The Gods Did Give Us Orgasms

Last month I ploughed through Sid­dhartha, for the first time since tenth grade. Then I fin­ished The Eth­i­cal Slut (only took me a year). This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to bracket sex and spir­i­tu­al­ity, and I’m, like, the last per­son on the planet to argue they’re not, pos­si­bly, the same thing.

Indeterminacy

The last few weeks I’ve been going to see some Clas­si­cal on Sun­day morn­ings. Sort of. The group who puts it on, Sun­day Chat­ter, fea­tures a poet, and at the start of the month, my boy J.W. Basillo fea­tured. And wouldn’t you know it: they’re doing a Steve Reich cel­e­bra­tion. I love Steve Reich; I’ve been jam­ming to “Proverb” and “Piano Phase” for years. “Marimba Phase” live was sick. So what an awe­some sur­prise last Sun­day to see a hand­ful of John Cage pieces in the mix. If you know any­thing about Cage, it’s prob­a­bly that he’s the lov­able ass­hole who gave us 4’33″. If you’re not famil­iar, the piece was first per­formed like this: pianist…

Crafty Thoughts on True Blood

Stay­ing in your father’s house is hard on a grown man. It’s fun to adven­ture your way through – say hi, catch up, eat a few meals, and be on your way – but as a six-​​month sojourn, it’s a threat to my iden­tity. I’m los­ing my days to campy, vampy, mediocre TV.

The Purpose of Stories, 3

Let’s take this dis­cus­sion back to the book. I’ve thought a lot about porta­bil­ity lately, and even about own­er­ship of words. Maybe the only way the story I’m writ­ing will sur­vive its book­ness is for me to release it entirely. My ver­sion of the story is just one. Yours will be next.

The Twilight Zone

After all my grip­ing about the Amer­i­can fear of dream­ing, I’m watch­ing sea­sons 1 – 4 of The Twi­light Zone on Net­flix. Man, did Rod Ser­ling change the game. But for all its suc­cesses, I think one essen­tial ele­ment of the show lets us down. It’s too bad; one of the greats could have been a true titan.

Dredge Poetics (Full Text)

Well, it’s been deliv­ered. The mighty Bren­dan Con­stan­tine also deliv­ered a deli­cious lit­tle lec­ture, and it was an honor to open this new com­mu­nity series with him. Here’s the full text. If you like or if you don’t, please say so!

Time Capsules

An orphan from the lec­ture I’ll deliver Sun­day at 3:00: We devel­oped our need and knack for sto­ry­telling by pass­ing sto­ries over gen­er­a­tions. Over time, a story gets stripped to its nec­es­sary ele­ments. It becomes portable. I’ve started won­der­ing lately if the sto­ries we write, includ­ing mine, are too com­plex for their own good. Too com­plex for portability.

More on Ishmael

As the book relaxes on its haunches a lit­tle, sev­eral things are still bend­ing my head back: Quinn’s a prod­uct of colo­nial cul­ture, dis­cussing con­quered cul­tures. His take on Gen­e­sis and the Gar­den is heal­ing my child­hood. And his nar­ra­tive pow­ers are prob­a­bly the most impor­tant craft I could study right now.

Mother Culture Croons All Night

This week­end I began recov­ery from read­ing Ish­mael. It’s hard not to won­der how we’re sup­posed to move for­ward from this damn book. Quinn him­self, in an author’s note at the back, refers to it as much more than a book.

Criminal Elistism

How many times has this hap­pened? You want to deepen your under­stand­ing of some­thing. You get a book. You start read­ing. The writ­ing is so dense, or need­lessly com­plex, you can’t get through it, much less enjoy it. This is crim­i­nal elit­ism. Shit’s gotta stop.