@orangehunchback

Ashley Lande

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:55:52 -0500

Rachel Glaser

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:52:55 -0500

See Rachel Glaser’s work at NBAPaintings.blogspot.com or check them out in person at Glaser’s NYC debut, her NBA Art Show on June 15th at P-R-I-M-E-T-I-M-E Gallery 135 Huntington St, Brooklyn, NY.

Rachel B.(Trail)Glaser

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:50:00 -0500

What was the breaking point? At what point did you decide to paint a basketball player?

I began drawing in sketchbooks (with soft pencils) (and shading with my fingers) and copying images the same year I fell in young love with the Jordan/Rodman era-Bulls (1997ish). I was 13 or 14 at the time, I believe. These were never paintings, though a color pencil was used to determine Rodman’s hair. Then it wasn’t until my last year at RISD (2005) that I made my first MS Paint basketball image. (I know I have the wrong number on Shaq!) This lead to a few other NBA MS Paints including NAKED NBA. In 2010, I was commissioned to paint Charles Barkley for the poet Michele Taransky, and slowly in the months that followed, other poets and writers stepped forward and requested paintings for themselves and their loved ones.

Do you think that MS Paint will continue to flourish into the next mid-century? I kinda hope it does. I wonder if it will become like Polaroid cameras.

I think some version of MS Paint will flourish indefinitely. As we speak, people are pioneering into iPad paint-lands. Those programs are more advanced than MS Paint, but I see basic versions surviving too. It might end up in places we’d never expect it. However, the official MS Paint is endangered. There is no easy way to use it on a Mac. All my digital paintings post Magic Johnson are made on Photoshop instead.

Do you think that MS Paint will outlast Clip Art?

I think Clip Art will continue on through the ages too, depending on how loosely we are defining it.The popularity of emoticons and emojis are redefining how we communicate, along with animated GIFs of seemingly unrelated things.

Are there basketball players or teams you will not paint because they make you angry? What team or player makes you the least angry?

I will paint any player. Times when I have been asked to paint (or assigned myself to paint) a player that I don’t care for, I learn to care for the player by staring at their face forever. Afterwards, I feel as if I know them. The Grizzlies make me the least angry of any team. Tony Allen has never made me feel one negative emotion thus far.

What is the essence of hoops? Is it the memory of that first peach basket glued to a hickory backboard by Dr. James Naismith? Or just the thought, or the possibility of a thought of owning, or seeing a pair of Kamikazes?

The essence of basketball is a wayward tradition that has its starts in the basic human game “catch,” and the easy joy and skill that comes with that, combined with the dynamics of dance, the love of a team, an instinct to win, and the otherness of games.The materials, the ball and hoop, there is an obviousness to the pair. How could there be an Earth without these? Satisfaction comes with the net. A history happens from the entirety of the game. Not just statistics from the official leagues, but from the trials and successes of the amateur player on their local or personal court.

How does that compare with your favorite moment playing hoops w/ friends or co-workers?

My favorite moments playing basketball are just somehow scoring a basket in a casual pick-up game with friends. I don’t shoot well against any defense, so a basket feels like a light miracle. There is that feeling from a basket—a lightness. The sound the net makes is light, but also the motion of the arm is light, light like you can’t fully recall or feel the motion. The memory of the motion is positive and ephemeral.

Have you ever heard of the Azteca ballgame? It’s like a form of basketball where you use your butt...

I had heard that there was an ancient version of basketball played by the Aztecs, but never read such a detailed history of it. This is my favorite line from the description: ” Courts were considered portals to the underworld.” It makes one wonder about the future of basketball, the distant future…

Let’s say you are a supremely talented NBA basketball star but in the Non-Shaq echelon of stardom. Let’s talk sponsorship. It’s your first year in the league, do you settle for getting your name attached to a few local car dealerships or do you hold out in hopes that you might land a deal with Doritos?

I spurn any sort of advertisement.

Dr. Malcolm: The Jeff Goldlum Solo

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:51:00 -0500

John doesn’t subscribe to chaos, particularly what is has to say about his little science project.


  John, you’ve heard of Chaos Theory? Non-linear equations? Strange attractions? I refuse to believe that you are not familiar with strange attractions.

   You crazy son of a bitch.

     You did it, without massive sequence gaps? Surely not the ones that have bred in the wild.

     How do you know they can’t breed? How do you know they’re all female? Does someone go around and, uh—lift up the dinosaurs’ skirts?

     John, the kind of control you’re attempting is not possible. If there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories. It crashes through barriers. Painfully, maybe even dangerously, but and…well, there it is.

     I’m simply saying that life—finds a way.

     Break through! I know, it’s very exciting. And scary. It’s anti-nature. The lack of humility before nature that’s been displayed here staggers me. They’re a lot worse?

     Don’t you see the danger, John, inherent in what you are doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force ever seen on this planet. But you wield it like a kid who’s found his dad’s gun. If I may tell you, the problem with the scientific power you’ve used is it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge yourselves, so you don’t take the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and you before you knew what you had, you patented it, packaged it, slapped it and now you want to sell it. Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn’t stop to think if they should the rape the natural world.

     I'll ride with Doctor!

     I'm going to ride with Doctor!

     God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.

     You do plan on having dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour, right? The tyrannosaur doesn’t obey park schedules? It’s the essence of chaos! Unpredictability in complex systems!

     It’s only principle is a butterfly in Peking.

     Central Park? You get rain—instead of sunshine!

     I made a fly?

     I go too fast?

     Give me your glass of water!

     Make hieroglyphics!

     Watch the way the drop of water falls on your hand. Freeze your hand. Now I’m going to do the same thing from the exact same place. Which way is the roll off? Which fingers?

     Your wrist. It changed. Because the tiny orientation of the hairs, the amount of blood distending in your vessels, imperfections in the skin---vastly affect the outcome.

     We haven’t seen it yet? It’s going on in this park right now. It’s dynamic- - it’s exciting- - I think.

     See. No one predicted Doctor would jump out of a moving example! That’s chaos theory. What the hell am I doing here?

     Dino droppings? That’s one tenacious pile of shit, remember to wash your hands before you eat…

     Oh, hell yes. I love ‘em. I love kids. Anything at all can and does happen. Same with wives, for that matter. Always on the lookout for the future Mrs. Malcolm.

     By the way, Doctor’s not like, uh, available, is she?—

     I wish you didn’t touch anything. Machines hate you? You want to talk about this?

     Kids get scared?

     I didn’t say I was scared!

     When you gotta go, you gotta go!

     Boy, do I hate being right.

     Oh my God! What can we do? Thank John for a lovely weekend?

     Where are the kids?

     Anybody hear that?

     It’s an impact tremor! Gotta move, gotta get out of here. Let’s go-we gotta go, we gotta get out of here, right now! Go, go! Let’s hurry, let’s get out of here! Must go faster, it’s getting closer-must go faster. Must go faster, go, go.  Fifth gear! Fifth gear!

     Think they’ll have that on the tour?

     How soon before they become comatose?

     How long before they slip into unconsciousness?

     That’ll be first! Man and dinosaur die together--John’s plan.

     You’re all right, John. You’re okay. It’s just you think narrowly and focused. You see the consequences. You’re very good at solving answers---but you don’t know the questions! It’s not a criticism by the way.

     It’s not working. Everything is still off. But, John if the Pirates break down, the pirates don’t eat.

     John, just follow cable!

     Look above you---there should be cable and pipes leading in the same direction! Follow that!

akkilles: I am a lineman for the county What is this music...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:39:04 -0500

akkilles:

I am a lineman for the county

What is this music crap? Jk I love music!

Amelia Gray On Placentas/Lunchables/Velveeta/Etc.

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:56:52 -0500

Amelia Gray was awesome enough to answer a few questions about a very serious matter.

Would you consider yourself an adventurous or a picky eater?

I’m adventurous with a caveat that if some unpleasant element of the food sneaks into my mind, I have to immediately stop. For example: my partner and I, dining on a plate of whole baby squid at our local Thai place, ink squirting, all of it fine, until he says, This tastes like Corpus Christi, which is his hometown and not a compliment. I think it put me off all ink-based foods, maybe forever.

I am truly sorry to hear that you have, or potentially have, sworn off ink-based foods. For the sake of my (legion) readers I need you to clarify: is Corpus Christi the worst tasting town in the gulf coast region? Please tell me b/c Glen Campbell seems to think that Galveston is pretty good. I trust Glen Campbell’s taste buds.

I can’t speak to the Florida coast, and I suspect Tampa gives it a run for its money, but Corpus has this sheen of gulf oil. It would be unkind but not fully untrue to suggest it is America’s Grease Trap. I had a good hamburger in Galveston once.

I have a friend who ate a placenta and I think he’s one of the coolest guys in the world. Would you eat a placenta? If so, would you have any stipulations? I would like to say that I would eat the placenta of my first born but I think it’s tough to say because I have limited access to placenta and I am easily intimidated by placenta. Do you think a cooked placenta would taste more like an eggplant or the cheese/pepperoni scab on a cafeteria pizza?

Did your friend become one of the coolest guys in the world only after he ate the placenta? This is important to answering the question. I’ve seen powdered placenta in capsules, which I’d be fine with if the health benefits were proven or whatever. But otherwise yes, I think if it’s going to be in a moist scenario I would prefer if it came out of my own body first, and recently. I feel like it probably tastes like any organ meat, like liver, which I am also not a huge fan of, and probably won’t have an opportunity to eat my own. So kind of heavy sponge-like and gamey, pairing with a strong red wine, like a sangiovese.

He was already cool! But I think he got cooler b/c I think of most his family was mad at him on facebook. Like, “ARG, why did you do that? Why did you eat that old fetus sleeping bag?” Classic case of credentials earned via digital hardships. Would you accept a placenta that was meant to be sprinkled on a pasta?

If it was placenta mixed with parmesan and there was no other parmesan around I’d do it in a pinch. I think that says more about my relationship with cheese than it does about my thoughts on placenta. I would eat anything served to me by whoever used the phrase “fetus sleeping bag.”

If you had to go to a food store (not a restaurant) that only stocked one kind and one brand of food but you had to eat there everyday, what kind of food would you want the food to be? Hint: you are not allowed to work at the food store. Stipulation: the food store can not be a Pizza Hut!

Like, a grocery store? And it has to be a packaged thing and not a fresh thing? This is tough. It’s probably also kind of cheating to say I’d eat only the Kraft family of products, for that is a large branded family indeed, including but not limited to Jell-O, Oscar Meyer, Crystal Light, A1, Nilla, Planters, DiGiorno, okay forget it, I’m going Kraft. If I had to pick one brand among it it would probably be Lunchables, to live out my days with crackers and cheese and see how much plastic is in my body after I die.

It seems like what you just said was very powerful and timely b/c they are saying that most birds die b/c they eat Lunchables. (Not my picture. )

Would your Lunchables store offer the canonical Lunchables only or would they offer if given the opportunity, non-canonical Lunchables such as pizza, tacos or burgers?

Non-canonical Lunchables can go the way of the fetus sleeping bag; in powder form, over my cracker layered with ham and American cheese.

What would you do to attract attention to opening day at the Lunchables store? Eddie Money concert? Or just the classic balloons over the entryway?

I’m going to digress here for a second and say that, when I had to go to the dentist as a kid, my mom would take me after to the Entenmann’s Bakery Outlet. It was a fantastic treat that made up for all the teeth they had to pull out of my head—maybe five or six teeth throughout my childhood—but then I could go pick out whatever I wanted. I usually picked the cheese danish.

Let’s say: piñata full of Lunchables, Eddie Money appearing with a guy playing cassette tapes of The Platters, coupons for free Lunchables, eating contest, safety demonstrations by local law enforcement, balloon animals, cake walk, coloring contest.

Speaking of Kraft Foods, what do you think about Velveeta? Did you grow up in a Velveeta household? Are we going to see the end of the oil cheese era in our life-time? Can this be prevented?

My mom and dad, who met in Dallas, would sometimes make queso on New Year’s Eve in the Texas style, which involves half a big brick of Velveeta. As it happens I had guests in town this weekend and have a brick of Velveeta still in my fridge, along with a gelatinized bowl of queso, which I am happy to bring to the Lunchables opening on short notice. I say if there’s any worry we’re going to run low on oil cheese, we can simply scoop some up from the beach in South Texas.

Roxane Gay Talks Bachelor

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:10:22 -0500

I was really loving what Roxane Gay had to say about the Bachelor on @rgay. I really love what she has to say about a lot of subjects. I floated her a few queries and she was nice enough to answer questions about the Bachelor from an utter stranger. Success!

What do you think about this year’s Bachelor Sean? Is he the All-American dream or is he what AshLee says he is?

I am not sure what to make of Sean. I don’t know what Dez said because I was traveling during the Women Tell All episode. Is he the All American dream? That depends on who you ask but there’s no doubt he is wholesome, attractive and some women or men might enjoy having quality time with him.

Do you think Sean/every bachelor/bachelorette is legally obligated to keep a Tierra or a Tierresque figure on the show for several episodes? I kinda felt bad for her on the Tell-All. Should cold shoulders/ dirty stares= the hatred of an entire viewing audience? Is she just playing the role of necessary dramatic device?

Absolutely. The producers have a lot of say in the early going in terms of who stays and goes. They definitely rig the cast departures in terms of what will make the show more sensational and to increase viewership.

Were you surprised when he DIDN’T give AshLee a rose? I know I was. Is it wrong to compare AshLee to a mid-nineties Shania Twain?

I wasn’t surprised. She was “too old.” No, it isn’t wrong to make that comparison

Do you think Dez’s brother scared Sean away from Dez? Or are you buying what he said at the Tell-All?

I haven’t seen the Tell All yet. No, I don’t think Dez’s brother scared Sean. He just wasn’t into her.

I know they can’t help but have the destinations be exotic but do you think that the bachelor/bachelorettes would be as fall-in-loveable if they had to do more normal couple stuff like, go to Target and try not to spend 30 dollars or share a toilet?

Nope.

Have you watched the Yahoo satire Burning Love? Saw the first season and liked it a lot.

I’ve seen a few installments.

There are obviously a lot of flaws in the system, contestants, the fact that all the people are called contestants, etc, what are the most grating flaws of the show?

The idea that true love can be manufactured under such highly artificial circumstances.

Do you remember that guy Wes?

Oh yes, I remember Wes. He’s very unattractive and sounds pretty generic as far as country music goes

Time to think about stocking stuffers. Again.

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:44:46 -0600

Time to think about stocking stuffers. Again.

Scott McClanahan track

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 18:32:49 -0600

Scott McClanahan track

Scott McClanahan

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:05:25 -0600

Dear Scott,

I grew up outside of Kansas City but on both sides of my family we’ve got like hillbilly blood from both the Ozarks and West Virginia so like a big chunk of my childhood involved shuttling back and forth from family reunions and stuff. Don’t know a whole lot of people who are familiar w/ the terrain.

Have you ever heard of this guy Vance Randolph? He was kind of like the Alan Lomax of the Ozarks. He spent his entire life compiling all these rich traditions of the Ozarks of Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas. He has entire books of Ozark word lists that were unique to the dialect. He also compiled anthologies of Superstitions and folk tales. He was dedicated to this stuff way before the word scholarship had ever been attached to studies of the Ozarks or “hillbillies” in general. (At one point he was supplementing his income in the depression by anonymously writing some of the Blue Books. Blue Books were like the first generation of Dummie’s Guides. They were popular from the end of WWI to the beginning of the Cold War. They covered everything from How to Make Candy/ Homosexuality/ Agnosticism.) But one of the most depressing things about these great Randolph anthologies is that by the time they were reprinted and had become marginally successful is that a lot of the old-timers who spoke the dialect had died. A lot of Randolph’s prologues became more like eulogies than celebrations. How has Rainelle, WV changed since you were a kid?

Earlier this year the feds moved into Rainelle. There were over 200 people arrested in the period of a month and this is a town with 1,500 people in it. The family who used to take care of my grandmother blew up some police cars and set them on fire. It was wonderful. How glorious! Here is a link to the story.

These people are people who know how to celebrate life. They’re not a bunch of stepford wives in Beckley and doctors driving BMWs with vanity license plates who have a story to explain why they picked the vanity license plate they did.

It’s like the Antonioni quote. He passed this industrial wasteland and then this forest that was next to the industrial wasteland. He said he would rather be in the industrial wasteland. Someone asked him why? He said, “Because man has been there.” That’s the way I feel about it. I think I’m going to answer the rest of the questions using Captain Beefheart anecdotes.

How important/dangerous is sentimentality for a writer? Is some amount of nostalgia universal or is it something that is cultivated?

I have no idea. So here comes Beefheart anecdote #1. Beefheart and the Magic Band were all living in this house together during the recording of Trout Mask Replica. One evening the phone rang and Beefheart answered it. It was a very nice and polite woman on the other end and she wanted to speak to Beefheart’s bass player. So Beefheart called for him and gave him the phone. They talked and when he got off the phone, Beefheart said, “Listen buddy, you need to get that bitch out of your life.”

The bass player said, “But Don, she’s my Mom.”

Beefheart acted like he could care less.

“Well, you need to cut her loose. I got bad vibes off that chick. She’s hiding something.”

What was the first VHS you owned? Did you have a favorite VHS growing up? ( My first VHS was this Jesus one my parents bought us. Me and my sisters favorite VHS growing up was Wizard of Oz. We had these two VHS’ before we had a VCR so we’d take them over our Aunt’s house b/c she had a VCR.)

The first movie we ever watched on VHS was Top Gun. I can remember the day we finally bought a VCR and filled out our video membership at AIDES store. It was this little store in town that rented tapes and sold firearms. And it had the unfortunate name of AIDES. And then there was this weird movie called The Richard Petty Story and Bill Cosby: Himself. I guess those were the first ones I watched, but the first one I owned was a VHS called “Go, Johnny Go.” It was an old Allen Freed tape full of all these rock acts. It was horrible but I was obsessed with Richie Valens at the time. There was something about that Valens, Holly, Big Bopper story that I couldn’t stop thinking about.

The Buddy Holly autopsy report is on-line. His scrotum was ripped and they paid for the autopsy with the money he had in his wallet. That’s what happens in this life. A dead man ends up paying for his own autopsy.

God, I wish I could be 7 years old again. I want to say it was before all the pain began, but you know what? It was as hard being 7 years old as was being 27. Nobody tells you that.

Have you always been a writer? Do you remember a sense of becoming a writer at a particular stage in your life? Was it something that was encouraged by the people around you?

I wasn’t encouraged at all. I sent off a few poems to a little magazine when I was 14 and my mom found out about it. She got mad at me. She said, “Well we don’t know who these people are you’re writing to. They could be child molesters or perverts or something. I don’t want you doing this anymore.” It made me mad at the time, but now I can see that she was completely right. I should have listened to dear old mom and she would have saved me a shit ton of pain. So anyway, I think it’s time for another Captain Beefheart anecdote. One day the Magic Band’s drummer went into the kitchen. He was standing at the sink and all of the sudden a dish levitated in the air in front of him and then flew across the room and broke against a wall. He was shocked. Then he turned around and saw Beefheart standing in the corner. The drummer said, “Holy shit. Did you just see that?” Beefheart didn’t say anything for a long time and then he finally said real calmly, “Don’t be alarmed. Sometimes I like to move shit with my mind.”

What kind of books did you read as a kid? Were you a big fan of a particular author or a particular library? What stories were told to you or read to you growing up?

When I was in the fourth grade my mother took me to the Rainelle Public Library. It’s this tiny little thrown together building full of Danielle Steel and Mary Higgins Clark novels. It wasn’t a trailer though like the library in the next town—so we had something to be thankful for.

One time I checked out Of Mice and Men because my mother said Steinbeck was “Easy to read.” Best advice I ever received about writing and writers. I played Tecmo Bowl during the weekend and read Of Mice and Men. I cried when Lenny died. I almost fought a guy in graduate school because he said Steinbeck is a poor man’s William Faulkner. I have bumper sticker for you. It should read like this: Fuck William Faulkner. William Faulkner is prog rock artist full of shitty ten minute guitar solos from Slash of Guns N Roses. Steinbeck is the perfect three minute pop song (of course, there are some real shit songs on his albums as well).

I was in Oxford, MS last year. It’s a strange gentrified town where you can’t buy cold beer. I’m serious. You can buy beer but it’s warm. What kind of damn place sells warm beer? Anyway, William Faulkner’s house is next to the gas station where I bought beer. I had to use the bathroom so I pissed in Faulkner’s front yard just to show his ghost how much I disrespect him. I pissed in his yard and it made me feel good about myself.

I stayed at a place call the Ole Miss Motel, which seemed to be a front for pimps. I’m talking about real deal P-I-M-P-S. There were all of these fat white girls in the parking lot and there was so much sex noise coming from the room next to mine that I got no sleep. I wanted these pimps to commit suicide. But, there is one rule in this life and it’s this: Pimps do not commit suicide.

I was looking at the Holler Presents. You’ve got to tell me about this album you’ve released. How would you describe it? Would you ever want to be a touring musician?

I’m going to let my friend Chris Oxley and Holler Presents partner answer this one. He’s living with me now. I just asked him the question and now he is going to answer it. Take it away, Chris.

“Chris: “It’s a gospel punk album inspired by Washington Phillips and Thomas Dorsey. We were going to do it with a full congregation but they had issues with our lyrical content. So it’s a gospel album but it’s a gospel album for Satan. We burned a page of the bible as a joke last year and it has come back to haunt us. I’m not talking about those pimply faced alt lit kids. We ACTUALLY met the devil. We felt his breath on our necks. We felt his man parts on our backsides. So now we’re damned to fame and immortality but we’re be exiled from the people we love. Also, we’re supposed to play a date with Jandek next year.”

Three CDs or albums or recordings you wish you had been a part of either by just standing outside the building where the recording was happening or playing the tambourine on a B-side or being the replacement of a major player.

1.) Blonde on Blonde. I would want to be the janitor hanging out during the sessions.

2.) Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club. I would want to be one of the women in the front row he’s sweating on.

3.)Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic during the recording of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. I would want to be Bernstein’s boy toy waiting for him to finish conducting so we could go to dinner.

4.)Louis Armstrong’s “Stardust,” and I’d want to be the marijuana they’re passing around.

Part Two:

Thank you for answering the questions. I am sorry that they are long winded. I am going to cut those parts out. Make no mistake by the time I am done everyone will seem very smart. At this point I am going to split the interview. If’ it possible I am going to try to harness the power of the internet and I am going to send questions to two different people in the same email. (Feel free to answer each other’s questions if you want.) The first question goes to Chris Oxley.

Chris, let’s talk about the devil. You mentioned the hot breath of the devil. Let’s talk about that some more. I imagine that the hot breath of the devil smells something like rotten horse meat or corn chips- is that accurate? Or maybe more of a pickled eggs hue?

Actually, Chris didn’t answer the question about Holler presents by talking about the devil. I just made that up. I’m the one who has smelled the devil’s balls.Chris answered this about Holler Presents:

“It started out as a way to keep our minds off winter time. We wrote and recorded a song a week for a few months and then pared down what we had for this particular album. “Secular gospel punk” was how we would describe it to people, but maybe that’s selling it short. Someone once said it sound like a “retarded Beatles.”We’ve played “Salty Girl,” “The Holy Holy Prayer” and “Satan Is A Mighty Good Leader” at a few readings in the past. I think we gave James Brown’s “Live At The Apollo” a run for its money.”

Scott, did you go to Rowan Oak? Where in his yard did you pee? You can say what you want about the prog nature of the writer but you gotta admit that man had a giant yard. I liked his English garden, the one with the giant stones and I liked the little cabin he had in the back.

In the corner of the front yard, next to the shurbs that seperated it from the gas station next door. Actually, I really love Faulkner.

Back to Chris. I am going to pretend like google doesn’t exist. What was that instrument that Wash Phillips played? Do you think his voice or that awesome instrument was what distinguished him as a songwriter?

We decided to let you answer this one.

(I thought it was a Heavenphone. It turns out it was actually a Celestaphone. I don’t think that you can extricate Washington Phillips voice from that instrument. Washington Phillips sounds like a Baptist oracle sweeping his hands over a tiny harp. I picture Washington Phillips keeping the Celestaphone in a suitcase.)

Question for both Chris and Scott. This is a question about fashion. Multiple choice. Let’s say it’s 1995 or whatever, what type of shirt were you most likely to wear for a class picture. Would it be:

a) silk shirt
b) Troy Aikman jersey
c) Big Johnson shirt
d) fill in the blank

Scott: I had a Jesus t-shirt I always wore.

Chris: Whatever was on sale at JCPenney’s at the time.

Final question for Scott, what does Beckley, WV mean to you? Is it a vortex?

Beckley is a vortex of pain and a hell in some ways. Rainelle is a giant nipple though. I’m just a man in love with a woman who doesn’t love me and it’s hard. Fuck. It’s hard.

I would like to add this to my last answer.
I even went to a shrink recently and this is what happened.

The shrink says: Do you ever hear voices?

I say: I’m a writer. That’s what I do.
The shrink says: Do you ever think about suicide?
I say: I’m an existential man. That’s what I’m always thinking about and choosing life.
The shrink says: Are you ever paranoid?
I say: William Burroughs said they always called you “paranoid” if you’re intelligent.

Life is full of bullshit artists. None more than doctors and nurses. They heal nothing. They cure nothing. People die. Surgeons take shit out of people. I want to put stuff back inside.

KCNH-Jello City Splatter Squad

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:00:22 -0500

KCNH-Jello City Splatter Squad

Michael A. Martone

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:45:00 -0500

What are you reading right now?

I am reading several books, well typescripts of books, right now. I can’t name
them, but I am reading in my role as series editor for Indiana University Press’s
Break Away Books. Many of them will become books pretty soon.

Do you have a favorite library?

I have several. There was the Tecumseh branch library of the Allen County
Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I learned to read. Butler University’s
Irwin Library with the fountain in the atrium. The same architect who designed the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, Minoru Yamasaki, designed the building. I
love The Lilly, the Herman B Wells, and the medical library at Indiana University.
And I loved The Johns Hopkins University Eisenhower Library. All the floors are
underground. The Poetry Room at Harvard was great. I also more recently have
fallen in love with the libraries in Salt Lake City and San Antonio. Cathedrals of
our time.

Have you ever taught creative writing in a library?

I always take my creative writing classes now to the Gorgas Library each
semester. I take them to the top floor where the Book Arts program has their
bindery, presses, and type cases. Several creative classes I took in college were
taught in libraries.

Is it more important as a writer to have a strong work ethic or to be curious?

You got me there. Is the desire to work an aspect of being curious? How hard
can I work? How long can I push myself? I generally think that everything is
important for the writer. The writer is and should be a generalized specialist.

Who would play Michael Martone in the screen adaptation of Michael Martone by Michael Martone?

I would want Debra Winger, Holly Hunter, or the great Helen Mirren to play
Michael Martone.

Would you be opposed to membership to the Oulipo? If you had to start your own club of literary restraint where would you put the headquarters and how often would you meet?

No or nocturnally, I would love to be part of that group. My own club
headquarters? Cuttyhunk Island, in the Elizabeth Island chain. It would have
to be an island. Plum Island? Monhegan off Maine. Goat Island above the
Falls. Key Largo. Skyros in Greece. Adak. All the islands of Indonesia or the
Philippines. Wye Island. Isle of Man. Tristan de Cunha. Iwo Jima. We would
meet corresponding to the flashes beamed by the nearest lighthouse.

Do you resist being called an experimental writer? Is the term constructive or do you find it to be a limiter?

I do. I really resist the notion that there are only two kinds of writing. “experimental” and “traditional.” Traditional is used most often, I think,
to mean the realistic narrative story a little over 100 years old. I think it is still
in an experimental stage. Fruitful experiments still being written. Do you know
Robin Black’s If I Loved You I Would Tell You This? Very interesting experiments
in realistic narrative. Traditional stories in America trace back to Poe and
Hawthorne. So I don’t like the term mainly because it isn’t accurate or helpful in
describing what has or can be done. I think of myself (when I have to like now)
as a formalist. I am very much interested in all the forms that fiction has taken
and will take. That can include the forms that are thought to be experimental and
traditional.

Are you familiar with the Amazing 100 miles Coalition? This is a collection of small towns along a hundred mile strip of Kansas that have formed a tourism coalition. A couple of years ago I found one of their brochures on a trip to Colorado. I might be crazy but the imagination and ingenuity injected into their tracts felt like a great literary discovery. When you were writing the Blue Guide to Indiana did you have specific guides that you were using as a template?

I was actually sued by the real Blue Guide people. I did want the book to pass
as a real guide. I published the individual sections not in literary journals but
newspapers and magazine in Indiana, asking the editors not to give it away, to
say that these were actual places to visit this weekend. I hope if your library has
the book it is shelved in the travel section and not the fiction section.

I have to find this Coalition. I’d love to see the work. You know about the
Museum of Jurassic Technology too? That’s the job of a certain kind of art, isn’t
it? To open up spaces of wonder.

Would you ever consider putting your students in contact with tiny kingdoms in North Dakota, South Carolina or Idaho? Do you think that would be a helpful writing prompt?

My students are already in contact with those kingdoms. They live and write
after they leave here all over this country. When I taught at Harvard (Harvard is
very good at taking the place out of students—in that way it works like a military
academy—students aren’t from anywhere save the Army or Navy or Harvard by
the time the institution is done with them), I noticed that my students there set
their stories in nameless places. So what we did was pick a city in the US where
all of the stories had to be set. And we all kept a notebook to keep the details
together. So if you wrote a story and put in an Elm Street or a Hamilton Park
that went into the book, and the next person would have to use “Hamilton Park”
instead of “the park” if he or she wanted a park in the story.

Does the football team have any tangible impact on the creative writing? Have you ever tried collaborating on a press conference with Nick Saban?

The writing program, a few years ago, was putting on a fund raising party, and
we had arranged to have it in the End Zone, the big banquet room at the stadium
that has giant windows looking on to the field and the jumbotron. At the party we
were going to write poems on the big screen. Alas, that was the spring Coach
Saban was hired, and he had the spring A Day game that weekend. We punted
our poetry to the natural history museum in Smith Hall.

There are so many pressures on the football coaches to collaborate that they
tend to take nothing on. They are like gods of course, and, like Updike says of
Ted Williams in his last at bat refusing to acknowledge the crowd, God does not
answer letters.

There is a fondness the writers have for the football team. It is combined
with the “southern” experience of so many of the students. When I moved to
Alabama I was told if you knew the four largest funerals in the history of the south
you would have a better idea of what the south is. Jefferson Davis, Martin Luther
King, Jr., Elvis, and Paul “Bear” Bryant. The Civil War, Civil Rights, Art, and
Football.

We do have a picture of the Bear reading a copy of Black Warrior Review.

Will literature eclipse the coal train in terms of universal appeal?

Coal trains, reefers, hoppers, gondolas, boxcars, flatbeds, tankers, varnish. Any
train, for me, is hard to beat for appeal. Look at how these words right here line
up. Like a mixed freight on a long drag up a steep hill.

Can you tell us about your most recent publication Four for a Quarter? What has been your favorite response from a reader?

It is always strange to be a writer. One gets very few responses. Four for a
Quarter was only reviewed four times—A lucky number. Beyond that, I have
heard very little. I asked for four blurbs, and I told the reader/ writer not to read
the book but instead write a blurb in the manner of a four.

I like that people have sent me four for a quarter photo booth pictures. And
pictures of fours.

Were you on campus when the tornado struck last year? How has the storm effected the student body and faculty at the University of Alabama?

I was teaching on campus that afternoon when the siren sounded and we had to
go to the safe place in the building. And about an hour later, it was announced
over these brand new Korean War-like public address systems that classes had
been cancelled. I should have had my family come into campus but instead I
headed out home. I live on the west side of town and so I was driving into the
storm wall as it approached. The funnel, about a mile wide, hit down about
twenty blocks south of my house and vectored through town going north,
northeast, just missing the east edge of campus. I was very fortunate not to
have lost power so immediately I was on the computer trying to connect through
Facebook. I didn’t have television, and the radio was confused. I was getting
calls from all over the country though from family and friends who knew more
about what happened than I did in Tuscaloosa. I contacted through the internet
as many students as I could. Most were without power, some had been hit. The
toughest part was staying in touch with them through the night, watching as they
ran out of juice. Like watching the stars go out one by one.

The experience was certainly a binding one. All of my students are not from
Alabama so don’t feel as if Alabama is “home.” But the storm and the destruction
of real houses made it feel like home. The students, in the days following, worked
on the cleaning up, days straight, until they collapsed. It was adrenalin for those
four days and then exhaustion. So strange to see the destruction of course
but even stranger now to see all the nothing left in the wake of the cleaning up.

Depth is all screwy. You now can see from one end of the city to the other it
seems. Tuscaloosa feels Midwestern. It has a horizon now.

Miscellany

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:47:00 -0500

Halloween 2010

Mobile, AL 2008

Spring 10

Joplin 2011

Winter 2010

Joplin 2011

Shanghai Boy 2007

Wedding Day

Holidays

Miscellany