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.

Chris Killen was born in 1981

Yesterday I read The Bird Room by Chris Killen. I liked it a lot. Really I liked it. You should go and buy it on Amazon. It is a good book. I liked it a lot. I like it a lot more than other things I have said I like. It was clever and funny and 'poignant' in parts. One part in particular. I think that The Bird Room would appeal a lot to a small group of people. In a review I would say it was "as hip as Charles Manson" and not "as hip as moving to France". It is published by Canongate and looks pretty. I have the 9.99 version but there is a smaller, cheaper, more orange version out now. I might get that and give this one away. Here is the Chris Killen blog.

Brandon Scott Gorell is selling all of the books he owns because he is moving to South America. Fences was in the $4 section between Ever by Blake Butler and The National Virginity Pledge by Barry Graham. Someone bought it. I would be interested to know who bought it but it feels like I wont find out maybe.

The amazon sales rank for Fences is 2,596,933. it is based around the amount of penises i have seen in 'real life' in my life so far. This means it has sold like 0.5 copies per week or something. "Customers who bought this item also bought Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler and Motorman by David Ohle". I have read neither of those. There are no customer reviews of Fences on Amazon. It would be sweet if someone did one I guess. On Amazon you can buy a used copy of Fences for $28.77

You can pre-order my second or third novel (i dont know what order they are coming out in) from ML Press here. On the excerpt the change in font sizes have disappeared because of the site re-design. In the book they are still there. J.A Tyler sent me the book layout recently and it looks fucking awesome. Really really nice. I am excited about it lots. Also I get to sign a contract and now I feel like I should buy a suit and grow up some more. Stop being such a 'dicksucker'.

I am 'quite tired'. Currently eating "Tescofinesthalfcoatedtriplechocolatecookies;butterycrumblybiscuitsbakedwithplainwhiteandmilkchocolatechipsdippedinsmoothbelgianchocolateforextrarichness.

Is this boy? I was looking for boy. Please tell him that I called. Tell him I am looking to love and be loved. Tell him about the gun show thing.

Hi
Hello
What are you doing?
I'm pulling birds out of the sky. The sky here is orange in sepia. I wish I could climb it.
I climbed it once. I broke a leg.
I have never broken any bones.
Break one.
Right now?
Yea.
I don't think I could.
Sure you could.
How?
With like a stapler or a shoe or something.
I don't have a stapler.
But you have a shoe?
Yea but it's like an espadrille type thing. Flimsy. I couldn't break shit with it.
Did you buy that baby in the end?
Yes. I kept haggling. I knocked her way down. I put my hands into her mouth clapped.
Congratulations. How is it doing?
It's doing okay. I might sell it on. I'm not sure. It's always naked and sort of lumpy. It is a mountain that cant walk.
I climbed a mountain.
Where is a horse?
No, a mountain.
Did you meet the man who wrote the book about dogs?
It was a woman who wrote the book about dogs.
Did you meet her?
Sort of.
Did she give you a signed copy of the book about dogs?
I dont want to talk about it.
Did she sew your lips shut and grab your balls?
I dont want to talk about it.
How are your balls?
They swelled and burst yesterday. I did nothing to save them. It was my fault. Should of stolen a lifeboat.
Dont worry, you did the right thing. There were people that needed it more than you.
Perhaps.
I bet I can eat a rose quicker.
Quicker than what?
Quicker than that time you were climbing down a whale's blowhole.
I got vertigo.
You became a leopard and the sky ate you.
No, that was an urban myth.
Television is an urban myth.
What if we steal a car but dont use it or move it?
You've taken off your pants, havent you?
Who made you the judge?
I am going to move to Israel and be a shepherd.
There is a shortage of skilled shepherds in Jerusalem.
No way.
Maybe.
Cook rice and try to keep your eyes in.
I'm not hungry.
Do something.
I already walked the house nine times.
Nine times isn't nearly enough.
I had sex with a cat.
Are we on speaking terms?
It depends how many clods of dirt you give me.
I'll give you a thousand. What happened to your arms?
I gave them away. The girl had no legs.
When we all made that car out of trees.
And splinters in the pussy.
That was sad.
I cried.
I cried too.
I know you cried, I hid your tears in my ass.
Please make your own tissues.
Can we get dolphin from the butcher?
The butcher is a wolf. He loves the dolphins.
The butcher swam with dolphins.
The butcher has a moustache.
The butcher is an American woman.
American women are the best.
I am an American woman.
I can see your memory.
Which?
The one with the foot sex and the costume.
The bear-angel costume?
The radiator costume.
Clunky.
So clunky.
Lets clunk together and pray for rain.
I'm praying for rain.
I am pretending to feel it on my neck.
How does it feel?
Clunky.
I'm thinking of a word.
Clunky?
Yes.
Clunk's sake.
Why did you kick that cup out of the window?
It had a man in it. He was calling our king an otter.
That's stupid, our king is a Quaker.
My king is a planet.
When we stole the planet.
And didn't use it or move it.
What if we use it or move it now?
Why are your ears always shrinking?
Sounds are smaller.
Modern.
She did contemporary dance.
And you still bedded her.
She urinated on me.
Golden shower.
It was expensive.
All money spent is good.
Money is cum. I dont want cum on my hands. I'm not gay.
Take a shower.
Okay.

Gifts for the children of 2010

I dont think i promoted Fences very well. I think i held it and smiled then led it in one of those baby coffins and ate it.

I still have copies.

Do i owe them to anyone?

I thought of a potentially fun thing to do with them. If anyone knows someone who they think would maybe like it then send me their address and I will send them a copy. Like a secret gift. We will have to work out a way of ensuring they dont send it back, like maybe writing "name name, this was definitely meant for you. dont try to return it."

This feels very Paulo Cohelo.

SPANISH MAN CHANGING LIVES

WARNING I think the book contains lots of swearing. So dont submit your nan. This is the reason my nan hasnt read the book. She tried to read it once. She wouldnt give it back. I had to sort of pin her back against the chair and wrestle it from her. I dont think it would count as fighting.

More new years resolutions:
-flirt with the dog.
-flirt with the koi.
-flirt with crispin best.
-flirt with a toddler.
-flirt with a friends mum.
-flirt with an elderly woman at a museum.
-flirt with the asian man at the petrol station.
-flirt with my feet.



Also I am writing a new book. I have had 3-4 false starts. Some of them got quite far. I like some of them. I might come back to them.
Here are some of the ones that got titled:
-All The Blind Dogs, like 8,000 words or something
-Red Sex, 16,000 words
-From the Peonies, 14,000 words
-Hungry Trees In Lower Saxony, 11,000 words.
-Huojin Xu's Incrimination in a Boat Boy's the Vandalism of the Moon, 4,000 words

If I put them together that would make a short novel.

Here are bits i like from each:

-All The Blind Dogs
" My temples are river banks. My palms are an estuary. Us, bare on this bed. It's still early Katyushka. Your legs are wealth. The sky is fragmanted atrament, hunks of failure blue and sunless. You want sun and I will stand outside the window frame, grow bonfire in the bough of my arms. You want paint and I will cough it into puddles at your feet."


-Red Sex

"I am writing to congratulate you on your recent acquisition, a foetus!"

-From the Peonies

"I didn't really like any of this."

-Hungry Trees In Lower Saxony

"Wolf hasnt washed for days. He only moves to take passages from the concrete fields. His skin is covered in transcriptions.

The girl has said when I wake, the earth turns somersaults.

The boy has said there is an ocean in my chest, my heart drowns.

I take the cubs down to river where they wash each other and I watch them. I hoover their youth. It tastes of sugar and rain."

I might finish that one.


-Huojin Xu's Incrimination in a Boat Boy's Vandalism of the Moon

" When little Huojin Xu stole the key to his father's Kuti, he found a white moon missing a hand-shaped slice from its centre. The rotting hut at our garden's end is no place for a moon, Huojin Xu thought. Especially one engaged in such naked dance with vast lavender sky. Especially one using the Bohai Sea as a mirror in which to pine it's loss. Especially one which brings with it severe blackness as thick as hot honey."

I feel good about the book I am writing now. It is called "The Ocean Box". It seems like a "real book" or something. I will be confused when it is finished, about what to do.

Maurice

twothousandandten! no way!

everyone has new years resolutions flying about.

here are mine:

-go further with a transvestite than i have ever gone with a transvestite before.
-have a go at being gay.
-kill someone and not be caught (doesnt count doing this at 23:59 on december 31st)
-write more books.
-grow the hell up.
-meet someone in real life who genuinely hates one or all of my books and then fight it out with them.
-do pilates/yoga/something equally gay.
-act like girls dont exist for a while.
-buy a games console and learn football words so that i can join in conversations with people at work.
-have a "wear no pants day" at least once a month.
-eat something not designed to be eaten.
-punch someone in the leg and pretend it was an accident.
-start a rumour that someone in "the blogosphere" is a murderer or a vet.
-send someone a copy of fences. does anyone not have it?
-learn the hoedown throwdown.
-get into an argument and call someone "a pussy bitch" before running away.
-never run away like i did two nights ago when those people thought i said something about their sister.
-do that thing where you turn someone upside down and shake them till money falls out. im not very strong. it might have to be a toddler.
-create a cool as hell author image. like this:


Bends neck.
Is talented at lighting.

enjoys the occasional mento.
owns personal reading light.
enjoys reading chick-lit.

Before christmas I went to London to meet renata from the airport and we went to get beers with crispin best again and it was very nice. we tried to go in a gay bar. we succeeded in going into a sex-dvd shop. renata wanted to leave because i kept saying "is this your mum?". a man almost did a fight with me because he thought i said something to him but i didnt. that happens a lot. crispin best is a huggable panda.