Friday, July 30, 2021

curiosity cabinet

"Gone were the days when he would give absurd accounts of his worldwide travels or when he would indulge his fondness for irony and sarcasm and deploy all his theatrical talents in merciless accounts of his family, whose contempt had hardened into hatred and whom he described as a curiosity cabinet containing a collection of Catholic-Jewish-Nazi specimens. Nothing he now had to offer had the whiff of the big wide world, as they say; there was only the odor of wretchedness and death. His clothes, though as elegant as ever, no longer made the same debonair impression or aroused the same unfailing admiration: they seemed shabby and threadbare, like anything he still ventured to say."

~~ from Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Novel Excerpts

Spark Park

"Uncle Sam's Decline": An Excerpt from Spark Park, The Airgonaut, September 2022

"Persecuting the Poet": An Excerpt from Spark Park, Malarkey Books, June 2021

"Night Shift": An Excerpt from Spark Park, Revolution John, April 2021

Auggie's Revenge

from Part I, Chapter 3: "Be Patient, Rover" at American, British and Canadian Studies

Part I, Chapters 1-3: Auggie's Revenge Sample at Beating Windward Press

Part I, Chapter 9: "Uncle Sam's Blood Money" at When Falls the Coliseum

Fight for Your Long Day

Chapter 3: "Away from Therapy and then South and West" at Atticus Books 

Short Stories

"Going to Hell," Soyos Books, November 11, 2023

"An Amazing Turn," New Oxford Review, January-February 2023

"On the Plane," in Zeitgeist: Stories Capturing Different Eras in the Vast Expanse of Time, December 2022

"Early Morning Train," Humans of the World, June 2022

"An Old Friend Called," Lighthouse Weekly, March 2022

"A Thanksgiving," Eclectica Magazine, July 2021

"Bombing From Above," Heavy Feather Review, June 2020

"Over Fifty Billion Kafkas Served," Eclectica Magazine, October 2019 "Awash in Barach and Bolano," The Agonist, July 2019

"About Your Status," Monkeybicycle, June 2019 "Free Car," Heavy Feather Review, September 2018 "My Father's Great Recession," Heavy Feather Review, March 2018

"Frade Killed Ellen," Dutch Kills Press, July 2015

"Turquoise Truck," Mendicant Bookworks, September 2015

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

honest teacher

"An honest teacher would bring about the extinction of the entire teaching profession. An honest teacher would obliterate every illusion, practice, and malpractice that keeps this edifice of teaching in place, I thought."

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Nitzsche from Philadelphia

"Though George E. Nitzsche of Philadelphia did not express Bachmuller's sense of debased surroundings, his letter [to Nietzsche's sister] similarly shows a self longing for exaltation and connection. It was quite literally, Nietzsche to whom he sought to cleave himself: 'My name, as you will see from the above letterhead, is one of the few Nitzsches in America--probably the only one. Unfortunately, my grandparents, in a legal document, left out the "e," and the error was perpetuated. However, I am proud of the name, and that probably my ancestors came from the same stock as you and your illustrious brother.' In an effort to sketch out the possible trunk of their mutual family tree, Nitzsche went on to tell the woman he hoped was a not-so-distant cousin about the Moravian and Bohemian roots of their people, and how his branch of the Ni[e]tzsche family immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1739."

Saturday, July 3, 2021

conversation was the firebrand

"Senzar was an Indo-Oxford product, and was now in America studying engineering. Of course, he was a fanatic patriot, but his words were very much in the clouds, you could not make out whether he intended to go back to India or not. So long as he kept silent, Senzar looked handsome, poetic and sad. And at first he kept silent, rolling around the splendid melancholy of his great dark eyes, so silent that everybody was sympathetic, thinking him shy. But with Senzar it was not shyness. His idea of conversation was the firebrand, elemental attack, mortal combat. On any subject he was ready to die. He was just looking around for an opponent. I do not know if English domination has made Hindus that wayI suppose sofor most of them are ready to go off at a moment's notice. Anyhow, Hindus and Far-Easterners did not get along well together in Boston schools. It is thought by some Orientals that Hindus lack humor and proportion. What Hindus think of other Orientals, I do not know. But Senzar soon fastened on me as his opponent. Suddenly he began questioning me about my college."

Friday, July 2, 2021

The Buyer

"To be a buyer is the dream of every clerk in every department store in America. And I was in almost the biggest one of all. Boshnack's sold the littlest thing as well as the biggest. There were buyers for needles, for rugs, for books, for china, for airplanes. Each buyer was given so many inches of space in the big store. This was his kingdom. Just like a small proprietor, he paid for all that went into his space, and kept track through his clerks of all that went out . . . except that he made no profits. In his department he was looked up to almost as much as Mr. Boshnack himself. When he passed, the underlings said in a hushed voice, "The Buyer!"

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Book Reviews for Fight for Your Long Day

Genealogies of Modernity " Fight for Your Long Loud Laughs " by Jeffrey Wald at Genealogies of Modernity (January 2022) The Chron...