That’s because it isThat’s because it is
“You take a thing like love, and put it in a woman’s mouth, nine times out of ten, it comes out sounding like a threat.” — Sam Michel, Strange Cowboy
Certain cheeses come to mindCertain cheeses come to mind
“Beats me why so many of the finest things in life have got to stink so bad.” — Sam Michel, Strange Cowboy
The fat of the landThe fat of the land
“The most important predictor of obesity remains income level. Fast-food companies are dropping obscene amounts on advertising in low-income communities of color, and are targeting children. African-American kids see at least 50 percent more fast-food ads than do white children their age. A full 25 percent of all Spanish-language fast-food advertising in the U.S. is from McDonalds, and the average Latino will see about 290 McDonalds ads a year. In 2006, 9 percent of Upper East Side residents were obese, compared with 21 percent and 30 percent in East and Central Harlem and North and Central Brooklyn, two of the poorest stretches of New York City. Only 5 percent of Upper East Side residents had diabetes, compared to 10 percent and 15 percent in Harlem and Brooklyn. In these neighborhoods, between 1985 and 2000, the cost of fruits and vegetables increased by 40 percent while the price of junk food and soft drinks decreased by 15 percent and 25 percent respectively.” – Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, “Seeing Red”
Yes, no, and maybeYes, no, and maybe
“Judaism is not a dogmatic religion but one which loves debate, in which scholarship has played a big part. Scholars never agree about anything. The rabbis were interested in finding solutions to contradictions, and when three Jews meet they will have three answers to every question.” — Theodore Zeldin (interviewed in The Jewish Chronicle)
What’s the problem?What’s the problem?
“Capitalism is itself a kind of social technology, one capable of organizing and managing a massive and complex division of labor without concentrating power over the system at any one point. But it is a technology that is much better suited to some tasks than others. When maximizing the output of commodities with the least input of human labor is posed as society’s main problem, capitalism’s defenders can point to it as an historically unsurpassed technology for this purpose.
“If, however, the main problem is to maintain the ability of the Earth to support an advanced civilization, and to ensure that the bounty of that civilization is shared out equitably, then the situation looks quite different. Since the system responds only to price signals, internalizing the externalities of ecological degradation entails an unceasing campaign of enclosures and commodification, in which every aspect of the natural world must be parceled up into pieces of private property, from carbon credits to fishing rights. And this same reliance on prices ensures that legitimacy of a person’s desires will always be equated with the money at their disposal, and the machine will reproduce a world that caters to the whims of rich countries and rich people. This is ever more of a problem when wage work is still the normal way of making a living, and yet less and less labor is actually required in production.” – Peter Frase, “Sowing Scarcity”
The answer to the unasked questionThe answer to the unasked question
“A sensible old man is wise to hold on to a sensible old wife. The younger woman does not know that drama is wasted on an old man with cold mad eyes.” – Christine Schutt, Prosperous Friends
You can try this at homeYou can try this at home
“There may be cures to loneliness but marriage is not one of them.” – Christine Schutt, Prosperous Friends
Double shift on the binder lineDouble shift on the binder line
“Most people who think they are practicing law are actually making binders, and my guess is that most people who think they are doing whatever important thing they are doing are making binders. The binders from law firms go to a locker in a warehouse in a parking lot in an office park off an exit of a turnpike off a highway off an interstate in New Jersey, never to be looked at again. No one ever read them in the first place. But some client was billed for the hourly work.” — Elizabeth Wurzel, from The Cut
You figure out what’s importantYou figure out what’s important
“As you get older, you start to realize that what actually holds relationships together is just liking the other person in the relationship, wanting them to be around, feeling like they increase the value of your time and that you, despite your evil cursed nature, can do the same for them.” — Jeanne Thornton (interviewed in Bookslut)
Hold the fame, just hand over the fortuneHold the fame, just hand over the fortune
“It is possible to find fame at the wrong time. The gods get distracted and send their gifts too late or too soon. If fame comes when we still need it too much, that shining light of acceptance every artist dreams of and chases after, then fame can destroy us. If we still believe it is the answer to all of our needs, the proof that we are worthy creatures after all, it can burn us into position. Stunt us. Quickly turn us into plant matter. If we believe the light will give us all the sustenance we need, we shoot out roots into whatever shallow soil we may find ourselves in the moment we first feel its warmth, bending our bodies towards that radiant light. And bending ever further as it starts to find other targets.” — Jessa Crispin, Bookslut
Do a full-body fakeDo a full-body fake
“What sounds fresh today will stink rotten tomorrow. As a writer you must make a choice: try to catch up with the slang or create your own language that will be fresh and alive always, even after you pass.” – Mikhail Shishkin (interviewed by Jessa Crispin in “Sifting the Desperate Lies from the Truth”)
To the barricades!To the barricades!
“If it is to remain something meaningful, philosophy does not have to limit itself to describing things, it has to make things happen, it has to effectuate a change. That’s why the locus of philosophy, the place where it dwells, is not the books, nor the academic papers, but the body of the philosopher. Philosophy does not exist properly unless it is embodied in a human being; in a sense, philosophy is word become flesh.” – Costica Bradatan, “Philosophy as an Art of Living” (emphases in original)
“Lost Things and Missing Persons”“Lost Things and Missing Persons”
Litro, A Little London Literary Magazine published my story, “Lost Things and Missing Persons,” today in their Story Sunday. You can find it here if you like: http://www.litro.co.uk/
The editors changed a couple spellings to reflect British spelling. They also incited me to tighten up the ending of the story. Endings are probably my weakest spot as a writer. Several of my published stories needed to have their endings fixed after acceptance but before publication.
The view from within the hall of mirrorsThe view from within the hall of mirrors
“The writer can only imitate a gesture forever anterior, never original; his only power is to combine the different kinds of writing, to oppose some by others, so as never to sustain himself by just one of them; if he wants to express himself, at least he should know that the internal ‘thing’ he claims to ‘translate’ is itself only a readymade dictionary whose words can be explained (defined) only by other words, and so on ad infinitum.” – Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” (trans. Richard Howard)
Tissue of a certain kind of lie, tooTissue of a certain kind of lie, too
“We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture.” – Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” (trans. Richard Howard)
“Yttat” again“Yttat” again
“Yttat” was published in the Fall 2012 issue of Mayday Magazine. I posted the link to that earlier this week; today I posted the story to the “Previously Published Stories” sidebar on this website.
I knew the story was going to be published by Mayday but lost track of when it was due to come out. It’s possible it was published several months ago. I didn’t know it had been published until this week.
It was published with typos. How did they get there? They were in the original submission Mayday accepted. Of course I thought I had adequately spell-checked and proofed the story before I sent it out. Of course I feel as any writer would feel upon making such mistakes (which I was not aware of until today).
The copy published here has had all its mistakes corrected–unless I missed any.
You may not become one in any amount of timeYou may not become one in any amount of time
“You don’t become a great poet in your spare time.” – Jack Gilbert (interviewed by Gordon Lish in “Poetry Is the Art of Prejudice”)
It’s really great shit, manIt’s really great shit, man
“We are in danger from a glut of mediocrity of an extraordinary high calibre.” – Jack Gilbert (interviewed by Gordon Lish in “Poetry Is the Art of Prejudice”)
It’s like the universeIt’s like the universe
“In a work of art, there is a reason why everything happens. Sometimes the author doesn’t even know what the reason is, but some part of them has picked and chosen and arranged. And the art is getting all those demands right.” – William H. Gass (interviewed by Greg Gerke in “Many-Layered Anger”)
Barf into the toilet, pleaseBarf into the toilet, please
“You can’t just write by spilling the words on the page. You have to arrange them. And you have to arrange them not only in terms of one another, but with the sentences that came before, and the sentences you haven’t written yet. They have a demand.” – William H. Gass (interviewed by Greg Gerke in “Many-Layered Anger”)
Utilitarianism, for instanceUtilitarianism, for instance
“Most philosophy is utterly wrong, but oh god, it’s sometimes very gorgeous, and sees connections that can be lived by.” – William H. Gass (interviewed by Greg Gerke in “Many-Layered Anger”)
In the end was the wordIn the end was the word
“Add radio to print and the word became ubiquitous. It overhung the head like smoke and had to be ignored as one ignores most noise. It was by loose use corrupted, by misuse debased, by overuse destroyed. It flew in any eye that opened, in any ear hands didn’t hide, and became, instead of the lord of truth, the servant of the lie.” – William H. Gass, “The Book as a Container of Consciousness”
But we’re all so specialBut we’re all so special
“Too many writers write about their lives. It’s easier, and it’s seductive, and it can be catastrophic. ‘It happened to me, and therefore it must be interesting.’ You know, that’s sort of awful.” – William H. Gass (interviewed by Greg Gerke in “Many-Layered Anger”)
He might even be a writerHe might even be a writer
“Nobody is as crazy as a man who thinks he is important.” – Alasdair Gray, Lanark
Assemblage, anyone?Assemblage, anyone?
“If the maker’s mind is prepared, the immediate materials are always suitable.” – Alasdair Gray, Lanark
“Yttat”“Yttat”
Mayday Magazine published my story, “Yttat,” in their Fall 2012 issue. Here’s the link to the contents page:
http://www.maydaymagazine.com/issue6tableofcontents.php
I’ll probably add the story to the “Previously Published Stories” sidebar this coming weekend, but you can read it through the link on the Mayday contents page any time you like. If you like.
You don’t want him to go planting any bombs or anythingYou don’t want him to go planting any bombs or anything
“It is a dangerous thing to suddenly deprive a man of hope–he can turn violent. It is important to kill hope slowly, so that the loser has time to adjust unconsciously to the loss.” – Alasdair Gray, Lanark (emphasis in original)
The dark energy of silenceThe dark energy of silence
“Silence is always proper. When I understand this better I’ll stop talking. You won’t be able to hear me for miles. I will radiate silence like a dark star shining in the gaps between syllables and conversation.” – Alasdair Gray, Lanark
It’s a true storyIt’s a true story
“Stories are the most durable texture of life for us. Not forms of societies, but stories. Stories are really what keeps everything together, in a way. When you are abandoned by stories — when you go back beyond the invention of writing, beyond the literary tradition — you feel of course lost: because one needs stories.” – Roberto Calasso (quoted in “Curator of Miracles in Milan”)
Probably closer than almostProbably closer than almost
“Conceive yourself, if possible, suddenly stripped of all the emotion with which your world now inspires you, and try to imagine it as it exists, purely by itself, without your favorable or unfavorable, hopeful or apprehensive comment. It will be almost impossible for you to realize such a condition of negativity and deadness. No one portion of the universe would then have importance beyond another; and the whole collection of its things and series of its events would be without significance, character, expression, or perspective. Whatever of value, interest, or meaning our respective worlds may appear endued with are thus pure gifts of the spectator’s mind. The passion of love is the most familiar and extreme example of this fact. If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment; and it sets the whole world to a new tune for the lover and gives a new issue to his life.” – William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience