The Human Chronicle

So, my life as I know it is over. I’ve been given a responsibility far exceeding my aptitude. 1) It involves counting. And since I spend all day every day alphabetizing, I know absolutely nothing about numbers. I know that when counting, one number usually follows another, except when it precedes. But then I’ll wonder, [...]

So, here it is, the cursed abomination that is the pinnacle of Hollywood indulgence and decadence and moral depravity. Not only has some asshole remade a definitive masterpiece of in the annals of film history, but he’s butchered it, cut up its face with a razorblade, forcibly sodomized it, and repackaged it as a musical. [...]

Tags: 8 1/2, daniel day lewis, federico fellini, judy dench, musical, nichole kidman, nine, penelope cruz, rob marshal

More so now than in centuries past, writers and artists seem to be operating in a vacuum—not a cultural vacuum, but a social vacuum. There’s not a unifying school or a dominate theory, which has both positive and negative qualities. And while this approach is really no great revelation (Nabokov and Mailer and scores of others have employed note cards in their process), its one of the first to incorporate new media as a tool.

Tags: method, process

I’m calm, cool, collected. I swear. No sense of panic written into the growing number of lines on my brow or patches of silver in my hair. These past three years have aged me beyond recognition. But, in spite of the horror show that is my life—the poverty, the loneliness, the panic attacks in my [...]

After writing yesterday’s article, Failure, about the stylistic mistakes and philosophical failures of my book The Vague Terrain, the obvious question is what then. I can hear the voice now, with its heavy Arkansas accent—back to basics. Get back to the fundamentals of not only thinking about writing but thinking/period. Put aside Weathers’ Grammar A/B, [...]

Tags: failure, Orwell, Politics and the English Language, The Vague Terrain, thinking, writing

I’m going to break one of Umberto Eco cardinal laws by committing the decadent and self-indulgent sin of commenting on what I feel is now a significant failure in my writing career. The Vague Terrain is, at least conceptually, about how memory influences our perception of time, and by time I mean a sequence of [...]

Tags: books, criticism, failure, interpretation, process, The Vague Terrain, time, umberto eco, writing

G and S Lounge after nine post meridiem. The bar is relatively empty, save for a small group on the back patio smoking against the humid late summer air. A woman sits at the bar undisturbed as her two dogs trot the narrow alleys between tables. Fourteen small and large televisions line the wall behind [...]

I’ve read four or five of these things now, which is what usually happens at the end of summer. Something about the coolness in the air that makes people contemplative and assess their lives, for better or worse. So, this is what I’ve learned about myself and others:
I may have tried and failed and failed [...]

Instead, maybe it was how I said I hated all your work. Keep in mind, that’s only the smack talking, and withdrawals are ugly.
            I took you to the bookstore and left you there, returning home with a Taschen of Art Deco and a collection of contemporary writers. You’d said it was my perspective, all [...]

Tags: fauve, Sketch, st. louis, taschen, van gogh

Vultures and scavengers—there exists a noxious subculture of mercenary junk collectors who circle the peripheries of various neighborhoods throughout the city. And when they finally strike, pulling in their ranks, and the strange howling cries echo through the avenues, they descend, picking and prodding at loose articles, scraps and bones and raw materials collected in [...]