A Personal Favorite Artist
Daiki Suzuki, designer at Engineered Garments and Woolrich. I just really liked this photo.
Photo for Rig Out magazine. Source: Selectism
Nate East
Category: Uncategorized
November 17, 2009
Books and Albums 11/17/09
I’ve been doing too much reading and not enough writing lately. SOO here are some books and records I have read/listened-to in the past week or so!
Picked Richard Lange’s short story collection up last weekend at Green Apple and literally could not stop reading it. I stayed up super late Sunday night, read it on trains etc and then all night Monday too. I would say that this is “the best” short story collection I have ever read. At least personally I would prefer this even to Dubliners (haha).
But seriously. The stories are about LA, they’re extremely depressing and hardcore, and each one grabs the reader in a strangle-hold and doesn’t let go. Read the reviews and believe the hype. Lange even references the band The Dead Boys in some end notes.
And some music! Click the albums if you’re interested.
November 13, 2009
Ravine camp with crates arranged in a half moon
I saw the satyr eyelashes and forearm chalk
and gold rings through his nostrils so I asked
Did you travel here from the swamp village
because I stayed there once, in the wooden houses
your people built above the mire.
I also recognized the cloth of his scarf
the purple and orange yarn I saw knotted
on scrub oak and bayonet cactus in the foothills.
They traveled when the snow melted and the grass
was not yet folded by sleeping deer.
November 11, 2009
Kind of Mish-Mash Update
I posted a small story here the other day, but took then took it down since I ended up using a piece of it for a submission. I’ll hear back soon though, and then I’ll throw it back up, WITH IMPROVEMENTS!
In the meantime here are some things I’ve been checking out lately:
1. Miranda July‘s short story collection. Very fun read, although I have to say that for the style of “hipster yuppie disaffected Berkeley vegan etc” fiction I probably prefer Tao Lin. Very cool nonetheless.
2. This novel by Tao Lin. It’s the second book I’ve read by him, and compared to SFAA (see previous post) it’s a lot funnier (I actually laughed out loud a couple times reading it) and also more intensely emotional. Stylistically much more like a “novel” rather than a pure transcription of Tao’s thoughts. Both are great. Check ’em out!
and I’m currently reading an unbelievable short story collection by Richard Lange, which I’ll post a more in-depth thing on later, for sure. Really devastating so far. Devastating in a good way. Also working through one of Bolano’s poetry collections.
And finally for some music I’ve been listening to a lot lately. All recent purchases. Click the albums if you’re curious!
October 29, 2009
News + Music + Books
In honor of Halloween, I posted a very short ghost story I wrote a few weeks ago below – scroll down to check it out! “Aguilas Range.” Additionally, one of my flash fiction pieces was accepted at The Northville Review, and will be posted sometime in the next few months. I’ll link it up when it’s live.
I recently started reading Swann’s Way by our friend Proust, but took a quick break to discover, buy and read Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin, a 26-year old Brooklyn author, which led me to hella google Mr. Lin, read a bunch of interviews, and even peruse his children’s books site. Lin is so interesting to me because it seems like he’s achieved a veritable “writer’s dream” at a very young age: through somewhat absurd(ist) publicity stunts but also a really interesting writing style, he’s managed to make a big enough name for himself that he now writes full time. This is also very cool when considered through the whole death-of-print-death-of-lit-death-of-art lens.
To summarize the above paragraph, I’ve been talking about nothing but Tao Lin for the past few days and I’m sure everyone’s sick of it. Okay moving on. Oh also his book is really good and you should read it.
In terms of writing I’ve got lotsa material, but all in submissions queue. As always, if you want to read any of the new stuff please let me know! I just don’t want to post it here, because some sites/journals count that as “already published.”
Finally, I bought these three albums over the weekend and have been loving all of them. The Microphones one is especially notable for having, like all records and CDs from PW Elverum & Sun, amazing packaging with tons of cool photos taken by the musician. Word.
*Note: gnarly new black-and-white photos by jess.
October 29, 2009
Aguilas Range
When I was thirteen and still lived in the desert I saw a ghost woman at the top of a dry waterfall in the foothills. I was resting on a rock when she crawled out of the scrub-oak bushes on her hands and knees not ten feet away from me. She hurriedly stood up and her plaid dress was shredded and dotted with cactus spines. I knew she was dead because her clogs didn’t make any sound in the gravel as she stepped over to me and her eyes were white and porous like dried coral. She stared down at me silently but I said “there are better violets down the trail by the watering hole; it’s dug out of the dirt; coyote and black bear tracks. The best flowers are there” and I pointed to the west with my whole arm.
October 18, 2009
Published piece! and some photos and music
In super exciting news, Dogzplot recently posted a piece of mine titled “Downtown” in their flash fiction section! I really dig their layout/works-published, and am planning to continue to submit more short pieces there. Check it out at Dogzplot 🙂
In other news, my friend J and I took a short trip to Santa Cruz to get some coastal-nature/peaceful-rest/out-of-the-city time, and this was pretty much the best trip I could’ve hoped for. Reading writing and wandering around the coast. Some snaps:
In terms of writing news, I’ve been hard at work on a new set of poems for submission. The rejections have been steadily rolling in on my last batch, which (in a way) is good because when that is complete, I can post them all here! Anyhow, I’ve got high hopes for the next batch: been focusing much harder on editing & tightness so maybe they’ll turn out rad.
Finally, I recently bought the ultra-essential Untrue album by Burial, and have been really really loving it. This led me to a very interesting interview with the man himself at Hyperdub. My favorite quotes:
“… I like Underground tunes that are true and mongrel and you see people trying to break that down, alter its nature. Underground music should have its back turned, it needs to be gone, untrackable, unreadable, just a distant light.”
“The moodiness made the tunes, not me. Now when I listen to them, they’re ramshackle, DIY and rolling but I know there is a thing trapped in them so that when I look back on them, even if its dry, I know when it was made, I know what was going on that day, its like stapling real life to the side of the tune.”
9: And the drawing on the front of the new album.
Burial: “I’ve been drawing that same one since I was little. Just some moody kid with a cup of tea sitting at the 24 hour stand in the rain in the middle of the night when you are coming back from somewhere.”
October 12, 2009
some news
No big updates this week for this site, but I’m continuing to submit stuff to websites/journals that’s mostly new flash fiction (really short stories.) Shoot me an email if you’re interested in checking out stuff that’s been submitted- there’s tons of it!
As for news, there’s a really great new post on the Poetry Foundation’s blog, Harriet. It’s written by Edwin Torres and is just hella beautiful and cool. Check it out here.
Artist and photographer Sam Owen recently took a road trip, which he documented with a bunch of new photos on his website. If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out everything in the photography section of his site; my favorites are the instax essays, which are each shot around a certain theme. Hella cool.
September 7, 2009
Excerpt from a story I’m working on
And so I wanted to rip all these longings out of me and just cry at his feet and ask why the cruelness of the granite hills hadn’t spoken to me loud enough, why a hundred years of train screeches and pit fires in the woods outside Olympia had passed me by faster than the sun in Bryce Canyon flees the creeping shadows, dashed like the two stags we ran after through the flickering pines who kept looking over their shoulders with black winking eyes like coyote spirits, and mostly what I needed to do now as the rivers lowered, the orange leaves fell thicker over the washes and deer paths and the granite cliffs pushed faster and higher up headlong into the sand-colored skies.
September 3, 2009
Hi!
I’m planning to use this site (blog?) as a place to list my contact information, and post periodic updates about my writing and ‘zines. Thanks for visiting; get in touch!
Nate East 