Ben Brooks and Shane Jones talk to each other

My interview/conversation with Shane Jones has been posted on Writers Bloc.
HERE

I spoke yesterday with Jillian Clark. Jillian Clark is 17 and American. She is really American. Jillian Clark is America. At school Jillian Clark beats up on people. She is widely feared. I will not link her blog because her hits are 8 times more than mine.


There were other things I was supposed to talk about.

We are apparently in a "heat wave".

I think the cover of Fences will maybe be added to the Shane Jones interview along with the cover of Failure Six.


I recently got the readsomewords chapbook. I have something in it. My portrait is not good. Some of the portraits are good. I think my favourite is Zachary Zimmermans.

The West Yorkshire police stored forensic samples with ice cream.

Blog hits have "exploded" as in yesterday they were twice as high as they have ever been.
Thankyou people in the world.

A Quai

I dont know what I am doing.
Recently I have been thinking about the BNP.

Are they bad people?
Are people ever bad?
"bad"

It feels as if I dont believe in much
there are just a lot of things I dont believe in.

I am listening to Yann Tiersen and reading Ha Jin.

Me and Shane Jones recently did an interview which I think we have found a home for.

I am writing about diamond miners.

I read light boxes last night (late late I know I know) and it is stunning. It is definitely a favourite. I want to know if Shane Jones' fiance smells of honey and smoke.

Ludovico Einaudi.

I want TKSN to be a film where the opening song is Oltremare by Einaudi. The song is playing while she writes the envelope and posts it. It plays while she smokes and presses her face against the glass. It stops while she talks to him at the door and then continues while they walk.

At school Soir De Fete by Yann Tiersen plays and someone says "that was already used in Amelie" and then it changes to La Redecouverte and that person says "i give up" and everyone leaves the cinema and goes home to do xylophone karaoke and have sex.

The second bit requires slight plot deviation but I am willing to do it for good cinema.

An Interview With a Human Being

Today I did some work on a chapbook of poems and things.

Today I also interview a human being called Alex Edden:

what are you doing?

trying to get some dirt off my toe

how did dirt get on your toe?

i am not at all sure

can i come over and help?

do as you wish. though by the time you get here it will most likely be gone

but you will need someone to "pick up the pieces"?

ahh, do you enjoy "picking up pieces"?

i am interviewing you

do you think i enjoy "picking up pieces"?

i am sure you do

you aren’t wearing socks are you?

i rarely wear socks

Why?

i feel less comfortable for wearing socks

would you buy open toed socks?

i think i would prefer that to normal socks

cold feet?

i dont like having cold feet. i would rather wear socks than shoes. i hate shoes.

do you have jelly sandals?

no

thanks for speaking to me alex edden

the pleasure is all mine ben

Things we wont let settle but let set

The only things I care about are blog hits, money and girls
and all of those things are "down".

If you search "Sikhs voted BNP" then this blog comes up.
Dont know why you would search that if you already knew.



Just started reading a Hardy novel in the sun and thought
"what the fuck"
and then stopped reading it.
I like it.
Its good,
but its not a sunshine book
like Agnes Grey
by the hot Bronte sister.

I am making an appearance in the read some words chapbook alongside ryan manning, dj berndt, adam coates and other nice people. ORDER IT FOR FREE.
I have no idea what piece if writing i have in it, apologies in advance.

I will also be in Chris Easts Bureau De Books Chapbook which you can read about and submit to HERE. Christ East has a good new thing on Dogzplot. I like it a lot.

I think Fences is going to have a matte cover now. Which is goodgoodgood.

You can pre-order Shane Jones' book nowwwwwwwwwww
HERE Its a seriously good read and you should seriously go and seriously pay serious money for it now.
I think Shane is planning to hug or kiss the first 50 pre-orders or something. What a babe.


I actually did a lot of work today on TKSN. I think the first draft may be finished in a few days.

I ment to introduce myself to adam coates and request a copy his project which looks cool. I didnt though, I forgot.

If anyone wants to go scouting for girls, thats cool.

Chris East is doing a reading thing in Northampton at the end of July. Crispin Best is reading something. I said I would go and then I said I couldnt go because I was away and now I think I might be able to go. Crispin Best called me a racist name yesterday, so I might not go.

I am going to apply for a job in a bargain bookshop

In Britain our government will not bail out manufacturing industries. They bail out only the banks. This means that thousands of people lose their jobs and go on the dole. The money the government should spend on bailing out failing manufacturers goes instead to those in 6th form education. This money comes in weekly instalments of £30 to a lot of fucking people. The governments thinking here is “they are poor, they will spend it on books and pencils and shit” but I think the reality of the situation is “they are children, they will spend it on alcohol and drugs”. I can literally not imagine anyone spending it on actual school things.

I have had a fiction series accepted by DJ Berndt at Pangur Ban Party. PBP is very funny and good and nice. The series is called “This is body is my body (and I want to use it)”.

Crispin Best of Unnecessary Press will also be doing an Ebook of my story “The Apocalypse Flat”.

I am excited about both of those things.

I am reading Murakami.

I just mowed both lawns.

I got no post today.

I just ate porridge.

I put too much milk in it.

It tasted like lumpy milk.

Mmmmmm.

Udderr night took we car from big howse.

Beeonsay inna back all “pimp”

Dey litein fiyur in na backseet

And I driven circles.

All the ladies in the house say hey.

I feel funny about the Kafka controversy.

Murakami has a book called “Kafka on the shore”

It is good.

Read that.

In the Murakami book “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” there is this woman who is a prostitute of the mind.

In the Murakami book “Norwegian Wood” I don’t like Midori but I do like Watanbe and I don’t know how I feel about Naoko and I think I like Reiko. When Reiko is 31 she is teaching a 13 year old girl piano and the 13 year old girl takes her clothes off and does things to her.

Creepy Murakami, creepy.

If someone could email me and offer marriage or something that would be fun; brooksben@hotmail.co.uk

If you are from Africa and want someone to shift your dollars then email that address too.

Those with offers of marriage will be put in contact with those needing to shift dollars.

No money will change hands.

Why I dont like Kafka but think its ok if Andrew Worthington does

Andrew Worthington has written a defence of Kafka, read it HERE. This is becoming full scale war. I am going to bring out the big guns. I am going to write about why I don’t like Kafka.

I will concentrate on Metamorphosis as that is what I previously attacked.

I feel as though there are 3 reasons to write anything:

1. To entertain. The piece of writing will give a person pleasure. Perhaps the pleasure is shallow pleasure if the writing is entertaining and little else but that doesn’t matter right now.

2. To get across a point. The author may or may not agree with the point he is making. The point may be an expression of one of the authors personal views or may simply be a observation of the author himself or others in a fictional circumstance. The fictional circumstance should maybe bear relevance to actual life in order for:

3. For readers to relate to. Readers may read something and mentally nod a lot. This is essentially what is done in conversation. You listen to someone speak and pick out things you can relate to, informing the orator of this. A book could then be one side of a conversation, the other side will depend upon the reader.

For me, Metamorphosis fulfils none of the above criteria. For Andrew Worthington I can suppose it fulfils the first but cannot see that it could do much more.

Andrew suggests that the book is absurd but that is ok because “when one considers it, that is how the world is: strange and absurd.” I don’t really understand this. I cannot see how one can describe the world as strange. Strange is unfamiliar, exotic, different; but the laws of nature, physics and being are familiar to us as we are bound by them. We live our lives by them, they could not be more familiar. Existence is strange. Why the world came to be is strange but not the world itself, not to us anyway.

Andrew then talks about how Kafka explores the theme of alienation in an existential light. Alienation is an existentialist theme yes. Feeling lonely is both human and natural, we all experience it. You know what isnt human or natural? Becoming a bug. People feel alienated and alone because they experience existential crises and see themselves distanced from others. At no point do they become bugs. If people feel alienation so regularly and as a result of such real things then why does Kafka feel the need to create an artificial, fantasy situation in order to explore a feeling which is naturally occurring?

Andrew also talked about summing up stories and making them sound pointless:

“In a previous entry a couple of weeks ago, someone said something like "The Metamorphosis is about a guy who turns into a bug. What's the point?"

But would you take Catcher in the Rye, and say: "It's about a kid who is growing up and rebelling against his family and society. What's the point?"

Or take On The Road and say: "It's about a guy who hitch hikes around the country. What's the point?"“

I think the crucial thing with these is that people do not turn into bugs. People feel alienated sure, but not because they become bugs. The point of the kid growing up and rebelling against his family is that that happens. People either embrace or rebel against what they are brought up around. The point of the guy hitch hiking is that people lack direction sometimes. People are hedonists. People reject society.

I don’t think Kerouac or Salinger sound devalued in one sentence summaries, Kafka however does. A man becomes a bug. Sure its written in regular prose but what does it really mean? what lies beyond that?

As a comment in a previous post of Andrews blog someone said “i'm just not into his writing” and I thing that’s what I am getting at.

I think I talk about death more than life because it is longer

I have no idea how to promote a book.


I dont know how to promote anything.





Recent discussions about promotion have yielded the following promotional ideas:





Purchase 10 seconds airtime on radio 4 and shout my name as many times as is possible

OR

Kindly ask banksy and other "happening" "graffers" to "spray" about Fences.





That was it, that was really it.





So if someone is thinking like "ben brooks could read excerpts of fences to my family while we eat dinner" that would be great if you could tell me and i would do it. If things like that happen we are more likely to rack the figures up beyond the billions and whip up some excitement for the sequel/film/latin translation.





None of those things are happeing (so you know).





I am going to write some more now.


I want to keep writing editing until maybe 1 or 2.


I dont really edit much.


Not as much as I should maybe.





If someone emails me and pre-orders 100 copies sometime in the future then sometime in the future I will buy a farm in Portugal.





Today it was hot.

Fences is Fences "is"

I am excited.
I have just gotten the pdf and cover for Fences and it looks perfect.
I am happy.


When it sells over 1 million copies the cover will change
because it will say
"over 1 million copies sold"
and then if I have another book published
it will say
"bestselling author of Fences which sold over 1 million copies"

I feel good.

Again, if people want to review it then email me: brooksben@hotmail.co.uk
and we can talk about that.

Touch him with your touch

There is a moth on the wall

and it has not moved for a long time

and I am fucking terrified

both for myself

and for it.

"Fences" is going to be slightly wider than it is tall.

I managed to make some writing progress.

Shane Jones is doing a competition or two to win copies of "The Failure Six". You should enter. Shane Jones is lovely and the book is very very good. GO HERE.

James Chapmans story "Rat" was in the finalists of the lamination colony contests. I hope it wins.

I killed your

Wife in a

Field of poppies

And never once was I

Tempted.

I can climb on the boats

and sail the boats

and lose the sea

and try to save myself but

fail with my

inadequate arms

and inadequate fingers,

inadequate eyes,

inadequate attachment.

Nothing “is”.

Sky is womb and she's the moon

It is midnight. Watching the European Parliament election results stumble into the hands of balding men on television. In the York and Humber district the BNP have won a seat (labour got one and the conservatives two). They got 10% of the vote there. The BNP bro that is taking the seat is called Brons or something and he looks exactly like a BNP bro would look. He looks older than probably he is and he has a long creepy neck and squinty little eyes and I really really want to "get" him. When he was 17 he joined a far-right group who formed on Hitlers birthday. He once claimed that he would risk being imprisoned for taking action if ever non-whites were allowed to enter BNP meetings. In his “victory” speech he talked shit about Europe and avoided talking shit about his racial views in order to appear “mainstream”. UKIP are doing well too but I don’t care. BNP bro is shit-talking about UKIP, “they don’t even want out of the EU, they just want to reform it”. I don’t care BNP bro, I just want you to not be here. Nick Griffin looks happy. It is the first time BNP have gotten a seat. He is boasting about how some Sikhs have voted BNP because they feel they could deal with the growth in radical Islam amongst young muslims. Bullshit. How could he possibly know that? His party have a strictly whites only membership policy, no fucking Sikh would vote for them. Who the fuck does vote BNP? I still don’t know. I still haven’t met one. One racist idiot. I feel like I should be doing something. Maybe there is a local BNP meeting place I can visit with kerosene soaked rags and matches. All you can do is hope there will be a “fucking do something” effect from BNP getting a seat(s) like what happened in France in 2002. Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front Dicks came second behind Chirac in the first round of votes. Turnout was spastically low. When the French realised that a racist ass had gotten through there was a mass protest before the 2nd round of elections and turnout increased to the extent that Chirac won with 82% of votes. Turnout is currently running at a record low for this election (43%?) and so maybe, when people see that the BNP are “making progress”, there will be raised turnout and an ousting of the racist twats. Seems maybe like wishful thinking. Might not happen at all. People might not care still. A man on television is predicting that UKIP will get 17% nationally and beat labour who, he says, will get 16%. He is predicting that the BNP will get 6%. Seems like more wishful thinking maybe. Guy looks like an idiot anyway. People are urinating on Labour. Everyone is joining in except for a blonde woman who maintains that it is unlikely Labour will lose Government. I don’t know blonde woman, shut up. Some people are saying that people who vote BNP don’t fully understand their racist policies. Wishful thinking again. Wishful thinking of the most idiotic sort. We should stop sitting around thinking wishfully and do something maybe. Why is this happening? Is anything really happening? Do European elections count for shit? I want the general election now please. I want a nice country now please. Oscar said that if the country is every run by the BNP or a party akin to them he will leave. That is a good idea. Everyone leave. Another bald twat talking about how the European elections have no real bearing on general election results. Nice job bald twat. Thanks. The Shadow Defence secretary looks like a young Gordon Brown. Is that all the Conservatives are? A younger Labour party? A younger Labour party who are more subtle with their expenses. I am going to have to stay up for quite a while to get all of the results. Probably wont. Good.

This morning at around 3am bbc radio 4 stop talking crap about science to mention that Nick Griffin had gained a seat. Nick Griffin will be sitting in the European Parliament. Ha.

I dont want to live under a Conservative government please.

Huzzah Huzzah

My story "Despatches" has gone up on "for every year".

READ IT HERE

I have just interviewed twenty-something nerd Crispin Best about his successful band "Laurens fit, isnt she?", of which Ben Brooks is also a member.

Here it is:

me: hello crispin best of "laurens fit, isnt she?"

crispin: hi there

how are you?

me: i am well thankyou

how are you?

crispin: i am on the phone to the doctor's

i have a problem with my toe

it's not urgent. i am on hold. i feel relatively patient.

me: is it a result of the stress of being "On the road" with the band?

crispin: it can be stressful, yes

there is a lot of 'to and fro'

creativity can be hard on the feet but

the feeling of meeting the fans feels like nothing else

me: whats the "wildest" thing a fan has ever done to you?

crispin: it's pretty wild when the fans cheer after a song

i get kind of 'carried away' with light applause

me: do you ever clap with them?

crispin: i think so, yes.

i don't mean to

really i am clapping their clapping

and i imagine they are clapping mine etc

but i think really it looks like i think 'laurens fit isn't she' is really great

me: well i guess they are

so thats ok

crispin: hey - that's sweet of you to say

me: thats ok, i have been a fan for a while now

i liked them before everyone else

crispin: i feel like you were there from the very beginning

maybe before then

me: maybe

crispin: what first drew you to the band?

me: i had always loved bands that made you say "thats music?"

and LFIS really screamed that at me

crispin: and fluted i guess?

me: yes

the fluted words got me

the first single "punch the fish" was also really dancey

crispin: flutes are neat

me: what do you think of the way "the business" is going and where to "Laurens fit, isnt she?" fit into the future of music?

crispin: i think 'the business' are a great band. i really like their 'steel pan cowboy aesthetic'. i think the future of music is mostly "Laurens fit, isn't she"... so i think they will fit in quite nicely. people might say that LFIS is derivative, because everything else will sound like that then anyway, but really, it's the OTHER bands that are derivative, right?

Absolutely

me: yes, definitely

crispin: i think the music business is dead, maybe. i think most businesses are dead

i think the tea/coffee business is maybe 'going strong'

other than that, i think it's rough out there

the 'strong' thing wasn't a pun, it wasn't meant to be, i mean

me: how do "laurens fit, isnt she?" and the tea/coffee industries work together to better things in general?

crispin: i think the tea/coffee industry is a good model for "laurens fit, isn't she?"

for example

i think there should be a "lauren's fit isn't she?" outlet near most train stations

multiple perhaps

and all up the highstreet

people selling "lauren's fit, isn't she?"

i mean, they sell records in starbucks now, right?

me: probably

crispin: i think we should sell starbucks in "lauren's fit, isn't she?" outlets

i have a great idea

there will be "laurens fit isn't she?" merchandise

everything you can think of

tshirts even

it will be “awesome”

me: so we have a monopoly on the "music crap" market?

crispin: absolutely. lots of people like coffee

if they don't like coffee, a lot of the time they like tea

you know?

or hot water at least

it makes sense

me: a lot of people have switched to hot water given the current economic crisis

how has the situation effected "Laurens fit, isnt she?"

crispin: i mean

you need hot water to make tea and coffee

so really people are going 'back to basics'

"laurens fit, isn't she"'s stripped down, lo-fi, early recordings are a great example of the same sort of thing

we couldn't afford any recording equipment

so we just sold people musical instruments

and told them what to play

it's 'interactivity'

it's 'music 2.0'

me: its genius

crispin: thank you

you are kind to talk to me today

me: you are kind to let me talk to you

quickly tell us what the new albums called and when its out

crispin: the new album is called 'my girlfriend is ireland'

i think it's out as soon as we finish it

it's in 'pre-production' currently

but it's looking good

me: im excited about this one

its going to be big

crispin: thanks. thank you

me: thankyou crispin best

Hugs

re: head

Short play Alienation can be read in "Gemini Magazine"
HERE

My author picture is
not great
but its right at the end anyway
so you cant not read it based on that.

Last exam happened this morning.
Made a lot of things up.
Some fabricated EU laws
Some made up things that Darling said.
Blah Blah Blah.

Maybe you have to be sarcastic to exist. Maybe if you didnt you would be a nihilist. Like a real one. Maybe nihilism is a lack of sarcasm. Maybe it is the most major form of sarcasm. The Living Nihilists. "Yea its pointless but ironic". What would a real nihilist do? I dont understand. Just sit and die. Could anyone do that? Still driven by hunger... regardless of worldview.... i dont know.....


I am going to have more time to write now.

I will finish "The Kasahara School of Nihilism".
Might take a few months.
I will send off bits of Fences to journals now.


Reading "On the Road" again
If anyone wants to make a 1950's re-enactment club
like live action roleplay
we can do that.
That would be good.


I dont know what we are "inside of"