February 2012
22 posts
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“But could you tell me, what is so terrible about stepping off the end of a...”
– Plainwater, Anne Carson
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“Internet is tough here…..so just want u to know lots of sun & whales....”
– my parents are in Baja California, keeping me semi-live-updated with their whale sightings. I’m not jealous.
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AWP 2012
I’ll be there! representing Writers’ Houses.
Are any of y’all going to be there too?
here is a story
I have “3 Lives” written on my hand, because this morning I thought, “I just got my paycheck yesterday! I should go visit Three Lives during lunch!” and didn’t want to forget, so I wrote it on my hand. But then I was doing finance-y things, looking at my budget for the month, looking at how much I’ve already spent on books since Feb. 1, and I made the very...
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from "The Lifespan of a Fact"
Jim Fingal: However, the official title of the school is "Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Visual and Performing Arts." There's an extra "and" between "International Studies" and "Performing" that John has added, plus he's inverted "Performing" and "Visual," for some reason.
John D'Agata: I altered that, yes, but I would say for the better. The name of the school is too clunky. It has a comma in it; that's ridiculous.
just in case you thought I had it all together
(you didn’t though, did you?)
This morning, I got to work an hour early, but not on purpose. I woke in a panic, sure I’d overslept, hurriedly got dressed, was out of my apartment on the hour, walked to the subway, skipped the first few trains because they were far too packed and I’m a bit of a claustrophobe (and yet I live in NY! imagine), got on the train, read, etc. Train was...
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what we talk about when we talk about, etc.
Last night I went to see Nathan Englander at the NYPL. It’s the third time I’ve gone to one of those reading/conversations (others were Egan & Didion). Each time it’s been in a different room, and each time it’s been like stumbling through a gorgeous labyrinth trying to find it. But then I do, and everything is daffodils. I have yet to be disappointed by one of these...
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silly habits
When there’s an author that I love, really really I-will-talk-so-much-about-them-while-drunk love, I do the best I can to anticipate my tendency to get sucked-in/addicted/tunnel-visiony with them. I buy all of their books and then try to hide them from my line of sight so I half-forget about them until a rainy day when I remember them, and it’s like finding funfetti cake in the fridge...
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If you're in agony waiting for Cesar Aira's new... →
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underwater
JOAN DIDION: So I abandoned the idea of being an oceanographer, but I can see myself still as an oceanographer, if I could get to that point.
BLVR: Does it seem like a happier life?
JD: A happier life? I don’t know. I’ve liked being a writer.
BLVR: It’s a different way of going underwater.
JD: It’s a way of going underwater, yes. Well, I’ve always been interested in how deep it was, you...
January 2012
21 posts
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file under: things I shouldn't admit to but will...
During today’s lunch break, I wandered around the West Village, my phone shoved between my ear and shoulder, my empty cold hand holding onto my insurance card. The woman on the other end asked for my ID and I read the ten numbers out, asked a few questions, listened to her answer, tried to figure out if I knew what she was talking about. Because normal people make these calls while walking...
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“Some fathers hate to read but love to take the family on trips. Some children...”
– “On Reading” from Anne Carson’s Plainwater
dear anyone who has read Pulphead by John Jeremiah...
I very very much want to discuss that second-to-last essay, “Violence of the Lambs.”
Or, at least, share a mental fistbump over how awesome its ending was.
It’s online in full, here. But oh god, that image. They went very literal with that.
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“But no. That’s impossible. Let’s imagine that Henric simply climbed...”
– Roberto Bolaño’s “Labyrinth,” in this week’s New Yorker.
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A few nights ago, I dreamt that I had a crush on Thomas Merton. He was at the same party as me, wearing a big puffy vest. But this Merton had hair. Then a high school friend of mine made out with him. She said his kiss was “gummy.”
Last night, I dreamt that I was working on a poetry project, on poets P-Z. But then I got sidetracked and started working on one for H.D. too. I got...
“My shift lasted from 6 p.m. to midnight. Sylvia warned me that George often came...”
– James Gregor remembers George Whitman, of Shakespeare and Company. (via millionsmillions)
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It seems I'm filming my life in order to have a...
…like some primitive organism that somehow nourishes itself by devouring itself, growing as it diminishes.
I’ve been thinking about this documentary lately: Sherman’s March by Ross McElwee. I first heard about it a couple years ago from my cousin, who I trust with all things movie. She told me I had to watch it, it was on Netflix Instant, and it was great. She and her...
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“These were books written by writers who recognized the sentence as the one true...”
– The Sentence is a Lonely Place - Gary Lutz
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December 2011
25 posts
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best of the blotter 2011 →
ladies and gentlemen, the ‘best of the blotter’ from the town where I grew up:
A woman reported locking her keys in her car with her dog inside at a Woodland gas station Aug. 31. A few minutes later she called back saying the dog unlocked the door for her.
and:
Two men were reported to be “fighting with rakes” in the 300 block of Northwest Second Avenue, Kelso Aug....
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