Canadians

This is a true story. I wouldn't. I wouldn't make something like that up. It's true. True true.

I find that the border guards are not all that rude. When I was little, I once had a border guard between Canada and the US ask me if my dad had any computers or fresh fruit in the car. He had already asked my dad. Then he asked me. He assumed that I would rat out my dad.

I would've. For the record, I would've ratted out my dad. If it would've made my dad love me slash pay attention to me, I would've ratted him. Sigh.

This is a photo of me and my dad:



Sigh.

It's not only border guards who want me to rat out my dad. But mostly it's border guards. Borders between states in the United States of America like to stop me when I am driving in my car, and they like to ask me to get little again, so that I will be honest. And they like to ask me if my dad has any computers or fresh fruit somewhere.

He probably does, at home. He probably has this stuff that they are asking about. But I don't really know for sure. I never ask and he never tells me. Plausible denial. Willful ignorance. Don't ask, don't tell. It's all game theory, here. Don't learn and you don't need to lie.

Canadians, though, are out to get my dad. It's because my dad is a floating ball of light.

Canadians hate light. Canadians need less light. They want less light. To Canadians, there is no difference between need and want, though. It's all the same to them. All the same. To us, to we normal people who are estranged from our dads, need is need and want is want.

But nope.

Before I get to blogging, though, I need to confess. I have fresh fruit and computers.

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I'll be reading at AWP in Denver. Here's a poster for one of the readings:



Here's a poster for another of the readings:



Those two readings are on the same day. I will run from one to the next. (I will not actually run run, but I will move quickly from one to the next.

I also hope to do a reading in an elevator at some point. For Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. Details to come.

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Recent HTML Giant stuff I'm proud of:

I talked about talk.

I interviewed Matthew Stadler of Publication Studio.

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Some updates on A Jello Horse:

—A fourth printing is on its way. Cover.

—Another excerpt accompanies this interview with me.

—Reviewed along with my friend Travis Nichols's book Iowa here.

Pillows

This man is hugging a pillow:



He's in a relationship with that pillow. A long-term relationship. They will be together for the long haul*. That man and that pillow are together.

This man is hugging a pillow:



He is merely using this pillow for a short time. After this photo is taking, he will be dropping this pillow back onto a couch or something. He will see it around—like when he sits on the couch—but he will not treat it quite the same. It is unlikely, for example, that he will be photographed holding that pillow again. Not like this, anyway.

The first person knows how to commit to a relationship. The second is still afraid of long term commitment. The first image is a marriage. The second image is a one-night stand.

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My dear friend Brittain is very close to having enough money to make her next record. If you have a little money, you should send it to her.

Here are some photos I took last time I saw Brittain perform her wonderful music.







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This person can make you a beard. I would like a small one for my two-year-old niece.







* Accidentally said "the long hall" in the first version of this post.

Umbrella

My brother has a tumblr blog.

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Tuesday morning I saw a guy running for the bus stop. He had a double-breasted overcoat, a tophat, and a pair of goggles. He was very steampunk.

But he also had a little beige Totes umbrella.

Totes umbrellas aren't steampunk, right? I mean, just because they have a little button on them that extends them, that doesn't make them steampunk. They're just functional. Steampunk isn't supposed to be functional, right?

The question is: if you aren't going to commit 100% to a look, should you leave the house in the look? I realize it was early in the morning, and it was raining, and it was a Tuesday and the guy was probably on his way to his job—at a comic book shop? at a call center? at Home Depot?—and not on his way to a local steampunk drinkery or danceclub, but he had the tophat. He had the goggles. He had the large, brass-buttoned, double-breased overcoat. Has he just not yet found the right umbrella?

Where in Seattle is the steampunk umbrella store? Does the guy need to borrow a few dollars so he can buy a proper umbrella for his outfit? Should I start a collection here on the blog to buy the steampunk guy a proper umbrella for his outfit? I'll do it, if that's the problem.

Are you out there, steampunk guy with the wrong umbrella? If you are, and you would like me to start some sort of fundraiser for you so you can buy a proper umbrella—one that matches the rest of your look—please feel free to get in touch and I will do it. I'm sure the loyal Man Who Couldn't Blog readers would be willing to help out with a few dollars, and would be willing to spread the word that your look is incomplete, and because it is incomplete, it was jarring for me to have to see you in it, and because it was jarring, it made it impossible for me to blog about anything important, and instead I blogged about your incomplete look, and we'll all gather some money for you to complete your look so that I won't be jarred and I can maybe blog.

This also happens to me—the jarred reaction to clothing—when I see a man in a basketball jersey, athletic shoes, and blue jeans.

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I wrote a writing prompt that asks the writer to rot one of her or his stories.

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Ginny Parker Woods interviewed Justin Sirois.

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Leni Zumas has a blog.

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Tongue

I like to interview people. But I don't always get to use all my questions. Sometimes I have leftover questions.

I hate waste.

So here is an unused interview question. In order to not waste, I will ask it to me:

Hey, Mr. Who Couldn't Blog, I have a vacation coming up. Where do you think I should go ?

That's a great question. Have you considered visiting your own tongue? I have to tell you, a number of years ago, my partner (pictured here)and I decided we would go for a nice long vacation, and having never been there before, I suggested maybe we should go to my tongue?

Oh, it was great. We arrived early one morning at the tip of the tongue, got to our hotel (two and a half stars!), checked in, ate the mints on our pillows (there were TWO each!), and went out hiking.

We got a local guide, someone who really knew his way around my tongue. He brought us all around, showed us all the flora and the fauna and such. Showed us the parts that taste the sweet and the sour and all that. My partner (pictured here) and I learned a lot.

On night, after my partner (pictured here) had gone to sleep, I snuck out and took a walk on my tongue on my own. It was probably sort of a dangerous thing to do, to walk around on my own on my tongue, walk around at night with no guide, there in a foreign place. But I left all my money back in the hotel. And I left my shoes there, too. It was a lovely night, a little humid. Stars glowed in the firmament/roof of my mouth. I took a little rest in that long central seam on my tongue. Just leaned back into it and watched the stars spin over head.

Consider that next time you have some time to take some time away.

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Google image search of the day: fissured tongue

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I would like to do is call your attention to this really really good post on HTMLGiant by Justin Taylor. It's about George Saunders and is one of my favorite things ever to appear on the site.

Flannery O'Connor comes up in the essay, and here's a nice O'Connor review from BOOKFORUM.

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You can buy Shane's book Light Boxes now. It's shipping.

Read a section of Light Boxes here.

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Hot Wire My Heart - Crime

Kitty

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I interviewed the amazing Lydia Millet.

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It's Mean Week at HTMLgiant.

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Last week, I discovered that The Internet Archive has the original website for my old band, the nurses. You can see the original page from 1997 there.

The nurses were a noise band. We didn't make music. We just made a big racket. And I hopped around like an idiot, screaming and yelling into a microphone.

We played live a few times. We'd play a whole bunch of noise for twenty minutes or so, and I'd scream and yell and jump around like an idiot. And I'd wear myself out. And then I'd drop the microphone and I'd go shake hands with everyone in the audience.

And then I'd go outside and walk around for a little while. We played shows almost all our shows in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In winter. So I'd go outside and it would be really cold. And my throat would be sore. I'd walk around for a couple of minutes.

And the next day, I'd get a bad cold from screaming and yelling and jumping around like an idiot until I was exhausted and hoarse, and then going outside in the cold.

Those were really good times.

I have tapes. Someday I will make mp3s of the tapes and post them.

I take back what I said. Sometimes we'd make music. Last week, I linked to a song called The Primeval Stomp. That was us. We made that. That was my friend DanDan and I who made that. (DanDan used to put together a really funny zine called Blipvert.) We made a bunch of other things, too. We made a concept album about living underground. We made a song that included phone calls we accidently picked up on a 6-band radio I got from my Dad. DanDan even made us a video game, wherein you dropped bowling balls on Morlocks.

This link has some broken links on it. "Catch" works, though.

"We Plant, we hunt" works.

DanDan's Pac-Man works.

Oh, look! The Devil! The Devil is somewhere.

There's a lot there, if you click on every link. Even some of my early creative fiction, which were all attempts to create an elaborate fake history for the band.

I used to do lots and lots of things on the internet, apparently. As Blake Butler pointed out on HTMLGiant, I am old.

Enjoy!

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More episodes of Over the Edge, the Negativland-produced radio program about which I spoke quite fondly for The Believer, are now available from their website.

Some are even free. "Complex Numbers" is very good. "Illumination" is nice and creepy. Both are solo shows—Don working his live audio mixing magic all by himself. "A Piddle Diddle Disneyland" is an incredibly good group show.

I'd love to know what others think about them. If you download one, please comment.