shtoopid

I'm about 12,000 words into a new-a-so-new novel. It's new in that I'm writing everything from scratch, but not-so-new in that it's basically an old novel that I shelved some years back and have returned to. I was talking to a friend about old writing projects and I remembered this book and started describing it, and my friend was like, that book sounds amazing, and I thought, well yes, I am that kind of genius. Anyway, this feels new, fresh, and completely different that anything else I've written in some time. There are a lot of mountains and guns and knives in it. And there are also lots of animals.

I have a cheating problem with my American Lit students. I teach in a computer lab, and every student has a computer in front of him or her. I also have a computer, and my computer's equipped with a program that enables me to see all the students' computer screens. This technology is apparently inconceivable to my students--even after I tell them about it, and give those who thought the answers to the exam could be found on the Internet a zero. In fact, I have repeat offenders, repeat zeroes. I'm trying to figure out whether they're deaf, just plain bad people bent on subverting The Man (i.e., me), or if they're mildly retarded. In class last night I said that I felt embarrassed for those people who did that because I look at them and think about how stupid they are. Then, I had a student download one of those buyable essays for his essay proposal. All the student had to do was come up with a topic and a tentative thesis--and any of it could change in the future. I mean this was just a proposal. All he had to do was write three or four sentences. But he decided to pay for that instead. Zero for him too. I wrote back to the student and said, maybe you could try having just a grain of self-respect.

When this sort of stuff happens I like insulting those students. It's fun.

Home again

We had this couple on the plane from Atlanta to San Francisco. We wouldn't have noticed them at all, probably, if the husband had not yelled out "Sherman should've burned farther!" We looked at each other like what the hell's this guy talking about? So I guess he was unimpressed with Atlanta, which is surprising for someone who knows so little about history. He wore a cap like Gilligan did on his island and was pretty much a fucking idiot. I said that this was a certain kind of guy who was a cliche of himself. We talked about writing and books for about a half an hour and then we were quiet for the next three and a half. Before we landed we talked some more about writing, and blake was reading this Kathy Acker book, and he was talking about the dominatrix character in it. Blake overheard this guy's name and whispered that it was perfect and could I guess it? I said "Stanley." Blake laughed and said, pretty close. It was Spencer.

Blake had already noticed that the woman in front of us--apparently Spencer's wife--would squirm in her seat while we talked about the Acker book, and she glanced at Blake when he whispered Spencer's name. So she probably thought we were talking shit, which we kind of were. When the plane landed and everyone stood, this woman said to Blake, "You must have to be quite the egotist if you're an author."

Blake said, "What?"

She said, "I've been listening to you talk about writing the entire flight and all you talked about was yourselves."

Blake said, "That's nice."

She said, "Actually, it wasn't."

I said, "Is there a problem here?"

Spencer's wife said, "Yeah, I've been listening to you two talk about such-and such's magazine, which is nice, and such-and-such other is not, and so-and-so's writing's good, and so-and-so's is not, and it got really really low."

By now the line of people exiting the plane had ended at our antagonist, and everyone behind us stood there, waiting for this woman and Spencer to move.

I said, "Well lady, you can go fuck yourself."

Blake said, "The least you can do is move so we can get off the plane."

Then we left, and that was the first thing that happened.

Holy Shit

Blake and I had our first truly bizarre kind of question-answer session at a reading, a reading where my bat-shit-crazy-alcoholic ex-girlfriend and her mentally-challenged-alcoholic-claiming-to-be-a-mathematician-who-actually-paints-houses-or-buildings-or-some-shit-now-boyfriend showed up at one of our readings. Has anyone, ever, heard someone attempt for nearly five minutes to get to asking a question without ever asking one or using any logic whatsoever in the process of trying to say something stupid like would you ever write anything political? Yeah, dumb as that sentence. Why do I not keep a diary? and what is the avant garde saying about the war because that's what's really avant garde, you know is saying stuff about the war? What the fuck is the war? World War II was pretty avant garde. We were both like people with very large eyes and all open mouths, and Blake jumped in to rescue and someone from the audience said for these two drunks to shut the fuck up. It was funny.

I am lazy

and forget to post things here lately. But there have been some cool goings on. Blake and I are off for a week-long West Coast tour. We're doing the following readings:

February 8th at Dogeared Books in San Francisco, at 7 PM.

February 10th I'm reading at the University of Nevada Reno, at 5:30 PM

February 11th Blake and I read at Sundance Bookstore in Reno, at 6:30 PM

February 12th we read in an as-yet-undetermined place and time in Eugene, Oregon

February 13th we read at Neptune Coffee in Seattle at 7 PM

In March I'm also reading on the East Coast, with details about that as they solidify. For now, if you're in California, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington, and somewhat in the above vicinities, you should come out and see us.

Also, there have been a couple recent interviews/reviews come out that have been really fun, and very generous.

John Madera interviewed me at Big Other. Thanks John. He always has really smart questions.

And Robert Duffer wrote a wonderful review at the Examiner, then followed it up with an interview the next day.

A couple weeks ago there was another great review by Wyatt Williams in Atlanta's Creative Loafing.

Thank you to everyone for the great reviews. It's humbling, and helpful. Makes me feel good about what I'm doing.

In other recent lit news, I got the Penguin version of Shane's Light Boxes in the mail, I think as a review copy. I will likely say something here about it soon. I haven't yet re-read the book, but I'm curious as to what--if any--editorial changes Penguin might have wanted to make. The only thing I will say is that I liked the Publishing Genius cover better. The cover's only a small part of anything, though. And I'm sure the book will do well for Shane.