Questions

Someone asked: what would happen if Matthew Simmons asked The Man Who Couldn't Blog questions. Probably something like this.

Hey, so when do you find time to write?

I think it's important to have set times during which to write. Creative work requires discipline. The creative part of the brain needs daily attention. So I set aside time.

I do it like this: every day, I allow myself the last second of every single minute to write a single word. That gives me 60 words for every minute I am awake. I tend to sleep anywhere from 6 to 10 hours a day, but it probably averages to 8. That leaves us with 16 hours of waking time, and precisely 960 seconds in which to write. A word for each second, 960 words a day. That's my process.

At about second 55, I open up whatever Google document or word file or yellow legal pad or bar napkin I happen to be working with—I try to stick with only one piece, and try to keep it organized on no more than two files, like, say, a legal pad page and a Google document each day—and by the time I have opened it, I have just enough time to write that minute's word. And then it's back to whatever I happened to be doing before that. Dishes, say. Or reading. Or jogging. Or watching a DVD. Or watching a youtube video of VHS signal decay.

More questions to come.

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Ross Simonini quoted me in this article. Gene, too.

Ross asked me to submit an essay to the next music issue of The Believer, too, so I did. I wrote about my favorite episode of Over The Edge, a radio show created by members of Negativland. I had written a piece about Over The Edge for a magazine, but then the magazine went out of business. While writing it, I had breakfast with The Weatherman and Pastor Dick. They were very nice.

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Also, support this.

Things

I think you need some things to think about. And so, today I'll give you some things to think about. Think about them a lot, if you can. Don't stop thinking about them for any of the following reasons:

Your home is on fire and you are sitting on the couch and it's starting to really get really hot or something.

Your cat has his claws in your cheek and left eye and is raking with the back claws along your neck, opening up the skin like the skin is just paper to be torn.

Clams have developed intelligence, and have invented their very own flying contraptions and they are flying all around, all around, all around, clams in the sky, dropping little notes on cities and towns and hamlets and lonely little hacks in the woods, notes that say "hello, clams above, death below."

Red has decided it no longer wants to be red and has become a sort of blueish green color, and everyone is really sad about the whole thing.

Fuck, you forgot your taxes, fuck!

So, here are things to think about. Think about them and/or I won't blog. I and/or won't! I swear.

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The Stranger and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer on my brother's new show.

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Creation Stories is on Goodreads. My thanks to the person who put it there. I am now a Goodreads Author.

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Upcoming here.

Upcoming here.

Upcoming here.

You can read stuff at No Posit. And you can send things to No Colony. And the Sycamore Review, too.

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Already out here.

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This was private but now it's public again. There's really only the Brian Beatty interview on it. It's a good interview, though, I think. You can read it now, Alex.

February

SEATTLE Readers: I'll be reading at Neptune Coffee on the 18th with Suzanne Burns, Kevin Sampsell, and Travis Nichols.

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Shane Jones sent me a copy of his book Light Boxes. It is about a town of balloonists at war with the month of February. It's really, really good.

Someone should publish it.

This is a section from the book that I really like:

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Their balloon diminished to burning ribbons that snaked across the dirt, Thaddeus, Bianca, and Selah, ran inside their home and painted balloons everywhere possible. Holding a tray of colored paints, they pulled up the floorboards and painted rows of balloons onto the dusty oak. Bianca painted even smaller balloons on the bottoms of the tea cups. Behind the bathroom mirror, under the kitchen table, and on the inside cabinet doors, balloons were painted. And then Selah began painting a permanent and intricate intertwining of kites on Bianca’s hands and wrists, the tails extending up her forearms and ending just below her tiny shoulders.

—How long will February last, asked Bianca extending her arms out for her mother.

—Not as long as last time, said Thaddeus who was watching out the window at the falling snow. A hundred days at the most. I said not to worry.

—All done, said her mother. It will dry shortly and you will always have to wear long sleeves from now on. But you’ll never forget flight for as long as you live. You can wear beautiful dresses, that’s what you can wear.

Bianca studied her arms. The kites were yellow and orange with black tails. She waited and let the color settle into her skin.

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Thank you, Shane.

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Go read the new Lamination Colony.

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Watch this. I'm proud of it.

Traitor

The traitor and I have our very own boat—it's small and blue and paint is peeling off.

The traitor and I like to do something they call "living by our wits"—and we live on the boat that is sitting in the middle of a field.

The traitor and I are never going to die, if we can help it—we'll shoot any motherfucker who comes out to our boat in a field and tries to take our valuable lives from us.

The traitor and I are glassy and smeared—we're lofty in more ways than we can count, I tell you.

The traitor and I touch each other on the mouth—we have dirt in our teeth and our eyes.

The traitor and I can remember a time when people didn't do things like "feel"—it was better when people just "did" and "feeling" was considered beneath ones dignity.

The traitor and I are all used up at this very moment—we would prefer it if you would call back later, and let us get some sleep.

The traitor and I know people who are fucked—we're not fucked and we're not going to be no matter what you say r how many of you there are.

The traitor and I see you, flat, unassuming you—and we won't let that stop us.

The traitor and I don't blog—because there is no such thing as a blog, not now, not ever.

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I'm reading this.

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Also, Dada.

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SPECIAL MIDWEEK UPDATE

I made a video today.



A second mid-week update:

Go read the new Lamination Colony.