the book to come

Reflections on Adrian Johnston's Zizek's Ontology

2011-07-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

Zizek's Ontology is illuminating, and at times electric, but comes up short(-circuited) in several directions. Perhaps the most exhausting of these dimensions is Johnston's tendency to embrace the "antinomic" aspects of Zizek over-against the dialectical tensions that traverse his work. On the last page of Johnston's book, we can read:

Being free is a transitory event arising at exceptional moments when the historical, psychical, and biological run of things breaks down, when the determining capacities of natural and cultural systems--these systems are never actually the seamless networks of unfaltering determination (i.e. big Others) they so often inaccurately appear to be--are temporally suspended as a result of deadlocks and short circuits being generated within and between these multi-faceted, not-whole systems (ZO 287, emphasis mine).

Glaring is not only Johnston's whelm of adjectives--"multifaceted, not-whole"--but the saturation of prepositions within his work. Not merely a stylistic quirk, these excesses leave me with a question: in what sense are systems "generative" of parallax splits, irreducibilities, and so on; is synthesis/resolution here replaced by becoming-conscious and becoming-$; and, finally, how can Zizek's famous deadlocks be said to jam the "within and between" of systems? To answer briefly, there is an extremely precise Zizekian trope that is characteristically absent in Johnston's book: the notion of isness (what, for those of you for whom this is relevant, Ori Dasberg might call the isness of the is)or the event of an italicized "is" transforming what looked like a paradox into what was always a dialectical relationship.

Witness this extremely lucid quote of Zizek's:

We should take Lacan's term "subject of the signifier" literally; there is, of course, no substantial signified content which guarantees the unity of the I; at this level, the subject is multiple, dispersed, and so forth [process without a teleological subject--perhaps Althusser's stopping point]--its unity is guaranteed only by the self-referential symbolic act, that is, "I" is a purely performative entity, it is the one who says "I." This is the mystery of the subject's "self-positing," explored by Fichte; of course, when I say "I," I do not create any new content, I merely designate myself, the person who is uttering the phrase. This self-designation nonetheless gives rise to ("posits") an X which is not the "real" flesh-and-blood person uttering it, but, precisely and merely, the pure Void of self-referential designation [the symbolic act or Symbolic as such] (the Lacanian "subject of the enunciation"): "I" am not directly my body, or even the content of my mind; "I" am, rather, that X which has all these features as its properties. The Lacanian subject is thus the "subject of the signifier"--not in the sense of being reducible to one of the signifiers in the signifying chain ("I" is not directly the signifier I, since, in this case, a computer or another machine writing "I" would be a subject), but in a much more precise sense: when I say "I"--when I designate "myself" as "I"--this very act of signifying adds something to the "real flesh-and-blood entity" (inclusive of the content of its mental states, desires, attitudes) thus designated, and the subject is that X which is added to the designated content by means of the act of its self-referential designation. It is therefore misleading to say that the unity of the I is "a mere fiction" beneath which there is the multitude of inconsistent mental processes: the point is that this fiction gives rise to "effects in the Real," that is to say, as a necessary presupposition to a series of "real" acts. (Zizek 2006, 244-45).

And Johnston follows this quote as such:

As with Lacanian desire, the positive articulation of subjectification simultaneously generates an impossible-to-articulate negativity as an X detached from and out of joint with both nature (as the barred Real) and culture (as the barred Other). What's more, this anonymous, faceless misfit ($) starts wandering around Imaginary-Symbolic reality, bending and warping the fields in which it is an internally excluded element. The process Zizek describes in the passage quoted immediate above, a process in which the subject-as-$ arises out of signifiers as a medium of subjectification, relies on the lack of a unifying closure in the symbolic order, namely, the fact that the big Other is barred because its own internal constituents and their laws create, one could say, a chaotic, broken-up hall of mirrors in which reflexive regressions potentially stretch out to infinity [i.e. there is no substantial "Thing that refers," only a produced place of designation]. And prior to this entrance into the defiles of the symbolic order's signifying batteries (an entrance creating both subjectification and the subject), a barred Real (as the anxiety-laden, conflict-perturbed corpo-Real) propels the human organism into the arms of this barred big Other. The subject-as-$ is a by-product of both the barred Real and the barred Symbolic (Zizek's Ontology 285-286).

As you can see, Johnston misses an exceptional opportunity to distill Zizek's work into a single and fundamental point: the "performative event" that symbolically appropriates the formal difference of the One with itself. (I've been trying to work through this point all morning--what are the "real effects" of the minimal difference between utterance and enunciation?) Indeed, it's not merely that this event, this presentation of a One, has real effects in terms of Substance, in terms of life-in-itself (I think that it does, for as we know the not-all is open to re-constitution and change, but with one hell of a delay): this would be a One-ifying of the One which reduces effects to their material determinations or effects in Substance, for which Johnston incessantly ribs dialectical materialism, but I think it's a critique that's also applicable to a certain Freudian tradition, i.e. the claim that, "Consciousness [or superstructure] can only be understood in its relation to unconscious [or base]." Instead, this symbolic act, this minimal difference between enunciation and utterance--internal to utterance itself--actually forges a new Real within symbolic reality, a Real whose shape is essentially of a different plasticity, a different time, from the plasticity of the not-all. The process of subjectification repeats the formal trauma of the latter (inconsistency as such) in the time of the former, and therefore endows it with an entirely newcontent, the Real of the Symbolic, namely $.

Johnston rather insists that the causes of this process are numerous and variable inconsistencies within being qua being and the expression of the latter in the place of representation (or the process of subjectification). So following a recent insight from my friend Adam Bresnahan regarding the role of Darstellung in the master-slave dialectic--the disjunction between master and slave determinations is produced by a Darstellung, or presentation and structure reified by this presentation, of the master as master--the "performative event" of the "I" would be nothing less than the master presenting himself as a representation, appearing as essence. This is also to say that theplace of representation, the Symbolic as such, is essentially an act of presentation which differentiates symbolic reality, by ensuring, as I will now propose, that representations both take hold in reality and are absolved, and that this taking-hold is the very process of their absolution: the "realization" of representation is effectively its immediate success and mediated failure. Indeed, the "positing of presuppositions," the positing of a Thing that enunciates, occurs as an antagonism between success and failure, between the designation of a substantial content and the abrogation of the same. First, even though the master is "not-all," he becomes what he is: he takes up the master position and articulates reality as if it were whole. Second, the master is not what he becomes: the very time of present-ation is that of theNachtraglichkeit, the supplementation (perhaps this is what the homology between "afterwardness" and "addition" means in German) of the utterance with an "I" who was to have been there, who was retroactively presupposed--posited as presupposed--to have been referred to with the "I," and who has the advantage of being neither an illusion as such nor a formal reality (i.e. noumena) which precedes phenomenalization. What is produced is rather the slave. The slave is a formal negativity which is parallel to the not-allness of substance; in other words, the slave is the identity of the master. (One could even conclude that the negativity of substance is temporal, whereas the negativity of symbolic reality is spatial: but I think that Zizek's dialectic demands we dissolve such easy identities.) The fundamental fantasy is that the master views this presupposition as himself quasubstance, or said otherwise, himself as the Real of need--that he views himself as proceeding from satisfied, raw need (his vision of a) to conscious subject, from unconscious to conscious. The reality of the slave is that need as such does not exist: "raw need" is always already a product of signification--need is always a demand met and domesticated by symbolization as a way of displacing the immitigable "rawness" of the Real, which is a demand insoluble by either philanthropy or "holistic parenting."

The brunt of my argument is a wish that Johnston had more accurately delineated the difference between unconscious and conscious. On my view (and this is partly an answer to my concerns about the language of "becoming-conscious"), the "processes of subjectification" do not yet constitute consciousness, but rather a vanishing mediator between the unconscious and consciousness as such. There is no "becoming-conscious of," one does not become-conscious of a predicate. There is no becoming-conscious qua appropriation of an object, satisfaction of a need, and the subject does not arise like a whale breaking the waves. The waves were rather always broken; Moby-Dick is present from the very first page, but present precisely as absent (and this against Althusser's doctrine of symptomatic reading: absent as present). (Is the climax of Moby-Dick the presentation of Event as such, or rather its dissolution, its abandonment?) The act of becoming-conscious, as opposed to the act of presentation, is instead $ itself: one cannot be said to be conscious until the time of $, until the time that presentation pour l'instant (here we could re-approach the Derridean problematic of the instant) abandons representation as a mode of becoming what it is. In the instant of becoming what it is, Ereignis is not Sein, event is not equal to being as I suppose the later Heidegger, according to Bill, will assert; Ereignis is in this sense rather the anxiety of different times. A time in which very little happens (the not-allness of substance--barred a), a time which mediates and repeats the latter in order to become what it is through the very denial of what it is (the process of subjectification--not sure what the Lacanian matheme is here), and a time in which everything happens all at once (the revolutionary time of $ and barreda). In the time of $ it is as if time finally appears to itself. Three different times that appear in the place, the Darstellung absolved of its constitutive Vorstellungen or representations, of a single point. One could approach Lukacs's concept of "becoming-historical subject" anew in this way.

Notes on In Search of Lost Time (1)

2010-11-07T15:58:00.001-08:00

First, again, there is place, the place - world, continent, country, town, home. The time: World War I, 1914 and then 1916. The place is first a place, location and locale, villa, plaza, vista, chateau, bungalow. Proust's hermeneutics, in place of remembrance, is that of forgetting, the invisible condition, actual as it is unreal: of habit. We find Marcel (pseudo-, Proust) the addressee of letters from Robert and Gilberte upon one return to Paris and then another, and with the second occupation by the Germans possible if not imminent. Gilberte describes, in her first letter, the glory, modesty, and nobility of the Germans who occupy her home; trying to get at the sense of their presence, she tells Marcel that one soldier requested permission to pick forget-me-nots from her garden. The Germans lack the violence and rancor of the French, she says. Gilberte expresses this train of German nationalism, and Marcel wonders whether, by sacrificing her home to Germans, she has not become absolutely passive to their passing-through, their passage through the Meseglise way. This is the first Combray: passive, giving, sensuous even in thrall and in suffering, in the sense of its ownership passive, the gathering of forget-me-nots which ensures that the Germans, in the tension of their moment, will not be forgotten, or, on the hither side of remembrance, will not cease to forget that this is the home of another. This is the Meseglise Way and all we can say of its content (its direction and form): its generosity, its shelter beneath rainfall in the beginning, beneath the shifting weather and the sky's duration. Or, who knows, it is the Guermantes Way; perhaps someday it will be or have been Swann's Way, the way of the double, the direction of the me in me who is absolutely not "I" in the moment I turn back to take him to me in the homosexual encounter of sight, of seeing the double, the eyes and the rotation of the two, now this way, now that. That is the first letter of Gilberte. In-between the two signatures of Gilberte, between which intervenes Marcel's stay, for two years, in the sanatorium, arrives Robert's letter: more Saint-Loup than Guermantes, more Robert than Rachel. Robert reports the act of war in its dissemination, its activity, its passing-through and breaking-through, in the serial vice and vicissitudes of its morphologies, typologies, the work of war and the erosion with which it signs the land that it not only devastates but turns into memory. Robert echoes Hegel in remarking that war is a "process of becoming," an event repeating itself almost automatically, with only its direction available to the trained and voluntary (volunteer) eye, between and out of the contradiction between French and German. Combray as it once was but as the love that never was, from which we are forever exiled and have been from the beginning, or the Combray that existed only in the looks between us, in glances, and in precious stares. As letters, signatures on the land, erased by rain years before war, now given back by the latter, as if sifting through the surplus that is my home. The land lives again so that the love dormant inside of it, which it also is as a double, can be issued as the impossible call of a love, or, at an about face, a second nature. The French and German forces are not purely enemies but unloving forces, wed as they are rent apart, in the same home, the Combray of Marcel's childhood, which is never the same home as such, the child was always something more and less and never the child as such. Robert and Rachel, Marcel and Albertine, Saint-Loup and the daughter of Odette, Proust and Gilberte, Swann and his perfidious wife: Marcel Proust and myself, the reader. Both strangers in this dwelling; we are never, together, one, but friends or lovers, readers or the one who writes, at the very same time the end and the beginning all over again of this book before me, of this home and how it is shared, partitioned and positioned before and after its destruction, and again, despite the remonstrations of a memory that will inevitably be forgotten, a source of distribution. Here the foresworn fertility of Gilberte: there Proust's abortion. How would it be to have this home again, to have each other, but first you, back, as flesh, as life before my eyes and before the event? How would we fight with the same home between us and above us once more? We are under this roof together, both of us sheltered by the book. This is the first World War, but, too, the second time it has occurred. For the world, meaning Marcel as such, has forgotten, and plays it out again, as if, to reiterate, it is the Great War that he passed by in the trappings of habit; the first war is always the second, farcical and a simple address and reply, never met but only intimated in glances revealed and obscured: a letter about around and within our home, an about face toward the home that we share as mutually not and never simply ours, the Combray that will never cease to remember our love, so long as we in turn never cease to forget it. This is the home that we share even as we never mean to, and us, tracing ways that simply take off and turn about Combray.

2010-10-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm starting over again.

2010-05-03T08:09:00.001-07:00

ebook at artistically declined press, titled failing this

2010-05-02T23:06:00.000-07:00

so, new pieces up at night train and frigg

let me know what you think

thank you

justin taylor does zachary german

2010-03-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

homeboy justin taylor lays out zachary german's new book here. it's a remarkable little essay.

this book demands unpacking, y'all

2010-03-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

new story up at corium

alongside greats like Stephen Elliott, Sean Lovelace, Adam Moorad, Donna Vitucci, Kathy Fish, Scott Garson, Beth Thomas, Kim Chinquee, Sheldon Compton, Ryan Ridge, Julie Babcock, Eric Beeny, Andrea Kneeland, Christina Murphy, Laura Ellen Scott, Shaindel Beers, Corey Mesler, Sam Rasnake, Rusty Barnes and Cami Park.

hope you enjoy

fantasy

2010-03-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

You appear in my fantasies. I will let you have sex with the girlfriend. Who will I be in the fantasies?

I am tired of you in my fantasies. You are the same actor as anyone.

I fantasize that your bodies adhere--about them adhering. I imagine you are talking about me in a strange and new way. I think you might no longer appear in my fantasies in the morning.

In the morning, my fantasy is new. It is no longer you who adheres to the body, but me. But I am adhering to my own body, or somebody whom I cannot imagine. Because I know what is actually happening in my life, and I introduced you in a manner of speaking.

Night, I look at pictures of you and investigate her email.

I imagine you have actually had a son or daughter together. I adopt the thing. It delights me for you both.

Will you please send her more emails?

Send pictures.

I am tired of living this way. I am tired of living with you. I hope you are fired from where you work. I am not sure we are necessarily thinking of the same person.

2010-03-01T23:00:00.001-08:00

RIP Barry Hannah, and thank you.

stories

2010-01-16T23:27:00.000-08:00

piece up at the2ndhand

piece up at pank with some great folks, like Maureen Alsop, Andrew Borgstrom, Doug Paul Case, Mark Cunningham, Geordie deBoer, Sutherland Douglass, Dave Housley, Stephanie Johnson, Carolyn Kegel, Thomas Patrick Levy, Amy McDaniel, Carrie Murphy, Joseph Murphy, Ani Smith, Janey Smith,

2010-01-10T23:27:00.001-08:00

the best and most complete thing I've written in two weeks is:

I know of no way to stop anyone who thinks I am a sexist, except by putting her to sleep.

2010-01-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

I lately think: why should I be a writer. There are hundreds of people--some just as young, some further along, some honed and ready--reading the same books as me, thinking what I'm thinking, who write more, write better, and won't indulge in self-reflexive blogposts like this one, who won't give their time and name to the void. Like I will; like I do.

What gives me the right to say: I write fiction. Because I like to think that writing is democratic. Because it's something I do sometimes--even though I haven't learned how to write a successful story; perhaps, with patience and grace, I will--and look, I'm doing it the stupid way, the way that might have abandoned, let shrivel the work itself, the way that pays no heed to the work, to doing the work, to having done work I can account for, and say: I write that. This is writing, and I am somewhere in here. My voice--if there is one--precedes any letting-speak. If I keep going, I might silence myself.

Someone once had the right, the worry, the taking-to-task to say:

supply the word "vulnerable," please, when I pause.

2009-12-28T21:28:00.001-08:00

Jesse [jes-se]

--noun (pl. Jesses)
1. Someone--typically male--who invents popcorn subs at The Subway six days per week, 52 weeks per year. Jesses may or may not smoke cigarettes and be good listeners.
2. A friend.
3. An arch-nemesis or lover of a Noah, or a Noah-Bitch.

--verb (intransitive)
1. To invent a popcorn sub: For years, I Jessed in isolation
2. To defeat a Flying Demon: In 1862, a Thai Noah found himself unable to Jesse.

--verb (transitive)
1. To mock a Sivens: Guys, quit Jesseing me!

--adjective
1. To be an expert at making sandwiches for The Subway. *See The Subway.

---

Matt [matt]

--noun (pl. Matts)
1. A man or boy who steals alcohol and/or homework from people. He may or may not be drunk at the time of theft: Help! A Matt stole this boy's homework!
2. A philosophy scholar.
3. A relationships scholar.
4. A good friend of Papas. Papas and Matts may or may not have the same mother, depending on the schematics of Dad-History for the Papa/Matt complex in question.

--verb (intransitive)
1. To drink alcohol: have you been Matting?
2. To smoke smoke cigarettes.
2. To study philosophy: have you been Matting?
3. To study relationships.
4. To study the philosophy of relationships.

--verb (transitive)
1. To befriend a Papa: Papa, I am not Matting with you.
2. To be hostile toward a Sivens. *See Sivens.

--adjective
1. To be drunk: are you Matt? Look at me. Are you?
2. To be belligerent.

---

Dad-History [dad-his-tory]

--noun (pl. Dads)
1. The totality of fathers who have disappointed a particular man or boy. In rare cases, the subject of a Dad-History may occur as a girl. Such cases are to be forgotten immediately upon inception. *See father.
2. The essential link between a Matt and Papa, or a Noah and Jesse. Without a Dad-History, either pair will find itself extremely vulnerable to a Noah's Mom (Aunt Mara) attack. *See Aunt Mara.

---

2009-12-27T20:53:00.001-08:00

Question: If I hypothetically had a ~15k word manuscript--let's just say I had one of these, this fact kept discreet between you and me--would anyone publish a novella so short, or would I just go ahead and serialize the child?

Any thoughts to ease my mind. Hypothetically. Let's just say.

2009-12-25T23:34:00.000-08:00

When I was little, I knew a boy who used a wheelchair instead of legs. When we turned into men, he moved away, to Wisconsin, a safe and snowy state, and brought his wheelchair along. We would sit on his house's red slate roof and toss rocks, lift our legs up under the gutter and flutter them back and forth like wings. I carried him there, through the rancid rotted attic, his small broken body bent in my strong arms. Up there, the wind tearing at our hair, we would stare at the blue sky and scream. In my head, I would pummel clouds to the ground with the beat of my bony brittle fists.

new stuff online

2009-12-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

piece in the latest smokelong here

excerpt from my novella on spork here

interview with the great rudy wilson here

story at the catalonian review

2009-12-17T20:25:00.000-08:00

i have a story at the catalonian review here

it's a short one, no worries

reading RAY backwards

2009-12-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

i have an essay on reading barry hannah's classic RAY backwards, on HTMLGIANT, here

hey assholes

2009-12-16T17:05:00.001-08:00

would someone please respond to my blog posts?

it would make me feel happy and real.

excerpt from novella-in-progress

2009-12-15T01:12:00.000-08:00

picked this bit at random:

Fletch's house I won't describe, everything is so goddamn clean in there. The bathrooms were dressed with red eyelets, the living room with hoary castered chairs. The rotted brick walls were written with the black of cigarette ash. The shingled roof tucked in a steel-grey trim. I don't know much about houses. I suppose it was a bungalow. What little I do know, I have learned from reading books until things have spoken their natures out to me. My head invites a clear picture. My head and heart both go wild when this occurs.

I have spent long, hot days driving by that house to see how no one was home.

Sometimes I took the car when I wasn't meant to and it was a disaster.

I tried hard to pass my love around that house. My love teetered and someday it just nodded off.

This whole time I was afraid. I thought Fletch would leave me, weak and hollow, for Orlando. I had trouble staying in my bed at night. I wandered the house, I would open and close doors. I would yell through hallways, my hurting voice gone unheard. I developed trouble breathing. Sometimes I awoke hitting the fingers of a fist into my chest. In my dreams I hurt myself and other people. I developed lesions on my arms from so much of my dreaming. Langston wrapped herself around myself and asked about it. I said problems at work. There were problems. Certainly, there were problems, but I couldn't make my mouth stop lying. Langston worried herself asleep. I held her hair and spoke gibberish into it. Then I walked the halls some more. I would fold my nose into windows and wait for the sky to change.

"the red truck"

2009-12-15T00:26:00.000-08:00

has anybody read this book?

i am fifty pages in, but would it be crazy if i preemptively lauded the red truck by rudy wilson as one of the most unique and extraordinary books i've read?

the book is majestic. the book is a little peter markus, a little barry hannah, and absolutely there is nothing else like it.

i'll snip something out:

Alan jumped. His shortness ran, his shadow crouched toward a tree that got two small bullet holes in it, one that came through the boy's head, coated red. The blood was on his neck, it dripped down there, past the sun-brown to the sun-missed whiteness of his body that pulsed and then stopped. he had tiny hairs on the nape of his neck and on his back. His mother ran her fingers there. He lay, now he curled up last into a circle on the ground. His lips touched the dust in the grass. In his throat was a lump of air connected by nothing to a point of being.

2009-12-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

how am i supposed to respond whenever people say things like 'peace' and 'word' at me

recent writing

2009-12-09T17:35:00.001-08:00

lately it's been rejection after rejection. i got a longer story accepted by night train. but the coldness of form rejections has stymied my writing, trapped me in my head a little.

i'm working slowly on a novella. it feels like stringing together flashes, and the experience is sometimes nauseating; this one might be doomed. i am constantly worried that i won't be able to make it long enough for book form, which seems extremely vain.

is worrying about length vain? do you ever feel pressured to lengthen? perhaps it's just another form of inspiration, which is itself a vain anguish.

what do you think about multiple narrators in a work? is it outdated? should 'outdated' even apply to aesthetics? no, it shouldn't, but it inevitably does. i suppose i am not brave; i guess my voice is just weakening. but multiple voices: how do you manage them? what if the voices sound the same? do they have to be radically different? what is the nature of "voice" in an artwork?

etc.

"correction" by thomas bernhard

2009-12-03T14:41:00.000-08:00

i don't think i'll ever finish it

but i knew it was about heidegger, i fucking knew it.

'infinitude'

2009-10-31T18:47:00.000-07:00

so i was thinking that i long for a sort of 'infinitude' in what i read lately

i miss a certain respect for the infinite, the incomplete, bottomless, etc.

there is a smaller scope to what i've been reading--there are worlds in sentences, yes, but the sentence is not only found in sound

and it seems like i prefer sentences that are acoustically resonant rather than those that are mathematically plotted or something

i feel like i cannot have a dialogue with most of this stuff, like i cannot collaborate

somebody just offered me free MDMA

happy halloween or something

funny thing

2009-10-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

i had a story about a man threatening a plane with terrorism in order to be taken home to his wife, written in an "awkward, angular style" (as i guess i would term it), rejected by a journal because of content that "perpetuates stereotypes." the editor who responded--because the narrator speaks in "broken english," and because the story concerns (though it does not really concern) him performing terroristic activities--assumed that the narrator was i guess middle-eastern, and that i was, in the story, perpetuating stereotypes regarding middle-eastern people and terrorism, when that, in fact, has nothing at all to do with the intended content of the story.

funny, and a little disconcerting.

upcoming work

2009-10-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

i have stuff in december online in the catalonian review, pank, and smokelong quarterly.

what's funny is that the smokelong piece was declined by JMWW, which on its guidelines page declares:

Flash Fiction: We like our flash under 1000. We think that Smokelong Quarterly publishes the best work out there, so if you think they'd like it, chances are we'll like it, too. We might even like it if Smokelong doesn't.

thought that was kind of funny.

sorry

2009-09-26T14:01:00.001-07:00

haven't been posting really. i'm "on hiatus" i guess from blogging. i mean, it's not like anyone cares. i'm mostly apologizing to myself.

been busy with school, writing, transferring schools, etc.

okay.

story on everyday genius

2009-09-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

here

sweet thanks

FUCK (2)

2009-08-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

BABY FLOURISHES

Diane Williams

The baby spent time on a pitiful romance. She felt herself to be in the arms--somehow gathered, forcibly invited, incapable of enjoying herself, and very much in love.

FUCK

2009-08-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

How It Is Done*

Lydia Davis

There is a description in a child's science book of the act of love that makes it all quite clear and helps when one begins to forget. It starts with affection between a man and a woman. The blood goes to their genitals as they kiss and caress each other, this swelling creates a desire in these parts to be touched further, the man's penis becomes larger and quite stiff and the woman's vagina moist and slippery. The penis can now be pushed into the woman's vagina and the parts move "comfortably and pleasantly" together until the man and woman reach orgasm, "not necessarily at the same time." The article ends, however, with a cautionary emendation of the opening statement about affection: nowadays many people make love, it says, who do not love each other, or even have any affection for each other, and whether or not this is a good thing we do not yet know.

*please do not sue me yet

that ain't no god it's just a hedge on fire

2009-08-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

thoughts on the new why? album:

it's called "eskimo snow"

i think i would like why? more if there were no baroque pop arrangements

and if they returned to a more outsider electronica feel

of course that would require the firing of several band members

the new album is really good though

maybe the strongest lyrically

most concise

still i feel like the instrumentation doesn't work for them

because yoni's lyrics are so much about alienation and loneliness and stuff

and pianos and xylophones or whatever don't really signify alienation and loneliness etc. to me

dunno

why?: early whitney*

*this isn't my absolute favorite why? song, although it is in the top 5, but this 'video remix' is just about the best and most stirring thing i've seen

why?: gemini (birthday song)*

*this song is actually only five minutes, and it is probably one of my favorite songs

excerpts from a collaborative short story by crystal miller & me

2009-08-12T15:30:00.000-07:00

alec: next time i will hold you so tightly your kidney stone will fall out
we will both be drunk then or just me
i will fold you and lower you like we are fishing
on your back, in a sit-up position
i will kiss your forehead and do a push-up and
doing it
i will brake at your face and feel no pain at all

crystal: please just lets have one there outside now.
its blue not gray use your eyes. look with your eyes. with what?
and cravings and the grand slam at dennys and syrup and honey and toast with jam. yes we can.
only thing is you said do they quit serving breakfast at ten
at mcdonalds i quip i added that quip at the end but i said. really though, i said, the difference is attitude.

sleepingfish

2009-08-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

i have a short story in the next issue of sleepingfish

makes me feel good, better

'this is your life'

2009-08-08T21:55:00.000-07:00

was talking to someone about NOON magazine the other night

think i'm going to write an essay on NOON and post it here eventually

having real trouble writing or whatever

feel like i need to make changes

need to really change how i engage

how i view, map, generate relationships, friendships, etc.

feel like my shirt's always on backwards

or incorrectly buttoned if collared

i mean i want to turn my skin inside-out

'honest'

2009-08-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

'honest' i swear

this is so hard for me to say

but

'feelings' and i need to call my grandmother

2009-08-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

yesterday was my birthday

i felt so sad on my birthday

there is so much you have to do if you are an aspiring writer

for instance

you have to read so many blogs

you have to lament that you can't comment on those blogs because you don't know the people who write those blogs and it would be creepy to them or they would ignore your comment

you have to lament that you can't think of a way to befriend exclusionary bloggers on the internet

because you are weird and every blog post you make seems a solecism of some sort

you have to really, at once, 'love literature' and 'love the internet'

and you end up spending so much time reading blogs and maintaining a blog and watching the internet happen that you grow more frustrated and anxious and nervous

because your writing has slowed considerably

because you are barely reading anything at all

because

after so much time spent in between the space of internet and the space of literature

you realize

that both are endless

i never get emails anymore

chapbook review

2009-08-01T22:04:00.001-07:00

have a review here:

http://thechapbookreview.com/current-issue/

chapbook review rules and i am glad to be a part of it

new prefab sprout song/frederick barthelme story

2009-07-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

prefab sprout does it again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dq_v5kZeEM

i am writing in the new york public library

it seems to be working

"cut glass" by frederick barthelme is one of the best short stories i've read, probably

it is fragile, surreal, elliptical, spare, etc.

http://books.google.com/books?id=hwbbn4VZAVgC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=frederick+barthelme+cut+glass&source=bl&ots=d8C1NFZ80V&sig=zHGJ5o9kk1LcuPvrIrd3xy3yjAQ&hl=en&ei=WzZuSqSWBM6Btgfkk_yIDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

that should work

it's like 8 pages

this blog is depressing me

2009-07-27T11:36:00.000-07:00

everyone else has a better blog than i do

everyone else puts a lot of work & effort into their blog

making it nice and readable and posting cool things

i wish i could write you nice and readable and cool things

you would read them and comment, 'hey alec, i like you and i like what you posted'

and both of us would feel good, so good, we would feel like two blades of grass or something

i would feel like you are my friend

we could drink beers together and laugh at comedies

sadly that is not the case

this story is really good

2009-07-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.theparisreview.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5585

ALWAYS CRUSH ME

2009-07-24T16:37:00.000-07:00

ALWAYS CRUSH ME

a poem

i am in think coffee trying to write

it is not working

i am listening to guided by voices on shuffle

i feel bad for not buying anything here

i think i have mustard somewhere on my face

chapbook review

2009-07-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

i'll have a piece in the next issue of the chapbook review

read it and give me feedback if you want

i'll link to it here

please save me

2009-07-21T15:36:00.001-07:00

i cannot stay this way

please

agriculture reader

2009-07-19T10:57:00.001-07:00

I AM HAVING A SHORT STORY PUBLISHED IN AGRICULTURE READER

THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME IN A WHILE

A GCHAT BETWEEN US

2009-07-15T15:21:00.001-07:00

A GCHAT BETWEEN US

a poem

3:05 PM me: there is some-one out there who loves you

3:06 PM you: i know

new dog city

2009-07-14T19:25:00.001-07:00

i am starting a new novella

the tentative title is "new dog city"

it is about what if people in new york city were replaced by dogs and dogs by people

and narrated by a person

hopefully it will be better than the novella i wrote last year

that was really bad

i am going to see HP6 at midnight

recent books

2009-07-13T00:31:00.001-07:00

tonight i read "you are here" by donald breckenridge. i would recommend it to all of my friends. it is complex and challenging and engaging and quick and engrossing. you can borrow my copy.

yesterday i finished "memphis underground" by stewart home. i would recommend it to all of my friends, enemies, and frenemies. instead of describing the book, i will link to its amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Memphis-Underground-Stewart-Home/dp/1905005423/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247470383&sr=8-2

recommend books to me, too. let me borrow them if you can.

Tell Her I Say Hello

2009-07-12T00:09:00.001-07:00

TELL HER I SAY HELLO

a story

I am talking to my friend on Facebook chat. I haven't talked to him in probably 4-6 months. We have a lot to catch up on. I'm typing on a big Mac desktop. I don't know what kind. From the bedroom I hear a sound like coughing. It's actually my girlfriend crying. I leave the computer room. I forget to tell my friend, who has cystic fibrosis, "brb." I feel bad for my friend who has cystic fibrosis.

My girlfriend is crying into a pillow on her bed. Her bed is a futon, I guess. She is cocooned in a white duvet. I don't know why she is crying into a pillow. She sounds very sad from the severity of her crying.

I lie down on top of her body.

"Why are you crying?" I ask.

"I am sad," she says between sobs.

"Oh," I say.

"It isn't your fault," she says.

"Okay," I say.

I go back into the computer room and resume talking to my friend. He is probably confused about why I took a short break from talking.

He tells me about a music festival. I am sad that he will probably die sooner than most of his friends. I wish he could live just as long as anyone.

I hear more sobs break from the bedroom. I go lie down on top of her again.

I say her name repeatedly. I receive no response. I return to the computer room.

This time, I apologize to my friend with cystic fibrosis. He says, "it's ok." I wish we would talk about things besides this music festival. I guess it isn't a big deal that I keep on pausing my involvement in our conversation.

The sound of more sobs. This time they sound more like hiccups. I explain to my friend that my girlfriend is crying in the bedroom, and that I have to go.

"that sucks," he says, "tell her i say hello."

I'M SORRY THAT I USED YOUR SKIN MOISTURIZER TO MASTURBATE WITH

2009-07-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

I'M SORRY THAT I USED YOUR SKIN MOISTURIZER TO MASTURBATE WITH

a poem

i'm sorry that i used your skin moisturizer to masturbate with

i watched "amateur allure violet," "please don't tell my parents," and "amateur teen sara"

they were good

after i masturbated i lay on my bed and looked at pictures of sharks on the internet

my girlfriend is mad at me

2009-06-30T20:23:00.001-07:00

this is mostly because of money and our handling of it

but there are other reasons, too

it makes me sad and i don't know how to respond for the most part

my most immediate response is "i want to die"

because i can't handle being the object of anger

and because i hurt someone and i disappointed them

and made them, too,

want to die, in small amounts,

yes, but no less familiar, no less like a fourth wall gone inexplicably

missing.

grape jelly

2009-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

i got grape jelly on my copy of lorrie moore's self-help

last night i got grape jelly on my copy of raymond carver's where i'm calling from

what can anyone do about grape jelly on books?

can i clean my book?

i can only wipe it off so many times.

the grape jelly interrupts my reading.

i will just have to smear grape jelly, now, on all of my books,

all of them.

edit: it has come to my attention that by "grape jelly" i mean "raspberry jam"

it is also sugar free (unsweetened)

breaking news

2009-06-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

i submitted a story to NOON

i am reading self-help by lorrie moore and it kills me

i am excited to start reading "ethics, politics, subjectivity" by simon critchley

i am also always sad about failing in one way or another

i am embarrassed, and distracted by the internet

2009-06-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

i am embarrassed.

my day was three hours long.

i want to submit a story to NOON. i don't know where i could print out the story so i can send it. everyone should read NOON if they don't already. except i only have one issue.

i probably won't submit a story to NOON. it's pointless because they get submissions from very high-profile and well-established authors--at least from among the magazine community. my story is pretty bad. why would they want it when they can have stories from famous people.

literary journal sounds like a better thing than literary magazine. "i am an intern at a literary journal for the summer," i will tell you.

"are you masturbating?"

"no."

"you should put that in the fridge."

i am distracted by the internet. i think that is the case with everyone. because of the internet i am not doing anything that could be considered real. like reading or writing or being with people who are not the internet.

i have more emails to check.

i have no new emails.

megan lyons

2009-06-22T14:28:00.000-07:00

comment on megan lyons's blog, it is a very similar blog to mine

an essay on My Life Is Terrible

2009-06-22T04:40:00.000-07:00

the internet is a weird space for literature. especially when the literary work is contained within virtual bounds,

i.e. it has no printed counterpart.

an ebook may be of any length, inasmuch as it is loosed from capitalistic methods of reproduction. or is it. the latter is not the subject of this short essay.

an ebook may be of any quality. as surely you have been able to discern.

an ebook designs its own rules. an ebook is written in code. an ebook is programmed into online space. an ebook does not simply happen. but it might as well. one moment there is no ebook. the next one can read the ebook in its entirety.

the ebook is not dead nor does it die. the ebook is a connective tissue of literature. the ebook is the flesh of the literary body, de-gendered. the ebook alters the body from which it emerges each time it is read. it is the child which impregnates the mother. returns to the womb and bursts out in the span of an instant. the ebook is an instant. the ebook is the instant.

the ebook is not quite infinite. it does not quite experience the solitude of the unbounded work, the work of sacrifice, the work of absolute ambiguity and shadow. because the ebook can disappear in the span of an instant. for the ebook is constitutive of the instant. and when the ebook disappears there is no longer an instant.

in a way the ebook has always already disappeared. in a certain sense the ebook vanishes in the moment of its reading. but in each renewed moment the ebook makes its violent return from the womb.

for the ebook must die in the womb before it can be born. the ebook must resign from time before it can be placed. the ebook must bear the trace of no one--no mother or father--before it can be inaugurated qua ebook.

the ebook lives on in the very instant of its death. the death which is, has never been, the ebook's, or anyone else's. the death which engulfs the ebook, which is no longer an ebook.

instead, it is me. otherwise said, it is the death of me.

alec

my ebook

2009-06-22T04:31:00.000-07:00

my ebook is fictional.

nothing that takes place in it actually happened.

but i wonder wouldn't it be like that fictional or not.

an essay, or postscript, is forthcoming.

alec

My Life Is Terrible 4, an ebook

2009-06-22T02:46:00.001-07:00

I look at a bike. I look at the man who has a five-dollar bill that's my five-dollar bill. I look at

doors.

I look at tenements. I look at birds. I look at my girlfriend. My girlfriend looks at me.

"I like you," I tell my girlfriend.

My girlfriend is going to leave a comment on chapter one of my ebook. Read that chapter of my ebook. I'm nervous about what her comment is going to say. The music playing now is dumb.

She says, "Oh oh oh" and hugs me and that makes me feel good and happy. Then when she stops doing that I don't feel happy anymore.

There is an old person jogging. He looks stupid. I want to hit him with a chainsaw. The chainsaw wouldn't be on. I would just hit him with it.

There is a stupid-looking man walking down the street. Stupid people evidently like to walk down this street.

We have to leave the cafe because they are closing for a morning clean-up. Fuck. What do I do with these glass dishes. These glass dishes are actually ash trays. I want my three dollars back. The guy who has my three dollars is leaving. I want to throw his ash trays at him. I throw his ash trays at him. He dies.

THE END

My Life Is Terrible 3, an ebook

2009-06-22T02:31:00.001-07:00

Now "Mad World" is playing. It is 5:22 AM. The sun has risen. Outside a tall guy has opened the trunk of a minivan. He’s carrying into the cafe boxes. I’m hungry and depressed that I lost three dollars to a person who gave me glass dishes and glossy paper with my name written on it. Also my girlfriend’s name.

We have been in this cafe for eight hours.

I hate my life.

My girlfriend thinks I lie to her a lot. I don’t really. I can’t remember the last time I did. The only time I can remember lying to her recently is about my feelings and feeling sad or angry.

I just lied to her about reading something she says I didn’t read. I sort of did but not entirely. I think that counts as reading it. It probably doesn’t. I am a liar. How can I even be honest about my lying. Ha ha.

The guy who took my three dollars is back and he says he has money for breakfast. The money he has for breakfast is my money. I want to stab him in the head a bunch of times.

New York City is great.

“Like a Bollywood type movie?”

I hate everyone in New York City. I hate everyone everywhere else. I hate Brooklyn. I wish I never had to talk.

There are so many stupid conversations happening at once. Actually it’s only one conversation. It could easily be about thirty conversations. These thirty conversations are coming from the hot barista. I want to stab him in the head a bunch of times, too. I probably think his conversations are stupid because I think my girlfriend is going to have sex with him.

She probably will.

My Life Is Terrible 2, an ebook

2009-06-22T02:17:00.001-07:00

3:19 AM

David: hey

me: hey

David: how's nyc?

3:22 AM

me: amazing

how's home

how was hong kong

David: boring and awesome

how is the internship?

3:25 AM

me: awesome, i love everything i'm doing

i'm in a cafe in the west village right now

this is so cool

do you think you'll be able to come up here?

David: ha badass

3:26 AM

yeah i think so. when would be a good time?

me: whenever

3:27 AM

David: alright then i'll start looking up tickets. i don't have a job and do nothing everyday. btw guess what i found out eariler?

3:28 AM

me: what?

David: i'm transferring to emory

me: what holy shit

that's awesome

!!!!!!

David: yeah, i literally didn't give it a second thought. i noly applied because my parents forced me to

3:29 AM

me: whoa that's so cool

maybe your parents fixed it so you'd get in

maybe to make up for all of the years of abusing you

3:30 AM

David: that would actually be awesome and might even redeem their poor parenting

me: it would for me

3:31 AM

i'm at a cafe and there is a crazy person who keeps talking to himself, he is bald and really fat with fat rolls in the back of his head

now he's talking about his invented girlfriend

that's so awesome though

congrats

3:32 AM

did you do really well in college?

David: man now that's awesome, can't get that anywhere else

me: you should come here as soon as you can

3:33 AM

David: no, which is the really weird part. i have the exact same gpa as i did in high school, which is a 3.1

me: he just called me tom brady

that's literally a crazy thing to happen

even though a 3.1 is better in college than in high school right

David: you should take that cas a compliment

me: i am choosing to

3:34 AM

this is amazing, i am facing a window that looks directly out onto mcdougal street (which is bob dylan's street in the village)

you should come here as soon as you can

3:35 AM

David: min-blowingly cool

will do, just got to clear it with parents, which should be easy considering i jus tpulled off a fucking miracle

me: hahaha i bet this was a great father's day for papa cao

3:36 AM

xiu? right?

David: close, xu

me: even better

David: it's funny filling out forms with his name, especially when they ask for only the first initial

3:37 AM

me: hahaha

so what'd you do in HK

David: mostly toured the city and some scenic spots

3:38 AM

doing much of the same in ny?

me: sort of. i've mostly been eating

i'm also living with my girlfriend, which is great so far

3:39 AM

David: damn, nice. is she from there or did the both of you move there fort he summer?

me: she just graduated from new college, but yeah, next month she's moving into her own apt though

3:40 AM

David: niice, dating someone with a degree already. you are a god sir

3:41 AM

me: hahaha, likewise

this bald man is now yelling "miss" at my girlfriend

now talking to himself

3:42 AM

now talking to someone else

David: lol is he right next to you?

3:44 AM

me: no he's in the corner opposite to mine

3:49 AM

what've you been doing

this city is amazing

3:50 AM

David: pretty much noting.

i bet it is. everything happens there

me: it really does

what'd you want to do here

3:52 AM

David: i don't know. what do you recommend? i'd like to eat at some famous/good places. and i guess any good concert/events that only happen in ny?

3:54 AM

me: yeah i haven't been to many famous/good places so we should go to them

yeah there are free concerts in the park and stuff

i saw david byrne for free in prospect park a couple of weeks ago

so we could go to those

3:55 AM

there are free movie festivals

i'm sure we'll get to go to some parties and stuff, or at least opium magazine events

David: damn, that already sounds awesome

3:56 AM

almost all of the flights from bham to ny require at least one stop it seems, and thet all take more than 6 hours

3:57 AM

me: this guy just came over who works at the cafe and gave us free glass dishes

3:58 AM

shit that sucks

well hm which airline?

laura took a jetblue flight that was really short

David: ah ok, i was looking at sw

3:59 AM

lol free glass dishes?

that is awesome

4:00 AM

me: yeah and then he came over and wrote our names in permanent marker on some sort of glossy paper

and wrote "NYC" on it

4:01 AM

David: any reason for this or was he just being badass

me: up. then he asked me for 2 dollars

4:02 AM

and i didn't know what was going on and for some reason entertained him and it turned out i had 5 dollars and then he gave me only 2 dollars in return

and now i am out three dollars and am depressed

David: hahahahahaha

that's even cooler

me: i also think the dishes are from the cafe

i think he stole them

4:03 AM

David: hahahahah, wow he must be a really lazy criminal or just crazy

4:05 AM

ok how does july 6 or 7 sound?

4:08 AM

me: that sounds fine except i might have someone else coming to stay with me for a couple of days on the 7th

i don't care it's up to you with regards to sleeping arrangements

4:09 AM

David: oh where i sleep is the last thing i care about. as long as you're ok with two extra poeple staying with you

4:11 AM

me: nah i don't care

july 6 and 7 is fine

4:12 AM

i hate my life

i really miss that three dollars

David: heh can 3 bucks even get anything

4:14 AM

me: yeah

a 2.50 falafel

a cup of coffee

a bagel

a lot

David: great, now i'm hungry

4:15 AM

me: haha i am too

but i've lost 3 dollars!

anyway i'm going to go back to my apt i think

David: hmm now i empathize with your conundrum

me: let me know about the plane details once they happen

4:16 AM

yeah i empathize too

i hate my life

good night

My Life Is Terrible 1, an ebook

2009-06-22T01:56:00.000-07:00

I think this fat bald man is now yelling “miss” at my girlfriend. He is talking to himself. Now he is talking to some else.

“Welcome to the Esperanto Café ha ha ha. They have really good chocolate cake,” he says to someone seated at the counter. The person seated at the counter laughs in response.

He walks outside and talks to two people seated on a bench. He walks back inside and sits down. He’s sitting in the corner opposite from me. He’s really fat and his head has a lot of rolls. Now that I look not so many rolls but some.

Now with his arm resting on his chair he talks to himself.

“This guy reminds me of The Shining.”

My girlfriend, Laura, might be about to cry. She might be about to cry because she can’t get her resume to meet her aesthetic standards. Her face is flushed anyway. Which is funny because I’ve never known her to have a high barometer for appearances.

Which explains why we are dating. I want to die.

Tom Waits is playing from café’s speakers. The speakers playing Tom Waits are posted in every corner of the room. Tom Waits is playing from all of them.

“The cat got fat, my girlfriend’s cat,” the bald guy tells the guy working behind the counter, who my girlfriend told me is hot. I believe her. He is hot.

“I’m so excited for my friend David to come visit us,” I tell my girlfriend. She isn’t going to cry. That makes me glad because it makes me feel sad when she cries. It's only natural that I should feel happy when she doesn't cry.

“Some guys find me attractive when I’m drunk,” this fat and bald man says. “He said ‘I’m on speed.’ I said ‘Speed it up.’ He bit my lip and smacked it in his jaws. I said ‘What was that for.’”

“Let me tell you something, when I lived with my girlfriend, every time she turned on me, that cat gave me solace. But then that cat got fat.”

“He said it was really philosophical,” the hot barista says. I wish I were the hot barista. The hot barista probably doesn’t wish he were me. This as I look at my reflection in the window and make a face that my girlfriend calls a “rapper face.” I make this rapper face whenever I look at my reflection. I am now looking at my reflection. I want to die and then “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star starts playing from every speaker. Then I don’t want to die as much for the most part.

mrs. ted bliss

2009-06-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Bliss-American-Literature-Dalkey-Archive/dp/1564783227

here's a good book i'm reading slowly. i wish everyone would read books slowly but they won't, fuck.