We were high school sweethearts.

It's true. We're back together. Forever. Me & Harold Pinter.

Almost Over

I took this picture earlier this spring at the big end of the year MFA party. That's someone's dad I guess. He just couldn't take it anymore.

... So I am almost done with my manuscript. Turning it in December 1st. Then it's really, really over. Over over.

Serious Reflection on Education

An Essay is Out There

An essay I made out of pieces of Blake Butler's Tour of a Drowned Neighborhood is in this little e-book here. Brian Evenson, Matthew Simmons, Elizabeth Ellen and others that I haven't read yet have stories in there too.

Featherproof has just started publishing ebook remixes of their real books and this is the first one. I am happy to be a part of it.

The Grass is Smiling

I have applied for my visa to New Zealand. Still taking advice on maybe why I am going, and what exactly I should do. Just finished The Boat by Nam Le and Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler. Both awesome. Nam & Blake are both challenging writers in different ways.

Listened to the Radio Lab episode titled Where Am I? I was in Brooklyn Bridge Park, lying on the grass, and the grass was smiling.

The other day I was on a book-blogger live quiz show at Housing Works hosted by Ken Davis and my team won all four rounds. We were on fire. It was great. Ed Champion, Jason Boog and Buzz Poole were all on my team. Miracle Jones challenged us twice and she knew her stuff. Also, fellow blogger Sam Sacks represented by playing with the audience members which, sadly, lost every time.

Also, please go read my post at The Rumpus about the beautifully bizarre Kalup Linzy.

This video is involved:



Want to read Edith Wharton's novels. All of them. Embarrassed I haven't do so already.

New Zealand, other things.

Who knows something about New Zealand? Has anyone been there? Do you know of a good place to live for a while there, a nice agrarian village close to the water? A rural patch of land within biking distance of a place where you could find more people?



The other day I read this sentence somewhere: Many people suffering from depression feel much better after eating a banana. I thought it was a funny sentence.

Today my almost done book is about 54,948 words long. At its longest it was 112,122 words. A lot of those words were superfluous. I've been editing. I expect the finished product to be about 61,098 words. That's my bet. That's my estimate of the beans in the jar. Taking bets if you've got them.

I want to read essays by Vivian Gornick and Leonard Michaels.
I want to read Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.

I just read Sarah Manguso's Two Kinds of Decay and Strong Motion by Jonathan Lethem.

Picked for Review a Day

My review of Bodies by Susie Orbach was picked for a Powells review-a-day, so now the full text is available online. It's a great book and I recommend it to anyone with a body.