December 2009
24 posts
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Holy Thoughts by Susan Trott
The Holy Man is a book by Susan Trott. It’s about this guy who lives in a hermitage in the mountains. People with problems go see him. He tells these people to eat their neighbors or run for political office. People don’t like this advice and talk shit on the ‘holy man’. He tells them everyone is holy and deserves to be president. This pisses people off. They burn...
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Some more thoughts on François-Marie Arouet
In the past, before reading Candide last night, when I heard the name Voltaire I thought, “Pretentious Assface.” I thought, “His writings are probably built on the crux that his dick is the greatest dick in the world.” For many years, Voltaire to me was nothing but a canonized piece of shit that I figured wasn’t worth my time.
It’s nice to be wrong. Candide...
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18th Century Eunuchs Riding 100 Red Lambs
Voltaire had some serious ADD. The plot in Candide jumps all over the place. I think he hits every country that was known to exist at that time. It’s reads like television. This isn’t criticism. The book was very fun to read. Amazon has copies for a penny. Pick up a copy. I was pleasantly surprised.
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Hire Cuban Politics John by Ernest Hemingway
1. I found To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway on a book shelf at my parents’ house (The title of this post was created by randomly flipping through the book and picking out random words).
2. A quote: “The bitches have the most fun but you have to be awfully stupid really to be a good one.” (page 245)
3. From wikipedia: “Legend has it that Hemingway wrote the...
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I read a book called 'Ellen Foster' today
Ellen Foster is a book about this eleven year old girl who has to deal with all kinds of family shit. I read the book because of the first line:
“When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy.”
That’s one way to pull in a reader. There were some other good lines. For example:
“The undertaker opens the car door for me. He has been to the house twice since...
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brown mfa 1976
I watched this documentary on the brown mfa program last night. It had a good theme song. It was filmed in the mid 70s. It was back when a lot of those ivy league murders were happening. The documentary focused on this one time when Yale tried to kill everyone in the literary arts department and Robert Coover kind of lost his cool because they held a blade close to his face and he was...
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I watched a movie last night
Last night I watched this movie about MFA programs. It was called Step Up 2: The Streets. It was probably the best movie I’ve ever seen. If you ever see any movie ever again you should see this movie. It was interesting because the movie mostly talked about the Brown MFA program which was kind of weird because I saw a lot of people I know. For those who haven’t heard about this...
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More Prison Babies
This is another book I found on my parents’ bookshelf while staying at their house over the holidays. So far I’ve read three books while I’ve been home. Two of them are about African American males in jail for rape. Coincidence? Not really sure. In If Beale Street Could Talk the African American male was innocent. In the other book I read (Soul on Ice)…not so much.
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Living in a House made of Mangos
Am I retarded because I read this book today? Should people after freshman year of high school read this book? Is the title of the post the dumbest shit you’ve ever heard?
This morning I woke up and it was Christmas and I didn’t want to wake anyone so I found this book on my mother’s bookshelf and began reading. It was okay. I think it would be a good book for a young...
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Soul Babies out of Folsom
I was hoping Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver would rip up my brain. Cleaver once ran for President of the USA on the ticket, “Put the black finger on the nuclear trigger.” Unfortunately, I felt bogged down by all the black muslim/politcal talk. I wanted this book to tear me up, not preach at me. It wasn’t until late in the book that I found some good nuggets, some real...
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Last Night I Had a Dream About John Edgar Wideman
John Edgar Wideman was my professor this semester. Last night I had a dream it was the last class of the semester and he wanted to take us to Burger King. The only problem was he couldn’t drive because he didn’t have a license. So everyone piled into this van and John Edgar Wideman controlled the gas pedal and break while someone else steered the van. We never made it....
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I overheard Philip Seymour Hoffman Talking at the...
“So Alec Baldwin just starts punching Cormac McCarthy in the face and I walk in and I ask the bartender what’s going on and he says, ‘Yeah, Alec is still upset that Cormac won the National Book Award in 1992 for All the Pretty Horses. He thought Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina should have won.’”
-Phillip Seymour Kaufman
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“I think Jen was reading a galley of that book [Babyfucker by Urs Allemann]...”
– -Courtney Cox might have said this while talking about her time on the show Friends.
Link: Babyfucker by Urs Allemann
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“I will not fuck any of you while you are a student or while I am employed at...”
– I found this quote while researching possible syllabi for teaching creative writing. I think John Cheever said it.
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WatchI went to Burger King and asked people how to write a novel.
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WatchThere was a big formal graduate party at Brown last night. I ate some pizza and started dancing because no one was dancing. I danced while eating pizza. The whole night other graduate students asked me what program I was in. I said, “Geology.” I told people I was going to Antarctica in a month. Also, the guy who ran karaoke on thursday was at the party and the after party. I...
WatchSo did my friend ross.
WatchI went to a Jhumpa Lahiri reading. She said a lot of good things. Specifically, ‘I think when I write,” which is a quality statement, but to be honest I prefer not to think when I write. My best stuff comes when I’m not thinking.
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I got an autograph
Last night after the reading I was able to get Rana Dasgupta to autograph the space inside these two ovals. One of the other fiction writers in the program asked him, but I came up with the concept. I think I might do this more often because I don’t really care about autographs, but this makes the act of asking for an autograph more fun.
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Is India the death to American Literature?
This week the Brown University Literary Arts is hosting a week long panel called, “New Indian Writing: The Rising Generation.” Last night Rana Dasgupta brought fire to a less-than-packed Brown Literary Arts theater. Sure, he probably went on a little too long, but by the time he was finished it made me want to move to Delhi, India. There were dry parts, but anytime you deliver an...
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George Lucas punched Brian Evenson in the face
I went to a dinner last night for brown’s week of new Indian writing. It was kind of tense at first. No one was talking except George Lucas and some Harvard professor. Then Brian Evenson said something and it pissed off George Lucas so George Lucas punched Brian Evenson in the face, but Brian Evenson didn’t even flinch and George Lucas went back to his seat and finished his meal....
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“I got it from a woman, a Gypsy woman. You should have seen this old woman. ...”
– Clancy Martin, How to Sell, pgs 108-09
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WatchLast night I found a television. I took it to the basketball hoop down the street and ‘shot’ hoops for an hour. Then I did something else and then went home.