Penny

More later...please stand by.

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This is my record review of the new record that I received in the mail and it only cost me a penny.

(And also, it cost me two more pennies for two more records, sure, but mostly I just got this one record for a penny and then the others for the other pennies were sort of like bonus gravy.)

The penny that I spent on this record that I got in the mail for a penny was well wort the copper or whatever that it is made from or out of. (Someone told me that inside a penny is bread for some reason. They said that if you take a penny and cut it in half, inside is like this old stale bread.) (But that is neither here nor there.) This was a penny well spent, much like because the penny was made from when I went out and did the lawn with the mower, it was also a penny well earned.

(The lawn really, really, really, really, like really needed doing.)

I see on the cover of this penny-costing record is a big blue word and some people in a photograph that is under the big blue word which is probably very likely the name of the band or the album. I like it very much when things are plain and straight ahead and no one has any trouble with the way information is conveyed to them, so I like it when a band or musical solo artist does me—and the public!—the great service of going ahead and putting their own name on the cover of the record. I am also very much in favor of a picture of the band itself, or the musical solo artist himself, or the musical female solo artist herself on the cover for ease of identifying the nature of the person performing the music on the record.

(Girls can make very fine solo musical artists, and I swear I was not trying to diminish the excellence of female musical solo artists by putting them last.)

The record itself is round in the manner of record albums in time immemorial. (That means from before you were born to remembering.) It is black and made of some sort of polyvinyl. There is a label on the center of the record and if I could read I would tell you all about the artist.

(And now you say, how is it you are giving me this record review in words if you yourself are unable to read words. The very interesting thing about me as a person is that I am unable to read, but am perfectly capable for whatever reason of writing in any sort of words I want, including words in languages that you don't know. Like, I might if I want say: watashi wa biru ga daisukidesu. Which is a lot of Japanese person talk.)

I do not have a record player of any sort so I cannot tell you if the music is any good. I hope that in the next few years I will be able to make enough money to buy a record player and then I will listen to the record and tell you about it. And then I will blog about it, but I can't now because it is impossible.

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A review of A Jello Horse.

When the book is reprinted in August there will be some review copies. Send me an email if you would like to review the book. I'm at

happy
cobra
books

at

g
mail

dot

com

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I check my book on Goodreads a lot, and every time someone adds it, I get a little short of breath and giddy. You and all your friends could do a sort of practical joke on me where a whole bunch of you add the book while I am asleep, and when I check the Goodreads site again and see a bunch of people have all added the book, I might faint. Someone could get that on tape.

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You will love this book. I loved it. You will, too.

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Observations

UPDATE:

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



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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.

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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.

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