Among The Jumbled Heap

The ring of fire still burns around you and I

A few days late for the anniversary of Cash's death, a 'letter of note'.  I relate to that to-do list, especially item one. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/09/ring-of-fire-still-burns-around-you-and.html

In Which I Say a Few Words…

...about this site, which is undergoing a template transformation for no good reason. I have not put much time into this site because I don't have much time. That's all I got to say about that.

Book Objects – Wallace Stevens

Luke came into two handsome editions of Wallace Stevens. The Friends of the Library Booksale at the Fateville Public Library is a place where you can buy tattered paperbacks from Patterson to Grisham and first-edition hardbacks from the likes of Stevens. (Used book sales in university towns are always a good place for a find.) The book featured in the photos is one Luke kindly let me borrow. Transport to Summer was originally published in 1947, but the edition pictured here is from the s...

Rattray, Oppression Literature, and something else pithy since these lists in blog titles should come in threes.

As I read and as I write, I always have jingling around my brain this idea that oppression makes art better.  I do not know how true the idea is, but it trips through my synapses nonetheless.  My one reader will have noticed this theme cropping up explicitly and implicitly here at the Jumbled Heap.  In his essay "Honey-Winged Song," David Rattray also explores the idea of what makes the world's hardship literature great.  I did not know of Rattray, but a week ago, Luke plugged my book-empt...

Joseph Heller Wrote Slowly…

...I write slowly. Therefore, I am Joseph Heller. Vanity Fair has an excellent article on the publication history of Catch-22, a book that is on my all-time favorites list. (Catch-22 the movie also has the distinction of being the only place I can stomach Art Garfunkle's acting). How different would the novel have been as Catch-18? http://m.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/08/heller-201108?printable=true

Gospel of Anarchy

For the last month, I’ve been thinking about this blog post by Katy Derbyshire “Richard Kämmerlings: Das kurze Glück der Gegenwart”. Despite the pedantic sounding title, Derbyshire’s posting is in praise of the first person in critical writing about books. She uses Kammerling as a an example of how German book critics are beginning to spice their criticism with the personal, using the first person to express how the literature interacts with their own life. This resonated with me as a reade...

James Joyce’s Dirty Letters

This is how they sexted in 1909. http://loveletters.tribe.net/thread/fce72385-b146-4bf2-9d2e-0dfa6ac7142d It is difficult to choose a favorite quote but here's a sample: The smallest things give me a great cockstand - a whorish movement of your mouth, a little brown stain on the seat of your white drawers, a sudden dirty word spluttered out by your wet lips, a sudden immodest noise made by you behind and then a bad smell slowly curling up out of your backside. At such moments I feel mad to ...

Hating Olivia — Big in France

If America doesn't understand your art, France might. Mark SaFranko labored in obscurity for years.  He wrote songs, plays, novels.  He supported himself with a series of shitty, thankless jobs that kept the creditors at bay long enough for him to write a bit more.  His youth passed to middle age like this. I started writing, and all the while, no matter where I was and what my circumstances, I took notes and wrote. Novel after novel, song after song, story after story, play after play. It...

The Verificationist

I have found my next book to read, started it moments ago, and only a few pages in I'm lovin' it. The Verifiicationist by Donald Antrim -Facebook status update of December 15th I have a thing for greasy diners and coffee shops.  I love 'em, the smell of stale grease, eggs made to order at all hours of the day and night, surly wait staff, the potential of the place.  Who knows what stimulating conversations might happen, what quixotic plans might hatch there with my ass planted on the ripped ...

Snow Day

I ventured out on foot today, for as you can see our car was buried.  This is my first blog post composed w my phone using Wordpress for Android.