Today I am playing a trick on you. Ha! Good one. The next Guided By Voices album is finished, and it’s (obviously) great, and you can’t hear it until I believe May. It’s called Class Clown Spots A UFO. Which is an old song made new again through the magic of [...]
Forthcomingness
On February 8, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In abstract rendition of a definite condition, Detective, The Power of Suck, The Rattling Wall, Vermin on the Mount
Forthcomingness = There are a couple of upcoming events in which the legion of North of Onhava readers might be interested, be you of the literary or rockerary persuasion.
The first is a return visit to Jim Ruland’s legendary Vermin on the Mount reading series, this time pitting contributors from The [...]
The Time I Bled All Over The Place
On January 5, 2012 · 7 Comments · In abstract rendition of a definite condition, anecdotage, blood vs. rock
[Editor's note: I'm re-running this piece from the vast North of Onhava archives in celebration of Guided By Voices' appearance on Letterman the other night, during the course of which bass player/lawyer Greg Demos fell on his ass. That's actually a quote from Greg to Mr. Letterman: "I fell on my [...]
Joyland Retro
On January 5, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In Joyland, light creatures in the gloaming, literary anthologies, literary magazines, short fiction
The excellent literary site Joyland, which describes itself as a “hub for short fiction” because it’s a hub for short fiction, has come out with the first of a planned biannual series of print journals consisting of pieces that have previously appeared on the site. The first Joyland Retro (it’s retro [...]
Holiday Largesse
On December 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In abstract rendition of a definite condition, anecdotage, Guided By Voices, James Greer, The Power of Suck
Since I have a lot of work to do, still, even though it’s Christmas Eve, and won’t be able to post anything here for a while, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share an old Guided By Voices song that has never been properly released: It’s called “Pantherz,” and it was meant to be [...]
Or at least, he claims that his blog will do so. And today, he wrote some very kind words about my second novel The Failure, so I’m inclined to believe him. But you, having free will (or so you’ve been led to think), may choose to feel [...]
This is a picture of Berlin. It is unrelated to the story below.
[Editor's note: a version of this story appeared in my friend Sébastien Doubinsky's excellent bi- or tri-lingual periodical Zaporogue, which you can find here. Seb has at least two books forthcoming from the excellent Black Coffee [...]
To the right of this post you will notice a list of upcoming dates, times and places at which I will be appearing along with some much more talented people. The occasion is the publication of an anthology of stories called The Speed Chronicles, edited by Joseph Mattson, and [...]
I received this note recently from a friend, and I’m re-posting it here in the hope of spreading the message as quickly and effectively as possible.
From the Public Art Defense League, operating in conjunction with Occupy LA:
Greetings. This is Travis Wilkerson writing to you on behalf of the Public Art Defense League–a newly-formed [...]
Items of Great Interest
On November 14, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In abstract rendition of a definite condition, advertising, Bookforum, James Greer, literary magazines, prosimetrum, Slake
A few items of interest to readers of North of Onhava, and possibly to normal people, too:
1. An excerpt from my novel-in-progress is available for your reading pleasure at Joyland NYC. As far as I can tell, it’s set in a kind of pre-apocalyptic Paris, and contains at least two characters who [...]
For those who might have missed the announcement, I urge you to jump on this, especially the 7″ ones, because they will go very, very quickly.
Via Rockathon Records:
“LET’S GO EAT THE FACTORY
Amazing new album from the reunited classic GBV line-up.
Available from Rockathon January 1, in [...]
Slow News Day
On October 27, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In abstract rendition of a definite condition, advertising, James Greer
Slow News Day is not a bad band name. It’s also not a good band name. It’s kind of a middling-to-fair band name. Glad we cleared that up. Here are some Slow News items, beginning with another band name:
Memento Mori
On October 25, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In abstract rendition of a definite condition, Adventures in Idiocy, Guided By Voices, James Greer, Spin, The Failure
Apparently I wrote an article for the 1,225th Anniversary issue of Spin Magazine, which occurred in May of 2010. I mean, I did write an article, but I totally forgot. And I have never in my life paid for a copy of Spin, so. Luckily, an obscure internet startup called Google has taken it upon [...]
The Decision Tree
On October 16, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In James Greer, light creatures in the gloaming, proselet, solutions
Prologue
Low light slants through a bower of maple branches onto the roof and dirt-spattered windshield of a car parked on the red clay driveway. No wind stirs, and the mosaic of shadow slides by imperceptible degrees from the blue roof of the parked car to the tawny drive, crawling from there [...]
Guided By Voices – Trendspotter Acrobat
On October 13, 2011 · 7 Comments · In abstract rendition of a definite condition, Guided By Voices, James Greer, The Power of Suck
I’ve told the story of writing and recording this song for the album-length EP Sunfish Holy Breakfast (Matador, 1996) before, but I’m going to tell it again now, for reasons that will become clear sometime early next year.
I take inordinate pride in being one of only a handful—not even an adult handful, more like [...]
Quote of the Day
On October 10, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In #booksthatchangedmyworld, I'm not sure that I believe in time, John Barth, math, Quote of the Day, The Sot-Weed-Factor
We sit here on a blind rock careening through space; we are all of us rushing headlong to the grave. Think you the worms will care, when anon they make a meal of you, whether you spent your moment sighing wigless in your chamber, or sacked the golden tombs of Montezuma? Lookee, the [...]
Unrest in London
On October 9, 2011 · 4 Comments · In bad photography, great rock bands of the united states, Imperial f.f.r.r., Unrest
l-r Phil Krauth, Bridget Cross, Mark Robinson Had I a better sense of timing, or any sense at all, really, I would have posted this photo during the late unpleasantness in London. And even though it wouldn’t have been funny then, either, at least it would have had some kind of topical relevance. [...]
Yeah, right. I mean, I could do that, but that would sort of be unweaving the rainbow, and everybody (and Keats) knows better.
And now, something from the archives:
I was so much older then. We went and played Maxwell’s in Hoboken after this taping, and ran through the entire list of songs [...]
Apparently he was commsissioned to make this for the 2011 Viennale, and probably I’m posting something that a) everybody’s already seen already and b) everybody already knows is some kind of almost self-parodic absurdly creepy stuttering anti-narrative larded with semi-ominous signs & symbols intended either to make fun of himself or of us. Or both. [...]
Well, if CNN and (everyone else is) going to ignore this, it must be worth watching. But I’ll let you decide for yourselves:
Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com
Rufous Knicks, rampant in blue serge suit and hairs-cut, stepped down the wobbly back shell of Forever Corner like a king descending to court. That or another like sentence would mark well to begin this history in old days whereof I have understood some, having lived for petty times in that [...]
Matter and Memory
On September 28, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In a clumsy example of irony, abstract rendition of a definite condition, Bergson, memories of memory, The Failure
Is your name Hyacinth? Do you bloom in pairs?
I ask a flower question I expect the leaves to turn.
There’s blood in the dirt. There’s an easier road
To the moss-covered ruin, where for a few months
We didn’t sleep from fear of sprayed guts
[...]
Final GBV Show, Hopscotch Music Festival, Raleigh NC 9/9/11, Photo: Daniel Coston
I apologize if the air of secrecy around what some people are given to call “Greer’s blog deal” has caused anyone breathing problems, but certain things are worth waiting for. I hope you’ll agree. According to MOJO magazine, [...]
Mansion of the Aching Hearts
On September 19, 2011 · 3 Comments · In Paris, proselet, The Failure, W.I.P., we are all immortal now
What was I born for? thought Thomas, sitting at his desk, copying the last few lines of his work. What was anybody born for?
The sun had long since floated past the lid of his window, over the gray slate roof, and begun to set. [...]
I could break the shell of myself, if you want, or you could try to fail. Here’s how the thing works: some injustice must be left un-righted. Some tumescent flaw must be kept in the perfectly silvered surface of your Venetian mirror, set in the bark of a living tree.
In a [...]
Protestant Desire
On September 16, 2011 · 9 Comments · In proselet, signs and symbols, Tarkovsky, the subliminal topography of failure
From the vast North of Onhava archives:
“Full of grace my ass. Every one of them too goddamn tall. And doubtless crazy as swans. ” The young man was annoyed. He banged his bottle on the wet wood of the bar.
“Perhaps that’s true, but you didn’t stick around long enough [...]
In with the good, out with the bad. But it’s not air of which the teacher speaks. Something more valuable. Essence. Out with ignorance, in with wisdom. Knowledge of the self means knowledge of things hidden in plain sight. When you can see what’s in front of you these hidden things will [...]
Gardenias. Heavy scent borne on the evening breeze, through two windows facing the street. The red Mercedes had seemed to come out of nowhere.
“Listen. I met a girl.”
In fading sun the row of bougainvillea overflowing chain link fence across the street flushes pinkly, nodding (sweet, demure) at passersby.
“I love [...]
[Editor's note: I have taken down Angry Pillows, which is not as much fun as it sounds. I hope you enjoyed it while it was there.]
Another track from the (possibly) first ever recorded Guided By Voices qua Guided By Voices non-release Pissing In The Canal (1983). This one’s called “Angry Pillows (Gone Away),” and [...]
The Man Called Marriage
On September 7, 2011 · 1 Comment · In James Greer, short fiction, short story, The Failure, The Trivium is not trivia
As many of you know the trivium derives from the introductory curriculum in many medieval universities, where it involved the study of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The word is Latin in derivation, perhaps obviously, and literally means the place where three (tri-) roads (via) meet. Our modern word trivia is loosely, [...]
Moriae Encomium
On September 5, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Anatomy of Melancholy, Artificial Light, Democritus, Jean-Pierre Melville
“[I] laugh at the vanities and the fopperies of the time, to see men so empty of virtuous actions, to hunt so far after gold, having no end of ambition; to take such infinite pains for a little glory, and to be favoured of men…. Some to desire to be obeyed in [...]
A resident of England for much of his adult life, a professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia, Sebald was obviously fluent enough, 35 years after arriving in his adopted homeland, to write in English had he wished. His stated reason for not doing so, in an interview given (in [...]
Inspired by the example of my betters, here’s a short film I made in France. It was shot at the Château D’hérouville, about an hour outside of Paris, which was once a famous recording studio – the “Honky Chateau” of Elton John fame – but is now overgrown and mostly a ruin. I [...]
I posted this a while back, around the time the novel was published, but I thought I’d re-post it here today because a) I’m really busy and don’t have time to find anything more interesting to post, much less actually write about something, and b) upon re-watching it, I remembered that it’s really good, due [...]
I was cleaning up my office, sifting through files, books, CDs, DVDs, piles of rocks, and a pile of rock, when I uncovered something interesting. It’s an unreleased studio recording of Robert Pollard and Stephanie Sayers (who also provided the music, devoted fans may remember, for “People Are Leaving” from Bob’s second solo album, [...]
I wrote this story long before the movie franchise of the same title appeared. I’m not saying the movie people stole the idea from me, even though I’m pretty sure I invented hangovers, but if Zach Galliafinakopolisopoulous wants to kick a couple of euros my way for, you know, “thanks, man” or [...]
[Editor's note: In honor of the publication of Experienced: Rock Music Tales of Fact and Fiction, I am going to re-post an excerpt from the Hunting Accidents anecdote I contributed to that fine compendium of rock ünd roll arcana. This is part one of what was originally a two-part post about the [...]
Serious Earth
On July 30, 2011 · 2 Comments · In bad idea, caffeinated rambling, campanology, Fanny and Alexander, short fiction
Part One – Sunderland
Thomas Quin was aware, with the acute self-consciousness pubescent boys suddenly acquire — a hilly solipsism from which they daily tumble into an abyss of despair — that he was unusually thin, and awkward, and afraid of everyone. His formerly natural friendliness and curiosity disappeared, replaced by morbid insularity. He went, [...]
Second-Hand Blue: The Movie
On July 28, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Artificial Light, Curbside Splendor, James Greer, reading, Second-Hand Blue, short story, video
Well, not exactly the movie, maybe, but the trailer, at least. Over a bed of hastily-improvised guitar feeedback, I read an excerpt from my story “Second-Hand Blue” in Issue 1 of Curbside Splendor, and then CS publisher Victor David Giron gave it to this really talented guy named Garett Holden, who created a [...]
The excellent online litmag Metazen has seen fit to post on its site a story that I wrote. The story is actually part of a chapter from my next novel, which has a title, but the title is a secret. If you have any interest in the shape or tenor of my next [...]
Subscribe To Slake Or Else
On July 25, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Artificial Light, James Greer, literary magazines, Slake, subscribe you cheap bastard
It’s the last week of the Slake subscription special. It’s an incredible deal on probably the best new literary magazine in the English language and maybe even some other languages as well. You will go to the link on the poster below. You will subscribe. Or I will hunt you down with a plastic [...]
Bad Polaroids
On July 25, 2011 · 1 Comment · In Artificial Light, bad photography, Bad Polaroids, James Greer, JoyCam, photography, there are no accidents in art
Recently, rooting through my garage, I came across an old Polaroid JoyCam which must have been given to me sometime in the early- to mid-90s. I also found several cartridges of very old and poorly stored Polaroid film. So I figured I’d see what would happen if I tried to use the old camera with [...]
The Dirty Poet, Emergency Room Wrestling, Words Like Kudzu Press
Jesús Ángel Garcia, badbadbad, New Pulp Press
Ben Tanzer, You Can Make Him Like You, Artistically Declined Press
Tom Williams, The Mimic’s Own Voice, Main Street Rag
Patrick Wensink, Black Hole Blues, Lazy Fascist
First, I have to apologize. I’m [...]
Sunset Gun
On July 19, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Artificial Light, car photos, James Greer, photography, sunset
“Photography is unclassifiable because there is no reason to mark this or that of its occurrences; it aspires, perhaps, to become as crude, as certain, as noble as a sign…. Whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible: it is not it that we see.”
Roland [...]
Sky Writing
On July 15, 2011 · 3 Comments · In Artificial Light, photography, pictures of the sky, undisclosed location
When I was young we used to call this a mackerel sky. Maybe we still do. I don’t know, I’m not young anymore.
Slope Street Codex
On July 10, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In fragment, James Greer, the continuing adventures of thomas quin, W.I.P.
Everything that was invented has to be reinvented, for instance: the sound of waves slapping wet rocks in the dark. We once called this night rote. We also used the phrase heart murmurs. If you look carefully you’ll see that this isn’t appropriate or necessary. You’ll see instead track marks, not on your arm [...]
Page 112 of the April 1993 issue of Spin magazine, embedded above for your reading pleasure (and because this entire post depends on you being able to read it), is not, I hope, too difficult to navigate. If you get lost, go to Google Books and search Spin Magazine, Jim Greer, New Market, in [...]
One of the more influential books I read as an adolescent. I still return to it for inspiration from time to time, though it hasn’t aged well, I’m afraid. And yet…
“They do not listen to me. They say that nothing can save them.
We speak the same tongue, yet they [...]
As for the actions of our Senses, we cannot but observe them to be in many particulars much outdone by those of other Creatures, and when at best, to be far short of the perfection they seem capable of: And these infirmities of the Senses arise from a double cause, either from the disproportion [...]
Because it’s his birthday. Although I don’t really need an excuse to post this video. It is eloquence its own self.
Just out, and free for download (though if you want to pop for the printed version at $45 I’m sure no one will complain), Zaporogue #10, a wonderful anthology edited by the formidable tri-lingual (at least) writer Sébastien Doubinsky. This 261 page edition contains work in English and French [...]
I’m unreasonably fascinated by this French “punk” band from the mid-70s, which evolved into the sort of French “New Wave” duo in the next video in 1980. Because I am unkind I’m going to inflict my fascination on you. Happy Wednesday!
I wrote a whole essay urging a reassessment of Sofia Coppola’s critically-maligned post Lost In Translation films to go with this screen-cap from Marie Antoinette (2006), but the more I look at the screen-cap, the more I realize that nothing I could write would be nearly as persuasive as the [...]
The new issue (number 32) of SmokeLong Quarterly is up. I have a story in it called “Elephants.” My story was chosen by guest editor Ben Loory, and to accompany the story he interviewed me here.
Aside from the me part, the issue is stuffed with excellent writing by lots of excellent writers. [...]
Sloe-eyed through the sun-loved streets, winding her hair around one winding finger, walks and walks on sandaled feet a small thin girl. Pastel houses pass in succession, peopled by darkly gazing men with small thin mustaches and almond-shaped eyes. She feels their eyes on her but does not respond. Heat rises in slow layers [...]
Still from Mimesis, a short film I made.
Trivium: from Latin, meaning “the three ways,” or “the three roads.” In medieval universities, the trivium denoted the three subjects of primary study: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Wind snapped a branch outside and he woke. Dark of night had swallowed the room. Only [...]
Okay, so here’s the books I’ve read in French so far this year. Or at least the books that I could be bothered to go find on my bookshelves or piled on the floor in my office and on my bed or all over the table in the dining room or on the second shelf [...]
I don’t know what is the what with today, but everybody on the internet decided to be nice to me and it’s not even my birthday (yet).
First, the estimable writer Patrick Wensink wrote a nice piece about me at the really great We Who Are About To Die lit-site here. You [...]
As promised in this post, here is a list of the non-fiction books I’ve read thus far in 2011, either written in or translated into English. Almost everything on here was read for purposes of research, with the exception maybe of the books on/by Godard and Tarkovsky. Though I would argue that these [...]
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"James Greer, one of the nimblest and most multilayered American fiction writers, has, with his latest novel The Failure, pulled off a sublime and shivery-smooth literary hat-trick-cum-emotional-gotcha. I defy anyone to come up with an equation to explain how this book's first impression as a ridiculously clever, funny crime story can gradually disclose a metanovel built from far more encyclopedic scratch only to reveal upon its conclusion a central, overriding thought so heartfelt literally it trembles your lower lip. This is one stunning piece of work."—Dennis Cooper"James Greer's The Failure is such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it."—Steven Soderbergh"Greer has done it again: a big-city, techno-jargon-filled thrill-ride with slick medium-brow drop references to our (once-shared) mythological hometown. What could be more poignant?"—Robert Pollard"How do you assess if your life has been a success? For starters, take time and turn it on its head. You'll first need to find its head. Luckily, James Greer's novel The Failure will help--it's a brainy, boisterous, unsettling, and unsettled look at a group of people thrust into the most confounding of existences, complete with petty crime, high science, love, sex, and cars. The narrative winds and darts, gleefully uncooperative. The characters have funny names and sometimes funny existences. Still, you will recognize them. They are us."—Ben GreenmanUnreservedly Recommended
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Class Clown Spots A (Hardcore) UFO
Today I am playing a trick on you. Ha! Good one. […]
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