____________
'Sometimes (okay, all the time) when I am doing my laundry, I will be carrying this pillowcase full of laundry down the street, and I know people will look at me because it’s weird-looking, and so I will be singing, not very loud, but loud enough that if they were to want to hear me they could. I think this is my way of coping with death, maybe. But I also think that if it were just me alone in my bomb shelter with my cheese and peanut butter Ritz and filtered water then I would still maybe write to do something with the language that is constantly crowding my head. i think there is a great loneliness that comes from believing any utterance will save you from loneliness and it’s all sort of inescapable if that’s the brand of loneliness you’re riding on.' -- Mike Young
'Even when I am reading the stories in Look! Look! Feathers, I notice stuff that I want to tinker with, that I want to angle a little. I think our sense of rhythm and our ears wobble a little depending on the day, so nothing is ever going to sound wholly on. But I also think of something I read somewhere once about writing a novel, which is that writing a novel is like trying to eat one of those rotisserie chickens you buy from the supermarket. You can pick and fuss but you can never really eat all there is to be eaten. Eventually you have to just give up. I think there are a lot of funny problems with that analogy, like the idea of waste/conservation, and the whole eating a chicken thing, but I think it’s fun to think about because it’s kind of such a gross and violent analogy.' -- Mike Young
Mike Young Look! Look! FeathersWord Riot
'A tuba player surfs the web from a cyst on his hand. A town of spilled peaches fields its own game show. A mosquito fogger makes an unlikely friend. The stories in Mike Young’s debut collection Look! Look! Feathers tap into the surreal and sad, the absurd and ragged dreams scratching at the edge of the American heart. Punks drive auctioned police cars, and necklaces of bluebird bones are sold from a roadside van. In these tales of the Pacific Northwest, Young finds magic burrowed under the moss of ordinary life.' -- Word Riot
Excerpt
What the Fuck is an Electrolyte?
Mastodon in a tar pit. Monster truck with a black eye. Nothing Monty could think of got close to how loud he wanted his band. He kept thinking of amps loud enough to rattle sediment. Nu metal that doubled as hydraulic strip mining. Which was funny, that idea, because he’d never even liked nu metal until his brother Tucker hydroplaned on I-80. Black ice and snow had ruined the road, and Tucker slid while barreling west from Reno, a sloppy winner, his car a mess of wine coolers and new fifties. After he lived, people spoke of his luck with their eyebrows aloft, and this pissed Monty off because people—who were people?
Tucker’s money went to recovery, weeks of drawn shades and soup, as Monty sat Indian-style and played him folk songs. But Tucker banged the nightstand and moaned. Too loud, Monty was too loud. Everything was too loud: commercials, garbage trucks, even rain. One night, a storm clocked an electric pole, and Monty awoke to see a PG&E man in a cherry picker right outside his window. Monty was seventeen. His grades were shit. His father managed a gym and skimmed cash, and his mother guzzled cough syrup until her face drooped. The PG&E man had enormous orange headphones, and he was so close that Monty could make out a Christian fish tattoo on his bicep.
He got up and went into Tucker’s room, found Tucker humming rocketship noises. "Dude," Monty said. Tucker kept humming. Monty walked over and punched Tucker’s arm. Tucker looked up. He smiled and pointed to his ears. "Tuck," Monty shouted. But Tucker shrugged and fanned his ears, still smiling. With a pen off the nightstand he wrote on his hand: CANT HEAR SHIT!! BOOYAH
***
When Tucker went deaf, Monty dumped the acoustic. He bought a Gibson SG, black, and started clipping his toenails in the garage. Friends came over late, slouched through the house, polite to Monty’s mom on the sofa—thanks, no to rooting for white people on reality shows—and polite to Monty’s dad with his cast-iron pan—thanks, no to fried bologna, fried zucchini. They slunk into the garage, bumped fists with Monty, got high, and traded power chords. It wasn’t anything special until Monty got a blowjob from Brooklyn Antoinette Menendez in his dad’s Aerostar. Then Brooklyn’s sort-of boyfriend Roland broke into Monty’s house with a portable drill, stoned and blubbering, and began to stomp and unspool the VHS workout tapes all over the carpet. Monty’s dad found him in the dark and kicked his ass, using a coffeepot until the coffeepot broke. To apologize, Monty suggested to Roland that they start a band.
"My fingers are too fat," Roland said.
"Play bass," Monty said. They were drinking Kool-Aid and vodka. Monty kept the garage lit with a flood lamp he’d stolen from the school theatre. Cinnamon incense killed the pot smell. "Bass is cake. A fucking yeti could play bass."
"Is that it?" Roland said. He poured out his Kool-Aid. "Yeti," he whispered. Then he began to cry, cried for a while into his sleeve, hiccups and snot. From the kitchen, Monty could hear the can opener and his parents laughing, drunker than he was. Tucker, he knew, was upstairs playing text-based online role-playing games, growing the rattiest beard Monty had ever seen in living color. All night Tucker clacked away, pausing only to let the modem screech whenever their shitty dial-up booted him. Tucker didn’t work, but all he ate was candy. So whatever. When Roland stopped crying, Monty turned on his amp. "Grow a pair," he said.
Two chords and one solo later, they had a song. Monty let Roland do vocals. "Scream until you throw up," he told him. "Except don’t throw up."
(continued)
Mike Young reads @ the Brookline Booksmith
Mike Young -- Tom Waits story & Tom Waits song
Reading From 'We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough' by Mike Young
----'A tuba player surfs the web from a cyst on his hand. A town of spilled peaches fields its own game show. A mosquito fogger makes an unlikely friend. The stories in Mike Young’s debut collection Look! Look! Feathers tap into the surreal and sad, the absurd and ragged dreams scratching at the edge of the American heart. Punks drive auctioned police cars, and necklaces of bluebird bones are sold from a roadside van. In these tales of the Pacific Northwest, Young finds magic burrowed under the moss of ordinary life.' -- Word Riot
Excerpt
What the Fuck is an Electrolyte?
Mastodon in a tar pit. Monster truck with a black eye. Nothing Monty could think of got close to how loud he wanted his band. He kept thinking of amps loud enough to rattle sediment. Nu metal that doubled as hydraulic strip mining. Which was funny, that idea, because he’d never even liked nu metal until his brother Tucker hydroplaned on I-80. Black ice and snow had ruined the road, and Tucker slid while barreling west from Reno, a sloppy winner, his car a mess of wine coolers and new fifties. After he lived, people spoke of his luck with their eyebrows aloft, and this pissed Monty off because people—who were people?
Tucker’s money went to recovery, weeks of drawn shades and soup, as Monty sat Indian-style and played him folk songs. But Tucker banged the nightstand and moaned. Too loud, Monty was too loud. Everything was too loud: commercials, garbage trucks, even rain. One night, a storm clocked an electric pole, and Monty awoke to see a PG&E man in a cherry picker right outside his window. Monty was seventeen. His grades were shit. His father managed a gym and skimmed cash, and his mother guzzled cough syrup until her face drooped. The PG&E man had enormous orange headphones, and he was so close that Monty could make out a Christian fish tattoo on his bicep.
He got up and went into Tucker’s room, found Tucker humming rocketship noises. "Dude," Monty said. Tucker kept humming. Monty walked over and punched Tucker’s arm. Tucker looked up. He smiled and pointed to his ears. "Tuck," Monty shouted. But Tucker shrugged and fanned his ears, still smiling. With a pen off the nightstand he wrote on his hand: CANT HEAR SHIT!! BOOYAH
***
When Tucker went deaf, Monty dumped the acoustic. He bought a Gibson SG, black, and started clipping his toenails in the garage. Friends came over late, slouched through the house, polite to Monty’s mom on the sofa—thanks, no to rooting for white people on reality shows—and polite to Monty’s dad with his cast-iron pan—thanks, no to fried bologna, fried zucchini. They slunk into the garage, bumped fists with Monty, got high, and traded power chords. It wasn’t anything special until Monty got a blowjob from Brooklyn Antoinette Menendez in his dad’s Aerostar. Then Brooklyn’s sort-of boyfriend Roland broke into Monty’s house with a portable drill, stoned and blubbering, and began to stomp and unspool the VHS workout tapes all over the carpet. Monty’s dad found him in the dark and kicked his ass, using a coffeepot until the coffeepot broke. To apologize, Monty suggested to Roland that they start a band.
"My fingers are too fat," Roland said.
"Play bass," Monty said. They were drinking Kool-Aid and vodka. Monty kept the garage lit with a flood lamp he’d stolen from the school theatre. Cinnamon incense killed the pot smell. "Bass is cake. A fucking yeti could play bass."
"Is that it?" Roland said. He poured out his Kool-Aid. "Yeti," he whispered. Then he began to cry, cried for a while into his sleeve, hiccups and snot. From the kitchen, Monty could hear the can opener and his parents laughing, drunker than he was. Tucker, he knew, was upstairs playing text-based online role-playing games, growing the rattiest beard Monty had ever seen in living color. All night Tucker clacked away, pausing only to let the modem screech whenever their shitty dial-up booted him. Tucker didn’t work, but all he ate was candy. So whatever. When Roland stopped crying, Monty turned on his amp. "Grow a pair," he said.
Two chords and one solo later, they had a song. Monty let Roland do vocals. "Scream until you throw up," he told him. "Except don’t throw up."
(continued)
Mike Young reads @ the Brookline Booksmith
Mike Young -- Tom Waits story & Tom Waits song
Reading From 'We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough' by Mike Young
______________
'Reading is, plain and simply, the backbone (or psychobiomaterial, to not be so chordatathropic) of a fully-developed free civilization. Remember that under the three-estate system of European feudalism there was the royal estate (literate), the clerical estate (literate), and everybody else (the illiterate)? People like Joseph Stalin (despite the later Soviet Union's push for a 100% literacy rate) relied on illiteracy to kill 30 million Ukranians, and Mao Tse Tung relied on the ignorance of the peasant class during the Cultural Revolution, during which approximately 40 million died. For all we know Kim Jong Il uses illiteracy now to subjugate North Koreans. But we don't know because there's no fucking writing coming out of there. Here, in the United States of America, we have a program called No Child Left Behind. That program -- along with a general demise of readers and an influx of competing 'entertainments' (television, film, video games) in recent decades--encourages a reliance upon one-stop-shop education. Information, like, for example, what's found on websites, is encouraged. Not literacy or critical thinking. Anyone can tell you that the sky is blue, but only someone who has thought about what they've read, and read some more, can talk about the oxygen, nitrogen, and trace elements that scatter light to reflect the color blue. Shit, only someone who's literate can tell you that there's no such thing as color, only light spectra. There isn't even journalism anymore. Everyone's a pundit, whatever the fuck that means these days. As far as I can tell, all it seems to mean is that they have a pretty angry opinion about assholes like Lyndsey Lohan. So, as the whole shithole comes to a collapsing bang, don't think to thank the writers you're not reading. Not that I'm worried about you 'thinking' or 'reading'. And by 'reading' I don't mean Stephanie fucking Meyer, Charlaine fucking Harris, or -- jumping Jesus -- Stephen fucking King.' -- Jamie Iredell, from The Laughing Yeti
Jamie Iredell The Book of FreaksFuture Tense Books
'The Book of Freaks is an encyclopedia of the quotidian, but Iredell takes the most mundane pieces of our everyday embarrassing and humiliating existence and gives them a safe place to breathe and to be reflected upon. Often laugh-out-loud funny but just as often poignant and sometimes both at once, Iredell has produced an absolute masterpiece of the absurd and surreal – a faux-encyclopedia that contains pieces of everything and everyone you have ever encountered in your life. And it’s one of the most entertaining and exciting and surprising and strange and wonderful and downright funny books I’ve ever read. Ever.
'Iredell’s style really catapults this book into “instant classic” territory for the lover of satire. It deserves comparison against the great books of satire like Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas (the publisher’s own astute comparison) or Voltaire’s Candide or Heller’s Catch 22, but it’s also got the silliness of classics like Airplane! combined with the sober absurdity of Dr. Strangelove and the starkness of Gummo but in encyclopedic form. Iredell never resorts to simplistic mocking, nor does Iredell ever catalog or dissect an easy target.' -- Smalldoggies
Excerpt
from Hobart
Russians
In Russia there are so many Russians! It’s like one of those neighborhoods where a bunch of Russians live, but way bigger. This place is big. It’s like they took a country the size of Russia and filled it with Russians. One cannot slip through Mayakovskaya Station without listening in on a spit forth “Neeyet!” or “Spiceeeba!” which are the Russians’ favorite words. These mean, respectively, I will not smile for your photograph, and our cuisine is not very spicy. Every Russian has a little piece of the world’s largest country, and that piece is among the world’s smallest apartments, except for the Japanese (see “Japanese, The”). Should you—god forbid—go whistling Dixie in one of these microscopic rooms, every microscopic ruble and microscopic kopek sprouts microscopic wings and flaps away in a dizzying scatter of impoverished fractals. Every Russian also has a bear pedaling a too-small bicycle around their living room, a bear wielding a hockey stick. While the bicycle is fitting for this room’s size, the bear is not. How this was accomplished is yet to be determined. All that’s known is that for more than sixty years Russia has been an international leader in science and technology. In Russia there are no cold drinks in one of Earth’s coldest countries. Want ice water? That’ll be room temperature. Meantime ice floats down the Arbot, down Nevsky Prospekt, down all the streets, which are themselves rivers of ice. Want a cold beer? Room temperature beer is ubiquitous in Russia. In fact, all of the liquid in Russia is beer. Or tea. Even the Russian’s blood—composed of beer and tea—is room temperature: thirty-seven degrees Celsius. And good God, when you enter these rooms, stripping off your boots and fifty-two layers, the Russians start toasting you. They toast your health, your visit, your friends, your family, your pets. They toast toasting. Then they’ll kiss your sweaty cheeks, and you’ll learn the Cyrillic alphabet.
Trailer: 'The Book of Freaks'
Jamie Iredell 'The Bear in the Neighbor's Kitchen'
Jamie Iredell & Wilt Chamberlain
____________
'I guess one of my earliest memories is of humiliation. I was about four and we lived next to the welfare apartments. This kid who was six just came up to me and started kicking my ass. He busted my nose. He busted my lip. I remember thinking, “Why is this kid punching me in the face?” I think I even asked, “Why are you punching me in the face? Let’s be friends.” He just did it because his brother told him to. We even became buddies later on.
'I come from a place where I’ve watched my father humiliated. See how you feel when you see your father on strike in the middle of a rainstorm. See him come home covered in snow. And I’m talking about one of the most physically powerful men I’ve ever come across. Watch that man’s face as he wonders whether or not he’s going to have a job. My mother’s been on strike too. Same thing.
'I also come from a place where all you have to do is turn on your television and you’ll see reruns of shows that believe in our humiliation—that America actually laughed along with. You are a hick. You are a hillbilly. You are a redneck. You’re nothing but shit. I’m not saying I don’t love the stereotype because the stereotype is beautiful in a way, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to steal a people’s natural resources if you can make the people feel like shit about who they are. That’s our problem. It’s not an economic problem. It’s a self-esteem problem.
'God bless people who donate and care about people in other countries, but it bothers me too. I want to say come to this place and I’ll show you some shit. I’ll show you the forgotten, bastard children of our culture. It’s right in the middle of your own country.' -- Scott McClanahan, from an interview with Noah Cicero
Scott McClanahan STORIES V!Holler Presents
'Scott McClanahan’s Stories V! is a collection of stories portraying life in Rainelle, West Virginia. According to Wikipedia about 1,500 to 2,000 people live in Rainelle. It is a small town. But what a small town is is relative. 2,000 people living in a town a 1,000 years ago would have been a huge town. McClanahan takes the view that this town is huge. That it is full of life and is even epic. That every life lived there is important and vital, and should be discussed. It is easy to forget, in these times of globalism and world trade and having the ability to watch revolutions 10,000 miles away unfold on television, that the world is still made up predominately of little towns with normal people living their little lives. But no one’s life is little to themselves, and no one’s life is little to the people that surround them. ' -- Noah Cicero
Excerpt
Jenny Sugar
----I was in the fourth grade when this little girl in my class got killed.
----I showed up at school one Monday morning and Randy Doogan was telling me all about it, “Hey Scott did you hear about Jenny Sugar? She got killed in a car crash yesterday. Yeah a tractor trailer hit her Mom’s car and they’re both dead.”
----Of course, I didn’t believe him at first because Randy Doogan was always making stuff up like this. He was always going on about how his Dad lived in England, even though this was just something his Mother told him because his Dad left them and never came back.
----But he just kept going on about it. “Yeah my Mom saw it on the news last night and she’s dead.”
----Then he giggled and moved on to the next kids sitting at the cafeteria tables, “Hey guys did you hear about Jenny Sugar and her mom? They got killed yesterday?”
----I stood and giggled too not really knowing what was going on and wondering if it was true or not.
But it was true all right. We found out just a couple minutes later from our fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Morgan. She stood in front of our class and told us that Jenny and her Mother had been visiting Jenny’s grandma in Virginia. On the way back home Jenny’s Mom was driving behind this tractor trailer. Jenny’s Mom was passing it on the right hand side of the road, but as she was passing it the truck pulled over and the car crashed beneath the truck. The poor driver kept driving because he didn’t know what happened.
----The tractor trailer driver drove for another five minutes before he finally realized he was dragging a car beneath him.
So after telling us this, Mrs. Morgan sat down at her desk and put her head in her hands. We were supposed to be working on our spelling words like ‘F-R-I-E-N-D-S’ and ‘M-O-T-H-E-R’ but everybody just stopped and watched her. She sat for a second and then she started to cry. It wasn’t your typical sad cry now, but it was a cry that sounded different.
----It was a cry a woman would cry if she wasn’t our teacher Mrs. Morgan anymore, but a 35-year-old woman named Elaine.
----I put my pencil down and listened to her cry and thought, “Yes. Hallelujah! We’re not gonna have to do any work today!”
----Then another girl named Ammie started crying too.
----So Mrs. Morgan walked over and asked her if she needed to go to the bathroom.
----Ammie nodded her head yeah.
----Mrs. Morgan touched Ammie’s shoulder and asked Nicole to go to the bathroom with her.
----I leaned over and told my friend Mike, “What’s up with that? She didn’t even know her that well.”
----But inside my head I was just jealous because I wished I could be free too.
(continued)
Trailer #1: 'Stories V'
Trailer #2: 'Stories V'
Scott McClanahan reads in Ann Arbor
----
*
p.s. Hey. ** Cap'm, A very good Monday morning to you, sir. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you again so much for the great blog weekend. Of course I was thrilled by 'Tree of Life' winning the Palme de Or. I sort of figured it would. I don't see how they could have justified denying it the win. When Malick didn't win the director award, it seemed like a shoo-in. Yeah, hooray! ** Tosh, Hi, Tosh. Thanks much! ** Sypha, I'm usually okay with heights when there are really strong and clearly defined guard rails and I only look down for a second or two. Yes, I got the email, and the you-know-what inside it is superb, and I can go ahead and tell you that it'll be launched here on Saturday, June 4th. Thank you so much, James! ** Alfonso, Hey there! Really nice to see you! Obviously, I'm really glad to hear that Ricci/Forte workshop went so well. 'Macadamia ...' is going to be in Paris? Fantastic! Yes, if you don't mind, please let me know where and when that's happening 'cos I'm very interested and excited to see it, obviously, and hopefully meet those guys. Yeah, wonderful that you're feeling the possibility of love happen. Happening as it is after a long cold spell and period of disbelief/resistance, it must mean something important however it develops. Great, and let me know how that goes for you, if you feel like it 'cos I'm interested. I'm doing okay, thanks. Busy with work and projects, but that's a good thing. I'd love to get back to Milan. I read there twice, the last time being a few years ago. If 'The Marbled Swarm' gets an Italian publisher, there's a good chance I will. Or if one of the theater pieces with Gisele plays there. I'd love to meet you too. Hopefully we can figure out a way to do that. ** JoeM, Hey. Great thoughts and words on Cammell. A pleasure. I love infinite space from the earth, but I think the most terrifying image in the world to me is a 'space walk'. ** Empty Frame, Hey. Yeah, when I was in the ST fold, those were happy days. I wish they hadn't abandoned my group of writers, but what can you do? Hope your weekend went excellently. How was it? Mine wasn't too bad. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Oh, no problem on the balance tilting towards the real world. If it's been good, all is good. You'll be back in time for the Five Years show? Great! Yeah, I'll be there for a few days to get it set up and greet the well wishers and all that. Really awesome that I'll get to see you. ** Allesfliesst, No, that wasn't Hamburg's mysterious draw. I'm much less generally horny than you would think. Maybe it's just the name Hamburg. That word seems really weighty for some reason. The vowel combination or something. Lovelier than Berlin? That's interesting. I think it's a much shorter train ride away than Berlin, so maybe I'll parse out some vacation time there or something. Are you still there? ** L@rstonovich, Hey, pal. Ah, the Stammster is making a triumphant ex-home visit? Or did? I guess you've already hung out with him by now. So, what did you guys get up to? ** Bernard Welt, Morning. ** Steevee, Hey. I couldn't tell if you ended up solving that particular problem or not, but in case you haven't, I'll forefront your question. Everyone, d.l. Steevee needs some advice/help, so please read the following and respond if you're in a position to do so. Thanks! Steevee: 'I've been having a problem with iTunes lately. When I download music from the Internet and try burning it onto a CD, it usually rearranges the song order. Often, it simply alphabetizes the songs. Yesterday, I downloaded Katy B's 12-song ON A MISSION, and it alphabetized the first four songs, then it alphabetized the remaining eight. This seems to be a common problem, as I discovered when I looked it up at the Apple discussion forum, but the solutions offered there didn't work for me. Has anyone here experienced this? Any ideas on how to solve it? I'm using iTunes 9.1 (79), if that helps. If you don't want to clutter up the group with this issue, you can E-mail me privately at steevee@earthlink.net if you have any suggestions.' ** Cesar Andres, Hey, man! Yeah, when you referenced that the other day, I hadn't followed the news and didn't know what you meant, but now, of course, I do, and it's really exciting to see, obviously. Yeah, let me know what happens, if you don't mind, because the news I've read on that has been pretty generalized so far. Cool! ** Andrew, Well, people aren't very understandable, especially in the US and especially now. You know I'm an anarchist, and I find people become less confusing when you see them as distinct individuals and try not to read them as herds. I don't think there's anything stupid about saying no to the atheist question. Absolute certainty is the only thing that's stupid. I vaguely remember the Yogi Bear reboot but I never watched it. The only great cartoon reboot that I can think of is Ralph Bakshi's brilliant redo of 'Mighty Mouse' back in the 80s. ** Chris Cochrane, Hey. I have some good news, but I'll pass to you by email. I worry a bit about Huntsman. He seems like he might scarily viable. I know the name Ellen Fullman, but not the actual work, I don't think. Sounds very interesting. I look for traces. Got your phone number, cool. I think Friday or Monday should work for me, yeah. Well, let me check my scribbled notes to be sure, but I think either should be a go. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey! Most people, even wise ones, love San Francisco. I must have suffered some forgotten SF-based trauma as a child or something. PinkPlus, yikes, that's quite a name for it. No, my Facebook friends keep wavering between 4999 and 5004. Every time I'm on FB, the number is different but always in that range. I'm not sure why or even how that could happen. The book was published by Ken Baumann's press. It's by Mark Leidner, and it's really small and skinny and pretty and very, very good. I'll do a 'books I loved' post including it soon. I think France does have shows like 'True Blood' and 'Mad Men', but I think they're on the channel Canal Plus, which is the top dog French TV channel, and which you have to pay for, and I don't. So I get the free dubbed American TV, meaning 'Bones', 'My Own Worst Enemy', various CSi offshoots, and that level of show. That sick, coughing hair stylist scared me. Hold on, I'm going to consult with Yury who's about to head off to work. Okay, he says hair stylists in France cut hair while they're visibly sick too. I thought he would say the French are too dignified or something to do that, but then the French are famous for pissing on the street, so obviously my Francophilia was deceiving me. It does sound like your grandparents were just not home, yeah. Your friend's bedsheet scared me too, but I must be in an easily scared mood this morning or something. I didn't know 'Chloe' until I watched that clip, and now I kind of get it. That song was nice, yeah. What was up with your mouth? Allergies? Yikes, I hope you've waken up with a balanced out face. My weekend: First I guess I kind of vaguely checked the news and waited until the apocalypse definitely wasn't happening for fun. Then I think I did some work. I usually do. I had to buy food before the Sunday supermarket black out, so I did that at the end of a nice, longish walk 'cos it was warm out and the light was the kind that makes the facades of even average buildings look sculptural. There were big posters everywhere for 'The Beaver' which is called something like 'Le Complexe de Harold' over here. I think that great, new little Mexican food take out place El Nopal that I mentioned here a while back might have gone out of business because Saturday was the fifth time I walked by it at a normal working hours and found it shuttered. That would be sad and surprising. Gisele and I have a meeting this afternoon at the Pompidou about that festival we're going to co-curate there, so I spent some time thinking up possible events to propose to them. And whatever else. Yesterday, I mostly worked on this interview that Christopher Higgs is doing with me and a bunch of other writers over on HTMLGIANT about experimental writing. The questions are/were interesting but kind of difficult too, so answering them is taking me longer than I thought it would. I think I'll be finished with them today. I had a coffee with K&O at the Recollets cafe. At 7 pm, I turned on the live TV coverage of the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival and watched that while really hoping 'Tree of Life' would win the big prize, and it did! The ceremony was entertaining enough. The only kind of weird thing was the director of this film called 'Poliss' that won the Jury Prize kept panting loudly in this totally fake emotional, exaggerated way through her very long acceptance speech, and it was really annoying. I wasn't surprised by Kirsten Dunst winning best actress for the Lars von Trier film, but I guess some people were. Anyway, I watched that and the interviews with the winners and all that. Then I worked on that interview a little more, and then I watched a documentary on Arte about the novelist Max Frisch who I like quite a bit. It was good. I guess I ate and smoked and stuff. Oh, and I finally did my laundry. Yeah, I felt like the weekend was going to seem more interesting than I made it sound. Dang. Oh, well. Tell me about Monday, if you would be so kind. ** Misanthrope, I guess I'm glad Little Show was saddened by Macho Man's death although that's a weird thing to be glad about and probably speaks to some sort of evil lurking in my soul or something. That comment was perfectly fine, man. If you can bring those comment-making skills to your proofreading, you'll be a rich man, although perhaps not literally. ** Killer Luka, Hi, KL. I've heard of Nicholas Cook, yes. Tall fellow. And wounded him you have and with such characteristic finesse and soul divining. Just beautiful, pal. Now let me alert the others. Everyone, you know Killer Luka and how the implements of art making become magic wands when in her mits. And even though he's made himself scarce around here recently, I think you might also know Nicholas Cook aka d.l. Nb. Well, KL and Nb got together under KL's control, and here are the results, which you really must see for yourselves. There's this, which seems harmless if exquisite enough, but then there's this, wherein exquisiteness reigns but all other bets are off, and then there's this, wherein the worlds converge. Feast! ** Okay, today you get three recent books I loved, and I think if you pursue them, you will decide my love is warranted, and your own love may well join in. Enjoy. See you tomorrow.
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