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raybearLast night I did my typical mope and putz and put off sitting down to do schoolwork, which is a ridiculous habit to engage in (and one that started fifteen years ago), because right now I LOVE it. I mean, I fully recognize that part of the thrill is just the newness of the experience, the honeymoon period of my relationship with grad school, but damn, why not enjoy that? So when I finally settled down to the desk around 9:30 I got completely absorbed in everything. Except for Thomas Paine's Common Sense. That's the only required reading I have that I'm not looking forward to at all, and I tried last night to start it, but gave up and switched because I need to read Paine in the morning when I'm fresh and sharp, not at 10:30 pm after a full day of work and then having a fight with my dog. Yeah, we had an argument, complete with her barking at me and refusing to get within 3 feet of me. But we mostly made up and I'm not writing about it now.
Anyway, my fiction writing group during this residency is led by a faculty member whose work I totally dig and who I'll probably choose for my first mentor, so last night I did the reading for her seminar. She focuses a lot of her work on narrative structure, specifically alternative ones that don't follow traditional arcs, which completely fascinates me. Her reading included a short story by Rick Moody that was written in the style of liner notes on a set of five homemade cassette mixtapes. But the reading that gave me the biggest hard-on (figuratively and literally) was an excerpt of "The Book of Medicine" by Bob Flanagan.
Okay, I'm still so excited, I don't know where to being. First off, the book is written in the form of a dictionary. Fcking brilliant. I love this. I've had this idea since I took an alternative sculpture class five years ago about making my own encyclopedia and I haven't completely given up on it. One of my favorite books is a memoir called "How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z" which is problematic and voyeuristic and occasionally arrogant, but it's a memoir, not a biography (there's a difference!) and it's written in the style of dictionary entries, so the medium is enough to make me drool and love it.
So yeah, "The Book of Medicine" by Bob Flanagan. I read four pages and I was completely absolutely hooked. So of course I get online and do a search to find the book immediately, not thinking that the reason it's probably an excerpt in a course packet is because it's hard to find or out of print or, in this case, not in print at all because he hadn't finished it when he died. Flanagan was born with Cystic Fibrosis and lived to the age of 43 which is pretty unheard of for people with the condition. He's sometimes known as the Supermasochist and I found this book online used and bought it immediately then I found this documentary on Netflix and put it at the top of my queue. It's all about his life and creative work and performance about using sex and bdsm and pain play and his relationship with his mistress.
Yeah, I sometimes get obsessed easily. I'll dive into something for two weeks straight and learn everything I can, then I move on to something new. But I generally carry the info around with me aftewards. Hopefully the book will arrive in the mail before my attention gets drawn elsewhere.
Anyway, my fiction writing group during this residency is led by a faculty member whose work I totally dig and who I'll probably choose for my first mentor, so last night I did the reading for her seminar. She focuses a lot of her work on narrative structure, specifically alternative ones that don't follow traditional arcs, which completely fascinates me. Her reading included a short story by Rick Moody that was written in the style of liner notes on a set of five homemade cassette mixtapes. But the reading that gave me the biggest hard-on (figuratively and literally) was an excerpt of "The Book of Medicine" by Bob Flanagan.
Okay, I'm still so excited, I don't know where to being. First off, the book is written in the form of a dictionary. Fcking brilliant. I love this. I've had this idea since I took an alternative sculpture class five years ago about making my own encyclopedia and I haven't completely given up on it. One of my favorite books is a memoir called "How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z" which is problematic and voyeuristic and occasionally arrogant, but it's a memoir, not a biography (there's a difference!) and it's written in the style of dictionary entries, so the medium is enough to make me drool and love it.
So yeah, "The Book of Medicine" by Bob Flanagan. I read four pages and I was completely absolutely hooked. So of course I get online and do a search to find the book immediately, not thinking that the reason it's probably an excerpt in a course packet is because it's hard to find or out of print or, in this case, not in print at all because he hadn't finished it when he died. Flanagan was born with Cystic Fibrosis and lived to the age of 43 which is pretty unheard of for people with the condition. He's sometimes known as the Supermasochist and I found this book online used and bought it immediately then I found this documentary on Netflix and put it at the top of my queue. It's all about his life and creative work and performance about using sex and bdsm and pain play and his relationship with his mistress.
Yeah, I sometimes get obsessed easily. I'll dive into something for two weeks straight and learn everything I can, then I move on to something new. But I generally carry the info around with me aftewards. Hopefully the book will arrive in the mail before my attention gets drawn elsewhere.
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"Someday they'll be a cure for pain -- that's the day I'll throw my drugs away."
Date: 2003-12-04 10:15 am (UTC)Rick Moody
Date: 2003-12-04 10:25 am (UTC)Also you should try David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men short stories. He does some curious things with structure.
Oddly enough the company I work for publishes both so if you wanted either of 'em I could hook you up, just let me know.
Re: Rick Moody
Date: 2003-12-04 10:36 am (UTC)But, you know, if you happen to have any Rick Moody lying around your office that you would like to send me, I would gladly accept any book offerings. I really miss working in bookstores and getting advanced reader copies and galleys.
Re: Rick Moody
Date: 2003-12-04 10:44 am (UTC)I went on a big Moody/Foster Wallace/George Saunders/Denis Johnson/Donald Antrim kick a couple of years ago, and which I hadn't been so voracious at the outset -- it leaves me I wanting more, now.
The Flanagan's a good lead, tho (especially with holiday break + free time happening for me in a matter of days).
xo a.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-04 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-04 12:40 pm (UTC)recommendations
Date: 2003-12-04 03:15 pm (UTC)i'm a hard sell, i have to say, maybe cause i was a comparative
lit major.. not sure, but anyway am a fan of robbe grillet style of writing, existential playwrites, milan kundera's short stories and a sucker for toni morrison, ursela hegi, margaret atwood. tom wolfe's this boys life won me over too.
i just read 'heartbreaking work of staggering genius' to many's approval and felt it was too self-indulgent for the most part.
i'd love some winner recommendations from your archives. short story collections as well.
Re: recommendations
Date: 2003-12-05 08:35 am (UTC)here are some of my favorite novels:
richard russo "empire falls"
michael cunningham "a home at the end of the world"
sarah schulman "shimmer"
chuck palahniuk "survivor"
short stories:
jhumpa lahiri "the interpreter of maladies"
frederick barthelme "the law of averages"
but i'll think of more....