Exposure of the skin to sun lamps

Recently I have been thinking about maybe deleting this blog because increasingly it feels as though 'the content is; there is no content' or something. But probably not. Probably I will come up with some way of making this a real blog again. Possibly I will wrap tape around my head until it turns white. Probably I will write a series of book review posts. Possibly I will join a troupe of Ukrainian pornographers. Probably I will never buy new underwear ever again. Possibly I have disease which no-one has ever had before. Probably I will drink a bottle of cough medicine for a dare then pass out and be taken advantage of. Possibly tomorrow everything I ever thought could happen will happen and I will take steroids that make me grow so tall I can see everyone in this world and everyone in every other world and then I will trip because my shoelace will be undone and I will crush everything and ruin life for everyone.

Fuck it, let them have it. Really? Yea, really. Where will we go? Treehouses. Clouds. Sewers. Okay? Yea. Yea, what? Yea, fuck that. My hands are guns.

At Intervals, In Effigy

From 'Hungry Trees In Lower Saxony',

"565

Wolf woke us all up. He had boiled a broth of hummingbirds, must have gone shooting from high oak branches in the night. He apologised and placed a paw on my cheek. We will go on a Girl Chase this afternoon, he announced. The cubs roared applause. I didnt feel hopeful, we hadnt caught any girls on the last two hunts. There had been one, a dancer with ribbons up her thighs, but we chased her into a well as deep as the earth.

Wolf had that day's passage written on his palms.

And when it rains I dance with her face drawn on my feet. She is the sinew of body and sky. I believe that her heart beats sweet milk and her head is a maze of honey.

Wolf copied this into one of the note pages of The Hunters Maw then drew a line between it and a passage from the girl's head, first showered in the south.

The train leaves at night and is a wreck in morning.

His tail coiled between legs.

Wolf gathered the shotgun and its shells, he lit a cigarette. Me and the cubs followed him out of The Hungry Tree. Rain began, of water. It slapped the earth so hard we couldnt hear. Turned the ground to torrents of thick mud. The cubs kept falling. They lost their silver coats to the dirt. Wolf didnt notice, he led us whistling.

We walked for an hour before we saw her.

The girl, her body half ripe pink half dirt. She wore a petticoat and thrashed in the sinking earth. She screamed. When we advanced her eyes began to grow until great fat pupils filled her whole face. Our line reflected in them. Freed herself and ran, waves formed around her heels and hit our chests. We made chase like sepia doves with teeth the size of children. When she screamed we howled.

She fell with hollow chest by the river banks. Wolf looked into her bronze cheeks and grinned. He tickled the undersides of her skinny arms till she was forced into laughter. Then he shot her.

The cubs leapt high and smiled. They nudged her body with their noses and licked her ribs.

We bred a fire inside the tree and ate her with the television on. Some news of more failed kitings in countries with streets of spices and emaciated children. What do they expect to catch there, Wolf says."

Excited for An Island of Fifty. Shane Jones is cake. Doing a HTMLGIANT interview with Marvin K Mooney, Chris Higgs, he is lovely and intelligent. Going to make tea. What. Who are you? No, this is not the naked room.

Slingshot Review, Josh Kleinberg A Philanthropist, Derrick Jensen, What.

Josh Kleinburg edits an online literary review called Slingshot. It is here. There is sweet work from Howie Good, Christopher Cocca, Ben Segal and others. It is definitely worth browsing. What else would you be doing? Masturbating or something. Also help to promote it, Josh Kleinberg will send you a book because he is a warmhearted person. Also submit to it. I am going to submit to it in an hour or so. Maybe an extract from the novel I recently finished and sent to two people. You can submit your erotic fantasies or word portraits of your parents. You should definitely do that. Do that. Josh will send you "As the world burns: 50 simple things you can do to stay in denial" which is a graphic novella by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan if you choose that from his list. Derrick Jensen. So you have to do it.

I am going to type out a large Derrick Jensen quote now because you should do that for Josh Kleinburg. It is one of my favourite passages of his. It is his responses to a series of questions asked by The Ecologist as part of a feature in which environmentalists and writers were asked about books that had influenced them.

"Question one: Which book first made you realise that something was wrong (with the planet/political system/economic system etc)?
My answer: It wasnt a book. It was the destruction of place after place that I loved. And it was the complete insanity of a culture where so many people works at jobs they hate: What does it mean when the vast majority of people spend the vast majority of their waking hours doing things they'd rather not do? The culture itself convinced me something was wrong, by being so extraordinarily destructive of human happiness and, far more importantly, the world itself.
That said, Neil Evernden's The Natural Alien was the first book I read that let me know I was not insane: that the culture is insane. It was the first book I read that did not take the dominant culture's utilitarian worldview as a given.

Question two: Which one book would you give to every politician?
Answer: One that explodes.
Before you freak out, let's change the question and see what you think: Which one book would you give to Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Goebbels?
Let's ask this another way: Would a book have changed Hitler? I don't think so. Unless it exploded.
And before you freak out at the comparison of modern politicians to Hitler and his gang, try to look at it from the perspective of wild salmon, grizzly bears, bluefin tuna, or any of the (fiscally) poor or indigenous human beings. Those in power now are more destructive than anyone has ever been. And they are for the most part psychologically unreachable. And if someone does reach some politician, that politician will no longer be in power...

Question three: What book would you give to every CEO?
Answer: See above.

Question four: What book would you give to every child?
Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads.
That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.

Question five: It's 2050. The ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising. You're only allowed one book on the Ark. What is it?
Answer: I wouldn't take a book, and I wouldn't get on the ark. I would kill myself (and take a dam out with me). I do not want to live without a living landbase. Without a living landbase I would already be dead. No book would even remotely compensate. Not a million books. Not a million computers. Not a million people would compensate."

In case you were wondering the picture at the top of this post is related to the thing I am currently working on. It is a bright day bright day.

I fought a bear and jodie piccoult won

Here is a great new author photo with real blood from being punched!
The cut is in the shape of a star.
It is snowing.

Catherine Coughed

Here is a video of Mel Bosworth reading from An Island of Fifty. Feels really weird hearing him read it. Feels like I didnt write it or something. It is part of the big other reading series. There are still a few chances left to pre-order An Island of Fifty and get a free copy of FENCES from ML Press HERE.



Also here is a video (because he is german he says 'awailable'):



Morning maytes.

'Art Exhibition' #3

Welcome to my 'art'. This is the third time I have done 'lots' of things in one. This 'exhibition' is called 'Leg#Ache: understanding and 'accidentally' colliding with the opposite sex.

1. 'Lick Girls Out To Make Them Happy'
This is about how girls have periods so they are sad a lot so you should lick them out to make them happy.


2. 'I Fucking Comb Everything'
About the importance of looking neat if you ever want to touch girls.


3. 'Hello I'm A Girl And Society Strips Me Of My Identity As Though I Were A Prisoner.'
This is about not whining.

3. 'How To Make Friends And Acceptable Places To Touch People When You Arent In A Relationship With Them Or Both Clearly 'Up For It''
This is about how the art world is like a brothel.


4.'Im Ornting You And Im Sorry But Ive Been Looking And Looking And There Just Arent Any Jobs Out There'
This is about pulling together like gays because we are in the midst of a rapey economic recession.

5. 'What Are You Doing Eyy Mate? My Name Is Ben And Im Doing Art And The Sun Is Shining Down On Me Like Tears Of Joy And Tiredness Drip Down Onto A Baby Thats Just Fought Its Way Valiantly Out Of A Vagina'
This is about how no-one understands me and I have acne etc etc.

T H A N K Y O U F O R Y O U R T I M E

I Told You People Dont Just Disappear

(cough) being alive is like making out (collar tug) with people in positions of authority (snack) who constantly damn and deride you (undressing) until you agree to hide beneath their duvets (television).



Recently I have read THE RAT VEDA by James Chapman and EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD by Zachary German. The books are massively different and both hugely exciting. I will write about them in detail somewhere. Maybe here. Congratulations.

By the end of next week I will have a completed book, maybe two.

Self Portrait With Flies & Friends

Something is happening what is this happening where is it where is it where is it