WHOLE BEAST RAG / OUR FLOW IS HARD READING (9/8/2012)
Kristin Fitzsimmons! Jared Joseph! Russ Woods! Andrew Marzoni! Great things happened. So happy this happened.
This was super fun!
EDGE ISSUE PARTY THIS SAT AT OPEN EYE FIGURE THEATRE
I am reading at this thing. You should come.
The venue is finalized.
Open Eye Figure Theatre
506 East 24th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55404BE THERE! Here is the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/267280843377341/
Whole Beast Rag will release its EDGE issue online and in print September 1, so we’re gonna party. The babes at OUR FLOW IS HARD are gonna party, too. Party with us.
READERS
Sarah Combellick-Bidney
Kristin FitzsimmonsJared Joseph
Andrew Marzoni
Jason Spidle
Russ Woods
MUSIC
Sergei Finch
HEY HEY HEY
““Citizen Kane” isn’t even Welles’s best film, and therefore can’t be the best film of all time. But why did it hold the title for so long? The answer to that question is equally simple…”
O.M.G.
Oh hey: the wonderful editors at Whole Beast Rag deigned to publish a couple of things that I wrote. Read them here, if you like--or, better yet, buy a copy! →
“They have a wonderful therapeutic effect upon me, those catastrophes which I proofread. Imagine a state of perfect immunity, a charmed existence, a life of absolute security in the midst of poison bacilli. Nothing touches me, neither earthquakes nor explosions nor riots nor famine nor collisions nor wars nor revolutions. I am inoculated against every disease, every calamity, every sorrow and misery. It’s the culmination of a life of fortitude. Seated at my little niche all the poisons which the world gives off each day pass through my hands. Not even a fingernail gets stained. I am absolutely immune. I am even better off than a laboratory attendent, because there are no bad odors here, just the smell of lead burning. The world can blow up—I’ll be here just the same to put in a comma or a semicolon. I may even touch a little overtime, for with an event like that there’s bound to be a final extra. When the world blows up and the final edition has gone to press the proofreaders will quietly gather up all commas, semicolons, hyphens, asterisks, brackets, parentheses, periods, exclamation marks, etc. and put them in a little box over the editorial chair. Comme ça tout est réglé….
None of my companions seem to understand why I appear so contented. They grumble all the time, they have ambitions, they want to show their pride and spleen. A good proofreader has no ambitions, no pride, no spleen. A good proofreader is a little like God Almighty, he’s in the world but not of it. He’s for Sundays only. Sunday is his night off. On Sundays he steps down from his pedestal and shows his ass to the faithful. Once a week he listens in on all the private grief and misery of the world; it’s enough to last him for the rest of the week. The rest of the week he remains in the frozen winter marshes, an absolute, an impeccable absolute, with only a vaccination mark to distinguish him from the immense void.
The greatest calamity for a proofreader is the threat of losing his job. When we get together in the break the question that sends a shiver down our spines is: what’ll you do if you lose your job? For the man in the paddock, whose duty it is to sweep up manure, the supreme terror is the possibility of a world without horses. To tell him that it is disgusting to spend one’s life shoveling up hot turds is a piece of imbecility. A man can get to love shit if his livelihood depends on it, if his happiness is involved.
”
THIS THIS THIS
Every now and then I take the time to look at the things I own individually and I wonder, “How did I happen to own to this? Where did this come from?” Sometimes, in the rare moments that I do this, I dig a little deeper, and I am truly amazed. But then, I remember all of it in an instant, and I think that maybe it’s all been more worthwhile than I thought, given that I’ve had the opportunity to forget such cool things, only later to remember.
In case this is taken down at some point…
I once cat-sat this fine feline. That means I’m famous.
Marley splashes into a sleepy catastrophe next to: Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders With America’s Illegal Migrants by Ted Conover; Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola; Halls of Fame by John D’Agata; A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon: New (Soma)tics by CAConrad; and Borderlands / La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua. Marley was going to write a scathing and poetic critique of social structure, but instead he crumpled into a comatose state. Now he is silent like a massive bleeding lump on the internet.
(submitted by posthumanpoetry)
“‘Righto! But I know this much—anyone who can talk Hungarian is a wizard. It’s the toughest language in the world—except for the Hungarians, of course. Your Claude may be a bright boy, but don’t tell me he speaks Hungarian! No, you don’t ram that one down my throat.’”
“Asheville. Thomas Wolfe, who was born here, was probably composing Look Homeward, Angel! at the time of our entry. I had not even heard of Thomas Wolfe. A pity, because I might have looked at Asheville with different eyes. No matter what anyone says of Asheville, the setting is magnificent. In the very heart of the Great Smokies. Ancient Cherokee land. To the Cherokees it must have been Paradise. It is still a Paradise, if you can view it with a clear conscience.”
“There is a mirror, and the commodity form is also this mirror — manifest even in this extremely unattractive couch, despite its apparent ‘materiality,’ its presence — but since all of a sudden it no longer plays its role, since it does not reflect back the expected image, those who are looking for themselves can no longer find themselves in it. Men no longer recognise in it the social character of their own labour. It is as if they were becoming ghosts in their turn.”
“‘…Polish is the easiest language in the world. Here, do this…’ and he began making sibilant, hissing sounds like a serpent in rut. ‘Now sneeze! Good. Now gargle? Good. You see…there’s nothing to it. The rudiments are the six vowels, twelve consonants and five diphthongs. If you’re dubious, spit or whistle. Never open your mouth wide. Suck air in and push your tongue against your closed lips. Like this. Speak fast. The faster the better. Raise your voice a little, as if you were going to sing. That’s it. Now close your palate and gargle. Fine! You’re getting it. Now say after me, and don’t stutter: “Ochizkishyi seiecsuhy plaifuejticko eicjcyciu!” Excellent! You know what that means—“Breakfast is ready!”’”
Opening credits soundtrack.
“The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.
Only the brute is really potent. Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses.
To fornicate is to aspire to enter into another; the artist never emerges from himself.
I have forgotten the name of that slut. Bah! I shall remember it at the last judgment.”
"I’m back."
…fuck…