Observations

UPDATE:

I love this song. Here's to you, readers:



***

Back from Ann Arbor. Some things I learned.

• Elizabeth Ellen and Aaron Burch live in a house that is almost exactly like Pee Wee's Playhouse except it also has lots of bourbon and a really fine collection of books. The furniture talks. The secret word is almost always: Keystone Light, Barry? (Actually, that's a phrase. But you are supposed to scream when someone says it.)

• Blake Butler ejaculates words all over you when you meet him. And then he sits down and also does so all over himself. And sometimes he sings Tom's Diner. Also, Blake is taller than I think he is.

• Mike Alber's favorite fast food place is Long John Silvers. And yet he is married and she seems completely normal and together. She (Julie) spent much of her time getting people to all walk in the right direction.

• Barry Graham prefers to read by the light of a Golden Tee video game machine.

• Bud Light cans a Bud Light and Clamato juice beverage. If you find one in a store, buy it and send it to Adam Robinson.

• Joseph Young recognizes a photo of Graham Nash when a room full of people can't identify Graham Nash.

• Matt Bell is the Alice Munro of Barrelhouse. Matt Bell is also the Alice Munro of your party, if you invite him to your party. Invite him to your party.

• Mary Miller's southern accent kind of makes me swoon a lot. She'd say things and I would sort of feel a little faint. I'd have to steady myself on tables.

• There exists in Ohio a person named Benji. He seems nice.

• Jensen Whelan doesn't know how to properly pronounce his own last name.

• Julia Wertz can swear around my mother, and my mother thinks its okay and she laughs it off because it seems cute and charming, but when I swear around my mother she looks at me and says my name in a weird, emphatic way that makes me feel bad about myself.

• Sam Pink just appears places, as if by magic. Sam Pink is probably magic. I'm pretty sure. But, yeah.

• I told the pizza guy he could come in the house and wait a minute while we got his money, but the pizza guy preferred to stand outside, and then I told the pizza guy that the people inside were nice and none of us would pull his pants down and make light of his genitalia, but still even though I assured him of that, he still wouldn't come in.

• Sean will have a side of sausage gravy with his steak and eggs, thank you.

• Dan Wickett was there. I forgot to mention that. Thing is, everything sort of orbited around Dan Wickett. Like the sun. Dan Wickett is almost exactly like the sun, and sometimes in the shuffle, we forget that were are all just enjoying the benefits of all the things the sun does for us.

• We could maybe play ping pong later.

• I guess I snore pretty loud.

• All the folks mentioned above are amazing.

***

Readings this summer still yet to happen. You could maybe attend:

June 15 or 16 @ somewhere with a pinball machine or two. Sponsored by my employer, University Book Store. I will likely give out a hardcover at this reading to the person who gets the highest score at pinball that night.

June 11 @ Elliot Bay Book Comany with Joe Meno and Ryan Boudinot.

I will try to read something different each time.

In August I will be teaching a seminar at the Richard Hugo House.

The Voices of Anxious Objects

The age-old dilemma for a writer: how do you say something about a character without coming right out and just saying it? There are many options. We will discuss a sometimes forgotten method of character building in fiction—the use of inanimate objects. Examining the technique of close observation of objects in four writers (Nicholson Baker, Lydia Davis, Ryan Boudinot, and, just for the heck of it, Proust) we’ll discuss the benefits of things as fetishes, totems and mirrors—and practice using these objects or others to build characters of our own. Writers will leave with a new tool for bringing characters to life.

Instructor: Matthew Simmons
Meets: Saturday, August 01, 2009 - Saturday, August 01, 2009
Saturday, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM

It costs $95 to sign up for it. Right now, the introduction to the class begins with kinds of lettuce and then some of Moby-Dick. And then all that stuff above.

UPDATE:

Arundel event canceled.

***

The book is selling well. Thank you to everyone who has purchased a copy. Add it on Goodreads, maybe?