"That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward"

(quote: Hemingway; video: David Lynch on Ideas)

Last week, I finished the content of Under Fluorescent Light and I've basically spent the days since drinking Glenfiddich and playing SimCity. The book is a collection of short stories. I struggle to describe them beyond that, other than to say that I've tried to make the reader uncomfortable, to make he or she laugh ambivalently, to lose the distinction between the hard-edges of life and the blurry logic of dreams. The work has been referred to as science fiction by several people, but if it is then it is a strain of the genre that has not existed until now. Much thanks to my friends Dale Eisinger (for writing an introduction, typesetting the work, and consoling my nerves on several drunken nights), TWag (for the innumerable hours he's spent pointing out the weaknesses in earlier drafts), and Tyler Bowling (for lending his eyes and hands to the cover design). There is a publishing lag of at least six weeks before hard-copies will be available.

All the grooves are well-worn now, and I can't seem to extract even the most palsied happiness from the mundanity leaking in under the door. No hobbies, no romance, no mendacious comforts. All the things I was supposed to do appear to me now as symptoms for some kind of communicable brain-disease that can only be vaccinated by good books, mood-altering chemicals, hypnagogia, and a discipline for the abstract. A philosophy without consequence is no philosophy at all.

Boise's got hooks in me now. If an offer comes down from academia, I'm in the wind . . .but now I'll miss a whole gang of people that tolerate my habits and do not laugh when I dance and break my heart with their earnest eyes. All part of the plan, supposedly, but there is no plan and I can't predict the state of things six months from now. I can barely see past winter.

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"It means what it says"

(quote: Samuel Beckett , Video: Trailer for Vice's Travel Guide to Liberia)



Traveling more for work these days. Long pre-dawn drives. And it's almost worth it to see the sun come up over flat southern Idaho while you race toward it at 92 mph and ambient electronica is beamed into your gleaming rental car from space. And it's almost worth it to stand out in the ice and listen to semis go farting by and fumble with numb fingers for tools or buttons on the keyboard. And it's almost worth it to drive around weird old railroad towns bumping Jay Electronica and looking for a place to smoke. And it's almost worth it to be the strange man alone in a booth that you would have pondered endlessly as a child. Worth it to overhear a conversation at the bar and note that the overweight middle-aged women with real estate agent poise and her broken-English boyfriend are talking about the same things that you've uttered in recent weeks: "Oaxaca is a fun word to say","It seems like everyone has read Three Cups of Tea but me",and "after the winter solstice, it only gets better." Worth it when you hear a woman say she's from Michigan and it takes a few moments before you realize that matters--not that I forget.
Spending tonight in Pocatello, Idaho where the prettiest girl in town walks into bars with the only guy that tried. And the railroad could have never imagined what the freeway would do for business. And men who own tire stores are famous. And others with weeding rings foist themselves upon hotel-bar-comedy nights and try to find the humor in losing their job. Rolling in at dusk you can watch the sun set orange on the rock factory's plume.





The book is really close. Behind schedule, but for mostly good reasons. April? Somewheres around then after the 'other-than-actual-writing' dust settles.

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"But maybe the scorpion, not wanting to be saved, had stung itself to death

(quote: Malcolm Lowry Under the Volcano , video: Aesop Rock and magOwl Bazooka Beard)



It's a chicken and egg scenario. Do I do these things because I am a writer, or do I write because I do these things? Despite the lack of updates on this blog, 2009 was my most productive and critical period of writing thus far. I moved to Idaho with the express intent that I would learn how to write, only this summer has that decision begun to bear fruit. But the chicken and egg: I watch people. I pay a lot of attention to the people passing me by. I study them when I'm sitting in bars and restaurants, waiting in line, grocery shopping, pumping gas, filing onto airplanes, pedaling by on the Green Belt. There was a time when I liked to craft intricate back-stories about these people that I paid attention to. And then eventually, now, I try to summarize them the best I can and presume one hidden thing about them. If that man is divorced, how does it affect the way he glances at his watch. If her baby's father left her, what does it feel like to check the stroller in as luggage. If he went to prison, how does it feel to drink that beer, or pay for it, or talk to the pretty girl next to him. And the snippets of conversation you hear are the best. "Don't touch my records or my cowboy boots" , "forty hours no sleep, but that's how SEALs train so whatever. You know this new guy doesn't know jackshit about the siding business" , or in a silent room: 'Did you say something about smoking a cigarette?' But do I do this because I write, or do I write because I do this?

---
I'm basically done applying to graduate school. An arduous, exacting task. Any assumption about my chances engenders some notion of objectivity to the process. All I know is that I came within a hairsbreadth last year (four waitlists, one Faustian offer), and my work this year is better in virtually all respects. Previously, I submitted a clunky story about a cult surrounding conjoined twins with blue skin, and a bleak piece about a girl mercy-killing her junky boyfriend. I love these stories, but when you break it down like that it's hard to see them getting noticed at all. The stories this time around are clearer, the language more potent, the ideas imaginative and well-handled. They are not perfect or great, but they're an order of magnitude beyond what I submitted in January of 2009. Twelve applications out there right now, learn-ed eyes about to read this shit and give a thumbs up or down. It's like a protracted slow-motion version of those almost forgotten days of football. Mentally steeling yourself to plunge your vulnerability into hostile territory. Succeeding on the sharpness of your instincts, your ability to adapt, and a desire that births an obnoxious willingness.


--


Sometimes you can't trust good days because they undermine the promises you made early Monday morning when you were caffeine-less and misanthropic and things didn't go according to plan. At least on those stressed afternoons there's a certain pure negativity that you can almost hold in your hands. In those moments you know so clearly what you ought to do and start thinking about how much money you have in the bank and what the going rate is on eBay for all of life's trappings. Some poor soul must want these things I have.

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"The time for your labor has been granted"

(quote: Jorge Luis Borges, Video: Mike Tyson - Beyond the Glory [I suggest watching the full hour])

I've developed a fascination with Iron Mike Tyson. I recall that, as a child, I never saw a complete fight but rather the occasional highlight reel of his fist dissociating the skullstuff of various other men that seemed nearly as big and intimidating as him. He was something of a mythological figure, a punch so powerful that it could be used as a unit of measurement. And of course I was always peripherally aware of his craziness. Watching his interviews and documentaries about him, though, a more complex picture emerges and I can't help but think of him as anecdote for how alienating and strange our world has become. Mike Tyson was, in fact, a brutal and violent individual. Yet that's what we wanted from him. Like all of our celebrities who cross a certain threshold of recognition, we enjoyed watching him fall. But consider what Mike Tyson might have been had he been alive a thousand years ago. While a failure at being a complete human being, Tyson marked an apex of human ability. In the physical realm, the man is/was simply unfuckwithable. His ability to fight was one aspect of this, but the greatest contributor was how his mind works. In physical conflict he brought all of his emotion to bear. And in the lead-up to these bouts he worked as hard as any person at any pursuit. He could have been a king, or at least a celebrated warrior. He is a man perfectly designed for battle. And say what you will about violence, it has been a constant throughout human history. Those that are capable of it in its highest form have always had an upperhand, and Tyson was capable of humiliating even individuals of this echelon. But there were no rewards for him, because this isn't 500 BC. And in the modern era, even a man that could hold his ground against a legion of enemies can be taken down by collective greed. Mike Tyson became the notorious felon he did because his tremendous abilities (and the mindset that MUST accompany it) are ill-adapted to this crazy world we've constructed. So we gave him way too much money when he was a kid, and those interested in his marketability surrounded him with women and drugs and the most exotic of luxuries. And those he put his trust in ultimately bent his skill for their own sinister ends. Mike Tyson is a monster that we created, in many ways. A tragic, absurd hero who, despite his ferocity, could not overcome himself and never recognized the wolves at the door.

--

It has been six months since I've been out of school. In that time I've spent nearly 600 hours writing, editing, reading for craft, outlining, brainstorming, staying up until the wee hours to perfect every word. And there are times when I'm exhausted, worn out on whatever the week's project is, frustrated, lonely. . . but the fact remains that I've improved by an order of magnitude. From a fumbling idiot to a stony-eyed amateur. So much further to go.

--

When you were a child, what did you expect? How did you think it would feel to be 20-something? To wait for 30? Did you always presume the grown-ups knew some secret you didn't? Or did you, at some point, realize that everyone was as confused and inexperienced as you? Did you assume that you would fall in love easily and for the long-run? Did you suppose that there would be lonely days? Did you recognize how much bullshit you'd have to slog through to enjoy even a few minutes of your day? How did you measure success and at what point did it become important? Where did all of these habits come from? What was the most exciting prospect for the future that you eventually had to cast aside?

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If it was easy, everyone would do it rather than going around telling you their ideas and saying how they could be a writer if they had the time.

(quote: Arthur Jolly; video: If You're Going to Try from Bukowski's Factotum[NSFW])

November is NaNoWriMO. And as I traffic in words, and talk to people about it, and gravitate to the literary side of the Internet I've been hearing a great deal. People commenting on their idea, on what their schedule will be like, on 'Tips for Motivation'. And if a person wants to give it a whirl, more power to them. But one will never learn to write this way. Writing fiction is not a correspondence course, it is not a discrete series of steps that can be marched through like rehab or learning a piece of software. Coming in dry to a solid month of writing will turn up nothing but a lot of poor writing. There may be pages of brilliance, sure, but the project makes the solemn mistake of isolating writing from one's life. To be any good at this at all, you need to read a tremendous amount. You need to write even more. You need to watch the world around you with the singular purpose of seeking meaning in every little twitch and flitter. You have to go all the way.

I don't mean that one mustn't give it an exploratory shot. Writing is a beautiful, transformative experience. NaNoWriMO is simply not the way to go about it. It cheapens the novel into a Web 2.0, self-esteem generation marketing campaign. It perpetuates the notion that any jackass can pound out a novel; that it is not a hard-learned art like music or painting. But worst of all, it's useless for learning to write. Unless, of course, it's immediately followed by National Edit Your Novel Year. Dabblers should instead write a short story, or even a vignette. Edit it five times. Show it to a friend. Edit it another five times. Leave it alone for awhile as you read incessantly. Edit it a few more times. Learn, actually, how to turn an idea into a story. Learn what your style is. Learn what makes a character pop, or a line of dialogue fall flat. Learn how to construct a story so that a line of causality and emotion runs through it. Learn how to defamiliarize the world. OR waste a month typing something you'll never look at again, because December isn't assigned to writing. It's the holidays or shopping season or whatever, and January is no good because it's cold. And then there's school, and then spring break, summer, and on and on until NaNoWriMo comes around again. . . Write a bit, by all means. But stay off of bandwagons, they're bereft of ideas anyway.


--

January 1, 2010 is the print date for my short-story collection. Physical copies will be available shortly after that.

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"Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what's really going on."

(quote: Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle, video: Shit Just Got Real)

According to Philip Roth, in 25 years the novel will dwindle to a cult artifact. The novel is faced with a technological deficit in competition with film and readily consumable media. The number he gives is arbitrary, but one could argue that the novel is already dusty. But, I don't buy that our cultural evolution will be so clear-headed as to plow headlong into technological dissociation. What if, at some point in a coming generation there is a backlash. Corporate, electronic media finally coalesces into one gyrating, self-referential advertisement. A sobering reduction in disposable income, and a multitude of childhoods shaped by near-poverty, and there's fertile ground for resentment of anything handed down from on high. A recognition of the consumption cycle encouraged by everything you own with a screen. And so maybe, for a second, it will be cool to read again. To pick up a novel written by some starving rascal who refuses to sell you something.

--

Whenever I hear Prozac I think of Sylvia Plath, and ADD Kerouac. Think of what Neal Cassady's teachers must have said in parent-teacher conference. Or what Kafka's father thought about his sullen, serious boy. I worry that mental illness, the vaguer forms of it not outright schizophrenia or psychosis, is a net cast too wide. We've deemed too many quirks obstinate distractions. And in the quantitative progression of medicine we've outlined a de facto understanding of 'normal'. The biggest influence on this taxonomy has been how well-adjusted a particular psyche is. How well a person can get through their day, focus on their job, appear seamlessly productive. But the environment we're to be adjusted to is not one we are born to understand. I expect children to be reckless and imaginative and flailing about. And when they grow up I'm not surprised they sometimes feel empty dragging themselves through the monotone. Or have anxiety attacks standing in line for groceries. Or weep for their long-gone spirituality when Disney animates a lovable predator.

--

I sat outside for a long time today and listened to the leaves skitter across the concrete, the hush of defoliating limbs in the wind.

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"Had the fangs of Genghis Khan, had the heart of Gunga Dinn"

(quote: Aesop Rock , video: Tinariwen)

Started the MFA application process again. Time-consuming and tedious and detail-oriented--just like the gruntwork of editing, so I don't even leave my chair. Some different schools this time: UofNew Mexico, Washington University (St. Louis), Louisiana State, among others. Figurative pushpins in the map, and now that the years move disturbingly fast the whole thing seems moments away. Makes my restless blood itch, wakes up the travel bug that I keep sleepy with an occasional furtive plane out of town. But now a trip to Istanbul may be in the works. An entire raucous team from Detroit currently plans on touching down there sometime next May, burning a swath from the Blue Mosque to the old Soviet Bloc. And with school that fall, I'll have an entire summer to fritter away as I please. I'm going to sleep under some goddamn stars.

--


So the LHC may be trying to destroy itself from the future. Or God may be interfering with our attempts to peel back the curtains. Or scientists from the future may be reaching back through the Higgs Boson to prevent us from doing some foolish. Or it could be that there are things that cannot be measured no matter what. The path to comprehension destroyed by understanding. Numerous future attempts will prove the notion wrong or eerily hint at it ad infinitum.

--


To find something, buy a second version of it and wait for them to ferret each other out. To hide something, put it in the last place you looked. To never find it again, put it into something that moves and try to track it with your mind as it zig-zags across town and down rivers and arches over wastelands in the belly of planes. Disappears somewhere out there in the regurgitation before you ever see it again. To leave something for a loved one, conceal in seed pods and plant along the road you don't yet walk. To give to the dead, make a million copies of something theirs and burn the original (to an enemy, the opposite).

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"Let me repeat: none of this has any real meaning"

(quote: Camus; video: WTF arrest at G20 in Pittsburgh)


In some ways the current political climate has stoked an interesting conversation. Interesting as sort of a DFWesque parody of political dialogue. The invocation of the word 'Socialism' has been ringing out, and I think even the most media-paralyzed would have to ponder over that term for a moment. In many cases aligning it with evil intent or totalitarianism or whathaveyou, but only peripherally aware of what the ideas actually mean. Likewise, the presumed antipodes of 'Capitalism' is going through a similar semi-conscious examination. Michael Moore's new film is called "Capitalism: A Love Story" and he claims that he'll show the evils of our economic system, many of the teabaggers' sandwich boards praise capitalism in the same triumvirate as Glenn Beck and Jesus, even my old man has started to question whether profit margins are a blameless motivation. But, of course, the whole argument is more heat than light. We're not processing the information in anything approaching a comprehensive manner. The war of ideas is based on emotional anecdotes and carefully presented numbers. The pragmatic compromise that we're currently going for is ignored and we reduce ourselves to Socialists and Capitalists. Just as so many of ua have reduced ourselves to Democrats or Republicans, heathens or teetotallers , godless scum or good Christians.


--

I gave my brother The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus for his birthday. And reading back through some of it while I waited for the alst possible day to mail it, I thought again about this idea of Absurdism that has become second-nature to me since I first read it. See, Absurdism is an acceptance of the inadequacy of existence to explain itself. It places man at the nexus of a well-nigh unanswerable proposition: Is the universe illegible? Or is there nothing written there? Or is it dream stuff, fluid and mutable and activated only by consciousness. To be an Absurdist is to be a small-a anarchist. To retain something of a well-read scoff at all authoritative gestures, all illustrations of utopia, all comprehensive definition. To recognize the value of charity as an appeasement to our alienated conscience with an understanding that perhaps nothing can really be helped To live with the notion that mankind can not be improved, because each effort to make us less violent or more compassionate or more aware is to simultaneously tame us, make us more prone to external controls, compromise our integrity and validity and identity. To confront the Absurd is to hold on to contradictory ideas and live in a state of anxious dissonance. To both love and hate, to be a heroic misanthrope, a free-wheeling tyrant, a humble sage, a clear-headed psychonaut, a free-loading pillar of sciety, an anal retenteive bodhisattva. It is to accept nothing as statuesque face and embrace life as an asymptotic approach to a wider and more truuthful self-delusion.

--

I originally planned to have my book in shape by Thanksgiving. And I was right on track. I've decided to postpone it for a month and attempt to have all of my ts crossed by Xmas. This a result of deciding to replace 1/12th of the book with another piece that's only in it's second or third revision, a realization of the problematic nature of typesetting/design, a spurious perfectionism that has infected me like a childhood disease I was never inoculated for. No worries though. I'm working hard, and it will see the light of day in due time.

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