Mark Gluth interview

I interviewed Mark Gluth about his astonishing new novel The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis, which is available now from Akashic/Little House on the Bowery.

----

OK, so I know it’s an obvious question to start with, but I wanted to ask just for a little bit of biography about you. Where about are you based? How long have you thought of yourself as a writer? What stuff have you had published prior to your novel? Usually I think that these kinds of questions can seem a little lazy but seeing as this is your first novel I guess that sort of information isn’t really there to be Googled at the moment. Plus, I’m nosey. So far I know that you live with your wife and cats and that you’re vegan.

Yeah, my wife, Erin Kelly, and I live in Bellingham, Washington. It’s a college town up in the upper left corner of the map. We have 3 dogs but no cats. Yeah we’re vegans – for ethical reasons. I know I wanted to be a writer as far back as I remember, probably because books were always really valued in my house. Like my parents would always buy me a book if I wanted it despite money being- I realize in retrospect- tight. Previously published? Not much really. I had a section of my novel in Userlands. Up until the novel I’d never really written very much I was happy with. I had vague plans to write a novel when I graduated from college but I kind of waited 8 years to get started. I think I spent a ton of time learning to write by just thinking about it and not writing at all. And then I learned a ton more while writing the book. I’ve written some journalism: mainly record reviews for Thefanzine.com and I really enjoy that but that’s a whole different type of writing with a whole different type of thinking going into it, I mean compared to fiction.

How long has the book been in the works? It’s very short but it feels like it’s been chipped at remarkably, I mean there’s a tightness to the prose that’s really quite something. It feels like something that has taken quite a while to get into this shape. When did you start it and when did you finish it? Did you start off intending to write a novel?

Um, I just checked and the earliest version I have of the first writing I saved on the computer is dated 8/03 and I finished it around mid-year 08. The way it started was that I had written a couple stories since 2000 and I liked them and I thought I wanted to write a novel but I had no idea how to write something over 5 pages long. I guess yeah, I just kept chipping at it. I like what you said, that it felt like it took a while. I like art like that. It made me think of Kubrick's movies. They have this purity he got from all those takes. I dunno, I write really consistently but slowly. I think I averaged under 20 pages a year. I wonder how that compares to a Kubrick film.

Following on from that: I’m interested in hearing about how you actually start off your writing process. Do you have a lot of stuff in place before you start the actual writing? I’m talking in terms of ideas, or perhaps more formal stuff – plans about how you want the piece to be structured or anything like that … Just from how tight and economically worded your prose is, I get the impression that a lot of work and thinking was done before hand. Could you talk a little about that please?

At the start I had a few elements of the book and I just experimented with them a lot, thinking of ways to connect them, which over time lead to more and more elements, which made everything more and more complex. Early in I nailed the structure that everything hangs from and then it was just a matter of nailing each sentence and paragraph along the way. I say ‘just’ but that’s like a joke. I edit a ton because writing does not really come to me with ease, that’s probably where the tightness comes from. All I know is I do it from feel. When a paragraph feels good to me, then I know I’m done. So long as it meets the structural and narrative requirements it needs to move the story forward. I write each paragraph as a whole. I see them as short stories. And I just keep playing with them intuitively until they work for me.

I’ve been trying to work out why I think this, but I can’t quite get it into words at the moment, so I’ll just say it without any qualifiers: for some reason the book feels a little French to me. There’s something about it that makes me think of certain writers, maybe a little Marguerite Duras or someone like that, or a certain style of writing perhaps. It has something to do with this strange distance between the text and the things that it’s describing. I mean that in the nicest way, of course. It has these really lush gaps where the reader can really get caught up in and washed around in. I guess that is probably due to the whole subject of daydreams and streams of consciousness. But yeah – that was all just a very convoluted way of me asking what sort of other writers influenced you, if there were any that you consciously used as reference points?

Yeah I got really into some French writers working on the book It’s neat that that somehow translated into my book and double neat that you caught that. My fave writer of all time is Agota Kristof who is Hungarian but writes in French, I also really love Marie Redonnet who is French. I discovered Claude Simon and I really love Alain Robbe-Grillet too. I only read English, so I’m stuck reading translations. What I like about these writers’ work is that their books are really smart, really intellectually rigorous on one end but that they also work at a gut level. I think that distance you talk about is something most evident in Redonnet's books. But I never ever tried to understand how she was doing it, but if you see it there, I'm honoured. Having said that I’m not particularly informed about French Literature or anything. I just kind of stumble onto stuff. As far writers that influenced me…well there's everyone above plus Joan Didion, Dennis Cooper, Derek McCormack, Arthur C Clarke, Cormac Mcarthy, Jerzy Kosinski, Jorge Luis Borges, John Le Carre, Bret Easton Ellis. I like writers who care about language. Writers that don’t get lazy. I hate when I’m reading a book and suddenly I hit a flabby paragraph, or a sentence that feels like it was written by rote.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly but yeah, there’s something about the distance that you’ve created that reminded me of translations of French books that I’ve read. Off the top of my head the first thing that I can come up with is the idea of restraint. Because I guess obviously somebody translating a book has to work with some pretty strict restraints on their hand – they have to block out any urge to go too far beyond the text that they’re working with, whilst at the same time they have to try and get across whatever emotional stuff might be working between the lines, the stuff that exists above where the language is operating. I wonder if the tightness that you try and impose upon your work has something to do with creating that similar sort of distance. Maybe by reigning a lot of stuff in it creates this whole other emotional aspect that is implied inherently through its lack of illustration. Or something. Actually it brings to mind one of my favourite lines from early on in your novel, when you write: ‘J’s in bed then at his desk. He fills a dozen pages with pen drawings. Each line is whatever, the spaces are what makes them compelling.'

It's funny, I was playing with distance a lot in that chapter but I just always played around until I found something that felt intuitively right. There are more characters in it, more that share the spotlight so I thought about the voice like a camera- that it zooms in and out, and pans to different characters at different time. So distance is the thing with that right? And distance is only like one element of whatever equation it occurs in right? I mean there's both a separation between the text and the character/action but I also wanted it to work to bring the reader closer in to the character. What I mean is the sentence pulls back with regards to detail, but at the same time I hoped on some level that the narration was actually zooming in on him, that the vagueness or whatever was how he saw it in that moment. But overall maybe whatever distance you see, and similarity to translated fiction ,comes from what I like, what I find aesthetically pleasing, which is also fed by the fact that I read a fair amount of translated stuff.

Something that jumps out at me after reading your novel is that it very much felt like there were some conscious efforts made to take cues from other mediums aside from writing. I know that you’ve spoken a little bit about some of the ideas that: you based on stuff from video games like Zelda – that helped with the way that you considered your use of narrative, right? Also, something that I’ve enjoyed talking to you about in the past is music: I know that it influences your writing, and I was wondering if you might expand on that a little bit. Are there any definite ways that you feel that the music you listen to forms what you write? Do you listen to music while you write? Do you use it to put yourself in a particular mood for writing, or do you take any structural cues from it. Just an aside, it’d also be cool to hear a current playlist from you, the stuff you’ve been listening to a lot recently.

Well I don’t have the kind of brain where I can easily translate an influence into a piece of writing. I usually have feelings that are triggered by stuff I admire, and then I try to incorporate those feelings into my writing. Usually my feelings for something I like are too intense for me to concentrate on so I kind of think around them, and see what shadows they cast and stuff. Early on in the book I got really into looking at whatever structure I was contemplating, and reassembling it as something else....so like what if it was a mobile, or a sculpture or a flow chart instead of a novel? It was that kind of thinking that lead to the overall plot of the book. Zelda, yeah, I love how those games repeat the same structure over and over, but how instead of it being some lame money making sequel thing, that Nintendo created this overall narrative structure where it makes sense for that to be happening. That totally influenced the book. Yeah I totally listen to music while writing. I can write w/o it but I don’t like to. It's a mood thing, but it also gives me something to zone out on. I make these huge playlists. The one for my novel in progress is ridiculous, like 18 hours long. Sometimes I'll hear a line in a song and suddenly something about my book will become very clear, so in a sense it's like a good drug. So, music I'm into right now? I really love Grouper, she's from Portland and her music is amazing and perfect to me, I like black metal, at least abstractly. I'm trying to capture what I find compelling about it in the book I'm writing now. I think Xasthur and Wolves in the Throne Room are the best of the lot. I really like Marmoset, Former Ghosts, Sunset Rubdown, and Destroyer and..er..a ton I can't think of right now. I like sad acoustic music like Boduf Songs, Califone. That kind of Americana stuff probably really influenced some of the rural stuff in the book.

I can relate to that. Music has often played a big part for me or been a pivotal inspiration for my writing, too. I love your idea of a song helping you make sense of your own writing – it brings to mind the idea that the work and the writing already exists in some way, and your role is to shine a torch on it or feel it out in the dark almost. I want to ask you a little bit more about your interest in black metal (I think it’s on my mind a little bit today because I was reading about the new Burzum album). What is it about that style of music that you find so compelling? I’m a fan of a lot of that stuff as well, but I sometimes have quite contradicting views about it. Also – and I don’t know if this is just because we’ve spoken about music in emails past and therefore I already knew that you were into black metal bands – but I sensed that some of that translated into your novel a little bit. The way that you gave such gorgeous descriptions of woodlands, trees, damp ground, misty and foggy views of the sea and stuff like that – for whatever reason I related that stuff with the imagery used by a lot of black metal bands and the sorts of things they might use in their artwork.

As far as black metal, well I'm really into some of it, mainly stuff on the outskirts of the main wave of black metal, like the suicidal depressive stuff, Xasthur or Burzum for example. And I'm torn on it like you. First off I find it aesthetically pleasing. The best stuff sounds totally gutted. From the song writing to the production it just feels like the photo negative of other music, to me. But the best stuff kinda transcends all the gimmicks and superficial stuff and is just really pure and amazing. It also has all these contradictions that make it complex. I see good black metal as being a testament to its own failure. Anyway- the alienation between the individual and the world...all that I love. I even see the pagan stuff as an iteration of that. I think it's kind of telling how a lot of black metal is so willing to replace one system of control-Christianity with another- paganism or what have you, so the stuff I really like tends to transgress that pagan stuff into abstract despondence like Xasthur or the Earth First! stuff that Wolves in the Throne Room kinda came from. What I hate, and this is where I'm torn: is that a lot of these bands and musicians- Xasthur included, flirt with fascism, which as an anarchist is anathema to me. I read an interview somewhere where Malfeic was like well, fascism has plusses and minuses. That's just totally fucking bullshit, denialist crap, but again it's part of Black Metals failure- how so much of it is an expression of outrage over the strong dominating the weak, about an individual impotently facing the world, but at the same time they are willing to replace one form of domination with another.

As far as TLWOMK, actually I'd say there's close to zero amount of Black Metal influence in it. Sorry. I didn't get into black Metal till after I was done with it. I think a lot of the stuff you point to is just description of where I live. It's very foggy a lot and while I live on the coast, I can turn around and see the North Cascade mountain range. In the summer it looks like a can of Bush beer and in the winter it looks like a Black Metal album. Anyway, my new book, the one I'm writing now...in it I'm trying to incorporate a lot of Black Metal stuff, particularly suicidal black metal like Xasthur. The first chapter is named after a song by Leviathan. I'm trying to translate the feeling I get listening to suicidal black metal and stuff and incorporate at it into my fiction. So there's not like guys in corpse paint or anything, it's more tangential, the characters just feel totally fucked in it.

OK, so I’m interested in the ‘narrative and structural requirements’ that you mentioned. So long as you wouldn’t feel like a magician being asked to explain how he performed a certain trick, I was hoping you could expand on that a little bit or give a couple of examples perhaps …

Oh, please don’t picture me coherently experimenting with stuff. It's usually just that I have daydreams where I try to connect all these disparate narrative strands. I'll have 3 pieces of writing let’s say, and then just think about them and try to connect them into something coherent and compelling. 99% of the time I fail, but once I find a way through then there's certain things that need to happen to connect those pieces. So as far as writing the book, I figured out all that stuff early on. In each chapter there are only a couple things that need to happen- and they are big things, like a character needs to die or a character needs to write something. I mean those requirements are just the bare minimum required to move the narrative forward. I have less of it planned out in my new book. I understand the shape of the story I'm going for, but I have less signposts mapped out. It scares me a little, but it also feels exciting.

The old man has gone out

The old man’s gone out. Would probably hurt the mid to know where but we don’t so it doesn’t. Just trying to enjoy being able to slump our shoulders for a minute and breathe without having to worry about what’s happening in the next room.

Heartfelt

He sat in the back
of the car watching
the windows steam up.
His warm breath
seemed to be floating
back into his face
constantly, making it
feel greasy,
like he
hadn’t washed that
morning. It was hot
but he couldn’t wind
down the window;
he knew that would
set the alarm off.
He had to keep still,
and he had to hope
that whatever drugs
were still left
from the previous night
when he’d been pumped
full of them, might kick
back in,
at least if he could
pass out he might
forget how boring
death was
starting to seem.

10 reasons to adore Owen Pallet

Oscar Tuazon

“An object, actually, that doesn’t need any kind of support structure. It doesn’t need a wall, it doesn’t need lights, it doesn’t even need to be displayed inside. It’s just a thing. It can be left outside, left alone. It doesn’t even need to be looked at. And so it remains stubbornly abstract. Abstract in the sense that it doesn’t need anyone. It can function on its own, but the only function the object is capable of performing is that of an artwork, useless and inexplicable. To put it another way, the work is onanistic.” Oscar Tuazon

Oscar Tuazon has been working for some years on sculptures that clearly reference the formal language of architecture. While earlier works approached functional aspects of architecture, recent works focus on the materiality of utilized substances. Building materials like cement, wood, glass and metal are often used against their actual purpose, and thereby develop new aesthetical qualities and implications. An important method of the artist is to examine examples of architecture that are developed or built directly by its users. He is inspired by the ingenuity of spontaneous settlements and improvised usage of building materials to create habitats. Read more of this article here.

-BOREDOM-

Scrawny little chicken skeleton man
Tufts of ruffled hair sticking up from
The back of his head like reminders
That he doesn’t care it doesn’t care
The ambulance guy told him that he
Was the same level as a heroin addict
The next day when I asked him about
That he said he didn’t know what a
Heroin addict was like so I left the
Conversation there you can’t save
Anyone who doesn’t want to be saved

Estimate

He left the sauna with a dislocated jaw.
-Bruised.
--Battered.
---Black eye.
----Scratches on his back, closer to cuts.
-----Close to prolapsed asshole.
------Overestimations.
-------Hand marks on his wrists.
--------A bald patch where hair had been ripped out his head.
---------Salt and sediment in his spit.
.

SPCLFX

Teenagers playing with special effects
Faked red splatters of blood
Faking stains on real walls from
Faked headwounds, false bullets,
Action paintings because they wanna

I know nothing about history
No matter how much I’m told
So I can’t trace back any of
My own faultlines

Some Spanish girl screaming
I love you and a video response
From California of someone
With no shirt on slumped
On a couch in a room that
Could be anyone’s

Don’t read too much into
Any of it unless you’re
Doing it
For the
Right reasons

This is where we get confused
And this is where we screech
To an end

Our lonlieness lost

The only one who knows he’s queer is his mom. I can’t remember his exact words, but I think his dad is dead and would not be cool with it. Either that or he’s not around for another reason. From the way he smiled when he talked about his friends and how they’d react if they found out – nah man, they wouldn’t like it – I got the feeling that they’d really fuck him up if they knew. I was taken aback by how at ease with all of that he was.

He’s the best fuck I’ve ever had.

Butthole Surfers gig posters (for Larry)

Glory

I stood trance like for about thirty minutes. I’d eaten crap for days. Packets of crisps, biscuits, more crisps, way too much bread. My psyche felt as heavy as my tired gut.

A cock came through the glory hole. It looked a tight fit. I imagined splinters cutting into the foreskin, the tattered wood pulling roughly at the skin.

I heard heavy breathing and watched. The dick shoved through further.

I leant on the far side of the cubicle and kicked as I could. The impact was precise, a perfection of contact. I saw the cock snap, still hard but limp, hanging. So much blood.

He couldn’t even scream. There was a constant gasp, punctuated by high pitched drones of breath that sounded like an alarm running out of battery, like the noise he could have otherwise made was diminishing in equal proportion to the stream of red that was now showering from his fucked cock. The floor started to fill.

I heard him stumbling. He fell, some of the skin on his cock ripping as it was pulled back from the torn wall.

Everyone has to be haunted

You knew what
Was going to
Happen to you.

Just looking at
Those words and
Reading them out
Loud, over again;

You knew what
Was going to
Happen to you.

There’s no way
To get over them,
No way to go
Back on them.

I could delete
Them but they’d
Still be there
And they’d still
Mean what they
Do right now,
There or not,
Left or erased.

He says that he
Didn’t know, that
You did, but you
Kept it from him.

How could he not?
What did he think
Was going wrong?

The night when
You were lost,
Crying in the
Middle of the
Supermarket, the
Night I promised
Myself didn’t
Happen, the night
Local gossips
Still chunter about
In absence of
Their own drama,
Whenever I have
To pop into places
I generally try
To avoid.

What did he
Think was going
Wrong?

Everyone has to
Be haunted, but
At least if I’d
Known, I’d be
Ready, prepared
For the nights
For the mornings
When confusion
Slips from dream
To day, and lingers
Just too much,
Enough to disrupt
Memories that
Sometimes lag a
Little behind me.

When all my senses
Catch up with each
Other, I’m at odds,
Not knowing whether
To curse you, forget
You, forgive you or
All of those things
And other nothings.

In Winter We Hid (an extract from a short story I'm currently working on)

Nick had been standing at his window watching the snow fall for just shy of ten minutes. It had been snowing for about fifteen. The thing that he noticed most was how the snow was acting as a filter for the rest of the light outside. It made the sky more grey and the faint mist that had been loitering that morning look a lot foggier.

Nick remembered a conversation that he had with his friend Rebecca while they were both on ecstasy. They’d been talking in general terms about how good the pills that they had taken made everything feel – music, people’s faces, holding each other. They started talking about how good it would be to be watching snowfall while they were on drugs. They talked about how the snow would glitter in a really spectacular fashion and the pure white prettiness of everything would be near overwhelming. Nick put his hands at the back of his head and let his fingers crisscross into each other. He had pulled up the hood of his navy blue top to block out anything that might distract him from what he was looking at. He reconsidered the idea about being on ecstasy and watching the snow falling. It didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

There was a second where Nick contemplated phoning Rebecca to tell her that their idea about taking ecstasy in the snow was probably not that good a plan in reality.

Rebecca had been dead for about a month, but there were moments when Nick forgot. Those moments felt glorious. Such was their contrast to the sadness and confusion that had spread around and throughout Nick over the previous four and bit weeks – that time away from things, no matter how painfully brief had become a finely tuned bliss. Within those moments Nick felt like he and Rebecca could both escape death. Their only downside was that Nick was never aware of the moments until he had been pushed out from them. The comfort they held was massive and yet completely impalpable. Only a torch of hindsight and the binary opposition of the massive comedown from these seconds of perfect ignorance (the remembrance) made Nick aware that he had just escaped. By the time he realised, he would be trapped again.

A small brown bird that Nick didn’t know that name of skimmed across the back of his parents’ garden. A palm full of snow crumbled and dropped from the top of the fence that divided the garden from the next door neighbours’ garden. Nick realised that he’d been standing and staring for over twenty minutes. He wanted to do something but there was nothing that he wanted to do.

The blankness of the snow made the whole garden floor feel like a modernist blind spot. Just below Nick’s line of vision he could try and fool himself that there was a wet, freezing, empty Microsoft Word document. He walked away from the window.

An engine revved into earshot and then cooled down. Car doors opened and shut. Nick’s parents came in through the back door and started dumping polythene bags full of shopping on the kitchen work surfaces. A tub of margarine toppled out of one of the bags and landed on the floor, making a thud a lot heavier than it looked like it would make.

“Hi Nicholas,” said his mother, sounding flustered as she removed her winter coat and gloves. “Sorry we took so long – your father seemed to want to take the long way back,” she looked in the direction of Nick’s dad who didn’t react, and just carried on rooting through various bags, sorting out packs of food and banging them into the freezer. Nick answered his mother with a nod. He didn’t want to get involved. There was no set time for his parents to get back, and Nick wasn’t waiting for them so there was no need for his mom’s apology. She said it so she could have a dig at her husband and nothing else.
“Will you be eating with us tonight?” Nick’s mom carried on refilling cupboards, looking distracted, but Nick could tell that she was in a prickly mood.
“I don’t know. I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself, but you can’t just …” Nick’s mom stopped talking, trying to let her emotions regroup into something less abrasive. “OK, let me know if you change your mind before I start cooking.”

Nick walked upstairs to his room and grabbed his backpack, his scarf and a tatty parka. He put them all on and made his way to into the garage to get his bike. He called goodbye to his parents who were still preoccupied with shopping bags.

The small cul-de-sac that Nick lived in, and the avenues that immediately joined it, had not been gritted by the yellow truck that the council sent out to make the roads safer when it snowed. He rode carefully through the slushy streets until he reached the main road that all the streets on the two mile wide modern housing estate connected to in some way. It had been salted and prepared for traffic, so Nick was able to start cycling faster, and more in time with the frenetic beat of the …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead song that was taking its turn on the playlist Nick had made the day before on his MP3 player.

A driver beeped his horn at Nick and raised his hands off the wheel angrily like he was trying to crumble something invisible. Nick couldn’t work out why the man in the car was angry, but he guessed from the overreaction that the guy was just a fool. Nick ignored him and carried on riding; he felt that would be better than reacting to someone else’s problem that had probably been caused by something else entirely anyway. People never dealt with their problems properly. That was why everyone seemed so frustrated with everything else. The things they avoided thinking about and avoided dealing with were the things that would sneak up and kill them, due to nothing but sheer ignorance.

It was starting to get darker, so there weren’t many people around apart from the occasional couple getting off a bus carrying bags of bargains that they’d picked up in the New Year sales, that always seemed to start just at the end of the old year. Nick rode past an old man holding the top of a lead; at the other end stood a small dog with his leg cocked, pissing against a lamppost.
As he rode further, the houses he passed started to get more and more spread out. There was more grass in between the homes, trees started to appear occasionally, then with more frequency. Nick always liked getting to that point, because it always felt like suburbia was disintegrating. He stopped when he got to a lake. He got off his bike and left it to rest on its side.

The lake was frozen. The grass around the water’s edge had been transformed into drooping spikes. The cold felt confused, wafting somewhere between violence and sympathy, with Nick forced to submit to its vagueness. His chunky skate shoes made a moreish noise as the silver dusted greenery snapped down and collapsed under his feet, making the whole world sound like bubblewrap.

Not much

I get to all these conclusions
Without looking where I’m walking.
I want you to prove me wrong,
Because I’m sick of having
To do it myself.

Valentine's Day according to Youtube users

5541236 (6 months ago)
...i like your hair color

vwashere (11 months ago)
Reply well, you can, but you don't, at least not where i moved to when i was 11... and i was 12

WhiteHatCowboy
You can't do anything at 13 years of age??? Why not?




Unknowngirlfornow (5 days ago)
Im giving you my heart! I left it in the fridge! :D
xD

ihateyoums (1 week ago)
Lol im giving u my heart o.O

PoofWentYou (1 week ago)
I WANNA BE IN ONE! In the backround or sumthing =(. CottunBud if i can XP

HiloJordan (1 week ago)
what do u guys use to make ur squeaky voices




Showing 0 of 0 comments




Showing 0 of 0 comments




joejonaslover1o1 (1 year ago)
fun stuff! XD

cristieroad82392 (1 year ago)
lol in the beginning, you like, failed
then it worked
the force is so with you
only not really ;)

hellovampy (1 year ago)
wow chris
i thought you were going to burn the house down
like, there was one point where there was a little spark that went to teh floor and i thought you were going to say:
SHIT THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE
haha

LaurDerPags (1 year ago)
Wow.. your way too cool. This is very inspiring, I'm gonna do that with roses! ;)
-Lauren
From the LaurDerPags<3




tigresstim (16 hours ago)
Very sweet :)

tigresstim (16 hours ago)
@kitty3309 - ahahahahaaha :D LOL!

Viridianita (5 days ago)
hey, she doesn't owe you a thing... just google it and take the time to learn how to make them... and stop telling her to do videos teaching you! just google it up!! =)
Thank u for posting your video! :)
I love love love your cards!!! =)

raxs2000 (6 days ago)
i think you can do it by cutting the heart shape ed paper in a spiral form....you need it two hearts on each page and then join them in the middle just the way it is done here.

scene120000 (1 week ago)
y do u just show a card and not even teach how to make it. its so annoying

babyruth15 (1 month ago)
that is so cool

kikag89 (1 month ago)
So cute! thanks for posting =)

BleeDValntine (2 months ago)
showing is enough to figure out how to make one ^^

shaconda854 (3 months ago)
all you do is make a spiral

kitty3309 (3 months ago)
These silent videos give me the creeps! XD




KrazzeeNobody (9 months ago)
This Valentine's day me and my partner did exactly nothing about it. Seriously and for real, we both managed to make it through the whole 24 hour day without sex, flowers, chocolates, nothing. I am not sure we even realized it was valentines day till the day after!

Symbioteofadiety (11 months ago)
Hmm well on valentine's day I just go home straight from work/school, I'm a free spirit lol.

~ryan

paul02144 (11 months ago)
I remember a lot of Valentine's Days alone, and I think I suppressed the bad ones. :-) Great video!

aqua6296 (11 months ago)
my boyfriend stood me up at the dance at my school
because his mom forced him to get family portrits taken D:

wolfierobblack (11 months ago)
GREAT vid CARRIELee-----That thing you said about not getting anything back for valentines day, happened to me. Wow....if the shoe was on the other foot i would be in the dog house......even though i still told her i love her and i was ok, I still couldn't stop feeling like..(wow, and you didn't even think of me?) on this???......................o uch

AskCarrieLee (11 months ago)
I love you ONS! :)

AskCarrieLee (11 months ago)
Is that true? Cause I'd love to use that on the show.

CommentorX (11 months ago)
CarrieLee, unfortunately, very true. Of course, I wasn't really a cosmetics tester, I was just a grad student at the time, but sometimes when a date goes down in flames, you just gotta pour gasoline on the fire and watch 'er burn.

gilcarosio (11 months ago)
Great words!
You speak very well..

berto509 (11 months ago)
Atleast it was the clapper instead of the clap hahaha




tumblerpigeons (7 months ago)
Happy Valentine's to you.
I love you back!!!!
love
Elijah

BIGJOHNROSSANO (1 year ago)
the best girl of world! I <3 U!

dd0329 (1 year ago)
I just came I need a towel

givemeyourkuss (1 year ago)
i love you to

kiss from you lover or fan nr.1

daboss212 (1 year ago)
i would sooo bang her. her lips r so sexy

MattyH101 (1 year ago)
why thankyou..

jasenneri (1 year ago)
She Looks SO SEXY !

jasenneri (1 year ago)
Shes So SEXY

mcvay32 (1 year ago)
just exploded in my pants :0

antikz82 (2 years ago)
wow i want to bone her so bad especially her tits LUV U <3




MugsySkull (11 months ago)
Dude, you seriously need some form of help.

ggregsnyder (11 months ago)
You have no idea.




kthxbye13 (21 hours ago)
lol the face he does when he says "you make me very happy" haha xD
cuuuuute <3

ellanaism (1 day ago)
wat is u talkin' bout boy

oceanbreeze1998 (1 day ago)
Hehehe. He's funeeee.

Lisababyy3 (2 days ago)
shes a luckyy girllll

ChibiChan1988 (3 days ago)
*gets hooker* :D

zxcvbnmjhgfdsa1 (3 days ago) Show
bad business desition to say you have girlfriend let every twelve year old think your single steal parents credit card and buy your stuff thats how you make money

neal1594 (4 days ago)
ur face at the end lol

TaintedPurelovers (6 days ago)
lol get a hooker XD

kill1942 (1 week ago)
you lucky son of a.....gun

crazylatingirl94 (1 week ago)
she's pretty :)




Andyandrwew144 (11 months ago)
"If sadness was a liquor, then the world would be drunk because even happy is just an illusion over what sadness brings"

maybe you can be the only sober being left on Earth so cheer up and let the world carry you to the next day

wittlemanderz87 (11 months ago)
Reply That's deep.

gospeedgo321 (11 months ago)
YEAH!..f*ck that...i hate v-day 2...its all commercial and hallmark an sh*t

wittlemanderz87 (11 months ago)
you got that right

PitsFilms (11 months ago)
Me to.

wittlemanderz87 (11 months ago)
:) :)

wittlemanderz87 (11 months ago)
I hate no one.. I strongly dislike and wish horrible things on one person but that's a completely different story lol... That sux your Dad is goin overseas :(




Showing 0 of 0 comments



shortiiricanbabe (3 months ago)
GOD bless yu DAT ALL I HAV TO SAII

suada16 (5 months ago)
its ok. you can tell someone and they will let you stay over night and let you catch your next flight going to where ever you are going to go.

luvlilwill (10 months ago)
Just be like take this DAMN gift boy and lets have wild sex.LOL I KNOW I AM LATE!! LUV MUCH!!!

kiekert2007 (10 months ago)
just give him his gift.. and give him some extra attention and make sure he knows that his effort for Valentines day was really apreciated. and acknowledge his feelings..but eventhough it got messed up.. he should not hold somekind of grudge.. it was an honest mistake ..you weren't being selfish and taking him for granted. ..

OSierre (10 months ago)
Early mornings flights sucks,but they are cheap

diorfendigucci (11 months ago)
This is so sad. I feel sorry that your special day was messed up. I say give him the gift and talk it over, and see what happens from there. Good Luck!

kkimberly2004 (11 months ago)
I say wait until he calms down and give him the gifts. You should have been better prepared so you need to eat a little humble pie. If this was the guy that messed up like this I would feel sooo sorry for the girl and I'd be thinking he's going to have to do a lot to make this up! lol ....so you need to continuously apologize and do a little begging and pleading!

EVELYN612 (11 months ago)
yeah maybe when yall see eachother hell still be a lil hot over the situation.
but girl maybe he'll see how ur sad about how it all worked out and how u just wanna be fine with eachother..
i think maybe after yall talk..jus tell em u love em n give him the gift so atleast when hes calm n yall are better u can get a good reaction from the gift u got him...

hope everything works out girl..havent talked to u in a lil bit.. take care

muppet08609 (11 months ago)
okay--GIVE HIM THE GIFT!!! Nothing has changed. Today will come and go but your relationship will still be here. You messed up, big time, but the day is not over...make the most of it. He has a right to be frustrated--give him 5 minutes to vent and then move on with the day. Enjoy the time you have with each other and focus on the fact that you are together. He's upset because he planned stuff-- I hope you know how lucky you are!

TaureanRuler (11 months ago)
you missed ur flight...its life it happens..he didnt need get all mad i mean we loose money all the time...he should calm down and be grateful that ur still coming...yes just give him the gift..just be upfront try to further explain if he aks and just make him realize that hey even though u missed ur flight u still were determined to see him..and he should give ur points for effort ans realizing hey you made a mistake but its not the end of the world..good luck and have a safe trip

Go2GirlNetwork (11 months ago)
He is mad, but he loves you and you love him. If you said you are sorry already good, that is enough. Don't allow him to feel bad and stay mad and soak in his anger. NOW...When you get there. Hold his face in your hands. Look him in the eyes softly and say, I love you so much You mean everything to me, right in his ear with your breath on his neck, say today isn't an example of my love. But this is...then Kiss him so gently that it carresses his soul...to be continued in an email.

queenj91 (11 months ago)
I think you should give him the gift to show how sorry you are,tell him how happy you are to see him then try to make the most out of the rest of the day

Give him another gift in the morning to say thank you for understanding then say sorry again......hope it helps ya!!

mishel1220 (11 months ago)
Give him the gift, eventhough he is upset, it will show him that you were thinking of him and it will probably help break the ice.

OH OH OH! (for Jamie Stewart)

Last night I sucked off a scientist in a snowy wood.
On the walk back I thought about listening to the new Xiu Xiu album.
I’d crouched down in the snow without letting me knees touch the wet.
I’d waited, trying to find the bridge he’d mentioned, and then standing still.
Then I moved some more, then I stood still again.
It occurred to me how much the scene resembled the cover
Of a black metal album. And then my eyes started getting confused,
Not so much playing tricks as much as falling for them, tricks of the light
And tricks of the darkness, which again sounds a little like a black
Metal album, although not a good one, maybe more of a badly planned
Goth thing.
The black and white and nothing just makes everything haze together,
It doesn’t give the binary contrast that I was probably exprecting.
Out of my mind this morning and my hands are still red and sore from
Punching faded flowered and beige wallpaper with semi closed fists;
Probably why this is a splurge, probably why this
Is three stories, four stories in one. The only way to get things together
Is to put them together. We saw two
Other guys
Wondering into the woods, one older than the other
And the other younger than the other
Dodging around they walked after me without knowing I was there
Because it was two dark to tell people from shadows or
To differentiate between creaking trees or squeaking bicycle breaks.
OH OH OH OH they turn back on themselves when they see us coming
Probably think we’re gonna beat them up probably think we’re there
To kill cruisers and drip read blood across the white snow like cotton
Wool being pulled off a kid’s grazed knee.
Don’t ask me I only came here because I was talking to a scientist and
I didn’t want this night to be like the last few where I had to hide away
From things and pretend I was asleep to avoid conversations that would
Tie me in more knots than I was already tangled in before this monstrous
Shit started tightening and threading through, making whole new slipknots
To stare down from with the floor racing into the distance like an old
Computer racing game track. I need to keep a denseness that will bury the
Weaknesses that I keep building that I keep burrowing down in.
I felt like a shit, I felt like a dick
I hated myself for the onslaught
I could have avoided I wanted to
Kill myself, kill you, kill nothing.
I knew the woods better than you but with the snow and night I
Couldn’t tell what was what or where was where, lucky we didn’t
Fall into a lake – that was the joke I made, remember? That was
When I was trying to be funny and trying to be natural to set the
Tone because with things like that I never know where to start.

I cried so hard

Dialogue before:

"Is this where we're meant to be?"
"Yeah. I think so."
"I'm too tired to go anywhere else. I can't remember how we got here."
"I think that's the point. We're supposed to feel like things have been reset or something."
"It's more like things have been erased."
"The differences are subtle but yeah ... it's different to that."
"You just go back to the same point, right?"
"I think so."
"I can't remember the last time I cried."
"But that's a good thing, yeah?"

Dialogue after:

"We'll be on our way soon."

"I'll race you there. Joke."

"It's weird and fucked and whatever but it's funny how this actually makes you feel more alive."

"Do you think the light is just gonna disappear."

"I like the idea of trying to follow it."

"You know how you can never tell the exact moment that you fall asleep? Do you think it's gonna be like that?"

"Maybe. I hope so."

JW Veldhoen interview (originally published in Feral Debris #4)

***I conducted the following interview with the writer and artist JW Veldhoen in the first half of 2009. It was originally published in issue 4 of the tremendous FERAL DEBRIS.***

JW Veldhoen creates work that at once is illusory and tangible. His novella Witchburn chills the reader to the core, creeping inside their skull and screaming, setting loose fear and thoughts that are usually relegated from the mind to make the day go quicker. He also sends missives into cyberspace, cultivating his websites – that feel more like pieces of ever expanding installation art – and sending his writing, music, and video art to float and exist for others to stumble upon. It occurred to me that despite the huge respect and fondness I have for his work, that I actually knew very little about the man, aside from the fact that he lives in New York. And so:

Can you give me a few biographical details, when did you start writing, what were you favourite books when you were younger?

I lie, I always have. I'm good at it, like when I write. Also, I hate myself, or more specifically the fact of having a self to hate. So any level of personal question in the past has resulted in variably untrueanswers. I used to tell people, for instance, that I was born in Holland. I was not born in Holland. I was born in Holy Cross church, in Calgary, Alberta, in 1976. My mom was a homemaker, a permanent ex-hairdresser, she styled people in a room in our basement, my dad was a butcher until he lost his job, later he was a caretaker at a shopping mall. I dropped out of high-school when I was 17. I hated: School. I met my future wife atthe Black Lung, or Black Lounge, an underage gig space. I've spent a lot of time working in bookstores, though I attained some meagre credentials, edited various things. I wrote my first fiction in my early teens, but I drew and wrote since as long as I can remember; connecting infantile shit-playing and writing now. I am not really sure if what I do is writing, aspretentious as it is to say so, writing is a thing-in-itself that I don't control. The books that inspired me the most? Comic books, fashion magazines, the Beats, encyclopedias, Henry Miller's "Time of the Assassins," and Rimbaud, Bullfinch's Mythology, Leaves of Grass, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the Iliad, Borges, Joyce, Kafka.

How much have you had published? All I have is Witchburn. Have you got other stuff floating round out there? I mean obviously you post a lot of stuff on your blogs; that's something else I wanted to ask you about - how do you see the world of blogging? Like anything, there are good and bad things out there, but there are some people doing very interesting and creative things with the medium, for example Dennis Cooper and yourself. Your blogs seem like online installation art more than just plain blogging or writing. How do you see blogs and your use of them in particular?

I have published nothing. I am terribly unsuccessful. But then I have submitted less than ten pieces, almost nothing long. Most of what I've worked on with the internet I haven't brought to a publisher. I periodically work, I write things. I have a long novel that is on hold. That is my single response. I'm lucky to have the internet, but I also feel like I need to be very careful to register how much Ithink of myself as an extension of it when I am writing on it. I become a part of a valuable technology that is itself part of another system of technology. Myself, that I am, is another system. I read a lot about art and photography, and what I have come to learn is I am more a photographer, or filmmaker, or a composite of the two more than a writer, but it is only because in writing I've gotten the widest field of abstraction. My work is based on conceptual tactics in modernism and a program of resisting technology that can't help but to define it. I think this is why I am so indiscriminate with my words, they gather in the system regardless of my application of force: The only enemy is power, and without power there would be no such thing as an enemy. I've turned the blogs off and on. I like to think of good blogs like Breton's "Communicating Vessels." I think Joe Blog will perish and die as soon as the power is out, so he has much to do with me even if he bores me. If my work loses or gains value because of its mode ofpresentation, I can't really be very concerned. The most difficult thing is that in the case of Palehaler the work is much more broad and difficult than publishing could allow because it mixes very new and very old forms of communication as part of its conception. There is no other iteration. There are whole films that make up the stills, those films make up a film. Editing is the 20th century art that we're all under the yoke of. The text that is obscured or erased is the only original text.

Could you talk a little bit about the Palehaler blog that you've started recently - the reasons for its conception, how it differs from your other blog. I'm also interested in what you say about editing - why do you see editing as such a pervasive form? It implies that people are just left with unoriginal ideas to constantly re-arrange, that culture can only be recycled now ...

I could easily say about the Palehaler blog that it means nothing. That is, it ain't shit. I have a really bad cold-sore and my fingers are dirty. I could say there is no reason to saying, and that is whatI am saying with Palehaler. I am saying that the image is blind. Despite the vanity of this reply, I have no option except to expand outward to make my point of not having a point known. Or let me put itthis way; Palehaler is a few days walking around New York City with a inhalant-addict named after a famous German television illusionist, Florian Zimmer. Chicken In The Field is merely a diary. I don't think there is anything new in art, but I'd contend that this was always so, and I would refine my response and say that there is only the new in the reception of art. I think it is a question ofwhere you place the authority in the term art, do you attach it to the reader and viewer and the newness of their interpretations, or to you ascribe it to the formal qualities of the work of art itself, or to the purported mastery that created it? The ideas, or forms, are eternal, and the manipulation of them is indeed all that there is, and all there ever was. The experiential or theatrical aspect of the tableaux, the frame, the stage, is incommunicable, the emotional intensity of writing with words that are coming to you as you experience them, the hypnotic density of being controlled by a voice or a story is not at all the embodiment of the work that one should be focused on, however true it may be that immersion gives way to absorption, it is the absorption that I think should be talked about, or the lack of it, and the reasons why. One aspect of a work is promoted while another is demoted when people talk about art. In the end I side with those who say that talking about talking about art (or anything else, really) is always whathappens, and no one interpretation holds. In effect that is the only interpretation that there ever can be, the residual is all that remains possible from the perspective of the author, who might worryabout over-interpretation. I have to believe that the freedom to leave it open is what I am striving for.

Could you talk a little bit about Witchburn? About your intent while writing it ...

I don't want to unduly influence anything that I've written, and I want to realign my attitude about my own work, retrofitting my aesthetics, even less. But the question of approach is an importantone, and I think I can answer it in a way that might actually have some value to someone reading this, also thinking about writing, and the way in to it, and approach is the right word here, the reference heading of the text is what motivates it. You point it in a direction, and see if it will fly. Every book should be an experiment, a test of aerodynamics. This is why I detest the categorization of literature as "experimental". If it qualifies as the former then it includes the latter as a necessity.Literally, I think writing is trying things out, finding the limit to the inception and pushing it. I don't mean to say that my writing is improvisation, I prepare too much for that, or tinker after the fact, but I do try to follow the internal structure of what I write, I allow writing to make the changes it makes, on me, on itself... I have some idea of a voice, and speaking, but that is more how I write now. With Witchburn, I was working much more with the idea of receiving messages on a valance that I kept myself open to, organizing prose and slicing it down to fit according to a theme. I could have gone on forever, but I thought that would be a mistake, that hermetic density or obscurity would help the book achieve some greater irony. So the art of it, if there is any, is like the sequencing art of a photographic or film editor. The organismic unity of the 19th century novel, with the perception of perspective, of depth, had no place in the text that I wanted to write, and I'm using some overused jargon particular to the discussion of visual art, but it is the best way to describe it, I wanted to flatten the narrative by exaggerating the violent tone of the text, like in an incantation, or a revelatory speech. Now, I want to create depths of narration, digressions in the novel, this change is as day is to night.

So you’re working on a novel at the moment?

I'm working on a novel, yes. I'm not sure where I am with it because it has changed shape so many times, and it is heavily fragmented now, where at one time I had hoped it would have more of an organic unity. What I've decided is to take it even farther, and not worry about length, even though it is likely over five-hundred pages in various notebooks and on my laptop. It is about a tacit competition between two men who meet as teenagers and go in separate directions, their lives, until death. One becomes an academic philosopher, the other struggles to find a bearing, writing sporadically, traveling widely, meeting various people, and finally meets a woman who he has a childwith, who in turn dies shortly after, leaving the character to raise a son. The novel had something of a nineteenth-century holistic unity until it broke down and I started to work in a more open mode again, and now it is growing, the Proustian elements exaggerated. I have no idea when I will finish it. I'm also writing a science fiction book on the side, and the less I say about that I think the better because I'm not convinced I will use my name on it yet, it should be finished this year. I'm also writing periodic non-fiction about art. I try to write poetry, but I'm not sure what poetry is anymore, and less sure if it is what I'm doing when I write as though I were a poet.

Are there writers or artists working in other mediums that you feel a kinship with or view as your peers maybe?

I'm really interested in photography, and the influence of Robbe-Grillet. I'd say that photography and writing about photography has more pull on me today than writing; photographers like ThomasRuff, Sophie Ristelhueber, Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand, Stan Douglas, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and others, and a longer list of writers on the subject. That is not to say that I don't like fictionand poetry as much, I am very excited by writing today, much of which takes place online. The gap between the material production of literature and the snobbery of the connoisseur may be passing, even if there aren't as many books published as I'd like. Small-press books and chapbooks are steadily increasing in importance and readership, as compared to "mainstream" literature. Social networking has made me optimistic, paying no mind to the maintenance and surveillance ofthese technologies. I like what Facebook can do, despite what it can't. I side with a position that sees writing and art in all forms as capable of communicative transparency in an aggregate, ending up inachieving the political goal of what I'd very cautiously call "consciousness". This is all contingent, of course, as all expression is contingent to the sign. Working around this, is living in spite ofit, living in a dirty environment, held in the balance of degradation and absurdity.

What else have you got coming up in the future? I know you were hoping to acquire an art space in which to curate events and exhibitions, right?

I am pursuing a studio/gallery situation to do some work in performance, video, and sound, I want to collaborate, and make a space that is in a sense, the artwork itself, but it is difficult to organize on a shoe-string. I'm determined to make it happen, but as of now I have nothing to report. The first development was a gallery in Long Island City, that was promising, but not quite perfect. Considering the risk involved, I need to be sure that it'll work to my expectations, which are not exact, but which are exacting.

TM

Chickeninthefield.blogspot.com
Palehaler.blogspot.com

Death came within days

Death came within days of their conversation. The air felt like a necklace, ornate and heavy, such was the relief that seemed to float atop of it like sad jewels weaving in and out of a mist that had followed on from a long, drawn out storm.

That summer had been the longest of their fading lives. Days were spent within, outside, on the way to or back from the hospital. Heavy rain had made for a constant muggy atmosphere, the clouds seemingly digging in their shapeless claws, sweating out any enjoyment of warmth. Faces sore from precipitation hid behind glass, staring out from windows a faint resentment at nothing and no one but one that was there nonetheless as their eyes relayed to them images that betrayed what they felt they were by tradition owed.

She rubbed her hands until the anti-bacterial goo disappeared, changed form, making her palms smell like vodka. Nurses and medical staff walked around looking friendly, pre-occupied, bored, forming a collective face that was dense and impossible to decipher accurately; which added to the disorientation she felt traipsing heavy like a sleepwalker through wards that throbbed with unfortunate familiarity.

It wasn’t a happiness that spread throughout her when she got the telephone call that indicated she no longer need worry about the whispered and sober request he had made of her, during the immediate post-op days. Neither did it border on relief. It was nothing. A nothing that lacked nor needed anything at all.

Parody

I kept up with your blog
As best I could
But you kept posting so much
Bullshit so often that eventually
It felt like too much
Of a chore to trawl through.
So now I use the search
Feature, and look up keywords
Like suicide, sad, cry, tear, sex,
Dick, cock, fuck, fucked, happy,
Glad, pussy, blowjob, dildo, affair,
Ass, arse, arsehole, asshole, finger,
Fingered, fun, love, enjoyed, lonely,
Just so I can keep tabs
On the important things.
I wish I could die in your arms
So I’d never have to let you go.

Life will end in violence, death, sadness and confusion.

Please forgive my constant hyperbole if you want, but if not whatever. More important things: Dear God I Hate Myself by Xiu Xiu (FOR XET+MONTSE)

I don’t know how Jamie Stewart consistently manages to create the sort of music that every cell of my body feels a desperate need for, so much so that when they finally receive it with each new record their thirst and hunger almost overloads in a sensory thump that makes me think FUCK WORDS LET’S JUST HIT THE KEYBOARD [t8owvhng[8w054yhvkmw[05y w[0358y8 58[yq03q[08tyq[30yt q339pyuty erguw35 ty p973qwtyw5eygw97v4fjgujv.u5y4owvjjnigonb9p\hse5wn. That’s how good it feels.

:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
Xiu Xiu albums feel almost supernatural to me. They can do things that other LPs just can’t get away with.

The new one is called Dear God I Hate Myself. The title (which like I just mentioned, other bands just couldn’t get away with but Xiu Xiu can and do so with perfection that almost feels too much) has been this weight in my brain for months and months now. It was originally revealed way into last year. I’m sure I remembered reading that it was going to be some kind of solo acoustic album with Stewart playing on his own for some reason. He isn’t on his own (hell – there’s even a youth orchestra joining him at one point) and this doesn’t sound like an singer songwriter record (but even if he had done one of those I doubt that it would have sounded like it).

Fair enough there are some acoustic sounding guitars in the first song but I’m going off on a tangent, because the whole acoustic thing was just an aside that I mentioned. Man, maybe I should have said that I was writing this in the middle of the night after having a particularly nasty argument with someone who I feel has acted in a very selfish way. I can’t sleep + too much coffee anyway!

The first song is as ANTHEMIC. That’s not the name, it’s actually called Gray Death. But for Xiu Xiu, it’s as close to anthemic as they’ve got so far. The next song, the single, Chocolate Makes You Happy (I’m SO ANGRY at myself for not having the £$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£ around the time when Jamie was $elling homemade chocolate through the xiuxiu.org website) is joyous, desperate, sad, happy, uplifting and none of the above and all of them too.

It’s impossible to write properly about xiuxiu. They’re just too good. I’m writing this in a style, right? But I am tired too. But this is a voice. Pointing to the voice wasn’t in the plan. The best plans go wrong anyway. That’s not a saying.

DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF
DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF
DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF
DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF
DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF
DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF
DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF
DEAR GOD I HATE MYSELF


:):):):):):)
:(:(:(:((:(:(
:):):):):):)
:(:(:(:(:(:(:
:):):):):):)
JJJJJJ
LLLLLL
JJJJJJ

I’m never gonna stop talking about BITMAP and now here are Xiu Xiu writing songs on a Nintendo DS like they are purposely trying to please me.

To surmise:
Higbitdbitdi6rjo6r57orhinohinb0i4nthem956jhve94je489yvjybo4ln4o8vl4no5gly4hlgnl5uiblwv4ugmlvw,oc8huvtcbsh,vbgus,5esmve5gsughbymsdovhgs,eu5hc8uhse5shv,mhg,seogpetihnbspihb40siwnhsimbi7 ie75 je7jed7nd7indn e6ke7ke5je75jevujckev7kbe7k e kec kvr 86knhfgnbjps8hnbu5hsnlov8uhmsle8 hso8ghmvsloiehc,hi go ih5eoi hseoihs ihgiehisel5hiesl5hmys.vo9u5e,95ju,vie5.h 5iehg[eohrb[‘eojrnb]pektn]ejtbpietifpb ndi bm s’eprigbj ]sepi9speirhgoserhioserhmosemh;ogvisherog sheuoimgvoer hou serhyvgyfv;yifivkjnbliyg iunglug,hlomglkjmugblkjmblkugnliuglkugmlbmkhgn,glkugbhnhgjjjg,jygvlygvkjhgblhmuofnouvoyimvoibmoiboibminpinin:@:@ ihohgosbrnoeitnbsoitnbsioetjbn04yj406y095jtaire5sdioygbp;iohpo0ok0ik0pop0oodny9wnvg7yj7wfgsdjvnseroitmwapokfyjn oie bi fhpes9tybn poesrip9serhgpvoe5ung a0wik[wi5uih;b[psofvfk,ui9k;jlibdfjhuvwtohjdfugcuwejmg[lyjnowbedfgw34tkgdbnhuo9strkb[dpog,ksmgrfhooekilbemlhgcwvnohtu

FOR PISYCACA WITH LUV XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Telephone

There's no real voice
That seems appropriate
To answer a telephone.

I made the effort
To sound friendly
But it sounded clipped
And it sounded snappy.
I sounded like
I was in a hurry,
Like I needed to
Make this quick.

When I tried to sound
Relaxed, I sounded
Like I was depressed,
Or
Like I'd been disturbed
By the person calling,
Like I didn't want them
To be there anyway.

I think of sound like light,
And imagine it
Ricochet between my
Voice and the person
That's called me, so that
If I sound mad I start
To think that their voice
Sounds mad too,
Or if I'm awkward
Then so are they.

I don't want you
To stop calling me,
I'm just not too sure
How to answer.

Never abandoned

There’s a house that I’ve been trying to get into for a month now. It’s a twenty minute bus ride away from where I live, I drove past it for over ten years and barely noticed it but now I have and all I want to do is get inside it.

I wish that I could just break in, smash a window with a brick, use a stick or a broom or something to whack out any sharps left round the frame and just reach my arm through and slip open a catch but I can’t let myself. I don’t know why. I’ve got a block in my brain that just won’t let me. It’s like in the movie when Robocop tries to shoot the head of OCP but can’t because one of his Prime Directives stops him from doing so and paralyses him; like that but maybe more emotional. I don’t know where the block comes from, but I just can’t let myself break in.

Instead of making a forced entry, I find myself circling the house endlessly. I check doors again and again, I check windows time after time in case I missed one or didn’t try hard enough, or in case someone actually owns the house and has been back for something and forgotten to lock up properly.

No one can own the house. I think that whoever lived there probably died, and whoever inherited the house then died as well. No one is around to leave it unlocked. There’s no one to abandon it.

Twelve

Pablo:

If you slept with Pablo I think you’d tell me about it. You’d tell me because according to your understanding of me I think you’d imagine that I’d enjoy hearing about it. You’d talk about his hip bones and less the size of his dick but more just the perfection of it, the colour, and the smoothness of it.

Rogier:

I don’t think that you’d sleep with Rogier.

Lasse:

You’d fantasize a lot about Lasse. You’d make comments about him being a redhead. You’d notice how good his arms looked. In fact the things that would attract you to him would be almost identical to the things that I like about him myself. For whatever reason your sex with Lasse would be ultra satisfying; possibly because throughout it you’d be projecting things you thought before, things like: he’d be so good.

Francisco:

Francisco would turn you on in a way that would make you feel arrogantly sexy, assured of yourself. After sleeping with him you’d look in the mirror at your body and think things like: I would love to fuck myself, I would love to fuck me. You would enjoy exhibiting yourself. You’d fuck him in public. You’d film yourself fucking him in public. I’d masturbate thinking about the two of you and be able to cum ridiculously fast. I’d be turned on in a sick, jealous, painful way and feel like killing myself every night that I didn’t know your whereabouts.

Simon:

You’d flirt with Simon and make him promise to never cut his hair.

Cole:

If you fucked Cole I don’t think you’d tell me about it. I’d work it out and be passive aggressive and cruel. You’d get off on the fact that you thought he was complicated.

Tom:

I can only guess that if you took ecstasy, Tom might be the sort of person with whom you would have a long conversation with and feel sexually attracted to for the duration, but soon lose interest in aside from thinking he was a friendly person once you started to sober.

Julian:

Julian would think I was a dick and think that you were hot. If he told you that he thought you were hot then you would think that he was hot too.

Ashley:

I feel like I could write this whole thing about Ashley. Just his face alone says so much about my entire fucking failure of a life and the reasons for it being such a slagheap of regrets and loneliness that I can barely think about it. It almost makes sense to me that you have to sleep with him, because it’s about time everything came crashing down. I’ll stop writing about him here and just write my next novel about him instead.

Robbie:

Robbie is probably more my type than yours. If we made a Venn diagram grouping the sort of people we are attracted to respectively, then he’d fall on a definite side rather than in the overlapped centre. If I sent you a naked picture of him while we chatted on AIM then you wouldn’t be impressed. You’d say he was too skinny. If he was in the room then I think you’d want to have sex with him because in the flesh I think he’d likely have a very confident air that would make you horny.

George:

George is the sort of person that I’d probably never be aware of. He’s the sort of person that I imagine you flirt with all the time.

Jethro:

You’d find him cute which would surprise me. Once I got used to it, I’d be surprised at just how cute you thought he was.

In memorium