Sad Cave

On an island, blue waves teething on the shore, Ellie looks frightened and bashes herself in the face with a T-Fal nonstick jumbo cooker.

Ellie staggers and leans on Martin for balance. Her nose is bleeding. Martin looks bewildered and stoned.

Ian is crawling on all fours mumbling about licking mud.

Jackie kicks Ian in the ribcage and he collapses, rests a cheek in mud.

Jackie looks bored and pissed off.

Ellie is crying. She asks Martin to punch her in the face. Martin says he can’t. Ellie asks him again to punch her in the face.

Ian mumbles something about kicking Jackie’s ass later.

Jackie walks to Rachel sitting on a boulder reading A Sentimental Education and pushes Rachel off the boulder.

“What the fuck,” Rachel says and looks pissed. Jackie spits on Rachel and cries. Jackie collapses and spasms on the ground. Rachel laughs and kicks Jackie in her ribcage. Jackie stops spasming and lies on the ground still.

Martin asks Jackie if she is OK. Jackie hands the T-Fal nonstick jumbo cooker to Martin and asks him to bash her in the face with it. Martin tells Jackie he is worried and thinks she might be insane. Jackie tells Martin she is not insane.

Rachel runs over to Jackie, grabs her by the face, and starts chewing on Jackie’s ear. Jackie shrieks and punches Rachel in the gut and shoves her away. Jackie runs down to the beach, trips, and falls on her face. She flails about in the sand screaming.

Ian is lying on his back on the ground. He asks if anyone wants to cuddle or something. Martin stares blankly. Jackie is lying facedown on the beach. Rachel says maybe but not with Ian’s dirty fucking ass.

Jackie springs to her feet looking murderous and insane. She runs back to the others and rips people’s clothes off.

She grabs Rachel’s shirt by the collar and savagely rips it down the middle, revealing a black bra and a scar under Rachel’s left breast.

Jackie grabs Ian’s legs and tries to tug his pants off while dragging him. They come partway down and Ian looks scared and amused.

Jackie runs at Martin, who tries meekly to run away. She catches him, tackles him from behind. She pulls on his hair, tries unsuccessfully to rip up his shirt from the back. Martin tucks, rolls, and runs away.

Jackie locks eyes with Ellie and they circle each other on their toes. Jackie wrestles Ellie to the ground and pins her as she squirms and shouts. Jackie pulls off her tank top revealing perky breasts, no bra. She starts unbuttoning her black jeans. She is impatient and starts ripping them from a tear in the knees. She is screaming.

“What the fuck are you doing,” Ian whispers.

“Take off your fucking clothes,” Jackie says.

“OK,” Ian mutters and starts undressing.

When Ian has stripped to his boxer briefs, he stands and looks around sheepishly. He is skinny and has several tattoos on his chest and by his hipbone.

Rachel takes off her skirt, revealing red panties. She looks confused but vaguely happy.

Ellie kicks the T-Fal nonstick jumbo cooker and unbuttons her jean shirt and slips out of her red shorts, revealing black thong and bra. She wipes tears from her bruised cheeks.

“OK everyone is cuddling, follow me,” Jackie says. She marches over to a grotto by the water’s edge. She ducks to enter and then pops back out to shout at everyone to follow.

Martin looks confused and walks slowly to the grotto.

Rachel walks over obediently while glancing around curiously at the others.

Ian ambles over with a loopy grin on his face.

Ellie frowns and walks slowly after Martin.

The T-Fal nonstick jumbo cooker rests on the ground.

Jackie is calm now and takes off each person’s remaining clothing.

She kisses Rachel on the neck and removes her bra and kneels to remove the red panties.

She grabs Ian by the chin and shakes him lightly before tugging off his boxer briefs.

Ian giggles.

Jackie frowns at Martin and calmly unbuttons his button-up, unbuckles his belt, unzips his pants, and pulls everything off.

She glares at Ellie and Ellie slips out of her underwear.

At Jackie’s instruction they lie down in the grotto pressed against one another in a pile. Jackie holds Rachel to her breast, pats Ian on the head as he rests against her pelvis. Martin spoons Rachel and rests his head on her breasts. Ellie spoons Martin and looks out at the waves. Wind blows off the ocean. They shiver and huddle closer. Mist moistens their bodies and they cling together cold and naked.

Why would anyone want to write, read, or listen to someone read out loud a "piece of fiction," let alone a fucking poem?

Why would anyone want to write, read, or listen to someone read out loud a "piece of fiction," let alone a fucking poem?

Personally, I have never written any fiction, and I don't plan on starting any time soon.

Some habits are naturally addictive, like smoking cigarettes or eating large bags of Kettle chips, and other habits are only willfully, stubbornly repeated--one of these is sitting down and trying to write "interesting" sentences to create "literary art."

I have never written any interesting sentences. What's more, I have never been, myself, interesting, nor can I imagine an interesting person. There are no interesting people, and, if pressed to try really hard to find just something interesting about myself--my diverse education at both mixed-race public schools and white-ass private schools; my philo-psycho profile: a learned detachment from formative years of Camus, Suzuki, and hanging around other introspective nobs mixed with a kind of corny, deep-rooted optimism fostered by childhood Sundays spent at a gospel church, aggressively earnest parents, and the more sentimental of the Beatles songs on which I grew up--I can't do it, because there's nothing interesting about me. And I mean not to be negative, but rather, calmly accepting.

To the person who says, "Don't write about yourself, make stuff up, it's the aesthetic beauty of the sentences is what we want." To that person I'd say, I have no talent, and even of the people who have talent, allegedly, one in ten writes something I enjoy reading, and it is a strange mystery what makes me love their work--it's not just who they are or how they place the words--why is Beckett so gut-beautiful, why do I finish Franny and Zooey and need to call a friend?

But if, during this speaking, I effectively utilize a sentence structure of multiple clauses moving rhythmically one to the next, compound modifiers studded throughout to increase that pleasure of specificity, and if I maintain a sarcastic, irreverent tone, crack a few unexpected jokes, belying the relative formality and linguistic fluidity of the writing style, I will succeed in making a few educated people chuckle.

I am actually very happy today, I am excited to report. I may have misled you. To someone asking me, "What's the matter," I would say, "There is nothing at all the matter."

Today I woke up dehydrated and hungover in fine spirits and drank water from a mason jar. I made coffee, drank it, and ate a crust of bread and some blueberries. What else.

Every poem I have ever read is a very good poem. I forgot to mention that. Strangely, there is no reason to ever write a poem, and I don't know why anyone does it, but they do, and, as it is, each poem is wonderful.

"Everything is small and sad-making. I wish I were dead."

Elvis Perkins, "While You Were Sleeping." Pink jeans. Vintage Nike high-tops.

"I don't want to be anywhere or do anything. I don't feel like moving my body to do things..."

Deirdre told Stephen she hadn't really had sex before, in the dark, after he turned out the lights like she asked. "I don't want that guy to count."

"I hate my face and my acne and I hate my stupid brain."

Deirdre went to a coke party with her townie friends. She called at 4 in the morning, asked Stephen to hold her in case she was going to die.

"My dad is a fucker and I don't even know why my parents are together."

She played him Beirut, "Postcards From Italy." They lay in bed. She played him Explosions In The Sky.

"I want to cut people's hair in a small town for two years maybe. Or like, preserve one piece of land up north that no one cares about. Save some animals' home."

Deirdre kept a copy of Nine Stories in her cash register at Capitol Market Foods and read between customers.

"As soon as a guy kisses me I don't know if I even care anymore, it's like it's all over and empty then."

They went jogging by Lake Mendota, found a block of wood covered with carpet. They joked about lying on it, their carpet island, and floating away.

"I laugh when I'm nervous. When I seem happy and smiling a lot it's cause I'm nervous."

Deirdre's dad drove her and Stephen to the farm in silence.

"I want the courage to be nothing, nobody. I want to cut myself off completely."

Deirdre's mom talked to her and Stephen, made lunch. Where was her brother? In his room, in the basement.

"I don't know what to tell you. We're not going to be together forever. There'll be other guys."

Deirdre and Stephen walked Ruddy in the snow behind the house.

They sat at the kitchen table, Dad watched the game.

Stephen slept in the guest room.

"I used to walk Ruddy in the woods for hours. Just disappear in there for a while. I miss him a lot."

Dad drove Deirdre and Stephen back to Madison. Stopped at a bar, each drank a beer, watched the game. Dad, "Goodbye," and left.

"I got really attached to my therapist. He was this nice man, he wore brown ties."

She took the smallest room in the apartment, a nook in the corner off the living room, behind a curtain. She lay tummy down on her pale yellow comforter with the window open a crack to hear the rain.

"I don't feel pretty and I don't want you to say I'm pretty, just don't look at my face please."

Seu Jorge singing "Rebel Rebel." Her hair clips. Shiny purple backpack.

"I like those gray pants. And your shoes."

Deirdre called him Fritz, and he called her Winston.

"Have you seen Crumb?... Oh, it's good."

"I like to sit in my closet and listen to Moon Pix. In the dark."

Deirdre joined the sailing club at the Union. She was nervous to go out when it was windy. She told Stephen they'd go together, but they never did. Deirdre went out by herself in the wind on Lake Mendota.

"I do feel sad about this whole deal. Sometimes I think about you and I'm OK. Sometimes I think about you and cry. I want very badly to still be your friend. Cléo from 5 to 7 might be my favorite movie ever. Thank you for giving it to me.

I feel like you are gone, lost somewhere in the world, and if I talk to you I'll want it back like it was. So I will just keep writing this email.

I keep thinking of these embarrassing songs like Mariah Carey 'We Belong Together' and the words infiltrate my brain.

I don't know if this email makes any sense, or if you will respond. There's no reason to, I suppose.

I have to go to work now but I feel better just from typing this out, so we'll leave it there. I'll probably write you again later.

Deirdre"

Sam Pink Video Interview

This was at the Holiday Club in Chicago, November 30th.

Originally posted at HTMLGIANT. A commenter said, "I've never heard two non-15 year old girls say 'like' more between words." Feels like a compliment.

If you haven't checked out Sam Pink's books, or his Formspring advice column, I highly recommend both.

Kim Ki-duk

I have been watching movies by the South Korean director Kim Ki-duk. His movies are interesting, entertaining, and moving to me. His movies tend to have little dialogue, thus emphasizing the actions of the characters. Oftentimes there is a female protagonist who is a prostitute or otherwise involved in dramatic situations involving sexuality. His movies seem designed to present people, emotions, ideas, and situations in a heightened, compelling fashion, inspiring questions without answering them.

I am interested in absence-of-dialogue as well as only-dialogue/lots-of-dialogue in literature and in other types of art. I like both The Catcher in the Rye and Molloy because of the voices I hear as I read. I don't know if there is a no-dialogue/little-dialogue novel I could read and/or write that would be appealing in the way Ki-duk's movies are to me.




Bad Guy (2001)

The first Ki-duk movie I watched was Bad Guy. A pimp sees a woman sitting on a bench with her boyfriend, goes up to her, and forces her to kiss him. Later he kidnaps her and forces her to be a prostitute in his brothel. The pimp is violent and doesn't talk much. He watches the woman through a one-way window that looks into her bedroom. She has trouble adjusting to being a prostitute and cries often. The other prostitutes are jealous of her because men prefer her due to her good looks. The pimp is nearly-fatally-assaulted several times during the movie and imprisoned after a fight with a john who is abusing the woman.

I liked Seo Won, the lead actress in Bad Guy. She is pretty and I liked looking at her face, and I felt emotional during some scenes of her crying.




Birdcage Inn (1998)

The second Ki-duk movie I watched was Birdcage Inn. I liked this one more than Bad Guy. It seems a little more playful and less melodramatic than Bad Guy, although there is similarly prostitution, emotional abuse, and violence in the movie.

In Birdcage Inn a 22-year-old girl, played by Lee Ji-eun, comes to a motel to work as a prostitute. A family lives there and runs the motel. The father is attracted to the girl and rapes her. The mother sees her as simply a source of income for the family. The brother is attracted to her and convinces her to let him take naked photographs of her and to have sex with him. The daughter is the same age as the girl and openly hates her, partly because the daughter is sexually repressed and facing pressure from her boyfriend to have sex.

I liked the lead actress in Birdcage Inn a lot too. She is pretty and I liked watching her. She seemed less anguished than the lead in Bad Guy. She seems mostly resilient or calm when dealing with the abuse/conflicts she faces, although she does cry sometimes.

The Isle (2000)

This one is about a woman, played by Seo Jeong, who runs a fishing resort. She is silent throughout the movie except for one significant, piercing scream. She is the strongest, most bad-ass of the female characters I've seen in his movies so far. She is passionate, even murderous.

The entire movie takes place on the water, as the woman rides her motorboat to and from the various rented houseboats providing services to guests, including prostitutes. The pace is steady and calm except for occasional violent scenes. I read in reviews that some people left the theater and vomited due to some graphic scenes in the movie, but I didn't have that reaction. The cinematography is beautiful, more striking than in the two previous Ki-duk films I watched.

The fishing resort woman becomes attracted to one of her guests, a man (played by Kim Yu-seok) who is wanted for a crime. She rebuffs his sexual advances initially, but she becomes jealous when one of the prostitutes shows interest in him.

The woman prevents him from committing suicide two times. The second time is probably my favorite scene in the movie. Authorities are coming to get the man, and he attempts to kill himself by swallowing a string of fishhooks. The woman finds the man, bleeding profusely, and hides him from authorities. Then she extracts the fishhooks from his mouth and, as he lies there gasping, she unzips his pants and rides his dick, finally consummating their attraction to each other.

I love the scene and the movie as a whole because I'm made to see the physicality of experience as opposed to the intellectualization of experience. Ki-duk emphasizes the human bodies of these characters doing things, existing, experiencing pain and pleasure. Words and ideas are secondary to experience.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

From my reading on Ki-duk, it sounded like this was Ki-duk's "masterpiece" and also one of his most explicitly Buddhist-themed films. As a person interested in Buddhism, I was psyched to see it. But when I tried to watch it, I got impatient, started skipping around, and ended up not finishing it. Maybe I was not in the right mood.

The movie presents the metaphorical seasons of this guy's life in concert with the changing weather seasons. The boy is raised by his father(?)/some older guy in the middle of a lake in a floating house. The boy learns lessons, meets a girl, and other stuff happens of which I am unaware as I skipped around and didn't finish it.

The thought occurred to me that this movie was the first of his I'd seen that did not have a central female character and that it had the least amount of sex. I'm going to not watch Ki-duk movies for a while and then maybe watch more sometime later.

Rulfo

Red Lightbulbs published my poem, "I want to read that Juan Rulfo you love, The Burning Plain."

Juan Rulfo is the author of The Burning Plain and Other Stories as well as Pedro Páramo.

I went home to Milwaukee for Thanksgiving. Me and several of my family members caught a stomach flu. Saturday night I puked a lot. I've been feeling kind of weak and shitty since then. I said to my mom, "Now my body state is analogous to my mental/emotional state."

I am typing at my dad's desk. He has a framed drawing of Jesus laughing.

Keep feeling like I need to "get my ass in gear." Not sure what I mean exactly, but I need to "get my ass in gear."

I was explaining to my mom why I like this one comedian and I said it was not primarily because of his humor--although I appreciate that--but because he seemed present, in the moment, when interacting with people.

I am going to miss Steve Roggenbuck when he leaves Chicago.

Steve said recently that tickets to London are surprisingly cheap. I would like to visit all my UK friends. I was in London for a week once and had a great time. I drank cider and went to night clubs. I witnessed a clubwide singalong to "Wonderwall," which was played, conspicuously, in the midst of an otherwise all-rap-and-pop DJ mix.

I've been reading Nausea and I don't think I like the prose style or Sartre's editing decisions. There are a lot of to-me uninteresting details included, such as overheard conversations and seemingly unessential historical information, and the prose style seems neither pleasingly "clean" nor pleasingly "voice-y," i.e. a strong narrator voice. I think it could have been either of the aforementioned with revision.

I have already started reading another book, Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami. I like the prose style a lot so far, as well as the shaping of chapters. There's a lot of dialogue, a lot of subtle character insight, and the prose is spare in a way I like. I feel like Murakami has designed everything carefully, and I'm excited to keep reading.

I am going to do a video interview with Sam Pink this week. I feel positive about this week. Love to you all.

The Doors

That photo is of Clarice Lispector. I have moved the paragraphs about her to near the end of this blog post.

Steve Roggenbuck and I are going to start emailing daily writing to each other (him a poem, me prose stuff). This way we can help each other stay productive.

Friday was "Beer Friday" at work. The theme this week was German beer. I tried a Belgium white expecting to not like it and did not like it. Some people invited me to go with them to a bar. I like when people invite me to things, especially if I would want to go to a place with those people.

I bought a round of shots. I did karaoke: "99 Problems" Jay-Z. I felt very white during my performance. A black woman, I think the hostess, touched my arm as I walked by and complimented my performance.

I am going to try to buy my family Christmas presents this year. I am less broke this year. I like when I think of a nice present to give someone. So far I have thought of one present to give, but it is not for a family member.

Saturday during the day I felt as if I were rotting inside. I think it was on account of having little on the stomach and drinking a lot of coffee and also various disappointments and sadnesses and general confusion and angst and a lack of certain things and general shittiness. I went to a "Friendsgiving" dinner and drank a lot of wine. Later I went to a place and then another place and then went home.

I finished reading The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector. I liked it a lot. It's very philosophical. This woman goes into her maid's room and closes a door on a cockroach and then sort of meditates on the cockroach as a symbol/metaphor for various things.

Here is some from it:

"If my life is transformed into it-itself, what I now call sensibility will not exist--it will be called indifference. But I am still unable to learn that way of being. It is as if hundreds of thousands of years from now we finally won't be what we feel and think anymore: we shall have something that more closely resembles an 'attitude' than an idea. We shall be living matter manifesting itself directly, unmindful of words, going beyond always-grotesque thinking.

And I won't travel 'from thought to thought' but from attitude to attitude. We shall be inhuman--as humanity's greatest conquest. To be is to be beyond the human. To be a human being doesn't do it, to be a human has been a constraint. The unknown awaits us, but I sense that that unknown is a totalization and will be the true humanization we long for. Am I speaking of death? no, of life. It isn't a state of felicity, it is a state of contact."

It is about 170 pages of that sort of thing. I thought some of the best bits were toward the end and so I concluded satisfied and feeling positive about the book overall.

I recommend her. I have also read Near to the Wild Heart and The Hour of the Star. Both of those have more characterization and action than The Passion.

Today I purchased The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley at Myopic, along with Almost Transparent Blue by Ryū Murakami.

I started The Doors of Perception. It is about Aldous Huxley taking mescaline; he describes the effects it has on his consciousness and understanding.

Here is a part:

"That which, in the language of religion, is called 'this world' is the universe of reduced awareness, expressed, and, as it were, petrified by language. The various 'other worlds,' with which human beings erratically make contact are so many elements in the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large. Most people, most of the time, know only what comes through the reducing valve and is consecrated as genuinely real by the local language. Certain persons, however, seem to be born with a kind of by-pass that circumvents the reducing valve. In others temporary by-passes may be acquired either spontaneously, or as the result of deliberate 'spiritual exercises,' or through hypnosis, or by means of drugs. Through these permanent or temporary by-passes there flows, not indeed the perception 'of everything that is happening everywhere in the universe' (for the by-pass does not abolish the reducing valve, which still excludes the total content of Mind at Large) but something more than, and above all something different from, the carefully selected utilitarian material which our narrowed, individual minds regard as a complete, or at least sufficient, picture of reality."