When I was the object of desire of a mover/shaker in the Art World, she observed to me, one afternoon,…
How the CENTURY of the CHILD became the most CHILDISH CENTURY
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child:…
THOUGHT PROCESS
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is…
AUGUSTINE’S MELODIC BLEATS OF MIRTH, LUST, CONFUSION & RAGE
LO-FI LATE NIGHT BACK PORCH BERLINSONGS i write lots of songs under various names. the worst songs i ever…
4SNAPPY POMES of the ULTRAMODERN
target boss Death has no real say in the deal like the check out churl in a corporate co-op…
WHITMAN, HEFNER, PLATH, DELILLO, GHOST MOTORS and CERN (et al)
1METAPHORPHYSICS, METAMORPHYSICALLY: Another Round of TEDDY vs SYL Reading and writing are the only Arts I know of…
RADIANCE: A NOVEL (the first 6 chapters)
the human condition is just the beginning 1THAD This text is based entirely on a mixture of direct observation,…
IMPURITANICAL ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG
ONE of my paintings, of one of My Lovers (acrylic on canvas, c, 3’x 2′) from when I was a…
HELENS of TROY: a Short Story/ an Attack on Nationalist Sports and Athletes/ a Confession
Berlin’s normally rainy early summer has produced a drought, blowing a gritty breeze that powders the sweat before it beads.…
A Philosophical Lesson in Comparative Reading and Writing (and the corollary mechanics of same) for my friend Jeff Wheelwright, the Last of the WASPs
About two months ago, I read a silly article and commented on it, as I often do. The article was…
totally naked with wild dogs: an allegory
Barry lectures: One out of every hundred people, or perhaps one out of every two hundred, harbors the seed of…
THREE THINKY THINGY-BOBS
1THE CAMPFIRE GENE; THE CAVEMAN in the JACKET PHOTO Roughly ten years ago I was up late (as any writer…
4 BERLIN POMES
sick in berlin getting sick in berlin its own black romance like love in paris a fling strangers too…
PERVERSE CONCEITS of the SO-CALLED NORM
Normative Content Farm The Millions is at it again, reassuring its pajamas-wearing audience that they are still The Norm and…
SARAH and the BODHISATTVAS
I went to school with snarky stoners and rich Foreign students (mostly Iranians) and lots of entitled shits. I always…
THE IMPERIALIST RADIKAL T-SHIRT CONCEPT GIVE-AWAY of the MONTH KLUB
SOUNDTRACK:
SURREALISM and its UNWITTING MISSIONARIES
I came late to Sex or it came late to me. In 1968 I had already been a Beatles fan…
THIS INCREDIBLE SEX COMEDY, a (completed) NOVEL: AN(other) EXCERPT
As the breadth, length, depth, mass and attitudinal range of the Commercially Available Novel all shrink toward the nugatory…
FURTHER EXCERPTS from KOOTCHIE TOWERS, A Novel: Chapters 5 & 6
It is 1974 and Benji Schamansky is a sideburned, aftershave-splashed, college prof with a bestselling paperback, THE PHYSICS of LIT,…
COLLECTED APHORISMS and OBSERVATIONS of PASTOR PRIME [continually updated]: A NOTEBOOK
1. “Anger with your father IS your father.” 2. “It is notoriously difficult to convince people living in a modern police state…
THE REAL JIMMY DAVIS (a short story)
A Lit trend I’ve noticed, since writing this story in 2009, is that using an unreliable narrator, in a short…
MUSTER of TRIVIUMS: a reflection on Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine in Two Parts
It’s hard to believe that this piece on Nick Baker’s The Mezzanine is almost ten years old. I was asked…
THE ELEPHANT EYE MYSTERIES (an allegorical horror story)
Wednesday night they went and saw an arty Italian horror movie at the TLA and after the lights went…
GRAYSCALE
This life is inconceivably beautiful. It is a life of the mind. It is always late summer, the blacks…
Top 5 Patricides of Midville, Illinois (a short story from DIFFICULT TEXTS)
[by request from a reader: one of the hairier postmodish texts] Top 5 Patricides of Midville, Illinois …
ERYN; EDWINA (a short story from DIFFICULT TEXTS)
[Among my topics, as a Writer, are subtler manifestations of Racism and Sexism… but I always felt it was more…
SENEGAL: a Short Story by Guest Writer JEFF WHEELWRIGHT
[Editor’s Note: removed August 14th, and reinstated August 17th, at Jeff Wheelwright’s request] Senegal By Jeff Wheelwright Chapter One…
BEDTIME
FILM CLIP: THE TREACHEROUS COCK Nighty night, kiddies…
SUPRA-NATIONAL INSENSITIVE CULTURAL APPROPRIATION DAY
The third annual SNICAD (Supra-National Insensitive Cultural Appropriation Day) went off with barely a glitch, yesterday, in an undisclosed location,…
KIKI ’68
Before I met my Wife, and before I learned to earn some money in the German music business, I…
Excerpt from THE BOMB COLLECTOR (a novel)
In early 2008 I finished a 41,000-word novel (c. 200 pages?) called The Bomb Collector. I wrote it with the…
AND ANOTHER THING…
THE RACE/ GENDER/ BODY/ BELIEF SYSTEM VICTIMOLOGICAL STANLEY CUP What nobody really talks about is the stiffly vicious…
COMACOSM: A VERY LONG and STRANGE SHORT STORY
When you have the sweet disease (compulsive writing) you will write things and put them away and later…
REVIEWS, POLEMICS, PANEGYRICS & TINGLY FANCIES of the SCHADENFREUDE GAZETTE
1. UPSTATE, by JAMES WOOD: a GLOATING REVIEW from a LONG TIME HATER With the doggedly cheeky defiance…
QnA
Q: If you’re so good, why haven’t I heard of you? A: Well, you’re good and I haven’t…
THIS INCREDIBLE SEX COMEDY: A NOVEL (complete)
”The best reader,” he says, ”is one who is most open to human possibility, to understanding the great…
JESUS in VEGAS: a Novella
Writing seriously for twenty years (and writing unseriously for at least a decade before that) will, as it did…
POEM of the WEAK (a short story)
The drive up was tense not only because of the tritely appropriate drama of the rain but also because if…
A ONCE-TIDY NARRATIVE BECOMES COMPLICATED
It’s not my natural style to traffic in Hollywood gossip. But as a man who was gulled into becoming a…
c. ONCE EVERY 6 MONTHS, THEY COME UP WITH A MASTERPIECE
Wow. ADDENDUM (can’t expect this kind of genuinely dangerous material out of our “serious writers,” eh?) WOW2 and NICE
ANOTHER CHUNKY EXCERPT from KOOTCHIE TOWERS (a novel halfway done)
It is spring of 1974. Hip college prof Benji is grieving and confused the morning after having walked in on…
ANOTHER COUNTRY SMELL (a short story from the collection EVEN MORE DIFFICULT TEXTS)
1. Every day of a school week, a yellow girl ran up the street toward the Chalfonts. She ran with…
CANNIBALIZED NOTEBOOKS (2015-2018)
A) Putney Swope vs Tropic Thunder …has anyone made the connection? B) Writing exercises: Describe the difference between the…
At Least 23 Cases of Mistaken Identity in the Golden Age of the Genome
1. Berlin, 2003. It is winter and very cold. Friday night. I’m walking from cafe to cafe with a…
VERA, NORA, ZELDA, CAITLIN, VIV or HUGO or TESS? (a pome)
1. Vera, Nora, Zelda, Caitlin, Viv or Hugo or Tess? which of the famous Lit Wife Archetypes was…
LO the MIGHTY BULWARK of EPHEMERA vs the GRAFFITI of the COMMENTARY DESPOILING ITS PRISTINE SURFACES
Around the World in 35 Minutes with my Occasional (and occasionally well-argued) commentary on YouTube threads (edited for length)… 1.…
SNAILS in the COFFIN: SUNDRY ICKY, DISTURBING and/or BLASPHEMOUS THINGS
Take the case of the cultural jingoist and editor of The New Yorker David Remnick, who noted in his letter nominating TV…
THE INHERITANCE (a short story from the novel GERMANTOWN)
A cloud of noise from the far corner of Golders Park, a jangle of plaint and controversy. The vivid disturbance…
INCREDIBLY CAPABLE CRONE: a book review
Lizibeta Snitt’s surprisingly popular Incredibly Capable Crone series is a trilogy of graphic novels in free verse. The title character is…
Hats off to Denis Rancourt: They’ve Ground him into the Gravel for Years but He is STILL. AT. IT.
MACROAGGRESSION needs to be a thing. #macroaggression #obama #BlackLivesMatter #racism pic.twitter.com/KLN3UmwOAn — Denis Rancourt (@denisrancourt) January 5, 2018 Is…
DON DELILLO v CHICKEN NUGGETS w/r/t PYNCHONIAN ERRATA & SYNCHRONICITY
Early today I had to pre-heat the oven for the frozen chicken nuggets that Daughter has favored for the past…
THE AWFUL GULF between public BLACK MUSICAL GENIUS and public BLACK LITERARY MEDIOCRITY
As ever: Black Musicians are at the intellectual forefront while prominent Black Writers remain pathetic Third-Stringers, reliant on the…
THE BEST OBIT REGARDING THE UNEXPECTED DEATH THAT HIT ME THE HARDEST in 2017
The Writers Joseph Ramsey and Boyd Nielson have done a salute-worthy job of honoring the lost presence and important work…
The Novel Excerpt: a few more chapters from THE BROTHERLAND MIRACLES
[O’Sirus is in town with her lover Katryn, invited to the wedding of the two heads (SETH and SHEM) of…
KUBRICK, THE FUTURE and HIS BLACKEST COMEDY
In the late spring or early summer of 1980, like quite a few people, I saw Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining…
