On Fiction: An Overlooked Reminder

Not that the reminder is overlooked, but that the thing I am reminding you of is overlooked I find more than a drop of coffee passes the lips of your's truly: a thing has to be itself.

Case 1: If you write about an artist, that person should art. They should make something. They should make something arty. If you spend half a novel having an artist running around and never once at least comment on the shape of a piece laying in the trash you might as well be writing about a politician.

Case 2: A Comedian should be funny. Even melancholy comedians should at least have been funny at one time, or they need to so mammothly depressing that they play it up for laughs. If you sum up the past of a comic writer in 3.5 pages and there isn't a joke on the page I don't believe that person was actually a comedian.

Reading Cohorts - Robin Richardson

You are so super close now. You are no more days, now only hours from it. Its gonna blow your hair back. Its going to slap you hard on the ass where it is both painful and pleasurable. It's Mental Marginalia. It's tonight. It's at the West Cafe, 379 Union Ave. It's at 8 PM. It's free. It's got Robin Richardson cohorting with us


Temiscaming
A hornet drums the lamp, red
clay, dead moth, pike smiling
from the skillet. Jin’s what I’m drinking,
I was raised on robbery. Henri taps
a yellowed thumb against the table
off time. His eyes are closed, legs
crossed, he shakes as he brings
the plastic cup of homebrew
to his lips, says he loves Joni Mitchell.

So will you won't you, will you won't you, won't you join us. Cheer

Reading Cohorts - Chris Slaughter

Here we are again ready to passeth all understanding! Keep your hearts and minds multiplied through the knowledge that Mental Marginalia is happening in UNO WEEKO as El Bloombito would say. That's right my perfect brethren of good comfort, we five marginals are offering you benediction next Wednesday's night at the West Cafe for the price of free, so adorn your sacred selves and come join us.

In the meaning whiles, preview Chris Slaughter and let the peace and glory be forever and ever

Reading Cohorts - Paige Taggart

We're on the Gravy Train. The Turkey Gravy Train, but that should not stop you from remembering, marking the calendar, creating an entire memory castle just for storing this one important fact - MENTAL MARGINALIA on 11/30/11, or if you are a Sodurinian, 11/333/IH8^3. You will have a good time. I will make you have a good time. A cheesy flip flips good time. Until then, here is impending cohort Paige Taggart

PRUDE FROG

We charted out these breath patterns on tape recorder.
We ran around kicking and screaming, blue tooth, blue tooth!
Then we swelled really low to the Earth, and impregnated it
with little bomb sockets.
Merely seconds before they were authenticated with a copyright seal.
I kept going around with stickers to preserve my idea, and you, well
you exploded with your own enthusiasm about what happens next.

You can read the rest at La Petite Zine

Reading Cohorts - Christine Kanownik

Heeeeeeeey'all,

Surmise quickly the 11/30/11 happening at West Cafe which shall put some hustle in your bustle and an apocalypse on your hips. Seriously, I expect dancing. Your call if you want it dirty. But we finally finished rigging up the new catalytic salt reactor on the roof this afternoon so the HYPE MACHINE is fully operational, and its already kicking out the buzz. First fist up: Christine Kanownik-

How the West was won.

by CHRISTINE KANOWNIK

Tyra Banks is a cowboy.
She is in the desert.
When she stands on rocks
They become mountains.
And when she descends
They become canyons.
She spits a little when she talks
And the spit becomes rivers.

You can read the rest of this piece at 42Opus

Comin At Ya!

Christine Kanownik
Paige Taggart
Chris Slaughter
Robin Richardson
myself

11/30/11
West Cafe
379 Union Ave
Brooklyn
Presented by Mental Marginalia

A Great Quote on the Future of Literature

"You know, we've had this amazing oral tradition of poetry for nearly as long as anyone can remember. The entirety of our knowledge has been adapted to this tradition. It contains everything we know and have experienced as a civilization. It is the basis for our law, our commerce, our history, and our art. Now you have these Cuneiformists who want to start recording everything. They want to translate the vast beauty of our language, poetry, and culture into symbols, into children's drawings in the sand and claim this will preserve our way of life. Hell, they claim it will make life easier? How? How could the passion of Iklad Munnur's arguments during the Tell Fara inquiry be translated in physical form? How does one capture the richness of Sonitep's voice? Mark this time. The cuneiformist way is the unraveling of our literature."

-Ensur Ugar, Mesopotamian Oral Translator and grump, 3386 B.C.
(what's amazing about this quote is that it was found via the painstaking research in 2011 by Orslo Bilgant into what he deemed Cyclical Bitching by Old Men About How Much Better the Past Was and How All of Literature Faces Imminent Finality Every 20 Odd Years. Orslo found the varied shards of Ugar's quote by reading between the lines of the frequent posts by old men about how terrible x (book, music, art) culture is today compared to the bygone Halcyon days they knew of from their youth)

September 21, 2011 11:08pm EST

Fuck Fucker buckets Fuck buckets of rum. The rum in the punch
or the punch and then the rum
to numb the cheek and letters to
Abraham fathering three religions, though
they were rejected by Albert Rosenfield who unbeknownst to you
until this instant
was in fact
the son of the Padishah Emperor
Shaddam Corrino IV (real life true story time
trials conducted entirely under the supervision
of his holiness the Dalai Lama and the Kwisatz Haderach
to induct the veracity of his claims under perjury of spice regarding
the origin of the twine used to bind Laura Palmer’s body
and the shells fired into Mark MacPhail), the art of war
scarring the face of Arrakis
your hands holding hands
touching the metal waiting
for the shock sure there will come rains
to test the faithful not in
vain appreciation of the tragedy
become innocent and martyred
on the ground outside a burger joint
or in the halls of doubt and recantation
justice served and justice denied
a stay of execution
appeals denied, rappers and Jimmy Carter
talk-boxing again around the signal
lights along the shore
shallow rocky spears upthrust
against Davis’ prow
the assassin’s needle
seeking Atreides' life
Muad’Dib bends like a reed in the wind
which I guess you cannot do when you are strapped to a table
the state has laid out and prepared for with body and the blood
the Shadout Mapes had her blood mixed by the hunter-seeker too
an ultra short acting bartiturate here
a chemical paralytic there
passed into law by a Reverend
which fact lends us only a greater question
of the irony all this culture
can bring to bear
which we cannot stand
to watch, put off thinking
of, sit quietly as we take in
the beauty of this life when
it turns toward the onset of terror
admired as it destroys
society’s angel with head bowed
the killing word silently spoken
Troy Davis and Mark MacPhail asleep
inside the bullet, cheek to cheek
rest now, in peace
dreaming no more of the heroes
who let you down

One Wonders

if employees at Marvel Comics and Marvel Entertainment and Marvel Under-roos Textile Concern are required by corporate mandate to consume this:


Inspired by the upcoming movie. It's big, it's heavy, it's good, but um, yeah. Thankfully the Chicago Tribune was able to provide me with that picture. WHo only knows were they got it from, what murky alleys they skulked through and what manner of shiftless, broken shell of human misery PR rep sent it to them (I assume it was emailed, these sorts of rich, nuanced human interactions are becoming a thing of the past). Speaking of human interactions, this:



We are, after all, only human.