morton feldman // eugene marten

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Morton Feldman's "Piano and String Quartet" is a famously haunting piece of music. Written just two years before his death in 1987, its use of repetition and pattern has (perhaps appropriately) been analyzed to death.

However, regardless of its place in modern music, it's just a nice piece to hear when you need some brooding room. The Kronos Quartet, accompanied by Aki Takahashi, unsurprisingly kick some major ass and take some minor names, here in their late-80s prime.

I'm really into Eugene Marten's excerpt from FIREWORK, which is itself an excerpt from Salt Hill #23, which I can't wait to read, mostly because the cover and interior art is totally rad, and it's incredibly rare that I feel that way about a lit journal. So, check that out.

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There's a John Galt book project on Facebook. Great. Real great.

Re-watched The Corporation recently. If you've never seen that, please do. I think it's one of the most important documentaries to watch, given that corporations make up so much of the world today.

Whether we like it or not, how we live, how we think, and how we buy, are all informed by the structures of capitalism. And the main vehicle in driving capitalism is corporations, which makes them a huge part of our lives. Yet most people know very little of what corporations really are, how they operate, or what affects they have on our society.

And obviously people still have such a minuscule idea of the severe moral implications in allowing global capitalism to continue with its amoral and psychopathic ways, that Adam Smith can continue to be misinterpretated, and Ayn Rand can continue to be considered the champion of some free-thinking blah blah blah, and then of course Glenn Beck, etc. Well I say, FUCK JOHN GALT.

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In response (loosely) to Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, as well as the plethora of outspokenly vegan writers in the indie lit community, I've decided to blog about the whole process of shooting and eating a deer. When I return to Texas for two weeks around Christmas, I'm going deer hunting with my dad and grandpa. And hopefully, I will shoot something and eat it.

Of course, you don't have to look. I'll make a big disclaimer or something. Actually, I agree with Foer: people should have more respect for their food and where it comes from; but I think I do respect that process - I think about it a lot. And yeah, maybe things would be better if we had a vegetarian society, if humans were herbivores. But you know what, we're not.

I love meat. I love its texture and flavor (when it's good). And there's no way I'm giving it up. But I do think the industries - the ones that produce the overwhelming majority of meat that people consume - are disgusting. So I think the act of slaughtering, butchering, and preparing your own meat, is in fact a fairly noble cause.

Actually, I have every intention of farming when I get tired of teaching or whatever else I do until I get sick of people. As they say, from whence it came. (I grew up in the country, surrounded by farms.) So this is something I've been thinking about a lot and will tell you all about when I write my photo-essay (probably in early January).

Happy Thanksgiving And Stuff And Now David Byrne Will Tell You Some Things About The Future

jodorowsky // joshua marie

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If you haven't seen El Topo, I dunno what the hell you're waiting for. When I first saw it all I could find was a Japanese dub (from the Spanish) translated into English, on VHS. Now you can Netflix that shit. So stop fooling around with yourself. I see you!

What I'm saying is, this soundtrack is incredible. Alejandro Jodorowsky composed all the music by himself because that's what badasses do - they make their own damn music for their own damn films (I'm yappin bout Charlie Chaplin, Hal Hartley - you know, badasses).

Another badass is the guy who made this video, a Poem for Dorothea Lasky, Joshua Marie Wilkinkson. He's a badass for making this video, because he also wrote the poem, which he read over the video. That's why it's good, see. See what I did there.

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Since we're on the subject of badasses, Evan Karp reviewed Zzzombiezzz for the Examiner. I really like the way he talked about things in a real way. It's like, he's not jaded by reviewing things yet and so he makes all these awesome connections that I think people are often afraid to write in reviews usually because they don't have any cojones, also known as cajones in Louisiana.

I'm gonna have a story on Everyday Genius next month (I think) sometime, in the near future, courtesy of the awesome Sasha Fletcher. Felt 'weird' when I found out Sasha was the editor next month because I recently hyped his writing on Gigantic. Felt like that could be perceived as 'kiss-ass' or something. Oh well.

I was being a little bitch on HTMLGIANT, as usual - you know, minding my own business - when Jimmy Chen roasted the fuck out of me. That guy is really good. Hate him tender.

What else can I say about myself - Oh, I had to take the stupid GRE in order to apply to a stupid MFA program offering a stupid amount of money to all their candidates. You know, __.

The funny thing is, they don't seem to care what your score is, furthering the absurdity of their being the only MFA program I know of that requires a GRE score in order to apply. OUTRAGEOUS. But, oh well. I did OK. FML, WTFWJD, etc. Definitely dug a new canal in the essay though.

While studying, I found this quote, in the 2009 Kaplan GRE Comprehensive Program:

Too many people think of standardized tests as cruel exercises in futility, as the oppressive instruments of a faceless societal machine. People who think this way usually don't do very well on these tests.

Wonder what Kafka would've thought of the GRE.

TOTALLY RANDOM YET LOOSELY CONNECTED ASIDE

Did you guys know the Lion of Nimrud is missing? This 'priceless work of Assyrian art' disappeared somehow when we invaded Iraq. Supposedly, soldiers watched as museums were looted by jerkfaces with huge, idiotic kkkajones, perhaps even escorting many of them. Some of the treasures of Nimrud were retrieved from a vault in 2007, but the lion is still missing!

Apparently, there were a bunch of shady helicopters cruising around during that time, and people were looting the city, so - you know, these things happen. They say you have to take a broad, general view of things. Le sigh. I'm sure it will turn up in a museum in a U.N. Nation someday - where it belongs, right!

pandit pran nath // ariana reines

Look at this man, this is a man:

Get the "Ragas of Morning & Night" via UbuWeb here

If you're familiar with La Monte Young, Pandit Pran Nath was his guru in the 70s. Nath studied for 20 years with the legendary Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan after leaving his family to pursue a life of music. Under the tutelage of Khan, he developed his highly unusual singing style.

American minimalism owes a whole lot to the music of Northern India in general and this guy in particular, as his teachings trickled down through Young to Terry Riley and Henry Flynt, etc. His singing intonation is sometimes likened to that of God's, if God would just talk to us, or if He existed as a sentient being with a penis, as people are wont to believe.

Nath taught at Mills College in Oakland for many years and died in Berkeley in 1996.

His Raga cycles are the stuff of legend. Rarely recorded, they are said to be his crowning achievement. These were recorded in 1986. This is a master doing his thing.

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I love this excerpt by Ariana Reines, from Mercury in Coconut 13. Last week Ariana's stuff was featured on HTMLGIANT and I developed a crush on her . . . poetry.

Her poetry is so light-handed and real, and yet, somehow much more complex than some sort of surface whatever. (Confession: I don't know anything about poetry.) Anyway, I like it lots. It feels good to read it. Like, it makes me feel smart and soulful and alive and like I maybe could understand women someday. (Confession: I don't know anything about women.)

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So, let's talk about me now.

Paul Cunningham wrote some super-sweet things about me. What a sweetie, that guy.

Dennis Cooper included my chapbook in his list of "Four Books I Read Recently and Loved". Dennis was nice enough to include me amongst some fine company, especially the radical Matthew Simmons and his novel A Jello Horse, which I can't wait to read as soon as I have access to a damn credit card.

BIG ViDEO GIVEAWAY

I've been giving away copies of my chapbook to non-writers who agree to video themselves reading one of the stories. Hopefully I will be able to put the videos up on my website in like a month so that you could, in theory, watch other people read the whole thing. I've got like two left to give away. Trying to give them to people I don't actually know in any way. So if I don't know you and you're not a writer, and you want to do this, just email me your address for a free copy.

music for the gods // sasha fletcher

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You have got to hear this compilation of Indonesian recordings made by the Fahnestocks in 1941, when they traveled to the Indonesian archipelago as spies for President Roosevelt, who was searching for information about his great uncle’s adventures out there.

I really love serialism. If you've heard the new Animal Collective album, you've heard its influence. But it's not a new thing, nor was it a new thing in the 1950s when rich people in the avant-garde coined the term to describe the music of people like Arvo Pärt and John Cage, later Steve Reich and company. On the contrary, I think serialism is an ancient way of playing music. And moreover, a primitive but profound weltanschauung which seems to have existed all over the earth prior to the spread of Christianity.

In other words, this shit is rad. Check it out. Good for reading, etc.

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Also, totally love this short piece, "One Day All Your Teeth Will Be Mine" by Sasha Fletcher, from Gigantic Magazine. Really excited to read his novella someday. The prose makes me feel like death won't be so bad really.

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I'm doing a little project with my roommate, Jonny Negron, who does drawings and stuff for hahaclever dot com. In order for us to work together in a way that is really meaningful to both of us and requires an equitable amount of time / creative energy, in order that we might make an equation like this:

T/Cx - T/Cy = 0 ,

wherein 0 = O = output = many pages of text & paintings

I write a page (or so ((we'll figure it out somehow))) and he paints a canvas. And we won't talk about what we're doing exactly until we're done, acting on our first impulse, in reaction to the other's thing. I'm going to post all of them on Fictionaut as we go along.

So I started things off with this piece: PG. ONE. Jonny painted something, which I will post as soon as we have a suitable picture from a suitable camera. Yesterday I wrote this piece: PG. TWO. I'll start posting them on the sidebar with my other online reading stuff.

My chapbook, How To Skin The Moon is up for review with John Madera's The Chapbook Review. Sort of nervous. But pumped to get a critical view of my work that I feel I can respect, regardless of what it says about it.

Crispin Best had some good things to say about zzzombiezzz, after 'calling me out' on htmlgiant. Unfortunately, I think Crispin might be retarded. But then I hear autistic people do amazing things all the time, like draw a detailed 18 foot sketch of the New York City skyline from memory or know pi or kill their mother because of aluminum (alright that one's not so amazing but you get the idea). What I'm saying is, I think Crispin Best might be an idiot savant.

east bay on the brain

A Businessman & Roland Goity

On Sunday I did a reading in Berkeley with a bunch of other people. All the other videos and readers can be found in this Examiner article written by Evan Karp, whom I really hope continues doing his thing, documenting literature in the Bay Area.

Evan seems like the kind of guy who would help you change your tire and then ask if he could videotape you tightening all the bolts with a tire iron as if you had done it yourself, which would be weird, and then he would get your address so that he could send you the tape after he edited it so that you could show your girlfriend's dad that you're a man (or a woman). I like him a lot.

Since you weren't there (probably, although there were quite a few people there - I mean, the room was full, but well, there are a lot of people in the world - you know), you can see the videos of my pieces (in the order I maybe should have read them in) right now.

I feel like it would have been better for me to read this one first, I guess. But that's not what I did. Instead it was the pallet cleanser leading into Lauren Becker's reading. Lauren is the former editor of Dogzplot and an all-around badass. She encouraged me to continue working on the other piece I read "A Businessman &" after reading an early draft.

Lauren organized the event, which was called East Bay On The Brain and apparently this won't be a one-time thing but the first in a new reading series. This one was at Beckett's Pub. They have a huge portrait of Sam Beckett in the front, as seen above. Huge.

People seemed more into this one, I think. Apparently a guy who is going to be in a new Almodovar film was there and told someone else that he liked my reading (I think I have this correct). I'm really glad some older people liked it because I've always been worried that they wouldn't since my parents are always like, What is this about? We don't get it. And I sold some chapbooks, which was sick because I had already spent all my cash on drinks and needed some more to grub down and get home (only half-joking about this).

Anyway, it was good times all around. And I'm glad you get to see it now, thanks to Evan, who might just help you change your tire someday. I feel that it is likely.

luciano cilio // zack sternwalker

Get it via Mediafire here

Found this album, "Dell'Universo Assente" by Luciano Cilio via BUTT GUTTS. It's an extremely badass combination of beautiful acoustic guitar, piano, & 70s avant-garde sounds (a la La Monte Young, etc). Really, really enjoy this and hope you do too.

One of my favorite writers, Zack Sternwalker, has a story/drawing called "Real Nurse Sleeves" on Radioactive Moat. I guess really the story is named that and the drawing is not, but whatever.

Zack has a strange and beautiful mind. His books are underground treasures and he really deserves a genius grant or something.

Can you believe it's been a month since I last blogged? Seems really strange. Probably a good thing though. I dunno.

I dunno how much I care about blogging anymore (not that I ever really did). I have a twitter and tumblr, and as a result I feel like my world is simpler (less complex) while also being more complicated/constantly engaged somehow.

I dunno what I'm talking about anymore. This is why I don't blog very much.


So, I printed a chapbook of short stories called How To Skin The Moon. It's going to be for sale at a number of bookstores in the Bay Area and hopefully nationwide (in small book/zine shops) pretty soon.

You can buy one for $5. I will have them at my reading on Sunday, Oct. 25th at Beckett's Pub in Berkeley.

You can also buy one at the hahaclever dot store.

Two of the stories - "The waR in Dm" and "A Businessman &" - were published on Pindeldyboz and Hobart, respectively. The rest are previously unpublished. Essentially the chapbook is a 64 page surrealist short story cycle about contemporary American capitalism.

If you're interested in writing a review/interview (even for yr blog ((maybe))), please contact me and I will hook you up real phat (prolly).

eliane radigue // william walsh

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French electronic sorceress Eliane Radigue is a total drone queen. 

This album is a gem of the New York avant-garde drone scene. Excellent backdrop for reading.

She even shared a studio with the great Morton Subotnick! Nerd alert, I've got a boner!   ^___^

Since the early 70s Radigue has recorded almost exclusively on one instrument, the ARP 2500 modular system and tape. And you can probably see why below. It's a beautiful little flower. 

Look at it. Don't drool on it!

Oh, and read this William Walsh story "Master" on PANK. For the love of dog, just do it.

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And now for self-promotion hour, a little wrap-up of select hahaclever related things dispersed about on the divers interwebz:

Chelsea Martin called us the new pets.com.

J.A. Tyler called my ebook, Zzzombiezzz, "massively good."

Mike Young said we seem "on the ball, in that sort of lying-on-your-belly-on-a-giant-exercise-ball-and-rocking-whimsically-back-and-forth way, which is a good way." But of course, we published him, so maybe that means we just look awkward on an exercise ball, which seems 'normal.'

Natalie Hanes, a 'normal' person who found the ebook via a twitter post, said it was "the best thing I've seen in a long time, very amusing."

There's a new story (by xTx), a comic (by Jesse Balmer), and a mixtape (by Jonny Negron), available now at hahaclever dot com.

Oh, and I have a new story up at Writers' Bloc. I like Writers' Bloc. They are like a Blue Angels pilot who has just dropped a double shot of espresso inside a coffee, chugging it down like he's late for work, making those 90 degree roll-things in quick intervals; people on the ground going, Yeah!

And, finally, I'm going to be reading at Dogzplot event in Berkeley on Sunday, October 25th at Beckett's on Shattuck Ave. Come if you can.