Sep 02
ValerieLiterature, Review, promotion, writing sam pink
sam pink has a manner of courting obscenities, portraying human transgression as consolation. this appeals to me, i had to get a copy. sam pink is nice and sent me one. i finished Frowns need Friends Too and didn’t know where to start. i tried to put my finger on the sense of deja vu i took from his detached style: like irregular thought, irregular thought, irregular thought, bombshell and/or sinker! amusing/awkward title, irregular thought, irregular thought, bombshell and/or sinker! awkw..you get it. i mean, you’ve read sam pink around, right? his patterns are present and sometimes broken but the general output is ‘things you think but do not say and things you’ve not allowed yourself to think because you never had the words to correctly come off abhorrently wrong in the appropriate manner.’
after a couple weeks (yeah i’ve been putting this off) the deja vu feel clicked. i hadn’t read sam pink’s style elsewhere so much before per say as i had actually known sam pink’s writing, personified. back in high school, around ‘95, we had named him sloth. sloth was obsessed with gg allin, murder junkies, all things porn, which sounds normal for a young outcast coming into adulthood (pun intended). sloth’s prized possessions were three black and white printouts (1) a girl fucking a horse (or vice-versa, how is that properly stated?) (2) a girl fucking (again, ?) a coke can (3) a ‘normal’ deep throat closeup. sloth kept those three papers folded lovingly in his back pocket for an entire summer. he would enthusiastically shove them in anyone’s face who happened to approach our derelict crew. of course, this was before the entire world had access to the intranets and such porn was passé by kindergarden.
sloth had an extreme slouch, moved super slow and twisted his unkempt hair constantly with steady twists and pulls until patches of bald appeared all over his head and his parents decided he needed professional help. the day sloth announced he was officially schizophrenic we were all walking to steal beer from the anheuser-busch factory just past the main thruway of town. sloth was his normal quiet self, walking with our pack, occasionally laughing his signature crazy cackle laugh – sometimes at something someone said, sometimes at nothing any of us could actually hear. we passed the autoparts store (on the main thruway, constant steady traffic) which had a picnic table for employee breaks and sloth said ‘so guess what? i’m fucking schizophrenic and my entire life is going to be shit!” he jumped atop the empty picnic table, pulled down his pants and began to give all passersby a masturbatory show.
we all laughed at first then fear of impending cop doom set in and we coaxed him down and ran for the shelter of the train tracks. unfazed or maybe he had already forgot his public wanking, he stopped on the tracks to have a smoke. most of the guys, tired of his antics, kept going onward toward the beer factory. a couple of us stopped to have a smoke with sloth, weary to leave him behind alone. he began to chain weeds together into a crown of sorts while absently talking about his little sister and how he would watch cartoons with her and wonder what her tiny face would look like if he cut off her oxygen. we were used to sloth saying horrible things and figured it purely for attention. now we wondered if he had always been serious, letting us in on darker things we had yet to accept as real. at the same time we felt like we knew him well, some in our group had known him since preschool. he was a good/fun guy but at the same time we couldn’t ignore the explicit raw insanity coming out of his mouth.
reading sam pink is much like hanging out with sloth. his words are uncomfortable, a little horrific but at the same time familiar – somehow chummy so you’re never quite sure if you should be only a little embarrassed or totally appalled at yourself by enjoying them. in all things i say fuck it, don’t over think such matters. go buy frowns need friends too and/or check out sam pink september 11th at dit fest. get in touch with your obscenities, take them for a stroll to the beer factory, steal a case off an unlocked van, take a seat on the train tracks and drink till you forget how normally rotten we all are.
(one of my personal favorites below for your eyeball pleasure)
neanderthal clitoris
The worst position to be in is to have someone care about you more than you care about yourself.
The worst position to be in is to be that person.
The worst position is to be a person.
Everyone needs to hate someone else.
Being that someone is as good a goal as any.
You are my favorite failure and I am too destroyed to get off the couch, I guess I will sleep on the couch without brushing my teeth.
Everyone needs to hate being a sleepy-failure with a goal but I want to be buried in a coffin, holding another human that died on the same day as me, both of us wearing crowns made out of construction paper with plastic jewels glued onto them.
Ouch, this is hurting me.
I made the sign of the cross and vomited on my feet.
Ouch.
The worst position is the one you began with, and then continued to make worse.
Aug 20
Khakjaan WessingtonArt, Combat Words, Craft, Literature, TWAK, evolution, guns, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, politics, promotion, random, richard dawkins, science, web, writing combatwords
CombatWords! August 20, 2010: Evolution
This cycle of cells is vicious, isn’t it? Predator and prey all germinated from the same batch(es) of cells and filled every exploitable niche on this planet: an endless cycle of growth and consumption. Parasites, symbiotes; eater and eaten all draw energy from the sun and its legacy. When I think of the chain of life, I sometimes think I am a skin cell that has forgotten it is part of a bigger organism. Of course, most of the time, I just think my cluster of cells is precious and the rest have little to do with me. Evolution can be metaphorical as well; I find it hilarious for example when I hear about technology ‘evolving.’ Do creationist engineers hide in secret covens and call their manifold works the products of intelligent design? Do they grit their teeth when their colleagues discuss the ‘evolution of the business process’? There’s more than one angle to this one.
Combat Expiration: Sunday, August 22, 2010; 12am PST
Critique Expiration: Sunday, August 22, 2010; 6pm PST
Bonuses: Flat bonus of +1 for compositions posted before Friday, August 20, 2010 9pm PST. +2 for compositions posted before Friday, August 20, 2010 6pm PST.
Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
ps: Okay, this is posting >1min early. Those who got here early have some extra initiative.
Aug 15
Khakjaan WessingtonArt, Combat Words, Craft, Literature, Publishing, books, humor, memes, poetry, promotion, random, web, writing
CombatWords! August 15, 2010: Lightning Round
You have one hour to weave the below keywords into a composition. I’ll be really impressed if you can find more than one theme to unify the keywords/concepts.
Keywords/Concepts: tropic, sound, insanity, strategy
Combat Expiration: August 15, 9PM PST
Critique Expiration: August 16, 6PM PST
Time Bonus: +1/5 minutes ahead of deadline, max +5
The Official Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
Jul 30
Khakjaan WessingtonArt, Craft, Literature, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, writing combatwords
CombatWords! for July 30, 2010: Good
The Good: Shall we say ‘The Good’ maximizes human happiness, as Aristotle would have us define it? Good is of Anglo-Saxon origin, so I think it’s safe to say it predates a Latin—and therefore Mediterranean—definition. GE Moore sez ‘The Good’ is for suckers. Or let’s make it more simple—what if you could go back in time and shoot your French machine-gun a little more accurately at Hitler in WWI? Is that good if you prevent WWII? Is that bad if that means WWII is fought in the 50s with nuclear weapons? See? This shit gets tricky. What does it mean to be good? Is it an act constrained to time? Our experience? Or forget all that; be opposite-kid and write about Evil, because ooh, you’re so rebellious. As long as you riff off the theme, you can rack up the bonus points.
Combat Expiration: August 1, 6pm PST
Critique Expiration: August 3, 12am PST
Bonus Increment: +1 per 3 hours ahead of deadline with a maximum time bonus of +15. Yes, time bonuses are going to be huge in this CombatWords, but quality matters. The limit is +15 to give PST people some time to write after work. Don’t want to give the East Coast an unfair advantage. If you don’t want to wake up with the Saturday penalty, you’d better get writing NOW.
Rules are here: http://trickwithaknife.com/?p=861 and here http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
Jul 30
Khakjaan WessingtonArt, Craft, Uncategorized, memes, poetry, writing combatwords
Rules for CombatWords! Updated for July 30, 2010:
Critique & Scoring:
Scoring is based off critique. Each critique item is worth one point. Positive critiques are +1, and negative critiques are -1. One critique per reviewer, per composition—so get it right the first time. Simple “I liked it” (ILI for short) and “I didn’t like it” (IDLI) critiques are only worth +/-1. Critiques may be as general or as specific as the critic would like. However, anyone may critique a critique to adjust the score: this includes the author of the subject composition. However, only one critique per post per poster, to prevent vendettas from mucking up the game. Critiques may go into overtime, but only in the case of thread consensus.
More
Jul 30
ValerieFilm, books, politics, promotion, web, writing
ever since i stumbled across his essays on coldtype i have been a loyal joe bageant promoter. what first caught my attention, aside his hillbilly humor and general common sensibility, is that he hails from the same forgotten asshole of the shenandoah valley as me, winchester veerr-ginn-yah. big ups 540. jeah.
if you don’t know who joe bageant is than you must become acquainted with the great redneck hope. i would suggest ‘Walking at the Doomsday Ball: Capitalism is dead, but we still dance with the corpse’ or “Let’s Drink to the Slobbering Classes : A sordid tale of work release, hyenas and liberal weakness”. if you’re down with a whole damn book of him, my all time favorite: “Deer Hunting with Jesus, Dispatches from America’s Class War”.
joe’s blog announced the following documentary: which sounds inspiring:
“The Kingdom of Survival” circles through themes of utopianism, globalized capitalism, anarchism, intellectual and spiritual self-defense, religion and art in an investigation of physical and psychological survival strategies practiced by groups and individuals in a conflict-ridden and confused post-modern world.
new release this fall, also: “Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir”.
damn, his titles are great. and i promise, i’ve only walked past his house hoping to meet him a handful of times. anyway, i think he moved. goddamn belize. sigh.
Jul 23
Khakjaan WessingtonCraft, Literature, TWAK, Uncategorized, evolution, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, writing combatwords
Combatwords for July 23, 2010: Pleasure Versus Pain
Pleasure and pain; comedy & tragedy; happiness and despair—these are the moods and feelings we chase or flee. They are also the foundations of behavioralist worldviews. Han Fei Tzu and BF Skinner have plenty in common, despite their 2000+ year gap. Take this topic however you’d like: humans as animals; the two flavors in life; whatever.
Combat Deadline: July 25, 6pm PST.
Critique Expires: July 27, Midnight PST.
Time Bonuses: +1 per 5 hours ahead of deadline.
ARE YOU A JERSUSALEM CRICKET OR A CAMEL SPIDER???!!!
FIGHT!!!!!!(?)
Jul 20
ValerieLiterature, TWAK, Web Goodies, books, guns, promotion, web, writing
ok, no not really our sponsor but an awesome contributor to trick with a knife and blogger of the intranettings- he, yeah that guy, has a new chapbook – there are only thirteen and this figure is inflated cause i know i bought one already and there are many cooler peoples who come to be in the know about hot happening things much quicker than me so there may only be like, one or two left and oh holy hell what will you do with yourself if you don’t have this awesome to turn between your sticky fingers and touch with your thirsty eyeballs? BUY IT NOW BEFORE YOU REGRET YOUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE
Jul 13
The Humanistevolution, humor, writing
I would like to begin a discussion with the purpose of finding a place for Mather. The place will have to be full of people wearing name tags with their real names. The people there will have to be prepped so they know they have to tell Mather their full name and possibly give details about their geographic location before they can say anything else to him.
A lot of reeducation will need to be done to teach the people there to take his opinion as simply his opinion and never personally. This is because he will be doing a lot of stating his opinion and we need these people to stay and not leave offended.
Another trait the people in our theoretical bubble will need to develop is one of tolerance. Not of the religious or sexual variety, but of the putting up with nonsense kind. They must either have pre existing patience of saints, or extremely limited vocabularies (so they cannot form sentences that might anger him).
If anyone has been on TWAK for the last few days, this next point will be obvious. This place we are here to discuss, cannot abide Khakjaan Wessington. The people there should be screened to make sure they have never heard the name, incase they were to mumble it while dreaming and wake just before Mather caves their poor skulls in with a rock.
It might make sense to have no internet in this place because the internet as we all know is serious business. It could introduce far too much variety and if not destroy this place of dreams, it would threaten its stability. Since many of us have grown so attached to the web, we might not be able to muster the cold hearted strength it would require to deny Mather of it. I have given this a lot of thought and decided a simple web filter could be a viable solution and I invite anyone to discuss the definition dictionaries the filter will use.
In all seriousness, this might seem like a complete joke, but I am not kidding. I don’t think Mather will ever be able to adapt to the changes happening here. There is far too much creativity happening that he might think is because of Wessington, and if he is not attacking the work or the people posting it, he will be resenting it.
Mather here is your score:
Lack of class -1
Trying to ruin things for complete strangers -1
You are human +1
You like writing* +1
*Only if it isn’t related to Combat Words -2 (2 taken because this one spoils a redeeming trait in Mather, so it is doubly wicked)
Final: -2
Quiet people of TWAK, you who have gone about your business writing and living without becoming involved in the events leading to this point, please respond. I could go on, but it would be repetitive, like the horrible back and forths Mather and Wessington have been engaged in.
Jul 02
Valeriepromotion, web, writing
have you ever driven ten hours solo through five states and crossed invisible lines gaurded by arnold schwarzenegger clones with growling french accents all in order to smuggle superb oregon IPAs and fine texas distilled vodka to your one and only for his thirty-second birfday?
if not, i highly recommend the adventure – you’ll discover aches in driving muscles you never knew you had.
only one word of caution, somewhere around mile 242 my nostrils caught wind of something deeply foul. i began to panic. is that rubber burning? is my car on fire? a look at the license plates surrounding me held the key – sorry new jersey, but you fucking stink. for real.
point of this post: negative suck is looking for submissions. get off your ass and write.
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