throes of syntax

I just spent the last 5 hours writing two paragraphs. This is serious. The first paragraph is three sentences (one is rather long). The second paragraph contains one sentence. A short one. I don't even think they're that good. In fact, I think I liked whatever I wrote the first time around, at about 5 o'clock earlier this evening when I first sat down at my computer, but now I have no idea what it was. I just emerged from this vortex of word-fiddling and was like, I am so hungry, What did I just do to myself?

I was all set to start with this one thing, involving various abstractions like I usually do, but then I decided I should learn from the past and do something different, and now I've screwed myself into a dark, indecisive corner.

In self-consolation, at times like these I like to remember some Gary Lutz wisdom from a few years back. I attended one of his readings and during the Q & A section, someone asked if his current writing was going well. He said something to the extent of: No, my writing is not going well. My writing is never going well. And the people who say their writing is going well are the people I am not interested in reading. So maybe I can wrestle some goodness from this disaster. But not right now; I need a sandwich and television.

know what I'm not fond of or interested in? vampires.

brooklyn book festival

today. everyone was so excited about books! even the weather was happy as a little kid with a backpack. i did some book selling / hanging out at the Akashic Books booth and was able to wander through most of the festival, although i didn't catch as many readings as I meant to.

books/journals acquired:
Bicycle by Paul Fattaruso
A Best of FENCE: The First Nine Years, which includes stories by at least half of the writers I love
A Public Space Issue Three
Letting Go: Morrie's Reflections on Living While Dying by Morrie Schwartz which looks like the most depressing self-help book in the world (but I found this on the street in a "please take" box after the fact so it's not really included in the festival goods)

authors observed and/or met: Arthur Nersesian, Tim McLoughlin, Melvin Van Peebles, Rivka Galchen, Jonathan Lethem (kind of, he was more talking to Arthur and I was standing there), David Cross, Jonathan Aames

things i am at this moment fond of or would like to learn more about:
beyonce's "single ladies" video
the possibility of making injera at home
zapatistas
typesetting
money

chicago recap

I'm really glad I did that Quickies! Chicago reading in August--it was nice to have my sister Tenae and some close friends I don't get to see that often there. Plus, the writers were all audible and read great stories; the crowd would laugh at things and clap a lot; the place was that type of divey bar that puts kooky crap all over the walls and strings lights around, kind of like a deranged Christmas work party, or someone's garage sale for a good time; the bathroom had toliet paper; and the reading's hosts, Lindsay and Mary, were awesome. They brought cupcakes.

I liked Greg Gerke's story so much I bought his book, out of his backpack, on the spot. It's called There's Something Wrong With Sven, and he was nice and talked to me about living in Brooklyn or something, I think because we were the non-Chicagoans. Chicagans? Oh, the internet just told me The Rumpus reviewed this book recently. Way to go, Greg.

Anway, if you're in Chicago you should go check out a Quickies sometime, and here are some pics from the reading. They liked my sandals. Thanks I like them too.

waves schist slap rime bank shore water-logged shallows lapping greenish

DIAGRAM issue 9.4

I would say more about it but I'm reading it now and liking this experience too much to stop and take stock of it, and blogily articulate my subjective appraisal--plus someone's coming to look at my crappy apartment and consider making it their new living space, and I guess I have to let them in. It's a lot to do. There's also a man in cargo shorts with a ladder on my fire escape and I'm trying not to be slightly terrified.

I had the impulse to share, as htmlgiant shared with me. What do you want, enticement?
Here's some stuff:

"I, underneath, I, underwater, I came floating up, scuttling, sloshing, pulled by the underwater tug, still I came floating up into silver foam." This is from August Tarrier's "Field Notes"--she uses so many lovely words associated with river and water and the material it spits up. I would never think of that many. I also really like her additional notes on the story, at the bottom, in red: "Precisely because the brain checks out during intense, traumatic experience, we discover trauma as we relive it. Like my narrator, we have only wisps and shards of the most horrific experiences of our lives, and as we try to make sense of them, gradually, cumulatively, we end up the authors of our most terrifying moments."

I really like the journal design; reminds me of Kiosk at KU.