Hey peoples. So, Bowie madness continues, with this article 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 NME, in which Tony Visconti, the new album's producer, says that these tracks have been under wraps for two. years., and that, moreover, The Next Day 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.)
Visconti reports that Bowie is "smiling a lot." Well, yes.
Needless to say, I am excited for March 12.
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.
I've been trying to write things here but every time I try I end up watching another episode of Parks & Rec instead. Damn.
That being said, I have had some writerly things go live in the last week: first, Hobart published a cover letter that I wrote them for a contest last year.
And then, over at PANK, I conducted a fairly lengthy conversation with Eric Raymond about his novel, Confessions From A Dark Wood (out from Ken Baumann's Sator Press; you should read it post-haste).
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.
I had a minor meltdown on Twitter 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 The Next Day, due to be released in March:
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 Reality, a new splash page announcing the new album and its first single. I was floored; I didn't believe it at first.
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.
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 "Heroes" 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."
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.)
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.
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.
Today, the internet is reeling.
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.
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?
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.
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 just as possible 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.
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.
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 (PARTNERS) 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.
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.
But.
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.
Maybe my poems will?
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.
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.
Where are we now, indeed.
Thanks for reading. Do let me know if you've made it this far, I'd love to hear from you.
I am pretty irregular about blogging, so I have decided to STOP APOLOGIZING.
Let's get down to it. New things since last time:
I have a story called "Allies" in the latest issue of NANO Fiction, 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.
S P A C E (S)
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.
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.
I love to scare people.
A couple weekends ago I went to this haunted cave 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:
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.
Bridges! With monsters underneath to grab at
your legs.
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.
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!
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.
Cave muck.
except in a cave
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.
Additionally, I do have some cool news to report to you
(here listed with letters, for variety’s sake):
First, I have a poem in PANK’s third annual Queer Issue, called “JUST TRY.” It’s a massive,
tumescent thing. Basically it describes how human bodies are built. You can also hear me yell it at you.
Second, I had a story recently featured at Necessary Fiction, called “Intruders.” Thanks
to Stefanie Freele—this month’s writer-in-residence at NF—for presenting the
story.
Finally, my first comic ever was published in Rocksalt’s fifth issue, put together by
the amazing Jeanne Thornton. It features some gob-smacking cover artwork by
Zach Taylor (of Bear Quest 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).
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 Cameron Witbeck and one in which I pretend to know about science with Benjamin Landry. So many more in the works for this week and the next and many weeks to come.
The new issue of NANO Fiction 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.
Also, David Greenspan continues to be awesome 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 out from Turtleneck 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.
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!
Other than that I'm basically writing my thesis and looking forward to the end of school FOREVER. Anticipate with me!
Hey. So. I've been reading Amelia Gray's THREATS 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 THREATS and have probably read it before me. But.
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. Sharp and Dangerous Virtues. DYSTOPIA. WAR. THE MIDWEST. You don't want to miss out on this business. Put that on your radar and smoke it.
There has been newses on my front. Here are some links that I've neglected to give you over the past few weeks:
1. My story "Partners" was in SmokeLong last week. You should probably watch this one.
2. The new print issue of PANK is out and about, and I have a hefty story inside. As you know.
3. The latest issue of elimae is floating around, and I have a poem in it called "DUDES."
4. I wrote a thing about "why I write" for Stymie. It's because lizards.
5. Over at the Safety Pin Review site, we announce the 2012 Best of the Net nominees. 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 read it.
6. For the bulk of the kill, the third issue of Flywheel 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.
7. In utterly inconsequential news, look! --> I've reorganized my linkies on the side of this blog! OOOOOOOH.
2. Mel Bosworth’s chapbook “Every Laundromat in the World.”
You should get this poetry. I like how the lines come up and swallow each
other.
3. Joshua Young. I’ve been re-reading his To the Chapel of Light. It is so gritty.
4. Etgar Keret.
5. Gilmore Girls (lots).
6. This poem by David Greenspan in New Dead Families. It reminds me of Haruki Murakami and makes me
want to be buried in the ground.
7. This poem by Russ Woods in jmww, because it makes me hungry and that font.
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.
*
Please go see the Safety Pin Review's 35th issue. It has Steve Roggenbuck.
There's less than a week left to pre-order the new issue of PANK, in which I have a story. Don't you want to be there when it happens?
