2 0 0 9   F L A S H   A R K H I V E

December 2009

¢ i don't BElieve in «REsolutions» but on this last moUrning of the decade amiDst falling SnOW i've been REflecting on some NATURally eMERGing trends [that have alREADy been de[n]veLoping in me] for 2010: [1] the URGE to REplicate [PUBlish or MASS produce or get more HITS, etc.] is being rePLACED by an urge to CREATE ORIGINal works—either original ART or limitED edition books printed by hands—whose «success» [in SURvival terms] & «value» is deterMINED SOLely by the object itSELF rather than by the sheer NUMBer of offspringing copies of said art or book objects which only serve to diffuse the IMpact of said originAL objet d'art | what this enTAILs only 2010 will tell... [2] [sort of RElated/tied-in to [1]] is to: LIVE life itself rather than talk about living it or TELLing others how to live IT | the encROACHing proLIFEration of «social networking» sites these past few years is breeding a viral ugliness in people [me included] to self-promote & to tell [virtually anonymous] people what to see/read/listen/eat/etc. which only serves to diffuse what was ORIGINALly interesting [about both the perSON & the subJECT being talked/blogged/twittered about to begin with][it's not so much the original visit to a place that corrupts it but the SUBsequent CUMulative unraveling write-ups in travel books/magazines that leads to «tourISM» once that KNOWledge gets into the wrong hands—the same is true of art & spelunking: it should be a privilege left to those that disCOVEred it because if you didn't figure it out for yourself then it means so much less] | it seems more & more people [including me] are becoming preOCCUPIED with telling others HOW to live at the [time-sinking] EXpense of living their own lives & at the eXpense of others discovering the great things in life for themsELVES | what this all means [for 2010] i don't know—i'm already «off» facebook & twitter, etc. [not just for these reasons but also concerns of intellectual property rights & privacy & out of sheer boredom] & so you'll be hearing less & less from me [telling you what to read, where to go, what to eat, etc.] unless you CHOOSE to come here or the calaMARi or sleepingFISH sites or yoU disCOVEr meMEs thrU SEARCH engines—but eveN then [THIS] will likely beCOME a place for original art & one-offs & the things that DIREctly inSPIRE me—a place of Creating not RElating | [3] «RE» & «EX» will henceforth be [RE]moved from my vocabulary |

¢ in lieu of an end-of-year «best of» list i upDATED my running «READ ON LOCATION» entry to include the last 2 years |

¢ went gallery hopping today in Chelsea since we won't be in this hood much longer | the Sun Xun Animals exhibit at Max Protetch was the standout  |

¢ 1/2-way through Notable American Women—on schedule—following Ben Marcus's instructions to the T—which is essentially what the book is so far [a manual on how to read the book [itself] & how language relates to food & weather] which might sound strange & self-referential & it is & worth every word |¢ took advantage of the 47°F weather to put in a 15 mile run | took me about 2 hours |

¢ saw the Urs Fischer exhibit at the New Museum today | wasn't so impressed | why do they devote so much space to such mediocre art? | yesterday we saw the remastered version of The Third Man at the Film Forum—that was $12 far better spent if anything for the cinematography |

¢ i'm finally getting around to reading Ben Marcus's Notable American Women though i've had it in my possession since it was published & now that i'm reading it i'm realizing i did try getting into it once before but was overwhelmed by all the similes making me feel once removed from the meat beneath the language—but if you can plow through the layering of «as ifs» & «likes» & all the «seeming» it's a fine world he's painting [childhood Ohio] that i want to know more about [& it's making me want to get a [black] dog too] |

¢ this is how we roll on Xmas:

¢ woke up on Xmas moUrning & read Joseph Young's Easter Rabbit before i eveN rose out of bed | some books clustter useless knowledge & words in your headpool—others like this one accumulate such disparate junk DNA & bundle it into tidy packages—objets d'art—so you can move on | or come back to them later if you like—like the I Ching or Tao te Ching but perhaps more biblical—better to build an Ark with my dear & fill it with a dog that is "47 types of brown" | here's all of «Disclose/Agape» to give you the idea: «She found a wire cage holding the skeleton of a bird. She brought it to the road and opened the wire door. On the cement, with the bones, she spelled a subtle word.»

¢ POSTing the «P.S.» batch of RUB/COL objets & an eXcerpt from Poste Restante aMIdST RE:flections on Bruno Munari & starLINGs | hoy es j & i's 13th anniVERSary—going to Sugiyama later |

¢ working on aNether series of rubBEings/collages with the Roman starLINGs as my musing vector field—inducing a new LEXicon into my PINEal codeX | here's a video collage/trailer as a sneak peak—more to come...

¢ "ran" 13 miles in 10" of melting snow & 35°F temp [with 18 MPH wind "feels like 25°F" & gusting more than that along the river i'm sure]... if you can call it "running"—more like a scrappy wolf in an energy-conserving LOPE across the tundra |

¢ FINished The Black Veil by Rick Moody | i am usually not big on MEMoirs—eSPECIElly ones that branch off on vast GENeological & HyStorical "digressions"—but MOODy manages to pull it off i thINK & then some—at least more so than Dave Eggers whose Staggering Genius is reminisCENT but whinier & more annoying | The Black Veil was more heARTfelt & Moody wasn't just dWELLing on his own problems [which we all have] for the sake of something to write about but making GENEral & noteworthy statements about adDICTion, dePRESSion, owning up to a privileged American colonial lineage, etc. | my only previous experience with The Black Veil was Dale Peck's scathing review which now in retrospect i wonder what that PECKer's agenda was | the payoff at the end of The Black Veil is worthy: "To be an American, to be a citizen of the West, is to be a murderer. Don't kid yourself. Cover your face." | as a bonus The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne [the CATAlyst/pult for MOODy's memoir of almost the same name] was included |

¢ shot of the day: Madonna neck-deep in snow in the Meat-Packing District.

¢ a few hours later & we signed the lease on the DUMBO loft—135 Plymouth—big open & well-lit space under Manhattan bridge looking out across Brooklyn Bridge to downtown NYC | beyond words | sealed the deal with Negro Modelo & Patron shots at Pedro's bar & now going to Ten Bells back on this side of the river |

¢ 17° when we went to Synergy this A.M.—so cold tHere was no MOLEcular motION eXcept for statIC | Africa is sounding real good right abOUT now | eveN when it was 15° warmer yesterday my iPod shuffle went haywire & died while i was running out on the river | now i'm going to see an «a.b.» about a loft in D.U.M.B.O.—are we destined to be trolls?

¢ reCIPE du J'our: p'LACE the piscina in «Place» for 5:28 to catch the egg drop soup, juniper BEEs, «RED, Chile» [not the food but PLACE], holdfast with leotard bandages «a dent in the dRAG protégé of the anima'L costUME», a tablespoon of PINE ANT shampoo rife with solvent IDentification [REcall eMBERs of the blue spotted spoonbill reaped with hominy] & blow excess gun-powder from the tip [in REaction: 2KNO₃ + S + 3C → K₂S + N₂ + 3CO₂] | shame with vigor for at least 20 swipes until well-chilled & frothy | remove ENtire TIN roof & funnel into the glimmer HATCH—withholding the IDentifying TAXi  cloud with a Kon-Tiki «barber straw» | [NOTE: don't use the built-in bootstraps as it will withhold too much in post-production—scoop the remaining lather fog into the glimmer & g[N]ash teeth with blackbirds & exhume Lucía, Luis & the Wolf with your own finger-bone toothpick |

¢ "Melancholy isn't about anything. Melancholy has a style or manner but no subject. Melancholy is a way of thinking, a way of thinking about thinking, and it needs to consume the sufferer and thus needs layers and stratas and veneers in perpetuity in which to cloak and conceal itself." —Rick Moody, The Black Veil

¢ a balmy 49°F [feels like 54°] | tropical depression L [originating from the African continent] is lingering—forming an inversion layer—pushing the cold air mass over Manhattan into a weak nebulous system [with low visibility & stalled tradewinds] | the behavior of this upper vertical cumulus is consistent with the predicted H [global] stratification |

¢ enter the CAMPBELL MONKEY: "The adult males have six types of call, each with a specific meaning, but they can string two or more calls together into a message with a different meaning. [...] This is likely to be a controversial claim because despite extensive efforts to teach chimpanzees language, the subjects showed little or no ability to combine the sounds they learned into a sentence with a larger meaning. Syntax, basic to the structure of language, seemed be a uniquely human faculty." [—NY Times, "Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered"]

¢ it [the ARK codeX] is not so much about the SEA but the «landlessness» left in it's WAKE | to quote Melville: "The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers." & again: "But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God—so better is it to perish in the howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!"

¢ applying «band-pass filter» from V. [stay tuned]

¢ Sleepingfish galleys from the printer...

¢ pineal [re]calibration: 40°46' N 73°54' W, 8:05 PM | dropping anchor |

¢ last day in Rome. went for a long run along the Tiber, starting at the far south end of Trastevere winding all the way through Rome, under 15 bridges, until it started getting rural/industrial with houses/squatters right on the bank & their dogs chasing me so i turned back, probably 10-12 miles on cobblestone. heading home tomorrow morning.

¢ doing as the Romans...

¢ arresting apocalyptic animal dreams for the second night running... 2 nights ago i was catapulting CARIBOU at POLAR BEAR swimming in the middle of a vast lake & last night was a mixed herd of flying animals like a linear tornado screaming through the sky. i got hit by BAT & FLYING FISH & then i was concerned about getting hit by a larger mamma'L, like BUFFALO which were tumbling out of control through the air & spinning off & hitting the ground, so i took cover in our house. while i'd been mesmerized by the patterns of anima'L flight, a bunch of anima'L took over our house... most of them left obligingly when asked, but i had a soft spot for CAMEL & let it stay. must have been the STARLING along the Tiber which i've been visiting every dusk & the fernet branca & other strange Italian aperitifs we've been drinking, as well as all the rubBEings i've been taking,  that induced these dreams, though Rome seems to have a way of inducing dreams where animals, in particular BAT, turn into herds of characters (see the last story, "Coliseum" i think, in Poste Restante).

¢ rubBEing, running & rumineating across Roma. i'll elaborate later, but for now, this is how they shower here.

November 2009

¢ ftp'ed Sleepingfish 8 to the printers. in a few hours headed to S.P.Q.R. for a spell. only (textual) thing i'm bringing is V.

¢ "Most hide behind the smile because they are afraid of facing the world's complexity, its vagueness, its terrible beauties. If they stay safely ensconced behind their painted grins, then they won't have to encounter the insecurities attendant upon dwelling in possibility, those anxious moments when one doesn't know this from that ... we are forever incomplete, but fragments of some ungraspable whole ... To be but a fragment is always to strive for something beyond oneself, something transcendent—an unexplored possibility, an unmapped avenue. This striving is always an act of freedom, of choosing one road instead of another ... The exhilaration of never knowing anything fully is that you can perpetually imagine sublimities beyond reason. On the margins of the known is the agile edge of existence. This is the elation of circumference. This is the rapture, burning slow, of finishing a book that can never be completed, a flawed and conflicted text, vexed as twilight." —from Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson.

¢ "happy thanksgiving," for what it's worth... while the bird's in the oven you can read this article about the origins of the "turkey," a fascinating twined tale of (forced) animal migration & etymology & human stupidity (who's the turkey now?). along with the "turkey," or huexoloti, you can now give thanks to the Americas & it's native peoples for giving us chiles, chocolate, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, vanilla, etc. (what were we eating before Columbus?) regardless, having 300 million people eat the same food in one day seems like a crazy idea, so we we're thinking poached salmon, new potatoes & artichokes, or whatever looks good & is in abundance at the Chelsea market. we're splitting town in 2 days anyway, so we'd miss out on the best part of turkey day, which are the leftovers...

¢ sanded & refinished the ARK. reCOMBinANT mamMOTH set Father Mast upright & now i'm just waiting for a flood. i need some new pants. & a belt loop with more holes...

¢ my estranged cousin Roger Avary is getting a lot of press lately for tweeting from jail. hopefully he uses it as a vehicle to reflect & own up to what got him there.

¢ happy 150th birthday to On the Origin of Species, the greatest book ever published even if no really needs to "read" it. happy 150th birthday to all of us kind animals, as we know & understand ourselves, thanks to Darwin (& Lamarck & Wallace). here's the page from his field notebook that spawned it all:

¢ 13 miles in 1:40, 6 minutes faster than last week.

¢ finally captured the elusive mouse in the middle of last night, the crafty little one that has been keeping me up for months. the one that ignores all the "humane" traps & must be deaf or desensitized because those ultrasonic contraptions don't bother him one bit. but last night j left a baguette out & of course he sniffed it. i heard him nibbling through the paper as i was falling asleep & snuck up on him with a tupperware bowl. this time i managed to trap him, then took him downstairs & released him in the little triangular park across the street. one day i'll have to write a book of mice stories, though this west village mouse story is not as good as the east village variation on the theme. i guess I AM writing some animal stories now, but in my ARK CODEX i am playing host/shepherd to the animals, not hunter.

¢ "For forty years we thought of death of life of death of death of life after that of death then of life, after death of death after death of life of the going away then of the coming back, we get away from it, the further away we get the closer we are we run to every window for forty years the same storm, each time we get away from it we think of death, we are giving life to death, I would say we're putting death to death my friend would say, let's not talk about it he would say, we're giving life to death, each time we talk about it let's not talk about it any more my friend would say, we don't talk about it anymore." —Hélène Cixous, Hyperdream

¢ (pronounced /tɛkˈniːʃɪəm/ ) is the lightest cheRUB eliXir with no stagehand iVory. it has been assigned nursery bin 43 and SYNagogue Tc. Mendelerek noted a GARgoyle in his taboo chamber and infused the undiscovered eliXir with the provisional nappy e k a m a n g a n e s e (Em), hence its "nappy" (from the Greek τεχνητός, meaning ARTifacial). offhand, no iVory of 43 has a half-sister-lifetime massAGE longer than 4.2 minaret yes-men, so its detection in 1966 in RED GIRDles helped bomb the thermoSTAT spreading the rumor that the stars can produce heavier eliXirs yet.

¢ NY Tyrant dished up some Evenson's Baby Leg, Doppelgänger, Dead Sparrows & Free Tequila...what more could you want?

¢ & when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ARKַתַּחְמְרָה חֵמָר וּבַזָּפֶת; וַתָּשֶׂם בָּהּ אֶת-הַיֶּלֶד, וַתָּשֶׂם בַּסּ עַל-שְׂפַת הַיְאֹר
of gHost bush dubbed in slime & pitchג וְלֹא-יָכְלָה עוֹד, הַצְּפִינוֹ, וַתִּקַּח-לוֹ תֵּבַת גֹּמֶא, ַחֵמָר וּבַזָּפֶת; וַתָּשֶׂם בָּהּ אֶת-הַיֶּלֶד, וַתָּשֶׂם בַּס
& laid it in the reeds on the river's brink" עַ"ל-שְׂפַת הַיְאֹר.[EXODUS 2:3] ּ

¢ clips from the Dirty Projectors show last night: Temecula Sunrise, Stillness is the Move/Useful Chamber & Remade Horizon... unfortunately i only got 1/2 of Stillness is the Move & I didn't have room left on my little camera for Two Doves (which was amazing) & then i think i inadvertently deleted No Intention (my favorite) to make room for more, oh well. i'm left haunted by the opening act though, Glass Ghost, the guy (Eliot Krimsky) has a voice, well, Like a Diamond, like a fucking angel...i'm getting me some of his Idol Omen as we speak...the other opening act, tUnE-YaRdS, was as if someone gave acid, 1000 cheeseburgers & a delay pedal to Suzanne Vega and told her to do her interpretation of the Lion King soundtrack...

¢ (it begins the minute) i saw a kumquat tree.

¢ "UNFRIEND" named word of the year by The New Oxford American Dictionary...there's hope for humanity yet..."It has both currency and potential longevity"...i hope this reversal continues as this world could use less friends, given what that word has come to mean...

¢ 13 miles in 1:46...7 minutes faster than last week on more or less the same route up to the tip of Riverside...

¢ [re:]devELOPing a [sea] OX sCent of sorts, i mean...

¢ Electric Flesh field report from London...

¢ if you're shopping already for my X-mas present, look no further...nothing would make me happier than a can of Manhattan Style Fish Assholes...

¢ still mosquitoes in mid-November...got stung last night while i was boarding a plane that had 2 sets of identical seat numbers to either side of the aisle..normally this apparently intentional double-booking wasn't a problem but i was able to detect [was conscious of, on account of the mosquito] my right-brained version of myself already occupying my seat...the plane wasn't full so i sat in another empty seat a few rows down from my mirror self...that's as far as i got |

¢ flipside fajita:

¢ i don't like wearing watches while running, or keeping track of distances & i don't want to get into a training regiment for the upcoming DC marathon, at least not till closer to the date [March]... but i do want some sort of benchmark from which to measure progress, to know what to expect...so this morning i ran as far as i could comfortably run [jog is the more accurate term], at a casual pace, across 13th street through meatpacking over to the Hudson, then up the riverfront, past the USS New York [with it's hull forged from 911 scrap metal], up into Riverside park [my favorite place to run in NYC], opting for the hillier trails of which there's some decent topography up there, all the way up past Grant's Tomb to the very tip of Riverside park around 125th street...i wasted some time scampering down the hill around 125th street, trying to find the way back to the river, but it appears what used to be a great loop trail has been blocked off...regardless...i ran all the way back home more or less the same route....if i map out the distance it’s conveniently about 13 miles roundtrip, or a 1/2 marathon....this morning i did it door to door in 1:53, but that included stopping at some intersections, some detours, water-breaks [though i fear they’ll turn off the fountains soon & might have to carry my own] & walking the last block, going up our stairs, etc...i’d like to & think i can shave 15-20 minutes off that time...with this as a baseline, i’m gonna run this same 13 mile run at least once a week, for the next couple of months & see if i can get more comfortable at a faster pace...to find that fine line between enjoying yourself, but also spending less time doing it...i wouldn’t want to spend more than 3:30 or 3:45 running a full marathon as that would start to get really monotonous....

¢ next & final installment from Japan...already feeling a longing & lingering nostalgia though it's only been a few weeks now.

¢ eating nuts & berries, listening to Talking Heads & reading David Byrne's post on the Internet Antichrist...sums up/captures/reinforces all the reasons i left twitter, facebook et al..."Interconnectivity has facilitated the loss of privacy of many of the world’s citizens. We’ve been liberated and captured at the same time."...it's a well-written history of the internet & digital mediazation, complete with a psycho-acoustical tie-in to the Bush of Ghosts even...for the record, privacy concerns were not so much an issue for me as artistic control [not an option on the required exit survey that "they" will use, like all your other information, for god knows what] |

¢ sneak peak [42° cross-sectional sliver representing 4% of total area] of next Sleepingfish cover [guess who's back]:

¢ did i ever mention that i once played the clarinet? was first chair in the Oregon state jr. high honor band even...it was not my first choice of instruments, not even second or third, something i was always embarrassed about and ashamed to admit actually...nevertheless, it might explain some things about me.

¢ signed up for the National Marathon in DC in March ... just an excuse to step it up ... anyone else game?

¢ i didn't own a TV until about 1996, so i missed such things as Twin Peaks... we just now finished watching all 30 episodes, followed by Fire Walk With Me... it was good, but not worth having a TV over ||

¢ neglected to mention that in addition to the green chiles we picked up in Hatch, we also got scored some [freeze-died] chipotles | took a break from the green chiles to make a chipotle-pumpkin seed-vodka-shrimp-spinach tacos w/chihuahua cheese & avocado concoction that feels like a jack-o-lantern exploding in my belly, refeeding me for days to come ||

¢ "Life apart from the page has become difficult – this, I know to be the result of self-consciousness, which in my case is a flinching from the assault of consciousness on a sensibility insufficiently armed against its painful disclosures." ... thus begins Norman's Lock insightful interview on The Collagist.

¢ ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO . . . AH H  H  si Lenci-O-O-O-O-O-O | p.s. if you got something to say, here's my email ||

¢ quit twitter & facebook, etc. it all seemed so dumb ||

¢ posted Kyoto dispatch | now going to see if we can catch the marathon ||

October 2009

¢ Warhol's Blood for Dracula takes the [blood-soaked] cake of vampire movies, though it sucks that Dracula [Udo Kier, back with a vengeance in My Own Private Idaho] had to get hacked to pieces by the beefcake peasant [Joe Dallesandro] causing j to knock our mask off the wall onto the kitchen floor & the right eye & fangy-dentures came undone, maybe that's what i'll be today, either one or both, after we see Fela! matinee ||

¢ sampling different fonts is like sampling perfumes ||

¢ "Nearly every escape from flatland demands extensive compromise, trading off one virtue against another; the literature consists of partial, arbitrary, and particularistic solutions; and neither clever idiosyncratic nor conventionally adopted designs solve the inherent general difficulties of dimensional compression. Even our language, like our paper, often lacks immediate capacity to communicate a sense of dimensional complexity." —Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information ||

¢ comPILING. aggreGATING. ORDering. getting sfishes in a row ||

¢ ... posted second dispatch from Tokyo ... [yes, Céline & smooth-running Japan has inspired me to try tipping the vertical lines over into horizontal ellipsis ... ]

¢ still [not] sleePING in the shifting shade of THE Pineal Tree [cut down for Father Mast] ... cool smell of pine sol wind on textiled skin ... Circe also unAWarE of the time zone [she's asking me to play Jackson but i play the one about trains & the man shot in Reno ]

¢ ahhhhhh... home sweet home.

¢ haven'T had internet access for a few days & pro'ly won't be online again til we're back in NYC tomorROW+. the weather is grEy & drizzzly & soulless ere in London town. i wish it was foggier intead of overcast [may as well be in the clouds instead of smothered by them]. going for a run around Hyde Park, this time 2x loops.

¢ making up for jet lag & blog lag: first DISpatch from Tokyo, posted from 1/2 way home.

¢ Day 1 [lay of the land, solo]: City Road to London Wall to Tower of London, Tower Bridge across to South Bank, Borough market, London Bridge, Waterloo Station, back across to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, West End, Soho, hopped double-decker at Charing Cross to St. Paul's cathedral then walked to Charterhouse area & city of London.

¢ London. the tube is tiny & smells of stale pub farts. people even fatter than America. had fish & chips in Shoreditch. now at a dingy Travelodge, can barely keep eyes open though it's 8 pm.

¢ 東京&の最後の日; 悲しい日本。 安らぎだけそのwe'である; ロンドンへ明日再行くこと。

¢ 私は幸運な1才である。 驚かせるすべて。 日本人はすべてについて考える。 超特急の少数で東京に戻って先頭に立たれる京都の最後の日。 そしてヌードルを覚えなさい、尊重しなさい。[gonna need a bigger ark]

¢ 京都のyo。 完全なあらゆる細部。

¢ toking tokYO.

¢ ant eggs not in season, settled for crocodile with insanely hot chilis & accompanying song & dance. headed to Tokyo today, via Kuala Lumpur.

¢ nEXT installment from Bangkok, genuflecting on Derrida's Archive Fever.

¢ deHULLing sum RICE to stow in the ARK's hull [THAIland is largest exPORTer of rice in the worLd] for the winter ahead.

¢ "i asked bEAR why they were SALUTing but he had mutated into a denIM fLAG with an EMbroIdered bear insignia & the letters: O.S.O.S.O | ALBAtross was a KITE orbyting ovahead constreigned to tight circLes | i was left HOLDing the other end of the CATGUT fLOSS that was WINDing around FATHER MAST where the O.S.O.S.O fLAG was now hanging at ½-mast" [from a 250-word piece that DIAGRAM asked for this AM for a deck of cards they are assembling, the constraint being it needed to contain the 8♠]

¢ conTEMPlating a SAK YANT tattoo from Ajarn Thoy as i've been seeing monks & men around Bangkok with these amazing ink jobs. but i dont know, angelina jolie sort of ruined it [much as i like the one on her left shoulder] & not being Thai/Buddhist it would be weird [sak yant are only done by monks after they go into a trance, don animist masks & jab you with a 2-foot needle] i did get this cloth vest thing though with similar designs that i gave to j. the textualizations/symbols are particularly mesmerizing, hard to get a straight answer what it all mean though as they are in Khmer script: [].

¢ first dispatch from Bangkok, reading Rivka Galchen & Norman Lock.

¢ บาร์โค้ด:

¢ skytrain to subway to rivertaxi to reclining buddha. now to recline by the pool reading Derrida.

¢ ordered "fish noodles" thinking FISH referred to what accompanied the noodles, only to discover the noodles themselves were made of fish. my best guess as to what came with these fish noodles was sliced pig pancreas.

¢ th' full name for Bangkok [รุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยา มหาดิลภพ นพรัตน์ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สัะทัตติยะวิษณุรรมประสิทธิ์] is th' longest city name in th' world. it translates to "The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukar."

¢ Bangkok ' Sukhumvit #22. arrived & gorged on green papaya & kaprow & tom yum & morning glory that blew our stomachs & minds. managed to cobble a dozen catnaps together ' woven into staring at th' Bangkok skyline from 30 stories up ' to form a semblance of sleep. as soon as th' sun rises headed out to th' floating market.

¢ leaving tomorrow morning for Thailand & beyond | dispatch from our last trip there ' less than 10 months ago but seems like ages already | books i'm bringing with: Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen ' Shadowplay by Norman Lock ' Village of Stone by Xiaolu ' Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami ' The Procession of Mollusks by Eric E. Olson ' This is Not a Novel by David Markson Archive Fever by Jacques Derrida & Electric Flesh by Claro | i'm sure by the time we get to London i'll be scouring bookstores for more | follow me on twitter for the play-by-play ||

September 2009

¢ Tentative line-up for Sleepingfish 8: Émilie Notéris, Dennis Cooper, Anna DeForest, Evelyn Hampton, Ryan Call, Cooper Renner, Alec Niedenthal, M.T. Fallon, Terese Svoboda, David Ohle, David McLendon, Amelia Gray, Stephen Gropp-Hess, Rachel May, Matt Bell, Julie Doxsee, Sasha Fletcher, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Brothers Goat, Stephen Hastings-King, Elliott Stevens, Blake Butler, Eugene Lim, Diane Williams, Lito Elio Porto, Adam Weinstein, Daniel Grandbois, Ali Aktan Askin & perhaps a few others forthcoming. Shaping up to be quite an issue.

¢ EXODUS 8:2: " ... behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants and upon thy people, and into thine ovens and into thy kneading troughs."

¢ pillaging BC/AD for "a sno-coned sea bass to honor the upside-down horseshoe ... diffusing the rattlesnake under the fig tree, the mongrel sucks abumen & salt water taffy from the garter left on the stoop... " & "(x)ing to board the 7-train clutching a 4-leaf clover (in a funk), her c-section becoming un-sutured right before the After(math) ...reali(zing) yo-yo(ur(self)) are in the cycle all the way back to colon or even noah's ark ..."

¢ anether beak wHetting i/o)VERSEas [no backgROUNDed st. REDIation-a-ling or NØThinge eLs u need to kNOW [exceRpt strickly OUTput nø i] modeL]:

¢ CURRENTly once reMOViEd ' wONDEring if WANDering 1 leVel deeper brings U back to th' same pOint [surFACE] | i.e. is [wondering if: [wondering if: [wondering what's th' point]]] = [wondering what's th' point] ?

¢ [A dialing instruction [from the ark manuscript] to whet your beak]: #0010: Search for thy Bushbaby (hint: look up on the Father Mast at full moon) & ask of it: "Bushbaby, Bushbaby, here am I. Draw not night on me. Pull out thy shoehorn from thy foothills, for the placebo thou gave birth to is home to groundnut." When given to thee by the seA'RChingene, peel back the skin flap, let it bleed some & set its origin as thy immediate destination.

¢ 1 week 'til we hit th' road agaIN [i'm stowawayfaring in j's baggage]: Bangkok & Tokyo & London | eSPECIALy exCITEd about th' latter 2 as i've never be'en | that's wHERE you'll find us come October ||

¢ "There is no difference between what a book talks about and how it is made. Therefore a book also has no object. As an assemblage, a book has only itself, in connection with other assemblages and in relation to other bodies without organs." —Deleuze & Guattari

¢ they eVen KEELed this ere ribship w/a LUNestA beam deSIGNed [for MammaL only] to stemulate th' PINEalgeLAND DIRErect ' but i haven’t notched that cog nETHER & now its accUmmUlating passages & th' mannequins have begUn to multiPLY d'accordingly ||

¢ "Literature is fiction not because it somehow refuses to acknowledge reality, but because it is not a priori certain that language functions according to principles which are those, or which are like those, of the phenomenal world. It is therefore not a priori certain that literature is a reliable source of information about anything but its own language." —Paul de Man, The Resistance to Theory | |

¢ fEELing SETTled is UNsettling | need to steer clear of th' ZOMBie FEEDback LOOP ' which acCORDing to Robert Smith? [not of THE CURE fame ' but th' mathEmatician of sewage ' disease & zombie fame ' that yes ' legally appends a ? to his name] is:
                                                            
where S=Susceptible humans ' Z=Zombies & R=Removed elements [thx bags ' er CRwM, for th' tip] | |

¢ in acCURATE CULLing of 29 CHARred copper coINs & FIGurines w/ spIDErs inSide them CULTivated to The Cure's Figurehead : "a 100 other words blind me with your purity..." | | |

¢ this moUrning manHATtan smells good of fruIT lotion just BEyond RIPEness ' bey ond reache of IDentification | 0000 000 | is it just ME ? REading th' 293rd SUBmissION for th' fish 'nough SAID | | |

¢ mystOry ARK is DEnVeLOPINg a LATHEr LANdom WAKish FINnish to it: e.g. "waxenwench at her prow for a figurehead, the deadsea dugong updipdripping from his depths, and has been repreaching himself like a fishmummer these siktyten years ever since, his shebi by his shide, adi and aid, growing hoarish under his turban and changing cane sugar into sethulose starch (Tuttut's cess to him!)" sea wHAT i mean ? nøt tHatIVE EVEN FINnished deCONstructing th' ARK | a kNEED to REreAD & set th' keel | | |

¢ eyeScanning [& mutating [memetic drift]] th' detritUS of th' WAKE 'n th' AFTerMATH "fo SCRIBEnery w/th' satiety of authors in S.P.Q.R.ish & inFORM to th' old sniggering PUBlicking prESS & its nation o she-sheepcoders," a bad rap fo GOATs & no SSES nor calaMAR nor CORPUSsy but a new SATOR TENET: [to com ... ] oh & th' BLACK didn't realLIE take: if at FURst u don't SucEED try aGain | | |

¢ FINally POSTed th'  fUll-blowN disPATCH from our X-country shift whil st reading Deleuze & Guattari | | |

¢ dYing th' follICLEs coming from me HEAD bLACK ' JUST becaUSE i can [10 mins til rinse] | |

¢ "The only literature is that which places an explosive device in its package, fabricating a counterfeit currency, causing the superego and its form of expression to explode, as well as the market value of its form of content." [Deleuze & Guattari ' a precursor of dispatch to become] | | |

¢ "i hear crosstalk now ' coming thrU the WIRE | one voice tells me yes ' the other is a LIAR | & I know there's a bell to crack" | | |

¢ Although it is traditional to perFORM soundtrack caLIBrations ["check, check, I do"] in anesthetized ANIMAS by placing a proboscis-tuft scope near the tympanic memebrane pit ' these TIC METHods are not SOUND at high stink FeRET caLIBrations where HERRing must be quantified in the mouth | hence me motivation to continuously [re]dEVElop a nother ARK exposure using the mucosa earthworm cannibal as coupler | | |

¢ WHO IS de là HIVE caged into thinking bioGENEsis 101 WILL in FILTrate kitsch in SINK ' a testament in Her own wORDs [subMISSion #b100000100]: "wild en orgy ' abs ORBed [S1P3d] by MOLEcules begetting bOLEhules begetting cameL bOREhOle ' maniFESTering insides more comPLEX & ever more un till th' SOUP d’epoque biFURcates" [means while the MOuse climBing the Tibetan prAYER WHEELhouse hang ing from the doorknob to get at th' SMELL un till inteRRUPTured not sticking in the G000 is EVEr eVOLVing in rockSTEADier than 0U1 | | |

¢ ¿EARRING cAGEd° | SILenci0ed n ÷'ed 'n mY heres[@what freQUENChy?] | | |

¢ The [sea]GULL is not a [sky]LARK: avant SEAmen have a RED shad ow of doUBt so Brook lyn CHIMeney CRICKets know where to worm & 'n what order [PASSeriformes v. CHARadriiformes] to indeuce PARadishes to reGURGitate pARvenu [linear] dugested footprints [TRANS inDIFF SURorder: rake the redDOT & the jokers aLIGNe ' issuing forth [star]fish GARrbage & BELL y countents from th' beak [slot ] ] |

¢ WORDS dreamt last night [not the images or events but just the SOUND of the words isolated from any meaning]: "A wet one on top was the way she traded. Dated were the rest, faded faux fur and cotton mesh. She came before I was ready for her. No lark." [This was the first night we slept with our ultrasonic speaker sounding to the mice.] The [N + 1,2,3] version filtered through the Oulipo amplifier: "A wet one on topic was the weakling she traded. Dated were the restaurant, faded faux furl and couch mess. She came before I was ready for her. No larynx."

¢ BEen SIFTing CalaMAR i & eating eggs & green voodoo chile & upDATaing th' [printABLE] caLamaLOGue ' SLAZHing ∀ll z0R°Ts o' price$ ' like MARsupial from $18 --> $13 if you procUre DIREct from CalaMAR i & here's a nother SECRET [be knOWNst only to yoU whO speak 5¢ense]: i have Boons & The Camp in my poSSESsion & thOugh the *official* site says PRE-order for NOV 1 ' I'm only saying such b'cause that's the ridiCULOus habit of th' pubLISHing inDUSTry [& we'll also be tRAVELling most of OCT so me body won't be able to full fill re quests ' but IF yoU conSUME beFore OCT 1 THEN ere's no PRE 'n *SELL & it WILL BE 'n yoUr own possessION IMmediate | | |

¢ As a serIOUS yarn madhouse ' OULIPO's notorIOUS "N+7" proCESSion is arguably a crybaby ' a coping oUt yOu might say ' but in memb rane the ludicrous & offenSIVE neckTIE of Failingboomerang or Twitcher it is perfectly legitIMATE [necessary even] ...& when conSIDEred in LIMB of memetic cOIN BELT mutated ' that is a kinder garten of how it HAPpens 'isn't it? eSPECIally with some INTImation and GARgoyle-filling | Warthog: do not use before falling asleuth [my own drifts were shifted N + N + [N +∞]—[V +∞; even] inducing sum serious conifer ' CULminating in my CUDgel dropping her Blackbevy from the sleeping LOGistic when the alcOVE sounded 09.09.09 |

¢ SUM sort of █ █ █ █ sN ake a ga IN [ n° r a t t l e n° d a n g e r ] failLLow ed by traVOIS of ±66° Â-frame R00F [ streudeled sideWAYs [ ferry to █ █ █ █ █ IS land not ] on █ █ █ scheMulE yes terd ay° ] | | |

¢ [ [ s s e [ s T I L l h a t C H i n g p L A N d ] F o r T h ' 5 t h ▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒ [ ▒▒▒▒] ] :  " ▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ & ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒" ] | | |

¢ calCULUsed th' specTRAL deCAY e paRAMeater N+1 [in dayz] us ing E iNvents [z0.5–0.9375] & ƒ < 10 000 Hz [HU mane ultrasonic] HATCHing 'Nchil adas in th' beehind of th' rUpt UREA | | |

¢ iNVENTorYing & CATALoggINg fore wha+'s 'n stORE y [Boons & The Camp & ALL Cala mar i 's 'n th' hoUSE ! ! ! ]

¢ sWEaTy & oUt of bReath from run ning ' 7 am ' tranny HOOKer outSIDe Crunch proPOSEs "hey sweetie ' why work out when we can HANG out?" | AFTer workout looked wHere she was stANDing & there was just the upSIDEdown sOLE of a sHOe | | |

¢ ∃"███M█ ▓▓▒░ ▐E"▕[|▏▎▍∏ ▌▋▊] + ▓▒█▓▒░▉ H ∩ B "▋ ▌EBE  ▍▎E +▕ i! ¶ "▐ █▓▒░ ▋▌ ▐▕ L ▏▍  █"  Γ°" ██▓▒ +█▓▒ ░████▓▒░ █▓▒░ ∑ ▌██ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░░░  | | |

¢ DESTINatYon is oveRRateD | get ting +here 1 way o a n()ther ' CIRcuitIOUSly o viCARiousLY | NEXT ∃XIsT: re:SIAM ' jaP0N & lonD0Ndres' ... BOOKed ! ! !

August 2009

¢ H(0,0)ME w/all worlDly POSSESS ions inTACT ' Hatch CLAMs 'n ICEBOX | sUM 200+ Fish in th' SleepingHOLE | back oUt ' la ying HORi zontal to FINish Deleuze & Guattari aMongst bOXes of CalaMARi | full blOWN disPATCH upON reCOVEry | | |

¢ (0,0)RIGINallY we thoughT to head up via the Black Hills ' bUt w/time con sTraints we though T other wise | noWe're esSENTially UNdoing the X-c0untry rOUTe we took 13 monTHs a go iN getting to Nairobi | noWe're a bout 1/2 way sumW here In diana | | |

¢ 1717 miles down ' 2320 to go | 16" CARgo tRuck LOADed w/ all WORlDly pos sessIONS + [still 3/4 emp - ty] last SUpper of pozOLE & gr CHILE ' lea ving AlbuQUErque in the AM ' NxNE | | |

¢ long rUn a long roUte 66 [ i n #onor of # i n nu tat too ] out past Tijeras ' usING dead rattlesnake for a necktie ' breat hing high mountain piñONy air ' fOLLOwed by farm-to-fork green chile cheese omeLET [ get ting high off supply ] | | |

¢ ALBUqueRque | roasting & sHUCKing 2 burLAPPED BUSHels of green CHILEs we P/U'ed in HATCH ' then packing on ICE | ETA back in NYC 9/1 | HIT ME UP if yoU want to parTAKE in bountY ful har vest | | |

¢ RUNNing a long the RILLito River ' er ' WASH [ sand WET but not FLOWing deSPITE TORRENTial MONsoon YESterday ] | need for speed PROMPTed onLY by minimizing SUN expoSURE & CREOsote conTACT high | at the FINish line a hand-written SIGN at Dickman's Meat on ORAcle reads "WE HAVE ALLIGATOR" | is it just me or is everYone outSIDE of NYC on Crystal Meth ? R.I.P. Andreas ZINI | | |

¢ a QUick early mor ning "run around the block" = 4 MIles in Tucson ' AZ | this ' AFTer dri ving thrU Death Valley & Vegas at 113°F | 1000+ MIles be hind us ' 2000+ toGO | | |

¢ ExSE from INITial CONDITions of BAY in to W I D E   O P E N    E X  P A N   s   e  | | |   |     |        |            |

¢ Hit th' Golden Gate & Half Moon Bay [CLAMs & AnCHOR stEAM] YESterday ' to day GATHe ring mo mentUM from th' SEDENtary & FAMILIAr reserVOIR of TH' BAY to head out TO morROW | the whirlwindPLAN: E thrU Sierras & Mono Lake ' into Nevada ' S thrU Death Valley ' may be VeGa$ ' diag thrU AZ to Tucson ' E thrU HATCH to AlbuQUErQUE ' swITCH from car to truck ' P/U our POSSESSions ' N thrU CO to SD ' Black Hills ' Bad Lands ' E to Detroit ' P/U CalaMARi fruit cellar stash & visit bro Markus ' then E "home" to Meat Packing ' NYC | if yoU'Re on the WAY ' holla' | | |

¢ What the Irreversible Free Path Delineates: stILL SUMs up how I fEEL in the BAY AREA ' eVen now sum 20 years lateR | I do love JUSt the sOUND of it: THE BAY AREA ' in sOme nondeSCRIPT town neighBORING wHERE I GRADuated from high school ' wHere GOOGLE now presides | "Memory can be corrosive if you let it" | Tweeting more things as theY HAppEN if INterested in th' gran u lar blOw by bLow  | | |

¢ Early morning flight to SFO. Only consolation to waking up at 4 a.m. is free upgrade to first class.

¢ Last day o work  in the septicSHITshow ! unlESSS I get trapT for gooo d  'n that zenO [7.5] ELEvator to Malkovich's head | any1 HIring ZAMBONi dRIVERs ?

¢ Continuing th' thREAD  wh'ere I left off '  in my diS'Section & RECONstruction of lanGUAGE & SYNtax ' prACTicing what I pREACH  [you shouldn't just USE lan gauge ' you should constantly REinvent it as you go along] ' there's a length y  eassay in th' latest Puerto Del Sol enTITLEd: "Network Subrealism: Sketch of an Emerging Trend" | in whIch ' Keith Nathan Brown puts my Marsupial & Ben Marcus' Age of Wire and String at th' forEfront of a new liteRARY movement  he dubs "Network Subrealism" . . . | | |

¢ last night's inTERROGation: Q: what you in for ? A: coloNI ZAtion [code Ait SE] | on an IRRElated notE ' on Radiohead's inTENT to nEVEr make aNother ALBUM [ORIGIN early 17th CENT: from Latin ' neuter of albus 'white' used as a noun meaning 'a blank tablet']: SUCcumbtion to intELLEctual lAZINess | a writer DEclaring only short stories ' NO NOvels | w/ the inDUSTry to bLAME | | |

¢ apPLYing final EDits to Ohle's The Camp | EDITing upside-down reMINDs me that images through eYe are alREADy "upside-down" & brain flips em RIGHT-side up for yoU | if you wore glasses that flipped everYthing upside-down after a few days your brain would compenSATE a & flip it again to be "right." And when you take those flipping glasses off EVErything would be upside-down again | shit's true [see Long-term Adaptation to Prism-Induced Inversion of Retinal Images ]

¢ "p53 is a 393-amino acid transcription factor that binds its consensus DNA sequence through high affinity interactions to control the transcription of several sets of genes. Some of the genes regulated by p53 include regulators of apoptosis such as Bax-1 and also inhibitors of cell cycle progression such as p21waf-1 and GADD45. p53 can also transactivate genes involved in the metabolism of reactive oxygen species. In addition to its transactivation properties, p53 can repress a number of positive regulators of cell growth or survival, such as c-fos, c-jun and bcl-2." (from Expression of the p53 Tumor Suppressor Gene Is Up-Regulated by Depletion of Intracellular Zinc in HepG2 Cells)

¢ Just saw You, the Living. Worth it for this one shot alone.

¢ Dogville groSSed $1.5 million in US & $3.2 million in Italy | goes to show Italians are more interested in the American condition than Americans are | the only thing that would've made the movie better is to have the end song be Dead Kennedy's Kill the Poor rather than Bowie's Young Americans | other wise WOWville ' Lars von Trier is GENius | | |

¢ dentIST appt this AM |my eXtrEME fear of dentISTs alleviated by presence of his black dog HUNTER who licks feet & hands whilst under the drill |||

¢ I lied | when I saw the sURGEry notes [after the fact] I reaLIzED it wasn't a Freshwater EEL in my bRAINcaSCADE ' but a SEA LamPREY ' CRUSHing my SECRET | | |

¢ Th l v ntr py a s t f equ l li e J kd w sy b ls ( uc s t e dig ts 0-9 n ta le r nd m u b rs s Q r z log rit m he b s 2 th n m e o ym ls n th se . Th en rop e Eng is lph be ,is ab t 75 pe cen red n ant nd th t sh d e po ib e r con truc glis t xt if ev ry ot er l tte s os r ch ng d ue t n ise o b g s h x d s o ion. S e a so, Ko k bu ra.

¢ a] bRAMBle, rubUS IDaeus, having RED berries of AggREgATED flesh NODulEs on a GONical receptacle. b] this RASPberry. c] this cOLOR red.

¢ I found a can of EthiOPIAN grounds & Animal Biscuits® in the kitchen | the windows of the kitchen were caked with HOARfrost & RIME so you couldn't see OUT | an affixed POS-IT note said ' “remember to seal (after the fact) in pineal tar” | Holy Goat ate the note & belched another tinny tonal sequence || |  |  | |  |  ||  | ||  |

¢ Random search terms that brought people here in July: are hermit crabs allowed to be taken on greyhound busses, size of bed using for geriatric, someone rang my buzzer and woke me up, cultural tourism thesis mermaids, zombie monkeys, derek white left the sky cracked open like a confetti-egg bleed, unbearable quietness of the nights, do camels smell, stop me from committ suicide, exercise sex with dog, i lied at the border now im held up all the time, man gets a blowjob from his pet snake, pulling parasites from the body dream, sick bear art, people cocooned in pantyhose & bottomless holes around the world locations.

¢ J is due back from Ethiopia this morning. In celebration, Amharic is the language of the day:
Although I forgot to mention yesterday's esoteric language of the day, which was Inuktitut: Makes you wish you were born in an igloo, doesn't it? Although if you wrote a book in Inuktitut, there'd only be 35,000 people in the world capable of reading it.

¢ By my count, there are 24+ languages in the world with only ONE speaker left, 8 of those in the US: Bikya (Cameroon), Bishuo (Cameroon), Luo (Cameroon), Katukína (Brazil), Lakondê (Brazil), Sabanês (Brazil), Yámana (Chile), Taushiro (Peru), Záparo (Ecuador), Coos (US), Kalapuya (US), Klamath-Modoc (US), Miwok-Plains (US), Nisenan (US), Pomo-Southern (US), Serrano (US), Wichita (US), Pémono (Venezuela), Mapia (Indonesia), Punan Batu (Malaysia), Bandjigali (Australia), Margu (Australia), Wulna (Australia) & Laua (Papua New Guinea). Think about that. A language with two speakers is also something to think about, there's another 20+ of those. There's 473 languages classified as "nearly extinct." More on endangered languages.

July 2009

¢ Took my new New Balances for a VIRGInal run on the rIVEr in the RAin | I have foreSAKEn PRE's swoosh for N ' but I'm keeping the STACHE | in +++ to BURRitos BEing a unit of TIME (slight digressION from 2 days ago) / TACOs can be used to meaSURE diSTANCE: 1 TACO = 1 MILE | this / in the summer of 1000++ TACOs |        |     |   |  | ||

¢ Jorge Rojas is an artist living in Brooklyn that I went to Jr. high school with in Guadalajara, Mexico. I “ran into” him recently on facebook, a friend of another friend from a completely different circle, after not seeing him for some 25+ years, only to discover that he also sports the luchador mask. Starting tonight (7/30) he is taking residence in an isolation chamber at the Diaspora Vibe Gallery in Miami for a week, with a live video broadcast 24/7. Why? In his words: “In each installment of the My space project I explore three main issues: how technology is changing the way we communicate; how we view and interact with art and each other; and the importance of these processes in art and in our daily lives.” Pop in and give him shit, I know I will (as chiva_guad).

¢ Not BEing "at SEA" didn’t stop ME from EXEcuting the SENTENCE from S&S EXPEDITING: "if: anyone asks” ' said COOLIE LOACH ' handing me a bulging MANila enveLOPE ' "then: say you have a way with THe ANIMAl" | |

¢ Trapped in an elevator again today. Lesson learned, time can be measured in burritos. I also learned today how even the illiterate can sample fonts across all the letters of the alphabet (spoiler alert, don't read the title).

¢ from the alMANac ARKhives: while it's tempting to eat the best fruit, these are the ones to cull for the next crop.

¢ Beeen lettting the Mold of Scorch Atlas <span> into my bRAIN tISSUE | If EVEr tHERE was an alleLEgorical [SIC] deVICE for insomnia it's the SEABED in Seabed | though bLAKE doesn't spend eNOUGH time tHERE || I 'd like to seE a wHOLE fuckING noVel rooted on his sea- or lakeBED left from oceans long sIphoned off |or at least as a [dysTOPIan] PLACe [alBEit rendered dULL] you can breathE OK </span> It's the anti-theSIS of what I'm doING w/my own natURAL hySTORIES in which the ATlas is flooded 100s no ah 10000s of floooors aBOVE the llast SKYscrapers but | inEVITably- FIGuratively- the same eXacting scENE | Not that I'm sleePING- I REaD SEABED at 4 AM & not that I'm writing my own Natural Hystories unlESS that's what tHIS is | w/Allll this rAIN bUNCHing AGaiNST my [J stilllll in Africa] windOW you might thINK so |   |  | || |||

¢ Posted some images and video inspired by and for David Ohle's dueling novellas: Boons & The Camp.

¢ "The secret of literature is thus the secret itself. It is the secret place in which it establishes itself as the very possibility of the secret, the place it, literature as such, begins, the place of its genesis or of its genealogy, properly speaking." —Derrida

¢ The indelible realization:

¢ "No, not only have I noticed a prudent, understandable and doubtless well-founded silence, the lack, the lapse, I shan't say the slip {lapsus}, but rather the ellipsis which in its flagrant absence cuts, like a fault line, through the semantic landscape of an entire generation of vocables." —from Genesis, Genealogies, Genres & Genius: The secrets of the archive by Jacques Derrida. Hence, in the last hour before going to get ink done I tagged on a "GEN".

¢ Must not [TEXTual] strucTURE have a GENEsis & must not the origIN | the poInt of geneSIS | be alREADy structuRED in ORDer to be the genesis of the SUM [∑] of constituents BEfore? [via DERrida] apPARENTly I must BE having sum SORT of EXISTential criSIS.

¢ jESS just TXTed from S.P.Q.R. LAYover | now in AIR to ethiOPIA | Now herE is just me & the birdSEED mouse | Sad. Eating jerSEY BLUEberries & drinkING EthiOPIAN HORSE Harrar | If U want to kNOW what it's like to FLY EthiOPIAN from hERE listen to Dirty Projectors STILLNESS IS THE MOVE.

¢ ConFIRMed SKIN reMAPping over ULNA | set for SAT w/aLEX ... a CATGUT TACO w/FIXings (all 26) for the NEXT EXIT:

¢ HYPERsensitivity to ATmoSPHERIc presSURE | hERE || surROUNDed | by SKYscrapers || | INT.ernal BAROmeter doubling as 3 AM alarm | zzzING | + MICE in the MESS GALLey PROOFing our noctURNal EXISTen¢e.

¢ CONsidering subMISSIONs for the NEXT SLEEPingFISH | iSSUE 8 [OCHO] | co-EDITed w/Gary Lutz.

¢ partICLE & animaL are the PLAYers. I'm DONning a monKEY suit, DENim bLUE, what a QUAntum MEchanical zooKEEPer WEars.

¢ sTILL unEASy sLEEPing pERCHed in the NOOk of this ginKGO TREE w/fISH+bones on bREATH TIP-tonguING SYNaptic NODEs in JAw crook + kNee Pit | LIMBo Still | AFTer aWOKE & ran aROUND World Trade Center site | STill a hOle w/tack+uglY Koons (oXYmoron I know) "sCULPture" | NOTHing to SEE peOple move on.

¢ DON KEY XOTE's sadDLE hIKEd up my skirt, cLINGing, flASHing "Lizard Marmalade Direct (10+)" on sight [whilst dWELLing on oSCILLoSCopes in the frUIT CELLar].

¢ a pEEL to the sentENCE | SEXing back [SIDing | forGETting PAGinatION] for to CULL w/ FINger millET gLOVEs [N= 1 FELL sWOOp] EGGing on | mILKing 2 blooD oRANGE RESin tOMB ROSes to POMegRIND RED, s/he sAID, aBETting a PORTisHEAD 3 beLAY.

¢ BroLo sprOUTed a FORKed GEOgraphic tonGUE, tHAt snAKE FUCKer. The bLAKE effect SCORCHed my ATLAS [span]| | apPLY fEATHerPROOFing  || [AFTer repLACing nACH|o tonGUEs w/ saSHImi faJITas on ave A [after juICING a bOON/cAMP CENTerFOLD]]. BoBo BIRD is BACK w/ the sACHs, rePLACEd by a MILLet-tonGued mOUSE tHAT REcRACKed my PINEal gLAND at 3 AM. WoRD was the BIRD, now IF only the MOUSE would sprOUT wINGs & FEED inSTEAD of thESE DAMned moSQUITos.

¢ inSERTing viNYL SPIDer SPINdles [45 RPM] to BOON/CAMP. HEELing ACHilles in RIVEr STYX & GNAWing CUTTLEfish BONE to KEEP FANGs sHARPenEd to GLEEn PLANKton [for to bLEED tri-CYClic kaYAK rickSHAW FIST].

¢                                    

¢ PIER [00101000] x [0111] base-2, past a SYNtheTIC MUFFed pigEON [sl//+ +//gr genotype], ERIE LACKAWANNA port, rust, M-tug [same TUG line we used to sLEEP over in PortsMOUTH], LILAC barge, lady LIBErty, eLLIS isLAND, etc. [PIER 40 is my new outDOOR tREAD+mill= PAVEment, n0 peOPLE & views of hudSON].

¢ CockLES pardoned us for linguiNI vongoLE. PAWNed parROTlet was in on it, cackLING with his MILLet & chILI brEATH, folloWED by pALM cuddLING & TRUe BLOOd. Is this happiNESS?

¢ The ARCheoLOG cITe JunCTions were SHROUDed in scafFOLDing so I trUDGEd the crosSECTion of CONcrete RIVEr aVOIDing JAguar. My FACE fLUSHhed the cOLOrs of a baBOON buTT unable to LEVy the FLOOD.

¢ CUT TO: East African desert. My family is foraging for food. My brother is killed by a leopard. Then we are unceremoniously driven from our water hole by another tribe. Defeated, Jess and I sleep overnight up on a lofty cliff. Waking at sunrise, I find that a monolithic 24" iMac has appeared at the foot of our cave. We approach this iMac shrieking and jumping. Soon after that, I realize how to use the slim aluminum keyboard as both a tool and a weapon. We can now kill animals and eat meat.

¢ Top ANIMAL searches in JUNE: giraffe (489), elephant (299), leopard (296), ape (86), mancoon (73), sheep (61), zebra (54).

¢ Full blown beRAMBLings on June of limbotic REpatriotation. overHAUL and ARKhivaL in honor.

¢ [The 5 is before the ¢ is because the bird typed it i swEAR.] Before PETting the PARROTlet, i ran 66 STREET blocks, 3 AVE blocks & 1 PIER, RT. NOW i'm LETting the PARROT type: [& now that I'm letting him type, he fell asleep on the keyboard].

¢ PREpaRING to CAST a HEX teNET spELL [24 --> 42] COVEring oHLE BIRd BooNs [RT UPside dowN & backWARD to the HOBO CAMP, BitchES].

¢ Tonight (7/1, 7:30) at Abilene's Bar in Brooklyn, Andrew Zornoza will be launching his new novel, "Where I Stay," from which this excerpt was from.

June 2009

¢ Duncan Barlow is the winner of the Marsupial map give-away. He's the one who sent me a story scribbled on an air sickness bag with an illegible return address that started off like this: "There, in the dark of the water, they swam until their limbs grew tired & they swam some more. The turbid waters crested into b___ white clouds, which came asunder as the sea attempted to right itself. They remembered no other way, nor could those before them. They were born to this the way ___d is born to the body, as if from nothing and continually swimming..."

¢ I went fishing last night off a high bridge using the tip of my pinkie finger painted with black nail polish as bait. I got a bite that pulled the line down into the water. Then it was pulling out towards the horizon, and then angling up into the air—I could only assume that a bird or a duck had eaten the fish that had taken my fingertip bait. Then it came loose and I recovered the chewed on fingertip with black nail polish, still on the hook. I wasn't disappointed—this is what I was after, the idea of it being in the fish's mouth that was in turn inside the bird, the surprise of it all without having to deal with the death and the mess. I threw the pinkie tip back in the water and it drifted into a SCUBA diver. When he started to examine the hooked pinkie I let go of the line—I didn't want it traced back to me. I'm thinking this had a lot to do with Michael Jackson, but I would never say that it if I was calling this literature.

¢ First full paycheck in a while. Bunkering down and banking.

¢ The more time I spend here, the more surprised I am that everything manages to still be here, every morning, in this shape and form, the more astonished I am at the ideas that survive, of the hypocrisy of it all.

¢ On the way to work this morning I wandered into William Wegman shooting a Weimaraner in Washington Square.

¢ The Marsupial map is still up for grabs. I only received one sincere response, sent postal (you didn't specify what it was, but I'm assuming it was a reaction to the map) written on a laminated airline barf bag—thing is, the return address is smeared and not legible because of all this rain, and you didn't include you name, but it's someone in FL 32205. Identify yourself and send me your address and the Marsupial map is yours. Otherwise, I'm open to other reactions.

¢ splICING RE:combinANT, for to build a ribship ∀ ALL animaL Nside: ∃XIT row 13 [1101], se:wing the ZERO paraLLEL RIND ⊥ to the ARCing meridian.

¢ Even though Fearless Vampire Killers is way campy, it makes it even more tragic and sad considering its real world implications. In the end Tate bites Polanski and they "spread their disease to the rest of the world," including me, and the Bad Brains (channeling Manson): "The bourgeoisie had better watch out for me. All throughout this so called nation, we don't want your filthy money, we don't need your innocent bloodshed. We just wanna end your world. Well my minds made up. Yes, it's time for you to pay, better watch out for me. I'm a member of the F.V.K." Now I'm dying to see Sharon Tate's F.V.K. Playboy spread. May their unborn child R.I.P.

¢ Been back 20 days and it's rained every one. The water is rising, 20 more nights to go before I pull up anchor. Last night we Let the Right One In. Now I know how Joan of Arc felt (@petehoekstra).

¢ .

¢ Bored to sleep at work, then trapped in an elevator (did I mention I work on the 7 and 1/2 floor?!), then caught in a downpour (despite forecast of foggy with a 40% chance of carbonara carciofi), consumed black linguini with calamari (at "FRANK NOT Frankie's," which would be a better name for a restaraunt), then smoked cloves wondering what place is best suited for vampires (Guanajuato takes my cake, but then again you have to eat it too). Brought home an Unsaid brick that will lay the foundation for my summer reading.

¢ Unsaid launch reading at KGB tonight. Be there. I'll be there even though we haven't been "home" for dinner since we've been back.

¢ Broke down and bought InDesign CS4. Fumbling around trying to figure out what's what, how to print things upside-down and whatnot.

¢ To celebrate Marsupial's first birthday, here's some clippings, one of which I'm giving away to whoever can come up with the most interesting interpretation.

¢ Sleepless, woke up to the smell of crescent moons wafting up from below. The thunderstorms from two nights ago left the sky cracked open like a confetti-egg. Went running along the new highline, then south along the Hudson til I could see Ellis Island through the fog, hitting every pier along the way.

¢ Got the job, start this morning. I feel like it's my first day of school after a very long summer vacation. Caught David Byrne in Prospect Park last night, sort of, could barely see or hear him there were so many old hipsters picnicking for the sake of something free. He played at least one song from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, but it was hard to tell. And there were all these dumb interpretative dancers all wearing white like he was. Like most things, you're better off youtubing it. Went to Barbes after, site of the last Sleepingfish launch. Speaking of launch parties, 6 more days til Unsaid.

¢ Called in for a second interview at Scholastic. Guess this means I should go get some shaving cream and nail polish remover. I have a feeling my permanent vacation is coming to an end.

¢ Watched more TV yesterday than I have in all of last year before that, making up for lost time. Watched Federer win at Roland Garros, then a rerun of Nadal beating Federer at last years Wimbledon (which I missed the end of because I was busy getting a tattoo), the Prefontaine Classic, Woods winning the Memorial and even the Lakers vs. Orlando (the first and last NBA game I've seen this season). Free high def is a curse  to reading, hopefully it's all out of my system.

¢ Domestic duties on the homefront, until our credit was denied. Puma sweatjacket (zippered pockets) from Modell's. Combination of Bristol and Copenhagen lines at The Container Store (my favorite store in the world). Painted my fingernails black with nail polish from Ricky's (camouflage for our new Meat Packing/Chelsea home). Wolfed down meatballs at Piccolo Angolo. Now it's down to business, (thinking about my next ink job).

¢ Second morning in the meat packing district. Had an interview yesterday, hopefully I'll get a job without even looking beyond facebook. Followed by dinner in Hell's Kitchen at Hell's Kitchen. This morning I gave an offering of a goat on behalf of clusterflock.

¢ Bivouacked our first night high up in our nooky loft. Felt the leopard, though I had anxiety dreams I was gonna fall from our perch. Woke up to the smell of cinnamon and pastries wafting up from the bakery below us. Off to hunt in the misty rain.

¢ Woke up & ran around the park. Found out I didn't make the NYC marathon lottery. Went & signed the lease on our new apartment on 13th st & 8th ave & Greenwich. Bought some sheets & pillows & towels & a french press. Moved all our stuff, 5th floor walkup. Went & got sushi. Drinking proseco & unpacking. Couldn't pirate any wireless but there's a cord coming out of the wall that I'm uploading this through. Ready for a summer in the village.

¢ Back in the city drinking cheap wine in the rain.

¢ Taking the early train to DC. Don't stop believin'.

May 2009

¢ Jaded reflections on last days in Africa.

¢ Back in the U.S. Back in the U.S. back in the U.S. of A. Landed at 68th & CPW (after terminal 4 JFK & dinner in Harlem). Gonna take a running spin around the park & later going to a wedding or something at Tavern on the Green. Need to find shaving cream (confiscated) and a suit. Hallelujah!

¢ Gloomy and cold on this, my last, day in Nairobi. About to cook my last meal, all that I've left myself, 3 eggs, salsa and brown rice. Then to the airport. See you on the other side.

¢ One night in Nairobi, one night sleeping on a plane to Dubai & then I'm home free. Wherever that may be.

¢ Dark clouds building. Spending my second to last night in Kenya up on Banana Hill where I'm selling our saloon car to Logo & Leadbelly. Speaking of bananas, just sold a photo of bicycles carrying bananas (that Jess took) for $75. On my exit visa I'll put banana goat pimp as my occupation.

¢ I'm not the only one waiting for something to happen. Two songs that use that line, Radiohead—The Bends: "Just lying in the bar with my drip feed on. Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen," and The Cure—Play for Today: "... waiting for something to happen. It's not a case of telling the truth. Some lines just fit the situation." My baby has the bends in Amsterdam, she just landed. "Where do we go from here? The words are coming out all weird. Where are you now, when I need you. Alone on an aeroplane. Fall asleep against the window pane."

¢ As part of Short Story Month, Dan Wickett said some nice things about wrapping his head around a piece of mine that Action, Yes! published a few years ago. I was reading through a notebook today to decide whether to pack it or trash it, and found almost the same dream that that story is based on. I've had it a few times. The main gist of it are Native Americans with really tall masks circling around the perimeter of a volcano, on the horizon, and it's not clear whether I am after them or they are after me. I saw some similar masks in Dogon country, kind of like the ones in this video that I was watching last night because we didn't get a chance to see such things en vivo (not the first few mohican masks, but the tall antenna ones, like on the cover of Psychic TV Themes 2, which I also saw recently in front of the Inn of the Mountain Gods in New Mexico, realizing they were Apache, though in the story I mistakenly say they were Sioux. So maybe changing Sioux to Apache would also make it easier to understand. And the specific name for the lone Apache, Rank & File, I borrowed from this Slash Records band from the 80s. Not that that has anything to do with the story. Thanks Dan.

¢ Just got paypaled $50 for "the use of two goats." And I took a long hard look in the mirror, after shaving off my Chuck Norris look from travelling for a month, and realized my Prefontaine look has morphed into an Adam Morrison (Gonzaga days) look. I'd take up pot-smoking if it didn't make me so paranoid. New York City, consider yourself warned—4 more days and the Dazed and Confused Goat Pimp is coming to town.

¢ Changed my ticket to come back earlier, so now I have 5 days left in Nairobi. Not nearly as dramatic as our countdown getting here. I can taste the sushi already.

¢ Back in Nairobi, our home away from home, only once removed now, and only for another week. It's nice to be back, for the time being, though my better half isn't here... I saw her plane headed north to Paris, somewhere over Lake Turkana, as I was flying south from Ethiopia, after pulling a surreal all-nighter in the Addis airport where I walked in circles like a zombie and wrote two stories.

¢ Dispatch from Dogon. More or less caught up with Mali. Jess is in flight to Nairobi as we speak. I leave tomorrow, though I have to spend the night in Addis Ababa airport. By the time I get to Nairobi, she will be on her way to Paris, then to Amsterdam. It's a convoluted chase I know, but we're trying to find our way home, the only way we know. Anyone know of a sublet in NYC for June & July?

¢ Dispatchy photos from Djenné.

¢ Back in Bamako, my home away from home away from home, not that I remotely know where home is at this point, but we're getting there, closer to it, in a convoluted way, I think.

¢ Went for an early morning run along the Niger, walked through the Segou market, and then posted some more photos and videos from around Timbuktu.

¢ In Segou, avec wifi, catching up, drawing a line in the sand of the furthest advance. Here's the first dispatch from Timbuktu.

¢ Dogon country, moving too fast to blog about it. Good times.

¢ Timbuk-fukin-tu.

¢ Building up my arsenal of animal heads to stow under my bed. As someone told us last night, "you put up with the smell for such power."

¢ Posting by the pool drinking espresso & working on my pinkie ring tanline, even though it's like 40 degrees out & not even noon. That's 104 to the rest of you.

¢ A day after I had renounced photography, my camera gets swiped from my pocket standing at the busiest intersection in Bamako. It led to an interesting tour of the street tout/thug organization around the marketplace trying to recover it.

¢ Got myself lost in the holy hell of Bamako so I could find myself in the fetish market amidst shriveled baboon heads, dead parrots, shriveled chameleons, mummified warthogs, cat paws, stork beaks, and other hack taxidermic abominations.

¢ Listening to Malian lounge music in the courtyard of my hotel. The clarinet player is drunk and the electric guitar player drinks espresso with his pinky out. A wind gust just blew through the hot night and scattered their sheet music all over the place. Posting the second dispatch from Ethiopia.

¢ My Addis A-belly morphed into a gut-wrenching Bamako belly after a five hour flight squashed next to a woman so fat they couldn't get her safety belt on and she couldn't put her tray down to eat. Snug now in a hot janky city with lots of goats and open sewers. Need to finish Ethiopia dispatch before I reveal more.

¢ Back in Addis Ababa now, after being off the grid up in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Here's the first dispatch. Some more pics and ramblings on the rock churches to come. Headed to Mali tomorrow morning.

April 2009

¢ Leaving tomorrow for Ethiopia & then Mali, for most of May & after that I'm not sure where I'll end up, but likely back in NYC. That's the plan anyway. Books I'm bringing: Chronicles by Bob Dylan, Giraffe by J.M. Ledgard, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichcie, Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri, The Native Hurricane by Chigozie John Obioma & whatever else I pick up on the way.

¢ Chartered northern reaches of the bush of ghosts (Karurua forest). Now headed to the nursery (River Cafe) to read Boons (Duck Ladies). Need to brush up on my French and start taking Malarone (thinking ahead).

¢ Dylan ends Tarantula by saying "there are only a few things that exist: Boogie Woogie—highpowered frogs—Nashville Blues—harmonicas walking—80 moons & sleeping midgets—there are only three things that continue: Life—Death & the lumberjacks ar coming". This was in the month I was born & the power is still out on account of those damn lumberjacks & highpowered frogs were falling from the sky last night (favorite line from Magnolia: "this happens.")

¢ Any of you freaks here remember Lenny? I've ben reading Bob Dylan's Tarantula & it's evoking a lot of his lyrics in my head & then I read: "words are objects! sight is ego! did any of you freaks ever know a lenny? I can remember his last name ..." & someone else's voice was going through my head, not Dylan. Ring a bell? At first I was thinking REM, then it came to me... compare to Sonic Youth from NYC Ghosts & Flowers: "Hey, did any of you freaks here ever remember lenny? I can't remember his last name. He's turned to dust now, one of the chosen few." I'm pretty sure Dylan is referring to Lenny Bruce, but apparently Lee Ranaldo can't remember where he remembers a Lenny from. I couldn't find a correlation googling, but Pitchfork seems to think Lee Renaldo is impersonating William Burroughs wearing a trenchcoat in an opium den when saying that line! Close, but no cigar (& ouch, a 0.0, just because they're not from Chicago? Talk about petty jealousy.) Ranaldo might have (subconsciously I presume) plagiarized Dylan, but when you hear the lyrics now, it's kinda creepy that he wrote that right before 9/11 blocks away from the WTC.

¢ My two cents on this economic "depression": STOP MAKING SENSE. Burn rawhide incense. Avoid sunscreen. Try passionfruit jam (straight from the rind, no additives needed). 2 + 2 = 5.

¢

¢ "And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out." —DFW, RIP

¢ Signed up for the NYC marathon lottery. Went for a good luck run, deep into the Karura forest (the "Bush of Ghosts" of Nairobi if there is one), poking my head up somewhere around Muthaiga, then looping back to Thigiri ridge. I was feeling good still and got the thumbs up from some Masai cattleherders with some 50 head, so I kept going, linking up with my usual 10K or so loop up Peponi Road towards ISK and back on Ngecha and Red Hill. All in all probably close to half a marathon.

¢ Timbuktu or bust! Just got my tickets. Cheaper to go through Ethiopia, so I'll be going there first with Jess. 9 days and counting.

¢ Crazy lumberjack that knocked the power out seen here reconstructing the monkey tree over our roof. Oh, and one of my natural histories is in the new elimae.

¢ Yesterday, a barefoot lumberjack high in the tree over our tin roof chainsawed a branch that fell and set the power lines arcing and surging and shooting sparks down the street wiping out the internet and everything else in it's wake. No stove to cook on and no place for the blue monkeys to roost. I woke up this morning and the power is back on and the first lyric to pop in my head was "just another dream theory, lost inside your eyes." That, juxtaposed with, "no hay banda."

¢ .-. . -- . -- -... . .-. | .-- .... . -. | -.-- --- ..- | -.-. .- ..- --. .... - | - .... . | -.. --- .-.. .-.. -.-- | ...- .- .-. -.. . -. | ..-. .-. --- -- | -.-- --- ..- .-. | -- --- - .... . .-. | ... | .-. .. ...- . .-. | | - .... .- - | ... | .-- .... . -. | .. - | ... - .- .-. - . -.. | - --- | ... -. --- .-- | ..--.. |

¢ It's sprouting AXX°N N ---------------------------------------------> rabbit ears to better channel the African Head Charge.

¢ Dispatched about Tutuola in Tsavo.

¢ Back from Tsavo in one piece, but now my better half is off for Kisumu. I remain at large.

¢ On safari with the red elephants and the notorious man-eating & mane-less lions of Tsavo. Y'all have fun with those egg-laying rabbits. I leave you with A Case of Autotomy in a Duck Lady, an excerpt from one of the David Ohle novellas forthcoming from Calamari.

¢ Been hearing a lot of buzz lately about Dambisa Moyo, like this interview in Guernica. I haven't read the book yet, but if you ask me she's talking a whole lot of sense.

¢ Ran into a herd of goats this morning, literally and figuratively. I pulled one up from the hull to be stationed in the wheelhouse with me. He's kind of annoying, keeps eating the notes I write to myself. Sorry Coop, this changes the piece I sent you for elimae.

¢ The S.S. ES ARC IRCE is still propped in its scaFFold on shifting ice pack. The monkeys executing a corner kick goal (including post celebration) on our roof are not buying it. Earlier this morning I discovered that Jess (a.k.a. Circe) has Greek Siamese Twin sisters that at some point she was a part of as conjoined triplets before she was surgically extracted. The other two are still conjoined. I'm sure they'll come into play.

¢ Ever-insightful interview with Blake Butler in Eclectica.

¢ Just as the Musk OX scapula predicted, I smelled ozone and frankincense, then lightning struck Father Pole, recombining its molecules to a mast. Around this Father Mast I surveyed the corral. Now my iTunes is scrambling, playing Rain on Tin by Sonic Youth, and indeed it's happening. Rome shook some this morning.

¢

¢ They came ringing early this morning to kill our brooding termites, not by my calling. There was a teeming spire shooting up within a gaping hole that I've had my pornographic eye on since the rains came. I didn't even have time to fetch my camera before they poured the poison down and sealed up the hole. Next time I'll volunteer to dig up the elephant-testicle-sized queen as that makes for a better story.

¢ Synecdoche, NY really vexed me. I used to like Charlie Kaufmann but now think he needs to get his head out of his own ass. Remainder should stand as the last word in this ballooning self-indulgent re-enactment genre, and people need to just stop writing stories or movies about themselves making plays or movies that revolve around their own navels. That includes me.

¢ The truth is I came from PI HOLE. Circe’s carcasses were scattered in a differential ARCircle. The blood spray was neither mine nor the animaLs, but 1 for ∀LL and ALL for 1.

¢ New Lamination Colony is up, guest edited by Michael Kimball.

¢ While I was under, I ran into Goat again. He admitted he felt threatened by Ferret, that he could be driven to extinction. Goat made it so I could smell the inside of my nose. That’s the only way I can explain it. I became conscious and tried to rip off the special AGCUT mask but the dentist stopped me.

March 2009

¢ Relentless din of rain on our tin roof, on an already pinged out pineal. A parade of pamplisets stormed by, headed for the circus maximus museum, until they came to a Y-junction and got their knickers bunched up into an accumulating stack of biblical proportions. 2 down, 38 to go.

¢ I forced my way through the first 50 pages or so of Varieties of Disturbances by Lydia Davis, and the only thing I was disturbed by was by how incredibly awful it was. It's not even funny. And she is hailed as some sort of MacArthur genius and Disturbances was a finalist for the National Book Award? I just don't get it. Give me Diane Williams. Or if I want funny, I'll read Stacey Richter (whose Twin Study I am starting now). When I read writers like Lydia Davis, I realize how disconnected I am from America, especially that stuffy academic scene.

¢ Regardless, whether from blood spilled or from exorcising, one week back and my new running shoes are already red.

¢ R.I.P. Christoper Walken.

¢ Rains have arrived. Stuck some more seeds in the ground after getting back from some heavy drinking with some farm animals and rural creatures. We got into a brawl with a gang of hissing geese and saved a red-nosed rat that fell in a hole.

¢ Off to a B.Y.O.C. slumber party with Leadbelly and Logo up on Banana Hill. The C stands for champagne for S.P.Q.R. Go AZ!

¢ My jet lag has evolved into insomnia. Slept two hours last night, then surfed madness on blackberry in the dark. Only productive decision was to change "Natural Histories" to something with the word pineal in it, like "Pineal Glints." But maybe that's only because I wrote a Natural History yesterday about a lamprey I caught from beneath Pinecone Cascade.

¢ Still whack-a-moling my circadian snooze button all night. Gimp rat returned to his bathroom nook after a long hiatus, we had taken him for dead. The toilet is getting harder and harder to flush, requiring cleverer manual intervention. Internet is slower than ever.

¢ Thoughts on reading Crawford's The Log of the S.S. Mrs. Unguentine, Lipsyte's Venus Drive and Binyavanga's Discovering Home.

¢ This message has been brought to you by circadian desynchronization induced by transmeridian travel.

¢ First meal after not cooking for 3+ weeks: chicken, okra and pepper pilau kichadi, using an organic Swahili pilau spice mix (cumin, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom, clove and garlic) we got in Zanzibar.

¢ Back on the equator. The rains didn't come while we were gone. Wide awake at 3 a.m. One thing is for sure, Kenya grows good coffee.

¢ Scouting to Brooklyn over the bridge, then headed back "home" to Nairobi tonight so we can think about our next home.

¢ Ramblings on reading Remainder en route to Albuquerque.

¢ Back in the city overlooking Houston & Chrystie with a belly full of raw fish. My brackets are banged up already, but not broken.

¢ Venus Bogardus doing Birds last night in Albuquerque.

¢ I finally woke up at a reasonable time, after I traveled two time zones even further west last night on the subway to compensate, getting off at a station called "Irish Grandfather." And today is St. Patricks. And the part about the Irish grandfather is true.

¢ Tax time.

¢ Went for a run on route 66. Now headed east to Roswell, so if this is the last post consider ourselves abducted.

¢ Clips of Eugene Lim and Eugene Marten reading the other night in Nolita. In snowy Tijeras, NM now entranced by a humming pellet stove akin to the monolith in 2001.

¢ Finished three "Natural Histories" today (on Goat, Bear & eeL). Though I've written others, these are the first three in the sequence I think. I'm also thinking that each one needs to have the word CATGUT somewhere in it. I started one on Lamprey, but I got hung up researching the pineal gland, my new fave organ.

¢ Had a jalapeño & cheddar knish downstairs at Yonah Schimmels (don't knock knishes til you've had one there) then went for a run over to the East river, under three bridges to Battery Park where I blew Lady Liberty a kiss. Tonight we are getting lube jobs with extra virgin olive oil in the meat packing district.

¢ "Where we are in Kenya today is where the Jews were in Nazi Germany shortly before the Holocaust." (source: AllAfrica). I don't know if I'd go that far, but things are not looking pretty.

¢ Afterbuzz in Time Out NY from the reading the other night, including a video Luca made of Blake the next day on the subway.

¢ Down off Houston & 2nd now. I blogged about Fog & Car and our time so far here in NYC. Thursday night Eugene Lim is reading at McNally Jackson. See you there if you are here.

¢ Too busy eating and drinking and seeing a lot of movies and art to blog.

¢ Clips from the reading last night: Butler, Lutz. Going for a last run around the park then shifting south to the Bowery.

¢ Tonight at Word Books in Brooklyn: EVER book launch with Blake Butler, Gary Lutz and Robert Lopez. I don't know about you, but that's where I'll be. In the meantime, I'm going to paint a white wall in the apartment we are staying Hemlock.

¢ Saw Rufus Wainwright last night. Dudes got some pipes, here's a clip. Got some Nike Vomeros. I would like to say I took them for a spin around the park, but I have limits (needs to be at least 25°F), so I went to the Y instead. When I walked in they were playing Village People. Tonight it's the Nets vs. Celtics, courtside.

¢ It's 12°F. Back in Nairobi it's 27°C. Now I remember why I left NYC. Humans were not meant to be above the Tropic of Cancer.

¢ The night sky is glowing and full of snow, I have a belly full of sushi and the internet is fast as lightning. Backing up 17.7 gigs of new data to the Amazon via Jungle Disk. Besides not knowing the difference between coming and going, I'm also confused as to the difference between early and late.

¢ The strangeness of being back in NYC only ever lasts as long as the cab ride from JFK, before it feels "normal."

February 2009

¢ Headed to NYC, via Zurich. See you March 5 at Word Books in Brooklyn.

¢ Stories in the Worst Way (redux) is back from the printers.

¢ Tilled our garden, hoed in some goat poop and sunk some seeds in anticipation of the "long rains." I guest-blogged about it here.

¢ Posted my Lilongwe dispatch. Now I'm officially caught up.

¢ Posted my Zomba dispatch. Consider yourself warned, contains graphic footage of baboon penis and Changwe's Hole.

¢ Posted my thoughts on reading Wittgenstein's Mistress on the shores of Lake Malawi. It could quite possibly be the longest page on the internet, at least manually written by a human.

¢ I added some lines and spectral shite to the site today. Not sure why, maybe because I've been getting over 1 001 uniques a day and figured I better give googlers reciprocating information to gawk at. Not that I have a basis or baseline for comparison or anything. How about if I quote the bridge in Words by Missing Persons as I never knew what she was saying until now, the nowhere now: "Let me get by over your dead body / Hope to see you soon / When will I know? / Doors three feet wide with no locks open / Walking always backwards in faces of strangers / Time could be my friend / But it's less then nowhere now...."

¢ Went for a run, not knowing how far or how fast, as I have no watch and no odometer. Just running to catch up. Posted my next dispatch: the Tazara line from Tanzania into Malawi. Virtual time is bunching up against real time. Doppler-shifted blogging by my boostraps.

¢ While I was away, I had something in Sentence 6, along with a bunch of other fine folks and a feature on the prose poem in Italy. Now if I can only get a hold of a copy of it. Blake Butler managed to send me copies of No Colony 1 and Ever, which I held in my hands for the first time last night. It is something to behold. There were some other things in the care package, like a CD with the soundtrack to Ever, which he talks about on Large Hearted Boy. Otherwise I feel sort of out of it for missing AWP and all. Though I think I like feeling out of it, at least most of the time. Or not all of the time. Maybe some of the time. Did Bob Dylan say that? Or Abraham Lincoln?

¢ Posted dispatch from Tabora to Kigoma leg, my failed attempt to catch a ride on the MV Liemba into the Heart of Darkness. Now my blogging life is 17 days behind my real life.

¢ Back in Nairobi. Though my better half continued on to Kampala without even leaving the airport, so still not "home." I have some blogging to catch up on.

¢ Living large in Lilongwe are we. One more day in "Madonna's village" then back "home," wherever that is.

¢ Up on the misty Zomba plateau in Malawi hanging with a troupe of baboons, reunited with my better half. Sort of connected. Enough to upload the video from Mbola at least.

January 2009

¢ Dispatch from Mbola, Tanzania. From here I part ways with my better half and my computer as I travel solo to Malawi by rail and boat and however else. At best I might be able to post updates from my facebook page.

¢ How To by Aaron Burch posted on zzz ><()*>. This the last one in the N series.

¢ In Tabora, Tanzania. Bought an hour of time and posted my dispatch from Zanzibar.

¢ Back in Dar where I'm uploading the files for the Lutz redux of Stories in the Worst Way to the printer. Here's a sneak peak at the new cover. Headed west to Tabora late tonight/early tomorrow.

¢ In Dar about to catch a ferry to the land that bore Freddy Mercury. Not sure how connected I'll be after this, might be off the radar for a while.

¢ Headed to Dar es Salaam in a few, where I plan to work on my mullet some more, maybe even do some writing.

¢ an excerpt from Melampus: A Myth Retold by Brandon Hobson posted on zzz ><()*> N.

¢ I woke up this morning saying, "here's to a new country." And although for the first time in my life I'm sort of proud to be American, I think I was talking more about going to Tanzania tomorrow, a country I've never been. Until they stop opening government functions with prayer, us "non-believers," won't belong. Worse even for non-christians, I imagine.

¢ Six asemic drawings by Marco Gionevale posted on zzz ><()*> N.

¢ Three observations today that I wondered if were signs or related: 1. I cracked an egg and sulfuric-smelling black liquid gushed out. 2. A family of mongooses came sniffing around my door. 3. I ran by a bus stop full of people that all had patches over their left eyes (and they still had the nerve to stare at me like I was strange).

¢ Sunday morning in the Green City in the Sun and I'm laying out Stories in the Worst Way and watching a rat build a nest in the nook of our bathroom window. I wish I could say I was at The Nursery, but the security guards won't let us walk through the short road that connects us anymore. You can never get from point A to point B in this place.

¢ The rains continue. I deleted another 10 gigs of files to pave the way for new ones. When it cleared up I started working on Stories in the Worst Way. My better half flew back to Kisumu for the weekend.

¢ The "long rains" began with a vengeance today. Even though they aren't supposed to come til March. The frogs are happy about it. This should be my cue to write but instead I'm on a reductionist mission. I've deleted some 20 GB of files from my computer and a few hundred names from my address book whose names didn't ring a bell. And I'm still hitting delete.

¢ double bolted doors by sandy florian posted on zzz ><()*> N.

¢ Put your pumpkin helmet on, this is sooo Africa. As Deron says, it's a pity they didn't include a photo.

¢ Today is Blake Butler's 30th birthday. His boxes of Ever arrived, here's his accounting of waiting for the brown men. It is strange to think of from here. In my quantum physics mind, the book object of Ever doesn't exist, though the mounting evidence tells me otherwise. Discover for yourself.

¢ Finally posted the fourth and final installment of my Siamese study. Now I feel caught up with reality.

¢ Third Siamese installment with Duncan Barlow as my guide.

¢ I refreshed the Calamari  homepage, sort of back to its old ways. I liked how it goes with the forthcoming Ever better. What's fun is to look back on the wayback machine.

¢ Bait by Brian Beise posted on zzz ><()*> N.

¢ Word is Blake Butler's EVER is due back from the printer on January 14th, which happens to be his birthday. So if you haven't already pre-ordered, you can still wish him happy b-day and blow your own candle at the same time.

¢ MDGCentre.org, the site I've been workin on the last few months for gainful employment, is now live. Poke around if you want to see what it is my better half does here. I also updated my resume for the first time in a year and a half. Uggh.

¢ Second Siamese installment with Kawabata as my guide.

¢ I'm starting to drive on the wrong side of the road like it's the back of my hand. Scary. Siam they roll like the Queen too.

¢ Posted a photo-prose piece by Andrew Zornoza on zzz ><()*> N.

¢ First Siamese dispatch, with Pisstown Chaos as my guidebook.

¢ Back from Bangkok, but haven't had time to blog about it. In the interim, I suggest you read this study on sentences by Gary Lutz (if you are remotely interested in writing, or for that matter any art form involving construction or combinatorics). As someone who always failed reading comprehension tests, it is probably the best advice I've ever heard, if not a justification as to why you don't necessarily need to comprehend words and their resulting combinations to "get it." And it's most of the reason I have been too distracted to blog of my Siamese dreams, so consider it your undoing, Gary.

¢ Rang in the New Year on a sleeper train somewhere between here and there, now pampering ourselves at Dream.

2009 daily ARkive[r]

2008 daily ARkive[r]

2007 daily ARkive[r]

2006 daily ARkive[r]

2005 daily ARkive[r]

cuRRent & ARkiveD 5¢ense bLOGjects