idan_cohen @ 2008-09-23T01:20:00Ach. It's one twenty at night. I'm trying to think of a good last post. Don't get too excited; i've only been thinking for three minutes. It's one twenty three.
Notices of resignation on the internet are always a bit absurd. In a sense; who cares? Well, I care. I've been writing here since, what, 2002? Since I was...16? Christ. It's been an interesting time.
We'll see what further. Things are always new. There's always more to see. Always more to say. But for a while, i'll let myself be more mum. There's no need to shout.
Luckily, livejournal doesn't require any maintence. I'll leave the past entries, all mostly meaningless several thousand of them, up. I'll want to remember who I was occasionally. Prospective employers will want to know all my dirty secrets. (Employers; I am a Okay Dude. I am Enthusiastic, and A Team Player. Pay me many moneys.) Random googlers will want to find porn and be confused. It'll be great.
Anyways, enough talk. This is my last post. Whoever you are; thanks for reading this far. If you'd like to keep in touch, my email is in the userinfo.
It's one thirty two! I hope you are well. idan_cohen @ 2008-09-05T01:03:00Dear Internet,
I have a girlfriend in America. Her name is Leigh. She is very pretty. And smart, she has forced me to add, but then she forced to write this whole thing, so no matter. I do, despite this, love her like crazy. She's a wonderful soul, even if she doesn't believe in them.
She should be happy now. Further messages as warranted.
yrs,
Idan. days, camels, meanings, leavings, days, camelsAnother day, another pack of Camels. Another low level quiescence of meaning, another fruitless search high and low for whatever I feel quite strongly I am looking for. Kupek wrote, Poker, pot & booze could help me wipe away these blues, and I suppose this would apply in this situation as well, but I have neither of the latter at hand at the moment, and the only playing cards in this house, I kid you not, are two sets of Tarot. Where was I? Looking for meaning. This is a daily quest in the halls of my mind and body & combined self, of course, and looking at it from outisde this may be a positive method, but it's quite annoying from the inside, you may trust me on this. Constantly re-examining - or worse; feeling like you should be re-examing - your self-worth and ideals is a fucking hassle. These fucking indefinables will drive me mad one day, or sane, or perhaps both. What's that, body-mind-self? You feel like you should be acting? I'm glad. Thank you for that. If you'd be so kind as to give me any directions? No? I appreciate it.
It's allright if your eyes have gotten fuzzy and indistinct by this point. My father has hit upon a definition of truth which I believe does well; 'That which raises an echo within you'. This is all echo talk, here, and mostly for my own benefit. I meant to say something here, but I started typing with honesty, which is always dangerous. Ah; meaning. When I cannot find meaning, when meaning hides somewhere just behind my head, when the hollow in my chest begins to make itself noticed and I cannot calm it, I will look at least for some sort of reminder of self. A booster, an answer to the constant badgering questions from the self, even if it is an old answer. "Back in 2007," I will say, "This person thought I was worth something." This will if but for a moment calm the beast within my chest. My good and I dare not think how many-years-long (5, I fearfully calculate. My god.) friend Lachlan keeps a folder with the many compliments he has garnered for one thing or another collected therein for his moments of weakness. I should have done the same, if i'd have had any sense.
This journal has always been a pressure valve, and functioned well for that. But I am becoming a little too proud, and perhaps worse, a little too fulfilled. The scream to the emptiness is wearing thin, and in any case the scream to the well-known cast of near-emptiness is not the same. I relieve my madness here and there, but perhaps a text file would do as well. This whole thing has become static, too static. Meaningless. Existing only to be shouted at. That's no sort of audience.
What I meant to say, in all of this, is that i'm seriously considiring leaving this whole thing behind. But there will always be a little bit of the validation-seeker hidden in me, behind the beard & tattoos. Come then, my invisible audience. Give me your thoughts. Maybe there's still something in this format that can inflame me. If not, well, in life you discard or are weighted down. Another day, another pack of Camels, right?
What is it now, evening? Past six, that's evening. Good evening. tricksters & holy fools: 01A long, long time ago, I discovered the internet. And the internet in those heady long ago days was a different one from now, when even TIMECUBE did not yet rule five-dimensional space, when making a Lolcat would have taken several hours of long coding, when we walked in the snow to school five miles each day and ate bears we had to battle to the death barehanded and we liked it; it was a nerdier internet.
Or perhaps I was nerdier. In any case.
My first taste of this strange, MIDI infested cavern network was; well, let's be honest. It was Dragonriders Of Pern fansites. Those ones with the, well, blaring MIDIs of psuedo-harpy ballads? And, like, mazes of links which were like little text adventures - "You Have Reached The Fairy Castle (stolen image of fairy castle) [Click To Enter] [Click To Go To The Dragon Cave Instead]". My second taste of the internet was the Dragonlance fandom.
I liked dragons, shut the fuck up.
My main, as it were, hangouts with regards to the Dragonlance fandom were the forums of then fan-site Dragonlance.com, and, let's be more specific. The roleplaying forums.
My nickname on these forums, for reasons I cannot dream of recalling, was 'Joe_Ghostbuster'. Please don't google that. I'm serious. We're not here to talk about my original main character on these boards, because it is very embarassing - let's just admit I called him 'Ghostbuster'.
"Well, then," said some part of my mind, seeking symmetry in all things, "What about a character named 'Joe'?"
"Joe?" said the other part of my mind, vestigially classy, "That is kind of an obvious name. Besides, this is a fantasy setting."
"Aha!" Said the previous part of my mind. "It is such an obvious name because Joe is a sort of lying dude! It's a purposefully false name. I'm going to completely forget about the second issue with the name."
And so it was. Oh, horribly written, of course; immature, changing signature lines every five minutes, grammar a beast hidden from my sights in dark Afrique, character and setting consistency a myth, a thousand wrongs. But there he was. Joe. A lying dude who walked around with two totally cool throwing knives. He could juggle. He stole shit, and he could also play music. He had a sense of humour. He was a con-man. A joker. An asshole. A goddamn trickster character.
I swear to god, eight years ago.
I had just turned 14. borges, marques, frankie, keret, zelazny, magical unicornsIf we're all just sparks of light behind someone else's eyes, appearing only when they are drunk, or sad, or squint their eyes just so, does this mean I don't have to get a job again?
I cannot tell a lie. I read some books in July.
Gabriel Garcia Marques
The Autumn of the Patriarch
is a wonderful, gloriously beautiful book, from the first line absoloutly stunning in it's choice of words, phrases, points of view. It is about a nameless despotic ruler of a nameless Carribean nation, and it is wonderful. For what it is, it is very close to perfect.
The first line is this: "Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur."
Etgar Keret
The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories
Etgar Keret is one of the pioneers of what is called Lean hebrew literature, and he is wonderful, writing short-short absurd stories that are about everything and absoloutly nothing. The translations here (Most of the stories here i've read in the original, though some I had not) are really quite good, somehow managing to keep the poignant Israeliness of the original. Four stars!
Mike Carey & Sony Tiew
My Faith In Frankie
is the cutest little graphic novel in the history of the cutest little graphic novels. Gosh, you guys! I read it, and it was great and funny and sweet, and then I, I swear to god, picked it five minutes and read it again. And then again the next week. It is just adorable. It is about Frankie, who is a chick, and her God, who is a God! It is really really great.
Milorad Pavic
Dictionary Of The Khazars: A lexicon novel
Crazy, strange, and perhaps not precisely pulling it off, Dictionary Of The Khazars is a fictional lexicon novel (Precisely as advertised; Composed of long, meandering encyclopediac entries) about the lost-to-history nation of the Khazars back in the 10th century. Plot wise, it is more about the 17th century attempts to research the nation of the Khazars. Theme wise, it is about myths and dreams and different intepertations of the same events. I think one of it's main points may be that the difference of interpertations doesn't actually matter, as long as the interpertations are pleasing to the various ears. As it may be, it feels like a experiment that never really succeeds. Maybe it's the translation from the original Serbo-Croatian.
I'll note that Amazon only has the Female version of the book; that which I read was the male. As I understand it, there are only 15 lines difference them, which change the interpertation of a crucial scene therein. Your choice! Anyways, it is certainly crazy interesting.
Yehuda Amichai
Open Closed Open: Poems
Somebody should really have me arrested for reading Yehuda Amichai, one of the greatest poets of the Hebrew language, in translation. In my defense, it wasn't my book, and it was there. But to other matters; Open Closed Open is a masterpiece. Truly so. At times I am prone to hyperbolia, but Open Closed Open deserves it. It is, truly, beautiful. If you can find it, get it.
Cormac McCarthy
The Road
Gorgous. Terribly gorgous. The Road is about a man and a boy, who may or not be his son. They walk a world ruined by a unspecified (and thus, inclusive) holocaust, and attempt to survive. The style is sparse, terrifyingly human, astounding. What I mean is that this is a good book, and you should read it.
M. John Harrison
Light
See here - second half.
Jorge Borges (Translated by Andrew Hurley
Collected Fictions
Behemothian collection of every piece of fiction ever written by Jorge Luis Borges, towering demigod of, hrm - as I hestiate to say 'magical realism' - oneiric short-short fiction. Every piece. I was thinking like a Borges short story, of course dreaming like a Borges short story, for a week afterward. Masterful. Very, very long. But i'll say this! After reading this, you can talk about Borges with certaintude.
Victor Pelevin
Oman Ra
Mph. Instantly forgotten satire of Soviet Russia, the space program, propoganda, etc, therein. Now that I think, quite chilling, perhaps I forgot it to save my dreams. Features a terrifying Comissar, and a lovely denounement.
Kierron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie
Phonogram: Rue Brittania
Wonderful little graphic novel about Britpop which you have to do some research on to really understand if you are not British and, say, 30 to 35? 25-35? Something like. Fuck that. It is about magic in the form of music. Done.
Salman Rushdie
The Enchantress Of Florence
I do not remember Salman Rushdie writing so well. Yes, Enchantress isn't a Great Novel With A Beautiful & V. Meaningful Point, but goshdarn it, it isn't trying to be. It's wonderful, astoundingly well-written entertainment. It reads like an easy masterpiece, every word precisely in place. It may be, craftmanship-wise, the best book i've read this year.
L.E. Moddesitt, Jr
Gravity Dreams
Pretty meaningless science-fiction that is about a dude, who is infected with nanites, and then lives in nanite-society, doing things and coming to terms with other things. Look, I needed some light reading after all of the above. So sue me twice.
Frederick Pohl
Gateway
Christ, i'm so glad I found Gateway in the used bookstore. Awesome. It is about a goddamn dude who goes on spaceship rides and becomes rich. That is classy, and this is a classy classic science-fiction book, which I enjoyed. I hope you have no problems with it, because if so it is your problems.
Roger Zelazny
Unicorn Variations
I will not lie; I am wet for Roger Zelazny. He is just so good at what he does, and what he does is goshdarn nice. This is a collection of short stories! In the main one, I make no joke, George R.R. Martin plays chess with a magical unicorn for the future of the human race.
I swear to god.
THAT IS ALL BOOKS OK STOP
bothering
me
jesus christ what i am hinting in this post is that you are not allowed to judge me based on thisHey, internet! Are you bored at work! Well, get back to work! Are you bored at home, alone, smelling of masturbation? Well, so am I. And in celebration of this, herein follows the first chapter or two of the novellete Certain Fools, which took me about two years to write and about two minutes to consign forever to the trash heap of 'Not Good Enough'. But hey, who the heck knows, you might like it.
It is a pretty damn unsubtle story about a dude, and shenanagins.
I
Pick a color, any color.
Was it lightly scented spruce? No?
Guess I win!
- Riddle 38,
101 Things An Anarchic Surrealist Communist Libertarian Dadaist Fundamentalist Boy Can Do (To Fuck People Up)
(Attributed to Eli Schunasfter)
If we must describe Eli Schunasfter, which we unfortunately must, as he is the hero of our story, we will sum it up thusly; He was a man of no less than 20 years and no more than 30 years of age, he weighed between 70 and 85 kilograms, he stood to a lofty height of 1.9413 meters precisely, his head held a permanent amused expression and was adorned with a short flash of shocking red hair. He was a gambler and a ne'er do well, a trickster and a conniver, an aficionado of woman who considered himself the greatest lover to ever walk the earth. And he was a master of his trade, which was (of course) obfuscation and uncertainty, the joke within the truth, riddles without answers, confusion and merry chaos.
He was also, by virtue of all this, rather tightly in debt, considered the scum of the earth by the grand majority of society, and subsisted in life by relying on a surprisingly large group of friends; which, for reasons we could not dream of contemplating, seemed to expand exponentially.
Now it came to be that one of his major debtors was a prominent board member of a certain scientific foundation which struggled under the powerful name of "The Cerebral-Mortialogy Institute" – CMI to its friends, if scientific institutes had friends, perhaps a MySpace page or a blog in which it told all of its intimate details, if scientific institutes had anything intimate that you would find interesting to detail.
And it was a representative this institute, a man by the name of Dr. Edward Blanton, who approached the wayward riddler –on his way back from yet another failed attempt to get a loan - on a beautiful windy morning, which seemed to breathe the very stuff of new beginnings and possibilities, which signaled the beginning of our story. Looking back on this day later, Eli would stop looking.
"Mr. Schunasfter! cough Eli cough Schunasfter!"
(said the doctor.)
Eli turned to the direction of the voice, found nothing but the opening of an apartment building, and was forced to look down. A short, thin man in a white trench-coat stood before him, with an oval face and glasses that screamed 'intellectual' in a needlessly high voice. He immediately took a step back
"Mr. Schunasfter?" the figure said, raising the clear glasses and peeking up like a scientific chipmunk. "I am Dr. Edward Blanton,"
Eli blinked once, and turned the sentence "I'm sorry, we seem to have a case of mistaken identity" over in his head. It had, he noticed, precisely forty four characters. It seemed to fit the occasion. He opened his mouth;
"And I'd like to offer you a deal-"
(continued the doctor.)
At the word 'deal', Eli's mouth shut itself and threw away the key, finely tuned senses tingling like a dozen hummingbirds giving an erotic massage. Money! Shrieked the hummingbirds, all as one. Money was involved.
He immediately smiled kindly (indeed, a kindlier smile we have never seen, this smile was worthy of a Gandhi, a Mother Teresa, a whore behind on her rent) down at the little man. "It is a pleasure, a grand honour, nay, a beautiful finish to this beautiful day to meet you, Doctor. What was that last again?"
The doctor (Neurosurgery) coughed nervously, a habit he had developed as a small child when frequent attacks of asthma were good for getting candy off unsuspecting nurses. "I said that I… that is, the Cerebral-Mortialogy Institute of which I am a part," he coughed again, "Would like to offer you a deal, Mr. Schunasfter. Quite a," cough, "Lucrative deal."
If one looked very closely at the riddler at the close of that sentence, focusing on the absurdly soft creases of his face, one would see a sudden inexplicable twitch of flesh. This was the only outward sign of a quick-born pitched battle between his urgent desire for money and his well-sharpened instincts as they screamed at him to either walk away from this story or – preferably - run. Needless to say, his well-sharpened instincts didn't survive long, and Eli scratched his hair as he looked around the natural walkway for a bench among the wet grass. Finding one, he led Dr. Blanton to it, and sat down himself.
"So, Edward…can I call you Ed?"
Dr. Blanton opened his mouth to say something, certain to be boring and stammered. Eli wisely continued before he could. "Great! So, Eddie, what exactly does the," he spread the words through his mouth as though masticating a piece of hard candy "Ce-REB-ral Mor-TIAL-ogy Ins-TI-TUTE want with me? And (though us men of science are reluctant to discuss these piddling details, let us get straight to the point) how much is it (I must ask simply because I have a child and several small wives to support) willing to pay?"
"Er," cough, "Yes." Said the esteemed doctor, "I have it written," cough, "Somewhere here…" Fishing inside his pockets, the eminent physician removed from them the various accessories one always finds in pockets; A coupon for half off on a weed-whacker, coins from some country he had never visited nor known someone who had (in this case Thailand), a shopping list ('Tomatoes', 'Onions', 'Don't forget the chicken!!!'), and so forth, until at least he found a found a scrap of crumpled paper which was the specific scrap of crumpled paper he had been looking for. He meticulously unfolded it and handed it with a coughing apology to the taller man, who had already pocketed the Thai coins.
Eli wordlessly read the number on the piece of paper (Full text: "Ed: this is the utmost we are willing to offer him, he'll certainly do it for less!"), his eyebrows steadily rising to zenith as he slowly counted out the zeroes. He blinked, read it again, and looked up with slightly glazed eyes. "This…" He stopped, attempting to frame a sentence, his vocabulary scattered under the heel of a large dollar sign, settled on banality as his only chance for a grip on reality; "This is a lot of money."
"Oh," said the Doctor, the irrelevance of money being one of the few things of which he was certain, having been raised in a family supported entirely by government grants, "Is it?" He shrugged, then continued in the tone of one who had memorized a statement and isn't going to go away until he has recited it all; "All for one small service for the Institute, for which you were specifically chosen."
Once again, Eli heard the small but insistent voice telling him to run like hell. He read the number on the piece of paper again, and the voice gradually quieted its tone and admitted that it would like a yacht. Eli was direly caught on their hook, and knew it. "What," he asked, purely as a formality, regaining his wordage by strength of will, "Is this arduous task, test, the reason for this-" the sheer enormity of the lie caught at his throat, but he overcame himself," -merely trivial amount of cash granted?"
The doctor raised a hand to his head, removing his glasses. "Well, Mr. Schunasfter..." he said, looking rather embarrassed, "We want you to die."
"Ah." Said Eli, nodding thoughtfully.
He looked down at the piece of paper, then up again. His eyes slowly focused as he ran down what he had just heard.
"What?" chinese poets, canadian-jewish poets, peter f. hamiltonAs summer beats on throb throb throb and night falls only past eight, we continue these murky thoughts, we bear still our many scars from heat. We ponder our wardrobes, we consider renewing our passports. I read some books in June, which was so long ago, and here are my thoughts on them.
Orson Scott Card
Empire
See here.
Allen Steele
Spindrift
I've just had to read the backcover of Spindrift in order to remember basically what went on there. Ok! So Spindrift is about some dudes in a spaceship doing some First Contact. It is pretty good, if not very good! I think. Next!
M. John Harrison
The Machine In Shaft Ten
This old out of print short story collection collects some early works by crazy science fiction guru M. John Harrison and while they are not the best short stories or as absoloutly awesome crazy as Light, his recent novel, they are pretty great! Seriously, they are pretty good. And weird!
Peter F. Hamilton
The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God, Last Chance At Eden
The Nights Dawn trilogy, to be precise, with the addendum of the short story collection set in the same universe, Last Chance At Eden. Coming to something like 3,300 pages, this insanely long hardish space opera sci-fi series totally doesn't feel that long. It's really really good. Peter F. Hamilton, you know, is some sort of mutant genius at constructing well-thought out, totally believable, and interesting sci-fi settings. I'm serious. He spawns out a new series every few years, and every time it's awesome. Of course, he's also a mutant genius at completely unsatisfacory endings. But I forgive him! The Nights Dawn trilogy as a whole is one of the best sci-fi works i've ever read. Populated by a hundred heroic and less heroic characters. Who never sleep together as much as you'd like them to. It is totally great.
Random Messianic Jews (Purportedly Rabbi Natan, by the words of Rabbi Nachman, the messiah of this sect of Messianic Jews)
Courage! (hebrew)
So, how do I explain this. Okay! The Breslavs are a sort-of-messianic-but-not-too-messianic sect of Judiasm who are followers of the Rabbi Nachman, a few century ago Big Ol' Rabbi. This Rabbi was a Good Ol' Rabbi as well, saying pretty Accurate things, if within the very limiting view of Hasidic Judiasm. Anyways! Nothing at all like, say, the Watchtower dudes, they give out these little booklets to random passers by often! And I, thinking that but for their views on non-jews and horrific monotheistic refusal to flex the Breslavs are pretty good dudes (they are) took one! Then I read it! That's about it. What I mean is again Marina if some Breslav hands you a booklet be open and maybe it will be interesting for you!
Hermann Hesse
Strange News From Another Star
A collection of beautiful short stories by one of the quiet masters of questioning fiction. Hermann Hesse is not ashamed to tell you about what he thinks people should be like in metaphors! Hermann Hesse writes the best, bar none, dream sequence i've ever read (And, fittingly enough, it's absolutely meaningless to anyone not Hermann Hesse)! Hermann Hesse totally wrote out a version of the plot of my Mountain book in a few pages of short story! He's an asshole! If you ever find a copy of Strange News From Another Star, I think you should read it.
Cory Doctorow
Little Brother (free download link)
Admission: I think I might not like Cory Doctorow. First it was When The Sysadmins Ruled The World, a very popular short story about the apocalyse and a group of Sysadmins claiming to rule the world until they run out of food. Which was horrible. Maybe it was intended to be a dark, very mean satire of the pumped up importance of the internet gurus of our dark age, but I somehow doubt it. Anyways. Then there's Little Brother. Little Brother is a hamhanded political novel about a group of teens in the very-near-future who witness a terrorist bombing, then are arrested by the Evil Homeland Security and tortured! Then they are released and fight them by - i'm not really sure. Graffiti tagging and posting on their blogs. And in one pivotal scene, staging a mass LARP. And hamhandedly attempting to co-op the Yippy&related subcultures of the 60s. But I can't blame the characters for that, that was the author. Anyways, it's really pretty bad.
So I might not like Cory Doctorow. No offense Cory Doctorow! I think you are a ok dude but maybe rethink your moral priorities.
Leonard Cohen
"Book Of Longing (reread), Book Of Mercy
Book Of Longing is a book of beautiful, amazing poems. Book Of Mercy is a book of beautiful, strange, uncanny psalms, notes-to-God. They are both very good, and very different, and I think it would only help if you read both of them.
Li-Young Lee
The City In Which I Love You
Gorgous, subtle, intensely personal, wonderfully precise poetry about being Li-Young Lee, and being other people. Yes.
That's all the books I read, sweet babes. Rest now,
close your eyes
that's right.
Good night. gosh gee willyWell, gosh gee willy, who woulda thunk it, but it seems that the Autumn 2008 issue of Greatest Uncommon Denominator, featuring a very short story by yrs truly with the absurdly long name "The Dragon's Thorn, Sword Of Kings (&Fred)", [As well as a novellete by the charming ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ombriel, just before in the Table Of Contents, amusingly enough] is avaliable for all perusers of quality fiction, poetry, general low-key madness. You too can own a chunk of history! I mean, since, in the general sense everything that happens is history.
You can own this specific chunk of history.
That's what I mean. lack of meandering, oh right the sun also rises, narrators, chancesNo long meandering discourse on vague ephermia cluttering my head at this moment, just a brief note that my audio short story, Oh, Right, The Sun Also Rises, is free all this week at Sniplits.com. If you have ever wanted to hear a narrator narrate some narration*, this is your chance.
*I don't want to think what they paid that dude for the sheer amount of silly words he had to say there. strangeness & newness, bricks, you, my father, colonies & remainsIf you ever visit Israel, you will find that this is a very strange country. Oh, all countries are strange. I will not begin to compare. But something here is strange.
Something is, and I will keep saying this until people realize what I mean, going on here.
Something is going on everywhere.
This is a poem that is tangential to that point.
The Artists Colony In Tzfat (let no one walk in our remains)
there is something in wandering
the jerusalem brick alleyways
of this strange new city
with you
you are strange and new
With you I walk the desolate alleys of this city
half an hours drive away and marvel
what wind blew all these coca cola bottles here
what tornado took all the drinkers away
what magic transported all these artists away from the artists colony and left these
coca cola bottles
empty studios
portraits of gnarled olive trees
pickaxes stuck
in buildings
half demolished.
here and there a hasidic woman passes
her head covered and dressed in bright pink
ten children, at the least, follow the
baby carriage she bears
what is alive here, and what is dead?
this is a question that may be asked anywhere but here
in this strange new city with you
with strange small doors that we cannot fit in
with strange signs, saying "OPEN" but
nothing is open
What is alive here, what is dead? Even the signs
"Artist lived here"
are rusted and barely stand the wind.
My father walks besides us
scratching his head, going here
then there
Thirty five years ago he was younger than we are now
He walked these streets when there was life but now
the only new things are signs advertising real estate agencies
He scratches his head, ducks into a corner
"A studio," he says, returning
Alive, dead? Somewhere in between
He is not sure where everyone has gone
He is not sure how no one thought
to tell him.
We walk these beautiful streets, you and I
these strange new alleyways 2000 years old
these beautiful houses barricaded, or open only
to the dust
where have we gone?
where have they gone?
flippantly, you say,
"We should form a writers colony."
Perhaps we will.
At least when that, too,
will die
I think,
staring around
we will leave no desolation
to explore the mystery of our vanishing.
We will be gone like the wind
a scattered page here
a notebook cover there.
Let no one walk in our remains. books, mountains, vince vaughnChrist, dear internet, how are we going to get past this great mountain in our relationship? We have travelled far, internet, every stain on the car seats a treasured memory, every scratch on the paint a point where I got a little upset and apologized later. But this isn't something we can get by, internet, this mountain in the middle of the road. I was just going for a piss, internet, and then there was a mountain about Himalaya-high between me and the car. You didn't have to take this metaphor so damn seriously. How am I supposed to climb this? But i'll go, internet, for you I will tear every thread of my pants on these rocks. That is just how much I love you. More than pants. More than two pairs of pants.
Yeah, I know. It's been a weird year.
I read some books in May!
Alan Moore, et al
Swamp Thing
Swamp Thing! He is a thing that lives in a swamp! He's a part-human incarnation of elemental Gaia! He- fights crime? And evil. He also fights evil.
Seriously, why do I even read comics within any continuity? It's fucking impossible to tell any good story.
Haim Yaacobi & Sheli Cohen (edited by)
Seperation: The Politics Of Space In Israel (hebrew)
A little radical booklet I had no idea you were allowed to publish, Seperation is about walls as indicators of cultural seperation in Israel. And it is very goddamn smart. There are illustrative pictures. It is an Important Pamphlet for The Informed Citzen. Marina. Yes, you're the only Israeli on my friends list, this reccomendation is for you.
Barry B. Longyear
Infinity Hold (reread)
Not, as the link purports to be, a collection of three short novels, but the first of that, which is not to be found on Amazon. In Infinity Hold all the prisoners in the galaxy are sent to this one planet which is, get it, a prison planet. And it is the best thing ever. There is slang. It is about the impossiblty of justice.
Mark Gatiss
The Vesuvius Club
The Vesuvius Club is the first, and hopefully, let's be honest here, the last, book I ever read because I had been told by more than two people that the protoganist reminded them of me. Let's just get some things clear; Lucifer Box, pretty gay protoganist of The Vesuvius Club, is a long, slim, elegant & witty blonde with a diploma with honours from the Dorian Gray School For Wildean Dandies. I'm just witty.
And not as gay.
yrs respectfully idan cohen
Clifford D. Simack
A Choice Of Gods
Recently I discovered this seemingly out of date masterpiece, in full hardcover but sadly with the funky slip-cover art missing, hiding somewhere in my mothers old apartment. Oh, memories! This lovely, understated meditation on philosiphies of living and belief probably had a big impact on my formation as the handsome, dashing & charming young man I am today. It is such a great book. It is about what happens to people when they are allowed to be people, and also about robots. I am willing to loan you my copy only if you promise to give it back.
Tom Godwin
Space Prison (free ebook version there yo)
This crazy old book about, yes, a prison that is in space and is basically a world is kind of crazy and old. And yet weirdly awesome! I will sum up what it is in very few words. It is the proto-Baen novel. Yes. That is what it is. It is a Baen novel from 1950. It is free, so no money wasted if you don't like it!
Katherine Anne Porter
Ship Of Fools
Oh this is just a good book. Srsly guys. Have you read this? It is about a collection of a dozen or more characters on a ship voyage from Mexico to Germany. And each of them is human and broken and v. sadly so so so human. It is seriously a masterpiece and amazing and it will make you be sad too. But buck up! It is only some words on something that used to be a tree!
Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast Of Champions
Oh oh oh in this book Kurt Vonnegut draws a cow. You should read this book. He draws a cow!
Iain M. Banks
Look To Windward
In this book Iain M. Banks is still as awesome as he usually is and then some shit explodes.
That is just how Iain M. Banks rolls.
Iain Banks
The Business
In this book there is a gorgous view of modern life & also very cool things happen and it is interesting and meaningful, because Iain Banks rolls any way he wants to roll.
Roger Williams
The Metamorphosis Of Prime Intellect
Hey hey The Metamorphosis Of Prime Intellect is Singularity Fiction that was written way before that dude whose name begins with a V thought it up! (No, not Vonnegut. No, not Vince Vaughn. come on, you know who I mean). It is pretty goddamn neat and I like it a little bit. It is free online in that there link! I think you could read it but that is just my opinion and you are allowed to disagree
hey
hey how are
you guys anyway on birds, poems, joey comeau, conspiracies, the state of our economyHey guys, it is 22:22, just now, precisely. Ok, not anymore, but let's roll with this. 22 is twice 11, which is twice 5 and a half, which is twice two and three fourths, I think? I've lost my train of thought here. Maybe I meant to make a point about the infinitude of numbers. Borges wrote an Argumentum Ornithologium, in which a flock of birds containing no more than 10 but no less than 3 birds flew above his eyes in the clear blue sky above Argentine. If God exists, he points out, then the precise number of birds is known. If He does not, then it is not. Between 3 and 10, he continues, is not a number we can comprehend. Thusly, God exists.
I wrote a romantic poem the other day, but then Joey Comeau says that romance is all about the other person being a fucking whore. Which is a misquote. And not appropriate for children! What I mean to say here is that human beings find it difficult to merge into a single omniscient creature of light, only managing it for seconds and by accident, when reading together, or sleeping, or drinking orange juice, oops! Honey, we seem to be shedding rays of beauty on the couch. Why, so we are!
What this has to do with numbers is that if we can find a good '+' sign that means 'two human beings[...]' a lot of people could give up poetry as a bum deal and get real jobs. And haircuts. Think of the lift to the economy, my compatriots to divine conspiracy. At a stroke, we'll have solved any mortage crisis you got. We'll keep a study group open for '-', '*' and '/'.
Let's not talk about '='.
What I mean when I say 'my compatriots to divine conspiracy' is 'people with souls'.
What I mean when I say things in general is 'Oh, hello!'. idan_cohen @ 2008-07-01T12:54:00Dear internet,
I am seriously considiring just giving up writing as a bum deal and focusing really hard on my other gift, which is prostitition. I could work on my oral. I could practice my anal. I could bone up on my boning. See what I did there? I just made the best pun possible in the English language. My services as high-class prostitute and linguistic contortionist will be fully affordable to the connoisseur. Call now. Avoid the rush. Link Dump 15.6.08Unorder is a sign of the unordered mind. Anyone who has ever visited me would nod knowingly at this point, jumping over the laundry basket, trying not to trip over any books. Alas, all chaos falls to extropy at last. The apartment is clean, yes! I swear to this, and even all of my books are actually in shelves. But what is this proliferation of bookmarks when opening Explorer? Why! Unorder! I will rectify. Oh, how will I rectify.
*The downloads section of London/internet record label, Highpoint Lowlife.
*Full text of Cory Doctorow's Down & Out In The Magic Kingdom, which I guess really shouldn't surprise me.
*BRUTE!.
*Bikini Bandits?
*Spectrum's complete & suspicious Singularity Issue.
*Royksopp's lovely video for Remind Me.
*Weird Fishes, a weird comic that, so far, isn't it about fishes at all!
*We Tell Stories.
*"In mysticism a tulpa is the concept of a being or object which is created through sheer willpower alone."
*Rock Against Racism; A retropsective;
"'Rock against Racism made it cool to be anti-racist,' says Professor John Street, who has written on the relationship between music and politics. 'Because we had all these bands backing us, we could say that the Nazis are against our music,' says Huddle, 'they want us only to listen to marching bands and Strauss."
*Serendipty, a magazine of Magical Realism.
*Uncovered, by Jordan Matter.
*Full text of John Kessel's The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories.
"One of the guys at those sessions was Radioactive Roy Destry, who had a theory about how we were all living in a computer and none of this was real. Well if this isn't real, I told him, I don't know what real is. The softness of Dot's breast or the shit smell of the crapper in the Highway 28 Texaco, how can there be anything more real than that? Radioactive Roy and the people like him are just looking for an exit door. I can understand that. Everybody dreams of an exit door sometimes. "
*Joe Infurnari's The Process, a beautiful, wonderful, astounding webcomic in progress.
*Alice A. Bailey, wonderwoman or racist asshole? Both?
*The United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff, the famous ruling which decided that it would be a bit problematic to serve process to Satan.
*Nikolai German's ">THE GULAG COLLECTION
*"
Egregore, (also "egregor") is an occult concept representing a "thought form" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation (as a legal entity) and the meme. "
*The Street As Platform, which is beautiful, and ancient by now;
"Across the road, another billboard displays the number of reported burglaries and bag-snatches in the neighbourhood in the last three months, live data direct from the police force systems. This causes several passers-by to feel a touch more anxious than they did a moment ago. Had they walked past a moment before, the billboard would have been displaying information on a forthcoming community sports day at the local park. One of the passers-by would have recognised their son in the video of last year’s winners, running in slow motion under the crisp typography. A moment before and the passers-by would have been subjected to a tortuous promo for a Portuguese avant-garde play currently running at the local theatre, within which a QR code displayed in the top-right hand corner could’ve been read with a mobile phone’s IR reader, delivering the website for the theatre to the phone’s browser." There Is Actually A Word Document Which Has #1 to #60, I'm Not Choosing At RandomScenes Without A Home Theatre (#61);
Marty Birenbaum was not a name you'd expect a dragon to have, but there you go.
S.M. Stirling
Island In The Sea Of Time
Against The Tide Of Years
On The Oceans Of Eternity
Hay, look, it's a Americans-Go-Back-In-Time-And-Kick-Ass series! Gosh! These things are like Kryptonite to me. If you find the right one you can make me accept your hynotic commands, with these nigging sexual undertones. What, don't like at me like that, i'm pretty sure there's a Superman story like that. There probably is. Stop looking at me!
On the Americans-Go-Back-In-Time-&-Kick-Ass scale, this series' score is Lesbians.
Dave Eggers
What Is The What
A horrible, beautiful book, of course of course of course. Valentino Achak Deng is a human being who lives in the world and horrible things happen to him and to other people. And yet and yet! What is wrong with me that I was not inordinantly moved? It is surely something wrong with me. The things that are wrong with Valentino Achak Deng, maybe he doesn't like dogs, they are not relevant. SCORE: conflicted
Neil Strauss
The Game
Shit, is this a wonderful book or a really bad one? I mean, philosiphically speaking. It is a book about one dude's transformation into SuperDude, which is kind of neat. But it is also a book about the objectification of women & acceptance of a lot of meaningless shit as the most meaningful thing in life. It is a book about Neil Strauss and how he had sex with a lot of women! Neil Strauss, unlike basically every character in the book, seems like a good dude to have a beer with. In the most memorable part in the book, he interrupts the scene he is writing to inform the reader that he is having sex right as he is writing that. And the reckless energy of Holy shit, I need to tell someone about this, right now of that scene won me over. I would have two beers with Neil Strauss. You can't argue with honesty. You can't argue with a guy who has had sex while writing a novel. You can only mutter insults under your breath.
Vladamir Nabokov
Lolita
One of the most beautiful books i've ever read. The powerful passion inherant, the characters boring holes in soul & placing their ejecta within for further use. I mean, you know what it is about, I hardly need to explain goddamn Lolita. It is so, it is pretty, I think it is a good book. Yes. This is what I think.
Ian McEwan
Atonement
Atonement is a book about a girl, her sister, a dude & the emotional process of writing fiction. It is written well, fabolously, and plotted out almost perfectly, the characters are people who are real people. Almost. And that's just right, too. It is a good book. And it is not about the Holocaust at all, and I was a little worried. I am always worried about books set in the 1930-1940s in case they are about the Holocaust. This is not. It is about love and it is about fiction & also about, well, atonement.
Sigal Geva
Left At The End Of The World (Hebrew)
This is a book by & about one Israeli chick and her decision to ride around all of Australia on a motorcycle, and what happened when she did. It is not a literary masterpiece, of course of course, it is also almost certainly not completely accurate (Oh, of course, everyone in Australia meets random characters who spout narration for twenty pages!) but it is quite lovely, it is a Road Epic. Things happen, souls lift, limbs are broken, you come out a better person for some reason no one understands at all. I quite enjoyed it.
A Lot Of Dudes
Hellblazer
Yes, all of it.
John Constantine is one of the cooler characters in comics. Even if you've never actually seen him, you've seen his progeny, cousins & brothers. The trenchcoated chain smoking consumately pissed off anti/hero. And if he's really fucking British, five points. I mean, it's just a really awesome concept, you can't argue with this at all. Add magic, and that's like, hey, ten points. Fuck. You've won. I'll ilegally download every one of your issues. No need to thank me.
Lao Tze
Taoi Te Ching
About time, right?
This link is not a reccomendation for the translation of that version, of which I have no clue. I have a lovely translation in Hebrew, which I am only willing to loan if you promise to give it back.
Unknown
The Gospel Of Thomas
The Gospel of Thomas is one of those texts that were thrown out of the original bible back when, I suppose, they were writing it. It might be a Gnostic text; though no one is really sure. It's certainly a more mystic text than most of the New Testament, consisting of numbered sayings by Jesus, in a tone amusingly similair to a collection of the sayings of any random New Age Guru. It is interesting, it is not enlightening, it is something else. I can't, again, say much for this translation i've linked, as I read it in Hebrew.
Dylan Thomas
Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood is a radio play, or 'a play for voices', without a single action annotated, simply words & dreams. It is pretty goddamn lovely, tranquil, strange & true. The inhabitants of some town somewhere are introduced, exist for a few short sweet moments, and then the play ends. Dylan Thomas knew how to write, that asshole. I gave the book away the moment I finished it, but now i'm upset with that, i'd like to reread it. Take it as a reccomendation!
Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha
Oh my, Siddhartha is pretty good. This is what I had to say the day I read it. Somewhere else, on that day, I wrote (among other things);
The movement of the foot is Buddha-nature.
The stretching of the thigh is an orgasm.
Thus it is with Buddha-nature.
Milan Kundera
The Book Of Laughter & Forgetting
This is a very good book, and it is about laughter, and forgetting, and the mania of book writing, and Bohemia. I think you will like it, you specifically, whoever you are.
Not, you know, you.
You know what I mean.
ENOUGH DIGRESSION BECAUSE
THIS
WAS
WHAT I READ
IN APRIL
TIP
YOUR
WAITRESS idan_cohen @ 2008-06-06T18:21:00I've just finished Orson Scott Card's Empire, and I feel really dirty. I'm not talking delightful romp-through-mud dirty here, I'm not even talking enjoyable-yet-questionable-deviant-sexual-act dirty. I'm talking injected-horrible-right-wing-american-politics-into-my-mindstream dirty. I'm talking three showers to feel better. And some enjoyable yet questionable & deviant sexual acts. Together, if possible. Bong Ra - 666MPHHey, folks, has modern life got you down? Are you framing coherent sentences? Are all your concepts aligned in neat rows? Are you feeling sane?
Let me help.
from the notebookThe magican; 'wizard', right, he 'casts spells', right, he can turn you into a frog; what the hell is this? To what does the magican here connect to? What does 'magican' mean, anyway? It means 'One who knows'. Is this an innate knowledge? Surely the description of every wizard mage and sorceror in fiction and history is better termed as 'shaman'. Magic isn't something unreal, something illusory. It's something more real. It's a connection to the axis mundi, link between higher and lower planes, earth and skies, life and other-life. Because the Shaman knows things, the Shaman can do things. A stick will do as well as a wand. A crude drawing as well as an ancient artifact. It's all symbols, isn't it, it's all reality hacking, it's all playing with what you got. It ain't goddamn magic missile. who am i talking to here anywayJesus christ but you're all fucking boring. I've been filled with the inexpressibe, unkenable, unspeakable urge to read some very bad Swords & Sorcery; and i'm not talking Michael Moorcock here, i'm not even talking Terry Brooks bad here. I'm talking Dragonlance fanfiction bad. I'm talking not-ready-for-prime-zine caliber, here. Fuck if me I haven't lost touch since I was 15, though. If only I had known, when I was a 15 year old asshole, that one day I would be filled with this strange junkie urge to read about thieves and princesses.
Anything that features some sort of Thieves Guild would do me nicely, really.
Fuck this all, though, to be honest. I've had a strange day. Jesus, internet, you're not all up to date. Do you even have a clue where i've been this past month? I've been fucking everywhere, internet. Couldn't you have asked? You never call. Joannie's internet sends her a postcard every Hannukah. And what do I get from you? If I only knew any Yiddish, I would use it at you. There were days, internet, there were times when I told you every one of my secrets. If only I had some secrets, I would tell you them now. Do you have any idea how tanned I am, internet? I am orange, I am closing in on bronze. I have a ponytail. Every time I leave a festival and put on a shirt, and this is true, twice in a row so far, someone will give me a shirt. And good shirts, too, these are fancy shirts that are under discussion.
What the fuck have you been up to, internet? I'm asking. You don't need to be passive aggressive anymore. We can work this whole thing out. Random Scenes From Stories I Have Written Theatre1;
He sat down on the chair and looked at her. Her body was sterile, too clean, and she had never looked good in white. Her hair was still in a ponytail. There were huge purple welts all over her body and open sterile wounds with closed sterile bandages on them. She was barely breathing.
"Bella," he said softly, "You look like you've been hit by a truck."
They had told him she could not hear him.
"That's a joke." He said, smiling wanly at her from up closer, very close. "Because you were hit by a truck." She remained as she was, breathing slowly and harshly, machines making mysterious noises from all surrounding.
"You never did have a sense of humour." He muttered.
2;
He knocked on the door in quite a fervor, waking the whole household, and he shouted;
"Achmed Achmed! You have died of a colonic infection, and it is I, Death, come to collect you!"
At this the servants of the house were quite a frightened, and it took quite a while for one of them to peek through a crack in the door and see who it was. This servant, who was quite a bit brighter than might have been thought, examined Doctor Hassan thoroughly, from his previously-worn hat to the rags covering his body to his shoeless feet shod in only socks with holes in them.
"Sir Death," He assayed, "If thou shalt not be offended, I must note that you look just like that beggar who ever sits between the Mosque and the bank, and in fact smell much like him as well."
At this Dr. Hassan neared to the crack in the door, peered through it, and whispered to the servant in a conspiratorial fashion; "Ah, but that is merely a disguise."
"Excuse this humble servant of the recently deceased lord, Achmed Achmed, Sir Death," replied the servant through the crack in the door, "But for what reason would such as you need a disguise?"
"Why!" said Doctor Hassan, offended. "For if I were not disguised, do you think I could have come to this door unmolested? I would be assayed at every corner by a dozen widows, a hundred stillborn mothers, and a thousand owners of deceased cats!"
The servant considered this a while, and at last replied, "But, oh lord of the dry lands, as you have come to gather this vile one's colonic master, why does one of your puissant might require a door be opened to him?"
"Hrmph!" Replied Doctor Hassan. "It's only polite!"
3;
Wisps of cloud were strung like strangelets from every horizon to every horizon, to those who could know at last validating the obtuse mathematics of String Theory. And in a house on a mountain somewhere, in a hundred houses alone with wind blowing knocking on the doors, children were born to the end of the world. And the wind whispered to them;
Welcome to the world, little child.
And everything in the world was dying, though no one could point to the yellowing grass which would signify it, to the sickening animal which could give a reason to the dead, dead certainty.
Welcome home, kid, the wind whispered.
And the children born on the long end of the world were filled. Filled with else. Filled with the long end. Filled, also, because they had already been open, with the Big Thing.
And the sun set, and the sun rose, and nations countries lands and peoples carried on. And the sun set, and the sun rose. And the sun set. And the sun rose.
4;
The food arrived, steaming and bubbling or steaming cold, as per the dish. They were all extravagant and delicious, and they all turned to ash in Gina's mouth when she moved her eyes to the direction of her father. She drank more wine. While fragments of increasingly uncomfortable conversation flipped through the air around her, she idly fell into a fantasy of how this conversation should have gone.
"Oh, Jerry, you seem to have had sex re-assignment surgery, just like you said you would when you ran away from home at 15! I guess we were wrong to think you were just troubled." They would say.
"Yes", she would answer.
"We're very sorry for doubting you all of those years!" her mother would say. Her father would have tears in his eyes. "I go," he would say ponderously, "To commit ritual suicide."
"Bye." Gina would say. Then her mother would write her a check for a million euro. There are naughty words in this post!"I'm cunt crazy!" moaned Mr. Satan, his eyes filling with tears. "I've gone gash-mad, i've turned to the dark side, I can't stop thinking about breasts and nipples and that little wiggly thing!"
Stone pondered this.
"The clitoris?"
"That!" said Mr. Satan, sobbing. "You don't understand what this is like!"
"It seems like", assayed Stone, after again a moment of contemplation, "That you are turning bisexual."
"Oh no!" said Mr. Satan, his hand flung dramatically skywards, "It is far worse than that. I don't even look at men anymore! I think i'm becoming-"
His eyes opened wide and frightened, his mouth barely whispered the dreaded word;
"-straight!"
"Right." Said Stone, unimpressed. "Sure."
"Serious!" exclaimed Mr. Satan. "I haven't fucked a bloke in weeks!"
Stone stared at him silently.
"Well." said Mr. Satan.
"A week."
Stone admitted to himself, solely in his heart of hearts, showing no outward sign of caring, that this was probably a record. He tendered the notion that Mr. Satan was actually serious, examining it thoroughly from all sides, bringing it in to roost with the chickens.
"Have you," He said, stopped, scratched his head. "Have you actually ever had sex with a woman?"
"Not as such." Said Mr. Satan. Stone raised an eyebrow.
"I've had sex with people dressed as women." Explained Mr. Satan.
"Ah." Said Stone.
"Would you like to?" He asked, after a moment's pause.
"How do you even go about it?" Asked Mr. Satan, his eyes plaintive, puppy dogged, delicate eyebrows raised in despair. "My usual method is worthless here!"
Mr. Satan's usual method was sidling close up to his intended target, then looking him straight in the eyes, saying; "Would you like to have sex?" If questioned, he would elaborate depending on what sort of sex he was looking for. In some cases a crowd would gather, and spontaneous applause break out when he had finished explaining what they'd do with the sea cucumber.
"Women are more complicated." Said Stone sadly. "You need, you know. Flowers."
"Flowers?" asked Mr. Satan
"Flowers." Said Stone firmly.
"In which hole?" asked Mr. Satan. meme time o it must be goddamn meme timeBugger me, fuck you, let's all have a orgy in this paragraph. Hey! Stop hogging the lube! Sarah, get off that poor waitress! If you all don't calm down i'm stopping this car right now!
I've not done a meme in quite likely several years, so why the hell not? Stolen from kaura_nighthawk, or c_tiger, or whoever else did this thing, why not? It's about writing and actually not fanfic-based, so I could hardly not do it. Consider it a reprieve from another write whine. Fuck you. I'm stopping this car.
What's the last thing you wrote?
Entry in Travel Log, my slightly insane combination of a journal, novel, and mystic text. Day 25. Today would be Day 28, I believe.
Was it any good?
You try to explain intense spirtual states and have it come out any good, you goddamn questioning asshole.
What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?
Hidden in dank depths, covered from prying glinting eyes, I yet retain in secret folders the first story I ever wrote. I will not deny; it was actually not bad at all, for the first thing I ever wrote. This does not mean I will ever let it out of those rusted chains, those damp dungeon walls. Shall I quote for you, O Questioner, you asshole? Very well.
"You must understand, I did not suddenly turn into superman, spiderman, and batman all rolled into one."
It is a story about one of those Antromorphic Incarnations Of Death. It is called, I swear to god, I was 16; A Man Named Death (or, The Unfinished Anachronism).
Write poetry?
Off the cuff, when the mood or phrase strikes me. Call it 25 or so a year. Or is that a request? Do you want me to write poetry? Let's see;
Here's something about
all these questions;
Just who,
tell me,
who is asking them?
If you get past that, well, here's
a tougher one;
who is
answering them?
But the kicker really is,
try this on
for size;
Just who
the hell
Judges if the answers
are correct?
There. Fuck you.
Angsty poetry?
Oh, though for years I sheltered within its wings I shall not be ashamed to say that I have been free and unprotected from wind and rain for a span of life now. You can only be 17 and 18 so long. I am aware there are those who prove me wrong with this statement.
Most fun character you ever wrote?
Oh, this is a tough one, you wag, you caution of a inquisitor. I think, (and this only after great thought) that it must be Gina, of Like A Stone fame, that great big black cursing transexual with love for all human beings (as long as you're very generous on 'all'). Yes. This is my decision, and I stand by it.
Most annoying character you ever wrote?
Fred's wife, from The Dragon's Thorn, Sword Of Kings (& Fred). Nag, nag, nag, nag! Jesus, Fred's wife. Jesus. What kind of bad stereotype are yo- oh shi
Best plot you ever wrote?
I'm not really sure how you define 'best' here. I think the plot concept I like best is, strangely enough, that of the first chapter of NightWalkers (a comic), simple as it is. Two wanderers somehow find themselves somewhere- else. Simple, direct, done. I like it.
Coolest plot twist you ever wrote?
The one in The Storytelling Ape, of course.
How often do you get writer's block?
Very rarely, to be honest. I get something else, I get creative gridlock. I get bored too quickly, and have to work very hard to plow on through.
How do you fix it?
I type words in until it is done.
Do you type or write by hand?
Type. Writing by hand is so slow, I can't keep up with my rate of thought and become intensely frustrated.
Do you save everything you write?
Most everything. Some of it is just utter goddamn trash.
Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?
Yes. I rewrite the whole damn thing, then let it sizzle over an open fire for a few years, and then I rewrite it again.
What's your favorite thing that you've written?
A Dream Of Movement, the everpresent novel in everprogress. It is meaningful, goddamnit.
What's everyone else's favorite thing that you've written?
Fuck if I know. You tell me.
Do you ever show people your work?
Constantly.
Who's your favorite constructive critic?
Christ, good question. I should probably get some more constructive critics, shouldn't I? Volunteers, please to form line.
Did you ever write a novel?
In goddamn progress.
Have you ever written fantasy, sci-fi, or horror?
Fantasy parodies, fantasy meta-narrative, various variants of sci-fi, precisely one flash fic that probably counts as horror. So; yes?
Ever written romance or teen angsty drama?
Only when I was a teen and angsty.
What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?
Bodice rippers. No, seriously; Self help books. Okay, really seriously;
epic fantasy with maps. Actually, wait, I have a novel like that. Um; actually serious military sci-fi. I think that'll do.
How many writing projects are you working on right now?
Somewhere between six and twelve.
Do you want to write for a living?
I do.
Have you ever written something for a magazine or newspaper?
Not for, but i've surely sold to. Oh, oh, and I did write for a newspaper one week.
Have you ever won an award for your writing?
No, but feel free to give me one.
Ever written something in script or play format?
Broken Colours, a ballet libretto for a friend.
What is your favorite word?
'Plinth'. Go on, pronounce it while looking at the mirror. Or get a young lady to do it for you. You'll see what I mean.
Do you ever write based on yourself?
Define. I've never written a character based on myself, as in I consciously put personality traits of my own within him/her. But I am who I am, of course my point of view is expressed through my characters, I have no other. These are the things that interest me, so I write about them.
Which of your characters most resembles you?
They're almost all some sort of fragment. Let's call it Stone, of Like A Stone. Though I did not intend it, he has become somewhat of a parody of myself. So, sure, why not.
Where do you get ideas for your characters?
The sun, the moon, the wind, the internet, the trees, music, other works of fiction, butterflies, cow shit, idle fantasies, wherever ideas come from.
Do you ever write based on your dreams?
Occasionally I get a good plot fragment or idea out of them, but only once did I actually sit down and write down a plot based on barely remembered pieces of a dream. And that's one transformed since then to something else altogether.
Do you prefer happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?
Neither. Absurdist cut-endings. With a punchline, if applicable.
Have you ever written anything based on an artwork you've seen?
Yes. What Happened That Day, And How The Desert Felt About It Afterwards is based on this cover.
Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
Not consciously, no.
Ever write something entirely in chatspeak?
Why- why would I?
Does music help you write?
Of course. Music is a mood setter, an emotional opener. Works best for poetry or song-writing, I find, but as I live constantly with music on it may effect me far more than I am aware.
Are people surprised and confused when they find out you write well?
"Why, Idan, I thought for sure you had all the writing skills of a six year old autistic from Cambodia!"
Bonus question: What is your favorite point of view to write with (first person, second person, third person, third person omniscient)?
Shieeet, boy, first preson present represent.
Quote something you've written.
From A Holocaust Story;
Ofir and Chai were on their knees looking at a rusted bicycle with a bright pink bow on the handlebars. "What you looking at?" I asked, squeezing into my accepted position between them.
"I have a bike just like this." Chai said quietly. "Just like it."
"It's fifty years old," I told him. "It's probably older than your granddad."
He looked at me so suddenly I almost fell. "My granddad was our age fifty years ago." Chai was always good at math. I copied off him on math tests. Ofir said, "Maybe it was your granddad's bike."
We all looked at the rusty shell of a childhood, that absurdly new bow on the back suddenly flowing back as if there was a wind, then settling back. I thought of my bike, with five gears and an air-gell cushion and everything.
"My granddad never rode a bike." Said Chai.
"It still can't be just like yours." Ofir said, anxious to prove a point. Ofir was like that; Ofir liked to prove things. "It's really old." We both turned our eyes on Chai, waiting to see what he'd say.
"Yeah." He said. "Probably." based on real life eventsHorrible Fact Seven Five Four Ten;
Every time I read journal comics I want to make some journal comics and I don't think that would be a good thing to do.
I think you see my point. Fuck you all, I am kingIt's been a hellish of a month, scavvered, dirty-full. Yesterday I rocked out at a Goergian pub in Tel Aviv, later we sat with the staff beneath a pink neon sign which writ; To The Place Where Your Heart Lies, I Have Yet To Travel. Meditation in the grass on Rotchild, who cares if stared. The movement is thus; open hands, acceptance, connection to heart chakra. Also; form two triangles on your body, upper and lower, then connect them at the heart. If work hard enough ecstatic orgasm possible. On Wednesday I was told by a young man with two feathers in his hair that the eldest souls are returning to earth after a long trip through the galaxy through black holes. Last week I constantly hugged someone and only when leaving realized we had never exchanged any words at all, not even told each other our names. Excuse my expulsion. A new concept for today is the techno-hippie, the in-linked up-loaded nature boy dirty in indian position in great ancient forest, what is his vibe? Yesterday another one I forgot, it was a good one as well. I am not mad, I am simply expulsing. I've started a journal, a travel log, i am transferring all of it to a single gray-brown notebook, gray is a good colour I was told sometime this weekend, I was wearing it. I am wearing a bracelet for a party in the future. I wrote a long form Stone & Gina story, I did, it is called Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig, who the hell knows what to do with it, I spent seven hours at a train station, I danced until it rained last Saturday. Something is happening in June, I constantly check my email, I built a Tunisian mud stove, I read that poem about dwarves in vaginas in public from the top of my head, and that didn't help at all, it is still too far away. I swear I am not mad. I have some things to say and I plan to say them. I plan to say them until I am even more hoarse than I am, until I cannot find any notes higher than the heart, i'm not even sure what that means, but i'm going to repeat it. My hair is getting long enough. I am constantly snapping my fingers. Hello. Have you had a good month? cover letter theatre never stops rockingCover letter of the month;
Dear [REDACTED],
Cheers, you hep cats, you jive kittens. I have attached to this email four things, and I hope it is appropriate. (1) is your filled in cover sheet, (2) through (4) are the pieces (in this case three poems) I am submitting. I hope this is allright. I hope it is allright they are in MS Word without two inch things at the side and double spacing and all of those things I really couldn't say I have a clue how to do. I also hope all the peoples come to love one another. And if I am elected Beauty Queen I will work to save the dolphins.
yrs,
Idan Cohen
I think this one is really a shoe in.
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