calamari press

i read two calamari press books; part of the world by robert lopez & the revisionist by miranda mellis (blog)

i liked both of these books, i don't think i would have read them if blake butler didn't like them and blog about them (blake butler is the human being who has blogged most about calamari press, i think), i'm going to type about both books then give some context, some information about what kind of brain thought these things about these books

part of this world
by robert lopez

i like this book because it's funny, because the narrator is detached and calm, and because the narrator's situation and personality aren't written about as if they are 'problems' that will be cured by a psychologist or a relationship or anything

reading this book i felt calmer, sometimes more excited, and when the book ended i felt a combination of calmness, excitement, and wanting to be nice to people (which distracted me from feeling depressed, anxious, or insane) that overall felt 'good' and made me feel 'better' for a while (20-30 minutes)

the book has short sentences, reoccuring things and words that reoccur in a way that were funny to me, and it talks about a kind of person called a 'teardrop' that is shaped like an upside down egg and does 'teardrop things'; the narrator will sometimes say things like 'a teardrop was in the parking lot' (not an actual sentence from the book; i don't have it with me) and it would feel to me like it was said in a funny but 'kind-hearted' way (i think in the same way the word 'beast' was used here)

i was able to read the book with interest because the narrator didn't ever seem like he wanted me to feel sorry for him (i think that is what people mean when they say in reviews that a book is 'not sentimental'); this was accomplished by sarcasm, irony, and i think the author doing a lot of work on the sentences

the revisionist
by miranda mellis

i like this book because of all the reasons i liked the other book

if you want to know what this book is like open 'like life' by lorrie moore and read the first couple of paragraphs of 'like life,' the first paragraph of 'joy,' and maybe the first few sentences of 'the jewish hunter,' those are the things i thought of when i read this book; i also thought of the first two paragraphs of my story 'nine, ten' and the non-specific character parts of my story 'love is a thing on sale...'

it has a lot of jokes in it, it is almost i think all jokes, like if you're hanging out with someone and start saying things like 'what if people started...' (i just stared at the computer screen for a long time, i can't think of a good joke right now but you know what i mean)

the book has a joke about 'the hitler-einstein dilemma' about people saying things like 'what if [my baby] is [the next hitler; the next einstein]'

the book seems afraid of boring the reader or using up too much of the reader's time and like it wants to finish quickly and be a nice, considerate book; i like this, i like books and people like this, it feels like the author worked very hard deleting words and sentences that people might be bored by

tao lin's brain currently (context of what i typed above)

most of the time now i am only interested in things with no rhetoric, but are just amusing 'what if' statements stated as fact or just a fact that is amusing or a series of facts that is amusing if put in a certain order because it becomes a 'story'

i don't think my brain registers anything to me anymore (except to go do something else or go lay down) if it processes the following words: 'profound,' 'deep,' 'important,' 'stunning,' 'brilliant,' etc.

i don't know if this is true but this is what it feels like...that the writing i like is written by people who view 'the stranger' and 'waiting for godot' as books that were written in a rhetorical way, like they wanted to convey a message that was less than the sum of all their words, whereas the writing i like wants to convey an emotion or have an effect that...never mind, ignore this paragraph, or read it but know i wasn't able to articulate what i'm talking about

i feel unable to understand many things anymore except things i can hold and touch; if something is abstract i view it as something that is relevant to my existence only if it can relieve boredom, make me laugh, or show me that another human being is the same as the things i have described in this paragraph

i'll articulate this better in some book i'll write in the future (melville house, 2010), maybe in a 20-page short story

remember, this is only how i feel right now, 11:25 p.m. october something, 2007, do not try to argue with me

i also do not understand arguments or 'discussions' or even conversations anymore, if i talk to someone i expect to either be revealing something about myself to them directly in order to learn if they do or do not think the same way i do (the ways i have described in this post) or else to somehow relieve my or their boredom

there is something called 'semantics' and there is a phrase that is 'it's just a matter of semantics,' i'm not sure but i think it means when you're in a classroom and the teacher says, 'is this a story or a poem or a prose poem?' or 'is this story important?'

what happens for the next 45 minutes is the same to me as the six words, 'it's just a matter of semantics' which means to me the same as, 'this is irrelevant to your life and making you feel bad and you should find someplace where this doesn't ever happen'

something like this happens every day, in life, i think it may be what most people call 'a conversation' but i'm not sure

there is also something that happens, that is similar to what i described above, when someone talks shit unsarcastically about someone else's art using abstractions or name-calling

but there is also something that happens when you start refuting 'conversations' as 'irrelevant' and start requiring a context and a goal every time an abstraction is used, and that is what has happened to me, to some extent, and this is the end of this post, thank you for reading