Tag / interview

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Sam Lipsyte

Sam Lipsyte recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #325. Mr. Lipsyte is most recently the author of The Ask.

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Looking to ask someone for something.

Author: Sam Lipsyte

Subjects Discussed: Milo Burke as the obverse to Home Land‘s Lewis Miner (and common personality qualities), Lipsyte’s early draft of The Ask getting trashed by his wife, the importance of knowing a character’s job, Stanley Elkin, descriptive dichotomies within The Ask, oscillation between extremes and forward motion in the narrative, digressive impulses, movement by painting yourself into a corner, using linguistic attributes to create distinct dialogue, the plausibility behind student housing and cages, characters who share food, the innate sadness of wraps, breast milk bars, Lipsyte’s methods of collecting information and forgetting to write details down, writing without an outline, Lipsyte’s syllabic form of internal rhyme within sentences, Lipsyte’s previous career as a lyricist, the alternative verb phrases succeeded some sentences, characters who believe that writing a book will solve everything, the purpose of writing a comic novel in a serious age, the elevator pitch motif throughout Lipsyte’s work, Lipstye’s frequent references to Old Overholt and his efforts to get a free case, “home invasion” and Lipsyte’s use of stock phrases, “closed indefinitely due to pedagogical conflicts,” the origin of “toosh dev,” on not keeping notes, the question of whether or not there are any limits to literary movements of the penis, how sequences of events assist narrative, Gordon Lish’s principle of “all the book being the good part,” Lipsyte’s present status in relation to social networks, and Lipsyte’s present relationship with weapons.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: I wanted to ask you about your sentences. You do something extremely interesting, and this syllabic form of internal rhyme. I’ll just give you a number of examples: “a tawny teen in a cocktail dress of skimpy hemp.” “I started to rub myself and, remembering I would have to retrieve Bernie soon, recalled that I’d once done what I was doing with Bernie in the room.” So there’s the oo, oo. The book’s opening line, of course: “Horace, the office temp, was a run-down and demented pimp.” So I’m curious whether these particular sounds serve as, I suppose, reference points in your mind to get a sentence right, whether this came from your previous career as a lyricist or possibly the Gordon Lish school rubbing off now after so many books and the like.

Lipsyte: Well, certainly, if there’s a direct rhyme there, I’d be sorry to see it. But I am interested in words that are close to each other, bouncing off of each other, colliding, creating various assonances, and such. I’m very aware of the acoustic properties of the sentences. And I listen to them. And I like to see those different elements playing off of each other. The different sounds. Just on the level of the morpheme or whatever. But, yeah, I think that I was always conscious of it. I think that studying with Gordon Lish made me understand that you could extract some power and attention to the sounds in your sentences. And I don’t know what I was doing a a lyricist, to be quite honest.

Correspondent: (laughs)

Lipsyte: I was screaming cryptic lines that couldn’t be heard because the guitars were too loud. (laughs)

Correspondent: (laughs) Maybe this was part of the syllabic quality.

Lipsyte: Yeah, exactly.

Correspondent: But I’m curious. Why syllables more so than words? I mean, there’s also, I recall reading, “Touche, douche!” There’s that as well. But more often, it’s this syllabic ride as opposed to a full word, full tilt boogie.

Lipsyte: Well, I guess that’s how I work. I mean, it’s not a conscious choice. And I think I do it in larger units as well. Or try to. And I’m very much aware. I mean, people talk about sentences. But there’s no such thing even as a great sentence. It’s about which sentences are around it. So I think that I’m trying to work on several levels.

Correspondent: I also wanted to ask about another aspect of your sentences, which is this tendency — just when you think the sentence is over, then you add a comma and a verb phrase that’s appended at the end. It’s not quite a comma splice. It’s almost a kind of alternative verb phrase. I’ll offer again some examples for folks who are listening to this. Here’s one: “Now an old man with a ducktail haircut and rolled T-shirt sleeves sauntered by” — you think the sentence is over, but no — comma, “climbed into his wine-dark bearer.” Another one: “Maura did not speak, cut her lemon chicken into rectilinear bites.” And it’s more in this book than the other two novels. And I’m curious as to how this came about.

Lipsyte: I do it as well in my book of stories probably. I just like the way it speeds up rhythm. It changes rhythm. I like the jumpiness of it. And some people say, “Why can’t you just use a fucking ‘and?'” (laughs) And sometimes I do. But sometimes I don’t.

Correspondent: Does it present an almost alternative fate in that action? Is that the idea?

Lipsyte: Yeah. Or kind of compresses time a little bit. It does a few things. And I’ve been fond of it.

Correspondent: Two characters seem to believe that writing a book will cause them to find truth, or find a lucrative career. There’s Charles Goldfarb’s book, in which he tries “to advance a new approach to transcendentalism in the face of technology and interconnectivity.” And then, of course, when Carl at the Happy Salamander tells Milo and Denise to fuck off, he announces that, “I’ll write books!” So you said in a recent interview that you don’t know what the purpose is of writing a comic novel or whether it’s going to fulfill some greater need. But it’s interesting that this reticence is shared by your characters to some degree. And I’m curious if we’re overstating the importance of books or these characters are overstating the importance of books. Or whether this is, again, just a part of the great American compromise. Being a First World bitch or what not.

Lipsyte: I’m curious about my quote. Where I said something.

Correspondent: I read the interview and, regrettably, I failed to note it down before meeting you. I read this days ago. Where you were saying that you’re not sure if the comic novel can be important in any sense. But maybe I should just ask you. (laughs)

Lipsyte; (laughs) Right.

Correspondent: Maybe I hallucinated it. I don’t think I did.

Lipsyte: Well, I’m sure what I meant to say is: I don’t know how many people can see it as important. I do. I mean, I’m not talking about my book, but, in general, I think books that have a comedic element have been the books that have fired up my imagination. No, books are incredibly important to some segment of the population. I’m not trying to say otherwise.

Correspondent: Well, these characters. Going back to them. Their insistence that books will be a vocational savior. Is this a general spitball towards Americana? Or some larger….

Lipsyte: No, I think that there’s a certain delusion about what a book can do for you, as the author. As opposed to what it might do for readers.

Correspondent: I also wanted to ask you. Because Home Land and The Ask both feature variants on the elevator pitch. You have, of course, Miner’s adventure with that white rapper in the black mink suit.

Lipsyte: Right.

Correspondent: And in this, you have Purdy’s insistence that he can deliver the most perfect elevator pitch. I’m curious how the concern for elevator pitches came about. I mean, it’s a West Coast phenomenon more than an East Coast phenomenon. So that is rather interesting.

Lipsyte: Well, I heard the phrase — maybe first in 1991 from an East Coast person. Who was kind of a businessman. So I think it’s used in all sorts of commercial pursuits. But it’s always been kind of a delightful convention to me. Because here you are in this box with a clock running, and you have to say something that’s going to make somebody else feel something. (laughs)

Correspondent: I have a very important question to ask, and that is in relation to Old Overholt. Now in Home Land, there’s that moment in which there’s the effort by Teabag to get some product placement in there, so that he can get a case of Old Overholt. Now I’m reading this. And I see Old Overholt come up twice in the book. So I’m wondering if you have reached an arrangement with the folks at Old Overholt.

Lipsyte: I’m trying to get a free case. And if it’s going to take me three books, it will be three books. (laughs)

Correspondent: Have you tried contacting them directly?

Lipsyte: No.

Correspondent: No?

Lipsyte: There are always little threads I like to pull from book to book. Just to keep me a bit amused as I work. And I like the sound of Old Overholt. It sort of opens the oral cavity in a nice way.

Correspondent: In two ways, actually.

Lipsyte: So I’m certainly happy to keep naming it until somebody at that company notices.

(Image: Mephistofales)

The Bat Segundo Show #325: Sam Lipsyte (Download MP3)

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by Edward Champion

Interview with Lorin Stein

On Friday, the Paris Review announced that Lorin Stein, a noted editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, would become its new editor, succeeding Philip Gourevitch. But the impact of Stein’s departure from FSG remained curiously unexamined. For one thing, was Stein definitely leaving FSG? Or was he staying on in a part-time capacity? And who were some of the other candidates? (Moby Lives has put forth Meghan O’Rourke as one of the contenders.)

This correspondent contacted Mr. Stein in an effort to determine answers to some of these questions, putting forth a number of inquiries concerning the Paris Review hiring process, whether or not Mr. Stein felt that he clinched the job during that vital first interview (thus following the advice often found on career-oriented websites), the degree to which Mr. Stein planned to break from or carry on Philip Gourevitch’s legacy, whether or not there was any hazing ritual involved in getting the new job, and what will happen to the authors whom Mr. Stein has edited at FSG. On these vital points, Mr. Stein insisted that he had “no good answers.” But he was generous enough to provide a few answers to other questions. The results can be found below.

Editing a major literary quarterly involves a different set of responsibilities than editing a book. The deadlines are often tighter. The need to be current is a more pressing concern. Factor in ebooks, all these book blogs, and wisecracking interviewers, and the media landscape becomes nearly Gormenghastian. Small wonder that so many in the book biz are fond of drink. How do you plan to change your present practices to fit within these new needs? Or do you feel that your equipoisal endeavors with the red pen across numerous titles at FSG offers enough of a transitional overlap?

It’s true that magazines come out much faster than books. The amount of time it takes to publish a book–almost a year in most cases–is immensely taxing to the author and to anyone who cares about the author, the editor included. It’s like waiting for your birthday when you’re a kid. I’m looking forward to the change of pace.

N.B. I use a number two pencil. (See, I’m transitioning already.)

You described The Paris Review as “a gateway drug” to the New York Times. But I don’t see the addictive possibilities fully explored at the Paris Review site. Are there any plans to expand the Paris Review‘s online offerings? Perhaps offering full-blown access to the backlist for subscribers like Harper’s or the New Yorker?

We do intend to expand the site–that’s something I am very excited about. Stay tuned.

The Paris Review publishes some of the best author interviews known to humankind. Are there any plans to shake up the interview formula? Perhaps offering more audio and video to capture these conversations?

Aren’t the interviews wonderful? Think of the ones with P.G. Wodehouse, Philip Larkin, Henry Green, Hemingway — I wouldn’t wish for video, even if it could be had. And I feel the same way about Nat Rich’s recent interview with James Ellroy. It’s a work of art in itself. (And it’s very funny.)

That said, it will be fun to explore all sorts of things in connection with the site. Again, I say stay tuned!

How will FSG be defined by your absence?

For the last sixty years FSG has been one of the best houses in the country — in the world. It has been the biggest privilege of my life to work there. The authors I’ve worked with are, in many cases, writers signed up, nurtured, and edited for years by my boss, Jonathan Galassi. Whatever I know about editing and publishing I’ve learned from him–and from my friends in the editorial, publicity, sales, and art departments. I am very much a junior member of that team. I hope my friends miss me, authors and colleagues both, because I’m going to miss them badly. But there’s no question of the place being defined one way or another by me. The influence is entirely the other way round.

George Plimpton was a boxer. Gourevitch reported on Rwanda. What macho qualities do you bring to the role of Paris Review editor?

My sister likes to say I’m “comfortable in [my] masculinity” — meaning I act like a girl.

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Marilyn Johnson

Marilyn Johnson recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #324. Ms. Johnson is most recently the author of This Book is Overdue!

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Hoping to avoid being arrested by Rusty the Bailiff.

Author: Marlyn Johnson

Subjects Discussed: Why libraries are little regarded by the American public, the preservation of blogs and websites, Josh Greenberg’s efforts at digital preservation, the Firefox extension Zotero, the rickroll video’s removal from YouTube, the Barnard Zine Collection, the reliance upon private entities to preserve information, the lone guy archiving Hunter S. Thompson’s early articles, the French government’s commitment to preserving culture vs. Google, Jessamyn West’s Ubuntu video and copyright problems, the inability for Joseph V. Hamburger’s archives to find a library, a writer’s responsibility to preserve their writing, Salman Rushdie’s digital manuscripts, commenters and obituaries, dead people writing obituaries, the mutability of text, future generations of computer users and libraries, inflatable humans vs. librarians, the New York Public Library consolidation and permanent closing of the Shiochi Noma Reading Room, specialist libraries vs. public libraries, the American Kennel Club Library, librarians within Second Life, vital specialists vs. unpaid volunteer librarians, shaky wifi connections and libraries, the need for out-of-work and underemployed librarians to have online identities, Twitter as a questionable source for librarians, strange construction workers who attempt to hijack the conversation between the Correspondent and Ms. Johnson, street librarians, Radical Reference and whether it provides services those who don’t question authority, and whether the efforts made by the librarians opposing the Patriot Act have fallen short due to harsher prison terms for those hanging helpful signs.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Johnson: The Internet is in the library. Google is in the library. The librarians know how to use that. So you go to those public computers in the library. You have a librarian who can not only do Google, but who can also tell you, point you to any number of other resources that are not included in Google, or that are very difficult to get to through Google. It seems like Google is so simple. “It’s so simple even your grandmother can use it,” is the way it was described to me. Yeah, it’s brilliant for getting the quick hit on the restaurant in the Village that you want to have dinner at. There’s the address. There’s the phone number. There’s the little Google map that will get you there. But when you are actually trying to track back. When I have a clipping of a newspaper, and I’m trying to find the digital version of that, I get lost sometimes. It can’t find it. The bread crumbs don’t take you to where you know it has to be. And I’ve had librarians who have actually shown me how to wend my way through Google, which is, after all, full of redundancies, not weighted in terms of date. You need to put your heavy boots on to wade through it sometimes.

Correspondent: But then again, we are seeing various developments along the lines of what we were mentioning earlier about the mutability of text.

Johnson: Yes.

Correspondent: The Semantic Web, which I can probably go into.

Johnson: Blah blah blah. Yeah, we could go on all night.

Correspondent: Yeah. But to shift it to libraries, are the advantages essentially these informed people, the aspect of physical space, and the aspect of real-life interaction? As opposed to online interaction? Do you think that these elements are strong enough to endure whatever technological developments are emerging in the next four decades?

Johnson: Okay, I’m zipping around the Internet like crazy. I’m not unsavvy. I’ve bent a few corners. I’ve been to the few corners of the Web. I make a telephone call and if there are seven options — the automated answering service that tries to funnel me down one little hall, as opposed to another — I never fit in the categories. I’m never Option 1 through 7. Would you like to hear these options again? I freak out. I go crazy. I need the human. I need the human to help explain it to me. I need the human to help me know what I missed. I need the human to help me phrase the question. And I don’t think humans are ever going to go out of style. Call me crazy.

Correspondent: Yeah. Until, of course, the inflatable human arrives.

Johnson: No, no. You need the librarian. You need the librarian!

Correspondent: The recent New York Public Library consolidation caused the Shiochi Noma Reading Room to be permanently closed on September 8, 2008. You talked with John Lindquist, the former director of this Asian and Middle Eastern Reading Rooms, now curator, who pointed out that his staff had been halved, When the Arabic-language cataloger retires, the library will be without an Arabic-language librarian. So this closing is particularly ironic, given that, in 1997, more than a million dollars were poured into this room to refurbish it and to make it spruced up and the like. So if specialized knowledge like this is so fleeting, if something recently renovated only ten years before is going to be thrown out the window, is it safe to say that the generalists are winning this internecine war within the libraries?

Johnson: They have a really interesting challenge. The New York Public Library. And they’re galloping forward. They’re really trying to take a research institution and preserve as much of the research in it as possible, and also make it a much more tourist-friendly place. People don’t understand that when they come to the library, it is a research institution. That you don’t check things out. So the New York Public Library — the Board — has decided, and the librarians — the chief librarians — that they’ll have a children’s center in the basement there. And they will circulate the books there. And they want more regular users to come to this beautiful building. They want to open it up more. So all of those treasures from the Middle East are there. They’re there. The librarians who administer them and who work with the scholars are not. They seem to be going away. And now John Lundquist has gone away. And this room went away, not because they didn’t like the room or they didn’t like what it stood for, but because it happens to be on a central hall that’s going to provide access for what will now be circulating parts of the library. They took this research library and are melding it with the circulating library. So in the course of making it friendly to people who want to just come and check out a DVD, they’ve had to squeeze some of the other stuff into different places. And those librarian positions that are very scholarly and very specialized, when they come up for retirement, they are not replacing those librarians. They’re putting it into people who can work with the ordinary office/street library user.

Correspondent: Those librarians are part of this big squeeze. So, therefore, will we have to turn to more specialist libraries, such as the American Kennel Club library, which you investigated, or will the onus fall upon universities to pick up the specialized slack?

Johnson: Well, you want to hear a tragic story? I went to the American Kennel Club library. And that librarian is no longer there.

Correspondent: Really?

Johnson: And you know why? Because they’re running out of money. And where are they going to cut it? Where are they going to cut funds? So the librarian is no longer working there. You can go there. There’s an archivist. There are people who work for the American Kennel Club magazine. All the information is still there. All the material. The beautiful skeleton of the old dog looking over the reading tables is still there. But if you want to find something, you’re going to be taking out a flashlight and looking around. It’s just heartbreaking to me. These are really tough times. To lose the human being who is the guide to all this information, and often the architect. Who put it all together. It’s craziness. And we are losing something so valuable right now. This book is overdue, and I wish it had come out last year. Before ever so many of these cuts had been instituted.

Correspondent: So it seems to me that the generalists are winning the war against the specialists. But you do bring up things such as the Second Life librarian. And the scenario there is that it’s largely based up of volunteers. But if you’re relying on volunteers and you’re not relying on compensation, then how can you have enough of a buffer to replace these vital specialists? And not only that, but if a librarian is essentially a persona — a metaphor, if you will — then does that necessarily replace the real thing? Is it something of a ruse? More of a sort of fantasy than a duty to the public?

Johnson: Wow, we’re going to go down some labyrinths here. You know, what’s interesting about Second Life is that there are bona-fide librarians who are out there, in their spare time, doing research and development in the field. Like saying, here’s a really interesting wonky kind of thing that we can do. Let’s see if we can adapt library science to it. And, in fact, when you think about it, any population that you can think of can use a librarian to help it. This brilliant Radical Reference librarians, who said “Street protesters in great numbers coming to New York, a place that does not have public toilets. Let’s go serve up some information. Let’s go make ourselves available. And if they need us, they can ask us hard questions and we’ll do our best to find true answers for them.” You know, combat rumors. Help them navigate the streets, some of which will be closed. In Second Life, they’re saying, “Oh my goodness. Here’s this exciting, cool, weird place. Virtual reality on the Internet.” And anybody can access it by downloading the free software. And you create a little avatar and you go into this world. “I bet they need librarians.” And in fact, they do. Why? Because ever so many little corners of this world are created by the people who go on Second Life as recreations of a time in history. For instance, there’s a Renaissance island that has a replica of Shakespeare’s — what do you call it, the theater.

Correspondent: The Globe, yeah.

Johnson: Yeah. There is a Harlem Renaissance world that recreates the 1920s. And so librarians are there doing all this research to help make that world accurate. They’re saying, “This is what fashion looked like. These are what cars looked like. Yes, this existed during that time. This didn’t. This was how a joust went. This is what a lady would wear in her hair.” And these kinds of factual historic questions, librarians are ideally suited to answer them.

Correspondent: On the other hand, when you tried to contact J.J. Drinkwater and these other folks, you had your wifi connection cut out on you. So this leads me to wonder…

Johnson: What?

Correspondent: You mention this in the book.

Johnson: Okay.

Correspondent: That you were trying to interview the Second Life librarians and that you were doing this in a library in your laptop.

Johnson: Oh my goodness.

Correspondent: And the wifi cut out. So this leads me to wonder…

Johnson: Yes.

Correspondent: The real thing, which is not going to cut out. At least I would hope that someone would not dissolve before my eyes. Second Life is not exactly the best substitute for that.

The Bat Segundo Show #324: Marilyn Johnson (Download MP3)

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by Edward Champion

Bizarro Fiction: An Interview with Patrick Wensink

Bizarro fiction, an exciting genre devoted to “high weirdness” and a sense of fun, has eluded the frightened editors humorlessly holding the keys to their fragile literary castles. But it remains very much a prolific force, written and read by people who still possess a sense of glee about books and taken up by the good folks at Eraserhead Press, which has published such titles as Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, Shatnerquake, and Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere.

I had intended to investigate this phenomenon in depth. But Patrick Wensink, author of Sex Dungeon for Sale!, beat me to the punch, sending me his book of short stories, making me laugh, and graciously consenting to a suitably bizarro interview by email.

There seems to be this false belief that the world can be united by Coca-Cola (think Haskell Wexler selling out with that dreadful 1971 commercial) or other consumerist impulses. Practitioners of bizarro fiction, such as yourself, are more committed to the idea of literature as fun. How then can bizarro fiction change the world or resist these marketing forces? How might your own fiction change the world? Is the re-appropriation of culture part of the answer? Aren’t you essentially giving into these crass marketing forces by subverting them?

Haskell Wexler directed a Coke commercial? Medium Cool is one of my favorite movies. That doesn’t make me want a can of Coke, but now I’m curious as all hell to see this.

I think that’s a great point, that Bizarro Fiction like Sex Dungeon for Sale! attempts to bring fun into literature. I personally take a lot of care and effort into making sure I’m not just cracking jokes all the time, but wrapping the humor in stories that can also be appreciated as good writing. Eraserhead has a great history of providing surprises and fun with its books, whether its a story told from the perspective of a man being eaten by a bear, a book where all of William Shatner’s television and movie roles come to life or, with my book, where you get an optimistic real estate agent trying to sell a home with a sex dungeon. Hopefully readers are finding something they can’t get anywhere else and hopefully they come back for a second helping.

The editorial note at the beginning of the book suggests that if you don’t sell enough books through Eraserhead Press, you will never be published by them again. This seems an extraordinarily harsh proviso. Has Kevin L. Donihe, to the best of your knowledge, raped a close friend or killed an animal? Please provide suitable evidence for your answer.

Kevin Donihe is from Tennessee, so the chances that he’s killed an animal are ridiculously high. I think everyone from that state has a little Davy Crockett magic in their blood.

I don’t think Eraserhead’s approach to new authors is harsh. I think it’s a great idea, since the book industry is so harsh toward unpublished writers anyway. Eraserhead’s thinking isn’t unlike a father telling his son he needs to get good grades or he can’t borrow the car. Eraserhead has a big, fast, strangely-colored car with a roomy back seat, and I’d like to use it for a date next Friday, if possible.

“My Son Thinks He’s French” ends on a moment of transformation and incest. When did you first notice pubic hair? And do you find early puberty to be a greater threat against our national welfare than poverty and the disparity between the rich and the poor? Additionally, why didn’t this story include the word “freedom” within its prose?

Tough question. In addition to ending on a note of transformation and, possibly, incest, I think that “My Son Thinks He’s French” also ends on a laugh. But I suppose that depends on your opinions of transformation and incest.

I was actually just having a conversation about when I first noticed the short and curlies. By my estimate, it was sometime between my 10th and 30th birthdays.

You hit the nail on the head. “My Son Thinks He’s French” features no use of the word “freedom”. This is my little way of locking arms with the French people. I was recently in France, they make the best pastries in the world, how can anyone not approve? Does the congressional cafeteria still call its ‘taters “Freedom Fries”? I can’t get behind that, though I would support changing the name of Larry Bird’s hometown to “Freedom Lick, Indiana”, because, let’s face it, Indiana can use all the razz-ma-tazz it can get.

In “Wash, Rinse, Repeat,” Carl Dumford has “his words smear[ing] into long strings of vowels.” Yet his dialogue includes numerous consonants. How do you account for this discrepancy? And how does one apply two-ply to everyday vernacular?

Damn it! Somebody is getting fired. As you know, Ed, writing short stories for an independent publishing house is one of the most lucrative professions in America. It’s right up there with being a Fortune 500 CEO or one of those kids in High School Musical. So, this lifestyle allows me to employ an army of researchers, fact-checkers, copy editors, personal assistants and manicurists. Checking out discrepancies like this one is somebody’s job around here at Wentastic Enterprises and it sure as hell isn’t mine. Heads will roll, I promise.

I was alarmed by your use of boldface in “Chicken Soup for the Kidnapper’s Soul” and “Donor 322.” How do you soothe readers who might be alarmed by your energetic text formatting?

Bold type is a natural part of life, folks. Just like pubic hair, it’s not something we can hide our children from forever. People should not be ashamed of their use of boldface. By employing this popular writing technique I am coming out and encouraging others to follow my lead. I’m the Neil Armstrong of boldface type! Change your Facebook status, ladies and gentlemen, let everybody know you use boldface type and are not ashamed.

In “Donor 322,” you write, “Vomit surges across my body in waves.” This might be interpreted one of two ways: either unseen specialists are regurgitating upon the protagonist, possibly suffusing his body with the fresh chunks of last night’s dinner, or the vomit in question has adopted a sound wave pattern. Did you consult any oceanographers for this sentence? Are you a musical man? Are there nefarious individuals in Louisville, KY committed to the first proposition?

I don’t know about other people, but I went to college. And while I was there, I drank a lot of beer. And many times, after drinking this beer, I saw vomit do things I never imagined possible. I like to think that line is up for interpretation, depending on how much beer the reader drank in college.

In “Jesus Toast,” I sense a great deal of hostility towards post-structuralist types who wish to see patterns that do not exist. Have you been recently victimized by savage deconstructionists? Is this story your way of expressing a desire to organize a vigilante mob to tar and feather overzealous academics?

Before Sex Dungeon for Sale! was published I was rejected by over ten MFA programs. This made me very bitter for a long time. So, yes, there is a subliminal message buried in “Jesus Toast” that is encouraging people to tar and feather academia. If you hold it up to a mirror, you’ll also find an application form to have me tar and feather the academic of your choice for the low, low price of $19.95+tax.

When I read “Pandemic Jones,” Paul Reiser’s voice entered my head. I looked around, wondering if Resier was standing next to me, pounding away at Helen Hunt and Staci Keanan and screaming at Larry David to provide the anal plug. But he was not there. And I didn’t know how my pants had been unbuttoned. Have you had any direct communications with Mr. Resier? Have you had any sexual fantasies involving Mr. Reiser? By naming a pharmaceutical company after Mr. Reiser, do you feel that Mr. Reiser’s failure to engage with the American public in a dangerous way has been corrected?

Once, a few Christmases ago, I was feeling benevolent and gave my army of researchers, fact-checkers, copy editors, assistants and manicurists the day off. This forced me to actually do my own research for once. And you know what I found out? People love Paul Reiser. He’s the American equivalent of David Hasselhoff in Germany. According to the numbers I crunched that evening, if I added 132% more Reiser into my writing, Sex Dungeon for Sale! would spread like Swine Flu. America loves its Reiser, I’m just providing a public service.

“Me and Gerardo Down by the Schoolyard” offers a reasonable explanation for the disappearance of EMF and Jesus Jones. But how did you arrive at the economic value for doo-rags?

Wentastic Enterprises holds the patent for a machine that calculates the economic worth of doo-rags. It takes a snapshot of fluctuating factors, such as the price of cotton used for doo-rag production, the popularity of motorcycle gangs, astrological location of doo-rag friendly planets and how many bald dudes are trying to hide their scalp from the sun. Additionally, the recent Olympic medal victories of doo-rag enthusiast Apollo Anton Ohno has caused this machine to start working overtime. Expect a full report in the final quarter of 2010.

Has your wife taken a shine to Javier?

She has. I have the black eye to prove it.

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Justin Taylor

Justin Taylor recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #323. Mr. Taylor is most recently the author of Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever.

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Fearful of sanguine book titles.

Guest: Justin Taylor

Subjects Discussed: Not naming protagonists until well into the stories, dissatisfaction with formality, how characters reveal themselves, gender confusion within “Weekend Away,” Taylor’s aversion to “bright neon signs” within narrative, the dangers of being too specific, similes, concluding lines and addressing the reader, the final line of “Jewels Flashing in the Night of Time,” Donald Barthelme and Taylor’s veer from the phantasmagorical, Sleeping Fish and 5_Trope, Shelley Jackson, the Gordon Lish school of writers, Gary Lutz’s “experimental” nature, Taylor’s concern for hair, describing Florida primarily through the weather, the helpfulness of knowing a place before writing a story, boundaries and possibilities within limitations, age declarations at the beginnings of stories, the difficulties of getting all the numbers worked out within “The New Life,” the important of precise age, research that comes after writing a story, eliding the coordinates of a Planned Parenthood, 1960s counterculture, the Grateful Dead, distrust of pithy maxims and prescriptive text, and believing in aspects of a story.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: I wanted to go back to the hair. I had alluded to that earlier. It could just be me, but you do have a concern for hair. It’s often quite specific, as I suggested. You begin “Amber at the Window in Hurricane Season” by describing her pushing “a blond lock behind her ear, stray hairs glancing off a steel row of studs.” In “In My Heart I Am Already Gone,” you describe how Vicky “cuts her own bangs, a ragged diagonal like the torn hem of a nightgown.” In “Weekend Away,” the hitchhiker has “black, messy hair mostly covering his ears.” In “What Was Once All Yours,” Cass has hairy forearms. I’m curious about this hair. And also we haven’t alluded to the cat as well. Is it more of a protective element? You know, these characters are often barren against the elements, so to speak. And I’m curious about this. You are a hair man, I have to say.

Taylor: (laughs)

Correspondent: Or are you the President of the Hair Club for Men? I don’t know.

Taylor: I can’t really answer for that. I mean, every writer has certain concerns or tics that they might not even be aware of. I asked a similar question to David Berman once. I got to interview him for The Brooklyn Rail. And I was asking him this question about water. I said, “You know, American Water.” And there’s this line in Actual Air. “All water is classic water.” I had, I don’t know, two or three other examples. And I finally just asked myself, “So what’s the deal with all the water?” And he said, “You know, nobody’s ever asked me that before.” And he really didn’t have an answer. And then he told this story about mowing his lawn on a hot day. Which I think was supposed to exemplify that water is — water’s nice. And, you know, I don’t know. Hair is nice, I guess. I don’t know why. Because it’s mostly haircuts, hairstyles. I don’t know why I notice. Those are like what I’m visualizing with a character that appears or seems to be worth mentioning rather than eye color or height or anything else. I don’t know.

When I was a kid, I never liked getting haircuts. I still don’t like getting haircuts actually. I always feel like I don’t have a good haircut. Like everybody else has the style that they’re supposed to have. And mine always feels a little off. I feel like I’m impersonating.

Correspondent: Not one satisfactory haircut in your life?

Taylor: I’ve had some decent haircuts. But it was like a very early — it was when I was a really little kid. It would get long and I would be worried that I would look like a girl. And they would take me to get my hair cut. And then after it was cut, I would see myself in the mirror and I wouldn’t even recognize myself. And I would really lose it. And that doesn’t happen so much anymore. I’ve learned to recognize myself.

Correspondent: With more confidence, more confidence in hair and haircuts.

Taylor: There’s only so old you can be crying at a barbershop.

Correspondent: I’ve seen very older men cry at barbershops.

Taylor: (laughs) In any case, the answer is “I don’t know.”

The Bat Segundo Show #323: Justin Taylor (Download MP3)

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