GOATHEADS ANONYMOUS

Essay on Blankety Blank

2012-01-26T10:03:00.001-08:00

Shane Cartledge has written an insightful essay on my novel Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria:

Welcome to Vulgaria: The 'Real' (Irreal) Suburban Simulacra of Blankety Blank.

The Kyoto Man: Signed Limited Edition,

2012-01-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Later this year, Raw Dog Screaming Press will release a signed hardcover edition of The Kyoto Man limited to 100 copies. The edition will include outtakes, false starts, alternate endings, cosmic underpinnings, and other bonus supplementary material, with a custom dust jacket designed by Brett Weldele.

Stories by Maddie

2012-01-09T07:19:00.000-08:00

My daughter Madeleine's short fiction has developed a kind of cult following in recent months. Here are the latest installments:

The Bricks & the Sun

There was a little boy and then there was a little girl. There was a baby named Sunny. There was bricks. The end.

Time

Kylan and Rentu and Tollie and Hoho the monkey are jumping all around. They had some time today.

Top Ten Books

2012-01-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

Lately a lot of people have been asking me about my favorite books and I usually draw a blank. Tonight I took a few minutes and thought about it.

Following are ten books that have had a momentous impact on me at some (turning) point in my life. I list them here in no particular order, and without explanation, since these are books, and they speak for themselves.

Philip K. Dick. Ubik. 1969.

Slavoj Zizek. Looking Awry. 1992.

Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus. 1972.

Franz Kafka. The Trial. 1925.

Bruce Lee. Tao of Jeet Kune Do. 1973.

Herman Melville. Moby-Dick. 1851.

Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange. 1962.

William S. Burroughs. Naked Lunch. 1959.

Scott Bukatman. Terminal Identity. 1991.

Jorgen de May. The Action Hero Body. 2006.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Steve Aylett. Slaughtermatic. 1998.

Fletcher Hanks. I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! 2007.

Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media. 1964.

Titles link to the specific editions I read and studied. Much of my own published fiction and nonfiction derives from and/or points to these texts in some capacity. For what it's worth (very little, no doubt), these texts also constitute the scaffolding for my worldview, methodology, and shifting realities.

Fantastique Unfettered #4

2011-12-31T08:38:00.001-08:00

The fourth issue of Fantastique Unfettered is now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I mentioned its availability in an earlier post prematurely; the official release was December 26. The issue includes "Verite," a story of mine that will appear down the road in Battle without Honor or Humanity Vol. 2. Here's a press kit.

Upcoming Reviews

2011-12-26T16:39:00.001-08:00

Here's my current queue of books for review in early 2012:

Robert Crossley. Imagining Mars: A Literary History. Wesleyan UP, 2011.

Mark Rawlinson, ed. A Clockwork Orange: A Norton Critical Edition. W.W. Norton & Co., 2011.

Daniel H. Wilson. Robopocalypse. Simon & Shuster, 2011.

Jonathan Lethem & Pamela Jackson, eds. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. Houghton Mifflin, 2011.

I'm really excited about all of these titles. I've finished reading Imagining Mars and it's excellent. All reviews will appear in Extrapolation, except for the review of my doppelganger's novel, which will appear in Foundation.

Notes on Aylett

2011-12-22T06:14:00.000-08:00

If you know me, you know I can't stand reading other authors, except for Herman Melville, and a few other, mostly dead, assholes. Plus Steve Aylett.

A few items of note:

[1] Here is a recent radio interview Aylett did on NTS Live.

[2] Slaughtermatic is now available on Kindle. This is the book that got me interested in Aylett's work when it came out in the late 1990s. It was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award.

[3] My review of Aylett's latest and last Beerlight novel, Novahead, will appear soon in Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. I will present an extended version of this review at the 2012 annual convention of the Science Fiction Research Association.

[4] If you haven't seen it yet, you probably won't. Nonetheless LINT: THE MOVIE exists.

Personality Rehab

2011-12-07T16:02:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamt that I needed personality rehabilitation. A group of elderly women sentenced me. My wife, mother, and the women in my extended family endorsed the sentence. None of the men in the dream cared one way or the other. The rehab facility was located in Flint, Michigan. At first I agreed to go, but then I got mad and yelled at everybody. The feeling of refreshment I experienced upon waking was laced with idle dread.

Lofton Gitt Reviews The Kyoto Man

2011-12-03T09:27:00.000-08:00

In addition to writing a preliminary blurb for The Kyoto Man, Lofton Gitt has written a full review that will be published in the NYT Book Review. Here’s one passage I really liked:

"According to Herman Melville’s foremost biographer, Newton Arvin, the 'aborted author' lived on a diet of 'nostalgia for the venerable and the moribund, and mingled with this was some still more special longing for the Biblical, the Hebraic, the Judaean past—the past of the patriarchs and the judges, the prophets and the kings. Few men’s minds have been more richly stored than Melville’s with the imagery of Biblical story, of the Old Testament record especially; it had been woven into the fabric of his imagination from earliest childhood, and he had constantly recurred to it; it was a permanent point of reference for his spirit.' Without question, the scikungfi trilogy constitutes Wilson’s Moby Dick—allusions to everything from the White Whale to the plight of the bearded artist are as rampant as they are dubious and ultimately moot—only instead of the Bible, the traumatic kernel that clearly energizes Wilson and determines the flows of his desires is the science fiction genre, the machinery of which materializes in the trilogy, again and again, through the techno-idiotic sieve of pop culture. Of course, it will be some time before readers are ready to attend to the dynamics of science fiction with the same enthusiasm and interest as the Bible, despite the ongoing science fictionalization of reality, and Wilson expects far too much from readers, who grow increasingly more handicapped, disabled and zombified every day. Melville’s readers were neither prepared for nor willing to engage with his texts at the level of acuity he required—as Arvin writes, his audience failed to 'follow him into the intellectual and imaginative regions that were his true territory.' Certainly Wilson can expect nothing more than this. At best, he might hope to be altogether ignored, forgotten before he is even remembered, and as I understand it, he is doing a good job in this capacity."

Reviewers for Lance Olsen's Architectures of Possibility

2011-12-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

As an associate editor of Guide Dog Books, the nonfiction syndicate of Raw Dog Screaming Press, I'd like to call attention to the publisher's latest venture, Lance Olsen's Architectures of Possibility: After Innovative Writing.

If you are interested in reviewing the book, please email me or the publisher for advanced reader copies.

Here's a description:

Ideal for individual or classroom use, Architectures of Possibility theorizes and questions the often unconscious assumptions behind such traditional writing gestures as temporality, scene, and characterization; offers various suggestions for generating writing that resists, rethinks, and/or expands the very notion of narrativity; visits a number of important concerns/trends/obsessions in current writing (both on the page and off); discusses marketplace (ir)realities; hones critical reading and manuscript editing capabilities; and strengthens problem-solving muscles from brainstorming to literary activism.

Exercises and supplemental reading lists challenge authors to push their work into self-aware and surprising territory.

In addition, Architectures of Possibility features something entirely lacking in most books about creative writing: more than 40 interviews with contemporary innovative authors, editors, and publishers (including Robert Coover, Lydia Davis, Brian Evenson, Shelley Jackson, Ben Marcus, Carole Maso, Scott McCloud, Steve Tomasula, Deb Olin Unferth, Joe Wenderoth, and Lidia Yuknavitch) working in diverse media, providing significant insights into the multifaceted worlds of experimental authors' writing.

Lance Olsen is author of more than 20 books of and about innovative writing, including the novelsCalendar of Regrets, Head in Flames, and Nietzsche’s Kisses. His short stories, essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, such as Conjunctions, Black Warrior Review, Fiction International, Village Voice, BOMB, McSweeney’s, and Best American Non-Required Reading. He serves as chair of FC2’s Board of Directors and teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah.

Collaborator Trevor Dodge is author of the novel Yellow #10 and short-fiction collection Everyone I know Lives on Roads, as well as co-editor of the Northwest Edge anthologies of experimental narrative. He teaches writing, literature, comics, and games studies at Clackamas Community College in Oregon Cityand the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland.

Bust Down the Door & Eat All the Chickens #10

2011-11-28T14:39:00.000-08:00

Issue #10 of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens is now available. Included is my story "The Huis Clos Hotel," reprinted from my fiction collection They Had Goat Heads. Here’s the complete table of contents:

"Guess What" by Amanda Billings
"The Hector Report" by Eric Hawthorn
"Artichoke" by Kirsten Alene
"Excursions in Viral Psychology" by Kirk Jones
"Romantic Fucking Comedy" by Andrew W. Adams
"#30" by Laird Hunt
"The Huis Clos Hotel" by D. Harlan Wilson
"Die You Donut Bastards!" by Cameron Pierce
"Death and the People" by Amber Sparks
Review of Steve Lowe's Muscle Memory by Matthew Revert
Review of Shane Jones's A Cake Appeared by Bradley Sands

Order a copy here. This may be the last issue of Bust Down the Door; editor-in-chief Bradley Sands has stepped down, and I'm not sure if a new editor will take the reigns. Too bad. It's my favorite underground journal of fiction. But all good things must come from a hen . . .

Flash Fiction by Madeleine Sue

2011-11-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my 4-year-old daughter's most recent flash fictions:

The Green Tower

Mom is bringing her dog. She is by herself. The tower was green. The lamp made her see. She has ruby slippers on.

The Gobble-Gobble Turkey

Put the turkey in a pan. Cook the turkey in the oven for 100 days. Toss the turkey in your hands and then you just eat the gobble-gobble turkey.

Stuff

Me and my Mom are doing stuff. The wind is blasting over the house.

Storm of the Witch

Dorothy is with her Grandma and Toto. There was a storm of the witch.

Another Blurb for The Kyoto Man

2011-11-23T18:09:00.001-08:00

My publisher forwarded me another blurb for The Kyoto Man today, this one from Lofton Gitt, author of The Pale of Escarpment:

"The techno-absurdist futurity of The Kyoto Man and the Scikungi Trilogy manifests an infrequent, if nonexistent, phenomenon, notwithstanding narratives that have been deemed as such by educational and publishing institutions for their own dubious ends: high literary science fiction."

Gitt's story "Autocracy" appears in the latest issue of The Dream People.

Laurence A. Rickels on The Kyoto Man

2011-11-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

Laurence A. Rickels, Sigmund Freud Professor of Media and Philosophy at the European Graduate School, has this to say about The Kyoto Man and the Scikungfi Trilogy:

"Not only philosophical and analytic reflection can be found hiding out in SF but even the work of revaluation and reinvention of artistic genres and styles. Against the yawning horizon of contemporary narrative D. Harlan Wilson turns up the vertical contrast of poetic prose. I was invited by my students to visit, as the one it takes to know another one, his laboratory of endopsychic science fiction. Following the deferral of my resistance to the proposed transference of recognition value, I finally did enter. But what took me by surprise was not as much the visualizable elements of the fictional world/word or its intellectual properties—served up on a splatter—as the exploration of poetic style carried forward, to my mind, from a recent repressed past of invention. The Scikungfi Trilogy is our continuity shot wit Ezra Pound's The Cantos."

I discovered Rickels' work recently when I reviewed his latest book, I Think I Am Philip K. Dick, a rigorous schizoanalysis of the science fiction author's unique oeuvre of "unmourning," for Extrapolation. I recently acquired some of his other books, namely Nazi Psychoanalysis, The Case of California and The Vampire Lectures. His vision, ingenuity and breadth of knowledge are unparalleled and absolutely essential reading for Scikungfi enthusiasts, theorists and student-things.

Lint & Goat Heads at BizarroCon

2011-11-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night, November 15, you can catch a screening of Lint: The Movie in the UK at the Comica London International Comics Festival. Then, this weekend, the film will be shown at BizarroCon in Portland. My book of short fiction, They Had Goat Heads, has been nominated for the Wonderland Book Award for best collection of 2010; winners of the WBA will be announced on Saturday evening after the dinner banquet.

Fantastique Unfettered #4

2011-11-14T17:03:00.000-08:00

Issue 4 of Fantastique Unfettered, a periodical of liberated literature, is now available. Here's the lineup:

FICTION:

"Azif" by Lynne Jamneck

"The Bachorum Principle" by Brenda Stokes Barron

"The Butterfly Collection of Miss Letitia Willoughby Forbes" by Alma Alexander

"Mr. White Umbrella" by Georgina Bruce

"Sons of the Law" by Hal Duncan

"Stolen Souls" by Mike Allen

"Three Tales of the Devil’s Wife" by Carmen Lau

"Vérité by D. Harlan Wilson

POETRY:

"Seed the Earth, Burn the Sky," "Binary," and "Sisyphus Crawls" by Mike Allen

"Self-Portrait" by Shweta Narayan

"'cubus" by Dan Campbell

"At the Crossroads of the West" by J. C. Runolfson

"Life Decisions" by Kaolin Fire

"Black Sheep" by Jacqueline West

"Clones Evaporate Faster" by Kristine Ong Muslim

NONFICTION:

Interview: Hal Duncan & Brent Weeks

Review: The Night Circus

"Life is Suffering: The Writer's Point of View" by Hal Duncan, Mike Allen & Alexandra Seidel

"This Inscrutable Light: A Response to Thomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy Against the Human Race" by Brandon H. Bell

Verite

2011-11-13T15:52:00.001-08:00

My short story, "Verite," will be published in issue 4 of Fantastique Unfettered. This piece will appear down the road in Vol. I of Battle without Honor or Humanity.

Architectures of Possiblity

2011-11-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

Advanced reader copies of Lance Olsen's fictioneering textbook, Architectures of Possibility: After Innovative Fiction, will be available soon from Guide Dog Books. I helped edit and format the book and have an interview in it. It is an expanded revamp of Rebel Yell: A Short Guide to Fiction Writing, published in the late 1990s; I have used this first edition for years in short story writing courses. The new, updated edition contains lots of new material and will debut in 2012 at the annual AWP convention. Lance and I will both be there. Here's the cover description:

"Ideal for individual or classroom use, Architectures of Possibility theorizes and questions the often unconscious assumptions behind such traditional writing gestures as temporality, scene, and characterization; offers various suggestions for generating writing that resists, rethinks, and/or expands the very notion of narrativity; visits a number of important concerns/trends/obsessions in current writing (both on the page and off); discusses marketplace (ir)realities; hones critical reading and manuscript editing capabilities; and strengthens problem-solving muscles from brainstorming to literary activism.

Exercises and supplemental reading lists challenge authors to push their work into self-aware and surprising territory.

In addition, Architectures of Possibility features something entirely lacking in most books about creative writing: more than 40 interviews with contemporary innovative authors, editors, and publishers (including Robert Coover, Lydia Davis, Brian Evenson, Shelley Jackson, Ben Marcus, Carole Maso, Scott McCloud, Steve Tomasula, Deb Olin Unferth, Joe Wenderoth, and Lidia Yuknavitch) working in diverse media, providing significant insights into the multifaceted worlds of experimental authors' writing.

Lance Olsen is author of more than 20 books of and about innovative writing, including the novelsCalendar of Regrets, Head in Flames, and Nietzsche’s Kisses. His short stories, essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, such as Conjunctions, Black Warrior Review, Fiction International, Village Voice, BOMB, McSweeney’s, and Best American Non-Required Reading. He serves as chair of FC2’s Board of Directors and teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah.

Collaborator Trevor Dodge is author of the novel Yellow #10 and short-fiction collection Everyone I know Lives on Roads, as well as co-editor of the Northwest Edge anthologies of experimental narrative. He teaches writing, literature, comics, and games studies at Clackamas Community College in Oregon Cityand the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland."

Codename PRague for $0.99

2011-11-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

For a limited time, my latest novel, Codename Prague, the second installment in the scikungfi trilogy, is available on Kindle for 99 cents.

The Dream People #36

2011-11-02T18:51:00.001-07:00

The latest issue of The Dream People is now available at www.dreampeople.org. Included are fictions by Lofton Gitt, Cat Rambo, A. J. French, Van Aaron Hughes and Rich Ives; novel excerpts by Paul Toth and Michael Gills; stories from the new Monk Punk anthology by David J. West and George Ivanoff; an interview with Joe R. Lansdale; and book reviews by Emory Pueschel. And, of course, the featured website: Kung Fu! Thanks to all of our contributors.

Battle without Honor or Humanity, Vols. I & II

2011-10-31T10:36:00.001-07:00

My author-ego D. Harlan Wilson is not yet dead . . . This morning I brokered an informal deal with Raw Dog Screaming Press to publish my upcoming fiction collection, Battle without Honor or Humanity, in two volumes. Here's a taste:

The Dream People

2011-10-28T08:47:00.001-07:00

Issue #36 of The Dream People is taking longer than expected to format, but it should be out on time on Nov. 1. Included will be an interview with Joe R. Lansdale and selections from editor A. J. French's new anthology of monkpunk fiction.

Review of LINT: THE MOVIE

2011-10-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

A review of Steve Aylett's LINT: THE MOVIE appeared this month in Spike Magazine. Here's an excerpt:

"Similarly to its source material, Lint: The Movie runs episodically with nugget after golden nugget of supreme absurdity, which often go beyond the simple exposition of Lint’s antics and instead into the realm of something meaningful and satiric (despite Aylett himself noting, 'Satire has no effect – a mirror holds no fear for those with no shame'). But exactly what this ‘something’ is is hard to define, making Aylett’s Lint all the less boring and all the more satisfying."

The players in LINT: THE MOVIE include me, Alan Moore, Lord Caul Pin, Stewart Lee, Jeff Vandermeer, Leila Johnston, Mo Ali and Bill Ectric, among others.

Abattoir

2011-10-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

My short story, "Abattoir," will appear in Pink Narcissus Press' upcoming anthology, WTF?! Here's a description from the publisher:

"Corrective surgery gone wrong, punk rockers abducted by aliens, and dwarfs obsessed with pomegranates are just a few of the things you will find in this anthology. From the quirky to the serious to the surreal, whatever happens in these stories is bound to leave the reader wondering WTF?!"

Down the road, "Abattoir" will reemerge in my en marche fiction collection, Battle without Honor or Humanity, the follow-up to They Had Goat Heads.

The Alarm Trumpets of the Void

2011-09-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging lately because . . . In lieu of a commanding explanation, I will simply record tomorrow's workout, the focus of which is shoulders and legs:

Treadmill (Warm-Up): 5 minutes

Chin-Up: 3xfailure

Pulldown (Wide Grip): 5x5-10

superset with

Pulldown (Close Grip): 5x5-10

superset with

Straight Arm Pressdown: 5x5-10

Cable Row: 1x12 1x10 1x8 1x6 1xdropsets

Dumbbell Shrug: 5x8-10

Hack Squat: 1x12 1x10 1x8 1x6 1xdropsets

superset with

Machine Leg Extension: 1x12 1x10 1x8 1x6 1xdropsets

Barbell Romanian Deadlift: 5x8-10

Sitting Calf Raise: 5x10-15

Elliptical (Interval at R14): 25 minutes

Interview

2011-09-16T14:51:00.001-07:00

Bill Ectric recently interviewed me. Read it here. Bill and I both appear in LINT: The Movie, a documentary of pulp science fiction author Jeff Lint.

Beneath a Pink Sun

2011-09-13T17:13:00.000-07:00

A year or two ago, I recorded a reading of a few stories from They Had Goat Heads and sent them to Kenji Siratori, a Japanese author and artist. He produced this creepy, Pynchon-like audio remix:

Fireworks

2011-09-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

My daughter Maddie (4) has penned her latest story:

Fireworks

There was some fireworks and they got over Daddy. Mommy and me and Renee watched Daddy dance.

Haunted Spaces

2011-09-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

Congrats to my wife, Dr. Christine Wilson, a fellow English professor at Wright State University-Lake Campus, for the publication of her article, "Haunted Habitability: Wilderness and American Haunted House Narratives," in Popular Ghosts: The Haunted Spaces of Everyday Culture (Continuum 2010). The anthology received PCA/ACA's 2011 Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Edited Collection.

Christine was recently blogged about by Tristam Riley-Smith, author of The Cracked Bell: America & the Afflictions of Liberty, vis-a-vis her article. Read the blog here.

Cracked Banner

2011-09-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

I came across this curious banner at Cracked.com in an article on Bizarro literature. I don't know where this picture of me came from.

Hayakawa's Mystery Magazine

2011-08-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

My story "Digging for Adults," which originally appeared in Stranger on the Loose, has been translated into Japanese and published in the August 2010 issue (No. 654) of Hayakawa's Mystery Magazine. I wish I could read the translation. "Digging for Adults" has also been optioned for a short film.

The Kyoto Man - Wanted Sign

2011-08-30T16:13:00.001-07:00

Here is a chapter from my upcoming novel, The Kyoto Man, the third and final installment in my scikungfi trilogy, compliments of Brandon Duncan. You may have to squint to read it:

Extrapolation 52.2

2011-08-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

The summer 2011 issue of Extrapolation (52.2) is now available. Here's the lineup:

Umberto Rossi, "The Holy Family from Outer Space: Reconsidering Philip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion

Sandra J. Lindow, "Mapping the Walls of The Dispossessed"

Dominick Grace, "Gotlieb upon Caliban"

Erin S. Young, "Flexible Heroines, Flexible Narratives: The Werewolf Romances of Kelley Armstron and Carrie Vaughn

Darko Suvin, "Stanley Weinbaum: We've Met The Aliens and They Are Us"

There are also reviews of Marleen S. Barr's Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction's Newest New-Wave Trajectory, Karen Hellekson et al.'s Practicing Science Fiction: Critical Essays on Writing, Reading, and Teaching the Genre, L. Timmel Duchamp's Narrative Power: Encounters, Celebrations, Struggles, Farah Mendlesohn's The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children's and Teens' Science Fiction, and Laurence A. Rickels' I Think I Am Philip K. Dick.

The Big Book of Bizarro

2011-08-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

Today I received a copy of The Big Book of Bizarro in the mail. My story "Scotomization" appears in it. Burning Bulb Publishing put it out, and I've never worked with them before, so I didn't know what to expect. True to its name, this anthology of Bizarro horror, sci-fi & fantasy, and erotica fiction is BIG, and it's immaculately edited and laid out. And most importantly, the content is unique, innovative and compelling ... something I rarely encounter. If you like my writing, I suspect you'll like this book. Thanks to the editors, Rich Bottles Jr. and Gary Lee Vincent, for their keen eyes and deft aesthetic mojo.

They Had Goat Heads for $0.99

2011-08-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

For a limited time, my latest collection of stories and flash fiction, They Had Goat Heads, is available on Kindle and Nook for $0.99. The book was recently nominated for the Wonderland Book Award.

They Had Goat Heads & the Wonderland Award

2011-08-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

They Had Goat Heads has made the final ballot for the 2011 Wonderland Book Award in the Best Collection category. See all of the nominees here. Only BizarroCon attendees are eligible to vote by sending an email to bizarrocon@yahoo.com. Voting ends October 31.

D. Harlan Wilson

2011-07-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

The Kyoto Man will be the last book published under the "D. Harlan Wilson" identity tag for the foreseeable future. Thereafter I will write under a pseudonym that I've attached to a few stories published in mainstream and literary magazines, and I'm working on a novel in this vein. I'll still exist online as this version of myself, if only as a ghost, or a residue, but for a variety of reasons, personal and professional, "D. Harlan Wilson" won't be linked with the new pseudonym. Thanks to those of you (readers, publishers, editors, authors and agents) who have supported and endorsed me over the years.

Highlights from ReaderCon 22

2011-07-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

I had lunch with my old mentor, advisor and friend Robert Crossley, whose latest book, Imagining Mars: A Literary History, was featured on Wesleyan University Press's table in the dealer room. Bob ordered oysters for an appetizer and I ordered clam chowder. It was great to see him.

Other highlights include two workouts in the hotel gym.

Lavie Tidhar Blurbs The Kyoto Man

2011-07-09T07:00:00.001-07:00

Here is what Lavie Tidhar says about my final scikungfi novel, The Kyoto Man:

"D. Harlan Wilson writes with the crazed precision of a futuristic war machine gone rogue. He is devastatingly good."

Lavie is the author of the monstrously imaginative steampunk novels The Bookman and Camera Obscura as well as numerous other books and stories. He lives a rather dynamic online life at Facebook, Twitter, and his official website.

ReaderCon 22

2011-07-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

On behalf of Raw Dog Screaming Press, I will be attending ReaderCon next weekend, July 14-17, in Burlington, MA. Here's my schedule:

Friday, July 15

11:30 A.M. Reading. D. Harlan Wilson. Wilson reads from the new novel Codename Prague (Raw Dog Screaming Press 2011), the second installment in his scikungfi trilogy.

Saturday, July 16

3:00 P.M. Autographs. Paul Levinson, Rick Wilber, D. Harlan Wilson.

6:00 P.M. Panel: Science Fiction for Today's Undergraduate. Michael Cisco, Leigh Grossman (leader), Joan Slonczewski, D. Harlan Wilson, Gregory A. Wilson. Works of science fiction show up on college reading lists both for courses focused on SF and those that brush by science fictional ideas on their way to someplace else. Many students are familiar with SF in media, but far fewer have read much written SF. But how much does that matter? How does the experience of teaching SF texts differ from that of teaching other works, if it does at all? Do today's hyper-technologized students experience different challenges (or affinities) than previous generations of students? What SF texts particularly engage them? Our panelists, all of whom have taught SF texts in their classes, will talk about the peculiarities of teaching SF in the undergraduate classroom and relate their experiences, good, bad, and alien.

This will be my first appearance at ReaderCon. I just realized that Joan Slonczewski is on the same panel as me. I met her in 1997 at the Science Fiction Research Association's annual convention in Los Angeles, when I was in grad school, years before I had published any fiction or criticism. I remember having just read her novel A Door into Ocean (1986) and being kind of in awe of her: I had never met a novelist before.

When I'm not doing my things at ReaderCon, I'll be in the fitness room, the bar, or the Raw Dog Screaming Press table in the dealer room with author John Lawson. Feel free to buy me a beer or a protein shake.

Fred Olen Ray Blurbs The Kyoto Man

2011-07-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

Cult filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor Fred Olen Ray has this to say about The Kyoto Man, the upcoming third and final installment in my scikungfi trilogy:

"A dark, trippy tale that pays homage to the past masters."

I discovered Fred's work long ago in the form of Weird Menace (1994), a collection of hilarious meta-pulp stories that he edited, then turned to his films (over 100 of them), beginning with Honey Britches (1972) and Alien Dead (1980) ... I'm eagerly anticipating Supershark (2011), starring John Schneider from the original Dukes of Hazzard, and Buck Rogers Begins (2011), starring none other than Gil Gerard. If you don't know Fred—or Gil Gerard, for that matter—you should not be reading this blog.

Fred's many exploits are itemized at IMDB, Wikipedia, and his official website.

The Kyoto Man will be published in an as-of-yet undisclosed science fictionalized future ...

Codename Prague for $0.99

2011-07-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is the last day of the $0.99 ebook sale of Codename Prague on Kindle and Nook. Thanks to my publisher, Raw Dog Screaming Press, for putting it on. Lots of copies sold and if everything adds up I should be able to unofficially retire by the end of the week ...

Codename Prague on Nook

2011-07-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everybody who picked up an e-copy of Codename Prague for $0.99 today. The sale continues tomorrow until midnight. The novel is available on both Kindle and Nook.

Codename Prague on Kindle

2011-07-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

On July 5th and 6th, the new Kindle version of Codename Prague will be available for $0.99. Get it here.

Hiatus

2011-06-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

My blogging will be sporadic for the rest of the summer during my book tour throughout select Indonesian islands to promote Codename Prague. I leave tomorrow. I'm keeping the tour more or less a secret in hopes that only unsuspecting Indonesians will attend my readings and signings. I will say that I have been to Singapore before and look forward to returning. It is a clean and beautiful country, although humid, and gum is illegal. Years ago, somebody spit a chewed wad of Doublemint onto a railroad track, derailing a train. Government regulation ensued.

Review of They Had Goat Heads

2011-06-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

Kate Onyett has written a erudite review of They Had Goat Heads (vis-a-vis structuralism) for Sein und Werden. Here's the first two paragraphs:

"Getting to grips with this book is akin to those dreams one has when one knows it is important to run, to move fast, but cannot; a force holds one back; a binding, slowing force. It prevents independent flight and demands that one submit to the direction and timing of the dream. This can feel very threatening; what should be familiar (running, walking) becomes skewed, slanted and something alien and uncertain.

Wilson takes what we might think of as a story and then percolates it through a filter of his own devising. He is either a genius or an egotist; or possibly both, as they tend to be twinned facets of one jealous breath of description, and we are forced to play the game and read the book on his lines. Those lines are non-sequiteur comments, lined up after another, seemingly with little connection and wildly descriptive, contrasting landscapes of potential meanings. Any reaction is entirely in the eye and mind of the reader. Funnily enough, I would be willing to bet that despite this people could read the same messages embedded in this crazed fictional landscape; that though the message seems garbled, the gist would be similar to most readers. Those that bear with it and finish it, that is. For those to whom it is impenetrable, this reaction has already sorted them from those who can claim to find a meaning and would follow in understanding. And as random as the narratives seem, I doubt that there would be too many randomised readings."

And here's the Final Word:

"Come that day Wilson manages to create work that can direct specifically examined content with all the obscure working-out of his current style, he will truly be a speculative giant, indeed."

Ah, Bartleby ...

Technologized Desire Interview

2011-06-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here is an interview I did last year with Russian author V. Ulea on my book of sf criticism and theory, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction. The interview originally appeared online in Saucytooth's Webthology, which has since disappeared.

Science Fiction Criticism

2011-06-21T07:55:00.001-07:00

This morning I compiled a list of some of my favorite books of science fiction criticism (shamelessly including my own Technologized Desire) at Goodreads. See it here.

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts

2011-06-14T06:55:00.001-07:00

My review-essay on Anthony Miccoli's Posthuman Suffering & the Technological Embrace, "Enter the ~~Post~~human," appears in the latest issue (22.1) of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. There are also a lot of other compelling reviews alongside essays on Lost, Zombieland, Dune and I, Robot.

Battle without Honor or Humanity #7

2011-06-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

Optics

There’s a scene in Snow White & the Seven Dwarves (1937), near the beginning, where the Queen orders a huntsman to kill the femme nature. The huntsman doesn’t want to do it, but he’s scared of the Queen, so he goes into the woods. Snow White is singing songs with birds. The hunstman takes out a knife and sneaks up behind her. He steps on a twig. Startled, she glances over her shoulder and we see the reflection of her widening eyes in the blade ...

“My daughter consistently misreads the scene,” I explain, “thinking the huntsman’s intent is not to murder her, but rather to measure her eyes. She neither cares nor knows what for. The knife thus emerges as an instrument of optical calculation intended either to improve or disprove Snow White’s quality of life.”

A voice the likes of the Magic Mirror, cavernous and dreamy, replies to me from the rafters, the sewers: “You don’t have a daughter. You never have. Additionally, that’s not how it happens. The huntsman doesn’t step on a twig. As he creeps towards her, his shadow grows and swallows Snow White, and she gets wise to the darkness behind her. Something else. We don’t see her reflection in the blade. And her eyes barely crack a smile, in a manner of speaking. It is the huntman’s eyes that inflate like kamikaze moon rocks and burn brightly with fear and self-loathing for being a coward and not standing up to the Queen.”

“The Queen?” cries Snow White ...

Mourning Goats Interview

2011-06-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Goat (a.k.a. "The Goat") has interviewed me at Mourning Goats. This is possibly the longest interview I've done. In it, I discuss goats, the writing and publishing industry, getting your Ph.D., living abroad, teaching college, bodybuilding, and fictionalizing with a hammer ...

They Had Goat Heads & the Wonderland Award

2011-05-27T14:44:00.001-07:00

My fiction collection They Had Goat Heads is up for the Wonderland Book Award in the Best Collection category. If you liked it, please vote for it here, along with a righteous slue of other eligible Bizarro books, in the Best Collection category as well as Best Novel. Anybody can vote, and the judges ask that you submit nominees for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Simply mail bizarrocon@yahoo.com with your recommendations.

LINT: The Movie

2011-05-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

LINT: The Movie, starring Alan Moore, Stewart Lee, Steve Aylett, Josie Long, Jeff Vandermeer, me, Robin Ince, Mitzi Szereto, Bill Ectric, Andrew O'Neill, Vessel, 7-Inch Stitch, etc., etc. ... There will be a screening in the United Kingdom in Brighton on June 26. Click here for details.

Purchase tickets here.

The film is based on Steve Aylett's books LINT and And Your Point Is?

Aylett's books, LINT paraphernalia, and The Caterer comics will be on sale at the venue.

Mo*Con 2011

2011-05-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

I will be at Mo*Con this weekend in Indianapolis, IN, hanging with Andersen Prutny, William Pauley III, and other miscreants. Thanks in advance to the reverend Maurice Broaddus for hosting the event. I promise not to temper my gestalt beyond normative expectations.

Good Bad Review on Goodreads

2011-05-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

Lynette Fox has written a good bad review of Codename Prague at Goodreads:

"I got to page 33 and I was just really turned off by this book. I do not want to finish it and will not finish it. There is way to much swearing and foul language. The details are gruesome, gory and disturbing. I feel some of the authors details are not needed. I will not recommend this book. As a matter of fact I think it should have warnings. Not good for under 25 years of age for reading. Very violent. If it were a movie, it would be rated R."

Issue #35 of The Dream People

2011-05-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

The 35th issue of The Dream People is now available. Included are ficciones from Jamie Rosen, M.E. Purfield, Nicholas Ozment, Chris Bowsman, A.M. Arruin, and Lofton Gitt, that latter of whom is the first TDP author to speak to us from the grave. Also featured are book excerpts from Jeff VanderMeer and George Williams, an interview with George Williams, and a microcriticism from, sadly perhaps, me.

Review of Codename Prague in The Pedestal Magazine

2011-05-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

JoSelle Vanderhooft has written a shrewd and insightful review of my new novel, Codename Prague, for The Pedestal Magazine. Here's a taste:

"The dazzling absurdity, wide-eyed imagery, and wicked humor with which Wilson sends up these and other clichés of science fiction and kung fu movies are more than enough reason to read Codename Prague. However, I think the book’s real brilliance can be found in its playful yet earnest examination of art and the concept of ekphrasis, or the way in which one art form tries to describe another. At the novel’s outset, Wilson playfully defines this term as “a graphic, ultraviolent depiction of a visual work of reality,” thus drawing, as he did in Peckinpah, a connection between art, violence, and life as lived, which suggests that the lines between all three may be quite fuzzy, indeed. By writing a novel that attempts to describe a movie, Wilson has committed ekphrasis. He also commits it by having his mad scientist splice Hitler and Keats to create a being that can surpass what he sees as the individual strengths of each man. And by giving Prague a fool’s quest that ends with his realization that he holds the code that could take postreal humanity to its next step, Wilson attempts a third form of ekphrasis—that is, to create a version of science fiction, wuxia, and scholarship that illuminates how all three are, more or less, a single art form.

"While that description may make Codename Prague sound eggheaded and dull, the novel’s nonstop action and refreshing lack of pretensions make the book a mind-bending and rewarding read not only for science fiction and kung fu film aficionados, but also for literary critics, Bizarro fans, and readers who are interested in outlandish, experimental science fiction. This is Wilson writing at the top of his game."

Read the entire review here.

Faculty Award

2011-05-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I found out that I won the 2011 Outstanding Faculty Scholarship Award at Wright State University-Lake Campus. This annual award is presented to a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in writing and publishing. Thanks much to the selection committee!

Monk Punk on Kindle

2011-05-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

Monk Punk, a new anthology of short fiction from Static Movement Press, is now available on Kindle and Nook. I wrote the introduction, which discusses the evolution of punk literature since the Beats. Here's the book description:

"In the tradition of Steampunk and Cyberpunk comes a new sub-strain of speculative fiction ... Monk Punk. A.J. French has gathered 23 hard-hitting Monk Punk tales of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, featuring stories from some of the best established and upcoming authors, including George Ivanoff, William Meikle, David J. West, R.B. Payne, Sean T. M. Stiennon, and John R. Fultz. Introduction by D. Harlan Wilson. Prepare yourself for ordination ..."

If you didn't catch it in my previous blog, here's the table of contents.

Goodreads Giveaway: Codename Prague

2011-05-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

The Goodreads giveaway for my new novel, Codename Prague, the second installment in the scikungfi trilogy, is now complete. Congratulations to the winners: Lynette Fox, Chelsea Northrop, Michael Weil, Heather Gutowski and Eduardo Quinones. Signed copies will be sent out next week.

Battle without Honor or Humanity #6

2011-04-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

Interrogation

A: And the reason for your sudden “appearance”?

Angeklagter: I wouldn’t call it sudden. I was standing there for, like, a long time. Mostly I just stand around and wait for people to fuck with me. This usually takes time, assuming I don’t resort to dickless provocation. I possess a vast and formidable stature. I’ve never met anyone who isn’t scared of me. But that doesn’t mean nobody picks a fight. Fear is the engine of masculinity. Without fear—and insecurity, and idiocy—the male subject wouldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

B: This is not a matter to be taken lightly.

Angeklagter: I don’t take anything lightly. Everything I choose to endure is a cosmic elephant. Frivolity nauseates me. I mean, I’m not a homunculi, for Chrissakes. I was born for the screen. Look at my face. Look at my eyes. Just one eye. Can you honestly say that my countenance indicates anything other than a healthy entitlement to shit on the entire universe at my leisure? It’s not as if I lack a traumatic kernel. No. My selfhood is empowered by the repressed memories of thousands of pulsing horrors. Yes. Invariably I experience a tension between a feeling of genuine happiness and the desire to destroy myself. I’ll tell you how it happens. I get to feeling really goddamn happy—and then I recognize it. What I’m feeling, I mean. Interpellation is the problem. My happiness calls out to me: “Hey, shiteater, you’re happy!” And I realize that I’m susceptible to much grander and more devious machinery. Or I simply realize that I’m happy, too happy, and this sort of happiness doesn’t last, so I might as well put an end to the fucker now. Depression sets in. I don’t want to kill myself. I’ve never wanted that. I just want to be tolerated. I just want to exist. Somehow existence must be enough.”

X: I have a document that proves you are the owner of the helicopter in question. Is this your signature?

Angeklagter: Document? What document? I don’t know what that is. You can’t prove my signature is my signature. It is the nature of signatures to evolve with the flows of identity. What looks like my name today could look entirely different tomorrow, or yesterday. I’ll tell you something. I am the reincarnation of television’s Platonic Form. That cocaine high you get from watching music videos, Stallone movies, Schwarzenegger movies, Van Damme movies—that’s me. I may be an electromagnetic earthfucker, but I don’t do drugs. Never have. Van Damme had a problem for awhile, I understand. The point is, I am not a man—I am dynamite. I am the Wallace Stegner of the literary world; my Angle of Repose swings between my legs like a Third World. You may be wondering what I’ve done to overcome myself today. Nothing. Let me assure you that, in the interests of everyone inscribed by the powers that beleaguer and unman us, the gas tanks of obscurity cry out to the void like infants who have suddenly realized that alienation is the heartbeat of the human condition. Do you know when the heart is ripped out of the chest you can go on living for up to thirty seconds? It must be ripped out quickly, of course, and certain valves must be prepared beforehand for terminal severance. My aorta lies in wait. Dotted lines encircle the fat tentacles in all the right places. You gentlemen are barking up the wrong killing spree. I didn’t do anything. You don’t have anything on me. Am I under arrest? I’m lawyering up. Now. I plan to represent myself. I’m D Harlan Wilson, esquire. The D stands for DDT, Jake the Snake Roberts’ signature move. To enact the move, one applies a reverse headlock and destabilizes one’s knees, ramming the face of one’s opponent into the mat. I have enacted the move on countless occasions and thus weaved it into the fabric of my primary signifier. I don’t know what esquire means, other than it is a title of respect and adulation typically appropriated by human beings with law degrees who want to sound fancy because they can’t call themselves Doctor and they don’t have a Ph.D. I possess a Ph.D. and a law degree. Ergo: Doctor DDT Harlan Wilson, esquire. I advise my client not to answer any more questions. Let me see that document again. That’s not even my client’s name. That says Stanley Ashenbach. I don’t know that asshole. That’s not my client, in any case. Good lord. Can we go now? Are you holding my client here indefinitely? We’ve answered all your questions. I demand that you arrest my client immediately. Or set him free. The choice is yours. Choice is an illusion, like sky monkeys, but you realize this. Ultimately we don’t choose anything. We are chosen. Often against our will. But that is the nature of the cultural maelstrom. We produce culture, extending it from our literal and figurative bodies, and the resultant firmament in turn reproduces us, hurling bolts of mediatized lightning at our souls, imploding the souls. I couldn’t tell you what was real and what was fantasy if you had a gun in my mouth. But I’m not trying to run the world, am I. I’m just a cunt on the street. But no, that helicopter doesn’t belong to me. I’ve never seen it before I had this dream. Darla was my wife, though, and I loved her. I was sorry to see her killed.

Battle without Honor or Humanity #5

2011-04-28T08:51:00.001-07:00

This is the fifth installment in the serialization of my unfinished story, "Battle without Honor or Humanity." It is also the first mircochapter that will appear in the completed story.

Exposé

The exhaust fumes of tubas and coroners drift across an empty playing field. Buoys waver on the sandbar. Spectators are reminded by the Tall Commissar that every word is an artifact of destruction.

Segue to a placid, happy mise-en-scene depicted with violent academic techné.

Battle without Honor or Humanity #4

2011-04-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

Glands

I go to a boycott with my sponsor. He insists that I “inject” myself into the “public institute” on a regular basis. It’s not raining, but I see storm clouds rolling in, and I hear thunder like arthritic moans.

I am in Fort Wayne, IN now; Colorado belongs to my fever dreams.

I run a finger across a brick wall. Ceramic flakes fall onto my knuckles and into my palm.

It is 2011 again.

I don’t know what’s being boycotted. An angry crowd has gathered in front of a medical textbook store. My sponsor and I get close to the crowd so that we can hear what everybody’s talking about.

They’re talking about glands.

Glands, in fact, is what they are boycotting, staging the affair outside of a place that sells books about glands, among other superfluities. Glands are overrated, they say. Glands are myths, they say. We as a society have been trained to think that glands are indispensable for human existence when the truth of the matter is they are largely unnecessary and in many cases inimical. This veil of illusions must be lifted. Somebody must pay.

The one gland they make an exception for is the breast. Or rather the many glands that constitute the breast. They serve a very real purpose, actually and figuratively. The latter in particular. Several participants tote signs with crudely illustrated pictures of single breasts on them. Chickenscratch solar coronas encircle the breasts, and arching above them is the acronym ADNI (Artifacts of Desire Not Included). I realize that the participants are all bald men who look like they have spent too much time in backyard ponds.

It starts to rain.

My sponsor walks me through the five stages of grief, otherwise known as the Kübler-Ross model: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—in that order. I explain that I have been experiencing the stages backwards. I accepted Darla Shine’s death immediately; it was very much a relief, since I often obsessed about death, especially the death of loved ones, how much it would hurt when it happened, when it would happen, then the loneliness, the self-pity, the fear of consciousness being turned out forever, shattered like a Tiffany lamp, etc., so when that helicopter killed Darla, who I had loved more than any other woman, and I had loved many other women, I was almost happy—I accepted it like an envelope of crisp, untraceable $100 bills. Then I slipped into a deep depression because I realized I shouldn’t have accepted her death so willfully, so comfortably. I started to bargain with myself. If you get a little sadder about Darla, I told myself, you won’t be so depressed, not about not being depressed about Darla anyway. I countered the offering with a general truth: Depression is a phantasmagoria made flesh by ways of seeing. I went back and forth with myself. This made me angry after awhile. And deranged. I told myself that I wasn’t angry and deranged, even though I clearly was. Hence denial. Then I felt calm. Hence the end of the five stages of grief—backwards.

My sponsor squeezes my elbow and says, “It’s all right to cry.” I tell him I know that but I don’t feel like crying. He tries to kiss me on the lips. I cock my head like the hammer of a six-shooter.

“Glands,” whispers a stranger. He raises a sleep-jagged brow ... and his face derails, sliding into collisions of meaning.

Novahead

2011-04-20T08:07:00.001-07:00

I'm excited about Steve Aylett's new book, Novahead, the last installment in the meta-satirical Beerlight series. Here's a description and a scintillating blurb:

About to quit the failed experiment of civilization, fake detective Taffy Atom is detained by one last case—a boy with a bomb in his mind. But what’s the trigger? Pursued by cops, mobsters, mercenaries and a mechanical swan, Atom carries the bomb and trigger through Beerlight City, the single holdout of creative mischief in a world overtaken by the trend-led Fadlands. By the relentless principles of gun karma Aylett’s final Beerlight book lands you in the Delayed Reaction Bar and fixes you a glass of antifreeze with everything in it. Listen to your heart. It will not stop slowly.

“The most original and most consciousness-altering living writer in the English language, not to mention one of the funniest. In Novahead, Aylett delivers his most searing work to date and comes up with noir fiction so black it’s fluorescent.” Alan Moore

Monk Punk Table of Contents

2011-04-17T04:59:00.000-07:00

I have completed my introduction for the upcoming anthology, Monkpunk, which will be published by Static Movement within a month or so. I trace the influences and origins of monkpunk (from Beat literature to cyberpunk, steampunk, splatterpunk, etc.) and try to show how this movement presents a unique riff on punk literature. Here's the TOC:

"The Spiritual Riff: An Introduction to Monkpunk" by D. Harlan Wilson

"Fistful of Tengu" by David J. West

"Don't Bite My Finger" by Geoff Nelder

"The Power of Gods" by Sean T. M. Stiennon

"The Key to Happiness" by R.B. Payne

"The Just One" by William Meikle

"Wonder and Glory" by Adrian Chamberlin

"The Liturgy of Hours" by Dean M Drinkel

"Brethren of Fire" by Zach Black

"The Second Coming" by Joe Jablonski

"Suitcase Nuke" by Sean Monaghan

"Capital Sins in a Dominican Monastery" by Gayle Arrowood

"Nasrudin: Desert Monk" by Barry Rosenberg

"The Last Monk" by George Ivanoff

"The Cult of Adam" by Mark Iles

"Snowfall" by JC Andrijeski

"Xenocyte: A Kiomarra Story" by Caleb Heath

"Vortex" by Joshua Ramey-Renk

"The Birth of God" by Jeffrey Sorensen

"Rannoch Abbey and the Night Visitor" by Dave Fragments

"Black Rose" by Robert Harkess

"Citipati" by Suzanne Robb

"The Path of Li Xi" by A.J. French

"Where the White Lotus Grows" by John R. Fultz

Battle without Honor or Humanity #3

2011-04-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

This is the third installment of the pseudo-serialization of the titular story in my upcoming collection, Battle without Honor or Humanity.

Darwinism

On the philosophy of coaching a competitive sport . . . And suddenly I am the coach. Rancorous. Balding. Christian. A spool of flab hanging over the belt . . . I don’t care how young the players are: crow’s feet are mandatory during prayer. We stack hands and pray to the lord for a win. We pray again for our sins to be forgiven so that we can win. We pray again for a big fucking win. We continue to pray. “Lord,” my lips utter, “let us buttfuck our opponents harder than they’ve ever been buttfucked before. Please. Please, lord.” I am whispering now. “Let us tear their asses apart with our giant, skilled cocks.” There is a devout pause during which my pursed lips twitch and then deliver a commanding “Amen.” The players open their eyes. I look at them, at their faces, their eyes, and I decide we need to pray some more. We kneel and lock arms, cutting off the circulation of blood to our forearms and hands. The limbs swell and turn purple.

Battle without Honor or Humanity #2

2011-04-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

Here is another microchapter from the titular story in my upcoming fiction collection, Battle without Honor or Humanity. It's becoming more like a novelette and will probably end up around 10,000 words. Rather than "serialize" it from beginning to end, I've decided to post randomly selected microchapters. As with much of my writing, there are a thousands of plateaus, and one can enter through infinite orifices and liminal spaces ...

Bubonic

De facto embodiment: I find myself holding a samurai sword, the leather handle long and grooved and worn, but somehow inviolate, and I maneuver the weapon with a totem of two glued fists. I allow my opponent to put me on the defense, drawing him in, and then I bow to one side, devoutly, softening my elbows, editing the coalescence of my shoulder muscles, and finally sweeping upwards in an act of sociopathic and hate-fueled cathexis ... My breath leaves my esophagus like the exhaust fumes of a luxury vehicle as the tip of the blade passes through my opponent’s face. It doesn’t touch the upper teeth or the palate, but it splits the chin, the jawbone and the tongue, and when he falls to his knees in the dust, and when his mouth drops open and apart like an exploded mine shaft, the tongue flails in the screaming wound like two bubonic snakes.

Author Illustration for The Kyoto Man

2011-04-08T08:49:00.001-07:00

Brandon Duncan has painted an impressive author photo for my upcoming novel, The Kyoto Man, the third and final book in my scikungfi trilogy. Here is the artist standing next to the final portrait.

Brandon also illustrated the author headshots for the first and second installments in the scikungfi trilogy, Dr. Identity, or, Farewell to Plaquedemia and Codename Prague.

Battle without Honor or Humanity #1

2011-04-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a microchapter from the titular story in my upcoming fiction collection, Battle without Honor or Humanity. In the next few weeks I'm going to serialize the story from the beginning. I anticipate 30-40 microchapters . . .

Interlocution

I exclaim, “I can’t stop thinking about it. It keeps running through my head. It’s all I can think about.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

I have gone to the movies again. A bloody action s/hero film. The theater is full and I have secured an aisle seat. I have not purchased a soda. I have not purchased candy or popcorn. Ushers guard the emergency exits with their lives.

I exclaim, “I know I won’t always feel this way. I experience chronic mood swings. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself bipolar. But I’d call myself something. Sometimes I feel like the actor Timothy Olyphant—gifted, good-looking, Hawaiian, underrated, in some cases altogether unknown. That reminds me. My father encased my legs in prosthetic technologies. I don’t recall anything being wrong with me. I think his intension was to test and examine the technologies. I do recall tripping quite a bit. I recall breaking bones, too. I died, once.”

“Hey. Asshole. Shut the fuck up.”

I can tell by the sound of his voice that he’s big. I exclaim, “I am an electric samurai. I am the noblest savage. I am precisely what I want to be. I slay cumulonimbus clouds with one hand, oceans with the other. I colonize the Giant Places. And yet failure lurks around every corner. It has been said that I heave entire diegeses from the bowels of my action-painter’s bucket like a magician yanking a syphilitic kangaroo from a ten gallon hat. But the scope of my intentions transcends my great remove. The universe cannot hold me accountable for these deeds, these breaches of gestalt. These wild therapies. The world is my analysand and my conclusion is that the world should place Barrel against Temple and blow Brains against Empty White Canvass. I have never owned a gun, but I have fired guns, on occasion. As a child on the prairie—bored, alone, deranged—I spent my afternoons picking off squirrels, finches, lizards, and other godless creatures with my father’s .22 rifle. They exploded like mortal fireworks. I have a confession to make. I was the Human Beat Box in the rap group the Fat Boys. The way it worked: Crazy White Boy plus Black Fat Suit equals Human Beat Box. His death by heart attack—a grand and terrific hoax. Now here we are. I don’t mean to be glib, or impractical. Never. I only do the best I can to convey my perspective, to extend my selfhood, and to negotiate the various ways in which I am interpellated by countless Ideological State Apparatuses. This movie stinks. I don’t believe the antagonist means it when s/he kills somebody.”

As blood splashes artfully across the camera lens, blocking the audience’s view of a gruesome wound, I feel his hand on my shoulder, and I shoot out of my seat like an unmanned clockspring.

We collide. We exchange blows. We set reality on fire.

Rolling across the treacherous swill, we engage in a battle without honor or humanity.

Goodreads Giveaway: Technologized Desire

2011-03-31T09:21:00.001-07:00

The Goodreads giveaway for my book of literary criticism and theory, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction, is now complete. Congrats to the winners: Josh Myers, Christopher Davis, Stan Slater, Sabra Onstott and Traci Goodwin. Signed copies will be sent to you next week.

The Goodreads giveaway for my new new novel, Codename Prague, concludes on April 31. Click here for details on how to enter. It's free.

Mo*Con 2011

2011-03-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

I will be attending Mo*Con 0n May 20-22, 2011 in Indianapolis, IN. It will be the first appearance I make in the wake of the Zero Degree of Meaning Tour for Codename Prague, which I continue to recover from in small increments. Other guests include Andersen Prunty, Gina Ranalli, Danny Evarts, Gary Braunbeck, and Maurice Broaddus himself.

Academically Adrift

2011-03-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's Academically Adrift: Learning on College Campuses argues that students learn less and less at colleges every year and demonstrate no significant improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills throughout their college careers. Moreover, the worst students (i.e., the most static and unchanging) tend to be Education and Business majors, whereas the best students (i.e., the ones whose minds grow, evolve, refine, etc.) major in the Humanities or Math and Science. Of course, this dynamic has a lot to do with faculty. Arum and Roksa's findings are hardly revelatory for, say, a Humanities professor like me who works closely with faculty from all fields of study. But it's nice to see them confirmed.

Prick of the Spindle

2011-03-24T10:51:00.001-07:00

I'm part of a collective author interview in the new issue (5.1) of Prick of the Spindle. I talk about the publishers I work with and who I might cast in movie versions of my books.

The issue also contains a review of my fiction collection They Had Goat Heads.

ZDMT #35 - Kafka Museum (Prague)

2011-03-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

This is the final entry for the Zero Degree of Meaning Tour coming at you from the Former Czech Republik in Prague. For readers: thank you for your support. For family and friends: I will be remain in Prague indefinitely and call those of you I love the most with more details. For Samuel R. Delany: with continued practice, I am confident you will become a successful writer one day. For President Obama: keep your chin up and don't let the shiteaters get you down (although try to be more attentive to the issue of education). For everybody else: wake up.

Immer ängstlicher im Niederschreiben. Es ist begreiflich. Jedes Wort, gewendet in der Hand der Geister – dieser Schwung der Hand ist ihre charakteristische Bewegung – wird zum Spieß, gekehrt gegen den Sprecher. Eine Bemerkung wie diese ganz besonders. Und so ins Unendliche. Der Trost wäre nur: es geschieht ob Du willst oder nicht. Und was Du willst, hilft nur unmerklich wenig. Mehr als Trost ist: Auch Du hast Waffen.

Wildclown Reviews They Had Goat Heads

2011-03-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

G. Wells Taylor, author of the Wildclown mysteries, has written a very insightful review of They Had Goat Heads over at his blog. Here's a glimpse:

"The 39 stories in They Had Goat Heads sprint, machine-gun and warp the reader to places where normal rational thinking would never dare go and you begin to wonder, as things progress, whether the collection might actually cause brain damage. One thing is certain, you will come away from the experience knowing you have read a cutting-edge piece of literature: the images are stimulating and resonant, in manifold ways unique and strangely familiar ... We limbo under Freud’s cigar: realistic expectations, interactions, fetish and symbols go out the window. These are transformed into something that resembles the intimate and often ambiguous realm of dreams and the unconscious—but it is more a reflection than resemblance. They Had Goat Heads is breathtaking. The reader is swept from genre to genre as a torrent of provocative images either hurtles past or impacts and bonds at the molecular level. There’s no escaping once it starts. The stories dodge in and out of reality, touching on persistent themes of repetition, media and technology, all of it interwoven with human DNA and its evolutionary design."

Taylor used to run a great flash magazine called Wildclown Chronicle, which included an early story of mine that later appeared in Stranger on the Loose, "Professor Dyspeptical's Parrot." Check out the archives.

ZDMT #34 - Le petit diablotin à Barjac (Barjac, France)

2011-03-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

Ceci n'est pas un symbole phallique.

ZDMT #33 - Crazyhorse Saloon (Paris)

2011-03-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

An elegant, if not elegiac, strip show. I had seen it before, but nearly 20 years ago. I was too enchanted to go on afterwards. I slipped out the back, but the French paparazzi was waiting for me. “This is not a matter to be taken lightly,” one of them said, stealing footage of my raw surprise. I replied, “I don’t take anything lightly. Everything I choose to endure is a cosmic elephant. Frivolity nauseates me. I mean, I’m not a homunculi, for Chrissakes. I was born for the screen. Look at my face. Look at my eyes. Just one eye. Can you honestly say that my frontal lobby indicates anything less than a healthy entitlement to shit on the entire universe at my leisure? It’s not as if I lack a traumatic kernel. No. My selfhood is empowered by the repressed memories of thousands of pulsing traumas. Yes. Invariably I experience a tension between a feeling of genuine happiness and the desire to destroy myself. I’ll tell you how it happens. I get to feeling really goddamn happy—and then I recognize it. What I’m feeling, I mean. Interpellation is the problem. My happiness calls out to me: “Hey, shiteater, you’re happy!” And I realize that I’m subject to a much grander and more devious systemic morass. Or I simply realize that I’m happy, too happy, and this sort of happiness doesn’t last, so I might as well put an end to the fucker now. Depression sets in. I don’t want to kill myself. I’ve never wanted that. I just want to be tolerated. I just want to exist. Somehow existence must be enough.”

Only two more stops on the Zero Degree of Meaning Tour: Barjac, France, and finally Prague, Former Czech Republik. I can’t say it’s been a good run. I’ve sold upwards of 800,000 books, but in my eyes book sales don’t constitute success. I make six figures teaching writing and literature to rednecks in Shitsville. I don’t need this shit. The book tour, that is. I need the writing. All of us writers need it. We do it because that’s what we do. The rest is just an excuse to get drunk.

ZDMT #32 - Shakespeare & Company (Paris)

2011-03-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

Chip Delany and my father were waiting for me outside of Shakespeare & Company when I arrived to do a reading of the final chapter of Codename Prague, “Codename Prague,” in which the code that authorizes and empowers the novel, baffling readers like a monochromatic Rubik’s cube, is unlocked, revealed, and disseminated across the universe. It was raining. They stood under tiny black umbrellas and sipped espresso from tiny paper cups. I walked up and they sort of snapped to attention, hurriedly finishing their espressos and tossing them aside as if they were illegal. Chip spoke first. He said he was very concerned, etc. My father agreed and said it was time for an intervention, things had been going on long enough, etc., etc. Back and forth, they went. I remained silent, polite, thoughtful.

A fight broke out.

Dad and I started pushing each other in the chest, and then he took me by the elbow and shirt and applied a tia-toshi judo throw, pulling me over an outstretched leg and slamming me against the slate-plated street. He’s a third degree black belt and still very limber, quick and capable despite being 68 years old. A staunch pacifist who even has reservations about theoretical violence, Chip, also 68, leaned over and tried to help me up, and Dad applied hiza garuma, placing the bridge of his foot against Chip’s outer knee and wheeling him head over heels into a stack of books covered in cellophane. His hair and beard swallowed his face like a wet mop. Panting, I crawled over to Chip to see if he was ok, and my father chided me, intoning, “Your sentiment will be your destruction.” I told him that was a line from The Shield and that he killed Samuel R. Delany, one of the greatest African-American science fiction authors of all time, despite his personality, which we could and should excuse him for. In fact Chip was a “very good guy,” I admitted, and it was my father’s son, D. Harlan Wilson, who was The Asshole. Dad agreed. Then the Sûreté Nationale pulled up and threw us all in a paddywagon (Chip was alive), or tried to; Dad deflected and flipped and swatted arresting officers out of the way like winter coats thrown at him by low-ranking children of the corn, and then he leapt behind the wheel of the paddywagon and drove us across the Pont au Double bridge to Notre Dame and then backtracked across the bridge and we tore down the Quai de Montebello, the Quai Saint Michael, etc., and in the end we were drinking table wine and eating baguettes in a café overlooking the Parc de Monceau, feeling refreshed. It had stopped raining and the waiter gave us towels to dry off. Everybody was happy, an ephemeral emotion, but we talked and laughed and drew out the emotion as long as we could before shaking hands and going our separate ways.

Review of They Had Goat Heads

2011-03-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

There is a new review of They Had Goat Heads at House of Bizarro written by Esteban Silvani. Final judgement: "D. Harlan Wilson is a true original. Five to ten years from now, you’ll be hearing his name with reference to having pioneered a new brand of absurdist speculative fiction."

ZDMT #31 - Balmer's Youth Hostel in Interlaken, Switzerland

2011-03-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

To kill a fly, one must be alert and patient. Prerequisite: steady hands. Wait for the fly to land on a flat surface. Open the hands into flat shapes and hold them outwards, as if carrying a large porcelain cistern. Approach the fly. Gaze upon the fly and do not look away. When looming above the fly like a mountain god, take a deep, silent breath and bring the hands together into a fierce clap approximately two inches above the fly. For a fly, there is nowhere to go but up. Flies are faster than hands, and accomplishing a clap in a spatial matrix where, before the fly moves, the fly does not exist, will compensate for this crisis of velocity. The fly should be dead at this point. Deposit the corpse in a garbage can and apply antibacterial gel to hands, or move on to another fly and return to the beginning of this process essay.

ForeWord Review of Codename Prague

2011-03-03T15:05:00.000-08:00

Here is the full review of Codename Prague in ForeWord Magazine.

ZDMT #29 - Ye Olde Cock Tavern

2011-03-01T06:52:00.000-08:00

Outside Ye Olde Cock Tavern on Fleet Street in London was a big poster of me in a kind of Muammar Gaddafi pose that somebody was hitting with an empty bottle. I asked what he was doing and he said it had nothing to do with me; he was just trying to break the bottle, which was made of abnormally thick glass.

The aesthetic of this pub combines cool futurism with bourgeois Victorianism. It’s as close to experiencing a Steampunk diegesis as I’ll ever get. In fact, merely sitting at the bar and looking around does more for me than reading a steampunk novel, most of which promise so much and deliver so little and are beleaguered by excessive moodiness and artiste-like behavior on the part of characters and more importantly the authors that breathe bad breath into them. I assure you, there is no drama, no flâneury in Ye Olde Cock Tavern. There is only quiet and compelling spectacle.

Chapter 20 of Codename Prague, “In Outer Space, a Ceramic Mannequin without Arms & a Cracked Foot,” is a kind of prelude to the subsequent chapter, Passagenwerk, a play on Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project. It reads:

“tumbled into a Disnified black hole. And Dr Hans Reinhart said, ‘Something caused all this. But what caused . . . the cause?’”

I had not read half of the chapter when I received a call from Dayton, Ohio. It was Andersen Prunty. Yes, it was. I had not spoken to him for awhile and decided to surrogate my reading with our conversation, putting Codename Prague aside, enabling the speaker function on my iphone and holding it up to the mic. Our conversation began with the usual exchange:

“Andy!”

“Fuck you.”

“Where are you?”

“Fuck you.”

“I was just thinking about you. I was going to call you. I swear.”

“Fuck you.”

From there we moved on to other topics. As always, our conversation culminated in a rant against the fetid state of the publishing industry and the suicidal ennui that results from reading virtually every book ever written. Before I knew it, the wide-eyed master of ceremonies was making a heated phone closing motion with his hand, pressing the fingers into the palm with his chin. It was time for me to go. I said goodbye, and went.

decomP Review of Codename Prague

2011-02-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

There is a review of Codename Prague in the latest issue of decomP Magazine written by Jessica Maybury. Here's an excerpt:

"The novel blasts you like the glass that was sandblasted in my old house. It grates against you, sloughing off all your lazy thoughts and unrealised dreams. It wills you to live. It fills you full of something like the joy people vaguely remember to have experienced at least once as a child."

ZDMT #28 - Waterstone's Bookstore

2011-02-25T07:58:00.000-08:00

I was rerouted to Lagos, Nigeria, on my way to Waterstone’s Bookstore in Picadilly Circus. Drinking Turkish coffee with Ernie Hudson, who keeps a place in the Oshodi-Isolo district. It is always night here and everything is illuminated by ominous red lights. There is no air conditioning. Still planning on appearing at Ye Olde Cock Tavern tomorrow afternoon.

ZDMT #27 - The Lobster Pot

2011-02-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

I lived in a 1-bedroom flat (£89/week) above the Lobster Pot, a fish and chips shop, for a year while I did my M.A. in Science Fiction Studies at the University of Liverpool (Class of 1998), so it was a special treat to make a pitstop here on the Zero Degree of Meaning Tour.

It’s quite narrow inside the Lobster Pot. Basically the place consists of a spot to wait in line and a spot for the owner – Nick Vassapolous, also my former landlord – and his sizable Greek family to serve customers. There’s also a small back room full of large evil-smelling silver pots of sick green and puke red slime. The laundry units are in the basement of the building, and I used to have to step through, between and over the pots to get to the stairs that led to the basement and do a wash. I don’t know about the function of the slime, i.e., I’m not sure if it’s detritus or something used to cook the fried shit that the Lobster Pot sells. I don’t want to know – that shit tastes good.

Whenever I regard Mr. Vassapolous, I’m amazed by the hair. He looks like a fat Wolfman in a dirty wifebeater and apron. Each of his pores must anchor ten or more follicles. He’s a very nice and jocular and utterly alarming man.

Because of spatial constraints, and because it was so busy, Mr. Vassapolous allowed me to read from Codename Prague on the condition that I serve customers while doing so. Luckily I had memorized several chapters, prepared for this kind of mishap. It was an unruly scene. A lot of people literally fell into the shop drunk from the pubs across the street following a football match. I didn’t know if they were excited to see me, excited that I was reading to them, or just hungry. Or just drunk. I’d like to think it was a healthy combination of all of these things, but realistically, the catalyst was probably drunkenness. Whenever there is a question of a catalyst, is not drunkenness always the answer?

There’s more, as always, but I’m on a train to London and I’m very tired. Next appearance: Waterstone’s Bookstore in Picadilly Circus, Feb. 24.

Alien Redrum on Codename Prague

2011-02-21T15:29:00.000-08:00

Here is a superterrific review of Codename Prague at Horror Talk written by Steve "Alien Redrum" Pattee.

Big Moose & Mota

2011-02-18T16:29:00.000-08:00

A former Wright State University-Lake Campus student of mine, David Frericks a.k.a. Big Moose, is a rapper in Lima, Ohio. He's laid down 150 or so tracks with another rapper, Damon Ortiz a.k.a. Mota, and they're in search of a label. Check out some of their tracks here. "Dumbledore's Grave" is a favorite of mine - still can't get it out of my head.

Review of Peckinpah

2011-02-17T16:57:00.001-08:00

STC Literature has reviewed my short novel Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance. The crux:

"It's wild and sporadic and violent and funny. It's genius."

Read the entire review here.

ZDMT #26 - Dove Cottage in the Lake District

2011-02-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

Great Britain is different than the United States. I lived there for a year, doing a M.A. degree in Science Fiction Studies at the University of Liverpool, but it’s been over a decade, and I’ve forgotten things.

“All I ask is that Vincent Prague be remembered as the corniest asshole in literature,” I said to my audience by way of preface. The lighting crew had set up chairs in Wordsworth’s bedroom and there were about 100 people crowded together, sitting and standing. A few people sat on other people’s laps, and there were a number of children. More babies than I can ever remember at a reading of mine. Nobody cried, though.

The audience didn’t understand my assertion. They had expected me to read a poem – I had promised a Pride & Prejudice & Zombies version of The Prelude – but I figured since the purpose of the Zero Degree of Meaning Tour is to promote Codename Prague I might as well say something about it.

I changed asshole to wanker: “All I ask is that Vincent Prague be remembered as the corniest wanker in literature.” This garnered more acclaim, but I still detected a considerable degree of confusion. I suspect the audience didn’t like the juxtaposition of corniest with wanker. They may not have known what corny meant. Full of corn? I was unsure of its etymology.

According to the OED, corny means any of the following: “Of or pertaining to corn . . . As grain or meal . . . Of such a type as appeals to country-folk; rustic or unsophisticated . . . Of ale? . . . Abounding in grains of corn . . . Intoxicated, tipsy.” It says nothing about humor, bad or otherwise, or a lack of savoir-faire and stylishness. I prefer the Urban Dictionary’s definitions: “Trying to be cool, but ultimately very uncool indeed, and often even extremely embarrassing.” First definition. Others include: “Something presented as fresh or original, which is actually tired and/or lame, especially when its lameness derives from being obvious or done to death . . . Really stupid, or using ironic situations . . . Obviously stupid. Usually enacted by people who are desperate for attention . . . Achieved when something picks up old and overused fads just to ‘fit in,’ falsely believes it is cool, and then takes itself too seriously, resulting in a complete destruction of its social life [most accurate definition re Vincent Prague] . . . Stupid to the point that may cause laughter . . . George Lopez.”

As always, the Urban Dictionary speaks more pointedly to us twenty-first century hipsters. Death to antiquarians.

Third time’s an alarm. I changed corniest to dumbest: “All I ask is that Vincent Prague be remembered as the dumbest wanker in literature, ever.” But Vincent Prague isn’t dumb. He isn’t a wanker either. He’s an asshole. A corny asshole. Nobody beats him . . .

Preliminary Blurb for The Kyoto Man

2011-02-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

Award-winning author of The Pilo Family Circus, Strange Places and Pilgrims has this to say about The Kyoto Man:

"Believe the hype this time. D. Harlan Wilson has more talent than you can throw an axe at."

Check out the latest edition of Pilo, which includes an introduction from Katherine Dunn, best-selling author of Geek Love, among the finest novels written in the postmodern era.

Response to Anti-Promotional Rhetoric

2011-02-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

My publicist and the managing editor of The Dream People, Stanley Ashenbach, has been promoting Codename Prague by emailing press releases to folks who have submitted to The Dream People in the past. Information on the novel is preceded by this disclaimer:

"This is a promotional message for D. Harlan Wilson's new novel, Codename Prague. If you are offended by messages of this nature, look away. Here is a press kit. Thank you for your cooperation."

Many recipients send short replies expressing interest; most don't reply at all. Occasionally somebody emails this message:

"Remove me from your mailing list."

Stanley's response to these messages is pointed and unambiguous:

"No. The Dream People exists in part as a medium to promote the works of D. Harlan Wilson. By submitting you subjectify yourself. Grow up."

For the record, I am not responsible for how Stan chooses to manage my career; he insisted on autonomy when he signed the contract and I gave it to him. And he hasn't let me down yet.

MBR Review of Codename Prague

2011-02-14T15:07:00.000-08:00

Midwest Book Review has this to say about Codename Prague:

"When technology lurks everywhere, it's all too easy to come out missing a few limbs. Codename Prague follows Vincent Prague, assassin and special agent of the Ministry of Applied Pressure. After his latest hit, he finds himself with more attention than he wants, and in the city of Prague, he has to tread lightly in a world where technology has gone way too far and Vincent only has his mind to save himself, with a few toys of course. Blending spy fiction with science fiction, Codename Prague is a fun read that should prove hard to put down."

I'm not sure if the review is a joke. I've been informed by several reliable sources that my novel is not fun and extremely easy to put down, not to mention humorless and dumb. But I appreciate the kind words.

ZDMT #25 - Jesus Christ Superstar Books & Music

2011-02-08T16:21:00.000-08:00

From Montreal, Quebec . . .

Codename Prague as authorial excess, abandon, intoxication, obesity, profligacy. Lynchian Harkonnenism. And so the entire sckikungfi trilogy. It is not about science fiction or kung fu. It is not about the human condition. Or rather, it only about these things insofar as it is about writing – the process, the product, the rubberneck at the console and the so-called ideas/ideals s/he constructs and disseminates. The trilogy is a writing manual. Follow it and you, too, can fail. Don’t follow it – and you have already failed.

Mind you, friends: my assholery is not a consequence of fame. I emit the same stench as one might expect from the orifice of infancy.

ZDMT #24 - Bouquinerie Rock'n livre

2011-02-06T13:50:00.000-08:00

I forgot how enlivening being outside of the United State of Amerika feels. Usually not an hour passes during which I don’t experience a profound feeling of unhappiness, dread and idle loathing. Not so in French Canada. I feel good. I feel free.

Strumming an air guitar between sets, I read the following passages (trans. into French by Stanley Ashenbach):

Né dans une famille de la bourgeoisie noire de Harlem d'un père qui était propriétaire d'une entreprise de pompes funèbres, il épouse à l'âge de dix-huit ans la poétesse Marilyn Hacker, qui a le même âge. Ils ont une fille et divorcent en 1979. Dans son autobiographie de 1988, The Motion of Light in Water, Delany ne cache pas qu'il préfère les relations sexuelles avec les hommes. Hacker et lui sont désormais connus comme militants homosexuels.

Il publie son premier roman à l'âge de vingt ans et obtient rapidement plusieurs récompenses littéraires : le prix Nebula pendant deux années consécutives, en 1966 pour Babel-17 et en 1967 pour l'Intersection Einstein; le prix Hugo en 1970 pour l'une de ses nouvelles, Le temps considéré comme une hélice de pierre semi-précieuses. Il est alors unanimement présenté comme l'un des meilleurs espoirs de la nouvelle science-fiction américaine. Il rend hommage à des auteurs comme Theodore Sturgeon et Robert Heinlein.

Il se détourne néanmoins peu à peu de la science-fiction pour se consacrer à une carrière universitaire. Il enseigne l'écriture à de jeunes auteurs, d'où sortira Vonda McIntyre. Il publie encore quelque œuvres mineures, notamment une incursion dans le domaine de la science fiction pornographique en 1973 avec Vice-versa, qui est pour lui l'occasion d'affirmer sa bisexualité.

Il accomplit son retour en 1975 avec Dhalgren et montre le résultat de ses recherches formelles. Retour confirmé avec Triton puis Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand. Il poursuit parallèlement un cycle de fantasy, Nevèrÿon. Il se dit alors plus proche d'auteurs comme Joanna Russ ou Ursula K. Le Guin.

Dès 1977, il publie des essais sur la science-fiction, comme The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, et plusieurs recueils d'articles sur la paralittérature ou les queer studies. Il devient titulaire d'une chaire de littérature comparée à l'université du Massachusetts en 1988. Depuis 2001, il enseigne à la Temple University de Philadelphie.

ZDMT #23 - Voodoo Nightclub

2011-02-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

As always, Newfoundland has refreshed me. Once again I am a healthy and functional tabula rasa prepared to endure the (re)imprintation of the glacier monkey of culture. There’s a spa on the coast that never fails to do the trick. I don’t want anybody to know about it so I’m not going to say it’s name or where specifically it is. It’s mine, so to speak.

Now I am in Canada. Other than the cold weather, I don’t know why it gets such a bad rap. I think South Park is too hard on this country. But I’d demean and deride and denigrate the entire cosmos for a million dollars an episode. I do that anyway, for free.

Note to self/world: Writer’s block is an Ovidian myth. One writes in slowtime, realtime or fasttime. Any idiot with half a lexicon can squeeze a sentence out of his ass. Sometimes a sentence is all it takes . . . I made this note as I entered the Voodoo Nightclub. As a graduate student at Michigan State University, I had been to Windsor on countless drinking and gambling sprees, but I had never been here. It is what it says it is. Liturgical attic tragedies unfolded across multiple stages as weird vodouisants and black magicians and wicker people and Adobe LiveMotion devil-dolls performed their respective rites of passage and damnation. Incense burnt in the corner. So forth.

I opened with the following caveat: “I’m tired of stories that tell stories. We all want something acausal and counterintuitive. Ergo: the hand grips hard on the pavement.” The Haitian owner had situated me on a “floating stage” that as far as I could tell was actually floating. I can’t remember how I got up or down – temporary scotomy – but I took “drugs” before the show in order to “fit in” and I can’t hold myself accountable for anything.

My father was in the audience again. I had successfully evaded him for the past two months (or vice versa – more scotomy). Unlike his former screenings, he made no effort to disguise himself. He had on Monday clothes.

I read a chapter 44B from Codename Prague: “Daikaiju Blues in the Bruce Lee Funpark.” I didn’t provide context other than the aforementioned caveat because there was too much to tell and I couldn’t summon the perspicacity and endurance to do it. Basically, my protagonist chases the antagonist to a Bruce Lee-themed amusement park in Hong Kong and there’s a big fight. Such an amusement park is actually being built in China, complete with screaming rollercoaster rides and Bruce Lee mannequin robots, but I’m proud to say that Codename Prague marks the first appearance of the park in any diegesis, fictional or otherwise.

Lately I seem to be producing a certain disenfranchisement in listeners. My attitude – i.e., the raw theatrics of my onstage schizosophy of selfhood – no doubt contributes to this effekt. I can assure you, however, that I am a good husband and father. In the end, that’s all that matters. Everything you do outside of your family dies with you.

An overweight blonde woman with an unnaturally red face had this to say about chapter 44B: "Yes, Dr. Wilson. You have a great talent for writing action, adventure, universe and characters. But your attempts at humor fall short, sometimes so much so that I feel embarrassed for you. At times, I feel that the story's legs are cut out from under it by your inability to be funny. Why?"

I might have responded in harsher tones had I not been on “drugs” and recently come from a Newfoundland spa. In a very friendly tone I said, “I don’t know. Humor is subjective?”

The fat, red woman had more to say, but to everybody’s surprise, my father, a former marine and Vietnam veteran, stood defiantly and barked, “Leave my boy alone, hog! Shut your hole, scum! Don’t even look at my boy, eggplant! Don’t you eyeball me, clump! Make like a tree, dirtworm! Do it now, mudbump! Do it!”

So forth.

Kugelmass #1

2011-02-02T16:41:00.001-08:00

The inaugural issue of Kugelmass, a journal of literary humor, is now available. The issue includes my story "Class Reunion" as well as short fiction by Larry Doyle, Larry Gaffney, David Galef, Kurt Luchs, Teresa Milbrodt, Thomas Mundt, Dan Pope and Curtis VanDonkelaar. There are also essays by Steve Almond, Mike Birbiglia, David Kirby and Simon Rich. Read Simon Rich's essay "Sensei" online here. Congrats to the editors. The journal looks sharp, and I'm happy to be aboard.

ZDMT #20-#22

2011-01-28T08:30:00.000-08:00

To my publisher’s (and publicist’s) chagrin and remorse, I have cancelled my final three appearances in the U.S. on the Zero Degree of Meaning Tour at, respectively, Pandemonium Books & Games in Cambridge, the Axis Club in Boston, and Left Bank Books in NYC. The reason for this unforeseen turn of events will remain my own. The good news is I have begun to write another pop song. So far, it goes:

Pituitary gland.

The pituitary gland.

Pythagorean’s theorem!

Pythagorean’s fuckin’ theorem!

[CHORUS]

When the sphere goes down and I git that itch,

gonna reap the equation, gonna make like on ostrich

and bury my head in the congruent earth

and mark a perimeter with the sky and the surf.

I still need two more verses. Working title: “Pituitary Gland vs. Pythagorean’s Theorem.”

THE ZDMT will resume in Canada on Feburary 1 at the Voodoo Nightclub in Winsor. In the meantime, I will be in the Waiting Room gazing listlessly out the Tall Window . . .

ZDMT #19 - Widener Library @ Harvard University

2011-01-27T11:25:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on Snow White after watching it last night for the first time as an adult: . . . Snow White has a voice like a songbird. Additionally, the film exhibits various prejudices towards dwarves, e.g., the assumption that they live together in relative harmony in a kind of Davidian compound, and they exhibit a decidedly Amish work ethic, and more importantly, their identities are signified by one idle emotion, despite possessing a clear range of emotions, from end of the spectrum to the other, except for Doc, the only dwarf whose identity is signified by his profession. All this seems terribly wrong.

After a 10-day hiatus, the Zero Degree of Meaning Tour plods forward like a disabled clay ox in stop-motion animation. Who gives a shit?

I used to work at Widener Library when I was in graduate school. Blah fucking blah.

Besides giving up writing, I’m considering giving up reading. I’ve read enough. At this point it will only accelerate the deterioration of my already horrendous eyesight. Reading is overrated at any rate. Finally I will subscribe to what culture tells me to subscribe to: the screen, and the screen alone.

I recently discovered something. My efficiency is a detriment to the academic life. In my profession, I get things done quickly and cleanly and dynamically. By things, I mean pedagogy, scholarship, and service. This altogether conflicts with the character of academia, which is slow, disheveled, clumsy and lethargic. Academia is perhaps the only profession in which competence is discouraged.

I read the same old bullshit from my stupid book in the Big Room of the library. Attendance: approximately 1,000 assholes. Some of them had to sit on the bowls of the organ pipes. I made no effort to conceal how much I hated writing and hated reading and hated people in general. I did this with my tone of voice and then I told everybody exactly how I felt about them and what was wrong with them and when they started making faces I told them to blow it out their asses.

During the Q&A, a student, or somebody young and stupid-looking, said, verbatim, “Don’t you think you have a responsibility to readers that you’re not living up to? I’m not talking about your attitude. [Laughter.] I mean your writing. Not being serious and leading people astray. I mean, heh, Codename Prague is all over the place. I get it. I get what you’re doing. But I think it’s sloppy writing. It’s irresponsible writing.”

I don’t remember how I responded. Something along the lines of: “Look, fucker. That’s not how it works. The way it works is you’re stupid and I’m not. I don’t have a responsibility to fucking readers. They have a responsibility to me. And they fail me every time. All of my writing is essentially a map of how readers fail. Fuckhead.”

Afterwards Skip Gates Jr. and I went out for lunch at Au Bon Pain and made fun of Samuel R. Delaney’s fiction from the 1960s.

Goodreads Giveaway for Codename Prague

2011-01-25T17:03:00.001-08:00

The Goodreads giveaway for Codename Prague is now up and running. Enter before May 1, 2011 to win a free signed copy.

Book Giveaways

2011-01-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

REMINDER: There is a book giveaway for Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction ongoing at Goodreads through the end of March. I'm currently setting up another giveaway for Codename Prague. Winners will receive a signed copy plus a special mystery present.