nick antosca's fires & poems by noah cicero
nick antosca's novel fires is out from impetus press
i read nick's book in my room in manuscript form, not the final draft, like half a year ago i think; i enjoyed it and read all but the last 20-30 pages that night quickly, then told nick it was like a movie, because it had not much rhetoric and had a 'plot,' which i think (because while reading i always felt like nick knew what he was doing and had the entire novel in his head before writing it, or else went back and edited the first half or so after finishing a first draft, in service of what would happen later on in the novel) parts not in the service of were deleted, and also it started with a scene (i think) that happened later on like they sometimes do in movies, before starting back at the chronological beginning, and ended with like a calmer scene that was set after the 'climax' and final 'exciting' scene, but that was just a description of what i processed with detachment, as a robot would, not a judgement of the book's quality, which i will not make, because it causes pain and suffering in the world to think in a way that allows a person to call a work of art 'good' or 'bad' or 'important,' something i've explained somewhere else on this blog i'm pretty sure
i usually never read books with plots and most of the time if i begin to 'sense' a plot in a book i think i stop reading it, i'm not sure what this means for nick; i've read many of nick's stories and not all of them have plots i don't think; i'm not sure what i'm blogging about right now
halfway through reading nick's novel i went in the kitchen and saw nick and told him i liked it and was reading it fast
nick was a very nice and considerate roommate, he never got angry or frustrated at me even when i set the fire alarm off at 4 a.m., was always generous with lending me books to read and sharing food and inviting me to book things and telling me i could hit my wall which was also the bathroom wall in the morning if he was in the bathroom and i wanted to shower before going to work, when i had a job
nick and i's other roommate had her friends come over on the weekends sometimes and they would all be drunk in the common room behaving like assholes; i think once like at 4 a.m. i text messaged nick and nick text messaged me back while our other roommate's friends were being drunk and loud in the common room, then nick told them to be quiet but they kept being loud and nick or i text messaged each other one or two more times in resignation; it was a 'touching' moment i think, for me, because we chose not to confront the drunk people but to just accept that they were loud and adjust ourselves to be more tolerant rather than attack them or something; i'm not sure what i'm blogging about anymore
read these and these poems by noah cicero; also read his new novel treatise
i also want to say that i think a person has to be very motivated to be a successful, rich, famous writer in order to be one of those; for example it seems to me that almost every writer probably now who is famous, rich, and successful must have worked very hard on being successful, rich, and famous by getting famous agents, listening to them, editing accordingly, etc.; based on my experiences i don't think it's just 'luck,' which is what those writers usually say in interviews; i think you have to choose to submit to certain agents, work through those certain agents, never choose to go with a small press, i mean really make a choice and say to the agent (though most agents will make this choice for you, since small presses won't get them much money), 'don't submit my book to small presses if it gets rejected, i'll just write another book that knopf will accept,' and like then choose to accept to have a certain cover for the book, and choose to allow it to be sold by a corporation and (for most writers) then choose to block out the information that the rhetoric of their book (or if not the rhetoric of their book, then the rhetoric of their real life selves) is against what they are doing with their book, which is supporting a corporation (usually literary writers are anti-bush, pro independent venues, and would support the oppressed or weaker side over the more powerful side, etc.)
i like dave eggers in that he created a giant, independent mcsweeney's thing which operates on its own, prints all its first editions itself, and i think gives exclusive rights to some of its books and magazines to independent bookstores; dave eggers is one of the few famous, rich, successful people who could easily defend against what i just typed above; i would like to compare n+1 and mcsweeney's, due to n+1 'shit-talking' mcsweeney's; it seems like mcsweeney's is 'political' existentially while n+1 is only 'theoritically' political; or actually everything is political just by existing, but n+1 has abstract politics that are opposite in most ways to its existential politics; or maybe just benjamin kunkel, he's the only one with a book out by a corporation, i'm sure the other editors will publish ones soon also though; n+1 talks shit about mcsweeney's while mcsweeney's doesn't talk shit about anyone, but people who are paying attention can see that mcsweeney's entire existence is 'talking shit' about things like n+1, because just by existing it is making n+1 appear meaningless, which i think is a good kind of shit-talking; i think dave eggers just keeps mcsweeney's website which only publishes 'humor' things to attract people to spend money on their real books, which seems smart
also i want to say that it is not 'accurate' to attack mcsweeney's because much of the writing they publish, like 'how we are hungry,' doesn't rhetorically address things like poverty, racism, etc., because if you are writing a book and you do not block out information your book will be existential, which means it will address things from a point of view that is universal, which means it will take into account death, limited-time, free will, and things like that which are experienced by both poor and rich people; so to attack mcsweeney's for writing 'meaningless' books which do not 'address' the 'problems' of society is like attacking a politician for making choices like increasing minimum wage instead of building statues with existential quotes on them and putting them in the mall or something
mcsweeney's is addressing things like poverty by supporting independent venues and doing things themselves (they themselves are independent, which means they do not need to continue to increase profits existentially), though they do still sell through border's and barnes and noble's and places, but that might be good overall, i don't know, it depends on what dave eggers' plans are; i think i might have idealized mcsweeney's a little also in all these examples, i don't know about that either, i'm just going to post this giant post now
i read nick's book in my room in manuscript form, not the final draft, like half a year ago i think; i enjoyed it and read all but the last 20-30 pages that night quickly, then told nick it was like a movie, because it had not much rhetoric and had a 'plot,' which i think (because while reading i always felt like nick knew what he was doing and had the entire novel in his head before writing it, or else went back and edited the first half or so after finishing a first draft, in service of what would happen later on in the novel) parts not in the service of were deleted, and also it started with a scene (i think) that happened later on like they sometimes do in movies, before starting back at the chronological beginning, and ended with like a calmer scene that was set after the 'climax' and final 'exciting' scene, but that was just a description of what i processed with detachment, as a robot would, not a judgement of the book's quality, which i will not make, because it causes pain and suffering in the world to think in a way that allows a person to call a work of art 'good' or 'bad' or 'important,' something i've explained somewhere else on this blog i'm pretty sure
i usually never read books with plots and most of the time if i begin to 'sense' a plot in a book i think i stop reading it, i'm not sure what this means for nick; i've read many of nick's stories and not all of them have plots i don't think; i'm not sure what i'm blogging about right now
halfway through reading nick's novel i went in the kitchen and saw nick and told him i liked it and was reading it fast
nick was a very nice and considerate roommate, he never got angry or frustrated at me even when i set the fire alarm off at 4 a.m., was always generous with lending me books to read and sharing food and inviting me to book things and telling me i could hit my wall which was also the bathroom wall in the morning if he was in the bathroom and i wanted to shower before going to work, when i had a job
nick and i's other roommate had her friends come over on the weekends sometimes and they would all be drunk in the common room behaving like assholes; i think once like at 4 a.m. i text messaged nick and nick text messaged me back while our other roommate's friends were being drunk and loud in the common room, then nick told them to be quiet but they kept being loud and nick or i text messaged each other one or two more times in resignation; it was a 'touching' moment i think, for me, because we chose not to confront the drunk people but to just accept that they were loud and adjust ourselves to be more tolerant rather than attack them or something; i'm not sure what i'm blogging about anymore
read these and these poems by noah cicero; also read his new novel treatise
i also want to say that i think a person has to be very motivated to be a successful, rich, famous writer in order to be one of those; for example it seems to me that almost every writer probably now who is famous, rich, and successful must have worked very hard on being successful, rich, and famous by getting famous agents, listening to them, editing accordingly, etc.; based on my experiences i don't think it's just 'luck,' which is what those writers usually say in interviews; i think you have to choose to submit to certain agents, work through those certain agents, never choose to go with a small press, i mean really make a choice and say to the agent (though most agents will make this choice for you, since small presses won't get them much money), 'don't submit my book to small presses if it gets rejected, i'll just write another book that knopf will accept,' and like then choose to accept to have a certain cover for the book, and choose to allow it to be sold by a corporation and (for most writers) then choose to block out the information that the rhetoric of their book (or if not the rhetoric of their book, then the rhetoric of their real life selves) is against what they are doing with their book, which is supporting a corporation (usually literary writers are anti-bush, pro independent venues, and would support the oppressed or weaker side over the more powerful side, etc.)
i like dave eggers in that he created a giant, independent mcsweeney's thing which operates on its own, prints all its first editions itself, and i think gives exclusive rights to some of its books and magazines to independent bookstores; dave eggers is one of the few famous, rich, successful people who could easily defend against what i just typed above; i would like to compare n+1 and mcsweeney's, due to n+1 'shit-talking' mcsweeney's; it seems like mcsweeney's is 'political' existentially while n+1 is only 'theoritically' political; or actually everything is political just by existing, but n+1 has abstract politics that are opposite in most ways to its existential politics; or maybe just benjamin kunkel, he's the only one with a book out by a corporation, i'm sure the other editors will publish ones soon also though; n+1 talks shit about mcsweeney's while mcsweeney's doesn't talk shit about anyone, but people who are paying attention can see that mcsweeney's entire existence is 'talking shit' about things like n+1, because just by existing it is making n+1 appear meaningless, which i think is a good kind of shit-talking; i think dave eggers just keeps mcsweeney's website which only publishes 'humor' things to attract people to spend money on their real books, which seems smart
also i want to say that it is not 'accurate' to attack mcsweeney's because much of the writing they publish, like 'how we are hungry,' doesn't rhetorically address things like poverty, racism, etc., because if you are writing a book and you do not block out information your book will be existential, which means it will address things from a point of view that is universal, which means it will take into account death, limited-time, free will, and things like that which are experienced by both poor and rich people; so to attack mcsweeney's for writing 'meaningless' books which do not 'address' the 'problems' of society is like attacking a politician for making choices like increasing minimum wage instead of building statues with existential quotes on them and putting them in the mall or something
mcsweeney's is addressing things like poverty by supporting independent venues and doing things themselves (they themselves are independent, which means they do not need to continue to increase profits existentially), though they do still sell through border's and barnes and noble's and places, but that might be good overall, i don't know, it depends on what dave eggers' plans are; i think i might have idealized mcsweeney's a little also in all these examples, i don't know about that either, i'm just going to post this giant post now
2 Comments:
I'll agree with you that a book publisher or any other kind of person who is trying to sound important or full of plot and meaning, etc... is really not at all that interesting, and that themes of universal significance, themes relating to interior states of being, are modes of thought that have a need to be expressed. However, I do not think that McSweeney's is the best venue for good writing, although I can see why you would mention it, considering that a subject of your post was rich, famous writers and that Mr. Dave Eggers is at least a famous writer, if not a rich one as well. Nevertheless, I would like to maintain that McSweeney's doesn't really matter that much, not because it's too out into the cosmos, but that it really takes itself too seriously and tries too hard to be amusing, I mean the writers who seem to be various manifestations of the same writer, who is constantly writing with these nonsense non-sequitars, such as this one seems to be. But then, am I really trying to tell you, like some kind of high-minded literary critic, where all the best writing is to be found and where all the worst writing is to be found? Well, of course not, that would be stupid. But then what wouldn't be stupid is trying to suggest that some new writers, for example, yourself and Frank Sauce, could open up something new in the field of literature, something that is clear and yet foul, that is at once grounded in the universal present and a specific past.
i think i mostly just based what i said on lydia davis and stephen dixon, both writers who i don't think ever will sacrifice other things in order to be amusing or funny
the website is 'humor' writing and publishes brian beatty, i'm talking about their books i think, and they're publishing deb olin unferth soon and she doesn't sacrifice anything to be amusing or funny
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