César Aira

Let me sing to you the praises of César Aira.  Earlier this year, I read Ghosts, and now I'm in the middle of reading How I Became a Nun, his "autobiographical" novella, translated in 2007 and out from New Directions.  It's a weird little story: it's unclear right off the bat whether the child narrator is a girl or a boy, and pronouns rarely emerge, creating a sense of identity crisis from the start.  Also, in the story's macabrely funny beginning, the narrator's father beats an ice cream vendor to death and sets in motion the rest of the action.  

In the picaresque tradition, the little narrator has a tendency to lie to everyone and make inexplicable decisions not based on logic but rather on situation.  Aira, apparently, employs" an avant-garde aesthetic in which, rather than editing what he has written, he engages in a 'flight forward' (fuga hacia adelante) to improvise a way out of the corners he writes himself into." (Wiki)  This is evident, as the narrator's decisions often seem unfounded in the sequence of events but rather on flights of fancy or implausible gut reactions.  The result is often hilarious.

Another thing about Aira, at least in the two novellas of his that I've read: he tends to dwell on matters of architecture, and has a particular thing for the unfinished structure.  Characters often founder around construction sites: staircases without banisters; dry pools; the unrenovated wing of a prison, with its dead-end crannies.  The effect is eerie: since the setting is unfinished, it isn't concrete, and because of this it seems plausible for phantoms or other illogical phenomena to appear at any time (even if they don't). 

Aira rarely gives interviews, but here is an interview published in BOMB.  

Observations: or, Always a Plus-One, Never a Guest

Say you're a glamorous media type who gets invited to fascinating, star-studded events, and you need a buddy to bring as an accomplice.  A buddy who laughs loudly and wears an outlandish costume and/or matches your colors.  I am that buddy.  It's good to have me around, because I'm not competing for your job -- I'm just there to be agreeable.

Wednesday night saw me and Rohin at SoHo's Agent Provocateur for an inexplicable Wednesday night social.  I was unclear as to the purpose of the party -- did they have a new line out? -- but I do love looking at AP's pieces, which always wittily mix the humorous, sexy, and impractical. (Case in point: the Bullet Playsuit.  How is this a thing?  It blows my mind that this and the word "suit" can co-refer to one object.) That said, AP also does the Western traditional costume (that is, the brassiere and underwear duo) very well.  Add this to the eternally-smiling staff, who on Wednesday offered up chocolate truffles and champagne, and to the extremely killer soundtrack that seemed like it was straight out of my teens (Hole; Nirvana; Siouxsie & the Banshees; David Bowie), and it was a pretty good day to be in SoHo.  Much better, at least, than the random Abercrombie event we saw happening on the parallel street: some bored, shirtless dudes with shifty eyes.  I'd rather have a chocolate and speculate about how long it would take me to ruin a pair of Cuban-heel back-seamed stockings.  (Dollars to donuts I'd get a hole in one of them in ten minutes.)

Tonight, I came to the realization that anything based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses is fucking weird. I went to see Robert Wilson's Quartett at BAM with my as-of-now-former boss tonight, and just about had enough Gothic overdramatization (but not quite enough; never enough).  The production, written by German playwright Heiner Muller, is on as a part of the Next Wave festival, and stars Isabelle Huppert as that ice-cold bitch the Marquise and Ariel Garcia Valdez (pictured, in red) as a monstrously phlegmy Valmont.  The entire play is illuminated in a strange and what I'm told is a very Wilsonesque way: pinpoints of color-gelled light pointing out specific objects, body parts, and movements.  It was visually beautiful and textually perverse, full of gross overstatements of good and evil and detailed descriptions of lascivious and downright filthy acts.  At all times, everyone on stage is doing one of the following things: yelling and/or laughing insanely; staying completely still; talking and/or moving slowly.  The music, by Michael Galasso, is at times quietly backgrounded, and at others eardrum-blastingly loud.  In other words, very European.  Recommended -- this production has one more week to go at BAM.

ARTS: Start November

Hey friends and frenemies, it's time for me -- the Authorial Voice --to recommend to you things you should Attend, Read, Think, and See.  In other words, we're putting the ARTS in your pARTS.  Of the world.

ATTEND:

This one's a toughie, because there's lots of stellar stuff happening, and most of it is all in one week. But as modernity teaches us, choice is good, and this will allow you to gain control of your rapidly careening persona and pick a thing and stick to it for once.

• Emily Noelle Lambert's solo art show "Little Deaths" opens Thursday at Priska C. Juschka. Emily's work is unnerving in its use of color.  See this example.  Then attend the show.  I might attend the opening of the show, and the chances are good that you can attend with me if you say "Yes I Will." 
• If like me your Friday nights consist usually of mean-spirited internet searches and subsequent palliative blogging, you'd be well off to hit up Earshot on November 6th.  (What I mean by that is "you gotta get out more.") Featured reader Johannes Göransson is Swedish, and though that's a rival country to my own, I believe his work (and the work he puts out as co-editor of Action Books with Joyelle McSweeney, is some of the most exciting stuff coming out currently.  The other featured reader is Janaca Stucky, and the three MFAs are Kimberly King Parsons, Kit Kalnay, and (defying the K theme) Helen Rubenstein.
  
• On Saturday, November 7th, you could go to some of the outer boroughs' finest reading series.  First, CROWD presents Corina Copp, Matvei Yankelevich, and Jonathan Thirkield from 7-9PM at Cafe Orwell in Bushwick.  Bushwick isn't far from Ridgewood, Queens, which is where you'll need to go afterward, in order to attend Poetry Time at Space Space.  Let the loud website speak for itself and just attend.  (PS: Ridgewood is really easy to get to.  Don't let "Queens" fool you.  Save that shit for Vegas.)  Readers include Jibade-Kahlil Huffman, Ariana Reines, and Eugene Ostashevsky.
• Wednesday, November 11th, go to McNally Jackson for 4-Way Books' fall launch party.  This event will feature Tom Healy, Sandy Tseng, and Meg Kearney, and Carolyn Forche will also be reading the work of Daniel Simko, a poet Four Way published posthumously. Also, cake and wine.  If you're like me you appreciate the generosity of a statement like "cake and wine." 
• Bushwick Reading Series will happen on November 14th.  The readers include Steven Karl, Jen Bartman, Eve Bates, and Martin Rock.  More promo to follow, no doubt -- like the state of Hawai'i, I love spam.  But that shit is from 3 to 5, and I'm the curator so you're well off to attend this event.
• Hartzveytik: A Heartbreak Survival Society Social, on November 14th, at Southpaw in Brooklyn. Featuring Soft Power w/Mary Timony as well as the Shondes, who are this fantastic fusion of grunge, riot grrl, and classical elements.  The band features dark quivery vocals and (my favorite thing ever) the violin over seriously rocking riffs.  If you have been missing confrontation in your life, please check them out.  There's an official video for "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" here, and a somewhat poor-audio version of their unbelievably awesome song "Miami" here. 

READ: 

• Aliens in the Prime of their Lives by Brad Watson.  This collection of short stories (and the title novella) is awesome, and you should read it when it comes out in March.  I happened upon a copy (and by "happened upon" I mean "found in our living room after Garrett brought it home and seized it immediately to read it").  I just finished it yesterday. The people in these stories tend toward a distance from others, but grapple with the implications of that distance and what it means to be human.  In one memorable story, a man pretends his wife has died, when in reality, she has left him to join a commune of artists and leather-wearing bikers.  He tells people she has passed away because he can't bear the idea that she has changed into something he doesn't recognize and is unable to love.  This book contains gypsies, spooky children, extraterrestrials, dismembered body parts, corpses, and alcoholics, and none seem out of place. 
• The Doll Games by Shelley and Pamela Jackson.  A chronicle of what girls and dolls do together,written in clinical detail, hilarious and dark. 

THINK: 

• (At least I've been thinking about this.)  About how fast some people have given up and begun to repeal their optimisms about this administration.  I don't know who's at fault here (although I am tending to blame sensationalism and the capitalist notion of "trends"), but I think that there's something wrong with us turning hope into depression and skepticism after only one year of O in office.  We went from this -- a bunch of writers and thinkers writing exalting verse to our savior-in chief -- to this -- a word cloud expressing strong emotions but primarily reflecting just uncertainty and doubt.  Where is the perseverance, the national teeth-gritting pushiness that saw us as a society through worse depressions?  Where is the belief that it might take a little time, but we elected a leader that can, indeed, do it?  I am not saying take back your expressions of frustration that it's not happening fast enough.  I'm just saying don't abandon ship.  We should be more determined than ever.
  

SEE: 

• "Meat out of the Eater," the text/audio portion of an installation at the &NOW conference in Buffalo last month.  I attended the conference, and saw the installation, which was truly hilarious and unsettling.  The words are by Lara Glenum, video and sound by Josef Horáček, and the digital media and sculpture by Jordan Dalton and Kate Brown.  Play this thing with your speakers turned way up, in a big creepy echo-room.  Prepare to feel like you're surrounded by people playing old school videogames in a room covered in Styrofoam, glitter, and offal.  (Thx. to A for the original link.)
• The abundance of Frida Kahlo costumes on the internet.  I saw some of my friends had gone as Frida this year, and I thought "what a great idea," and when I googled it I realized that it was delightful to see a lot of Fridas and that Frida would herself probably have been delighted by this.  (I myself dressed as Agent Dana Scully this year.  'Cause the whole of Williamsburg is an X-File.
  

Fabulous Essential - both fabulous and essential?

This handsome portrait conveys my chapbook, Fabulous Essential, which is now available from Birds of Lace Press.  Clad in red and yellow like an extremely dangerous mushroom or plant, this book will surely disturb your senses into a grim approval. I should tell you now that this pamphlet is not recommended for consumption while operating heavy machinery.  Also, I wrote this chapbook with the assistance of a poltergeist named Justine, so it goes without saying that the manuscript contains something of the demoniac.

It's $6, and the price includes shipping; by ordering, you support an unbelievably rad small press in the process.  (Order info here)

I'm glad I didn't post this on Twitter, but sad about posting it here.

The tragic thing, if there's a thing here I could point out as "particularly" tragic, is how I didn't even use up all my characters. 

in which i post about some music that's pretty old already

Ok, so I had to reformat my computer.  I reckon this is akin to a loved one with amnesia, except that you can reload the loved one's memories back in.  I was able to back up my entire folder of written goods and all my photos.  I didn't bother with the music.  This would have been unthinkable three years ago, but lately, I just find myself increasingly old in my tastes.  I literally mean old -- I've been listening to Emmylou Harris' Thirteen, pictured to your left.  This copy cost me $2 at Junk on Driggs Avenue -- a place where I've had the exceptionally good luck in the past to find and purchase such infamous treasures as Geraldine (the tapestry/sofa-print jacket so ugly it needed a name.  Geraldine contributes to my old lady image, which is already significant -- the other day, in Florida, someone called me out for wearing socks-and-sandals and a shawl).

All the people who work at this store avoid eye contact with patrons, which makes it especially nice if you're a recluse, brown or otherwise.  If sometimes you find yourself strolling around Bedford on a weekend, and you find you're getting increasingly annoyed with, like, everyone, and the way they keep knocking into your elbow and causing you to spill coffee down your sleeve (thank god you wore black), then head one block over and visit this place.  It's full of shit you don't need (bird statuettes, thimbles, really hideous housedresses, a dollhouse or two, lots and lots of amber glass), but at least nobody will talk to you even if you're there for hours, and sometimes you find something awesome. 

And tonight instead of taking advantage of CMJ stuff with Rohin like a good culture queen would, I've just been looking up Amy Winehouse covers on YouTube (side note: who wants to do an Amy Winehouse cover with me?  I swear I can carry a tune from here to the next room).  Here's a really good one by the Arctic Monkeys.  Sorry if you've already heard it.   I'm not embedding it because the video part is worthless, but the cover is super great, so give it a listen.  Worth it also is this girl's uke-driven version, infused with a Nordic melancholy strangeness (or at least I like to think so) (also, there's a kazoo):

And finally, speaking of Nordic strangeness, here's a video I periodically watch, re-watch, and obsess over: "The Modern" by Frida Hyvonen.  Frida got on US radars with her album called Until Death Comes, but sadly since then we haven't really heard too much from her around here, although we (I) would like to.  This song clocks in at just over two minutes, so go ahead and watch it -- you'll still have time for your cigarette.

 

I don't know what it is about this song, its video, or its weirdo refrain -- "the new word for love is the new word for The Modern" -- but somehow it manages to be cute and twee and fucking scary all at the same time.  That's kind of how I prefer art to be. 

The New Day

Dear internet, I feel a sense of dread. I feel so distracted. I can't concentrate on one thing, one task, at a time. I open tabs and tabs (I have 23 open now) and they all represent something I need to do. I must start every sentence with I because it makes me feel like I have a great sense of agency. I have a great sense of agency. I am entitled to something. I am entitled to whatever I get. I should be satisfied with it. I should ask for more. I should do more. I should start today. I understand that I can't do everything, but I try. I try to help. I try to attend. I try to jimmy the lock on the gumball machine and have all the gumballs roll out and have people step on them and have most of them roll into a puddle. I want to pick them up. I want to paint their color back on. I know this will pass, but it feels like it won't ever pass. Dear internet, I might be having one of those days.