altruistic bullsh*t

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Men know when they’ve found their wives. Independent of how things turn out in the future, that initial and subsequent belief comes from a deep place. Deeper than love, I believe; that comes and goes, for known and unknown reasons. It comes from conversation—beyond the pithy, though enjoyable flutters of early love, when things are cool, peace even, amid the “getting to know” stage. The “talking” stage. Talk, in this case, descends into that deeper place, accessible only when one listens, listens, to the truth: that she’ll tell you what you need to hear, whether you like it or not.

This is how I decided to put in the work, to learn the craft of writing. Read the rest of this entry →

Call it a lack of interest, but my town’s local bookstore closed about two years ago. A mom and pop shop. I assumed a chain store would swoop in to save the day, but no dice. As of today, there are no bookstores in my little burg (there’s still the library, thank God). My wife to be and I, both avid readers and writers, take a monthly trip 30 miles north to the nearest bookstore. A trip with a new adventure every time. Read the rest of this entry →

In light of Malcolm X’s assassin being released from prison…

In our household, Malcolm X’s name came up with Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks. Our “big three”, though I’m sure it differs from home to home. What I knew of him was limited to whatever my parents said and scholastic blurbs read during Februaries. In 1992, Spike Lee did this child a favor by directing X starring Denzel Washington. I consider the movie to be a template for all biopics: with three hours, Lee did as much as he could to avoid deviations between life and art. Which explains, in part, Lee’s need to shake people down for funding.

For the next seven years, I regarded X as the definitive work on Malcolm X’s life and death. It wasn’t until 1999, at age seventeen, that I got around to reading the actual source material for the movie, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (written alongside Alex Haley). It’s funny how books find you at the precise, formative period in your life. Read the rest of this entry →

The absence of plot leaves the reader room to think about other things.

With relatively few exceptions, the novel sacrifices too much, for me, on the altar of plot.

Plots are for dead people.

The novel is dead. Long live the antinovel, built from scraps.

A seemingly scatterbrained collage of quotes and one-liners, Reality Hunger will do two things: cause hissy-fits at your local literary social and add swagger to postmodernists desperate to usher in new forms with a stab. How can I best summarize it? Author David Shields contends that nonfiction books, in particular memoirs, are no more factual than novels, and argues the memoir belongs on the same shelf as other works of fiction. Read the rest of this entry →

Novel published by Riverhead (Penguin) – 9.1.2009

And so it goes when one visits the bookstore, determined to leave with a purchase. While perusing the Fiction section with my wife-to-be, I stumbled upon Miles From Nowhere, the debut novel from Avon Lady-turned-Pushcart Prize-winning writer Nami Mun. Read the rest of this entry →

From the niggerati himself, author Mat Johnson in his own words.

“After a particularly bad book club meeting, I lost my shit. This is the tape.”

consider me in a creative, cozy mood today. amid a snowstorm, all one can do is contemplate his station in the world and, of course, what it all means to him. between this video from Ji Lee, creative director of Google Creative Lab, and my earlier test results, you now have a clear view of the puzzle in my head (its a picture of Brian Griffin burning his novel, by the way). enjoy and comment.