Fly leaf as fig leaf
Aug. 24th, 2009 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusSeptember is the big American month for our big American books. When I say "our", I mean Tao Lin, Nick Cave and myself, and when I say "books" I mean novels. Cave's sophomore effort The Death of Bunny Munro comes out in the US on the 1st, and on the 15th Tao Lin publishes Shoplifting From American Apparel. The same day, my debut The Book of Jokes comes out.
This morning I received finished copies of The Book of Jokes. My first impression was that they are made of paper, which is odd, because the book was put together on a computer screen, two years ago. Paper doesn't shine as brightly as a computer screen, you have to get used to that. There's a faint scent of paper and ink, of course. The back cover mentions Rabelais, Martial and Boccaccio as my peers and references, which is odd but nice. They're a sexy bunch, and so are Cave and Lin.
Without even bothering to dress, I snapped a couple of pictures of myself proudly holding my novel. I held it like a fig leaf, covering my genitals, because for me culture does that; it covers our genitals, blurs our primal instincts, softens our shove.
So now I have to think about promotion. I'm not nearly as inventive a self-promoter as Tao Lin, who's currently selling his stuff on eBay (including this nice moleskin journal) in a bid to draw attention to a novel about shoplifting he financed innovatively by selling shares (he raised $12,000 by selling six 10% shares at $2000 each).
Nick Cave, meanwhile, is issuing a 7-CD / DVD set of himself reading the whole of his new book. I actually was supposed to shrinkwrap a CD of some sort with the French edition of my novel, but talked the publishers out of it, because I wanted the book to stand on its own as a book, not as a side project from a musician.
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Nick Cave has already done a bunch of readings from Bunny Munro, and run excerpts in Vice magazine. Oh, wait, I've also done readings from The Book of Jokes! It's just that they happened so long ago it seems like another era, another life. Two years ago I read this one:
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And one year ago I performed an artier reading at Tranzit/Display Gallery in Prague:
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On September 17th I'll do a performance reading a bit like the Tranzit/Display one at Staalplaat Working Space in Berlin, too. Still deciding whether to wear clothes or not.
This morning I received finished copies of The Book of Jokes. My first impression was that they are made of paper, which is odd, because the book was put together on a computer screen, two years ago. Paper doesn't shine as brightly as a computer screen, you have to get used to that. There's a faint scent of paper and ink, of course. The back cover mentions Rabelais, Martial and Boccaccio as my peers and references, which is odd but nice. They're a sexy bunch, and so are Cave and Lin.
Without even bothering to dress, I snapped a couple of pictures of myself proudly holding my novel. I held it like a fig leaf, covering my genitals, because for me culture does that; it covers our genitals, blurs our primal instincts, softens our shove.
So now I have to think about promotion. I'm not nearly as inventive a self-promoter as Tao Lin, who's currently selling his stuff on eBay (including this nice moleskin journal) in a bid to draw attention to a novel about shoplifting he financed innovatively by selling shares (he raised $12,000 by selling six 10% shares at $2000 each).
Nick Cave, meanwhile, is issuing a 7-CD / DVD set of himself reading the whole of his new book. I actually was supposed to shrinkwrap a CD of some sort with the French edition of my novel, but talked the publishers out of it, because I wanted the book to stand on its own as a book, not as a side project from a musician.
[Error: unknown template video]
Nick Cave has already done a bunch of readings from Bunny Munro, and run excerpts in Vice magazine. Oh, wait, I've also done readings from The Book of Jokes! It's just that they happened so long ago it seems like another era, another life. Two years ago I read this one:
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And one year ago I performed an artier reading at Tranzit/Display Gallery in Prague:
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On September 17th I'll do a performance reading a bit like the Tranzit/Display one at Staalplaat Working Space in Berlin, too. Still deciding whether to wear clothes or not.
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Re: Out of Your Brilliant Mind
Date: 2009-08-24 01:02 pm (UTC)Martin Fry
Hmm. Seems like a nice man, but I don't like the ironic-heroic tone of his breakthrough material, that sort of quoted Ferry-sob, the gold suit, the MONEYLUSTBEAUTYSTAB 80s glitz of it all. I know he probably hated Thatcher, but it all feels (and felt) a bit Thatcherite.
Ali Campbell
Awful, awful, awful. If I hear Red Red Wine one more time, blood will spill. (Hope you're not him!)
Roland Orzabal
Tears For Fears were pretty good. I love the bit in Mad World when there's a sort of gamelan interlude. I also like that Roland was seeking to conduct a sort of public self-psychoanalysis through his songwriting. Their Beatles pastiche Seeds of Love is one of the better ones, up there with ELO's Mr Blue Sky.
Nik Kershaw
He was the white Stevie Wonder before Jamiroquai, wasn't he? There's a bit of a Ford Escort feeling to his work. Clearly talented, but not my cuppa.
Nick Heyward
When my band signed to 4AD, we were split between being The Birthday Party and being Haircut 100. I actually used to get mistaken for Nick Heyward a lot on buses and boats. There was a certain amount of resentment from the Postcard people I hung out with about Nick H and Lloyd Cole making more commercial versions of their sound, but, you know, it happens (it still happens, with Franz Ferdinand and Bricolage (http://www.myspace.com/bricolagetheband) and so on).
Jim Irvin (Furniture)
This is you, isn't it? Didn't Furniture have a hit with Driving Away From Home? Wasn't there a member of XTC involved? At one point it seemed like they could have been the British Talking Heads. I quite liked them. Oh, no, fuck, that's It's Immaterial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uwtzINMDCQ)! Okay, this is Furniture:
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It is you, isn't it? This is the first time I've heard it! The YouTube vid is glitchy!
Colin Vearncombe (Black)
I probably would've liked to have a hit like Wonderful Life (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqJ4N6Z7l00) at the time, but now it sounds horrible, cocktail-bar slick, insurance-ad glib. It's almost as annoying as Red, Red Wine.
Re: Out of Your Brilliant Mind
Date: 2009-08-24 01:41 pm (UTC)I like your frank opinions, thank you. I saw your Cherry Red interview after tuning into the Survival Records story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVQXDNPAjJo
Re: Out of Your Brilliant Mind
Date: 2009-08-24 02:05 pm (UTC)