Opportunities for spiritual betterment

In the past week or so I have read 3 Haruki Murakami books; The Wild Sheep Chase, Dance, Dance, Dance, and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. By luck Dance is a sort of sequel to Wild Sheep Chase. Sort of. Yuki in Dance is one of my favourite Murakami characters*. She is a thirteen year old girl. In another Murakami book there is a thirteen year old girl that forces her female piano teacher to have sex with her. Yuki doesnt do that. I was thinking of how, if Harry M. tried to pitch The Wild Sheep Chase to an agent/publisher they would think he was some sort of retard and not look at the book. "Its about a sheep who inhabits the body of a man and uses him to form an organisation that effectively covertly controls the whole of Japan". If I read the blurb of a book like that I would think 'stupid' and probably not read it. But the book is good. Very good. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories. Strange ones. Murakami is one of my favourite men in the world. He is a boat.

*The Sheep Man is another. The green man is another. Midori is another.

I have a (bad) poem up at Ana Carretes thing about expiry. Here.

Also, if you preorder An Island of Fifty NOW then you get a free copy of FENCES. So thats two of my books for $12 or two of my books and Sasha's book for $20. There are only 8 chances to do this left.

I am currently working on two novels. One is more 'for fun'. I dont think it will ever be published. It is experimental again I dont know anywhere that would fit with it except FSP who already have two of my books and are tired of me now. Like lasagne.

Yesterday I found a map to 'an island of naked babes'. I am currently raising funds so that I can go there. There is a limbless man on top of my television. (trying to touch his tongue with his nose). What else? The ghost of a porn baron in my paperback copy of "The God Delusion". What else? A Farewell To Arms is 'quite dull'. Does anyone want to trade my copy of Russell Brands book for their copy of Moby Dick or Shoplifting from American Apparel? Tao Lin is "An American Russell Brand" probably.

I'm still thinking about how Tao Lin was called "The American Murakami." I dont know what Murakami books the person who wrote that had read. It was on The Melville House site I think. They cant have read any Murakami books. Murakami is maybe nearly the opposite of Tao Lin. Murakami is about people and 'gut feelings' and 'love' and 'beauty' and 'strange meetings' and 'coincidence (or the illusion of)' and 'fate' and 'meaning', and Tao Lin is not. So the themes are not similar. Murakami tends to write about single men who have worked good office jobs and saved enough to not have to work for a while, Tao Lin does not. So the characters are not similar. Murakami has sold millions of copies of books, lots of them are bestsellers, Tao Lin's are not. So the popularity levels are not similar. I dont feel agitated by this, just bemused. 'Similar hairstyles' or something probably.

I dont think, from FENCES, I was compared to anyone. This is unfair. I would say I was "a young Andy McNab" or "the male Alice Seobold" or "the british Abu Hamza" or something.

Feel most decidedly solemn. Will perhaps listen to radio 4, leaf through the new testament psalms, swing my hips or read something.