Giving Away Chapbooks, Skating + Reading DC

by Weston Cutter

Yes: still blogging at Kenyon Review—another month—and recent stuff’s here and here (that second post is one I’m actually finally thrilled about–it’s about the massive problems with how narrative is used in contemporary writing on the food industry) to go check out. Also: recent work just went live at Scythe, which is a place I didn’t know enough about before but hot damn do they do great stuff.

Along that line: I was finalisted yet again in a chapbook contest. This is, of course, cool, and I’m excited, and sure would’ve loved to have been the picked winner. Still: great. Burnside’s amazing. I did get to thinking, though, that it seems silly that I’ve got all these poems and books and etc., and they’re all sitting on my own hard drive, doing no one any good. So: you can now download a pdf of a chapbook of mine right here. It’s called Scarcity Models vs the Heart’s Brick Factory. I’m literally just putting it here because it’s not in any contests right now and I’m tired of having stuff almost but not quite out for whatever. To the right you’ll see the first image result if you enter the chap’s title on Google. Download it if you’d like. Pass it around. Enjoy. Now, some reviews.

 

On a Day With No Waves by Raphael Zarka

Because I’ve got a good + strident friend who’s deeply and life-long into skateboarding, I’ve ended up with skateboarding in the margins of my life for a long while now. I’m drawn by/to skateboarding in the same way I was by/to the city bikers and messengers on fixies from maybe 8 years ago: there’s a relationship between skater/biker and city that I admire and wish I had. Nobody driving can possibly have a relationship to movement or streets or the basic geography of urbanity that a skateboarder can. Which is of course obvious, but you still need to read Raphael Zarka’s incredible On a Day With No Waves. Why?

First, most boringly and obviously: the subtitle, A Chronicle of Skateboarding 1779-2009 is not at all a typo or intending to be clever or cute: Zarka brings a smattering of historical examples into play to allow the development of the skateboard—starting for real in the 50′s in the States—to feel grounded historically, but also to try to tease out the Zarka’s broader thesis. Which is, ultimately, abstract and hugely cool: that skateboarding is what it is not just because it’s pleasurable or whatever but because the machine facilitates and allows that unique relationship between human and city that’s unavailable elsewhere (unless you’re a die-hard city biker and believe that, which I think is arguable). This all sounds hoity-toity and French and metaphysical, and it sort of is, but I’m telling you, the book is riveting: Zarka’s focus stays tightly on skateboarding as an experience which allows flex and flow within it—a static thing made of motion. Skateboarding, in Zarka’s able work, is a unique opportunity for all of us to play with and in and against the gray heavy-dutiness of a city. It’s phenomenally cool reading: I can think of no recent book which’ll so light so many disparate parts of your brain.

The Cut by George Pelecanos

I interviewed Pelecanos a bit back for the Kenyon Review blog, which I feel makes this pretty obvious and foregone: hell yes I like his books (and his TV writing). His new one, The Cut, qualifies for consideration as his best yet: Spero Lucas, the book’s hero, is fascinating and great in more complex and whole ways than even the heroes in Long Way Home, his last one. You want more than a great, conflicted, out-for-redemption character? Fine: the plot here’s tight enough to induce sensations of g-force just by reading (my spouse and I each read it on a beach in a day, hardly getting up from our chairs). There’s this whole other thing, too, that makes Pelecanos so great: dude’s local. He writes Washington, DC. I asked him about it in the interview, and you can go read his answer, but you sort of can’t grasp how cool it is to read mystery/thriller-type stuff set in a real contemporary place until you come across it. I’ll here note that Hammett and the old legendary greats of pulp stuff did the same: Pelecanos is upholding a great tradition (along with, of course, Price and Lehane and the handful of other absolute genuises).

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by Weston Cutter

1) I’m still writing for the Kenyon Review blog (and have poems in their upcoming fall issue), so the bulk of my online work’s been directed that-a-way. Recent things: an interview with George Pelecanos and a long conversation with the fantastic Lily Brown about Wallace Stevens, an awesome interview with Alex Lemon which focuses much of its time and energy on baseball, a review of the stellar Just My Type by Simon Garfield. There was also a long, 2-part conversation with John Gallaher awhile back—can’t remember if I noted it here or not, but there it is. Keep tracking the site—I’m there through October and will have, among other things, a review of one of the best infographic books in who knows how long, The Real State of America Atlas, plus hopefully a long interview with Richard Buckner about books and music.

2) New work: I’ve got something in the latest issue of Muzzle magazine, though the issue’s chock full of far better shit than the absolute best I could possibly write. Also had a thing in the latest issue of MAYDAY, which is pretty okay too.

3) There’ve been a ton of books this summer that I haven’t taken the time to review fully (plus music!) and now it’s coming autumn again so I feel terrible and compelled to get bunches done. Expect short reviews for the next while, at least from me: there’s a ton to wade through. A couple books demand long-form reviews—chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding is crazy good—but otherwise I want to just get things covered. Apologies to the books/authors for not being more thorough—and let’s start now:

Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill. Did you hear about this book? You probably should have—the similarities to Donald Ray Pollock are striking (rust belt state author with blue collar life by himself cracks his own code and writes incredibly, plus for each man the writing’s full of violence and brutishness), but that’s not reason to hear about it—you should’ve heard about it because the book’s fucking breathless, will knock you on your ass. I read the opening story, “Hill Clan Cross,” while I ate lunch one day and had to stop reading—it wasn’t ruining the meal, but I didn’t want to divide my attention between sandwich and book. You want sentences that just haul ass? “Bonfire bent his knees to standing. Turned to Willie, whose taffy-pink palm reached for Bonfire’s hand that held the .38, pressed his forehead into the heated barrel. His clouded eyes dug through Bonfire.” I don’t know what to call it—it’s not straight noir nor pulp nor gothic, this writing and these stories, it’s just good, and thick, and impossibly dark and moral and worth reading.

The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison. Jesus, just read this. I don’t know what to say—lots of the blurby stuff in the book features commentary on how the book’s brutal and gorgeous, and I’d agree fully. I’d also say it’s sadder by miles—real sad, in true ways—than anything I’ve read in awhile. I didn’t see this one coming, and maybe you missed it too, but it’s been out in paperback for awhile: get on this.

Further Updates + Elsewheres

by Weston Cutter

Just for the record: CBooks has (geographically) moved this past year, in fact just this past month, hence the paucity and quiet. Things’ll be coming back sortly, be appraised. Of course, the speed with which this place gets back to more regular posting depends a bit on where else time’s being drawn with other work, of which there’s been a bit lately. Meaning:

Still going strong at the Kenyon Review, with posts here and here (both basically reviews, with digressions).

I reviewed Paul Maliszewski’s fantastic Prayer and Parable for the Mpls Star Trubine; I’ve been waiting for this book since 2003, and was thrilled to finally get the whole thing, and the review for the Strib’s short because they’ve got word-counts to consider and everything, but, really, you should be reading this book pronto.

(Maliszewski’s one of those ‘experimental’ writers whose work’s fundamentally driven by non-character engines—the scenario, the world of the story, dictates the eventual shape of the story as much as anything else. In this he’s lots like Helen DeWitt, whose Lightning Rods is coming this October and is fantastic. I’d be curious who else writes like this, this almost Borgesian way, in which schema/systems are as critical for book movement and heft as anything else [Barthelme, obviously, too][Danielewski's great in HoL, and, sure, his other stuff's systems-based, but don't pretend it's good writing—he's gone so far that the system/rules now dictate everything; reading him feels like listening to someone sing individual notes with perfect clarity for exactly 1 minute at a time and expecting thunderous applause for technical mastery].)

For what it’s worth: Blake Butler’s done some amazing stuff recently at HTMLGiant, not least putting up his submission list from 2006-2008. I’m personally interested in such a thing because 1) I like Blake and his work and 2) it was through a submission that I met the man. I have nothing exciting or sexy to say about what he posted, but when it went up I felt like it was just so fucking yes I didn’t know where to begin. Maybe this: Blake’s one of the younger writers it seems like lots of folks talk about, at least right at present this year, and I happen to mostly loathe some of the other younger writers getting press lately, and Blake’s response to people giving him attention seems one of the most generous and good things he could possibly do: he showed the work involved, what things too, the costs. Way too many younger writers are convinced that there’s some magic involved in securing an agent and a pub deal and etc., and I’m sure there are folks who’ve had different experiences, but shit is it a good public service of Blake to put up exactly how many submissions it took him—in just a two year period—to get to where he’s now got. If more writers owned up to this I think we could demystify the shit out of the whole snarky business (and I’ll note that this post is ironic in the extreme given Blake’s earlier piece: one’d think that writers should be those least inclined to flex any jealousy muscles, given that we all know the fucking insane amounts of work that go into getting things out and published. I’ll also submit that the line “Poets are the most jealous type of artist” might be the single fucking stupidest sentence I’ve read in a year, if not more).

Real Quick

by Weston Cutter

I’m blogging for the next while at the Kenyon Review Blog, and I’ve had a couple things over there recently, hence Corduroy being a bit quieter than it should otherwise be. Like everyone, as ever: I keep hoping more time just magically presents itself.

Here’s a review I’ve been waiting for for awhile–my book’s been reviewed in the Star Tribune. A note, too: authors actually don’t mind reviews that point out the bad crap in the book, especially when it’s bad copy editing. I’ve been waiting for a review to point out the mistakes for awhile–nice to just see it out there.

Also, just because it’s fascinating (I think): Blake Butler posted, on HTMLGiant, the list of everywhere he submitted to in 2006-08. For unclear reasons I’m hugely hit by seeing it.