book

This is a story of James.  James is a serious dude.  Sometimes while I was reading I thought, "I should be more like James,” but being like James means people probably don’t like you.  Your friends might have a slight tendency to hate you.  Your girlfriend's parents might accuse you of pissing on them will you sleep.  I am pretty sure my own parent's would be disappointed in me if I turned into a 'James', but James makes good literature.  In some ways my father is a 'James'.  His name is Jim.  He once stole his father's car when he didn't have a license.  He was on his way to becoming a 'James', but I guess he met my mother and things turned out better for all involved.

I read this book while sitting on my old roommates' couch under a tree.

Shane Jones is now famous.  He sold the movie rights for his book to Ray Tintori who is a friend of Spike Jonze.  I think Spike Jonze will probably win an Oscar when I’m thirty-three years old.  He may have already won an Oscar.  Nice job Spike Jones. 

A few months ago, before Shane Jones became famous, he sent me his book.  I will be honest.  I did not read it.  That wasn’t entirely honest.  I did read it, but I did not read it completely.  I read parts of it.  I read the beginning, but then stopped.  This was not a Fuck-Shane-Jones-and his-book situation and more of an I-think-I-will-read-on-the-bus-whoops-I-fell-asleep scenario.  Falling asleep on the bus was not Shane Jones’ book’s fault.  Falling asleep on the bus is very common.  Sometimes I take pictures of people who have fallen asleep on the bus.  I would not be surprised if people take pictures of me when I fall asleep on the bus.   

In case you were unaware Shane Jones wrote the book Light Boxes and is now famous.  I only say this because I don’t think I mentioned the title of his book yet.  He probably has a better chance of winning the National Book Award now.  Spike Jonze will maybe tell Dave Eggers to pull a few strings.  Dave Eggers will probably pull one string.  He does not have many strings connected to the National Book Award committee.  The string he pulls will probably be connected to a kite.  The kite will fall and die.  Spike Jonze will be a little pissed at Dave Eggers.  He might punch him in the groin.  When baseball announcers are announcing a game and a player obviously gets hit in the testicles they always say the player was hit in the ‘groin’.  If Shane Jones’ book saw the kite fall and die it would probably smile.  I think Shane Jones is three years older than me.  If I win the National Book Award it will probably be three years after Shane Jones turns sixty.  Either he or I will win the National Book Award when I am fifty-seven.  If someone else wins I will ask Shane Jones to punch this other person in the groin.  Shane Jones is nice.  He will not do it.

Two or three months passed after Shane Jones sent me his book.  I felt guilty.  I bought other books.  Piles of unread books grew.  Shane Jones sold the movie rights to the book and posted on his blog that the first printing was sold out.  Feelings of guilt multiplied.  I decided I would finish reading Light Boxes my last week in California.  I went to the Burbank library.  I read the first hundred pages.  The library got crowded.  People were standing at computers tapping keyboards.  The noise annoyed me.  I left.  I drove my girlfriend’s jeep to 7-11.  I got a big gulp of Mountain Dew.  I went back to the jeep.  I drank some of the big gulp.  I read the last sixty pages.  I did not roll down the window.  Sweat beaded on my arms.  It dripped off my nose.  A little got on the pages.  I thought, “Oh, Jimmy isn’t going to like that.”  When I finished my shorts and shirt were soaked.  I got out of the jeep.  I drank the rest of the big gulp.  I put Shane Jones’ book in an envelope and walked to a mail box.  I dropped it in.  A few days later Jimmy emailed me.  He said, “Thanks for the book.”  I did not tell him about the sweat drops. 

To an unmarried man with few commitments, no children, and above average ability to fall asleep on public transportation the layout was initially frustrating, but not really a hindrance, more of an excuse.

It took me over a couple hundred pages to get into this book.  At somewhere near 300 I finally found something that really jumped out at me.  Some dude, Hanson, was freaking over the Tet offensive.  I’m not sure I was reading the book correctly.  Maybe there were some metaphors or underlying messages I was supposed to be enjoying.  The back of the book says things like, “Johnson has wry humor,” and, “Deeply funny.”  I am not sure if these are exactly what is written on the back of the book.  I’ve already donated my copy of it to the Los Angeles Public Library on San Vicente Ave across from this big blue pile of shit design building.  Phillip Roth is quoted on the back of the book.  The quote implies he read the book.  In some ways I wonder if Phillip Roth even bothers reading anymore.  I can’t picture him shopping for books anywhere besides Barnes & Noble and Borders.  In my mind I see him walking into one of these stores saying, “This store sucks,” and then walking out.

While I was reading Tree of Smoke half of me thought, “This is shit.  How’d this win the national book award?”  The other half thought, “Shit, Denis Johnson is a genius.  He somehow strung me along for 600 pages even though I didn’t really like the story.”

There were segments I liked.  The whole young boy fucks some girl, goes to war, misses girl for a week, hangs out, fucks prostitutes, ignores girl’s letters from back home, signs up for more tours of duty, gets head fucked up, does bad shit, comes home, keeps doing bad shit, etc…this type of story always eats me up even if it’s been rehashed before.  Most of the CIA segments were a yawn.  There was this uncle who played football at Notre Dame.  He was pretty cool.  I can’t really remember what happened in Apocalypse Now, but I feel like this Uncle was all the characters of Apocalypse Now wrapped into one.  I could be wrong.  I remember some dude floating in the water with face paint.  That’s all I remember about the movie.  Still, I imagine Denis Johnson wrote his book while playing the movie on repeat.

Overall, I kept thinking, “Fuck this shit, I’m going to win the National Book Award.”  It seems easier to win the National Book Award after reading this book.  There are a series of steps I will have to take.  I will probably have to punch some of my friends in the face.  For a long time Denis Johnson was a poet.  He might have been a faggot.  I imagine he tells his wife sometimes, “Damn, remember when I wrote poetry.  I was a faggot.”  Or maybe he says, “Poetry was good to me.  Many women slept with me because I pretended to write them poems.”  I don’t think I’m going to write poetry.  I think I will write eleven one-hundred page books and then write a three-thousand page book that the judges of the National Book Award won’t have time to read.  Then they’ll decide the three-thousand page effort is worth a trophy so they’ll give me a trophy.  Yep, I guess I have to go write twelve books now. 

I’d also like to add that when I finished this book there was an African American young man sitting across from me reading Dale Carnegie books.  Get money.

Before I read Frederick Barthelme I read about him online.  If you type his name into google you will get a few pages of results.  He seems to have a growing internet presence.  There are no videos of him combing his hair on youtube.  He is afraid of becoming a viral video sensation for fear his words would gain unnecessary added meaning.  Most people have learned to accept this about him. 

I once picked up his novel in a used bookstore, read the first five pages, thought 'yep', but didn't buy the book.  A few weeks ago I was in another used bookstore, found a collection of his stories, read the first page, thought 'yep', and bought the book.

Moon Deluxe was printed on the paper.  Its pages had a great effect on me.  The stories were a mass of various moments all stapled together with literary mechanisms.  Do not be confused, Frederick Barthelme’s belief in robotics—whether pro or con—is not apparent in these stories.  When I said, “Literary mechanisms” I was mostly thinking of periods, commas, a brief unwritten sighs. 

Some people will look at the stories and think, "Shit, I could have written that."  Other people will look at the stories and say, "Mark, you've found your bible, your god, let's drive to Mississippi and crucify this Barthelme."  The former is an idiot.  The latter seem to be just as insane, but there is something genuine in the crazed thoughts.  If you take out the parts where Frederick Barthelme ends up with spikes through his wrists you can almost understand the great effect Barthelme's words might have on the average reader.

Frederick Barthelme in many ways understands he's a god of sorts.  He tries to ignore these ideas, keeps to himself inside a small shack within his office at some university in the south.  From time to time he'll grasp his great powers and unleash it upon the masses, but like most un-crucified gods he releases these works to general obscurity.

I think there is a girl hiding in Texas.  She delivers newspapers and teaches college students how to read and writes little stories on her customer's newspapers but instead of delivering the newspapers she brings them home and cuts out the notes and puts them in a scrapbook.  This scrapbook wasn't publicly known to the general population for a long time, but eventually an owl for featherproof books snuck in her window one night and whispered in her ear and convinced her to let featherproof  publish her scrapbook of notes scribbled on newspapers.  She has since quit delivering papers and instead focusses on teaching college students to read.

To be honest I bought Amelia Gray's AM/PM as an afterthought.  I was standing in line at the bookstore and saw  it on the bookshelf next to the register.  I had read bits and pieces about the book online and liked the cover, but never was interested enough to order it.  Seeing it in person, next to a dozen other books, it jumps out.  I wanted very much to devour it and reform the stories in my brain.  Lots of credit goes for the design of AM/PM.  As for Amelia Gray, she deserves a bit too.  I'm tempted to type out her sixteenth story from AM/PM, but I'm not going to.  Instead, I urge you to go to the bookstore, find the book for yourself, and read the sixteenth story.  If you like the book buy it.  If you don't like it, try reading a few more stories from it.  It might grow on you.  If you're indifferent, read the whole thing right there in the bookstore.  It's a quick read.  I began reading it halfway through a cross-continental flight and finished it on the escalator to the baggage claim.

I read Mark Lindquist's Sad Movies on the plane ride back from Maine.  It was a quick read, mildly enjoyable, but half the time I kept thinking, 'He could have done better there' or 'I wish he had said something else.'  Still, at just over a hundred pages it wasn't torturous to get through and did a good job maintaining the self hatred of society that many of the 'literary brat pack' novels had during the eighties.

This book was like some Pride and Prejudice shit from the Orient land.  My apologies for incorrectly labeling the lands of Asia.  I won't lie.  I almost gave up on Eileen Chang's Love in a Fallen City.  The first story wasn't anything special, but the second and final story really delivered.  I don't know if it was a coincidence or not, but both those stories were told from the male perspective.  My initial feeling is that these two stories are better translated.  The stories seemed simpler and there seemed to be less characters.  Many of the other stories seemed like a mash of females fighting for men to marrying them and I couldn't remember who was who.  As for those wondering why I even bothered reading this, it was another NYRB.  This book was finished while waiting in a hair salon.

L.J. Davis' A Meaningful Life might be my favorite of all the NYRBs that I've read so far.  I started reading it on the suggestion of a friend and actually began reading it online at google books.  The book preview was about 70 pages and when I got to the end of those 70 pages I went out and bought the book.  It's actually the first NYRB purchase I made.  I really do reccommend it to anyone.  It's a breeze to get through.  I read the last ten pages waiting in american apparel for my girlfriend to finish shopping (as pictured).  You may remember this american apparel location from somewhere else.

I read J.R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip in my continuing quest to conquer everything that is NYRB.  I also decided to read it because my dog had recently passed away and I thought the book would give added understanding to why humans care for their pets.  This book wasn't one of those sentimental type books though.  It was odd because Ackerley actually kept the reader at distance in regard to his own feelings, but was honest and straight forward about everything dog related from when it got sick to trying to breed Tulip and giving her a meaningful existence.

As you can see I microwaved some peas and carrots and then I finished Brandon Gorrell's little book of poetry called, During my nervous breakdown i want a biographer present.  The cover made me want to punch someone in the face, not in a violent way, but in the same way old batman used to punch people in the 60's or 70's.  In a way I guess this  could be considered a compliment, but I'm not sure I want it to be.  To be honest, I think I'm comparing the cover to the production value of a television show from the seventies where grown men ran around in tights and these tights were awkward as shit usually a few notches less than skin tight.  To be honest though, the cover is kind of distracting.  It is a bit weak.  The actual feel of the book reminds me of mad libs.  But I think this was his goal or point.  I get the feeling Brandon Gorrell wants everyone to hate him.  Many times when I read this I thought, "What the fuck is this shit," and then other times I thought, "Oh cool,"  because his book talks about aliens.  Gorrell deserves some credit for the title which is probably the best part of the book. If my child was Brandon Gorrell I might be a little worried, but otherwise, no worries, his world is his world.  It's kind of too bad this book couldn't be judged as its own thing, but I feel you can't look at it without talking about Tao Lin which is kind of too bad, but it is what it is.

The book publishing arm of New York Review of Books (NYRB) has caught my attention.  Since discovering its existence I've told a handful of people that it might be the best publisher in the world.   And it might be.  No one has offered me any alternatives.  Usually, a person will ask me, "What's your favorite book?"  I'll respond, "Anything published by the New York Review of Books.  They're probably the greatest publisher in existence."   And that usually is the end of discussion.  Maybe the person will say, "Hmmm,"  or "Oh really," but the conversation usually drifts to something else.  Of course, I may be wrong.  There's a chance NYRB is a shitty publisher.  I've yet to read every book published by them.  I won't know until I read them all.  My goal is to read them all.  There's a pretty good chance I won't.  I've decided I want to accomplish this by the year 2021.  That gives me quite a bit of time.  I will be forty or something.  This website probably won't still exist.

Of the ones I've read each one has made me want to eat it.  My apologies, saying you want to eat a book because you like it is getting old.  Too many people claim books are so good they want to devore them, but no books actually get eaten.  I'm just as much a hypocrite as anyone else.  I've probably said, "This book is so good it makes me hungry," thirty or forty times in my life.  I think it might be time to literally eat a book.  I once offered to eat Michael Ian Black's book, but he never sent it to me.  Maybe I will eat the next Phillip Roth release. 

I stumbled upon NYRB by chance late in 2008.  I was browsing the shelves at the library and came across Jonathan Williams' Stoner.  The binding of the book caught my attention.  NYRB has a unique binding design you can pick out of any shelf.  After pulling it out, I read the first page and was hooked.  The fateful first sentence from Stoner wasn't anything special, "William Stoner entered the University of Missouri in the year 1910, at the age of nineteen," but for whatever reason I kept reading.  When I finished reading it and returned it to the library I was a little sad the experience was over, but I figured that was all there was.  Then, about a month later, I was browsing the shelves again and another NYRB binding caught my attention.  This time it was Darcy O'Brien's A Way of Life, Like Any Other.  Again, I was drawn in.  When I was finished I began searching for the distinguishable NYRB binding when I went to the library.  Since then I've read three other NYRBs. 

Maybe my greatest find or surprise in relation to NYRB though was when I went to a local book store, Book Soup, and found they had a whole shelf devoted to NYRB (as seen below).

I was at the library the other day looking for Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridan.  The library didn't have it.  I browsed for a few minutes and was going to leave when I saw Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers on the new release book shelf.  You can only check out new releases for seven days.  This worried me a little, but I remembered I had read one of his other books, The Tipping Point, in less than a week and figured I'd give his new one a look.  I finished it yesterday at a coffee shop.  I'm not sure if all his theories are a 100% true, but they were enjoyable to read.

Ben Tanzer wrote another book. It is called, "most likely you'll go your way and i'll go mine." He is a very nice man. His head maybe isn't on straight. Neither is mine. People often ask us what we are looking at. We say nothing. Here is a segment from the book. I like this part because it makes me think of this party I went to where someone showed up with a fur scarf and another person showed up in a white t-shirt and a mustache and three other girls showed up looking like they hadn't removed any of their make up from the previous week. I thought, "Hot, score, vagina, I'm getting laid tonight," and then I remembered my girlfriend was with me and I thought, 'I hope she doesn't read this review.' Anyway, here is a section of "most likely you'll go your way and i'll go mine":

We were at a party. I sat on the couch. The lamp turned into a _____. I think I was supposed to be impressed. I think I was. We were the first people at the party. The party kind of ______. I think it was my fault. I told the person sitting next to me that parties are fun. They didn’t hear me. Then someone with a sheepskin coat walked in and I laughed. I said, “Your coat is kind of like my friend’s ______.” She thanked me. I was surprised she took it as a compliment. I tried to think of something else to say. The coat winked at me and said, “I’m not a sheep. I’m a llama.” I think the party picked up at that point. I watched the television. No sounds came out of the television. I thought, “The whole world is broken.” Then I said to no one, “I should have gone to school to become a man who fixes ______.” At some point you came over and said, “WHHHHHHHHHHATCHA DOIN?” And I said, “MMMMMMMMMMMMkay,” and thought we would start dancing at that point, but we went home instead.

Ok, nevermind, I think I lied. I don’t think Ben wrote this.

I am sitting across from you at a coffee shop.  I pretend to read, but I am really just staring at you with bad ideas in my head.  You see me holding Damaged by Andy Riverbed and say, "I went to high school with him and he once gave me a ride on his bike."  I tell you I don't own a bike and you say, "That's too bad."  Then we don't talk anymore until you get up to leave and say, "I made that part up about riding a bike with Andy Riverbed.  He actually invited me to his family's farm silo when I was a freshman before football players did macho things to me under the bleachers."  I nod.  Andy Riverbed decides he doesn't like this review and walks in and ignores everyone.  He kicks open the bathroom door.  Someone is putting on their wedding dress.  He shaves their head.  The woman's bridesmaids laugh.  Andy Riverbed sticks needles in their eyes and injects heroin.  I am afraid of heroin so I leave, but I'm curious so I put my face to the window and watch him write a poem for a girl named Carolyn.  I decide to do the same thing, but I don't know anyone named Carolyn.  Andy Riverbed wins.  Andy Riverbed always wins.

Jimmy Chen of www.jimmychenchen.com wrote a book.  It is called Crack Journey: the same situation which got worse. Only one copy of it exists.  I am the only person in the world who owns a copy.  I wish I could tell you more about it, but I'm afraid then people will begin to say they own a copy of Crack Journey as well and I don't want that to happen.  If you want to read it you can bring me dinner and come over and read it.  The dinner must taste decent or I will not let you read Crack Journey.  Jimmy also included the following with Crack Journey in the envelope:

This is more of a biography of the author of Moxietown than a review of the book. Little Jimmy told his parents that he was going to be rich and famous.  He said, "Father, you do not have to worry about money.  I will make sure your last years are prosperous."  Little Jimmy's father said, "Don't let me down."  Little Jimmy began to get scared.  "What if I don't become a famous rich person," he thought, “I don’t want to let Pop Pop down.”  He then put his head in between his mattress and bed frame and stayed that way until dinner.  At dinner Little Jimmy's father asked, "Are you famous yet?" Little Jimmy bowed his head and didn’t say anything. His father said, “Looks like I have to go to work tomorrow.” The studio audience roared. Little Jimmy’s mother dropped the casserole on the cat. The audience couldn’t stop laughing. The soundboard made the cat meow like a baby who had a pot of boiling water dumped on its head. It wasn’t a meow at all. The meow took over the cat’s whole face. It opened its mouth wider than someone trying to fit the skull of a baby goat in their mouth. Casserole oozed down the cat’s throat. Jimmy’s mother tried to save the cat, but it had already drowned. The studio audience stopped laughing. There were tiny cries in the corner. “What’s that?” asked Little Jimmy. It was a litter of kittens in a basket. The studio audience said, “Ahhhh…” Little Jimmy really wanted to be famous. He wanted to be famous so bad that at school sometimes he would punch kids in the stomach, but then he would feel bad and tell the kids about all the new kittens he had and that if it would make their stomach feel better they could come over and pick one out. Soon all the kittens were gone except one that was brown and weak and ugly. Little Jimmy decided to call it Moxie. When Little Jimmy was really tiny he didn’t know what a wheel barrow was. There was one upside down in his neighbor’s yard. He kicked it. It didn’t do anything. He put Moxie on top of it and spun the tire. It spun. Moxie turned its head sideways. He spun the tire more and more. He said, “Hey Moxie isn’t this fun?” Once little Jimmy walked by a piano store and thought, "I'd like to be a world renown pianist.”  Then he walked past a toy store and saw a ray gun and bought it and decided he would protect humanity. Moxie would be his sidekick. Little Jimmy ate everything. He did not eat his cat Moxie. He ate everything else.  He traded all his baseball cards for pudding at school.  Then when he was older he blamed his mother for all his lost cards and said she must have thrown them away.  One night when little Jimmy wasn’t so little he ran all the way home from Burger King, where he worked at the time, three towns over and demanded to know why she had thrown away all his cards.  "If you hadn't done that I would have never had to work this crappy job." Little Jimmy then cried because he wasn't famous yet. He remembered Moxie’s mother and then little Jimmy remembered how his mother had dumped casserole on Moxie’s mother’s head. This made him very sad. He quit the Burger King job and looked up to the sky and said, “God, will you make me famous?” For three years he waited for God to make him famous. God did not make him famous. He put little Jimmy in Indiana, but he did not make him famous. Little Jimmy was bigger now. No one called him little Jimmy anymore.They called him big Jim. Big Jim left Indiana and went home. When he got home he asked his mother where his baseball cards were. And she said there was bad news. “While you were away,” she said, “Moxie got sick.” Big Jim’s father yelled from the living room. It was tough to understand what he said. Subtitles at the bottom of the screen said he asked if Big Jim was famous yet. Then Big Jim’s father yelled something else. A laugh track sounded. The studio audience had been replaced. And then the curtains closed and a man walked up to Big Jim’s family and said, “Little Jimmy, I’m afraid the studio has decided to shutdown the show. I’m sorry.” Big Jim didn’t care. He wasn’t cut out for television. He decided he would write a book. That would be his path to fame. He would write a book about his cat or maybe he would write a book about something else and dedicate the book to his cat or maybe he would get a tattoo of his cat on his chest and wait for the studio to call for a reunion show.

*

I went to a store today.  I am poor.  Sometimes I don't even like to buy a big gulp at seven-eleven because I don't want to waste the dollar.  I like to pay in pennies when I go to seven-eleven.  This upsets the workers.  They are middle eastern.  I try to make the pennies stand in neat little stacks of ten.  I think maybe the workers would like small talk.  I have no idea what kind of small talk they prefer.  Maybe they have a dog.  I ask.  They do not have a dog.  Maybe they are lying.  I do not want to follow them home to find out.  I ask if they have been busy today.  They say, "No."  They do not waste any syllables when they say, "No."  I could take a lesson from them.  I am always using four or five more syllables than I should when I say, "No."  It is more like, "Um...Well...I think maybe...nah."  It is not even clear if I mean "No."  When people ask me if I am coming to their birthday and I don't want to go, but answer in the described manner then the person often thinks there is a good chance I am coming and a strong possibility that I will be bringing a big gift.  This makes me feel guilty.  I begin to feel bad that this person thinks I might be coming baring large gifts.  It is this guilt that ends up forcing me to go to this party I don't want to go to.  I bring a small gift.  They act happy and do not tell me they were expecting a big gift.*
I was at a store.  The store was not seven-eleven.  It was a book store.  There was a poetry book by the guy who fixed my floor.  I picked it up.  It was 100 pages.  It cost $14.  I began reading it.  Some of the poems talked about stealing groceries.  I thought maybe the author wanted me to steal this book.  I wish he was still fixing my floor so I could ask him if I should steal this book.  Then again, I am not entirely sure the guy who fixed my floor wrote this book of poetry.  If he was still fixing my floor I would ask him.  He would either say, "No," or he would say, "Yes."  I used to think those were the only two options.  I do not know anymore.  Maybe he would say, "Yes," and give me a book.

*

The guy who fixed my floor came at 7am.  The landlord said he would not show up until 9am.  I was still sleeping.  He knocked on my door.  He said he was the floorman.  I did not ask for his credentials.  I believed him.  I think there was another time he fixed my floor. When he was finished I think he left a note.  If he did leave a note it said, "Your floor is fixed.  Sincerely, floorman."  These are his words.  He is a poet.  After he knocked on my door and reintroduced himself and I believed him we went into my room and looked at the erupting parque flooring.  It didn't seem like real parque.  It was brittle and I imagined it was from the clearance section of the flooring store.  I did not ask him to replace the broken parquet with organically grown parque.  The floorman was intimidating.  I was just glad he was willing to fix it.  I took one last look and then went in the living room and sat down on the couch.  I checked my internet.  This meant checking emails, blogs, messageboards, emails, blogs, messageboards, emails, etc...all day.  Sometimes what I saw inspired me and I wrote a sentence and then changed it and then deleted it because I didn't like the outcome.

*

When I went to the book store today I read the first two sections of the book and then left the store.  I thought a lot about whether stealing groceries translated into stealing the floorman's book.  I thought about this as I walked to my friend's office building.  They did not own the building. They just worked there.  When I went inside they weren't there.  I looked out the window and saw one of her overweight coworker's getting into their fiancé’s car.  I went out to dinner with them once. I did not want to talk to them.  I wanted to run home instead of talking to them.  My phone beeped.  There was a voicemail.  I do not remember it ever ringing.  I listened to my voice message from space.  I liked the idea of recordings of people saying my name floating around in outer space.  I do not think this is the way voicemail works.  It does not work this way because I did not invent it.  The message from space or from unanswered phone call prison said that I would have to go to the movie alone.  I knew this would be the message before I heard it.  I left my friend's office building.  I walked back to the book store.

*

The floorman did not finish my floor until 10pm.  I felt bad.  I think his head hurt from the glue fumes.  His poetry suffered.  I imagine him trying to write poetry after he got home and had eaten a vegan dinner.  The results made the world cry.  All he could do was touch his forehead to the keys of his keyboard.  He did not leave his room for 40 hours.  His boss called and left six messages in space.  All the parque flooring was coming up.  The whole city was suffering from tiny earthquakes. People feared their kitchens and bedrooms and even the occasional dance floor were being invaded by tunneling vermin.  One basketball team almost had to cancel their entire season as a result. Fear throughout the city grew. They worried these were the end of times, hell bubbling over.  Many people watched Ghostbusters and cried and committed suicide. The floorman no longer wondered if he existed.  He worried he existed in too many places.  The local news called him a growing problem.

*

I began reading part three of the floorman's book.  It did not seem like he was a growing problem.  My fingers were a little sticky.  I used the bathroom.  I did not want to ruin the floorman's book. My fingers were no longer dirty. I looked at my watch. I remembered looking at my watch when the floorman didn’t leave before 10pm. I do not own a watch. I draw on my wrist when I wake up. The movie started in fifteen minutes. I had to make a decision about the floorman’s book of poetry. I could finish it in the store, steal it, or buy it. I had no money. Time was running out. It was almost time to go to the movie alone. I did not even have money for this movie. I would tell them I was a great reviewer and had chosen to review the movie I wanted to see. This would help explain why I was going to the movie alone.

*

When I finished part three I did not know what to do next. I couldn’t remember if the floorman ever left my room. Maybe he is still working on the parquet flooring. I do not know. I should know. I slept in my bed last night. My bed is in my room. I should know who is in my room when I am sleeping in it. I sleep with a fan on because of the glue fumes. I regret not asking for organically grown parquet flooring.

*

I decided not to go to the movie alone. I stayed in the bookstore until it closed. I finished part four of the floorman’s book. I wished there was a part five. The employees in the store asked me to leave. The lights were turned off. I wondered if the alarms were off. It was too late to put the floorman’s book under my shirt. All the employees were watching me. The registers were turned off. I did not know what I should do. I wanted to run home. I wondered if the off-duty employees would chase me if I stole the book and ran home or if they would go to the bar and spend their wages and go home drunk and fall asleep on their flooring and not realize this flooring is trying to signal to them that the end is near.

Noah Cicero made me cookies. Noah Cicero made a big box of them and sent them to my publisher and my publisher sent them to my mother and then when my mother came down to visit me this weekend she brought them and we ate them all. My grandmother and my mother and even my girlfriend, we all ate them. They were maybe the best cookies we had ever eaten. We ate them on the train and while we were walking to the little Italy section of town we ate them. Then we ate them while trying to decide which restaurant to go to which was really a tough decision because why did we need to go to a restaurant when we had such delicious cookies. Then this logic dawned on us and we didn’t go to any restaurants. There was a library book sale across the street so we went there instead and everyone got a book. My mother, my grandmother, even my girlfriend, we all got books. And we ate Noah Cicero’s cookies while we did it. Then we decided it would be a shame if we didn’t eat at an Italian restaurant while we were in the little Italy section of town so we went back across the street and sat in the closest restaurant. And it was good. It was good because we had Noah Cicero’s fucking cookies. We didn’t even eat the bread they gave us. I threw a slice at a pigeon sitting on the window sill. Then things got really strange and I wondered if I hadn’t eaten too many cookies. I don’t really know. All I know is that people in the restaurant started clapping and the Navy came marching through and this guy started talking to us about things none of us wanted to talk about. He was a dirty old man and he said everyone was attractive but me. He said, “Aren’t you a bunch of pretty ladies, what are your names?” And everyone said their name except for me. I said, “Why don’t you go back to your table,” but he didn’t leave. Someone asked his name and he said, “Tom Selleck,” which damn near made me reach across the table and punch him out, but I didn’t because I was afraid the Navy might come back through and mistake the situation as me beating up a poor innocent old man rather than what it would have actually been, me beating up Tom Selleck. It was at this point that I understood this other Tom Selleck wanted Noah Cicero’s cookies which was very distressing because my grandmother was holding the box and I was worried she might offer them up to this dirty old man. And then this man, this fake, broke down and began crying right in the middle of the restaurant. And we all asked him what was the matter, but he didn’t answer for a long time. Then after he wiped away all the tears he said his grandson didn’t believe in America’s pastime and would rather play lacrosse. It was obviously an attempt to gain sympathy and ultimately get one of Noah Cicero’s cookies, and for a second I was worried. I was worried because my grandmother began rambling about how she once saw Jackie Robinson’s first major league game. Then she pointed at me and said, “He’s got Babe Ruth’s autograph.” I was sure an offer for cookies was about to be extended, but then I remembered she had never been to Brooklyn and the closest thing I had to an autograph of Babe Ruth was an old clipping my grandfather had cut out of the paper honoring the passing away of good old George Herman. At this I knew she was playing this other Tom Selleck for a fool and he seemed to know this as well, but there was nothing he could do. In a last ditch effort he tried to reach across the table and shake my hand, but my mother swatted it away before it even got halfway there and my girlfriend even got into the action by throwing the rest of the loaf of bread at this other Tom Selleck’s head. And that’s when he walked off and left us to enjoy our meal, even though it mostly remained untouched. We all played with our plates a bit, toying the noodles with our forks, but mostly we just passed around the box of Noah Cicero’s cookies. And then the check came and we were all about to go when I remembered, I don’t have a publisher which meant there were no cookies from Noah Cicero. “Fuck,” I said and the Navy all looked at me as they came marching back through and my grandmother and mother and even my girlfriend covered the shock looks on their faces with their hands. And as I looked at them I realized I had been the only one not to eat my food.

As for Noah Cicero I’m not really sure what to say. Maybe its best not say anything at all or maybe I should just say that his latest book, Treatise, reminds me of what they said about Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You, “Dolphins aren’t sharks, but they would eat my feet too,” or maybe it’s best to not to compare it to something it isn’t and instead say, “Treatise is obviously something, but I think it says its nothing or at least disguises itself as nothing and this is where it becomes something that is nothing. It is a book (something) full or nothing (something that is nothing)”

Maybe this book is not a masterpiece, but certainly it is worth a read or two even if you’re not really reading it and only looking at your hands…I really don’t think Miranda July would mind. I went down to the basketball courts today. They were wet. I played anyway. I wasn’t very good. I kept missing the hoopnet. My roommate played against me. He made quite a few shots. I lost to him. I do not like to make excuses. I was just bad. There was nothing good about the way I played. One time I shot the ball at the hoopnet from less than five feet away and it didn’t touch anything before rolling out of bounds. It was probably one of my worst games this year. When my roommate scored the last basket I took the ball and threw it over the fence, into a playground. This was immature. I felt pretty stupid when I had to jump the fence and go pick it up. There was a girl babysitting a small little tumbler. The tumbler must not have been any older than a two-year old boy. I wonder what this babysitter thought when I picked up the ball. At the bare minimum, she must have worried for a second or two that I might try and pick up the tumbler and throw it over the roof of a nearby building. I didn’t. I picked up the ball and went home. When I got home I thought about reading a book. I don’t have any books, but I figured it might get my mind off my poor performance if I at least pretended to read a book. I went on the internet to find a book that I could pretend to read. I found one. It was called No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July. It was hard to pretend to read this book. I mostly just looked at my hands. After a couple of minutes I was bored with this book. I was dirty. I needed a shower. I decided to take a shower. I wondered if the book was waterproof. I took it to the bathroom. I turned on the water and stood in the tub pretending to read Miranda July’s book. It was tough to read the book though and get clean at the same time. I ended up dropping the book in the water. I thought maybe there could dolphins in the water that would eat the book, but then figured they’d eat my feet too. Dolphins aren’t sharks, but they would eat my feet too. When I got out of the shower I was wet. Then I picked up the book and thought, “This book reminds me of the artistry that the narrator from Lesley Arfin’s book Dear Diary creates eliciting empathy rather than groans.” I began to towel off and thought about combing my hair, but didn’t end up doing it.

Dear Lesley, I once offered to eat Michael Ian Black’s new book. I will not make the same offer to you. Oh well, you have to deal with it. You’re book is older than his. He never got back to me. Do you know Michael Ian Black? I would like it if you did. Tell him I will eat his book one page at a time (I will read each page front and back, then I will eat it). So, anyway…the diary nosebleed book. Never judge a book by its cover. I don’t know it feels right. I would like to judge your book so much by the cover that I punch myself in the face and give myself a bloody nose. Maybe that is the offer I will make to you. I will punch myself and give myself a bloody nose if you send me your book. I should make another offer. Hammers pound nails. I heard that today. I did not eat a hamburger, but I would have if you sent me your book. But this is a review right? Right. I was in the bookstore the other day and I saw your book and read it. I picked it up flipped the pages like I knew what I was doing. I think I’ve done it before. But really, this is a personal letter to you Ms. Afrin. Someone told me not to be a fan boy. Okay, listen I doubt your book offers a lot. I think I would rather punch everybody I went to elementary school with than read your book. Let’s think about that a bit. That means breaking into my old school and getting past records and then I have to track down all these people. Think how long that would take. It would take years. I would still rather do that than read your book. Bloodying my former classmates sounds like a good time. Better than anything I’ve done in the last five minutes. I haven’t done anything in the last five minutes except three pushups. I’m so weak. You could spit on me and I would fall over. That is a lie. I’m so strong. My former classmates better watch their backdoors when they go to sleep at night. So anyway Leslie send me your book to read. I’ll punch myself in the face. Also, I wanted to make some obscure reference to the Melvins, but I didn’t feel like opening up my melvins folder on the computer and pressing play so instead let me say that I once saw them and didn’t appreciate it. Oh, the Melvins. You like right?

There’s a mailbox outside my door and one day I opened it and found this chapbook inside from Shane Jones and Chris Killen and then I remembered emailing Shane Jones on the internet to request a copy because I had read on this same internet about how he and Chris were doing this collaboration where each of them would take a Thomas Pynchon title and write five poems/stories under that title. Shane got Gravity’s Rainbow. Chris got Mason & Dixon. Some people think Chris’s five stories are funny and that Shane is the serious brother. I don’t know if this is true. I’ve never met either. I just said that because I was going to link to someone’s review, but I don’t think I am anymore. I think this review will have a few links. I don’t want that many though. I don’t want to hit extra buttons. Also, this series from Chris and Shane is now sold out. That is why I am offering bootleg copies of the chapbook. Propose a trade in the comments section and I will send you a one of a kind illustrated copy of Chris and Shane’s chapbook. Things I like to get in trades: old party balloons, things in wrapping paper, kazoos, and pictures of your toothbrush in odd places.

There’s something special about Justin Hyde. Maybe it comes from his late entry into the world of poetry, but I hesitate to give you all that extra biographical bullshit on who Mr. Hyde is. His poems offer enough, even if half the things in them aren’t true. I can’t tell if they are or not. I’m naïve and tend to believe most things I read. After reading Down Where the Hummingbird Goes to Die I have this idea of Justin Hyde as some social worker who has been known to drift around, fucking around with small drugs, but mostly likes to drink and think occasionally about cheating on his wife. I’m probably wrong, but I do feel like each of his poems is meant to be a little snippet of his life. In a way I kind of wish I had discovered Justin Hyde ten years later than I did. By then I imagine he’ll have a couple more books. It would have been nice to finish this book and move on to some others, but I’m stuck waiting like everyone else for the next one. I guess this is a good thing though. Note: Justin Hyde has contributed to Thieves Jargon numerous times.

Dear Michael Ian Black, I have not read your new book My Custom Van. I have not bought your book. I probably won’t do either of these things. I am sorry. I am poor, but I do have a proposal. I will read your book…if you send me a copy of the book. That might seem like a pretty shitty deal for you because you’re basically giving away your book and get nothing in return, but I am not finished with my proposal. My entire proposal is this: I will read your book one page, a day at a time and when I am done with that page I will eat it. I will rip the page out of the book (or if you prefer not to have your book destroyed I will make a copy of it and eat the copied page). I will only do this though if you send me a copy of the book. Now this seems like a pretty good deal for both of us. I get to read your book and you get to watch me eat your book one day at a time for 244 straight days (the book is 244 pages long). Now, I was a little curious to see if I would do significant damage to my body if I ate paper, but it appears (at least to two out of four answers at yahoo answers) that eating paper won’t cause damage. So that’s basically the proposal Michael Ian Black. Please get back to me if you are interested in accepting my proposal. I figure each day I will make a video of me eating the page and post it on youtube as evidence. This could work. Maybe it will start a huge trend of people buying your book and eating it. Then when this book sells out you can reprint a special edition that is edible. The possibilities are endless. So once, again the proposal is you send me a book, I read it, and I eat it. I probably won’t eat the cover. That’s not part of the deal.

Sincerely,

Mark Baumer

Spencer Dew’s Songs of Insurgency is the kind of book I expect and hope to see more of in the coming years. Twenty-odd stories coming at you in just over a hundred pages. Shorter seems to be better these days thanks to this thing that everyone is letting into their house. This thing is kind of weird because it sucks out your brain if you click for too long or at least that’s what old people who don’t let it into their house think. There’s a pretty good chance, if you’re reading this right now that you’ve let this thing into your house too. Some people have called it the internet. Other people like to pluralize it and call it the internets. I think it’s a preference thing, neither is right or wrong. Okay, so back to Spencer Dew, I enjoy his stuff. The only thing that I didn’t like about the book being short is that I wanted more. When I first picked it up and started reading it I thought, “Yes, this is it. This is what I’m looking for in a book. I’m giddy.” I wanted to eat every page after I read it. Well, not exactly, it was more like light was reflecting off the page and then was interpreted by my eyes and my brain in such a way that special chemicals were released into my body that made me feel good. I’ve never experimented much with drugs other than aspirin, but this book made me feel better than aspirin ever has. Read more here...

Read a story by him at Thieves Jargon

Let me first say this. The New Layman's Almanac is dedicated to two people: Robert Pinsky and the memory of Kirby Puckett. Now, I’ll admit I know little of the former other than he helped translate the copy of Dante I read in college, but Kirby Puckett (post-career allegations aside) might be one of the most lovable characters to play baseball in the last twenty-five years. That’s what makes this book so great. Some stuff is going miss. It might breeze right over you, but he’s able to keep you drawn in with his willingness to relate simple memories, many of them sports influenced.

I mean so many of these hit right at home for me. “A guide to Alternate Histories” made me remember my own introduction to the song “Basket Case” and how the kid who sat across from me in fifth grade gave me the tape because his parents would let him listen to it because it mentioned masturbation. And then there’s “The difference between St. Valentine and the 1994 Olympic Hockey Schedule” which made me remember being in the locker room for my own youth hockey game during the Canada-Finland shootout and how my hockey coach had a Paul Kariya rookie card in his breast pocket because everyone from the state of Maine was cheering for him after he went to our University for a year and won us a national championship. And then there was my Dad saying afterwards that for years to come kids in the backyards of Finland will be pretending they are Tommy Salo stacking their pads.

Read more here...

Jacob Mooney is an editor at Thieves Jargon.  Get a taste of some of his work here if you want.

this is stupid, i love you is a publication put together by Brandon Scott Gorrell and Chelsea Martin. I have never met either of these people in person. One day I hope to crash their wedding and say, “Hello, I am from the future. I am your child.” They will probably say, “How did we make you?” I will begin to tell them how sex works and they will stop and say, “No, how did we make such an odd person? How did we make a creature that looks like an unkempt Jeff Bridges hatched from an ostrich egg?” I will not have an answer for them. Instead, I will admit the truth and steal some cake. Maybe I will eat it there and they won’t bother me or maybe I will run and they will chase me. The story ends happily ever after. I don’t believe we were at that point yet though. I wanted to talk about their wedding night and how everyone threw Oreos at them as they rode off on their little motorbike. Maybe it would just be me who throws Oreos. Anyway, when they finally reach that spot of romantic togetherness I hope to jump out of the closet again and say, “I am someone’s child, but I am not from the future.” I will also give them their wedding present at this point. A copy of a publication called this is fun, let’s eat cake. Here are a few glimpses at what TIFLEC will have to offer the reader. Songs of songs of songs found rewritten the sun rose: "Happy sunrise on your head…Wishes for enjoyable wagon rides in the park even if it rains or birds shit all over the sidewalk…I’m on your brain while creepy airplanes bring you to worlds with different kinds of ant hills…subtracting one out of the bundle of numbers I gathered from a calendar store the day you left…letting my inkstained fingers play piano on some old college ruled pages from my institution days…there’s a seat in the old café where you used to pray on the last day of the week…sometimes I put it in the microwave so it doesn’t get cold and the owner of the café tells me not to do it again…when you return I will say, “Hello, it is so nice to meet you again. It is a pleasant day. What is your name? I have forgotten….” And you can make up stories about how nice it was where you went and how you made thousands of friends…my head makes good medicine...It smiles that you are on creepy airplane coming home…Letters to first grade teachers: "Hello, you are probably old and don’t remember teaching me the alphabet. You are the first person I called, “Mother” who wasn’t my mother. I accidentally called you “Mother” one day when we were gluing construction paper shapes on top of one another. No one except you noticed. I still started crying. You took me in the corner and wiped away me tears and licked your fingers. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. It doesn’t seem that wrong to me now…" Ode to my toothbrush...I keep you in my back pocket most of the day. When I’m nervous I put you in my mouth and chew on the plastic and the bristles. I’m not better than a little cookie that ran away from home and ate the treasure map of a mediocre pirate and then got eaten by the mediocre pirate’s bald parrot…The end...I have yet to read this is stupid, i love you. You can order it here. I will have a full review when I get my copy.

I don’t know a lot. So it doesn’t surprise me that I don’t know who Ryan Seacrest is. I don’t know who Dave Housley is either, but this seems a little more acceptable because no one’s ever told me Dave Housley is famous. I do know who Phil Housley is. My dad said he once saw Phil Housley at the grocery store buying cereal. My dad watched him picked up a box of Shredded Wheat. Our family’s been eating it ever since. I don’t really like Phil Housley as a result. I would have much rather my dad had seen Chris Chelios buying cereal. I bet he eats Frosted Flakes. As for Dave Housley I bet he eats Cheerios in the morning. And then he goes over to this Ryan Seacrest’s house and mows his lawn. While mowing his lawn Dave sees Ryan Seacrest eat something stupid like waffles. Some days he’ll come out on the front porch and say, “Hey Dave, great job. Keep it up buddy.” Whenever this happens Dave stops what he is doing and goes out back to piss in Ryan Seacrest’s pool. Other times he goes into Ryan Seacrest’s woodshed and writes little poems. These poems or short stories have been collected into a book. I bet you don’t even need me to tell you the title of this book. I bet you already know what it is.

Once I was in a bookstore or a bookshop. Let’s say it was yesterday that I was in this bookstore or bookshop. There was this book on the shelf and I thought, “This looks like a great book.” I picked it up. I dropped it. That was an accident. I turned it over and looked at it from all the different perspectives. I counted five different perspectives (the minister perspective, the little doggie perspective, the alien perspective, the homeless perspective, and the inanimate object that sometimes gets mistaken for something real with thoughts and feelings perspective). Here is what each perspective told me: The minister perspective didn’t tell me anything. It kind of just stared at the book and mumbled. A little dribble fell from its lips and it twiddled its thumbs after a while. The little doggie perspective was interesting because it was panting and excited and seemed to want to run around and bark and claw at the rug and be cute, but its sense of literature was very limited and barely brought anything to the table that I didn’t already know in terms of this book—[Note: I guess I should tell you what book I grabbed. It was Submarine by Joe Dunthorne.]—and the dog also expected me to throw it the tennis ball for a half hour which was really inconvenient considering we were in a bookstore or bookshop. The alien perspective was probably the best of all. It totally degraded the idea of written words and kept questioning how we hadn’t been able to figure out the intricacies of telepathy. The homeless perspective was the most courteous of all and seemed to be genuinely intrigued by the book, going as far as opening the front cover and reading the first page. The inanimate object that sometimes gets mistaken for something real with thoughts and feelings perspective was boring and probably only interesting in theory.

After an hour of deliberation I have decided not to follow the words of John Niven and I will not “Kill my friends.” The only reason is because tonight I went out for pizza with one of these friends and they gave me all their pepperonis and brought me a straw for my Yoo-hoo. I am a simple man and small things like this please me…eh, I don’t like where this review is going. First off, I wasn’t drinking Yoo-hoo. I don’t like it. It tastes like watery chocolate. I don’t know why I lied. Second, my friend only gave me a half piece of pepperoni and fed the rest to the owner’s dog. Third, it isn’t exactly true to say I will not kill my friends because I’ve kind of already killed them all once.

When I was a young boy growing up in the Midwest I had seven friends. Their names were: Hickory, Stitch, Milo, Elvis, Frenchy, Wilborn, and Hilda. They were all Barbie dolls and I shaved the hair off all of them to make them boys except for the one named Hilda. I had found them all wrapped nicely in a giant bin on the corner of our street outside the supermarket. On the way home I named them. It was like an early holiday party. The reason I cut off all the hair is because I had asked for GI Joes for Christmas and not Barbie dolls. Anyway, I was kind of bored after giving them haircuts because none of them came with guns so I decided to attach them to the tree in our living room. I wrapped little pieces of string around each of their necks and fastened the ends to the fir branches. Just as finished my mother walked in the room to see the added decorations I had put on the Christmas tree. She shrieked and took them down. She immediately asked where I got them and when I told her she grounded me for the rest of the year and said I probably wouldn’t get any presents from Santa. I didn’t know what happened to the dolls after that. I cried. A few years later I learned what a noose was and realized I had accidentally hung all my friends. I kind of shrugged it off and tried to remember what I got for Christmas that year. My mother had just been bluffing about Santa not showing up.

I have to commend Toby Litt because if I tried to write this book it would be called: I Tried to Play Drums in this Band Called The Wednesday Pancake and Bologna Sandwich but Then They Realized I Didn’t Know How to Play Drums and Kicked me Out of the Band. So Toby Litt gets a little head nod just for being able to play drums, but I’m really not sure how much of a compliment I should give him because when you get right down to it my girlfriend’s brother can play drums and my roommate has a drum set in storage and I know this other kid and he has like three drum sets and sometimes he brings one of them on the public bus and tells the bus driver to eat himself when they try and tell him he can’t have the drums on the bus. Okay, the last part about the drummer and the bus is made up, but the other two are true and seriously if I wanted to write a book called My Girlfriend’s Brother Plays Drums in a Band Called Yo La Tengo then I could. Even if my girlfriend’s brother is only in high school and probably has never heard of Yo La Tengo and would just be like, “Yo la tengo? You have it? What’s it? What do you have?” or maybe he wouldn’t say something like that because he’s failing Spanish right now because he feels like the whole standardized schooling isn’t that important when you got a pair of drums sticks and the skills to use them. So, I guess if my girlfriend’s brother doesn’t work out then the book would be called something like, My Roommate Has a Set of Drums in Storage but Never Plays Them Because He’s Too Busy Getting His Ph.D. in Economics and Doesn’t Even Have Time to Pick up His Dirty Socks Off the Couch or Clean Out the Ash Tray So Instead He Puts His Cigarette Butts in Our Potted Plant in the Living Room and Now the Plant is Dying.

Anyway Mr. Litt, I hope you continue to sell more records than this crummy book.

Note: Okay is not a real band.