"In This Alone Impulse" reading

Will be joining a mass of readers at the release event for Shya Scanlon's poetry collection, from Noemi Press, at KGB on Wednesday.

Link! Comin at ya!

I will be reading a poem called "Fatness." Hope that's not a secret. In it, I will read the word "burrito" once. I will be drinking a beer before and maybe after. I would venture a guess that almost every person on the planet could go for "poetry" or "beer" or "burrito" because if anything, everyone loves beans. Didn't Barry Hannah say something about bean soup? As much nutrition as you can stand? I ate Ghanaian food in the Bronx today and was reminded of the absolute global terrific reception of beans.

More on the collection: Here.

happy friday

it's a day for watching

Lovely Love

Clap, Removing A Sweater

BullySmart

If Only ?

I'm seriously considering Lish's course (the 'If Only' link ) but the cost is just pretty outrageous. I guess you get what you pay for, or people will pay this much so they charge it. But it's not really plausible for me or most people I know. It's like, use student loans to be Lish's student, or use student loans to go to Korea or Italy or something. Tough choice.

Good times at the HTML Giant and Rumpus event this evening at Broadway East in Manhattan. Stood in the back late behind a dumb gold gauzy curtain, figured out how to push curtain aside finally and see things, squeezed my way up for a good spot later. On the floor. Got to hear Deb Olin Unferth read new work and talk to her for a bit after. She has a new book coming out, Revolution. Rivka Galchen is always nice to listen to. I liked her reading at KGB bar so much I bought her book for my sister for Christmas, although I see it right now on the bookshelf and she hasn't read it so maybe I will. And then suddenly Jeffrey Lewis was playing and doing his whole comic book song and everything. That was either a nice surprise or I wasn't paying attention or I forgot his name was Jeffrey Lewis and put it together when I saw him. Here's a bit of him. What sucks is, I read books, I'm kind of smart I think, but I go around wasting money on bras when I have like, five good ones and catching colds.

two in one day, wow, what a blogger

One other thing I wanted to throw up on here. In case anyone is interested, these are the books we read in my Craft of Writing course this semester. (As an undergrad, I used to browse the graduate fiction writing classes' booklists and then buy and read the assigned books--maybe other people do this too.) We didn't read each story collection in it's entirety, which is why I didn't include some of these in my sidebar book list; I have yet to finish them on my own.

A Model World and Other Stories, Michael Chabon
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
Success, Martin Amis,
Pnin, Nabokov
Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
Self-Help, Lorrie Moore
Like Life, Lorrie Moore
Selected Stories, Alice Munro
The Early Stories, 1953-75, John Updike
Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
The Autograph Man, Zadie Smith
In Persuasion Nation, George Saunders
Civilwarland in Bad Decline, George Saunders
Pastoralia, George Saunders
Tell No One, Harlan Coben (our genre novel fun-week)
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace (we read only the last 200 some pages)
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, DFW
Consider the Lobster, DFW

Highlights were Saunders ( I've read the story "Sea Oak" in Pastoralia four or five times; it's just brilliant),
Wallace (particularly the title essay in A Supposedly Fun Thing. I can't wait to find the time to tackle Infinite Jest from the beginning),
the Martin Amis novel,
and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (don't be fooled by it's young adult cover. It's about boarding school, yes, but not teen-y. It's a great clinic in compelling structure and building suspense that is satisfying in intervals but not cheap. Wonderful bits of psychological insight and understanding as well)
The Harlan Coben book was fun, despite being a total piece of shit. It's pretty fascinating how Coben hooks and pushes--really difficult to put down. I read almost the whole thing at Barnes and Nobles, on that row of chairs where all the lonely or homeless people read all day. But I gained nothing from it when it was done and some parts were hilariously awful. A charming and addictive piece of crap.

I'd skip Lahiri and that Chabon collection. Wasn't thrilled with Updike, or Munro either, but perhaps I just read the wrong stories. Any Updike or Munro fans want to point me to some favorite stories?

new year new roast new post

I dropped off of the face of the earth! What was that about? Where was I? Brooklyn? Chicago? In class? eating dumplings? having my teeth cleaned? twiddling my thumbs? browsing CVS or maybe Duane Reade? whichever one that has the incredibly convenient Chase ATM inside? Who knows! But I'm back; sorry if the people who are the pluses after the one of myself as readers of this blog have left, turned to other brighter, more active pastures. I'm here now though!

The truth is, I was in my first semester of class in the NYU MFA program and working part-time and generally hamming it up, fantasy not-yet-successful-but-working-on-it writer style, reading a lot of books and writing pages and poems and stuff. It was really pretty great but not so great for my blog-life, and now I wish I had made more posts about my progress. This might have been interesting for anyone thinking about an MFA, particularly from NYU. I'll do better on those sorts. Brings me to resolutions.

I've never done yearly resolutions because I make and re-make resolutions on a daily, if not hourly basis. My life is a constant internal reminder of my desire to have more resolve and be better at pretty much everything, while congratulating myself on minor completions of resolutions, in order to achieve goals I have written down and in my head like a little girl who writes a list of boys she wants to kiss. Write more, write better, smile more, no smile less who cares, cook more, stop buying lattes, make more calls, start saving, apply for this, submit to that, write more, etc. etc. I think guilt and fear are helpful instigators of productivity, and I'm good on those fronts.

But it's January and there have been some new-beginning things happening--like the locksmith finally let me into my mailbox, and I received cool packages from friends in both Korea and Taiwan, and my cat suddenly looks seriously humongous, and I cut my hair, and the Daily Show is back on--so maybe this year will be different.

1. Read more poems and non-fiction.

I've realized I'm actually more inspired to write when I read these things than when I read fiction. Reading fiction is great for considering plot structure, stylistic staples, language tricks, etc. but I have a hard time turning the consciously "craft" part of my brain off. Reading poetry on the other hand is much more natural and exciting and easier to get thrills from language in ways that aren't as simple to dissect and explain. I tend to cry a lot when I read good poetry; it feels silly; it's mystical; it's fun. I'm into Matt Hart's stuff lately, mucho. Heard him read at KGB and was wincing a little at how good it was. And reading non-fiction is inspiring too, kind of because the world is pretty fucked up, I guess. And bizarre.

2. Stop buying lattes.

They're very good, yes, but coffee in a pot does the job too, and do I or do I not want to save money to go to Italy this summer with E.L. Doctorow and the creative writing program? I guess that's not good for baristas though. Maybe I'll dart inside my favorite coffeeshops and tip them occasionally but stop buying lattes.

Read poetry and make my own coffee. I haven't figured out if I want to be smiling more or less. I mean, I know it's supposed to trick me into feeling happier or something, through mouth muscles and brain triggers, but then everyone will see me smiling all the time when I'm not happy as result of any immediate stimulation other than my own face, which seems misleading and weird. Leave that one off for now.