tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6451766391762047552024-03-19T05:40:45.949-07:00SIMON JACOBSwriter, fighterSimon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-68480782626593096402018-03-19T16:47:00.000-07:002018-03-30T13:38:44.049-07:002018 TOUR!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>*updated 3/29/18*</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PLdTHQzwew0EKvFyYDeVv7dCNxcQoXxwZiEsOYhZ-XRvgs6lQL_TdWTLlZ16F5oJQqfk9nAJb04uMAukUa5lpdpk7OfD0-djnmkkePORMvboabzHYf61xfyNSZIfPCy7VzIwXMtvvmFD/s1600/Palaces_tour+flyer+v1+jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1081" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PLdTHQzwew0EKvFyYDeVv7dCNxcQoXxwZiEsOYhZ-XRvgs6lQL_TdWTLlZ16F5oJQqfk9nAJb04uMAukUa5lpdpk7OfD0-djnmkkePORMvboabzHYf61xfyNSZIfPCy7VzIwXMtvvmFD/s640/Palaces_tour+flyer+v1+jpeg.jpg" width="432" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm going on tour for <i>Palaces</i>!<br />
<br />
To celebrate, I have inexpertly crafted the above poster. I've always wanted to make a tour flyer, so now that's done (would you believe that it has over 30 photoshop layers? I would not).<br />
<br />
I'm incredibly fortunate to have an intimidatingly-talented group of writers and musicians performing alongside me at most of these events, and I couldn't be more excited.<br />
<br />
All the details are below, and I'll continue to update this post as further details are finalized (all events are also forever housed on the <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_20.html">performances</a> page here).<br />
<br />
Come out! All events are free and open to everyone!<br />
<br />
(And as ever, if you're planning something and looking for enthusiastic participants or readers, please reach out!)<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
******HOUSE TOUR 2018******</h3>
March 29, 2018, 4:30pm<br />
@ Earlham College, EPIC Co-Lab, Richmond, IN<br />
<b>Reading and Discussion</b><br />
<br />
April 2, 2018, 7pm<br />
@ Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI<br />
<b>Reading and Discussion</b><br />
<a href="http://www.literatibookstore.com/event/fiction-literati-simon-jacobs">Event</a> / <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/2110193435878579/">Facebook event </a><br />
<b><br /></b>
April 3, 2018, 7:30pm<br />
@ Two Dollar Radio HQ, Columbus, OH<br />
<b>Reading and Discussion</b><br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/212172619552115/">Facebook event</a><br />
<b><br /></b>
April 4, 2018, 7pm<br />
@ Wells & Co. Custom Tattoo, Dayton, OH<br />
<b>Wells & Co. Presents Simon Jacobs and Cricketbows</b><br />
with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cricketbows/">Cricketbows</a>!<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/149573329072258/">Facebook event</a><br />
<br />
April 5, 2018, 7pm<br />
@ Volumes Bookcafe, Chicago, IL<br />
<b>Reading with Lindsay Hunter, Alex Higley, Rachel Hyman, and Alexis Pope</b><br />
<a href="http://www.volumesbooks.com/event/simon-jacobs-palaces">Event</a> / <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/937801386396626/">Facebook event</a><br />
<br />
April 6, 2018, 5pm<br />
@ Mission Creek Festival, Iowa City, IA<br />
<b>Lit Walk at Mission Creek 2018</b><br />
<b>@ RSVP (Round #1)</b><br />
with Hanif Abdurraqib, Shy Watson, Amy Saul-Zerby, Steven Fletcher, and James D’Agostino.<br />
<a href="http://missioncreekfestival.com/schedule/lit-walk-round-1/">Event</a> / <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1068452696653701/">Facebook event</a><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
April 12, 2018<br />
<b>SOMETHING IN THE BAY AREA WITH COLIN WINNETTE, STAY TUNED</b><br />
<b>Details to come!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<h3>
******//HOUSE TOUR 2018******</h3>
</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-88568344103386413242018-02-04T14:58:00.000-08:002018-02-04T14:58:13.550-08:00PALACES: BEHIND THE SCENES!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hi there,<br />
<br />
<i>PALACES </i>was officially published last month! As such, there are a couple of reviews, etc that you can read if you're wavering (the full list is on the <i>PALACES </i>page elsewhere on this blog):<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-937512-67-5">starred review</a> from <i>Publisher's Weekly</i>;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/palaces/">starred review</a> from <i>Foreword Reviews</i>;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.tor.com/2018/01/26/a-subtle-apocalypse-simon-jacobss-palaces/">review</a> by Toby Carroll on <i>Tor.com</i>;</li>
<li><a href="http://fictionadvocate.com/2018/01/16/hitting-shelves-palaces-by-simon-jacobs/">"Hitting Shelves,"</a> written by me for <i>Fiction Advocate</i>.</li>
</ul>
Thus far, I've done a couple of cool book-related events, including:<br />
<br />
A launch at Bluestockings--<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNbp4ywYxYdLUP8QPMAq9ItatUm4Ld_rTLlN5_5ZcnR7z3rk43J2UnQY9ko-WKCYNnxT1BwW9cgsQVn9hZ6LGfyDUPxfGdyBYtEa-iFIHIMj-sAfZP9QeBpZOmPxACgQFVKI4Jam6Jsxzh/s1600/bstox+launch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNbp4ywYxYdLUP8QPMAq9ItatUm4Ld_rTLlN5_5ZcnR7z3rk43J2UnQY9ko-WKCYNnxT1BwW9cgsQVn9hZ6LGfyDUPxfGdyBYtEa-iFIHIMj-sAfZP9QeBpZOmPxACgQFVKI4Jam6Jsxzh/s320/bstox+launch.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Launch crew (from left): Ross Wagenhofer, Cackler, Dan Schwartz, Jeanne Thornton, <br />Freddie Moore, Miracle Jones (photo by Martha Moody, my mother)</td></tr>
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<br />A discussion with Leni Zumas (<i>Red Clocks</i>) and Eugene Lim (<i>Dear Cyborgs</i>) at the NYPL--<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6isQK-_jzlVRYGlkDhtf5wegR-ilzxuT34SCLQZHBd5DDzBpwPvyV7vZwnv-q1e02ON75JTVGK5Et11ZhiUKWrZ3NtFySIqFwrkA9VtihRacXj84yDxfobYHBlvw4YOE3mYnUhHVzOdl/s1600/nypl.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="640" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6isQK-_jzlVRYGlkDhtf5wegR-ilzxuT34SCLQZHBd5DDzBpwPvyV7vZwnv-q1e02ON75JTVGK5Et11ZhiUKWrZ3NtFySIqFwrkA9VtihRacXj84yDxfobYHBlvw4YOE3mYnUhHVzOdl/s320/nypl.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eugene Lim, Cackler, Leni Zumas (photo courtesy of Leni Zumas)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Later this month, I'll be performing in Philadelphia at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/885993014902057/">Gina's 45</a> with Carmen Maria Machado, Colin Winnette, Caren Beilin, and Cynthia Dewi Oka.<br />
<br />
I'm also planning a short tour through the midwest (and one stop in San Francisco) for late March/early April (more details soon!).<br />
<br />
As ever, if you're interested in learning more, reviewing or covering the book, etc, please get in touch! I am always up for readings et al and would probably love to perform with you.<br />
<br />
If you see <i>Palaces </i>out at a bookstore or in the wild, let me know, and send a photo if possible! I am making a list.<br />
<br />
ALSO:::: I'm opening for the psych-rock band <a href="https://cricketbows.com/">Cricketbows</a> at Wells and Co. in Dayton and I WOULD LOVE TO DO MORE STUFF LIKE THIS. INVITE ME TO YOUR BASEMENT GIGS!!<br />
<br />
INVITE ME TO YOUR HARDCORE SHOWS ! !!<br />
<br />
I HAVE A LOUD SPEAKING VOICE!!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<br />
In celebration of the book's launch, here is some secret behind-the-scenes content from the development of <i>PALACES</i>:<br />
<br />
<b>WORKING TITLES </b>(some seriously considered, others not)<br />
<br />
<i>NEW MONEY, OLD MONEY</i><br />
<i>FOYER</i><br />
<i>LAWN</i><br />
<i>HIS REIGN ENDS</i><br />
<i>THRONE</i><br />
<i>PUNK ROCK</i><br />
<br />
<b>"AUTHORS WHO THINK THEY'RE DESIGNERS" SYNDROME</b><br />
*an early cover concept that I submitted to Two Dollar Radio. I still love it but I understand that it's probably too bleak to ever be used (please also note my skillful integration of the TDR logo at bottom-right). I am also omitting the designs that exhibit blatant copyright infringement.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3GuNVLmv8wDCUk7DM-JehyphenhyphenlATRC2-ky3ZFix7j85ItxXslyGdiD7YnNdOZJmJz5dPRNV1qy6wiALMlrdE3Wm_xgANV4N0Hk7E4Ct0Gb7zvecWcC8FkmGNzAY1M3sNtzvozkBuhVWwXFh/s1600/Palaces+rough+copy+purple+jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="770" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3GuNVLmv8wDCUk7DM-JehyphenhyphenlATRC2-ky3ZFix7j85ItxXslyGdiD7YnNdOZJmJz5dPRNV1qy6wiALMlrdE3Wm_xgANV4N0Hk7E4Ct0Gb7zvecWcC8FkmGNzAY1M3sNtzvozkBuhVWwXFh/s320/Palaces+rough+copy+purple+jpeg.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">feat. Michelangelo's <i>Death of Bara</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>SELECT WORDS FROM THE MS THAT MICROSOFT WORD DOESN'T BELIEVE ARE REAL WORDS</b><br />
<br />
arabesqued<br />
bottleweight<br />
gooily<br />
plasticky<br />
psychosoma<br />
punkhouse<br />
punkroutine<br />
sexcapade<br />
sinkmouth<br />
<br />
<b>SOME PHOTOS OF DRAFTS OF KEY SCENES</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidTbUMxd6pwVo6UZIiz1p6DjAdiMkO2VUnTouiv4A1FVszSiVG9U5I37RLdJ86rhsNS_Kqk143R10MYTOo2iq_yyZQzygIo-DFg-pDiRCn6vfUP_Anyc1VkAllDMFwCoLOXFEU40m4yNgB/s1600/casey+is+dead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidTbUMxd6pwVo6UZIiz1p6DjAdiMkO2VUnTouiv4A1FVszSiVG9U5I37RLdJ86rhsNS_Kqk143R10MYTOo2iq_yyZQzygIo-DFg-pDiRCn6vfUP_Anyc1VkAllDMFwCoLOXFEU40m4yNgB/s320/casey+is+dead.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Casey Is Dead," early scene, notebook #1,<br />written early 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe_0cenOuvr3ZcSpvuAPKut7gbboUR_H-9FsW2Ac_agJ0taHoegZZq7wX-r7pbH2gvk0U3OYoQ9ORzFlAHiGy-Zs_TytaDV8tznsZCSXbsNWxgtLJ3w5sJXMA0CqXUW873Ru5As7dycN5F/s1600/vivian%2527s+mansion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe_0cenOuvr3ZcSpvuAPKut7gbboUR_H-9FsW2Ac_agJ0taHoegZZq7wX-r7pbH2gvk0U3OYoQ9ORzFlAHiGy-Zs_TytaDV8tznsZCSXbsNWxgtLJ3w5sJXMA0CqXUW873Ru5As7dycN5F/s320/vivian%2527s+mansion.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preamble to "Mahogany Wardrobe," inside Vivian's <br />mansion, notebook #2, written late 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnC40opZQtmI4GdHqulwIwIZ4mO5i2fth2aYUzgVmE-nAHTPZHtDmPu3qEnb8hO1g9Qz_AyvBtIc2ty8XabKjgMQyL4zWEOFTR6DzbxmjI3BYMK_AadfPsdKeNgOUGiI57Lg4PKjybqDd/s1600/charity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnC40opZQtmI4GdHqulwIwIZ4mO5i2fth2aYUzgVmE-nAHTPZHtDmPu3qEnb8hO1g9Qz_AyvBtIc2ty8XabKjgMQyL4zWEOFTR6DzbxmjI3BYMK_AadfPsdKeNgOUGiI57Lg4PKjybqDd/s320/charity.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Charity," a scene about spurning food, interposed <br />into notebook #2, written July 2015 in Montreal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><br />
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-62834678440581825412017-12-20T23:11:00.002-08:002017-12-21T18:27:41.056-08:00SELECTIONS FROM 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here's a list of some things that I've been excited about this year. This isn't meant to be a definitive or comprehensive 'best of 2017' list or anything (despite the subheadings) because there are a lot of 2017 books that I have yet to read (I am very behind on reading this year): it is merely a list of enthusiasms.<br />
<br />
also if you have music recommendations, you should send them to me:<br />
<br />
<b>BEST ALBUMS</b><br />
<i><a href="https://www.bentkneemusic.com/store/land-animal">Land Animal</a></i>, by Bent Knee<br />
--favorite track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9QAlYV6qsY">"Holy Ghost"</a>: I saw this band live for the first time last week and it was unlike anything else; their music is like some muddy dark gospel that someone dug up from the forest and translated for our modern times, just endlessly inspiring and inventive and dense. The band has an incredible camaraderie live, too, like they have their own secret language;<br />
<br />
<a href="https://dun-stao.bandcamp.com/releases"><i>STAO</i></a>, by Dun-Stao;<br />
--favorite track, "STAO": this is like minimalist zeuhl filtered through black metal and gamelan and chamber music and a million other arcane influences (+ invented language). You should all listen to and buy this EP to encourage this motherfucker to make more stuff;<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://ulver.bandcamp.com/album/the-assassination-of-julius-caesar">The Assassination of Julius Caesar</a></i>, by Ulver<br />
--favorite track, "1969": "a black metal band that just discovered synthesizers and 80s horror movie soundtracks" - Graham;<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://toucheamore.bandcamp.com/album/stage-four">Stage Four</a></i>, by Touché Amoré<br />
--favorite track (TIE), "Flowers and You" and "Water Damage": every couple of years TA releases a new, terrific album, and each time it gets a little more melodic and somehow better than the last; this came out late-2016 but this is my list and I mostly listened to the album in 2017. I hope that Jeremy is taking care of his voice because otherwise I wonder how many more albums it can last. Perhaps the most cathartic 35 minutes of 2016 (2017);<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://wearecrying.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-fleeting-gales">Beyond the Fleeting Gales</a></i>, by Crying<br />
--favorite track, "Well and Spring": it's like being wrapped in a warm blanket, I don't know what else to tell you, this also came out in 2016 but whatever;<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://store.roughtraderecords.com/products/lankum-between-the-earth-and-sky">Between the Earth and Sky</a></i>, by Lankum<br />
--favorite track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZo5qs2VamE">"The Granite Gaze"</a>: Lankum makes all of their songs sound like myths from long-forgotten eras. Maybe some of them are. See also: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96xvKHDD8YE">"What Will We Do When We Have No Money?"</a><br />
<br />
<b>BEST MOVIE</b><br />
<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3dcnV6Z9Zs">Columbus</a></i> (dir. Kogonada)<br />
--A perfect, beautifully-shot, understated movie about the midwest.<br />
<br />
<b>BEST BOOKS</b><br />
<i>They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us</i>, by Hanif Abdurraqib (Two Dollar Radio);<br />
<i>Literally show me a healthy person</i>, by Darcie Wilder (Tyrant Books);<br />
<i>Priestdaddy</i>, by Patricia Lockwood (Penguin Random House);<br />
<i>Hotwriting</i>, by Todd Anderson (Instar Books);<br />
<i>The Grip of It</i>, by Jac Jemc (FSG).<br />
<br />
I haven't read the sarah book yet, fuck off<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>BRUTALEST DEATH SCENE IN LITERATURE</b><br />
Gutted by a tri-antlered helldemon in <i>The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion</i>, by Margaret Killjoy (Tor Books).<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>BRUTALEST OFFSCREEN SUBTLY IMPLIED DEATH SCENE IN LITERATURE</b><br />
Every scene in <i>The Buried Giant</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>BEST LIVE ACTS</b><br />
Bent Knee (@ Rough Trade);<br />
Sick Shit (@ Punk Island);<br />
Touché Amoré (@ Bowery Ballroom, see above, also it was a Bad Anniversary and this helped to make it right);<br />
Patti Smith (@ Summerstage).<br />
<br />
<b>BEST EP ON A CD-R THAT I GOT AT PUNK ISLAND</b><br />
<a href="https://fieldgoal.bandcamp.com/">Field Goal</a> by Field Goal.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>BEST ALBUM IN A JEWEL CASE THAT I GOT AT PUNK ISLAND</b><br />
<a href="https://fieldgoal.bandcamp.com/">Softcore</a> by Sick Shit.<br />
<br />
<b>BEST BAND THAT DIDN'T RELEASE SHIT THIS YEAR</b><br />
Blackbird Raum (which doesn't mean that you shouldn't take this moment to go and listen to <i><a href="https://blackbirdraum.bandcamp.com/album/destroying">Destroying</a> </i>or Caspian's side project Scissorbills' <i><a href="https://scissorbills.bandcamp.com/album/than-thou">THAN THOU</a></i>, because these things will change your life).<br />
<br />
<b>BEST UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS</b><br />
<i>Summer Fun</i> by Jeanne Thornton (now with more hovercars)<br />
<i>Tyrant</i> by Brandi Wells<br />
<i>Lake Humm </i>by Martha Moody<br />
THE OTHER NOVEL I WROTE (String Follow)<br />
<br />
<b>BEST YOUTUBE CHANNEL</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHm_D4kNQaRshalYoB1qtbw">atmospheric black metal</a><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>BEST BAND NAMES THAT I INVENTED</b> (up for grabs)<br />
House Ghosts (pop punk)<br />
Crop Top (shoegaze)<br />
Golgonooza (black metal)<br />
Alphalpha (regular metal)<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>BEST RISE AGAINST ALBUM</b><br />
...the one I made up, <i>Hooves, </i>a higher-concept and more allusive version of their mediocre 2017 album <i>Wolves</i>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOhYCPpF_c-tm99G84B2VHbQDHkPVU1PKpM3KvdxC3vCw21UEbdArhCqQTCR_EdKEcpgBXnvQPPe7vRAAR-jtlox3DTxzGTyj8vPR1wTHmp-Jb-6nc0SWANF8yfVC-IDYiDvWzOuYveTi/s1600/2B6BE2BC-FAFD-40C4-8740-CAE191380226.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOhYCPpF_c-tm99G84B2VHbQDHkPVU1PKpM3KvdxC3vCw21UEbdArhCqQTCR_EdKEcpgBXnvQPPe7vRAAR-jtlox3DTxzGTyj8vPR1wTHmp-Jb-6nc0SWANF8yfVC-IDYiDvWzOuYveTi/s320/2B6BE2BC-FAFD-40C4-8740-CAE191380226.jpeg" width="248" /></a></div>
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In other news, if you've found your way here without knowing, <i>Palaces </i>(my first novel), is due out on January 16, 2018 from Two Dollar Radio. I'm pretty excited; there's <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/p/palaces-novel.html">a whole page on this blog</a> about it, with blurbs et al! If you're interested in learning more, reviewing the book, etc, reach out at jacobs852 [at] gmail [dot] com, as ever!</div>
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Booksellers, critics, and librarians can request copies from Two Dollar Radio <a href="https://twodollarradio.com/collections/forthcoming/products/palaces">here</a> (available now!).<br />
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-87818647927855691192017-07-21T23:21:00.000-07:002017-07-23T21:38:27.349-07:00Palaces<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NI99EDTphuF8Z4I0LisDBoK6AVpBGeNcodap4MvsCMcy7Y7RyDqqcHlCSYoHDAEBqXrZ3-eZIxhVZU8MbQmPAYbYe7e5HyY419dP1OhB4pE9iDX3YlQsy2oYesGexF5ZAdggPAz_bWfn/s1600/Palaces_front+cover+jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1593" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NI99EDTphuF8Z4I0LisDBoK6AVpBGeNcodap4MvsCMcy7Y7RyDqqcHlCSYoHDAEBqXrZ3-eZIxhVZU8MbQmPAYbYe7e5HyY419dP1OhB4pE9iDX3YlQsy2oYesGexF5ZAdggPAz_bWfn/s320/Palaces_front+cover+jpeg.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">PALACES (Two Dollar Radio, 2017)</td></tr>
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The most exciting news: my first novel, <i>PALACES</i>, is going to be published by Two Dollar Radio in January of 2018! You can read <a href="https://twodollarradio.com/blogs/radiowaves/simon-jacobs-interview">the announcement</a> and a short interview with me on the TDR site, and even pre-order the book <a href="https://twodollarradio.com/collections/forthcoming/products/palaces">here</a>.<br />
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The book is about power and extremism and property and uncertain futures and a whole bunch of other thorny things. And check out the 70s movie poster-style cover!!<br />
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One of my favorite writers, Jeanne Thornton - author of <i>The Dream of Doctor Bantam </i>and <i>The Black Emerald</i>, who I have blogged about extensively, yet not nearly enough - has granted a perfectly-summative blurb:<br />
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"In this singular debut novel that reads like a cross between Derek Jarman's <i>Jubilee</i> and an unsettling folk ballad, Jacobs narrates the journey of two Midwestern pilgrims, each striving for ascetic purity both in their possessions and in their emotional lives, as they silently war against the ostentation of the wealthy, the dread expectations of gender, maybe against object permanence itself. It feels like <i>The Road</i>, but with less faith in humanity, and this S. Jacobs is a literary talent to watch." —Jeanne Thornton</blockquote>
It's hard to overstate how excited I am about this: Two Dollar Radio was the first indie press that I ever knew about (my first book was Joshua Mohr's <i>Termite Parade </i>in 2010), and they're based in Ohio, so we have Regional Affinity, and most decisively are wonderful people to work with. Publishing with TDR feels like bringing everything full-circle.<br />
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I started writing the book in May of 2013, and did my last substantial edits in April of 2017, so it has been a long road and I'm glad to finally get it out into the world. Most of that time I was consistently working on it, though there were a couple of spans of 2-4 months where I let the manuscript rest. I started writing the book when I was 22, and it has changed along with me: it has all of my formative years within it, as well as my shifting preoccupations. I'm excited for you to read it.<br />
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Here's a photo of all the cumulative drafts stacked atop one another, all the way down to when it went by - *shudder* - alternate titles (the very first original draft is handwritten and scattered across a few notebooks):<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlNGtNaQqEB-fh7W7-3ZPsTyThFG791of3uwSQt7NxdkOXxecHMigdA3gHXmfCby8mehkWzreYn2Li546MN-scaDbqYw-Gf1EQwi4cqeY4YKT5ijmhSvjeDgf1xRM8AJqcJ_f-bn0V0zC5/s1600/Palaces_drafts.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlNGtNaQqEB-fh7W7-3ZPsTyThFG791of3uwSQt7NxdkOXxecHMigdA3gHXmfCby8mehkWzreYn2Li546MN-scaDbqYw-Gf1EQwi4cqeY4YKT5ijmhSvjeDgf1xRM8AJqcJ_f-bn0V0zC5/s320/Palaces_drafts.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the many drafts of Palaces</td></tr>
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Once more: you can <a href="https://twodollarradio.com/products/palaces">order it here</a>. :)<br />
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8 months ago I had a story published in <i>Joyland </i>called <a href="http://www.joylandmagazine.com/regions/midwest/let-me-take-you-olive-garden">"Let Me Take You to Olive Garden"</a> that I'm still tickled with. I think it's indicative of the turns that my writing is taking these days.<br />
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What else can I tell you? Earlier this week, I finished another novel ("finished" a "novel"), which is called at this point <i>String Follow </i>(I don't think the title will change) and is about a group of suburban Ohio teens who begin to experience occult phenomenon.<br />
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I recently finished Patti Smith's <i>M Train</i>, which was incredible, enormous in feeling, and long overdue. I used to think that if I lived in New York for long enough, one day I would run into David Bowie. David Byrne or David Bowie. Now I'm convinced that if I live in New York for long enough, I'll run into Patti Smith.<br />
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And I still walk past David Bowie's apartment on Lafayette sometimes; this photo is old now but it's still with me:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBFnGciELPOIk4N_GLQRgd9SOwm8dc0UxfJkxPqux8iZ_rLXcojnXB3auQue6o1tbC6PvRRC9PXRJF_jDWI04ETsqUot-EWPmj1KhnfB4nYkQdFdKt6iZeHBgDIstt7I_LKUH7uNEsAk5/s1600/bowie+memorial.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBFnGciELPOIk4N_GLQRgd9SOwm8dc0UxfJkxPqux8iZ_rLXcojnXB3auQue6o1tbC6PvRRC9PXRJF_jDWI04ETsqUot-EWPmj1KhnfB4nYkQdFdKt6iZeHBgDIstt7I_LKUH7uNEsAk5/s320/bowie+memorial.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">January 10, 2016</td></tr>
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-26787926460589274552016-11-07T15:24:00.000-08:002017-07-21T21:41:15.562-07:00Someone Else, Someone Good<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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[late-nite update: the title of this post is a Lou Reed reference but I have since deleted the Lou Reed content, may the title live on]<br />
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Starting on Thursday, November 10, Sotheby's is <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2016/bowie-collector-part-i-modern-contemporary-art-evening-auction-l16142.html">auctioning off</a> David Bowie's private art collection, almost 400 pieces in all, with an estimated value of $13 million. Bowie's art collection is famously far-ranging - from Tintoretto to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Bowie's spin-painting with Damien Hirst (though there's no sign at Sotheby's of the rumored "small Rubens" he's mentioned in interviews) - and Bowie himself was an avid painter and critic (he served on the editorial board of <i>Modern Painters </i>for many years; his paintings are gestural portraits in the spirit of Bacon et al). From his departure from public life following a heart attack in 2004 until his unexpected reappearance with <i>The Next Day </i>in 2013, most media accounts of his life depicted Bowie settling comfortably into old age and collecting artwork (it was one of these accounts that directly inspired the first stories in <i>SATURN</i>).<br />
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It's fascinating to look through the collection (which as far as I know has never been catalogued for the public, only speculated at piecemeal) and trace certain pieces to their particular eras of fascination in Bowie's ouevre, to find their echoes in albums or costumes.<br />
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One example: take the series of <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/bowie-collector-part-ii-modern-contemporary-art-day-auction-l16148/lot.269.html">minotaur prints</a> by Michael Ayrton (undated); a collection of bronze African heads and masks (<a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/bowie-collector-part-ii-modern-contemporary-art-day-auction-l16148/lot.280.html">here's</a> one) acquired from a South African gallery in 1995; the aforementioned Hirst <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/bowie-collector-part-i-modern-contemporary-art-evening-auction-l16142/lot.5.html">spin painting</a> from 1995; an orgiastic <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/bowie-collector-part-i-modern-contemporary-art-evening-auction-l16142/lot.11.html">Jacob Epstein illustration</a> for Baudelaire's <i>Les Fleurs du Mal</i> (acquired by Bowie in 1994); Odd Nerdrum's <i><a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/bowie-collector-part-ii-modern-contemporary-art-day-auction-l16148/lot.275.html">Dawn</a></i>; Stephen Finer's <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/bowie-collector-part-ii-modern-contemporary-art-day-auction-l16148/lot.115.html"><i>Head of a Woman</i></a>: blend them all together, and you effectively have 1995's <i>1. Outside</i>, a sprawling, atmospheric concept album about mutilation and murder in the name of art, with an artist/murderer called "the Minotaur" at its center, whose cover was a self-portrait by Bowie. Watch the video for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVgk7wYeZHw">"The Hearts Filthy Lesson"</a> and you'll see what I mean.<br />
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I just finished Trinie Dalton's first story collection, <i>Wide Eyed</i> (Akashic, 2005). It's a wonderful book of charming, bizarre stories full of specific knowledge. In essence it's built from the same kind of thematic association as Bowie's art collection (and his music): deep knowledge of salamander anatomy in conversation with Marc Bolan's "Salamanda Palaganda" to service a larger point about wanting to feel protected and small (in "A Giant Loves You"); fixation with <i>A Nightmare on Elm Street</i>, <i>Halloween</i> and an attraction to serial killers/predatory men as a desire to find a moment of perfect innocence ("Chrysalis"); bloodied tiles as the ultimate abhorrent image ("Tiles").<br />
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<i>Luna Luna </i>recently reprinted one of my early stories from Masterworks (a series about reenacting famous works of art), this one on Goya's <i><a href="https://www.lunalunamagazine.com/dark/halloween-witches-flight">Witches' Flight</a></i>, in their Halloween issue. It's one of my favorite stories from the series - if you like that one, you can read the rest <a href="http://www.paperdarts.org/blog/2016/5/9/the-latest-installments-of-simon-jacobs-exclusive-series-masterworks">here</a>. There will be two final stories in the series, which will be published in <i>Paper Darts </i>in good time.</div>
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I also have a story coming up in <i>Joyland </i>later this month that I'm really excited about. Otherwise, I am still trying to get this novel published/finish the next one.</div>
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-60346465009643108792014-12-29T20:48:00.001-08:002017-03-18T16:04:19.546-07:00☆。・*JEANNE THORNTON APPRECIATION DAY*・。☆<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1EsO4qt9Xvfz8cInhWYv660Dxqz3wiYw_hIdN2HtvrreREKkmee123OoEUGDshXm3QrHgk72eqb9Qw4nHILr4gtd5cTbEe0BDszW8YEoeKNA96lwleBj_KOsPJ_AGourWxX8uJfUEYCfA/s1600/Thornton_BlackEmerald_300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1EsO4qt9Xvfz8cInhWYv660Dxqz3wiYw_hIdN2HtvrreREKkmee123OoEUGDshXm3QrHgk72eqb9Qw4nHILr4gtd5cTbEe0BDszW8YEoeKNA96lwleBj_KOsPJ_AGourWxX8uJfUEYCfA/s1600/Thornton_BlackEmerald_300.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello! I’m here
today to talk to you endlessly about <a href="http://www.fictioncircus.com/Jeanne/">Jeanne Thornton</a>.
She is the author, most recently and transcendently, of <i>THE
BLACK EMERALD</i>, a short story collection published this September by <a href="http://www.instarbooks.com/books/the-black-emerald.html">Instar Books</a> (their launch title) and the novel <i>THE
DREAM OF DOCTOR BANTAM</i>. Her books have the best titles!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I love Jeanne
Thornton’s writing, in part, because she allows her characters to be mean,
contradictory, arbitrary, and trivial, all of which is extremely important to
me. And because, perhaps equally important, all of her characters have meticulous
bedrooms, and in my opinion, if you know your characters well enough to
describe, exhaustively, what is on the walls, shelves, and carpets of the room
in which they sleep, then you have pretty much risen above any critique that
could be leveled against you as a writer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">TO WIT:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The Black
Emerald” (the titular novella), basically astounding for these reasons:</span></div>
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">begins with an
extremely thorough description of watching a movie/being in love, a movie that
I assume to be invented, but whose explanation is so spookily detailed that I
have to believe it’s real;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">has one of the
most perfectly-described and casually menacing fathers I’ve yet read; he only
appears in like three scenes but they are all shockingly, almost criminally
good. Here’s a smidgen:</span></li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“She
woke up to the sound of her father knocking on her door. She could imagine him
there: short, balding, eyes big and brown and vulnerable. In one of her
cartoons he would be the screaming victim of a titanic monster, the kind of
uniquely ugly face that it’s too complicated to draw episode after episode, so
it’s best to have the character killed early. It’s more convenient for
everyone."</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">later:</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br />“And
it was true; he would do it; he would wait here as long as she and her bad
nature let him. He was stronger than her, larger than her; she would die first
when they ran out of food and water; he would be here long after she was gone.
She was weaker than him. She was weak and she let him do this to her. There was
nothing she could do but do the Right Thing, which was shut up, sit as still as
she could, leave three fingers pressed to the throb on the side of her skull,
try to wait until her feeling got cold enough for her to be the adult in the
situation.”</span> </blockquote>
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">speaking of cartoons
as per the first excerpt, this novella also includes the most vividly imaginable
depictions of artwork and its creation (like, can you conjure a picture of a
house sketched in “clean lines, romantic manga lines, lots of white space and
thick cartoon contours”? of course you can);</span></li>
<li>Jeanne writes
about magical happenings absolutely straight;</li>
<li>Lava Caves
Road;</li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">happens to be one
of the best and most convincing high school/teenage stories I’ve ever read (I
have read a lot of high school stories), for the following undebatable reasons
(a sublist):</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">aforementioned
bedroom phenomenon;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">I imagine this
as exactly my high school, a southern Ohio to The Black Emerald’s Austin, right
down to Miss Stevens, the kindly and sensitive art teacher;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">the following
sentence suite:<br /><br />“She
wished she was an orphan. No, she didn’t. That was a fucked up thing to think.
She didn’t want to think fucked up things about the world. The world was a
really great place, really, if you just understood why everything happened the
way it did, like God could probably." </span></li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq ">
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq ">
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">a guidance counselor
is impeccably described;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">this passage
about ‘love for real’:<br /><br />“And
Josephine would have to look at her classy art project every day: something
she’d have loved to have done, something far beyond anything she could do for
herself. Eventually this would lead to them getting back together and being in
love for real. There was no better use for school than promoting love for real.
The whole institution ought to be burned down to the extent that it failed to
promote love for real. That was what her stupid peers could never understand,
but Josephine might be made to.”</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And that’s just
the opening novella! Later on, “Chairs” is basically a great, unsettling aspect
story (even though it includes sexually entitled college males, which are
probably my least-regarded figures in life); it has an exceptional room and
here is one part of a perfect paragraph:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
walked her home after the movie and kissed her on the cheek in the
laundry-smelling hallway outside her dorm room, impetuously, like a darting
mongoose. Afterward she touched the hot place where his outsider's lips had
been while she looked at herself in the mirror, and she wondered at how
suddenly that square inch of her body had been taken over, how flagrantly he
had colonized it, overturned its old codes. She found it charming, in a mildly
disapproving, indulgent manner.”</span></blockquote>
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>Like a darting
mongoose! The remapped body! Isn’t it great??? [I had long sentence about
mixing the corporality of the 1<sup>st</sup> sentence with the broader metaphorical
colonization of the 2<sup>nd</sup> sentence which I’ve deleted out of mercy.
Isn’t it great???]<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Basically, <i>The Black Emerald</i> as a whole has just
like an unstoppable fountain of magical talent and technique going for it that
I am still in the midst of processing, so, yes, check it out and then try to
write a room again, I dare you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I mentioned,
this book is also the launch title from <a href="http://www.instarbooks.com/">Instar Books</a>, a VERY
snazzy new publishing venture with new and varied forms of their books that
‘unlock’ as each title reaches various sales benchmarks. (Right now it’s in
ebook format, which means you can have it <i>instantly</i>,
so that’s motivation, and don’t you want to feel res<span style="font-family: inherit;">ponsible for making that
counter crack 100?)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">THE DREAM OF DOCTOR BANTAM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMmLX3IXe5emJcF5EyheUOp8VW5v8XXViZOlnAoP-YhPl9uBNyHSIqWM5snNdqidlVD6_oAAAG0hcSWmJceiqpOeZHWEZwGYFBb29csHlwPJoREP78IRiGIHZdfUW6G2YAVToDRdBJd6_/s1600/bantamcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMmLX3IXe5emJcF5EyheUOp8VW5v8XXViZOlnAoP-YhPl9uBNyHSIqWM5snNdqidlVD6_oAAAG0hcSWmJceiqpOeZHWEZwGYFBb29csHlwPJoREP78IRiGIHZdfUW6G2YAVToDRdBJd6_/s1600/bantamcover.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I can’t talk
about Jeanne Thornton without also talking about <i>The Dream of Doctor Bantam </i>(<a href="http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/doctor-bantam/">OR Books</a>, 2012),
which I think was my favorite novel that I read this year. I’ve talked about it
(somewhat obliquely) in another <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/2014/08/shameless.html">blog-post</a>,
but I’ll echo what I said there and say that this is a book I love dearly, find
to be shamelessly honest, and would recommend to basically any reader. It has A
LOT of heart and its cultishness is described in such an attentive and detailed
way that it becomes almost tender and inviting, as well as sinister?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I know less than
nothing about Scientology (meaning that in my first read I analyzed the
“Scientology-like cult” of <i>Doctor Bantam </i>much
as I did the “Scientology-like cult” of <i>The
Master</i>, which is I guess like any cult with strange machines), but since I
read this novel I have been paying A LOT of attention to the construction of
the new Scientology center on 125<span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">th </span>street in East Harlem near my
apartment (it’s between the public
library and Demolition Depot and appears to be permanently in its final stages of
renovation). This is exclusively because of this book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Incidentally I
was poking around on Amazon and I found this sentence in the blurb: “In Julie Thatch
you cannot help but see shades of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander.” I have no
idea who wrote this sentence but I guess the idea is that they’re both punk-y
young non-heteronormative women? Maybe young female punks in literature are so
rare but I don’t think so; in any case if you do like punk-y books of any
variety this is certainly one of them and don’t let Stieg Larsson trick you.
DON’T LET HIM.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">ABJURATION CLUB<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally: being a
writer of the internet means there is quite a bit of stuff ‘freely available’
across these digital spaces, but I would STRONGLY recommend that you check out
‘Abjuration Club<span style="font-family: inherit;">,'</span>
a monthly <a href="http://www.patreon.com/jwthornton?u=39101&ty=c">Patreon</a> zine by Jeanne (rhymes) in which you get comics, fictions,
random writings, paraphernalia, and excerpts from <i>SUMMER FUN</i>. <i>SUMMER FUN</i> is a
novel-in-progress that Jeanne is writing about Brian Wilson/the Beach Boys, but
rather than explicitly about the Beach Boys the novel is about the Get Happies
(their proxy, much like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztG3zQhEyKs">the 1980 Elvis Costello album</a>), and IT IS WONDERFUL.
Specifically, spread throughout the last four abjuration clubs, here are some
further excellent reasons to be involved:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">very vivid
description of desert witch-practice by the narrator;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">impractical
artist business cards;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">striptease
toothbrushing;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">a monopoly game
with Brian Wilson’s proxy-father that GETS DRAMATIC;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">etc!</span></li>
</ul>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you’re
appropriately intrigued, you can download the first issue of Abjuration Club
**for free** <a href="http://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=900261">here</a>,
in which can be found not only an excerpt of <i>Summer Fun</i> (about sadness and paintings and Brian Wilson’s mama),
but ALSO a background/history of <i>The
Black Emerald</i>, which will perhaps lead you into additional, darker forays.
You can download basically any amount each month and in return get all of these
prizes!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I cannot wait to
read SUMMER FUN. It’s going to be phenomenal. I could revel in Jeanne’s writing
for days, and maybe someday you will too?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Until next time,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Simon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZfOl0pKN58">get happy</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-9275544411589718692014-11-24T14:25:00.000-08:002017-03-18T15:50:14.069-07:00VIOLENCE LIKE THIS: An Interview with David James Keaton<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Without further ado, here is an 8000-word interview with David James Keaton, too long to publish anywhere. (Seriously, it’s been a year since we finished this [11/13/13], and I’m tired of waiting.)<br />
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">“VIOLENCE LIKE THIS: An Interview with David James Keaton”</span></b></h2>
<br />
I would argue that David James Keaton is one of the best and most heartfelt writers of destruction out there. His stories – deft, maniacally genre-averse, frightening, bloody, and often hilarious – weave around the liminal edge of contemporary fiction.<br />
<br />
The first DJK story I read, ironically enough, was this tiny little number called <a href="http://dogzplot.blogspot.com/2011/05/first-story-ever-david-james-keaton.html">“First Story Ever”</a> in <i>DOGZPLOT</i> around two years back. In about 150 words, we’re pretty much summed up: the violence – impeccably, vividly rendered – the desperate invention, the inimitable tone, and the black comedy that tips off something deeper. If there’s pulp here, it’s only because it makes the blood thicker.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://davidjameskeaton.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FISH-BITES-COP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://davidjameskeaton.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FISH-BITES-COP.jpg" height="320" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">cover rough</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
His first full-length, a short story collection called <i>Fish Bites Cop! Stories to Bash Authorities</i> (which was released via Comet Press in May 2013), is at once a gleefully macabre, lurid stabbing at virtually every authority you’ve ever resented, and a dangerous, hybridic, romantic and curiously haunted group of stories linked by race, passivity, death, and way too many movies. His first, enormous novel, <i>The Last Projector</i>, is due out Halloween 2014 from Broken River Books. [<b>Annotation</b>: This fucker is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Projector-David-James-Keaton/dp/1940885140/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416861549&sr=8-1&keywords=the+last+projector">OUT</a>.]<br />
<br />
We covered every single movie from the 1930’s on. Literally, I counted:<br />
<br />
<b>Simon Jacobs: </b>You have incredible finesse when it comes to writing violence - mixing these vivid, visceral descriptions with metaphorical flair, blended with a very casual delivery, a technique that leaves both a lot and nothing at all to the imagination. I cite two examples from <i>Fish Bites Cop!,</i> both from "Killing Coaches," which, appropriately, is about killing a bunch of coaches but has a number of delicate thematic touches; here, the narrator murders the junior high football coach (with a hockey stick):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I stunned him with my first blow to his ear, then I brought that stick own so hard that I fully expected him to split into two more goddamn coaches. Instead, he croaked and pressed a fist into his fractured skull and crawled towards an exercise bike. He actually climbed aboard and started pedaling as if it would help him escape the room. He probably wondered through the glaze of blood in his eyes why the bike wasn't moving as I began hammering the top of his head into a jagged, purple Rocky Mountain skyline. No, more like the Black Hills. (p. 33)</blockquote>
Later, he kills the chain-smoking swim coach:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I showed up barefoot, ready to swim, ready to dunk him and hold my breath for a record two minutes if necessary. He would have been so proud. But he held onto the diving board like a vise, and I couldn't dump him into the water no matter how many knuckles I crushed under my heels. We struggled all the way back through his portable stereo and stack of music, and I ended up squeezing one of his inspirational sports mix CDs until it exploded, then plunged one of the shards into his throat. It was an easy shot, that vein that always swelled up in practice, the one that signaled someone was about to get coughed and bellowed at, a pulsing target as clear as a flashing arrow pointing at that motherfucker's mouth, which is exactly what it was really. (p. 34)</blockquote>
Whoa. How do you construct these violent scenes? At what point, if any, do you decide, "This is exactly as hard to read as I want it to be.” Let’s talk about violence.<br />
<br />
<b>David James Keaton: </b>Killing Coaches" is a weird one because it was inspired by at least three to thirty things at the same time. The violent scenes you cited, and all the coach-killing set pieces really, were probably a result of listening to Nick Cave's "The Curse of Millhaven" and "O'Malley's Bar" one too many times, which I would feel guilty about, except that Mr. Cave admitted that "The Curse of Millhaven" was maybe the result of reading Peter Straub's <i>The Throat</i> and "The Juniper Tree" one too many times? So we're down a rabbit hole of influenced influences (<a href="http://www.bad-seed.org/~cave/misc/straub.html">here's a link</a> to the Cave/Straub connection), and they're all fair game, damn it! In fact, there's one beat in the story that I kidnapped from "Curse of Millhaven," gagged and threw in a van to dance for me, too, where my narrator says, "I never killed the basketball coach." That's just me showing love for the lyric where Loretta, the Millhaven murderer, after a metric ton of confessions, confesses...that he/she didn't kill the dog. The townspeople had just assumed this. ("But I never crucified little Biko, that was two Junior High School psychos...") I thought that was a great touch, and a hilarious anti-confession after so much bloodshed. So early on when I decided to write "Killing Coaches," I was working off a very real disgust with coaching, my own experience of (not really) being coached (I was terrible at high-school sports), and a recent story in the news where a coach ran some kid at football practice until dehydration killed him. Actually, two stories in the news. During some downtime at a friend's Vegas wedding, we were in the giant NORAD-looking sports gambling auditorium of the MGM Grand, and a news report came on talking about some kid who murdered his high-school football coach. And I said to the groom, "The problem here is the coach unknowingly made that kid lethal with all those drills." Then I said was going to write that story if he didn't (the groom, not the killer kid). But I figured the only way a reader would have any fun reading any of this stuff would be if the actual murders were funny, or at least interesting. So I worked hard on each killing scene. The idea of someone confused enough to peddle to safety on an exercise bike cracked me up in a Looney Tunes kinda way. And the swimming coach's demise was probably the most densely written because it was a bit of a tribute to <i>The Bad Seed</i> (the 1956 movie, not Nick Cave's band <i>for once</i>). In it, the evil little girl played by Patty McCormack cracks a classmate's knuckles with her tap-dancing shoes when he's trying to climb out of a lake. The "half moons" of the metal "taps" of the shoes show up on the boy's dead hands, and that's the first smoking gun that implicates the little girl. In my story, the half moons are replaced with a sliver of CD, and maybe a literal smoking gun to go with the smoking coach. But the real gag is there's no way this guy will ever let go of a diving board, even if he is full of smoke instead of blood. Speaking of gags, it was the more overtly humorous aspects of this story that almost kept it from being picked up by <i>Plots With Guns</i> (back when the story was called "Dewlaps,"), and the original last line was changed at the insistence of editor Anthony Neil Smith because it couldn't be read without hearing an actual rim shot. I was sneaky and put that line back in for this collection, but I did move it to the middle, as the sincere aspects of the story took over like the needy creatures they always are, and that's how it has to end now. But I did rescue that line. We must not leave anything on our plates! There are children starving all over the world who would kill for an extra punchline. Something just occurred to me though, with all the talk of bad seeds and little Patty McCormack and Loretta in the song with her eyes that ain't green and her hair that ain't yellow ("it's more like the other way around"). This narrator should be a girl, too! I'm going to change that. Can I change that? Girls play football now, right? Only one spot in there I'd have to change from "he" to "she" really. Damn, that's going to bother me forever now.<br />
<br />
<b>SJ:</b> It's a stew. I'll be parsing this later, but while we wait: what's the most effective scene of violence you've ever encountered in a movie/book/etc ('effective' being, as always, open to whatever: believable/convincing/efficient/brutal/squeamish-making, etc.). My mind jumps to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhJVu2uBLQU">the bar scene</a> in <i>A History of Violence</i>, the bit where Viggo Mortensen shoots one of the robbers in the head (is there any word goofier than 'robbers'?). There's something totally un-glamorized about that headshot - the 'robber' is lying on the floor, face-down, with his knife in Viggo's shoe, and Viggo just whirls around and pops him. There's something different in how the blood appears on the floor, like, a 'glob' rather than the 'spatter' we're so enamored with nowadays - that seems somewhat meatier than what we usually see, because, yes, he just shot this man in the face (which we see the results of later), and this meaty combo has caused the scene to stick in my mind as being very unique and effective at making the audience understand the violence - quick, but absolutely brutal. The same goes with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re37IVYO_MY">bath scene</a> in <i>Eastern Promises</i> (Viggo Mortensen, David Cronenberg, I sense a theme), which is great for a whole host of other reasons, but when he's crawling away at the end and the camera is crawling with him in that long shot, and he breaks the guy's arm and just stabs him right in the eye, no drama, no nothing, the way the blood just immediately starts flowing and pooling seemed very unique. That's another thing: whatever happened to pools of blood? What's with this splattery effect that we love so much nowadays? Everything is headshot: wall splatter, headshot: wall splatter.<br />
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<b>DJK:</b> Yeah, Cronenberg was doing something different in <i>History of Violence</i> for sure, at least in the diner scene. He sort of forgot about whatever he was doing later, but that's okay because you brought up <i>Eastern Promises</i> and holy shit, naked fight! That's why I also found the steam-bath brawl in <i>Eastern Promises</i> so wonderfully cringe-worthy. You have to find a male actor brave enough to let some genitals flap around, but when you do, it's hard to beat that level of vulnerability. Nice work, Viggo. They're always stripping down women in slasher movies like it's nothing, but rarely do men get the same treatment. So here's to Mr. Cronenberg for making the boys flinch, too, like they should, of course.<br />
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Okay, I'll do a movie, a book, and a song, since Matsumoto in <i>Black Rain</i> said, "Music and movies! All America good for!" (a movie that I'll always remember as the first realistic decapitation I'd ever seen, of one of the stars, no less!). Matsumoto would have said books, too, but he was enduring a shouting from ugly American Michael Douglas. Now that I think about it though, that movie's message was Americans need to lighten up on the violence and just bring in the bad guy, in a suitably dramatic, renouncing-the-violence fashion. Anyway, movie first...<br />
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Since it's movies, I should probably break this down further into the goriest, the most disturbing, <i>and</i> the most effective. Because it's fun, your question is way too interesting, and I'm clearly circling it to buy some time (this is the problem with typing as fast as you speak).<br />
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Goriest scene, yeesh, it's not even close. It's got to be the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEuT9sePcI4">lawnmower scene</a> in <i>Braindead</i>, aka <i>Dead Alive</i>, by Peter Jackson. But that scene is hilarious and plays like a pie fight, so it doesn't really disturb. Probably "effective" though, if the intention was just to gross-out, and also effective if it set out to be the goriest scene of all time, which it must be in terms of pure volume of goo.<br />
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The most disturbing bit of movie violence, at least to my young mind, was in David Lynch's <i>Wild At Heart</i>. In a flashback, we see Nicholas Cage (remember when he wasn't so silly!) as Barry Gifford's "Sailor Ripley" (close enough), and him and his girl Laura Dern are confronted by a crazy guy with a knife with the unlikely name of Bob Ray Lemon. That's the guy's name, not the knife. That's a great name for a knife. And they fight. And Sailor and his Elvisidal Tendencies win the day. But I hadn't been prepared for what happened right after the fight, where Sailor proceeds to take apart Mr. Lemon's head on the hard floor with a series of crackcrackcracks. The scene goes on way longer than you expect, and just like <i>History of Violence</i> where Cronenberg inserted those extra couple seconds to linger on the effects of a bullet to the face, to effectively rub <i>our</i> faces in it, Lynch says, "Hey, kids! Here's what happens to a human head when you do those action-movie moves you love so much." And it was shocking. I remember my roommates back at undergrad in Bowling Green talking about this scene quite a bit, and it was pulling teeth to get them to watch any of the weird stuff I would bring home, let alone talk about it later. But I distinctly remember my one roommate Gary confide one night in his Southern-Ohio accent, "I think about that scene a lot, man. That's probably what would happen if you did that to someone's head." So something different was happening with that scene. The problem is who can assign the word "effective" to anything Lynch does, when it's impossible to pin down why he does anything? That movie was slammed as being gratuitous, and that feels like cheating, right? But I'd argue that anyone who films the aftermath of a car wreck, as he does later in that same movie, and presents <i>another</i> cracked skull to us in such a sad, beautiful way, gets the benefit of the doubt here.<br />
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But if I had to pin down what was the most disturbing violent moment in any movie I've seen, even though because of my own immaturity I'm equating "disturbing" with "effective"...actually, no, I have to separate the two. Otherwise I'm only talking about stunt movie masturbations like <i>A Serbian Film</i> and <i>Freddy Got Fingered</i> like a goofball. Effective has to mean real, right? So maybe <i>Get Carter</i>, when Michael Caine stabs poor Albert near the toilets in the alley. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBSEyiKCXs">That scene</a> was effective in making me feel guilty for rooting for the guy. Keep in mind, back then anti-heroes weren't a dime a dozen like they are now. But at the risk of sounding like I'm having my cake and not eating it, too, I do think the unseen goes a long way here, like the off-camera moments of <i>Funny Games</i> when the worst things happen, or showing that execution through the blue eyes of Peter O'Toole in <i>Lawrence of Arabia</i>, especially when Lawrence is executing a murderer that he himself saved earlier when he pulled him out of the Nafud Desert amid all the grumblings of "Why are you going back for that guy? God wrote shit that way." Damn, did that feel awful, hearing the gunshots and watching his eyes, after the extended sequence of him saving that man. And to hear everyone shrug, "See, it was written," afterwards still saddens and infuriates me every time I see it.<br />
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Okay, most effective violence scene on the page is still going to have to go to the fence post popping through a bad guy's throat in <i>Firestarter</i>. For two reasons. One, I was way too young when I found that book in my dad's stash of forbidden paperbacks. And two, Stephen King has the line, "...with a wet punching sound that Andy never forgot," which sounds pretty much like an order from the writer to never forget what he wrote. And it worked! Because kids do what they're told.<br />
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Most effective bit of violence in music is going to have to go to nine hundred or so Nick Cave songs. Extra points to make it shocking and funny, too, like the killer in "O'Malley's Bar" crooning, "With an ashtray as big as a fucking really big brick, I split his skull in half..." That line right there is why there's a five-pointed, big-ass ashtray in the climax of <i>FISH BITES COP!</i>. And a starfish stabbed in the sand on the back cover.<br />
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<b>SJ:</b> I read <i>The Shining</i> when I was 11 or 12 years old - I think, to date, the only Stephen King I've read - and the only sentence I remember is when Jack enters room 237 or whatever and sees his dead student (?) lying naked in the bathtub: "His penis floated limply, like kelp." That's all I got. A different kind of scarring. And speaking of flapping genitals.<br />
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There's a lot to be said for the directors who are willing to hold a shot. That lawnmower scene in <i>Dead Alive</i>; volumetrically speaking, I think you might be right in that it has the most gore - however, I remember when I saw <i>Cabin in the Woods</i> last year [<b>Annotation</b>: 2012], when they <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN5YDtkmxsk">release all of the monsters</a>, I thought that was the most blood I've ever seen in a movie (that's what I told people, "it's the most blood you've ever seen in a movie!"), where the walls are literally painted over and over again with layers of blood; I think that movie was self-consciously trying to try and top the volume of gore from that lawnmower scene (although the lawnmower scene has the carnival music going for it; those are also some of the highest-powered spinning tools I've ever seen - they take a lot of abuse). [<b>Annotation</b>: I think the <i>Evil Dead </i>2013 remake has a higher volume of blood than <i>CITW</i>, because it rains blood.]<br />
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I have one more question about gore. I'm going to cite another example of this terrific violence in <i>Fish Bites Cop!</i>, in "Greenhorns." This is a great story: in some way, it pretends to be a zombie story but is so different from any other zombie story, in that THEY ARE FUCKING UNDERWATER, which is perfect in that it feeds from current zombie tradition but also twists it into an entirely novel conceit: as one character says, "They walk. It's as simple as that. ... That's the one thing they do. All day, even when it rains. And if you walk long enough on his planet, you're gonna hit fuckin' water. Thicker than Tanners, thicker than Opies in the off-season..." (p. 67)<br />
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All told, <i>Fish Bites Cop!</i> feels like a subversion of genre-tropes, but we'll either talk about this later or we'll ignore it because genre-discussion is always frustrating and mostly fruitless. Anyways, in this marvelous little story there's a scene where one of the eponymous greenhorns gets torn apart by a group of underwater dead; it's tough and I won't write all of it out here but basically he just gets torn limb from limb, and there's a marvelous set of paragraphs that goes:<br />
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Jake watches in silence as Josh is painted like a Jackson Pollock onto the deck next to everything else that gets gutted for bait. A cube of cod bounces off Jake's boot. </blockquote>
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<i>Jesus Christ</i>, Jake realizes. <i>No wonder he won that contest. He was barely chewing. </i></blockquote>
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Jake stays quiet, right up until one claw punches real deep and he gags at the white bomb of milk exploding from Josh's innards, bleaching the deck with proof of his ultimate victory at the Gallon Challenge. At the time, Jake couldn't believe he kept all that milk down, even accused him of cheating. He'd read somewhere that consuming a gallon of milk was impossible. </blockquote>
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<i>And they were right</i>, he thinks wildly. <i>You adjust the time limit to the next day and everything comes back.</i> (p. 65)</blockquote>
It’s not hard to appreciate everything that's going on here: you have a brutal and hard-to-stomach (pun) but perfectly imaginable scene of violence, coupled with revelations brought back from the story's other reaches, that "everything comes back" - the thematic flashes I mentioned earlier. You mix them so well with the violence; it turns these scenes into something beyond just action; it's goddamn poetic. I guess this is a process-based question: how do you assemble a scene like this? I mean, line by line. (Jesus, my questions are longer than the answers.)<br />
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<b>DJK:</b> Oh, crap, I remember that "kelp" line, too. I love that book. No adaptation has given it justice. They should stop trying really. Speaking of <i>Cabin in the Woods</i> and <i>The Shining</i>, isn't there an elevator full of blood homage in there? Hilarious, but just like the majority of the creatures on the board, <i>Cabin in the Woods</i> wouldn't really work if they chose anything else. Imagine the Elevator of Blood movie. Or the Merman movie, for example. Couldn't they just stay out of the water? I know, I know, that's not the point. Great movie though. I keep waiting for someone to make a meme of those two technicians on their golf cart with the popular line "You Had One Job" written across their faces. They really did have one very complicated job. And they fucked it up. Someone do this so it can be my computer background. I'm tired of the picture of the shuttle explosion. Kidding! It's a video of the shuttle exploding. But you bring up a good point, which is how can we measure the blood effectively? They should probably weigh it, if anything, because sometimes movies cheat and seem to have a river of blood or a lake of blood...but it's way too watery. <i>Blade 2</i> for example. <i>The Descent</i> though, now there's some thick bloody blood. Real blood sticks to the ribs, inside and out. Man, I want to watch <i>The Descent </i>again right now.<br />
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I'm glad you brought up "Greenhorns" though because I'm very proud of that story (and it languished with a shady publisher a while back when I was naïve and threw stories at anyone slinging contributors' copies and nobody ever got to read it, so I was excited to put it in this collection). But this story was my love letter to the television show <i>Deadliest Catch,</i> which I worked on for a couple years when I was close-captioning. I worked as a captioner during the whole reality-television boom, and I still maintain that this show was the least corrupted (at least until around Season 5). So "Greenhorns" was kind of about the corruption of manual labor by the TV, and a bit of monsters. When I first started the story, it was based around the idea of what crazy things might be in that cage when they pulled it up over the rail of their boat? I could think of a lot of crazy things, but the idea of the ocean floor eventually being covered with dead people (it would have to be, since they never stopped walking, right?) let me concentrate on other aspects of the story. Then I realized it really was all about a job being ruined by the cameras, and what can happen to the human body every time that little red light blinks on above the lens and people start dancing for their dinner as fast as they can. That particular scene with the belly comes after a series of eating contests (and milk-drinking contests, which the internet tells me are notoriously difficult and disgusting), wrestling matches, and brawls, etc., which the "greenhorns" are coerced into at the beginning of the story by their potential captains. At first, the guys think they're simply looking for strong men for their crab boats. But then it starts to become clear that this was just a way of fattening them up. So I knew there was going to be a scene where one of the greenhorns was opened up for bait (kind of required if you're pretending to be a zombie story, <i>definitely</i> required if you're pretending to write a <i>Deadliest Catch</i> story), and I had to think of ways to make that interesting. So I thought, "Hey, the stomach contents should reveal something!" That way, it's not just gore but an answer. In this case, two things are revealed. One, Josh doesn't chew his food enough. And two, the fact that his stomach is full of milk means that he really did do the impossible and drink a gallon of milk back at the bar after all (the internet is furious with me at this very moment for even suggesting that's possible. Milk is apparently Kryptonite in mass qualities). Also, it's white, a different color than blood! So the scene's a little more interesting, to me anyway. White is gross, right? Big milk bubble. Bloop! So that shook the scene up a bit. And then the scene can close with a zinger or a punch line, in this case a line that suggests that drinking a gallon of milk is impossible after all, because it did come back up. Technically.<br />
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So to answer your question, that's kind of how I mapped out that paragraph. First draft came out a bit garbled. The milk gag was there as the end of the scene, but it didn't feel like enough was going on, so I got in the other character's head and wrote it again and crammed in more shit! So now I got Jake thinking about the chunks of cod, and the milk revelation, it all went smoother. And now, so that maybe people can get to know him a little more, Josh gets that last line instead of me.<br />
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<b>SJ</b>: One minor obsession of mine is with the varieties of blood to be found in movies. This might stem from the ratings-obsession of my early movie-watching days, when I would parse what markers of violence distinguished PG-13 from R, etc, and tried to figure out exactly where that shaky line was drawn (I've seen <i>This Film Is Not Yet Rated</i> probably 30x). On that note, I saw <i>The Conjuring</i> a few weeks ago, which was solid and pretty scary. [<b>Annotation</b>: August 2013.] I remember reading something ahead of time about how James Wan said he wanted to throw away the <i>Saw</i> stuff for a change and "just make a PG-13 horror movie." But then, unfortunately, he just made the damn thing too scary for PG-13, so he got stuck with another R. (You can tell that he's trying though - notice how in the movie no one ever swears, and the blood comes only in indirect, filtered doses [through a sheet, from a ghoul, etc]).<br />
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But speaking of blood, it’s always satisfying when someone does something a little different. Have you seen <i>Stoker</i>? I watched it yesterday. [<b>Annotation</b>: August 25, 2013.] Chan-wook Park does violence just perfectly, holding back just barely enough. That movie (his first in English I think) is mostly just mediocre sinister psychopathis, but there is one scene where a guy gets shot in the head at medium/close range with a hunting rifle, and there's a shot immediately after where you see his blood splattered on the wall and hear it hissing as it steams/runs down the wall. I've never seen anyone do this before, but I thought it was great and by far the most convincing part of the movie. There was also a really nice blood cloud-spurt, a bit later on, when a dude gets knifed with some garden shears (there are also flowers; it's a very poetic shot). If I ever made movies, I would focus very heavily on the blood. As you said, we want none of that watered-down shit. We want the soup.<br />
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Anyways, this is actually a question about subtitles. You were a closed-captioner for a time - did writing out all those movies and TV shows contribute to your writing at all, in terms of seeing how dialogue/pacing/etc. was constructed?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5ip1xKtcAuNRBHs_npZ10KmdfryMtW0dh7N0cPDOhg_D80usHVwlzgyCMIfToAvWC_cQvbJB-CD0rS5m6Xh5bOSjiKqtJMOX4Wr_pRyiR6FPeey_zv02Al2XepvpACT0l9s6TyLKeLY/s1600/225-Poster-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5ip1xKtcAuNRBHs_npZ10KmdfryMtW0dh7N0cPDOhg_D80usHVwlzgyCMIfToAvWC_cQvbJB-CD0rS5m6Xh5bOSjiKqtJMOX4Wr_pRyiR6FPeey_zv02Al2XepvpACT0l9s6TyLKeLY/s1600/225-Poster-1.jpg" width="210" /></a><b>DJK</b>: I enjoy how we're focusing on blood. It's a much better conversation than the usual hand-wringing over violence in media begetting violence in real life, etc, etc. I'm always amazed at that discussion actually. Not to sound all Marquis de Sade or anything, but my own take on it is...I don't care. Wait, that sounds harsh. How about, "I couldn't stop it anyway, so best not to dwell on it." Yeesh, that sounds even more alarming. Okay, how about this then, "I only had one semester of psychology. Why are you asking me about science? [adjusts monocle] Did you ask that painter to solve that math problem with an egg?" But you know what I mean though? I'm typically horrified by writers with a large platform to pontificate about anything. I prefer my writers barely functional, acting badly, walking contradictions (or wheelchair-bound contradictions), or simply embarrassing off the page. Beautiful art by ugly artists! That's why they had to start writing, right? To communicate or act out? Because in public they were cringe-worthy monsters? Or maybe my aversion to writing advice and societal responsibility is being effected by my new online attention span (hopelessly short, thanks, lobotomizer!). Anyway, this is why I'm so happy we're talking about blood! Seriously. Sploosh! How weird is that shit?! No other substance saturates our books, movies, and Nick Cave songs like the ol' kroovy. For a year, all movies should be saliva-soaked instead of blood-soaked. Just to see what that would do. Or at least so we'd be horrified when it switched back to blood again. Like we were when the <i>The Wild Bunch</i> first came out. I just don't care if it's bad for us. Leave that to the professionals to decide. Or at least tell us how many buckets we can ingest. Until then, give us our soup!<br />
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I also was fascinated by <i>This Film Is Not Yet Rated</i> (especially the soccer-mom detective). I kept thinking of Egoyan's <i>Adjuster</i>, too, where the woman had that strange Canadian censorship job with the hilarious categories? That movie was a great example of taking the piss out of "responsibility." I haven't seen <i>Stoker</i> yet, but my friend Nate liked it. And you say the blood is done right. So that's good enough for me. And, hell, <i>Oldboy</i> is a masterpiece (which you know Spike Lee will fuck up by Americanizing). [<b>Annotation</b>: He did.]<br />
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But to answer your question about closed-captioning. I'm not sure if I learned anything about pacing or dialogue from the corrupt "reality" shows I captioned which made up the glut of my work day, except maybe learning from <i>The Deadliest Catch</i> that the floor of the ocean is covered with an amazing variety of scurrying, claw-clicking abominations. (They drop a box in the ocean, it comes up covered in crawling horrors. How is this not shocking anyone on those boats?) But, honestly, that job really was like going back to school. It sounds ridiculous, but I finally learned grammar and had some very basic rules of composition hammered back into my skull, not that you'll see any evidence in this interview. But the feedback from the television shows and movies I worked on was essential for me to get closer to typing as fast as I can think. Not that I'm saying you shouldn't revise and just type quickly and without consideration and nobly fretting over every little pretty word like it's a baby Panda (hairless, blind, and borderline worthless by the way). What I'm saying is we're dying, so we should type as fast as possible.<br />
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<b>SJ</b>: That reminds me: as is pretty obvious from our conversation thus far, your writing is full of movies: esoteric trivia, fastidiously remembered minor scenes from movies no one's seen in at least ten years, lines of dialogue - there's a lot. For example, in "Bad Hand Acting," there's a fairly involved conversation among some cops clustered around a dying man talking about the forms of "hand acting" in movies, a part of which goes:<br />
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"You know what other movie [Sigouney Weaver's] hand is in? <i>The Ice Storm</i>. There's a shot of it plucking some car keys out of a salad bowl, the keys of the man she's having an affair with, get it? And her fingers do this twirl with them that is just ridiculous. Fuckin' hot though." </blockquote>
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"You know what that twirl means, right?" Little Cop asks. "Betrayal. Deception. Try to get that across with only one finger." (p. 26)</blockquote>
I read somewhere else that you always have movies playing in the background while you write - how the hell does that work? Don't you get distracted? Are they always movies you've already seen? Don't they bleed into one another, or is that precisely the point? Were you on an endless loop of Sigourney Weaver, keyswapping, Elijah Wood-electrocutions and teenage-Toby lust when you were writing "Bad Hand Acting?"<br />
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<b>DJK</b>: Yeah, the misdemeanor that is Bad Hand Acting has been an obsession of mine since high school, when I first saw the Bruce Springsteen video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrpXArn3hII">"I'm On Fire."</a> I knew there was something wrong about the way she handed Bruce her car keys, the way her hand hung there way too long and fluttered out of the scene. Then I saw <i>Angel Heart</i>, and there's a scene where Mickey Rourke is rooting around in a drawer for some clue, and his hand was drifting around and acting weird, like total <i>Addams' Family</i> disembodied "Thing" weird. Then I saw <i>Jacob's Ladder</i>, and there's this scene where Tim Robbins' hand swims and fusses around a drawer looking for clues, and I was ruined forever. Not just ruined with Adrian Layne movies (he directed both <i>Jacob's Ladder</i> and <i>Angel Heart</i>, and I love them both), but ruined with being able to watch any scene that only showed a person's hands. It's an art form, making your hand act normal. Amateurs shouldn't even try. And in the movies, they usually fuck it up. So when I was writing a story about a guy paralyzed except for one hand, I thought "Now there's a challenge. How does a guy in bed who can only move one hand not ham it up and overact with those digits?!"<br />
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Bad Hand Acting can be dangerous, too. It's probably the reason for 97% of 4th of July fireworks accidents, because people fall in love with the cinematic way their hand looks when it's lighting a fuse.<br />
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But to answer your question, I didn't have <i>The Ice Storm</i> or <i>Alien 3</i> on a loop when I wrote that story. I just remembered the egregious moment with the keys in <i>The Ice Storm</i> and plugged it into the characters' mouths. Actually <i>Alien 3</i> might have been on because I've seen it probably 50 times.<br />
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And that's the answer to the other question - if I have a movie on when I'm typing, you're right, it does have to be something I've seen before, typically something I've seen <i>a lot</i>. Almost always '70s or 80s movies then, since I've had more years to rewatch them. '60s movies don't connect with me as much, but oh, man, do the '70s feel like home. Even though I was like zero when those movies were big, there's just something about a '70s movie that feels right. Like being a little kid and lying on the carpet with my dad when he listened to his Elton John records. Those movies are hazy comfort food. Movies for longer attention spans, and they look soft like film, real film, like movies should look. Not like this crisp, glossy digital ass we're going to have to endure from now on. Those aren't movies. They're shiny kids' stuff. And they smell gamey. That's my new word to describe these high-def digital video-game monstrosities that pass as motion pictures these days. Gamey. Makes you want to yell at the screen, if the line wasn't such a movie cliché, "What do you think this is? Some kind of a game?!" Hand shaking and pointing at the projectionist all dramatic.<br />
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<b>SJ</b>: When I started watching movies in a 'serious' way (i.e., obsessively cumulative; I like to make lists), when I was 14 or 15, someone (probably my mother) told me to "start with the ‘70s": when I first saw <i>McCabe and Mrs. Miller</i>, which I think comes from the land of 1971, I remember thinking, "I didn't know they were allowed to have nudity in movies back then," which was a ridiculous thought, but still formative for me as a viewer.<br />
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I saw recently <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ezi0IvAuo">this modern-dance production</a> of Kafka's <i>The Metamorphosis</i>, and - as you can see in that clip - as per our previous discussion one of my favorite elements was the smearing and splattering of black tarry paint-stuff all over an otherwise pure white set. Obviously this has been a technique since the beginning, but still - there's that apocryphal story of the chocolate-syrup blood in Psycho, and I imagine they had a lot of fun coming up with blood-substitutes back in the b/w days when the color didn't read so long as it was dark. Your writing, I think, is inventive and experimental in the same way - like brand-new ways of making blood.<br />
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You recently sold a giant novel, <i>The Last Projector</i>, to Broken River Books, which (presumably) you are in the midst of revising. [<b>Annotation</b>: NOPE, this interview languished so long that the book is out.] How will this work alongside the others? Is it going to pop its neck through the fencepost of the literary/lurid divide like the rest of your stories? OR ARE WE JUST AWASH IN NOSTALGIA.<br />
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<b>DJK</b>: This is fascinating to me that your mom said to start with the '70s. I wonder if this is the way everyone should do it. I started with the '80s - because that's when I was hatched - but your mom was thinking in three dimensions here. Or thought you had some catching up to do, and she's right. Okay, maybe being born later means you missed nine or so movies in the '60s, maybe three movies in the '50s. And that one in the '40s, and fuck <i>Wizard of Oz</i>. But as far as me and your mom are concerned, the '70s is where movies started.<br />
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Your response to nudity in movies "back then" is kind of what happened when I saw <i>The Graduate</i> (1967, one of the nine not-to-be-missed). Now there's a movie with literally just tiny flashes of naked but I felt kind of sheepish watching it as a kid. It sure felt a lot more naked than it really was. <i>The Deep</i>, too, a.k.a. Wet T-Shirts Enter The Public Consciousness movie, which probably horrified me more when Jacqueline Bissett got painted with a chicken claw in some dangerous places. And those movies were Rated PG! More skill on display for sure, when you can take little to no nudity, or chicken claws, and make us feel dirtier. Try The Chicken Claw Challenge. Watch <i>The Deep</i> and then <i>Angel Heart</i> and compare your squirm levels. One is a hard R and all sorts of violent. One looks like it should be a nice vacation. But I think <i>The Deep</i> wins, claws down. Yeah, <i>McCabe and Mrs. Miller</i> though, that was Rated R, too, right? I call that movie <i>Deadwood: The Prequel</i>. <i>Deadwood</i> owes its life to it. <i>Deadwood</i> makes every move that movie made. And it's my favorite Robert Altman movie by far, not just because of those giant fur coats. And the way he pulled back from every scene (the thing everyone loved about <i>M.A.S.H.</i>, too, but it's so much more effective here), made those splashes of violence all the more shocking. Something about a bit of violence seen from across the room has so much more impact to me. Nowadays the camera is up everybody's ass or following the bullet through the spleen (actually that was probably the best part of <i>Three Kings</i>), and that distancing which invoked realism is lost for the sake of...realism. Or something.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">mccabe</td></tr>
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But I'm so glad you brought up chocolate blood because here you are in my head again. There's this guy on Twitter that I follow - mostly to read his meltdowns and watch his number of followers roll down like an odometer - but every so often he nails it. And he was talking about <i>Kill Bill</i> and said something about "Fake black and white, I can't put my finger on it." And I thought, "Yes! That sequence always bugged me, and I don't know why." But today I figured it out. It's the blood. The blood is like water because it was supposed to be in color (I heard the B&W was an 11th hour switch to save the rating), and in color, the blood looked like blood. But as Hitchcock could have warned them, once you switch to black-and-white, you have to bring in the chocolate syrup to make it black. Which is why the most ambitious sequence in <i>Kill Bill Vol. 1</i> totally looks like a lighthearted water-balloon fight.<br />
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Yeah, <i>The Last Projector</i>, the giant book formally known as <i>Spunkwater</i>, based in part on the unsold screenplay of the same name, which mostly dealt with a crazy guy masturbating into Venus Flytraps. My favorite story regarding that screenplay is when some studio <i>almost</i> considered buying the damn thing - they were printing it out in their offices, and this guy calls and says, "We're printing the script." "Oh, great. Great news," I say. "No, I mean we're still printing it. We've been printing it for awhile." "Okay?" "So we'd like to know...have you written a screenplay before?" At the time, I thought he was making fun of formatting issues or something, but, nope, it was because, if the one-minute-per-page formula for screenplays is to be believed, my movie would be six hours long. I think that formula is probably bullshit most of the time though. <i>Once Upon A Time In The West</i> should have been an hour then, right? But it was probably dead-on with mine because most of that original script was juicy, big-ass speeches!<br />
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But I do hope it wriggles around on the fence dividing the genres, but you're definitely right about nostalgia. It's so awash with nostalgia that it's like that wave of blood that rolls off the elevator in <i>The Shining</i>. If that blood was nostalgia. And the color was all wrong. This book had been in the hands of a half dozen agents and publishers for the better part of a year, half of those with painful "maybes" morphing into "Nah, not for us." My favorite correspondence was the "Send the first 50 pages. Send another 50 pages. Send another 50 pages. Send the final 50 pages..." And I had to say, "Wait a minute, the 'final' 50 pages? Uh, you're only about halfway, my friend!" And..."Not for us." So I was despairing, and having nightmares about cutting it into three books like I had to do with my graduate thesis (turns out there's not just a page requirement at Pitt, but a page limit?! Who knew?), so when I was at the Books & Booze reading in St. Louis, hanging out with Jed Ayres and J. David Osborne, and we were drinking on the rooftop of some hotel from a Wes Anderson movie (I mean Paul Thomas Anderson, I mean Paul W.S. Anderson, whoever), Mr. Osborne told me about his plans for Broken River Books, which was sort of rising from the ashes of the amazing Swallowdown Press, and how they were going to conquer the globe. I don't know if it was the giant fake moon over his shoulder during this speech (not kidding, giant fake moon), but I was convinced. So I pitched him my novel in a sort of "This is why you don't want anything to do with this" reverse psychology way, and this must have worked. So the novel is due out in the summer of 2014, and it's got all that First Novel-itis people probably expect. Lot going on. It takes place in my version of the '80s. Which in my brain is kind of now. And it's full of movies and blood and unhealthy projecting.<br />
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Broken River Books just recently released their first five books, from some phenomenal authors, which goes a long way to easing my mind that all that pillowtalk with J.D.O. and Jed on that rooftop was for real. They've got <i>The Least of My Scars</i> by writing juggernaut Stephen Graham Jones, which has already been optioned for a movie, <i>Peckerwood</i> by Jedidiah Ayres, his first novel, also being eyed eagerly by other forms of visual media, but I'm sworn to secrecy about that, <i>Street Raised</i> by Pearce Hansen, resurrected by Osborne so it finds the audience it deserves, <i>Gravesend</i> by William Boyle, which was blurbed by Megan "<i>Dare Me</i>" Abbott (!) who compared it to Lehane and Pelacanos, and finally some disreputable abomination called <i>XXX Shamus</i> by a "Red Hammond," which is some famous big-shit author who wanted his/her name taken off of it so that his/her family would still love him. Or her. [<b>Annotation</b>: It's Anthony Neil Smith.] Several of these are notorious books that were kicked around writing circles for years, where people hear the name and they've already read big bloody chunks of it, so <i>Last Projector</i> is a perfect fit. It's been kicked, too. Kicked enough to finally bite back. I really want you to read it actually. It's so full of '80s VHS tapes that it should have a warning about leaving it in your car.<br />
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<b>SJ</b>: We've already talked about him a bit here, but Chan-wook Park (of <i>Oldboy</i>, <i>Stoker</i>, etc) has a bit of that pull-back-for-the-violence going on in the Vengeance trilogy. Part of the reason I think that technique is much more effective is because there's, inversely, less room for filmic trickery and effects - you have a stage to let things play out on, and there's less sense that someone's trying to pull one over on you. Effective violence - we're back again!<br />
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<i>Rosemary's Baby</i> has got to be one of the nine of the 60s, right? I was a late bloomer to that movie - I just saw it recently, and, tonally, it's just perfect all the way through. There's not an off-note in that entire movie.<br />
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In an effort to contain ourselves, finally, here's a deceptively simple question: what, in your daunting mental recollection, is the most suspenseful movie? Please limit your response to three movies.<br />
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<b>DJK</b>: I think you're right with your pulling back theory. And, yeah, <i>Rosemary's Baby</i> probably gets to be in there if only because that's got to be the most realistic depiction of a dream state I've ever seen on film.<br />
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Most suspenseful, huh? That's a tough question. You're wise to limit this to just one movie. You ask someone "What's the bloodiest movie?" and they can answer that no problem. Suspense though? That's a different animal. With suspense, I'm sort of in suspense while I'm waiting to see if I'll hate a movie. I call that Suspense of Disbelief, and I might put that on a T-shirt!<br />
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Most suspenseful though...oh, man. Off the top of my head, I just want to list suspenseful scenes. The bathtub sequence in <i>Training Day</i> springs to mind (better than that entire movie), the middle third of Walter Hill's underrated <i>Trespass</i>, the first third of ol' M. Night's <i>Signs</i> (yeah, I said it), the opening sequence of the underrated <i>Dawn of the Dead</i> remake, the tense Irish/Italian sit-down in <i>State of Grace</i> when they argue about whether Ed Harris said to shoot up the place if he "did" or "didn't" call, the Drexel/Clarence showdown in <i>True Romance</i>, the opening scene of <i>28 Weeks Later </i>(sure, <i>28 Days Later</i> is the better movie, but nothing in that movie can touch the opening sequence in the house in <i>28 Weeks Later</i> when the hero bails on his wife. Oh, Bickle's awkward date with Cybill Shepherd in <i>Taxi Driver</i> (which is 100 times more squirm inducing than the famous bloody ending), the beautiful blue-collar fetishizing safe-cracking scene in <i>Thief</i> - oh shit those were all "T" movies. The first and last action sequences in <i>Children of Men</i> both felt incredibly dangerous with clutch popping and world-gone-mad gun play that had consequences, the weird low-speed chase in <i>Way of the Gun</i>, every single conversation with the HAL 9000, the opening scene of <i>Narc</i> on the playground, every sex scene in <i>Teeth</i>...<br />
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<a href="http://img.soundtrackcollector.com/movie/large/Rollerball_1975.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img.soundtrackcollector.com/movie/large/Rollerball_1975.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a>So limiting it to three is definitely a good idea. So let's do this. I'll say movies that have one word, two words, and three words in the title. Then limit that to three each. So for the one-word titles. I want to say <i>Memento</i>, because of the suspense it creates by forcing that short-term memory on the viewer, but that one's too obvious. How about <i>Aliens</i>, Friedkin's comeback, the glorious <i>Bug</i>, and <i>Oldboy</i>. For the two-word titles. <i>Rear Window</i> because of that distancing thing we're talking about, of course, <i>Sexy Beast</i> because of the human time bomb Don Logan and his complete stranglehold on that movie, and <i>Open Water</i>, which had no money, no actors, and I was on the edge of my nuts the whole time. And for the three-word titles, <i>Dog Day Afternoon</i> (something about opening with that Elton John song, then having ZERO music for its sweaty, real-time duration), <i>The Road Warrior</i> (has there ever been a more lean, pure cinema experience as that final chase?), and <i>The Mosquito Coast</i>. Like those ice blocks sliding out of the mouth of his invention, a nerve-wracking slide to destruction. Man, the infectious arrogance and doom of that character. Harrison Ford will never do a movie that good again.<br />
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Actually, forget all that. The most stressed I've been watching a movie lately was <i>We Need To Talk About Kevin</i>. Knot in my stomach the whole time, knowing where it was going to go. Actually, fuck all that! <i>Wages of Fear</i>. The beautiful simplicity of that plot (trucks hauling nitroglycerin, driving really slow through the jungle), mixed with the fact that Sam Peckinpah swiped a ton of imagery for his most famous westerns. That's my final answer. No, wait, I want to say <i>The Corndog Man</i> instead because more people need to know about it - a movie made up almost entirely of stressful prank phone calls. Luckily it also contains Howlin' Wolf music to calm you back down. Wait, what am I even talking about. It's John Carpenter's <i>The Thing</i>, claws down.<br />
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Okay, one last bonus answer since you got flashback to '70s movies on your tender young mind. Back in the late '70s, Little Davey snuck out of bed and sat halfway down the stairs to watch as much of the movie <i>Rollerball</i> as he could. And it had quite an impact. The way that movie opens exactly like a game, no exposition, just those scenes on the track with those air horns. I was thrilled and horrified by what I saw, and because I was caught before that opening sequence was over, I just figured the whole thing was a game. And back then, before DVD, before VHS really, I would have to wait years for another chance to see the whole thing. So there's some real suspense for you, waiting a decade to finish a damn movie.<br />
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-80541154736270910762014-11-04T18:58:00.000-08:002014-11-04T18:58:44.306-08:00SATURNs for sale / MASTERWORKS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I thought it was worth letting you know here that, if you
like, you can buy copies of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SATURN</i>—my
collection of David Bowie stories recently out from Spork Press—directly from
me. Right now, they are $12 (including shipping). Obviously I will sign all of
them and additionally include a ripped-out page of a Bowie biography from the
era of your choosing. If you’re interested, <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/p/what-you-already-know.html">give me a shout</a>, and prepare
to divulge 1) your preferred color (slime or blue, see <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/2014/08/shameless.html">previous post</a> for
evidence), 2) your favorite Bowie era (to determine the biographical
excerpt), and 3) mailing address.</div>
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In other news, a smallish piece of fiction called <a href="http://www.everyday-genius.com/2014/10/simon-jacobs.html">“Accession”</a> was published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everyday Genius </i>earlier
this month; it’s kind of about utterly defacing famous works of art<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>and is a part of the book that I’m
working on (thanks to Dolan Morgan for picking this piece up).<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>In case you’re tracking these things,
another death-focused part of this book appeared in the latest issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.forkliftohio.com/index.php?page=inventory-28">Forklift, OH</a></i>, but you’ll have to
go to print for that one. (If you do, it comes with a packet of seeds; it also
comes with Ben Kopel’s “Sad Punk Sutra,” which you wouldn’t want to miss a word
of.)</div>
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Since last we spoke (and in direct and pointed contrast to
defacing works of art), I’ve also started writing MASTERWORKS, a recurring
flash fiction series featured every month in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paper Darts </i>e-newsletter. It’s about reenactments of famous works
of art. Sign up for the mailing list <a href="http://paperdarts.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=235a104617173bbd0b1e63108&id=13aaf3ee73">here</a>, or peruse the three
installments that have been published so far:</div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><a href="http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=235a104617173bbd0b1e63108&id=356bc5aa56">The Death of Marat</a></i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">, by Jacques-Louis David.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><a href="http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=235a104617173bbd0b1e63108&id=5501199011&e=47c7f27536&mc_cid=b4b9967345&mc_eid=47c7f27536">The Garden of Earthly Delights</a>, </i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">by Hieronymus Bosch.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><a href="http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=235a104617173bbd0b1e63108&id=b4b9967345&e=47c7f27536">Witches’ Flight</a></i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">, by Francisco Goya.</span></li>
</ul>
It’s all paintings as yet, but this month (November) it’s
going to be a monolithic stone object, which should be fun. These stories are
mostly ornate little echo-boxes, and it’s probably the most fun I’ve had
writing in a long time; basically I want my stories to be the written
equivalent of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G8u1pJl_nY">this song</a>. <div>
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Let me know what you think, or if you have any artworks you
would like to recommend. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS.<div class="MsoNormal">
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As always,</div>
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I remain,</div>
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Simon</div>
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-5844336767529217322014-08-14T18:54:00.004-07:002014-08-15T12:48:08.171-07:00SHAMELESS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here is a selection of the colors in which <i>SATURN </i>is now available, alongside commentary with what movie I was watching when I learned that these covers existed, basically:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxYSKxk4al-K7PAFsZxwjhIpiWCCIIeaaG88pYCaA2bZKtNeO5LtfsrzISXqs77me_OlqKGG2QU3BPvNmmTBxRc2zxlXDYQsnrvvntxpj6FKWYGlN-QB_I9v06iWDq9ojv3phXCflkfSmh/s1600/blood!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxYSKxk4al-K7PAFsZxwjhIpiWCCIIeaaG88pYCaA2bZKtNeO5LtfsrzISXqs77me_OlqKGG2QU3BPvNmmTBxRc2zxlXDYQsnrvvntxpj6FKWYGlN-QB_I9v06iWDq9ojv3phXCflkfSmh/s1600/blood!.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>1) Red: I am pretty sure that I watched <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EolQSTTTpI4">The Skin I Live In</a> </i>the same night that I received these (it was very rainy), which is potentially appropriate because that movie is all about masks, costumed invaders, abuses of the ultra-rich, dastardly medical procedures, and Marisa Paredes (so often does life become an erotic thriller). (Did you ever see <i>The Flower of My Secret</i>? It is EXCELLENT.)</div>
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<b>("gory," "blood" version);</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN2Stf2FpGrO9m1Jl96DCFtz5EoSxt3RLWyVKMmXz_CbyZECwU2XYzFyI4HGDJFDEATP3vGYKvd37iuDoqIzAkYKmPR_RWiHVDfBhWAEwqSCWQpMtAffSjUGLmgou8bmICO1SZqwCaGGY8/s1600/silver!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN2Stf2FpGrO9m1Jl96DCFtz5EoSxt3RLWyVKMmXz_CbyZECwU2XYzFyI4HGDJFDEATP3vGYKvd37iuDoqIzAkYKmPR_RWiHVDfBhWAEwqSCWQpMtAffSjUGLmgou8bmICO1SZqwCaGGY8/s1600/silver!.jpg" height="320" width="233" /></a>2) Silver: when I saw these, I think I was reading <i><a href="http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/doctor-bantam/">The Dream of Doctor Bantam</a></i>, by Jeanne Thornton, which is a book that I love and which I would recommend to virtually any reader. Here are no. 2-6 on the itemized list of “things that I
loved about this book,” as written enthusiastically in an email to its author
(no. 1 was incomprehensible even to me):</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
2. the sentence on p. 91 in which
Julie wraps herself up with a sheet "like a human pita";</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
3. the canoe scene, specifically on
the rocks;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
4. when Julie bums a cigarette from
the 'patch-and-hemp' kid and thinks, "I do not want to take this cigarette
from this person. I hate this person. I despise this person for his
weakness," and then takes it anyway;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
5. when Patrice asks Julie if she's
proud of her for being the youngest Unbound;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
6. the whole freaking opening
scene, pants, ihop and all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Holistically, it kinda reminds me of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOqakh6r3-I">a World/Inferno Friendship Society song</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>(my mother's favorite version of the cover, because it's "less gory" and "less clear what is going on");</b> </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQaUFgeAVXxy3nrF7MaSSz6A-VoJGih5iYkC93iVL9ccT4acGJpbGqE0HOblUenqniiSi811vLY3yDRB7vXpwPEejPVo38ECSCi-9G_dl8d9wbLNu6OIoV-pxLOiYQxSFwBGsPxmcj0KP/s1600/green!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQaUFgeAVXxy3nrF7MaSSz6A-VoJGih5iYkC93iVL9ccT4acGJpbGqE0HOblUenqniiSi811vLY3yDRB7vXpwPEejPVo38ECSCi-9G_dl8d9wbLNu6OIoV-pxLOiYQxSFwBGsPxmcj0KP/s1600/green!.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a>3) Green: I don't remember what I was doing here. Do you? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(Speaking of which, I would like to point that there is a Beach Boys song (pt. 2 of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93Gl7DmmNvE">"California Saga"</a>), which includes the very traditionally un-Beach Boys-like lyric: "spilled down the hill, a wagon-load of bodies lay scattered.") </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>(I call this the "poor little greenie" version, Spork: "Slime and Gilded Blood Edition," which is somewhat more ornate);</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
4) Blue: I think I saw these on the same day as was released the full cover of David James Keaton's <i><a href="http://jdavidosborne.com/2014/08/06/signed-copies-of-the-last-projector-available-for-pre-order/">The Last Projector</a></i>, which comes out Halloween of this year and will probably be the best book about movies ever written. (If you have ever read this blog, you have read of DJK - he wrote a zombie novella, a short story collection called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fish-Bites-Stories-Bash-Authorities/dp/1936964376/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408066615&sr=8-1&keywords=fish+bites+cop">Fish Bites Cop!</a> </i>whose decorative murders rival Nick Cave, and is the subject of an 8,000-word interview that remains unpublished, where the topic that takes up the most space is the physical consistency of blood across several movie-decades.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>(Spork: "summer bluez"; I prefer "cosmic").</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQRrW3wL-LEPHg301XhsryuhJcxYr9ne1r3J_0fLdfzkB3MFw7F9bM44h4ApJRu5XZ3UrcIQPe6n4k_OUp8n35nQ47RQoh49jy7M6EU6vv2_ObY3EXwVfTD_FPdqcmweCwsLhXysYX3dy/s1600/blue!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQRrW3wL-LEPHg301XhsryuhJcxYr9ne1r3J_0fLdfzkB3MFw7F9bM44h4ApJRu5XZ3UrcIQPe6n4k_OUp8n35nQ47RQoh49jy7M6EU6vv2_ObY3EXwVfTD_FPdqcmweCwsLhXysYX3dy/s1600/blue!.jpg" height="400" width="296" /></a></div>
<div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>SATURN </i>has gotten a pretty exciting amount of attention lately - I'll spare you all the grisly details here (you can check the special SATURN tab above for links to pretty much everything including reviews in <i>The Rumpus </i>and <i>NANO Fiction</i>; clicking virtually anywhere on this blog will send you places to buy it), but I am very grateful to everyone who's bought it thus far. If you've done so, let me know what you think! I may have a special surprise for you.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Have a pleasant night (watch a movie you fruitcake),</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Simon</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-89508497347718850862014-03-05T18:52:00.000-08:002017-03-18T16:13:55.417-07:00ON SELLING OUT<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>SATURN </i>officially launched at AWP in Seattle last weekend. Here is a photo of <i>SATURN </i>on the Spork table, at the beginning:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWqPRmrPgnVu1oPM5eT0fbuAHG-rkpMxlg6l3wfwwKuPn7tb9jj71PshnOSSM4iEbK6DQmeVsryH8BbHo3GKojP6TRsYRYsDx5BkA-jzjqZCOkWIuP3S2Qrq_qoHrnaDNdCl36QpnAzwr4/s1600/table+R3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWqPRmrPgnVu1oPM5eT0fbuAHG-rkpMxlg6l3wfwwKuPn7tb9jj71PshnOSSM4iEbK6DQmeVsryH8BbHo3GKojP6TRsYRYsDx5BkA-jzjqZCOkWIuP3S2Qrq_qoHrnaDNdCl36QpnAzwr4/s1600/table+R3.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">R3</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
It sold out. All 50 copies, gone.<br />
<br />
Despite what people tell you, it feels very nice to be a sellout. If you bought one of the 50 - let me know! Like any narcissist, I'd love to hear what you think of it, or if you want to debate my facts. Since I wasn't in Seattle to endorse the copies for you, I'll propose something similar: if you let me know that you got the book, I will tear out highlighted/annotated pages of the classic 1986 David Bowie biography <i>Alias David Bowie</i> and mail them to you in lieu of a signature. It's definitely much more practical this way.<br />
<br />
Right now, Spork has returned home without <i>SATURN</i>s, but they are always busy, and I expect that very soon there will be more books and it will be available to buy on the Spork website. This offer will stand for as long as I can manage it - even if you don't want a scrap of paper mailed to you, I'd love to hear what you think of it. Or if you have any photos or tactile descriptions (as yet, I haven't held a physical copy, so I am interacting vicariously), by all means, send them along. I would like to thank you, at least.<br />
<br />
There are over 500 pages in <i>Alias David Bowie. </i>Plenty to gut.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
While Spork continues making books and books and books, a few <i>SATURN </i>stories have made their way into a couple of new journals: first, online, in <a href="http://theknicknackery.com/issue-one/">the inaugural issue</a> of <i>The Knicknackery </i>(brought to you by the very estimable team of Sonja Vitow and Keren Veisblatt Toledano) you can find "David Bowie Sleeps with <i>1001 Arabian Nights </i>Next to His Bed," which is, of course, about unending stories.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
In print, <i>Skydeer Helpking</i>, a new journal put together by Russ Woods and Jeannette Gomes, also just released their <a href="http://skydeer.info/">first issue</a>, and inside you can find both "David Bowie Approaches Tilda Swinton to Play Him in the Movie of His Life" and "David Bowie Confronts His Digital Self in <i>Omikron: The Nomad Soul</i>." </div>
<br />
Did you ever play <i>Omikron</i>? This is what he looked like:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Finally, in non-Bowie-related news (thank god), I have a small story called "Booties" in the <a href="http://www.fracturedwest.com/issue-5/">last (!) issue</a> of <i>Fractured West</i>, a print flash fiction journal from Scotland. It's really beautiful and full of equally tiny things.<br />
<br />
Once again, thanks for reading,<br />
Simon<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-23842974478944631992014-02-17T09:32:00.000-08:002014-02-17T09:32:25.399-08:00ALL STORIES ARE ABOUT HUNGER AT THEIR CORE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>SATURN </i>now has a cover and a release date:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge86wxP1co0ezo2_B4IMR5lRKM584vWZJCgSRfB9fDNzS3oPPky0ukI_v4tTnpqycFOwMMqExt2oVpV-uToLsOIyLuoX2h4684RXyGN6Wgk846OLLpC2obmdHggX83r7jP_2LjsQ01TgiW/s1600/COVER_SATURN+%2528jpeg%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge86wxP1co0ezo2_B4IMR5lRKM584vWZJCgSRfB9fDNzS3oPPky0ukI_v4tTnpqycFOwMMqExt2oVpV-uToLsOIyLuoX2h4684RXyGN6Wgk846OLLpC2obmdHggX83r7jP_2LjsQ01TgiW/s1600/COVER_SATURN+%2528jpeg%2529.jpg" height="640" width="507" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The book will be first available at <a href="https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/overview">AWP 2014</a> in Seattle (Feb 26 - March 1), and then from the Spork website shortly thereafter.<br />
<br />
If you're in Seattle, stop by table R3 to get one, and meet the team responsible.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoGsCh-YQHoeTnPPzKI30QtwT4xHx8FyMeMX0h5SB138xhMDTsfmSrDflPcvP15Dbj3Ref21g_YdaDOvYAK_5kJwikmS7QQvbeA1oKa-1TbFhoze2NJmJEIcX-nOdcJMayN0N6vsqsubot/s1600/Spork+Press+Poster+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoGsCh-YQHoeTnPPzKI30QtwT4xHx8FyMeMX0h5SB138xhMDTsfmSrDflPcvP15Dbj3Ref21g_YdaDOvYAK_5kJwikmS7QQvbeA1oKa-1TbFhoze2NJmJEIcX-nOdcJMayN0N6vsqsubot/s1600/Spork+Press+Poster+2.jpg" height="400" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Anything at all <i>SATURN</i>-related, let me know.</div>
<br /></div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-1064009315252221012014-02-01T13:43:00.000-08:002017-03-18T16:12:43.029-07:00Against Me!'s Transgender Dysphoria Blues<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Almost two weeks ago, Against Me! released their latest album, <i>Transgender Dysphoria Blues</i> (their first full-length since 2010), and since then, I've probably listened to it all the way through 45 times. It's one of those albums that seems both utterly personal - in the sense that it feels like a direct summation of Laura Jane Grace's transgender experience, a lifelong struggle finally heaved out into the open - and politically broad, like all the best punk albums. It's furious, aggressive, righteous, haunted, paranoid, desperately self-aware, and, I think, totally relevant. These are the first lines of the album, from the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O95hBl9YdXg">titular opener</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Your tells are so obvious<br />
shoulders too broad for a girl<br />
keeps you reminded<br />
helps you to remember where you come from."</blockquote>
Right off the bat, you know this is gonna hurt.<br />
<br />
(I saw an interview with Laura Jane Grace where the interviewer cheerfully said to her, "Well, this must be a very happy time for you!" essentially because she'd come out as transgender and public response from fans/etc. had been mostly supportive. She said, "I'm a wreck.")<br />
<br />
Possibly my favorite track on the album (at this moment) is "Paralytic States." It carries several of my favorite moments on the album, including:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She spent the last years of her life<br />
running from the boy she used to be<br />
cut her face wide open<br />
shaved the bone down thin<br />
plumped her lips up exaggerated<br />
a fucked up kind of feminine"</blockquote>
I really don't think you can find lyrics like that anywhere else.<br />
<br />
I've always wished I could sing like Laura Jane Grace. She can do the best throaty roar. (And has anyone ever called out James Bowman for his backing vocals? It's such a thrilling pairing; he needs more public praise.) One track on the album, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SMzyd7e6EA">"Drinking with the Jocks,"</a> has inched slowly towards the top of my list - it's got the hardcore roar, and at first it seems kind of satirical but ends on a really chilling note, with the repeated shout of "THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND YOU" (thanks James!).<br />
<br />
This bleeds right into <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sWX5Ny5BQ8">"Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ,"</a> which works perfectly. (And I also feel compelled to point out that the latter song, after the bridge of "What's the best that you can hope for?..." etc. has literally THE most effective set of "na na na na"'s I've ever heard in a song - like, both echoing the chorus and slightly mocking; it's just terrific, go listen to it and you'll see what I mean.)<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />
†</div>
<br />
The cover art for <i>Transgender Dysphoria Blues</i> - by Steak Mtn, once again, who I'd argue was just about the greatest aesthetic decision for this band ever - is absolutely brilliant (and hardly mentioned in things that I've read! for shame!) - it not only speaks to the album's unapologetic honesty about the body, but also serves as a really, really good metaphor - basically, when it's all cut down, we have the same meaty insides. We're just cross-sections of other bodies. Also, Against Me! has the best typefaces ever.<br />
<br />
If you buy the physical CD, the artwork is hilariously censored with a sticker on the plastic wrap, which, too, I think makes an awfully powerful point about what we will and won't accept:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1g9D8elnDx1WKbpkXG7NbTSGWEUpXgMkBEImWkhPhowV0k45fzbvvrVtCUItHzXD8QORqMXFPqM5bZcwraQhnW4t0QpGlcby_7ir03LKPXA2ljV6lhiLvfn3WqCksANR6-d99kn-hBoK/s1600/against+me+no+nipple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1g9D8elnDx1WKbpkXG7NbTSGWEUpXgMkBEImWkhPhowV0k45fzbvvrVtCUItHzXD8QORqMXFPqM5bZcwraQhnW4t0QpGlcby_7ir03LKPXA2ljV6lhiLvfn3WqCksANR6-d99kn-hBoK/s1600/against+me+no+nipple.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
That is - you can't have the nipple, but you can have the bloody meat underneath.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
†</div>
<br />
I saw Laura Jane Grace perform at the Bowery Ballroom in August 2013, where she performed most of <i>Transgender Dysphoria Blues </i>(which had either just been recorded or was in the midst of being recorded); at that point, I'd only heard the two songs from the EP <i>True Trans</i>, "True Trans Soul Rebel" and "FuckMyLife666," so most of the material was unfamiliar to me, but one of the most striking aspects of the show was how the crowd knew every bit of the new stuff as well as they did the old stuff, such that you knew these songs had been traveling, had been beating on someone's chest for a long time, as a prerecorded experience of their own, something that I - as a generally solitary, album-based music-listener and infrequent show-goer - was not used to. It made me think about COMMUNITY and all of those implications, etc, how it's built up, but also intimidated me a little - namely, the community that exists in Real Actual Space with other people vs. the community that exists By Yourself, In Your Head.<br />
<br />
Which, I guess, is just another way of saying how important it is that this particular album now exists - here it's taking a set of issues that are very ultimately Yourself and relating them with total, unfiltered, necessary vigor and honesty. Which, in the end, is basically what music is about, isn't it?<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
***<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u>IN THE NEWS:</u></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have a new story called "Our Bodies" in <a href="http://www.weavemagazine.net/p/current-issue.html">the latest issue of <i>Weave Magazine</i></a>. It's really a very snazzy journal with some very snazzy writing inside (my story is not overtly 'snazzy,' just painful), and it's print, which means you can stroke it.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And! My <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/p/saturn-book.html">David Bowie book</a>, <i>SATURN</i>, comes out later this month. I don't know what to do with myself until then (besides writing very long blog posts about Against Me!) - I'm too excited (I've said this already). This, I think, will never stop being the case.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As always, thanks for reading all the way down to here,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Simon</div>
</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-12142023417335081782014-01-20T10:31:00.000-08:002014-01-20T10:31:28.307-08:00TIME TO GET A DRASTIC HAIRCUT AND FLEE THE CITY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hello again! (so soon?)<br />
<br />
I've had two new stories bloom into cyberspace over the past couple of weeks. I'll tell you about them, because they were both written during the same summer, and occupy two sides of the same coin:<br />
<br />
1. <a href="http://www.dzancbooks.org/the-collagist/2013/12/19/the-inventory-of-marcus-level-16.html">"The Inventory of Marcus, Level 16"</a> in Issue 54 of <i>The Collagist</i>.<br />
<br />
This is the biggest story I've ever had published anywhere (6400 words!). It was one of those magical things that came out more or less correctly the first time, written, initially, during the summer of 2012, very quickly and in very tiny handwriting. This is the story that finally put the hundreds of hours I spent playing <i>Diablo </i>and <i>Baldur's Gate </i>to good use, as well as most of my high school angst. Writing solves problems!<br />
<br />
<i>The Collagist</i>, too, has been a personal publishing benchmark for a couple of years, and so it's extra-satisfying to have such a thick, meaty story in there. It is, as always, a stellar issue all around, and I'm in there this month with Meghan McCarron, an amazing writer whose 2010 story <a href="http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100503/vampires-f.shtml">"WE HEART VAMPIRES!!!!!!"</a> was a very formative short-fiction read for me.<br />
<br />
Also, "Inventory" is illustrated! With ASCII images! Which was also something that I was into during the summer of 2012, apparently (see, for example, <a href="http://www.wordriot.org/archives/4317">these poems</a> in <i>Word Riot </i>many moons ago). Many thanks to Gabriel Blackwell, for taking the story and giving it so much time and care as we prepared it for the issue (did I mention it was long?).<br />
<br />
2. <a href="http://www.thecrimefactory.com/2014/01/crime-factory-issue-15-is-out-now/">"Two Heads"</a> in Issue 15 of <i>Crime Factory</i>.<br />
<br />
Basically exactly what it promises. I wrote this story staring at a lake, which makes sense because the story is set in a desert. The first draft of it was written for the <i>PANK '</i>pulp' special issue in 2012, and then rejected, so the fact that, many editions later, it's found a home in <i>Crime Factory </i>- a no-holds-barred hardboiled noir journal - is a particular kind of revenge (it has stitches on the cover, so you can tell it's hard).<br />
<br />
It'll cost you $1.99 to get this issue, but there's 220 pages of legit crime writing (including my 2400 words) and you got 640,000 for free in the last story, so it all evens out. If you're saving up money to buy <i>SATURN</i> when it comes out, though, I understand.<br />
<br />
"Two Heads" was originally part of <i>PARTNERS</i>, the story-collection I've mentioned here a few times, which is out searching with big googly-eyes for a home. On my last round through, I nixed "Two Heads" from the lineup, because there are enough painful sex scenes without it. Which is to say, you won't be seeing this one anywhere else, so hop to it while you still can.<br />
<br />
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* </div>
<br />
There are a couple of personal meta-morals to take away from the publication of these fairly 'old' stories. First, if there's a story that's been kicking around for a really long time, and which hasn't found the right home yet - sit tight. It will get there, eventually. Second, going through "The Inventory of Marcus" again has made me realize that there's nothing quite as fun as a good, shaggy story. After a full year of focusing on hyper-concise David Bowie stories, I think it's time to sprawl a little bit. Like the suburbs.<br />
<br />
(FYI, when I think of a 'shaggy' story, this s generally a variation of what I imagine, along with Matthew Lillard:)<br />
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<br />
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*</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<i>SATURN </i>is getting so close, and I am too excited. I have basically run out of things that I can do to 'prepare' in advance of its publication, other than making .gifs, so if you have ways to keep me busy or are interested in doing something with the book, let me know and I'll be in your debt forever.<br />
<br />
All for now,<br />
Simon<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-82357461981335811752014-01-08T18:23:00.004-08:002014-01-08T18:24:11.902-08:00THE NEW YEAR AND THE NEXT DAY AND A BOOK TO PUT IN THEM BOTH<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today is David Bowie's 67th birthday, which is an especially appropriate time for this announcement:<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">My first book, <i>SATURN</i>, a collection of David Bowie stories, will be published in early 2014 by none other than <a href="http://sporkpress.com/">Spork Press</a>.</span></b><br />
<br />
I bolded that. And increased the font size. You bet I did. It's the biggest news we've had around here since ever!<br />
<br />
You know Spork, right? The press responsible for such beauties as Colin Winnette's <i>ANIMAL Collection, </i>Joyelle McSweeney's <i>The Necropastoral</i>, and Zachary Schomburg's <i>From the Fjords</i>; handbound, hardback books (they have such sturdy spines), embossed covers, each one of them made with love and sweat and tears and definitely blood beneath the hot sun of Tuscon, Arizona. David Bowie could not be in more loving hands, and I could not be happier.<br />
<br />
The book is 19 stories long - I like to call it, very loosely, a latter-day biography of potentiality. There's a lot of trivia in it, a lot of factoids for David Bowie nerds (I know there are a few of them out there), a lot of heart/soul/minotaurs/etc. I think you'll love it. My mother read it and said to my father, "It's amazing, the things he knows."<br />
<br />
Earlier versions of a couple of these stories have been published already in places like <i><a href="http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/04/simon-jacobs.html">Everyday Genius</a> </i>and <i><a href="http://thedoctortjeckleburgreview.com/2013/04/03/david-bowie-and-damien-hirst-collaborate-to-build-a-minotaur/">The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review</a></i> - check them out for a taste!<br />
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<i>SATURN </i>will probably be out in February, definitely in time for the Spork table at AWP in Seattle, where you'll be able to go and purchase your very own little piece of All-Simon to take home and treasure forever, along with all of your other David Bowie collectibles.<br />
<br />
I won't be at AWP this year, unfortunately, as I will be on the hunt for the ever-elusive Snowy Buffalo.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://gallery.photo.net/photo/10709071-md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://gallery.photo.net/photo/10709071-md.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(yeti)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Rest assured, as soon as <i>SATURN </i>is out, you'll never hear the end of it. There's even a cover now, which is one of the most badass pieces of art I've ever seen; it's not completely done so I can't share it with you just yet, but again: we don't keep these kinds of secrets for long.<br />
<br />
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*</div>
<br />
If you investigate the newfangled links at the top of the page, you'll also see that I now have something called a <a href="http://blogspot.us3.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d03872c29c8d27b63935a9ff3&id=499551d318">'mailing list,'</a> which, if you sign up, means that you'll receive cryptic updates from Simonthia about as frequently as I post on this blog, which is very close to not at all. Basically, I set this up in order to send pictures of weird fish to a defined, self-selected group of people, and also because the Mailchimp logo is, obviously, a monkey, and I wanted to support that.<br />
<br />
There's also now <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/p/saturn-book.html">a page specifically for <i>SATURN</i></a>, because why not, under which you'll be able to find excerpts, reviews, interviews, etc. as they appear. If any of you invisible readers out there are particularly interested in knowing more about the book or the project, let me know and I'll overwhelm you with information. Thanks for reading! A book, a book, a book.<br />
<br /></div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-2962320417864165452013-07-19T18:52:00.001-07:002013-07-19T19:08:52.737-07:00I AM TALKING ABOUT TAO LIN'S TAIPEI<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I finished reading Tao Lin’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Taipei-Vintage-Contemporaries-Original-Tao/dp/0307950174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374285109&sr=8-1&keywords=taipei">Taipei</a> </i>last night; I loved it, and as I finished I thought to
myself, “well, it’s about time.” Tao Lin was more or less my gateway to the
internet and to writing on the internet. The first piece I ever read by him was
<a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/how-to-give-a-reading-on-mushrooms/">“How to Give a Reading on Mushrooms”</a> in 2011, during a period in which I
was intensely aware and analytical of my affect, mental state, and outward
behavior while on drugs, which I used infrequently and do not use at all now.
The piece was hilarious, but also I thought more accurately captured the
pattern of associations and self-reflection that occurs in ‘thinking’ than
anything else I’d read before. (“Think ‘Hunter S. Thompson’ and distractedly
sense the aesthetic of the movie <i>Aliens</i>.”)<br />
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I learned about Tao Lin on the internet during my internship
at an Arabic-language radio news station in Amman, Jordan, during my sophomore
year of college, in which I was ‘in charge’ of the English version of the
AmmanNet website, which mostly consisted of copying-and-pasting headlines from
their Arabic site into Google Translate, then revising them, and where I,
instead, spent most of my time looking at the internet and downloading Against
Me!, Black Flag, and psychobilly albums, and reviewing things for
Absolutepunk.net. Through “How to Give a Reading on Mushrooms,” I found Tao
Lin’s other writing, and through this exposure I created, in my mind, the
admittedly feeble construction that Tao Lin somehow embodied ‘all of internet
writing,’ that such writing was a phenomenon leading, by one path or another,
back to him. Through Tao Lin, I found Thought Catalog, which I have since used,
in several articles, to pour virtually all of my angst circa 2011 through early
2012. (There was a short period of my life in which whenever I would have
crippling or sexually anxious feelings, I would think to myself, “I should
write this for Thought Catalog; Thought Catalog will accept this.” I had several
days I devoted exclusively to writing “Thought Catalog pieces,” all of which
were eventually published [3]).</div>
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Having said that, <i>Taipei
</i>feels more like ‘real life’ than anything I’ve ever read. Here’s one early paragraph/sentence
that I think is particularly beautiful and poignant:</div>
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“On the plane, after a cup of black coffee, Paul thought of
Taipei as a fifth season, or “otherworld,” outside, or in equal contrast with,
his increasingly familiar and self-consciously repetitive life in America,
where it seemed like the seasons, connecting in right angles, for some misguided
reason, had formed a square, sarcastically framing nothing—or been melded, Paul
vaguely imagined, about an hour later, facedown on his arms on his dining tray,
into a door-knocker, which a child, after twenty to thirty knocks, no longer
expecting an answer, has continued using, in a kind of daze, distracted by the
pointlessness of his activity, looking absently elsewhere, unaware when he will
abruptly, idly stop.” (p.16)</blockquote>
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This ends the first chapter—can you think of a better way to
end a chapter? I’ve read Tao Lin’s writing described as variations of
affectless or ‘bland’ or something else, but I think those people are misguided
and/or stupid. LOOK AT THIS PARAGRAPH. First of all, no one uses adverbs quite
like Tao Lin, in the way they were meant to be used. Here, he takes a
metaphor—of his repetitive life—and then, to elucidate it, fuses the metaphor
into a concrete object (the door-knocker), which he then uses to construct a
relatable scene of a child knocking idly on a door, which encapsulates the
metaphor of his life. I don’t know how else to say it, but Tao Lin creates
perfectly imaginable metaphors—I’ve never experienced a previously-inarticulate
feeling in writing with such concrete clarity. </div>
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I’ve thought about this passage for weeks, and how measurable
and convincing and interesting it is; how could anyone pretend there’s not
brilliance in this? <i>Taipei </i>is one of
those books I will be able to pick up at any given point and read from an
arbitrary page for inspiration. Tao Lin, in his writing, is extremely
meticulous, devoted entirely to detailing—with as much effort and as many words
as it takes—exactly what happens in someone’s life, and why. </div>
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<br /></div>
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(I mostly write really short things, and over time have been
trying to practice expressing things in the most precise way possible; in that
respect, I love and appreciate Tao Lin’s dedication to using adjectives in an accurate
and satisfying way. He uses ‘vaguely’ just perfectly, for example.)</div>
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Here’s another scene, much later, in which, sitting as a
passenger in a car, “Paul felt a quaintly affecting comfort and a
self-conscious, fleeting urge to ask someone a question or say something nice
to someone.</div>
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“He thought of how, from elementary through high school, if
a girl had been nice to him at school or if he got a valuable baseball or
Magic: The Gathering card or if he accomplished something in a video or
computer game—if for whatever reason he felt significantly, temporarily
happier—he would get an urge to talk to his mother and sometimes would go find
her, at her makeup station in her bathroom, or outside watering plants, then
reveal something about his life or ask her a question about her life, knowing
he was making her happier for a few minutes, before running back to the TV,
Nintendo, or computer.” (p. 226-7)</blockquote>
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When I read this passage, it almost made me cry, because
I—and I suspect most everyone else—has had precisely that same, miniature
experience, but I’ve never read it before, and, again, it is perfect, but in a
different way. I honestly don’t understand the criticism—aren’t we all seeking,
in one way or another, some kind of honesty? ‘<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/04/taipei-tao-lin-review">Affectless</a>,' are you
fucking kidding me? I don’t think there are many writers better at detailing
life than Tao Lin.</div>
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I’ve read/skimmed a couple of reviews of <i>Taipei</i>, one that was mostly-excoriating
but with personal deliberations on the author’s part, and another that was one
of those decorative and highly metaphorical, paradigm-y reviews that are almost
never entertaining to read but I imagine are very satisfying to write (because,
I suspect, as you write it you are fashioning little quote-snippets you’re
hoping for someone—probably the author of the book you’re reviewing—to excerpt
and use for other promotion), and I’ve decided that to read reviews of Tao Lin is
mostly fruitless and generally frustrating; I would much rather read Tao Lin’s
response to a review than the review itself. (I also saw an obnoxious
what-i-thought-on-every-page piece on Thought Catalog, but this mostly seemed
lazy, like a gimmick, and like something that no one could honestly appreciate,
except vaguely, for the effort and maybe a nice phrase or two).</div>
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I read Ben Lerner’s <i>Leaving
the Atocha Station </i>earlier this year, shortly after I moved to New York, and
loved its specificity and lack of pretension. <i>Taipei </i>seems like a progression of this mode of writing, which, I
think, favors sincerity and exhaustive accuracy over anything overtly ‘stylish’
or flashy (which is not to say that <i>Leaving
the Atocha Station </i>and <i>Taipei </i>are
not stylish books)—I like that these books seem, in terms of their plot and
specific moments, entirely real and autobiographical, without blatant dramatic
maneuvering below the surface. (There’s a scene in <i>Leaving the Atocha Station </i>in which the protagonist, Adam, leaves a
hotel room one morning and then wanders back and forth for hours, helpless and
lost, feeling increasingly disoriented and nervous. In <i>Taipei</i>, Tao Lin knows that no one simply ‘leaves an apartment’;
they stop in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom first. In one very minor
way, these books seem real because they know just how much we physically go
back and forth.) This is all to say: I don’t think that Tao Lin is given enough
credit for his skill at crafting sentences, for his hyperanalysis of just about
everything.</div>
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I’ve never interacted with Tao Lin specifically, on the
internet or in real life; nonetheless, when I was writing this I thought to
myself, “I like to see pictures of Tao Lin smiling,” (He’s in <a href="http://19841979.tumblr.com/post/55621668144/mike-vilensky-jenna-wortham-choire-sicha-emily">a panel</a> on
Monday, July 22, at Bookcourt, which I’m going to, so maybe
I will find him then.) I’m so happy for his success with this book and I hope
it sells many, many copies to strangers. (Though I realize that probably less
than 10% of the people reading this blog—if it attracts enough readers to
facilitate such a tidy fraction; that is, a factor of 10—are not already
familiar with Tao Lin; of course, also by writing it, I hope that Tao Lin
himself might read it and feel appreciated in a specific way, which, of course,
is the total opposite of ‘spreading the word.’ Imagine if we wrote private blog
posts, directed to a single reader, solely focused on books written by that
single reader.)</div>
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Ok, enough.</div>
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-45338474645299524122013-05-19T21:44:00.000-07:002013-05-19T21:44:10.116-07:00THE NEXT DAY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If you haven't been following along with the music videos David Bowie's been releasing in support of his new album <i>The Next Day</i>, there are three of them, and they are all exceptional. "Where Are We Now?" was the first we released and I wrote <a href="http://simonajacobs.blogspot.com/2013/01/david-bowies-new-single-and-what-it.html">probably too much</a> about it back in January (it's my favorite); the second, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)," which sounds like the title of a disney song, was released in February, and it's great because it finally pairs Tilda Swinton with Bowie and has a very attractive androgynous cast. Finally, there's "The Next Day," which appeared virtually without notice (Bowie has no real need anymore) a few weeks ago. Here it is:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/7wL9NUZRZ4I?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
DO YOU SEE THIS?<br />
<br />
YOU CALL YOURSELF A PROPHET?<br />
<br />
There's a lot of jumbled iconography in this one. Gary Oldman, dressed as a priest, punches a homeless kid in the face within the first five seconds, then heads into some kind of decadent bar filled with sultry and deformed religious figures. There's wrinkly bishops, self-flagellation, stigmata, spurting blood, Marion Cotillard dancing in a slow-motion kind of way that would shimmy her dress right off if this were a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZvHkOAtUYQ">Fall Out Boy video</a>, and a shockingly young-looking David Bowie presiding over it all dressed as a shepherdprophet and pointing like he's shooting lasers, but by far my favorite part comes at the end, when the music fades away and David Bowie says,<br />
<br />
"Thank you, Gary.<br />
Thank you, Marion.<br />
Thank you everybody."<br />
<br />
and then VANISHES with the sound of a bell. Obviously I consider this to be entirely symbolic, and I think this means we've seen the last of David Bowie, possibly forever. But up until five months ago we thought he'd been permanently gone for 10 years, so who am I to speculate?<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
A few publishy things since I spoke here last, only three of which have to do with David Bowie:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Two David Bowie poems, one in <i><a href="http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/04/simon-jacobs.html">Everyday Genius</a></i> and one in <i><a href="http://thedoctortjeckleburgreview.com/2013/04/03/david-bowie-and-damien-hirst-collaborate-to-build-a-minotaur/">The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review</a></i>. Spaceflight and minotaurs.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Speaking of space, I had a story called "Evacuees" in <a href="http://paperdarts.org/literary-magazine/fiction-simon-jacobs.html"><i>Paper Darts</i> last month</a> and just LOOK AT THOSE FUCKING ILLUSTRATIONS (Meghan Murphy is responsible for those; she has that magic). <i>Paper Darts </i>is my absolute favorite, and I've always liked this story so much more than anyone else, so I am 200% thrilled that they liked it and that Meghan's illustrations rendered it so perfectly. :') It is worthy of both emoticons and genuine emotions.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A story about deserts and atrocities in <i>Monkeybicycle </i>called <a href="http://monkeybicycle.net/villains/">"Villains."</a> Because we are first villains, and then we escape.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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Things unrelated to David Bowie coming soon, but, really, is anything that far removed? Has anyone else ever created so much stuff out of a single obsession? Let's have a discussion!</div>
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-87787077884108143842013-03-17T20:49:00.000-07:002013-03-17T21:47:41.442-07:00Three Writers That Make Me Happy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today, I'm going to talk about three writers whose work makes me happy whenever I read it. This is a very particular satisfaction for me, vaguely composed of jealousy and wonder. I spend a fair amount of time reading work online, and maybe you don't (but you probably do - why else would you be here?), so it seems like a nice idea to tell you what I like. Maybe you will be able to show me other nice things? Needless to say, this is only three people, and there will be more in future installments.<br />
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<a href="http://mike-meginnis.com/"><b>Mike Meginnis</b></a><br />
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About a year ago, I first read Mike's unparalleled story/game <a href="http://www.dzancbooks.org/storage/collagist_files/Mike_Meginnis.html">"Angband, or His 55 Desires."</a> It's the biggest, achiest, hulkiest thing of longing I've ever read and, at least from my personal perspective, encompasses every emotion I ever felt as a very purposeful videogamer when I was a teenager. Every time I return to it, this story gives me chills. You've never seen anything like it.<br />
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Mike isn't the only writer giving videogames a place in literary fiction, but he is by far the most affecting. Generally speaking, for me most of the recent spate of videogame-influenced essays/poems/stories lack a real human element or connection - not so here. Mike writes about the people playing the games, and how they become shaped by them. His story "Navigators" (included in the latest edition of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Short-Stories-Series/dp/0547242107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363578479&sr=8-1&keywords=best+american+short+stories+2012">Best American Short Stories</a></i>) explores a father-son relationship through their shared playing of a fictional videogame, <i>Legend of Silence</i>, and it is absolutely devastating in its loss.<i> </i><br />
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Fittingly, from a critical standpoint Mike writes with unequaled depth about videogames; their structure, intent, and interaction with the players first and foremost, which makes for thrilling, fascinating material. He created a project called <a href="http://artificebooks.com/bookshelf/exits-are/index.html">Exits Are</a>, which simulated an oldschool text-adventure game between writers, which remains the most fun I've ever had virtually with a writer. (He recently started <a href="http://secretpunch.blogspot.com/">a writing-about-games blog</a>, bless him, in which I will drown myself in as much writing as he will provide, and these are games I've never played or heard of.) Mike Meginnis is the type of writer who makes you want to go and really verse yourself in something, or else just shut the fuck up.<br />
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<b><a href="http://brandiwells.wordpress.com/">Brandi Wells</a></b><br />
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Brandi Wells has written the book I've loaned out to the most people and read all the way through the most times (besides Harry Potter, the early ones): <i>Please Don't Be Upset</i>, from <a href="http://www.tinyhardcorepress.com/books/current-titles/please-dont-be-upset/">Tiny Hardcore</a>. I think it's four times now, but whatever. No one makes you feel quite as small and brutalized yet ferociously cared for as Brandi Wells. I think what originally snagged me was the tone, casually intimate, sort of brutally offhand, if that makes any sense. <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/brandi-wells-2/">Here's</a> a place to start, but just get the book. It's something you'll want to carry with you.<br />
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There's an honesty and rawness to her stories - even if nothing in her stories ever happened in real life, I don't care, it feels like honesty - a specificity to the language and images and happenstances that for some reason feels undeniably real to me. OK.<br />
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She is doing bizarre things now, assembling some sort of terrifying novel. She's writing these tiny little pieces about animals and machines and people with bizarre predilections that have the kinds of unpredictable twists and turns you can tell she just loved writing. <a href="http://kneejerkmag.com/2013/02/5-tiny-things-by-brandi-wells/">Five of them</a> were in <i>Knee-Jerk</i> recently. In these, again, it's that goddamn tone again - where horrifying, sinister things happen casually, just around the corner - even though there are suddenly talking animals. It's wonderful.<br />
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I cannot say enough, although I've probably said more.<br />
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<a href="http://davidjameskeaton.com/"><b>David James Keaton</b></a><br />
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Take <a href="http://thefiddleback.com/issue-items/swatter">"Swatter"</a> first - I think it's my favorite - and go any direction from there. Generally when you see people praising Dave's work it's variations on "oh wow what a wild ride" or "it'll knock your socks right off your feet - literally!" and while these praises are perfectly true, they do not even scrape the surface of what genius plays are going on in these stories. They are visceral, yes, but there are real human guts inside, and his stories slip against reality in the most marvelous, subtle way. He writes it enough like pulp to fool most people (white knuckles on black-and-blue skin and all that), but really, it's the weirdness and fantasies we don't want to admit where these stories are hitting hardest.<br />
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Plus, his stories are absolutely chock-full of arcana, details and factoids that are either meticulously researched or just plain fabricated (does it really matter which? Probably, and I'd lean towards the former because he watches too many movies to take dishonesty to source material well). Just try and say something to him on the internet-space (I've never met him in person), and see if he doesn't retort with some kind of obscure movie trivia reference. He's like a real-life Gilmore Girl (I've said this before). Just. Try.<br />
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He has a collection coming out from <a href="http://www.cometpress.us/books/fishbitescop.html">Comet Press</a> in May - <i>Fish Bites Cop! Stories to Bash Authorities </i>- which I'm slowly wading into now, and not only is it fantastic but it has the best acknowledgements page I've ever seen. Seriously. You think I'm joking, but wait until you read this shit.<br />
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Only the good stuff here on this blog. These are the people you want to steal from.<br />
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David Bowie released his new album, <i>The Next Day</i>, this past week. If you've seen my skin or know me at all or read this blog you'll know how much this means to me. I promise to deliver a full report once I've absorbed it all and had time to process. In the meantime, I'll be listening to it over, and over, and over. I've been reading some good books, too - mostly ones I got at AWP, which was amazing and tiring and financially devastating - so I'll have to tell you about those as well.<br />
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I had a <a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/adventures-of-a-yak-in-a-flying-teacup">tiny comic</a> with a normal-sized yak in <i>Hobart </i>this past week.<br />
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Also, a very old poem (circa 1070), <a href="http://nortonanthologyofjealousassbitches.blogspot.com/2013/03/written-from-al-zahra.html">anthologized</a>.<br />
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I've been listening to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZCadqQY-Lw">this Amanda Palmer song</a> an awful lot. An amazing video, too. I just love her. It's pretty amazing that there are celebrities on Twitter, like Amanda Palmer, who will answer if you ask them questions.<br />
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I've also been listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen (again), but this is for another project.<br />
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But what do you think about all of this? Do you like these songs and these writers as much as I do? Let's have a discussion!<br />
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I like blogging!</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-43073486265654015772013-02-21T22:03:00.002-08:002013-02-21T22:03:56.116-08:00Things I've Read on the Subway<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been reading a lot of great, invigorating stuff on the subway lately. I want to tell you about some of it:<br />
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- I read two of the latest Tiny Hardcore books. First, Casey Hannan's <i>Mother Ghost</i>, which you need to do yourself a favor and <a href="http://www.tinyhardcorepress.com/books/current-titles/mother-ghost/">buy right away</a>, because you will be getting in on the ground floor of something destined to be very big. I know everyone's telling you to buy this book already and it's probably starting to feel a little like peer pressure, but seriously, these are some of the best and most perfectly-honed short stories I've ever read (you know how perfect they are, they cause me to use boring phrases like "perfectly-honed.") If you don't believe me, just read <a href="http://www.smokelong.com/flash/caseyhannan31.asp">this story</a> in <i>SmokeLong </i>and tell me it's not one of the best things you've ever experienced. Just tell me.<br />
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Second, I finally read James Tadd Adcox's <i>The Map of the System of Human Knowledge</i>, and that, too, is an utterly magical book, in a way that's pulled off so artfully that you don't even notice that it's being done. That's Tadd Adcox for you, master prestidigitator. I honestly don't think it's possible to make a mistake buying a Tiny Hardcore book. They are all just so good.<br />
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- Two things that were once in Spanish and one in Hebrew, which are gradually opening me up to things published in translation, which was sadly beaten out of me in college:<br />
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Juan Pablo Villalobos' <i>Down the Rabbit Hole</i>, is one of the most disquieting and exciting things I've read in a looong time. It's narrated by an 11-year-old kid who lives in an enormous palace in Mexico with his druglord father. So there's all this decadence and atrocities, but filtered through the mind of an 11-year-old, who's more concerned about his hat collection and laying hands on a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus than anything else. It's disturbing and amazing and really, really funny. You guys should read it, really. Only about 70 pages long, but totally worth it. Something you could revisit many times and always find something new in.<br />
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Alejandro Zambra's <i>Ways of Going Home </i>is such a subtle book. It seems so casual at first glance (and therefore easy to read), a character and his narrator, but then there are these very deep, transformative currents beneath the surface. It's a tiny little boiling sea of a book.<br />
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I'm reading Etgar Keret's <i>Suddenly, A Knock on the Door</i>, and it's definitely my favorite of his collections that I've read so far.<br />
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<a href="http://marthamoody.net/blog/">My mom has a blog on her website now</a>. She is so much more current than I am.<br />
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There's a lot of garbage that I could throw at you right now link-wise, but you can find that in other places on this website. My two particular favorites, however, are definitely:<br />
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1) <a href="http://sporkpress.com/?p=3759">this story</a> called "Enemies" that went up on Spork a few weeks ago. The paragraph makes try to force you to read it quickly, but you should really take it slow. Give it some time to breath in between those paragraphs. I'm serious.<br />
(this is a PARTNERS story; you can read other PARTNERS stories <a href="http://www.smokelong.com/flash/simonjacobs37.asp">here</a> (for the title) and <a href="http://nanofiction.org/issues">here</a>. PARTNERS is a collection that will hopefully exist in a real way sometime in the future.<br />
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2) this <a href="http://nanofiction.org/weekly-feature/interviews/2013/02/five-questions-with-simon-jacobs">interview with me</a> on <i>NANO Fiction</i>'s website. Really I cannot say enough about this journal. It's really stellar, all the work in there has such a cohesive tone, making it so satisfying to read. I feel like I've said this already, somewhere. Call it reinforcement.<br />
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Thank you for reading, as always.<br />
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p.s. It is amazing; one of the most frequent draws to my blog is people searching "vegan cum" on google, and being led here, to the post in which I used the latin form of that phrase. Those people must be so confused. I have no wisdom for them. I don't know what it tastes like. I'm sorry.</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-19317514513943183982013-01-19T17:46:00.003-08:002013-01-19T17:53:55.749-08:00LET'S ALL MOVE TO THE CITY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hey peoples. So, Bowie madness continues, with <a href="http://www.nme.com/news/david-bowie/68076">this article</a> that I read (last week? the week before? I've been meaning to write this for too long - I need to blog more impulsively) in <i>NME</i>, in which Tony Visconti, the new album's producer, says that these tracks have been under wraps for <i>two. years.,</i> and that, moreover, <i>The Next Day </i>is significantly less melancholic than "Where Are We Now?" would suggest. (Which itself strikes me as a very typically Bowie-esque manuever, to release a single that isn't representative of the album it comes from.)<br />
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Visconti reports that Bowie is "smiling a lot." Well, yes.<br />
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Needless to say, I am excited for March 12.<br />
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I'm in New York City now, and it's pretty great but I'm still at the point where I get anxious doing just about anything. So, hit me up if you're in the city and let's connect.<br />
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I've been trying to write things here but every time I try I end up watching another episode of Parks & Rec instead. Damn.<br />
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That being said, I have had some writerly things go live in the last week: first, <a href="http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/bison-cover-letter-prize-runner-up--3"><i>Hobart</i></a> published a cover letter that I wrote them for a contest last year.<br />
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And then, over at <i>PANK</i>, I conducted a <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/interviews/the-limits-of-grotesque-a-conversation-with-eric-raymond/">fairly lengthy conversation</a> with Eric Raymond about his novel, <i>Confessions From A Dark Wood </i>(out from Ken Baumann's <a href="http://satorpress.com/">Sator Press</a>; you should read it post-haste).<br />
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I should have new fiction coming out soon, possibly this month. I'm excited for that because it's been a while since anything new has been published. I worry though, each time I finish a story, that it will be the last good thing that I write. And I haven't written a new story in months.<br />
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-85708060436963843752013-01-08T21:47:00.001-08:002013-01-08T21:47:13.318-08:00DAVID BOWIE'S NEW SINGLE AND WHAT IT MEANS TO ME<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I had a minor meltdown <a href="https://twitter.com/mohawko">on Twitter</a> last night when I learned that David Bowie had - completely without warning - released a new single and accompanying video, "Where Are We Now," his first new music in nearly a decade (Bowie turned 66 today), from the album <i>The Next Day</i>, due to be released in March:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/FOyDTy9DtHQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Back in high school, David Bowie was the first musician I listened to in any kind of intentional way, and he's been, by far, my biggest artistic influence in the six or so years since then (before I knew his music, he was Jareth the Goblin King and my aunt's biggest crush). As someone who's kept a fairly close watch on all the nothing that went on on the official David Bowie website until midnight this morning, I was completely stunned last night when I went to the site - just to see if there was anything there re: Bowie's birthday, as the site hadn't been updated in nearly a year (as well as for other reasons that I'll get into later), and found, instead of the pastel-colored blah redesign leftover from his last album, 2004's <i>Reality</i>, a new splash page announcing the new album and its first single. I was floored; I didn't believe it at first.<br />
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I've been writing poems about him for months (hold on, I'll get to these later), but never, never this. I get the impression that NO ONE - not even the traditional insiders - knew this was coming. There has been, literally, no hint of it.<br />
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As far as singles go, to me "Where Are We Now" is damn near perfect, a gently propulsive, atmospheric, piano-and-haze-drive ballad with a marvelous Bowie lilt as a vocal, with lots of German place-names thrown in (the artwork for the new album cover - if you can call it that, really; pastiche? photoshop? - is taken from <i>"Heroes"</i> and reflects on his time in Berlin, mid-70's), and it includes wonderfully oblique, poetic lyrics like "The moment you know, you know you know," "just walking the dead," and "You never knew that, that I could do that."<br />
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The whole thing ends with a marvelous descending piano line outro, the kinds of chords that always hit me the hardest and turn an otherwise regular song into a mood-turner. (Honestly, it sounds a lot like some of the b-side material from his late-90's and 2000's albums, which is absolutely fine with me. Tony Visconti can lay his hands on any Bowie he likes as far as I'm concerned.)<br />
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The video, too, is really wonderful and stirring. In a cluttered artist's studio (Bowie has a thing for the cluttered artist studio), two dolls - onto whose faces are projected video of Bowie and a silent mystery woman - sit before black-and-white footage of Berlin, presumably from about the time that Bowie lived there. I was particularly captivated by the woman's face projected on the doll - she doesn't sing or anything, and serves as a silent partner, but has such an intimate expression on her face that it just kills me. Bowie, too - like they're both trying to hold something huge in. Then, at the end, we see Bowie standing there, and damn, 66? The man looks GOOD.<br />
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It seemed like even his official Facebook page was taken by surprise: two hours before the website was updated (which I think happened at midnight EST, right as his birthday crept about), they posted some random portrait of him asking everyone to join alongside "DBFBHQ" (David Bowie's Facebook Headquarters, presumably) in wishing the man a happy 66th. And then, BOOM.<br />
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Today, the internet is reeling.<br />
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David Bowie has taken over the iTunes adspace for probably the first time ever. Yet a statement from Bowie's people promises no interviews, no dates, no appearances.<br />
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But this is a blog, mostly about myself, and I'm getting to that, so let's expand by way of doing the opposite: I think, for the most part, until last night everyone thought David Bowie was done forever. Finished. Spent. No more. He had every right to be, after 29 studio albums and a 40-year career. So when you're offered something completely unheralded and magnificent like this, what are you supposed to think? I had staked my claim in Bowie being gone forever (read on), so, WHAT COMES NEXT?<br />
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See, I've been writing poems lately. Poems, specifically, about David Bowie, but about a David Bowie who has effectively vanished off the face of the Earth as we know it, and gone to hide with his family, collect modern British art - which, until last night, was all that the media knew/reported he was doing - and, in my poems, examine his legacy, fearing every inch of it, every hour of his age. These poems have ridiculous long titles, things like, "David Bowie Approaches Tilda Swinton to Play Him in the Movie of His Life", or "David Bowie Discovers that His Official Website Hasn't Been Updated in Ten Months" - quite simply, things that, all of a sudden, just don't apply anymore. Now, I worry that the poems don't make any sense.<br />
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I have about a dozen David Bowie poems, and they all assume this anxious, afflicted persona of him. It's been the most fun I've had writing in a long time, and I think part of the great appeal in writing them was knowing that my version of Bowie and what he was doing with his life was <i>just as possible </i>as anyone else's speculation. No one knew what he was doing - he might as well be building a minotaur or reading 1001 Arabian Nights or worrying about his future. But now, this new music, this sign of activity, this giant fucking blip on the radar.<br />
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Is Bowie back? Has he put out this music only to disappear once again? What does this sudden resurgence mean for my poetry? I've come to the conclusion that it either means these poems are now completely irrelevant, or potentially more interesting and relevant than ever, since, thematically speaking, they are very much in line with what we've heard of this new music.<br />
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My plan was to make a book of these David Bowie poems, eventually. I think I'll still try. None of them have been published or accepted yet, but, we'll see. Nevertheless, this has put me in a really weird place, generally speaking. The short story collection I've been shopping around (<i>PARTNERS</i>) lost its latest contest last week, and now Bowie returns to silence my poems. I'm beginning to think - albeit halfheartedly - that the cosmos is trying to tell me something.<br />
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I'm moving to New York City on Friday. I'll admit, part of the original draw is that Bowie lives there, in Manhattan, and I wholeheartedly believed, in the tiniest part of my brain, impossibly, that I would be able to seek him out, to find and meet him after 10 years of public silence and tell him that I KNEW, that I wrote ALL THE POEMS for him, that he wasn't forgotten for a single second.<br />
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But.<br />
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Now that there's this song, this album, this sudden attention, though, and my dedication seems a little... unnecessary. Insignificant. Redundant, I guess. Plus, if he's not planning to give any interviews or play any shows, then Bowie will be in super-hiding, and there's absolutely no way that I could find him.<br />
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Maybe my poems will?<br />
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You can see the delusion here, obviously, and I recognize it, too: clearly I would never have met the man, but now it just seems infinitely more complicated and difficult and unlikely. While, really, I should just be celebrating this new music. It feels like the cosmos again.<br />
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So, all in all, I don't know how much this new song changes things, but potentially quite a bit. Maybe you understand? I don't know, but this is a blog and, really, you don't have to.<br />
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Where are we now, indeed.<br />
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Thanks for reading. Do let me know if you've made it this far, I'd love to hear from you.</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-39714315659123123792012-12-16T19:36:00.001-08:002012-12-16T19:36:24.439-08:00Dear Webspace,<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Hello!</div>
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I am pretty irregular about blogging, so I have decided to STOP APOLOGIZING.<div>
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Let's get down to it. New things since last time:</div>
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I have a story called "Allies" in the <a href="http://nanofiction.org/issues">latest issue</a> of <i>NANO Fiction</i>, but there is also a story about MARS by A. Werner and a story about astronauts by Benjamin King, and if for no other reason you should buy this issue purely because of the MARS story by A. Werner and the astronauts story by Benjamin King. I like the tone of the stories in this journal.</div>
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S P A C E (S)</div>
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I got an internship at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, which means I'm going to be moving to New York City in January. What a thing! If you live there you should tell me because I need all the advice I can get and I would love to come and SEEK YOU OUT. I am just a country boy.</div>
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<a href="http://safetypinreview.com/category/issue-forty-one/"><3A RABBI WORE A POEM BY TYLER GOBBLE FOR THE SAFETY PIN REVIEW<3</a></div>
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I graduated college.</div>
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-45753658661521214972012-10-24T21:07:00.000-07:002012-10-24T21:07:12.017-07:00That Season<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It’s been a while. Perhaps an inexcusable while. But it is
close to Halloween, which is far and away my favorite holiday, because of
decorations and scaring people and pumpkins and fall and etc.</div>
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I love to scare people.</div>
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A couple weekends ago I went to <a href="http://www.hauntedcaveatlewisburg.com/">this haunted cave</a> in
Lewisburg, Ohio. It was AMAZING. The longest walk-through haunted attraction
I’ve ever been to (the longest in the world, apparently), and one of the
scariest. So many cool effects going on in this place:</div>
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<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">My favorite portion was probably the simulation
of a marsh—a room full of waist-level, giant inflatable things you had to slog
through, plus dark cut only with laser-light, thick fog, plus ghouls leaping
out at you from the pressurey inflatable stuff. This was BRILLIANCE.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Bridges! With monsters underneath to grab at
your legs.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Cave = perfect dark. They exploited this
possibility in several scenarios, allowing you to fumble around and disorient
yourself a little. Gets the adrenaline going, adding to that particular panic
that makes you the easiest to scare. Used a little too much for my taste, but
always effective.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Alternate pathways! In a haunted house! Like
I’ve never seen before. Lots of standard tableaux (hospital, slaughterhouse,
graveyard, hell), but with passages labeled like “Damnation,” “Hate,”
“Absolution,” and stuff that didn’t necessarily lead you anywhere. Replay
value!</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Folks in ghillie suits, hiding along the walls.
Most of the time it was just dark enough that you couldn’t distinguish what was
prop foliage vs. what was a small person in a costume waiting to jump out and
seize you.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Cave muck.</span></li>
</ol>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqmyez6LxZOnDneVa2LP7ZhLDCWcEAl1jDSmP4-45rdagCh0bF5AIIXTY6j_Pug5-k9rUwBMMkg7Oa3xZ8nM54OvNyf4oJkdWYZA3sZK-4vHb_IGRiExP8-qWtV8vIWAGmGyGVKiIghQ0v/s1600/ghillie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqmyez6LxZOnDneVa2LP7ZhLDCWcEAl1jDSmP4-45rdagCh0bF5AIIXTY6j_Pug5-k9rUwBMMkg7Oa3xZ8nM54OvNyf4oJkdWYZA3sZK-4vHb_IGRiExP8-qWtV8vIWAGmGyGVKiIghQ0v/s320/ghillie.jpg" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">except in a cave</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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So, needless to say, if you live in this general geographic
region you should make a visit this place, the Haunted Cave at Lewisburg. So
good, so scary. And you’re running out of weekends, so GO.</div>
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Additionally, I do have some cool news to report to you
(here listed with letters, for variety’s sake):</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">First, I have a poem in </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">PANK</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">’s third annual Queer Issue, called <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/just-try/">“JUST TRY.”</a> It’s a massive,
tumescent thing. Basically it describes how human bodies are built. You can also hear me yell it at you.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Second, I had a story recently featured at </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Necessary Fiction</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">, called <a href="http://necessaryfiction.com/writerinres/Intruders">“Intruders.”</a> Thanks
to Stefanie Freele—this month’s writer-in-residence at NF—for presenting the
story.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Finally, my first comic ever was published in </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/110441654/Rocksalt-October-2012">Rocksalt</a></i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/110441654/Rocksalt-October-2012">’s fifth issue</a>, put together by
the amazing Jeanne Thornton. It features some gob-smacking cover artwork by
<a href="http://www.gnourg.com/">Zach Taylor</a> (of </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Bear Quest </i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">fame) and
with a dime-sized piece from me on p. 12, from a saga called “Adventures of a
Yak in a Flying Teacup,” which will follow in future issues (hopefully).</span></li>
</ol>
Letters! What fun!<br />
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-15135024050456485722012-09-29T23:21:00.000-07:002012-12-16T19:36:53.552-08:00A Warm Hello from the Man Who Never Talks At All<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
OH HELLO.<br />
<br />
I have some big news. I'm one of the new Interviews Editors for PANK Magazine! WAOW! Which means I'll be one of the guys from now on asking the good writers in PANK all the tough questions. There are already a couple of interviews up that I've done, such as one where I talk about weird creatures and burnouts with <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/interviews/ask-the-author-cameron-witbeck/">Cameron Witbeck</a> and one in which I pretend to know about science with <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/interviews/ask-the-author-benjamin-landry/">Benjamin Landry</a>. So many more in the works for this week and the next and many weeks to come.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://nanofiction.org/issues">new issue of NANO Fiction</a> is recently up for preorder (available in November!) and I have a story in it that has girls, guns, tattoos, sand and future (in)tense. Everything you need, really, all in less than 300 words. What a deal! You should order one for yourself! YES CHAMP YOU SHOULD.<br />
<br />
Also, David Greenspan <a href="http://davidgreenspan.blogspot.com/">continues to be awesome</a> over on his blog, where he says some really awesome things about the SPR and about, well, me. Heheh. He has things to tell you. He has a new chapbook <a href="http://turtleneckpress.com/our-chapbooks/">out from Turtleneck</a> called THEN and I got it in the mail this week and it has an isbn number and everything. I read a poem from it over the radio with some Cricketbows and it all turned out pretty great because there were birds and just a little self-harm.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://safetypinreview.com/category/issue-thirty-seven/">Speaking of which</a>.<br />
<br />
Also, if you click the "continues to be awesome" link and read what it entails, you'll see that I finished putting together a small collection called "Partners." Yup. So that's going around. Keep your fingers crossed with me!<br />
<br />
Other than that I'm basically writing my thesis and looking forward to the end of school FOREVER. Anticipate with me!<br />
<br />
!</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-38315386224438747182012-09-16T17:46:00.003-07:002012-09-16T17:46:38.062-07:007 VALUABLE PIECES OF NEWS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hey. So. I've been reading Amelia Gray's <i>THREATS</i> lately and it is so sinister and yet really kind of sweet and I entirely recommend it. Although I imagine that the people who fall onto this blog are probably the kind of people who already know about <i>THREATS </i>and have probably read it before me. But.<br />
<br />
Here's something you might not know about: my mother, Martha Moody, has her fourth novel coming out in October, and I've been reading that as well (because I have privileges), and it is something devilish. <i>Sharp and Dangerous Virtues. </i>DYSTOPIA. WAR. THE MIDWEST. You don't want to miss out on this business. <a href="http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Sharp+and+Dangerous+Virtues">Put that on your radar and smoke it</a>.<br />
<br />
There has been newses on my front. Here are some links that I've neglected to give you over the past few weeks:<br />
<br />
1. My story "<a href="http://www.smokelong.com/flash/simonjacobs37.asp">Partners</a>" was in <i>SmokeLong </i>last week. You should probably watch this one.<br />
<br />
2. The <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/pank-7/">new print issue</a> of <i>PANK</i> is out and about, and I have a hefty story inside. As you know.<br />
<br />
3. The latest issue of <i>elimae</i> is <a href="http://www.elimae.com/new.html">floating around</a>, and I have a poem in it called "DUDES."<br />
<br />
4. I wrote <a href="http://www.stymiemag.com/2012/09/simon-jacobs-lizards-with-heavy-arms.html">a thing</a> about "why I write" for <i>Stymie. </i>It's because lizards.<br />
<br />
5. Over at the Safety Pin Review site, we announce the <a href="http://safetypinreview.com/2012/09/15/2012-best-of-the-net-nominations/">2012 Best of the Net nominees</a>. Congratulations, magicians! And if you missed Brandi Wells' issue (such as if you rely entirely on this blog for SPR updates, probably a mistake) you should <a href="http://safetypinreview.com/category/issue-thirty-six/">read it</a>.<br />
<br />
6. For the bulk of the kill, the <a href="http://www.flywheelmag.com/">third issue</a> of <i>Flywheel </i>was unearthed and put online this past week, and it's my first as flash fiction editor. There's great stuff in that section from Lydia Ship, Mel Bosworth, Kristine Ong Muslim, Richard Thomas, 'n Chris Lee (like Saruman). And that's just the flash. Go read it all, you won't be sorry in the least.<br />
<br />
7. In utterly inconsequential news, look! --> I've reorganized my linkies on the side of this blog! OOOOOOOH.</div>
Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-645176639176204755.post-37554918711831864422012-08-27T14:46:00.000-07:002012-08-27T14:46:00.565-07:00THINGS I'VE BEEN USING TO CALM ME DOWN<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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1. <a href="http://www.wimp.com/movieswritten/">This video</a>. (courtesy of <a href="http://davidjameskeaton.com/">David James Keaton</a>)</div>
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2. Mel Bosworth’s chapbook “<a href="http://safetythirdenterprises.bigcartel.com/product/every-laundromat-in-the-world-by-mel-bosworth">Every Laundromat in the World</a>.”
You should get this poetry. I like how the lines come up and swallow each
other.</div>
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3. <a href="http://thestorythief.tumblr.com/">Joshua Young</a>. I’ve been re-reading his <i>To the Chapel of Light. </i>It is so gritty.</div>
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4. Etgar Keret.</div>
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5. Gilmore Girls (lots).</div>
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6. <a href="http://newdeadfamilies.com/links/current/current-2/then-by-david-greenspan/">This poem</a> by David Greenspan in <i>New Dead Families. </i>It reminds me of Haruki Murakami and makes me
want to be buried in the ground.</div>
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7. <a href="http://jmww.150m.com/RWoods.html">This poem</a> by Russ Woods in <i>jmww, </i>because it makes me hungry and that font.</div>
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8. The fact that at this school there are multiple people
referred to as “Tits McGee.” There was also once a “Fisty McGee,” but I think
she might have graduated.</div>
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*</div>
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Please go see the Safety Pin Review's <a href="http://safetypinreview.com/category/issue-thirty-five/">35th issue</a>. It has Steve Roggenbuck. </div>
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There's less than a week left to pre-order the <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/pank-7/">new issue of PANK</a>, in which I have a story. Don't you want to be there when it happens?</div>
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Simon Jacobshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02988744925240590220noreply@blogger.com0