5¢ense Sensory Lit/Art Musings and Peregrinating Responses

¢ Rick Moody, Kate Hill Cantrill and David Hollander reading at the Sleepingfish Launch Party

To honor the launch of the new Sleepingfish issue zzz, we had a reading. For those that didn't get a chance to go, here's what went down under the Hotel D'Orsay sign in the Barbès backroom. [ ... ]

¢ From New England (Redux) to Africa by Way of Ancient Greece: Gathering Bookish Momentum & Sleeping in the 3rd bed (in the spirit of Carver's "Neighbors")

Last weekend was a weekend of shifting. Shifting weight. Shifting focus. Shifting cities. Shifting states. Switching places, figuratively. Shifting priorities in anticipation of our big move. Saturday morning, B and C came by in a U-haul and picked up [ ... ]

¢ Cover and opening excerpt from Marsupial: Our Mother for the Time Being

Back in 1994 I had the opportunity to work on a film in Nice, France called Mr. Stitch. The film ended up being a complete fiasco, but for me it was all the more interesting in that respect. It was written and directed by my cousin Roger Avary. Not that I'm particularly proud to admit that... for me it was a good opportunity to spend time with my brother Kevin who was the art   [ ... ]

¢ As Sure as the Sun: Northern California Roadtrip

Last week Jess and I went to California. We went for a wedding in Yosemite, but here's some other stuff we saw along the way. Jess put some pictures on her site as well.   [ ... ]

¢ Interview with Venus Bogardus: On Ohle, Punk, Smart Resilience, Kaspar Hauser, Art Rock, Repoman, P. Gabriel circa 1975, Blade Runner, Repatriation and Utopia, Texas

Venus Bogardus is this band out of the UK that has taken it upon themselves to put David Ohle's words to music. Their latest album Motorman is in fact a collaboration with David Ohle. [ ... ]

¢ Seeds, Fertilizer & Credit: The Economy of Words II, Revenge of the Bookeaters and a Proposition for a Slow Book Movement

As a writer and publisher (nocturnally), I couldn't help but to think of the parallels between agriculture and book-publishing, despite one being driven by necessity and the other, you could argue, being a decadent privilege unnecessary for survival. In particular, he kept stressing the importance of three things: seeds, fertilizer and credit. These three things were the key ingredients   [ ... ]

¢ Skyping to Tokyo & Minor Robberies: A Peregrinating Response to Deb Olin Unferth

I started reading Deb Olin Unferth's Minor Robberies a few months ago, then my wife got robbed and I started a new job and got distracted by a string of other things. I hadn't been able to finish it until the other night at 1 a.m. when I was stuck waiting for the subway. There's a few stories about robbery and travel inconveniences in her book. It's a pretty little green book. [ ... ]

¢ The Stigma of Googling 'Birthday Suicide'

What sticks out most was this guy trying to sell me stolen watches that he had all up his arm and in his briefcase. He really made an impression on me. I said I didn’t need one and that I was trying to sleep, but he saw that I couldn’t take my eyes off his glinting watches and kept insisting and getting all chummy with me, asking where I was going and I said back to Portland  [ ... ]

¢ Commutation #23 : Traversing Central Park & Underground to the Flatirons (in the Snow)

We've lived in 6 different apartments in Manhattan, and I've worked (for an extensive period of time) in 8 different locations. That makes for a lot of permutations of commutes, each route with it's own permutations. I typically bike or walk, though in winter months like now I'm wimpy and resort to the subway. Right now we live on 74th street on the west side and I work on 28 [ ... ]

¢ an excerpt from Tortoise by James Leweling

It was about this time last year that James Lewelling sent me his novel Tortoise. I had the faintest idea who he was. I printed out the manuscript one insomniac night, hoping it might lull me to sleep. But I ended up reading it all the way through, finishing it as the sun was rising. It was better than sleep. It will be out soon from Calamari Press, but here's an excerpt to tie you over [ ... ]

¢ The Making of J'Lyn Chapman's Bear Stories Chapbook

It's been a while since I've made a chapbook or homemade book. I thought I wouldn't miss all the stapling and printing hassles, but in a sick way I do. The driving force of publishing for me is replication, in the sense of meme propagation. By taking a backseat to the replication process you take the human element out of it—the fingerprint smudges and frayed trimmings that remind [ ... ]

¢ X Marks the Spot :: Read on Location < 2008 (cumulative recap)

I'm not big on 'best of' lists at the year's end for books. It's hard to quantify books and I rarely read books when they come out, nor do I feel a need to be current. I ususally wait for the right opportunity to arise. In the spirit of Field-Tested Books, here's all the books I've read where location and time was significant to the reading of it, with links to the blog entry where I "review" it [ ... ]

The border crossing coincided exactly with the half-way point on our trip. I've never traveled by land across the equator. When I was young, I always thought that there would be a burning red line where the equator was, boiling in the oceans. Sadly, I discovered this was not true. This is what it really looks like [ ... ]

¢ Sled Hill Voices

{images by Derek White, associative text by Mike Topp}

[ ... ]

¢ FOALS! Live in Brooklyn at Galapagos, Oct. 19, 2007

Foals are it. They are the most exciting thing I've heard in the past few years. Jess agrees. Their sound is a jaded hybrid of Kraftwerk and Fela Kuti, with some of their own brilliant and innovative mutations infused. And perhaps nods to Talking Heads and The Rapture. But very British. Another one of these Brit bands that makes you wonder what they're drinking that we're not [ ... ]

¢ The Night I Dropped Olson on the Cat: Covering John Olson

John Olson shoots from the hip. He is not really a hippy, nor a hipster. He is not a cowboy either, though he is fond of jerky. He is fond of a lot of words. John Olson is unbridled. He is a straight-shooter that peppers his targets. His bullets are words. He chooses them well. He loads their shells with lead so they carry weight. Olson shoots these words into space. What kind of space?   [ ... ]

¢ Odd Images from The Hour Sets by Michael Boyko

Here are some images I did for Michael Boyko's book, The Hour Sets, which I just sent to the printer. I did 13 images in all, corresponding to each hour (including the 0th hour), and each chapter of the book. These are the odd numbered ones. Hour Set #9 and Hour Set #11 are up online on Web Conjuctions if you want a perspective of the texts that inspired these images. [ ... ]

¢ U2's Natural Logarhythm : Exponential Decay in the Delay of The Edge's Guitar

Ever wonder what it is that makes The Edge's guitar playing so special? In particular, how does he achieve his signature delay sound? Even before he started using a delay pedal, like on Boy, The Edge had a distinctive way of "lagging" his notes that didn't correspond to the natural linear rhythm of the song (a good example is "Twilight"). Another good example of where he hits these beautifully off-rhythm notes without a delay pedal is in "Like a Song" on War. It's almost like he's finding gaps to fill, [ ... ]

¢ My Life in Hell : The Real Deal

All these pictures and icons of everyone becoming Simpsonized lately reminded me of something... it took me hours of digging through old notebooks and pictures, but I found it. A drawing that Matt Groening himself drew for me, by hand, back in 1989, just months before the first Simpsons episode aired. So not even Simpsonized, but Binky-ized. [ ... ]

¢ Emissions from the Cosmogonic Ether } Cover, Book Trailer, and other Misc. Bin Lemmas from Michael Peters' Vaast B1n

I first met Michael Peters in Miami at a Vispo exhibit we were both in a few years back. We had come from a tour of the Sackner Archive and somehow he landed in the backseat of a rental car I was driving, trying to navigate our way around Miami. When you first meet Michael Peters, he has this penetrating stare and intensity that can be unsettling or intimidating, especially  [ ... ]

¢ Femi Kuti & the Positive Force: Live in Central Park July 11, 2007

¢ Mermaid Parade 2007: Last Call Before Coney Island Becomes Condoey Island

¢ Wrapping My Head Around Gary Lutz: Covering Partial List of People to Bleach

5¢ Interview with Deron Bauman

The following call and response took place between Derek White (5¢) and Deron Bauman (DB). Fill in your own captions. [ ... ]

¢ Good, Brother:

a short movie based on the story by Peter Markus [... ]

¢ Sleeping Slides from the Sleepingfish 0.9375 Soiree

Unfortunately the gods of technology could't conspire to get the slideshow on my MacBook to play on the video monitors at Magnetic Field, where we had the Sleepingfish launch party last night. This is a poor substitute for the original, but here's the slideshow compressed and pixelated to hell to make it suitable for streaming. [ ... ]

¢ Blonde Redhead live at Webster Hall

Two video clips of Blonde Redhead playing tracks from their new album, 23. [ ... ]

¢ Late night attempts at reading Attempts at a Life whilst being pestered by apartment-dwelling life forms

Note: As with any 5¢ense article, please note the disclaimer. This is not a review of the book so much as my own whimsical deficiencies in comprehending it or communicating how much I really liked it. Mostly it's my personal experience with apartment-life in New York City, a lame dog-ate-my-homework excuse for why I didn't give my full book report. [ ... ] 

¢ The Economy of Words: Calamari Press/Sleepingfish Earnings Report 2006

It's tax time, or at least that time of year when you tally up the damage from the year before and drink yourself silly. As the proprietor, founder, or whatever you want to call it, of a small press and literary magazine, I consider any author that has a book through it or edits or contributes in whatever way, to be a shareholder in this seafaring enterprise, thusly the financials should be "public" [ ... ] 

¢ Part of Part of the World by Robert Lopez

The following excerpt is from Part of the World by Robert Lopez which is forthcoming, very soon, now in fact, from Calamari Press. The excerpt is composed of three paragraphs. The first paragraph has 559 words in it. The second paragraph has only 9 words in it. The last paragraph has 1,664 words in it. This is not necessarily representative of the book as a whole. [ ... ]

5¢ Interview with Gary Lutz

In which words were administered to Gary Lutz and his off-thecuff responses follow. [ ... ]

¢ Morocco Field Report:  

1. The haggles, hassles and hustles of Casa & Fez

2. Belly Dancing Berbers & Barbary Apes (Fez to Ouarzazate)

3. Rocking the Kasbahs and Girdling Goat Trees (Ouarzazate to Essaouira)

4. Boats, Cats and Castles Made of Sand (Essaouira to Casa)