NOON
Phoenix 1901
If you haven’t listened to Phoenix, I urge you to go buy their music immediately and be overjoyed.
Phoenix – 1901 – A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
Blake Butler’s Scorch Atlas
I just now got around to reading Blake Butler’s smashing book Scorch Atlas. This is so good. I love Blake’s wild style, everything he’s doing with language and imagery here. I highly recommend going over to Featherproof and buying a copy.
Buy Scorch Atlas here.
Diane Williams will teach this fall
For the writer with the courage to produce his or her own most vehement voice.
The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction is pleased to present another writing workshop with author, Diane Williams this September and October. Fine-grained attention to the drama of the sentence is offered — as well as to the drama of the whole text. First look to NOON or to Williams’s own fiction to consider if you share the aesthetic values represented.
8 Sessions
Tuesdays: September 15th through November 3rd
6:30pm–8:30pm
$500; Special financial needs considered
For more information, please call
212-755-6710 or email info@mercantilelibrary.org
Diane Williams’ most recent book is IT WAS LIKE MY TRYING TO HAVE A TENDER-HEARTED NATURE. Her fiction appears frequently in a variety of magazines including, Harper’s Magazine, Bomb, Conjunctions, McSweeney’s, and The Brooklyn Rail. She is the editor of the acclaimed, prize-winning literary annual NOON which she founded in 2000. She was co-editor of StoryQuarterly for twelve years. She is considered the foremost advocate of the genre dubbed flash fiction and has been called by Jonathan Franzen “…one of the true living heroes of the American avant-garde.” Winner of three Pushcart Prizes, she has taught creative writing at both Bard College and Syracuse University and has been an invited reader at colleges and universities nationwide.
Salinger Sues Again
60 Years Later: coming Through the Rye by John David California. Who? Not sure what to think about this book.Read the story here.
Lit. Journal Auction
Whoa. The complete set of Lish’s The Quarterly is up for auction at Ebay, along with issues 4-8 of NOON, 3rd Bed, and more. Worth taking a look here.
Heard on NPR today
I heard Canadian rocker Sam Roberts interviewed on NPR this morning after recently purchasing the cd Love at the End of the World. The cd, if you haven’t checked out, is just terrific, and I highly recommend you go have a listen. Here’s the website.
Review of NOON
Dawn Raffell at MORE Magazine gave a nice review of the new issue of NOON. Read it here:
NOON 9
The newest issue of NOON is now out with my stories “Somewhere,” “We’re Safe Now,” and “Gas Station.” Also included are stories by Kim Chinquee, Deb Olin Unferth, Gary Lutz, Christine Schutt, Tao Lin, Rebecca Curtis, translations by Lydia Davis, and more.
I’ve decided…
I’ll begin working on my Ph.D in English starting next fall. After this school year I won’t be teaching 7th graders anymore so I can focus on the work. I got a teaching assistantship and will be making way less money. This is scary but somehow feels right.
NOON 10th Anniversary Edition
The 10th anniversary edition of NOON is due out soon with three short fictions by yours truly.
Noon
READING & PARTY
friday, april 17th at 7PM
REBECCA CURTIS
CLANCY MARTIN
CHRISTINE SCHUTT
The Mercantile Library
17 East 47th Street
Review of The Levitationist
A nice review of The Levitationist was posted over at HTML Giant: “How the Divine Manifests: a Discussion of The Levitationist by Brandon Hobson and the music of A.A. Bondy”
Read it here.
Buddy Boy–a review
The film Buddy Boy apparently came out in 1999, and I don’t know how I’ve missed seeing it. I watched it on IFC’s On Demand over the weekend. This film is fucking great. The storyline involves a lonely introvert named Francis, played by Aidan Gillen (maybe you remember him in Queer as Folk), who works at a photo processing store and cares for his ailing stepmother who apparently has fistula. Read more
EVER by Blake Butler
Blake Butler’s EVER is published by Calamari Press, which is owned and operated by fellow flocker Derek White. Blake sent along a CD with “EVER” written on it for me to listen to. As I read, it turned out to be a very strange and cool experience, a lot like watching a David Lynch film. I enjoyed this feeling very much! The music somehow made me want to lie down on the floor and sliver. I’m not sure why. When I told my wife this she asked if I’d taken my medication (which I had). But the book is great even without the music. Here’s a sentence about halfway through the book: “[I could hear the room above me moving—something in it—someone. I could hear them inside me, also echoed, jostling around. They were moving things and using hammers, screws and scissors, saws with teeth.” Butler’s use of brackets [[[ ]]] adds only to the surreal quality of the book in that they draw attention to such small details and give the book a feeling of confinement: “[The next room had a tiny doorman who murmured in my ear.]]” This is a fine, challenging book. Butler’s prose is beguilingly odd, he has a strong command on language, and I highly recommend it. You can order it here.
Stewart O’Nan’s The Night Country
A great book to read for Halloween.
The Night Country
The Woman Down the Hall–a review of an ebook by Lily Hoang
Here’s what I know about Lily Hoang: that her book Parabola won the Chiasmus Press First Book Prize in 2007, and that her book Changing is forthcoming from Fairy Tale Review Press. Now, over at Blake Butler’s Lamination Colony (Blake is becoming conspicuously ubiquitous, not only writing great fiction himself but managing to publish seemingly everywhere while at the same time putting up other people’s work as well), Hoang’s The Woman Down the Hall is available to read for free. It’s short, edgy, and I’ve read it three times tonight.
Lily Hoang’s narrator says this about the old woman who is asleep down the hall: “I wanted to be the first to propose murder, but I restrained myself. It isn’t proper for a lady to speak first, even if she is the designated killer.”
This is the way of good prose. This story, like much of Hoang’s other work, is a modern fairy tale, but she isn’t interested in being didactic. We don’t get a feel that there will be some moral lesson gained by the end; how could we with such a charming yet brutally honest narrator whose deepest desire is to commit murder? “I have never killed a woman,” the narrator admits, “but I have often wondered how I would do it. Now, I wonder if her neck, which is not slender or thick, would be easy to grasp or if my large hands would simply slip from smooth skin.”
Hoang’s imaginative leaps are mysterious and inevitable. She changes points of view, tells the story of the man and the dying bird and the old woman as a youthful princess whose beauty brought people to death simply from looking at her. She’s able to tie things together in such a small place. In fact, The Woman Down the Hall offers a whole lot in a small space, with surreal images to accompany the text. It’s like being at a great all-night party in a strange city. Really. This is a haunting and delightful story, and I highly recommend you go over to Lamination Colony and read it.
No Colony — first issue
Blake Butler and Ken Bauman’s No Colony is about to release its first issue, including work from Kim Chinquee, Tao Lin, Brian Evenson, Robert Lopez, our fellow flocker Derek White, and more. Go buy a copy. They’re also reading for issue two, which will include a short piece by yours truly.
Lish’s The Quarterly
We talked about this a few months ago, but can someone scan the table of contents of some of the issues? Or, rather, which are the best issues to purchase? I’d love to read the issues with Cooper and Daryl. And of course Diane Williams, etc. Thanks.
a short review of The Levitationist
Today Blake Butler wrote a short review of my book The Levitationist over at hotbooks.today.com.
NOON reading, NYC
NOON2008
The Mercantile Library
17 East 47th Street
April 14 at 6:30
Clancy Martin
Dawn Raffel
Christine Schutt
NOON 2008
The newest issue of NOON is out, with stories by Brandon Hobson, Lydia Davis, Kim Chinquee, Deb Olin Unferth, Dawn Raffel, and others. The issue contains my stories “Work” and “The Single Whip.” You can buy copies here.
Bob Dylan Talkin’ World War III Blues
In Search of Salinger
I can’t wait to see this. Besides, one of my old professors from graduate school, Stewart O’Nan, is doing some of the interviewing.
Vitus
Just saw Vitus today. This is the best film I’ve seen in a long time.
It Was Like My Trying to Have a Tender-Hearted Nature
An excerpt from the new Diane Williams book at FC2:
Peter pets her. He says, “I said I’ve been experiencing a little rash on my wrists and just under my eyebrows from exposure to epoxy resins which I have been working in to complete the sanitary project. I have to get some medicine to treat it.” Read More.
