Hands

It's been a slow few days for reading. I'm in the middle of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (9), and am struck by the hands in the book. There are hands everywhere. Heads held in hands (3 or 4 times). Hands thrust in pockets (4 or 5 times). Trembling hands. (So much trembling. So many hands.) And descriptions of hands.

From "Hands,":

"Wing Biddlebaum talked much with his hands. The slender expressive fingers, forever active, forever striving to conceal themselves in his pockets or behind his back, came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of expression."

From "Paper Pills,":

"The knuckles of the doctor’s hands were extraordinarily large. When the hands were closed they looked like clusters of unpainted wooden balls as large as walnuts fastened together by steel rods."

From "Mother,":

"Her long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair."

From "The Philosopher,":

"The saloon keeper was a short, broad-shouldered man with peculiarly marked hands. That flaming kind of birthmark that sometimes paints with red the faces of men and women had touched with red Tom Willy’s fingers and the backs of his hands."

From "Respectability,":

"He took care of his hands. His fingers were fat, but there was something sensitive and shapely in the hand that lay on the table by the instrument in the telegraph office."

From "Loneliness,"

"'...I wanted to touch her with my fingers and to kiss her. Her hands were so strong and her face was so good and she looked at me all the time.'"

From "The Untold Lie,":

"Ray, who was the more sensitive and always minded things more, had chapped hands and they hurt. He put them into his coat pockets and looked away across the fields."

From "Drink,":

"For five years she scrubbed the floors in an office building and then got a place as dish washer in a restaurant. Her hands were all twisted out of shape. When she took hold of a mop or a broom handle the hands looked like the dried stems of an old creeping vine clinging to a tree."

From "Death,":

"'There was always paint on his hands and face during those days and he smelled of paint."'

We spend an awful lot of time on faces. We spend our time staring at, glancing quickly at, studying, reading emotion from, searching for duplicity within, making up our minds about someone based upon the details of, etc., etc., the face.

But faces, and voices (their partners in crime) spend a lot of time lying. Or convincing. Or seducing.

Watch the hands. Hands over to help you up, and hands hold knives that are about to get stuck in your belly, and hands steal your wallet while a face gives you gentle, innocent eyes.

I think that's why Anderson spends so much time on hands. You can, as a writer, fill faces and words with lies, and then pack all this truth in hands.

Also probably worth mentioning: when one is a certain kind of person (and this is often true of writers) one spends a lot of time trying to look into the faces of people who aren't looking at them, and one spends a lot of time avoiding the direct gaze of people and instead doing a very thorough investigation of their hands.

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10) Andrew Sullivan on Obama

"And the only way out of that deadlock is an electoral rout of the GOP, since the language of victory and defeat seems to be the only thing it understands."

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11) Jay Caspian Kantor on Kobe Bryant & 12) Greg Monroe, possibly the only thing about the Pistons worth being hopeful about

My girlfriend and I moved into a place together a couple of months back. The hardest part has been trying to find a way to blend the book collections of two professional book sellers. Her solution has been to accept every bookshelf we've been offered. Mine has been to slash and burn my way through my collection, selling and giving away the last decade of contemporary "literary" fiction. (I have, if you are interested, lots of books I'd be happy to give you/trade with you for something other than books (film for my cameras? baked goods? something else? whatcha got to offer? Lots of story collections. Drop me a line. Read slash love the books, and I'll be happy.)

One thing about the place is that it is incredibly dry. Because it is dry, we both spend our evenings snoring at each other.

It's been a long time since I had a roommate. Of course, this is a bit different. But not entirely. One of the last roommates I had would—from another room—spend the night quietly (and sometimes loudly) snoring at me as I quietly (and sometimes loudly) snored back. That was also in a fairly dry apartment. So dry, I spent the first month waking up with a nosebleed. There have been blood spots on the pillows, but nor serious, early-morning nosebleeds.

So, anyway, a lot of the time I spent hanging out with the snoring-from-the-other-bedroom roommate was spent watching professional basketball.

Which I had never really done prior to that living situation.

Now I sometimes just wish I was watching basketball when I'm not.

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12) Rachel Aviv reviews The Church of Scientology

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13) Tom Bissell on the making of "Madden NFL"

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UPDATE:

14) Blog Post 2012 by Adam Robinson

Can't believe I forgot to include this in my journal of Favorite Reads over the last few days.

I did a reading with Edward Mullany last night, and we talked a little about our friend (and publisher) Adam Robinson. And this HTML Giant post about disc golf. And books. And H0bart's upcoming Luck issue.

—Speaking of Hobart, Elizabeth Ellen has a book called Fast Machine coming out soon. There are many reasons why I'm excited about this. Here's one: I'm really glad she's finally calling a book Fast Machine. When Before You She Was A Pitbull was in process, and she was coming up with a title, and Fast Machine was one of the options, I thought it was the one to go with. I like Before You She Was A Pitbull just fine. I really love the title Fast Machine. I'm not sure why.—

Mullany is quite nice and his book (15) in the next couple of days; not finished yet) is pretty damn good. The lines are concise. The language is direct. But it's all deceptively simple. He has a wonderful prose poem called "Important," which describes hearing about a famous painter who "would've been 100 today." Dead and yet still, on certain news reports, still worthy of having his birthday marked.

I asked Mullany about the poem. Specifically, what was it that weighted that moment—the moment where you hear someone mark a dead man's birthday—to the point that it became worthy of poetic consideration. His answer: the ambiguity of it. The fact that it is sort of funny and also somber. The way it shuttles back and forth between meanings in one's mind. And in that way, begins to transcend its two possible interpretations. The way it lives as both things at once.



Here's a song for you:



Later.

Dream

I had this dream that a friend of mine had a baby. She had a baby and she filled her baby's crib with water. She put the baby in the crib, dropped it in the water, and left the baby there.

The baby didn't die. It lay there surrounded by water.

"Now when the bay cries, it won't wake me up," she said. "Because the baby will be crying under the water. Look."

She pulled the baby from the water, and the baby coughed a little and started to yell and cry. "And now," she said, and she dropped the baby back in the water. The baby's face was screwed and pinched, and its mouth was wide, wide open. The baby was, under the water, screaming and crying. We couldn't hear a thing.

"Pretty smart, huh?" said my friend. "And when I take the baby for a walk," she said, and she pointed at a metal pail filled with water.

***

Today, Obama is president. He's the first African-American president. That's pretty great.

Also, though, Joe Biden is, like, the 44th white male in a row to be Vice President. That's gotta be some sort of record, too, isn't it?

Take heart, white males. You are still totally undefeated in the "elected to Vice President of the United States of America" category. You still totally rule that one.

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Youtube allows you to watch the movie Rock and Rule. You should watch it. Lou Reed and Iggy Pop are in it.

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Berta, Berta - Branford Marsalis

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UPDATE:

I forgot to mention EVER by my friend Blake. EVER arrived to me a couple of days ago. I read it aloud to myself. It's an enormously satisfying book, and Blake is—as we already knew—a really talented writer. Go buy a copy already.

Interviews

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First, an interview with Lydia Millet.

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Next, an interview with Michael Kimball.

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And finally, an interview with Brian Evenson.

Also on that page, a story by me called Apple.

(And a story by my friend Blake Butler.)

This is a three interview post. Very exciting, I think.

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I linked to my brother's new website last week, but only by making the change on the sidebar.

He said someone followed the link and looked at his site.

This is his new website. Everyone should go and look at it. He's a very talented painter.

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Again, VOTE OBAMA. Tuesday. The fourth. Vote.

OBAMA.


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UPDATE:

Hey. He won. Thanks everybody.

Thanks for doing what I told you to do.

Shillin'

Sorry. I'm a little late. I don't have much to say this week, so I will just shill.

Vote for Obama.

A shill is a person who promotes something for because s/he has a personal interest at stake in the thing promoted. It is, generally, a epithet.

I am embracing the word. I have a personal interest. I would like to spend four years not cringing every time the leader of my nation opens his mouth to speak. I would like affordable health care. I would like a sensible tax policy. I would like scientific literacy from the people whose job it is to make decisions about the wise use of science and technology.

I am a shill.

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Errol Morris is a really interesting filmmaker. He made this. It shills for Obama.

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Shepard Fairey is a really interesting graffiti artist and designer. He made this:


Barack Obama x Z-Trip x Shepard Fairey x Fresh Pressed from Barack On! Obamathon on Vimeo.

It shills for Obama.

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My folks don't usually vote for Democrats. They live in a very small town. They put up an Obama sign and some kids ran it over and threw a rotten pumpkin at their house.

They put up another sign.

They are shilling for Obama.

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A friend of mine has big hair and glasses. She made this blog.

It shills for Obama.

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Justin Dobbs came up with a Facebook group called Moose for Obama. After Sarah Palin became John McCain's running mate, others jumped on the bandwagon not realizing the bandwagon already existed.

Moose shill for Obama.

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Blake Butler sold his very good book Scorch Atlas to Featherproof Books.

Sadly, he does not shill for Obama. I like him anyway. And can't wait to see the finished book.

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Shane Jones, one of only two people I have let guest blog for me, has a chapbook from a new press.

I hear it is going fast, and you should order it now. And Ken Baumann's. And Jimmy Chen's. And Blake's. And Brandi's. And Nick's. All of them.

I am unclear on the "shilling for Obama" status of these people and would love to hear about it from them.

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Drunk person shills for Obama.

Frankly, if I had known there would be drinks at the call centers, I would've volunteered.

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That's all. Vote Obama.