lisa gabriele (interview)

we had rules for this interview

we made each other rules

i made five rules for *lisa:

1) The first sentence of each of your answers must be in all caps and end with "!?"

2) You are not allowed to answer, allude to, or acknowledge, in any way, any of the questions that I ask, but must reminisce, at least twice, in the interview, and in past tense, and fondly, about "That one time you were interviewed for Reader of Depressing Books."

3) You must work in or allude to that time you accidentally accepted money for sex in every answer. Each time this happens, a new aspect or fact or opinion of that incident must be revealed.

4) In each answer, one sentence must use all of the following curse words twice: the F word, the S-word, the B-word. Curse words must not be used in any other sentence except in these special, rated-R ones.

5) Every other sentence that you write must be "But who knows?" You are allowed to insert parenthetical em-dash phrases in these sentences, if you want, like: "But who--perhaps that guy who saw me lick my teeth, when I turned away a moment and realized
something?--knows?"

and lisa made five rules for me:

1) You have to include at least one anecdote about memories of your grandfather. Even if you don't have one. And a special box he took down from a high shelf. In it were artifacts from his life, and each represented a lesson in life, that he tried to elliptically teach you. Your last sentence, for one of the answers, should be: "And that's when I realized, on some level, we're all the same, us people."

2) You have to make reference to something cute your cat's doing, in parentheses, at inappropriate moments. ex. "That was around the time I got shot by my mother in the cheek--God you should see how cute Lulu's being right now. Her tongue's hanging out and she doesn't know it. Sometime when she licks herself, it stays out. Cracks me up everytime.) Where was I? Oh right, the shooting...

3) Add a link or two to a story about Jessica Simpson. A real non-sequitur. "For more of what I'm talking about, click here."

4) Fold in somewhere that I'm your ex-wife. Not too obivously, but at some point it just "has to be said".

5) At one point, "Ask me about my son, the honour student."

and here is the interview:

Canada—my cat Lulu just moved through my periphery in one continuous cartwheel—makes me think of blue whales. I feel like sometimes in Canada when you wake up and go outside there are blue whales in the sky, flying around. This is a fact of Canada. Sometimes, in Canada, when you look out into your backyard, there's a blue whale, playing on your child's swingset. These aren't opinions, but facts, I think. David Lynch sounds like the name of an erudite hermit crab. Not a hermit, but a real hermit crab, inside of a shell, reading Ulysses and drinking Earl Gray tea. The tea would scold the crab's wan flesh, deliciously, though I wish the crab would not cook itself because meat is murder. I am multitasking right now and I am feeling confused and am now reading that Jessica Simpson rarely goes to church. Should I feel impressed?

JESUS CHRIST!? Ooops, soory. I wasn’t talking to you. I was screaming at the fucking bitch who fucking shit on my windshield--I meant bird, not bitch, sorry, but shit, nothing makes me crazier than that, but who knows? Okay, where were we? Right, I was telling you about the time, years ago, when I was interviewed by Tao Lin and his Reader of Depressing Books blog, but who knows? He had all these CRAZY rules, which included including lots of that cursing, which I normally don’t like to do. But who knows, it was like the time I was in Acapulco, and I met this dude who didn’t speak English, but he knew what all the English swears were. We went back to my hotel, this crap two-story hovel, with salamanders crawling all over the salad bar, and he just swore and swore.

You lived in New York City for a while. Your second novel occurs in New York City for half of it. You said this. Your first novel occurs in Detroit sometimes. "The ad listed four stores in the Greater Detroit Area," says your first novel, "but this was probably the only one he knew how to get to without being shot and killed by black people." Canada is so big. The top half is all fragmented. I wonder if—my cat Lulu just took a running start and leapt, in a kind of backflip, into the swimming pool, screeching—our son, the honour student (the interviewee is my ex-wife, not that it matters or anything, not that she's my corporate sponsor, or anything, but just to clarify about 'our' son, the honour student) ever resolved his Franco-American issues. If he did, can you Fed-ex me the documents? I can't sleep at night. I need proof?

WHOA THERE!? Fucking shit, sorry bitch, watch where you’re fucking walking or you’re gonna step in some bitch dog’s shit! Sorry. Again, I wasn’t talking to you, Tao . I’m writing this while driving, and I thought I was doing that chick a favour by yelling that obscenity out the window, but who knows? You used to hate when I swore, back when we were married. Interesting that it’s a requirement, now, but who, kinda passive aggressive don’t you think, knows?

Do you think that most of Saul Bellow's novels, their titles, sound like they're not actually novels but actually really bad video games that came out in the early 90's on Sega Genesis? Also, which Saul Bellow novel would make—my cat Lulu just leapt from one palm tree to another, twenty feet away, riskily using my head as a kind of stepping stone—a better name for a sitcom on UPN? Mr. Sammler's Planet, or The Adventures of Augie March?

SON OF A--!? Bitch, you di’int fucking just say that shit to me, ‘cause, shit, bitch, watch your fucking mouth! Sorry, Tao, I gotta roll up my car window because the woman I yelled at, but who knows, is heading straight over to my car, stopped at a busy intersection. Reminds me of Viejo Ciudad in Acapulco, all crowded and noisy and my hotel was just down the street, though man did it ever look better in the brouchure. But, even that dude I brought back with me to my room looked around with his nose in the air, who knows? Didn’t stop him from messing around with me, yet I’ll never be sure what gave him the impression I was a prostitute. I was wearing no makeup, braids and a wrist band, Nike, but who knows?

There's a Canadian band called The Weakerthans that I like a lot. Their lyrics are like, "I want to call requests through heating-vents, and hear them answered with a whispered no." And, "Beauty's just another word I'm never certain how to spell." The singer publishes poetry in literary magazines. Once I solicited a poem from him, after a show, at CBGB. He was messing with an amp, and I came up behind him, and solicited a poem for my magazine that I hadn't started yet, and never would. He seemed not at all bewildered but actually a little expectant and amused, as if he'd seen my shadow on his amp, and therefore knew that I was approaching. I hate CBGB. One time, I sat in a chair at CBGB, and a guy said, "You can't sit there." Then he turned the chair so that it faced a wall. I was like, "Are you sure you just did that?" In my head, I was like, "This is the shittiest venue ever." Ten years before that, my grandfather invited me to his house. He invited me upstairs in his mansion. He took a box off a shelf. He took a Jessica Simpson mask from the box, hesitated a moment, mumbled something about the dangers of collecting celebrity masks, and strapped the Jessica Simpson mask on my face. He slapped my ass in a way that said, "Get going now, boy," or else in a way that said, "Come back soon, baby." What do you think? Get going now, boy? Or, Come back soon, baby?

WHAT DID YOU SAY!? Fuck you, bitch, shit, I was only trying to warn you not to step in that bitch’s shit, and you fucking want to pick a fight with me? Now I’m scared Tao, because she looks Latina, too, but who knows? She could be Middle Eastern, or even Bugarian, which reminds me of that dude in Acapulco, who spoke some Slavic language. He probably thought I was Mexican because of my dark features, but, and the fact that I was staying in a sleazy, who knows? Maybe that’s why he left 400 pesos on the night stand. I like to think it was for the sex, but, maybe now that I think about it, he could have just left it there by accident, who knows?

I read the first fifty pages of Madame Bovary. I hate translations. I read Chekhov. Raymond Carver is nothing like Chekhov. Cynthia Ozick says Alice Munro is "Our Chekhov." She said that because (1) we own Alice Munro (I got a letter in the mail that said, "Alice Munro is thinking of moving to Toronto. Since you own her, you get to vote if she's allowed to do this." I voted no. I was like, She can't just move to Toronto. She has responsibilities.) and (2) at any given moment in time, there is, in each continent except Africa or Antarctica, one Chekhov that exists. So, you—my cat Lulu is eating a squirrel's head right now—were in Best American Non-required Readings 2003, right? This is a yes-or-no question, for fact-checking purposes. Don't elaborate.

AH... YEAH!? I am taking to you bitch, shit, how much fucking clearer do you want me to be about the shit on the sidewalk that your bitch Candies almost fucking stepped in! She’s not Latina, she’s Native Canadian, I think, and I think she’s holding a paperback copy of Fall on your Knees, but who knows, I can’t see it from my car? I wonder if Reader of Depressing Books ever read that book. But, why didn’t I ask him that, back when he interviewed me for his blog, who knows? Where should I drive my car? But, have you seen the price of gas, who knows?

I'm worried about your son, the honour student. Our son. Please tell me he's okay.

OH MY GAWD!? This bitch is seriously going to fuck with me and shit, Tao, because bitch is fucking pulling up a big gob which sure as shit is going to hit my windshield. But, I gotta get out of here, which is the same thing I thought back in Acapulco, before I realized that we were in MY hotel room, and that HE was the one that had to get out of there, who knows? And that’s exactly what he did. I, but, can’t even remember his name, who, believe it or not, knows?

One time I told my friend John that his face was uglier than Ren's ass from Ren and Stimpy. My Grandfather heard and told me to follow him. We went upstairs in his mansion. We arrived at a high shelf. He moved a trunk over, stood on it, reached up to the shelf. He couldn't reach. He moved a TV and a lawn chair and a beanbag over and stacked those on the trunk. He stood on all that and fell. On the ground, his bone came out of his arm and he rubbed it. The top shelf fell on his mid-section. A box was there. He took the box. He took a vial of acid from the box. He tried to splash the acid at my face but spilled it on his own eye socket. The ceiling fan fell on him. The part of the ceiling directly above him, but not above me, fell on him. The force of that made it so both him and the ceiling fan and all that other crap, including the black, evil-looking beanbag—my cat lulu just floated eerily through my periphery, in a kind of outer-space-y, upside down cartwheel—fell through to the first floor of his mansion; and that's when I learned, on some level, we're all the same, us people.

YEAH, YOU KEEP WALKING!? Bitch almost shit her pants, Tao, when I took my fucking gun out of the glove compartment, and put that shit in her fucking bitch face. Okay, but, that line of swears just made me want to hold my knees and rock and cry in the shower, who knows? Swearing’s so stupid as you can see by this demonstration. But who knows how much clearer I’d have come across had I not been required to swear? Know what I bought with that 400 pesos? A fancy little Mexican doll, which looking back now was kind of racist, for my sister, but who’s not a lesbian as she’s portrayed in my first novel, Tempting Faith DiNapoli, though, who knows what the future holds for her now that she’s separated from her husband? A lot of lesbians used to be married to men.

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* lisa is the author of Tempting Faith DiNapoli

she lives in Toronto, likes the novel anagrams, writes for nerve, was once included in best american nonrequired reading, and has done many other things

her second novel will come out some time next year; she says that

it's about infidelity and the Detroit Border, draft dodging, New York, and choices... plus epilepsy, hippies and a dog named Scoots

she says it opens a lorrie moore quote, taken from What is Seized:

...forgiveness lies alone and far off down the road, but bitterness and art are close, gossipy neighbors, sharing the same clothesline, hanging out their things, getting their laundry confused.

she says that these are the titles that it might have

Peachy
Borderline
Vigilance
Laundry
I Wish I Was The Moon
and
Working Title

and that maybe people can vote (in the comments section; do it!)

lisa also says that she is hard at work on a third novel, and that it is

[...] going to be about Marijuana, Hockey, Friendship, Injuries, Rape, Restaurants, and Astronauts... Choice and Chance, too. It's only got one title and that is... The Arena.