NYLON / Fashion

Hi everyone.

NYLON covered Pop Serial on its blog. They said, "this limited edition literary and art magazine is our new favorite go-to for poems, images, and stories from well-known and new artists alike." Thank you to Mallory Rice for being interested in my magazine.

I like NYLON. I like glossy magazines with nice layout and photographs. I like fashion. I like when I see a girl and I like what she's wearing. I try to dress cool but I don't know.

i'm an old man

Pop Serial 2 is now online. The web design is by Steve Roggenbuck.

The web version includes 4 poems not in the print version: "hoarders" by Shannon Peil and 3 by Audun Mortensen: "billy crystal meth," "die hard," and "suddenly susan laugh track."

Banango, a new literary blog run by Justin Carter and Rachel Hyman, has started a review series reviewing the magazine's writing piece by piece.

There has also been coverage at HTMLGIANT, We Who Are About To Die, and Impose.

I'm glad more people can read the magazine now. There have been ~1,230 unique visitors so far.

***

Ana C. visited Chicago last week. It was great to finally meet her IRL.

We co-hosted the first-ever New Wave Vomit/Pop Serial reading at Innertown Pub last Thursday. M. Kitchell, Andrew James Weatherhead, Leif Haven, Brett Gallagher, Steve, Ana, and I all read.

Some very #rare video footage from before and during the reading can be viewed at my Ustream.

I'm glad my friends exist.

***

I saw the movie Beginners starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, and Mélanie Laurent and almost cried several times.

***

Steve Roggenbuck and I are planning a collaborative ebook called I LOVE MUSIC.

Michael Inscoe published one of the poems from it at unsure if i will allow my beard to grow for much longer.

At HTMLGIANT, Christopher Higgs posted a link to the poem, saying we had initiated a new poetic movement he called Bromanticism.

In the comments, MFBomb said, "I'm honesty baffled that someone other than a 15 year old emo kid would write and publish this." Frank Hinton said, "doesn't seem like it's dealing with reason or logic but instead love, so. love isn't really ambitious because ambition always seeks an end and love doesn't seek anything but itself."

Another excerpt appeared earlier this year at Let People Poems.

There will likely be more published excerpts before the ebook is published.

***

A story by me entitled "A Smack of Jellyfish" will appear in the forthcoming Housefire print anthology Nouns of Assemblage. The title was given to me by the editor, Riley Michael Parker.

***

Google Talk has funny emoticons.

A Pretty Freakin Long Post with My Thoughts on All of the Contributors to Pop Serial #2

Pop Serial #2 will be online in its entirety this Thursday, June 16th via a new website by Steve Roggenbuck.

Below are the contributors in order of their appearance in the magazine with some information/thoughts about each person:


Eliza Weber
Eliza is a student at NYU, I believe. Andrew James Weatherhead and David Fishkind recommended her poetry to me. I picked my favorites of the poems I saw by her ("Flickering candelabra") and, having already finalized most of the order of the magazine, decided to put the poem before the table of contents, sort of in the manner of a frontispiece.


Aidan Koch
I don't remember how I found Aidan's site originally, but I immediately liked her drawing style and how she approached comics, in maybe a more impressionistic style, sometimes with very little text and an above-average emphasis on the visual. Morgan Myers, in his review of the print magazine, singled out her "Windswept" for praise and I'm glad, as I like it a lot.

Aidan lives in Washington and her book The Whale was published by Gaze Books, which is run by Blaise Larmee. I hope to have work by Blaise in Pop Serial #3.


Miles Ross
The first thing I read by Miles was "Rum and Coke," a long, understated short story concerning a relationship. Miles contributed a story I like called "Lake Placid" to Pop Serial #1, and in #2 there is his story "Cuba Light." I intentionally chose this story to open the magazine (Eliza's poem is like a prologue or something, to me).


Ana C.
Ana is one of my best friends, one of my favorite poets, and one of the main reasons I'm glad I ever got involved with the online literary scene. I love her and her work. She is the first person to ever publish me, at New Wave Vomit. 3 poems and 3 drawings by her appear in Pop Serial #2. If you haven't checked out make-believe love-making, This is Controversial, or her ebook with Richard Chiem, oh no everything is wet now, I recommend all 3.

Frank Hinton
I don't remember how I first came across Frank. I remember I read an interview with her and noted the mystery of her identity, her interest in Zen, and the striking photograph of her. My interest in her work has grown and grown as time goes on. She has been very supportive of me and others, and I like her combination of ambition and sense of humor. She has published me twice at Metazen, which I appreciate. She seems to be a leader in our little online lit community. I'm excited about some Frank-related things on the horizon. My very positive review of her chapbook, I Don't Respect Female Expression, can be read at HTMLGIANT.


Erik Stinson
I think I came across Erik's poetry via Brandon Scott Gorrell, but I don't remember the specifics. I asked him if he wanted to contribute to the "Ohio Special" insert in Ohio editions of Pop Serial #1 and he said yes. Poems by him are in Pop Serial #2. He seems very funny to me.


Ryan Manning
Ryan is an enigma. He is known for creating and quickly deleting many blogs and for a period before I was in the scene when he would regularly comment "the Asian [celebrity or author's name]" on people's blogs. I somehow came across his photography and liked it a lot. I'm happy a photograph by him is in this issue. I think the photo is no longer on his Flickr account. I have also enjoyed some poems by Ryan at Let People Poems and elsewhere.


Steve Roggenbuck
I think I came across Steve's blog via him posting something related to Tao Lin. My reaction to his blog and poems was something like "this guy could be another person for the magazine." I emailed him about that, and he told me he was moving to Chicago. We met up by Wrigley Field and went for a walk and talked and talked, went to Myopic Books I believe, and got food at Pick Me Up Cafe. I love and admire and respect Steve, and now count him among my very best friends. I feel like we look at writing in similar ways and value and don't value a lot of the same things. I feel happier and calmer and more alive when I am around him. I don't know what my presence in his life does for him, but I know he inspires me in his actions and in his thinking and his way of being in the world. I am very proud of how hard he has been working and what he is trying to achieve. I hope I know him 'til one of us is dead.

I wrote an overview of Steve's work that was published by HTMLGIANT.


Tao Lin
Tao is my favorite living literary artist. I find him very inspiring, and he influences me a lot. I have obsessively followed his activities for over a year now. He has been kind and supportive toward me, for which I am grateful. I met him once last year, which I wrote about here. I think of Tao as like the "flagship artist" for Pop Serial. A piece by him called "we will drink our coffee and complete our novels and lay in sunlight and sit in darkness" appears in this issue.


Mrinalini Kannan
I found Mrinalini's art via Shivani Gakhar, an artist who contributed to the first issue. I like her use of color and I feel like her art makes me feel some kind of personality.


Heather Christle
Heather is very talented, in my opinion. I don't know her as a person, but her work makes me think "poetry," "smart," "emotional." She recently had a poem in The New Yorker.


Brandon Scott Gorrell
I came in contact with Brandon due to Shitstorm Alberto, which "launched" me into the online literary world and led to the creation of Pop Serial the magazine (I had previously named a music blog Pop Serial). I like Brandon's poetry book a lot, during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present. Brandon has been nice to me and invited me to contribute to Thought Catalog, which I did for a few posts. An excerpt of his novel My Hair Will Defeat You appears in this issue.


Lyra Hill
I met Lyra at the first EAR EATER reading, I believe. She seemed nice and so I checked out her blog and liked her art. 2 notebook pages by her are in the issue, as is a drawing which I deliberately picked to accompany Sam Pink's pieces.


Cassandra Troyan
Cassandra is my friend and a talented poet and (performance) artist. She also runs the EAR EATER reading series. She has been very nice to me and she lives in Chicago, so we've hung out IRL. I think she submitted out of the blue a little after her brother Cody did and I was like, "they're both good, I'll just have 2 family members in the magazine, that's kind of funny" and then I put on "Family Affair."


Leif Haven
I've known Leif since freshman year of college at University of Wisconsin at Madison, when we were in the same dorm. I hung out with his group for a while and then we drifted apart, although I still was in contact and asked him to contribute to this music magazine I edited. So now we're both in Chicago and actually hang out sometimes again, which is great, and I included poems by him in both issues of Pop Serial. M. Kitchell recently published Leif's first book, Translator's Note, via Solar Luxuriance.


Michael Inscoe
Michael is a very friendly, talented dude. I think he contacted me unsolicited and I checked out his blog and thought he seemed like a good fit for the magazine. He has since met me in Chicago with Meggie Green and other friends and we've gotten friendlier and friendlier via online talking and stuff. He and his friend, Phillip Rex Huddleston, make good videos, in my opinion, and I want to see more of them in the future.


Brandi Wells
Brandi is a talented writer, in my opinion. I don't remember where I first read her, but I checked out a bunch of stories on her blog's sidebar and was impressed. She seems friendly and nice.


Elizabeth Arnold
Elizabeth contacted me, I think, and I was impressed by her art. She seems very energetic and passionate and devoted to her art. I think she will be productive and successful.


Matthew Savoca
I don't remember how I came across Matthew, but I think I solicited him. He contributed a story and poem to this issue. He said he hasn't published as much of his prose as his poetry, so I'm glad this story is in the issue. I told him it felt archetypal to me--it "definitively" captures a certain type of experience--in the way "The Depressed Person" by David Foster Wallace feels archetypal to me.


Megan Boyle
I think maybe Tao suggested I look at Megan's work. I solicited her, and she contributed a very fine story called "Little Rock," which has also been published by Muumuu House. Since then she's gotten married to Tao and published a lot of pieces at Thought Catalog that I like a lot, and she has a book coming out this fall through Muumuu House. She seems very smart and nice to me. I have never met her, but I think it would be wonderful to do so.


Ben Brooks
Ben is a very friendly, talented, and sexually attractive young man living in England. He is very young and has several books out already and I want to swap lives with him. He has been kind to me, and I enjoy gchatting with him on occasion. I am glad he wants to be involved with Pop Serial. I hope his latest, Grow Up, sells a bunch of copies and that he tours America and it's made into a film.


Brett Gallagher
I met Brett because he wrote a very kind blog post about issue 1. We started corresponding, and since he lived nearby in Wheaton, IL, he eventually came to visit me in Chicago. He has since become a good friend to me and to Steve, and now he is my roommate in Logan Square. He has been very supportive of me and very nice to me. I hope he continues to write and explore his aesthetic. I think his work is striking and very sensitive to language.


Noah Cicero
Noah is a passionate and productive author and has influenced a lot of people, including Ben. He contributed an epic poem to this issue and I put it in the middle of the magazine as like a centerpiece. The title is "It is Okay to Feel Catastrophic." Noah has been very supportive of some of my friends, like Ana and Steve, and I am grateful that he is aware of and generous towards the next wave of writers.


Brittany Wallace
Brittany is a talented poet and has been friendly to me, although we haven't communicated in quite a while. I like her personality, such as I sense it in her poems. I intentionally placed her poems after Noah's in the magazine, as some sort of I don't know, not as a response really, but...something.


Jordan Castro and Mallory Whitten
Jordan is a productive young bro and he seems determined to have a literary and music and maybe even film career. I don't doubt he'll have all 3. He is in both issues of the magazine. He came to Chicago for the first Pop Serial reading with Mallory Whitten and he was very nice to me. I think I saw his name in the comments section of Shitstorm Alberto and checked out his blog. My original idea for the cover of Pop Serial #2 was a Tiger Beat-style cover featuring Jordan, as like a joke given Jordan's at-that-time newly launched LOOKBOOK "modeling" gimmick. Mallory ended up taking a more moody, existential photo of Jordan that I like a lot, so I used it. Mallory seems very nice and has gotten very productive since the first issue, getting into writing and producing lots of visual art. She seems talented. She has also kissed Lil B on the neck, which is impressive to me.


Audun Mortensen
Audun seems very funny to me, and is possibly the most ironic and/or post-ironic person in the scene, which would be an impressive distinction. His work seems to often feature recontextualization, the use of new and surprising contexts and combinations to create humor and defamiliarization. He contributed 3 poems and 2 jpgs for the print edition of #2, and he has sent me 3 new poems that he requested I put in the online edition.


Andrew James Weatherhead
Andrew is a nice, talented, and funny guy. He contributed a story called "Bret Easton Ellis' First Novel," which Muumuu House also published. I like his poetry and I like seeing him read live. I've met him a couple of times, and he will be reading this Thursday at the first-ever New Wave Vomit/Pop Serial reading.


Kendra Grant Malone
I don't remember how I came across Kendra's work, but she is one of my favorite poets. Her poems are very emotional and striking to me. I'm glad she has contributed to both issues, and I'm excited for her upcoming collaborative poetry book with Matthew Savoca, Morocco. I reviewed Kendra's poetry book, Everything is Quiet, here.


David Fishkind
David is a NYU student and author. I don't remember how I came across his writing. I think through Tao. He seems ambitious. I'll be interested to see what he does next.


Rebecca Olson
Rebecca, or Becky as I know her, went to school with me at Wisconsin. She is a talented poet and a cool, fun person. We had some nice talks when we were both in a Virginia Woolf seminar.


Prathna Lor
I first encountered Lor's work via his bearcreekfeed ebook. His writing seems elusive in a way that kind of tickles my brain or something. I used to think he was intentionally mysterious via there didn't seem to be any photos of him or any information, but I have since seen a photo of him on Facebook, I believe. I reviewed his book, Ventriloquism.


Carrie Lorig
Carrie is a very nice person and a talented poet. I vaguely knew her in college through mutual friends and have properly met her more recently at the Pop Serial reading in December. She has been very supportive and friendly and I hope she stays productive and inspired.


Feng Sun Chen
Feng, or Mary as she's known by friends, is a very talented poet and nice person. She submitted to me unsolicited, I believe, and I think I included some superlatives when I wrote her back. Her works seems forceful to me and has more memorable lines than a lot of other poetry I read. I am very happy that she has multiple books coming out. As an added bonus, she's great to hang with IRL.


Philip Tseng
I think I encountered Philip's work through my friend--and Pop Serial #1 cover artist--Julia Sonmi Heglund. I think he is talented and I thought his "AlphaDeath" series was funny, so I included it in this issue.


Tracy Brannstrom
I found Tracy's funny, striking MS Paint drawings through Tao. I think her "MS Paint Shower Sex" drawing is very memorable and sweet, so I included it in this issue.


Richard Chiem
Richard, or Ricky as I call him, is my friend and a very talented writer. He has been super supportive and nice to me. I think he has a distinctive, memorable prose style. I hope he gets very famous and popular or at least continues to write beautiful things.


Cody Troyan
Cody is Cassandra's younger brother and a very talented and smart writer, in my opinion. He submitted to me unsolicited and I was impressed. I have been consistently impressed with his writing and intelligence.


Shannon Peil
Shannon is a talented poet and seems like a nice guy. I fucked up and forgot to include his poem "hoarders" in the print edition of this issue. I have sent it to Steve, the designer of the web edition, and I hope it appears this time or I will be embarrassed again.


Ben Rosamond
Ben is a bro who lives in New Zealand. He submitted a number of things to me, and I chose a poem that I found touching and a story I found intriguing in part for its honesty about the anxiety of influence. Ben contributes to the group blog antipobros.


Sam Pink
I heard of Sam through HTMLGIANT. I read his stuff, and initially I thought it was sort of consistently negative in a way I wasn't sure if I liked. I read more of his stuff and I realized I hadn't been "getting" it, that there were many different moods and emotions in Sam's work. Now I consider him one of my favorite living writers. I have hung out with him a few times IRL and he is hilarious and very nice. His spirit, as I interpret it through his writing, his way of being in the world, is very moving to me.

I reviewed his novel, Person, at HTMLGIANT.


Daniel Bailey
I found out about Daniel through HTMLGIANT. I was impressed with some of the poems from his book, The Drunk Sonnets. I solicited him and he eventually sent me a poem, "tonight, i mean." I found it very impressive and moving and placed it at the end of the magazine because I didn't know what could follow it.


Sara Drake
Sara is a visual artist and a friend through Cassandra Troyan. She also hosts the EAR EATER reading series. I checked out her blog after meeting her and was impressed. I thought a piece by her fit with Daniel's poem, so I put it on the same page in the print edition.


Van Jazmin
Van is another visual artist I found through Julia Sonmi Heglund. Van's work is sometimes psychedelic and often striking. I picked the piece "sleep" to close the magazine visually. The images and the text in the piece felt right.


Pop Serial #2 is coming to the internet this Thursday, June 16th, via a new website by Steve Roggenbuck. I hope you like it.

With us in the studio today, the London Bach Choir. Now, the latest on Omar De Col:

Omar De Col has been spotted at Dunster Beach. Reports are coming in he is wearing extremely tight, hot pink swim trunks. Sources claim he is “double-fisting” and appears to be “completely arseholed.” Eyewitnesses have noted increased staggering in his locomotion and increased levels of speech slurring and eye gleamage. Omar De Col’s increased eye-gleam quotient has caused him to seem even more charming than usual, the most charmingest amount of charm ever contained in a living male or female, an international record says the Daily Mail. Three rotund semi-nude ex-priests sunbathing on an adjacent towel have collectively unhinged their mandibles.

It appears Omar De Col has dropped something. The sun is very bright, potentially blinding. We’re certain he has dropped something, but what exactly it is, we can’t yet confirm. More news forthcoming.

We can now report it is an iPhone 3GS. Omar De Col is flailing around looking forward it in a manner reminiscent of Snuffleupagus with his long trunk.

Sources now tell us Omar De Col has regained possession of his iPhone 3GS, which was dropped. He appears to be grinning uncontrollably. He is now sauntering down the beach in defiance of his diminished locomotive skills.

Omar De Col appears to have halted and appears to be conferring with an elderly gentleman. The elderly gentleman is wearing grey slacks and rather ragged-looking shoes. He is also shirtless and appears to be quite inebriated as well.

We have dispatched our junior reporter Lacy Maxwell to the scene, and she is now reporting live via satellite.

“Hi, James Farnon. Yes, Omar De Col has attempted to engage the drunk, shirtless, homeless (we can now confirm homeless) elderly gentleman in conversation.”

What did he say to the man?

“Omar De Col said, ‘What time is it, mate?’”

And what did the man say?

“He said, simply, ‘Dead.’”

I see. And what did Omar De Col say back?

"He flopped to the ground. It was rather surprising. Flopped right over. Then he rolled in the sand a bit, popped back up and started singing a song.”

What song was it?

“I hadn’t heard it before, but it sounded very familiar.”

I see.

“Then Omar De Col started spinning around slowly, prancing a bit and spinning slowly and saying these words. He said, ‘What you have to do is just think really hard. So hard that your eyes squint and your brow is furrowed. About one little part of sunlight.’”

I see.

“Yes. Then he appeared to pass out. And now he’s sat over there under an umbrella having a smoke.”

Well. Thank you for your reportage, Lacy Maxwell. Looking forward to having you in the back of the studio. Now once again, the London Bach Choir.

"wtf is this? words? can't be bothered with this" - Crispin Best

<3 u Crispin mate.

Does seem like why would you blog. Does anyone blog?

Wut iz

a blog.

Brb pizza is ready.

***

If you didn't see these already, I posted visual poems at All Write Then: "Notes" (involves Ezra Pound); "Trance Remix" (involves Steve Roggenbuck, screenshot collage poem); "Perish the thought" (involves a nude balding old man).

At Let People Poems, I posted a poem called "I fell asleep during Winter's Bone."

***

I read some books recently, they are:

Best Behavior by Noah Cicero

I enjoyed this book, some parts more than others. Some parts made me laugh. All parts I could imagine in Cicero's voice having heard it on YouTube.

Chapters 5 and 6 seemed like standouts to me.

In Chapter 5, Cicero depicts the funniness and bleakness of a place where the protagonist worked as a dishwasher for a year. I like the part about mopping floors:

"It never bothered me to mop floors though. I kind of liked it. I would look down at the floor before I started and say to myself, 'Wow, what a dirty floor.' Then I would mop it with industrial strength de-greaser and bleach. Then spray it off with a hose so it would look beautiful."

In Chapter 6, the protagonist and his girlfriend go to a Youngstown bar to hang out. I like the descriptions of the characters and the dialogue. I like how at the end of the chapter, at closing time, everyone is crying.

As I said, there are many funny moments in the book. There is a particularly entertaining sequence about the protagonist and his writer friends attending a fancy New York literary event that I first read at Muumuu House's website a while ago.

There is also a description of Noah's experience taking part in a NYLON photoshoot for Muumuu House with Tao Lin, Zachary German, and Brandon Scott Gorrell. It was interesting to me to read an account of the experience and how these people may have acted during that period. I was particularly interested in Zachary's apparent fictional stand-in, John Walters.

Some excerpts featuring John Walters:

1.) "John Walters finished a fried chicken leg and yelled, 'MY FUCKING LEFT NUT IS A RECTANGLE!'

A middle-aged Puerto Rican walked by and John Walters yelled at him, 'I'M FUCKING PROTESTANT, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! I'VE A FINGER AND AN ASSHOLE, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON. I WALK DOGS AND MAKE MORE THAN THE PRESIDENT!'"

2.) "John Walters said to Hu Chin and I, 'I'm taking meaninglessness to new levels. You don't know meaninglessness. I'm going to get enlightened in the art of meaningless behavior. I will be the Buddha of meaninglessness.' Then he screamed, 'I WILL FUCK THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE WHILE I WALK THEIR DOGS!'"

I was also interested in the portrayal of the protagonist's relationship with Petra, a girl he knows online and then sleeps with while in New York, although it depressed me.

Sometimes it seemed the author was generalizing or stereotyping when describing characters, explaining their motives/defining "who they are" sociopolitically-speaking.

I enjoyed many parts of this book and would like to read more things by Cicero. I like his sense of humor and attempt at honesty/compassion/no bullshit.

I Don't Respect Female Expression by Frank Hinton

My review is forthcoming.

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

I like this book a lot.

I really dig Burroughs's prose style. I like his short paragraphs and how exciting many of his sentences feel. The excess excised.

I like the idea that he assembled, with Kerouac and Ginsberg's help, an order and form for the book out of a large body of text. I like how the sections, or routines as he calls them, do not proceed linearly and have great variety one from the other. I like how the book ends with a preface.

***

I bought Camera by Jean-Philippe Toussaint today. I am looking forward to reading it. I've been wanting to read him for a while.

Here is an interview with Toussaint on Bookworm. He has described what he writes as the infinitesimal novel.

***

I'm going to start a Formspring sometime I think.

Want to write a story called "I Am Not My Thoughts."

I am moving into an apartment with Brett Gallagher at the end of the month.

I am meeting Timothy Willis Sanders at the end of the month.

Are.

U.

Hot.

"Details are all there are." - Maezumi

Deirdre / her mom / house / downhill street / Frederick Avenue.

Porch / cracked wood / rocking chair / Deirdre painted purple rockets / black stars.

Kitchen / red table / vase / wild zinnias / plastic chili peppers dangling / back wall / winding staircase.

Basement called The Passion Pit. Made out / “Date with the Night” / Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Deirdre’s mom / shorthaired woman / pointy teeth. Leinie’s Honey Weiss / watching Six Feet Under.

Deirdre’s dad / started new family / didn’t see them anymore / Deirdre’s mom came out / lesbian.

Deirdre’s mom invited him / Deirdre’s high school graduation / he didn’t come. Daniel sat beside Deirdre’s mom / watched her cry / she said “Don’t tell her I cried.”

Visiting / break from college / four months before break-up. Deirdre’s mom asked Daniel / why / still with her daughter. “You seem like an interesting guy. Deirdre’s insipid.”

Met / John’s house / August 16 / 2003.

First time hanging out / Deirdre’s mom saw Daniel looking / plastic skeleton in the closet. “That’s where we put her last boyfriend.”

Second time hanging out / Daniel kissed Deirdre / Benny & Joon.

Third time hanging out / preparing / say goodbye. Daniel / decided / say “I love you.”

“I love you.”

Deirdre stuttered / her face flushed / blood / shifted her weight / bright green Chuck Taylors. She avoided Daniel’s eyes. Deirdre stopped shifting her weight / looked / the eyes / said “I think I love you too.”

Daniel thought / the word “think.”

Coffee / Prose

Rather than write, I'd like to talk with you over coffee.

I associate coffee with pleasure.

I'd like to be a nice small paperback you read on a warm bench in August.

*********

PROSE STYLES THAT I LIKE

J.D. Salinger

I admire two things, primarily, about Salinger's prose: its understated gestures and its incorporation of spoken verbal styles. A third thing would be its precise images (add to that an effective, enhancing use of adjectives and verbs). A fourth would be its economy, its lack of waste, its exactitude.

The following short paragraph, from "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," consists primarily of action and illuminating detail, aided by some of those aforementioned effective, enhancing adjectives and verbs:

"The young man put on his robe, closed the lapels tight, and jammed his towel into his pocket. He picked up the slimy wet, cumbersome float and put it under his arm. He plodded alone through the soft, hot sand toward the hotel."

To isolate and repeat that last sentence, I love it:

"He plodded alone through the soft, hot sand toward the hotel."

I could go on and on about Salinger and why I like his prose and his fictionalizing, his characters, his dialogue, his sly set-ups and small quiet moments, but instead I'll just point at another type of prose he does, rambling, flamboyant but to me constantly engaging, a voice speaking to the reader (this voice, this time--in Seymour: An Introduction, which if you haven't read, I suggest it--the voice of an "ecstatically happy" writer):

"In this entre-nous spirit, then, old confidant, before we join the others, the grounded everywhere, including, I'm sure, the middle-aged hot-rodders who insist on zooming us to the moon, the Dharma Bums, the makers of cigarette filters for thinking men, the Beat and the Sloppy and the Petulant, the chosen cultists, all the lofty experts who know so well what we should or shouldn't do with our poor little sex organs, all the bearded, proud, unlettered young men and unskilled guitarists and Zen-killers and incorporated aesthetic Teddy boys who look down their thoroughly unenlightened noses at this splendid planet where (please don't shut me up) Kilroy, Christ, and Shakespeare all stopped--before we join these others, I privately say to you, old friend (unto you, really, I'm afraid), please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of very early-blooming parentheses: (((())))."

Samuel Beckett

As I've said before, Beckett has the ability to make me want to underline his sentences. His prose seems beautiful, spare, and wry. His lines are sometimes compact and have the feel of one-liners ("Against the charitable gesture there is no defence, that I know of.") or mottoes ("Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong.") The previous lines were from Molloy, one of my favorites.

Beckett also has this impressive ability of writing beautiful sentences that don't seem to be trying too hard. When I say trying too hard I think of prose where the author seems to be saying "here now, a beautiful sentence, the rich cavalcade of images soar and woo you, ah the fine poetry of this verbal confection, ah choppy kewl prose of the avant-garde, ah pageantry of English, ah incorrigible vocabulary of the effete aesthete, ah to see in this age a effervescence of words, you dear, benevolent sister, have witnessed it." Instead something like this, from Watt (which, by the way, is a fucking hilarious book and another of my favorites by Beckett):

"To be together again, after so long, who love the sunny wind, the windy sun, in the sun, in the wind, that is perhaps something, perhaps something."

Rainer Maria Rilke

Though most famous for his poetry, Rilke wrote a novel I love called The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. It is another of those what you could call Sad-Ass Bro Gets His Rumination On in Depressing City Novels. This a wonderful genre of novel, in my humble opinion, and includes such books as Hunger by Knut Hamsun, Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, and Person by Sam Pink.

Rilke's sentences are often short. The longer ones seem to have this great rhythm to them, they swing nicely and speak precisely. They feel good to me.

"Here he stands up from his meditations and walks to his window; his high-ceilinged room is too close to him; he would like to see stars, if that is possible. He has no illusions about himself. He knows that this emotion fills him because among the young girls of the neighborhood there is one who matters to him. He has wishes (not for himself, no, but for her); for her sake he understands, during a passing hour of the night, the exigency of love. He promises himself not to tell her anything about it. It seems to him that the most he can do is to be alone and wakeful and for her sake to think how right that poetess had been: when she knew that sexual union means nothing but increased solitude; when she broke through the temporal aim of sex and reached its infinite purpose. When in the darkness of embracing she delved not for fulfillment but for greater longing."

Another thing I love about his prose in this book is that it includes sentences that make philosophical statements, and it doesn't suck ass when he does this, which is a danger with philosophical statements in novels, I have found. His sentences have passion.

Check this humdinger (keep in mind, this shit dropped in 1910):

"Is it possible that we know nothing about young girls, who are nevertheless living? Is it possible that we say 'women,' 'children,' 'boys,' not suspecting (despite all our culture, not suspecting) that these words have long since had no plural, but only countless singulars?

Yes, it is possible."

Virginia Woolf

I took a course on just Woolf in college and loved it. My favorites of the books I read by her are Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. I think The Waves is my number one favorite. It consists primarily of alternating, interplaying monologues by a group of characters who grow up together in the book. The monologues comment on and imagine their collective and individual lives. To me it enacts most memorably the subjectivity, the personal emotion that is there within all of Virginia's beautiful lines.

"Each time the door opens I am interrupted. I am not yet twenty-one. I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life. I am to be cast up and down among these men and women, with their twitching faces, with their lying tongues, like a cork on a rough sea. Like a ribbon of weed I am flung far every time the door opens. The wave breaks. I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room."

Clarice Lispector

Clarice is an amazingly brilliant writer, in my opinion. I imagine she was one hell of a person.

From The Hour of the Star:

"She mused in silence and the thought came to her: since I am, the solution is to be. The cockerel I mentioned earlier heralded yet another day. It sang of weariness. Speaking of poultry, the girl sometimes ate a hard-boiled egg in a snack-bar. Her aunt had always insisted that eggs were bad for the liver. That being so, she obediently became ill and suffered pains on the left side opposite the liver. For the girl was most impressionable. She believed in everything that existed and in everything non-existent as well. But she didn't know how to embellish reality. For her, reality was too enormous to grasp. Besides, the word reality meant nothing to her. Nor to me, dear God."