syreearmwellion, Hey. No, I don't think I saw that documentary. I sure would love to, though. I'll go see if it or parts of it are on youtube or vimeo first, I guess. Sounds great. Thanks a lot, man. ** Okay. Let's see ... oh, Blake Butler's new novel. It's really great, and hence the spotlight. Very highly recommended to you. Check out its surroundings and excerpt and so on today and see what you think. See you tomorrow.
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