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Air in the Paragraph Line Issue 04
Air in the Paragraph Line
A Newsletter about Jon Konrath's writing and life
Issue 4 - June 1996
The latest:
Hello again and welcome. If you're new to Air in the Paragraph line,
let me give the quick, ever-changing synopsis. This is a newsletter
describing my trials and tribulations as a writer in Seattle. I use
it to tell my friends about what's up with my life, keep people
updated about my writing, and unleash some prose to the world. So
let's get started here...
First, thanks to everyone who replied about the last issue, especially
about my trip to San Francisco. I'm glad some people enjoyed the
story I wrote, maybe in some future issues. I'll do the same sort of
thing. Once again, an apology for the incredible delay in getting
issue 3 out the door. Some of you will probably get this issue only a
week or two after the last, so think of it as some sort of bonus or
something.
The conference at WWU was a lot of fun. I went with almost no speech
prepared, but it became a very informal presentation and quickly broke
into a long question and answer period. I got to talk to some great
writers, including Don McQuinn, FM Busby and Bruce Taylor, and I
talked to some great people, too. The drive up there was a bit of a
haul, but it was well worth the effort.
A quick recap on writing: Rumored To Exist is still in a heavy editing
stage, making the advances to its second draft. I've been in great
turmoil about what writing to keep, what to completely rework, and
what to drop. After some heavy cuts, I'm happier about the direction
of the draft, but I think some of the dropped text was stuff that
people really liked. It's a complicated mess, but hopefully in a few
more weeks, it will all start to make sense.
I've started (and pretty much finished) working on a chapbook called
Sound Advice for the Insane. It's a bunch of dropped text from
Rumored, respun and edited for a small digest or mini-digest booklet.
I haven't done the layout or artwork yet, so I don't know how long it
will be, but I'm aiming for a 32 page booklet. I want to keep the
cost down so I can sell them for a buck or maybe 2. More word on that
when I get the layout done and ready to work with.
I'm starting a small press (very small press) to handle the chapbook,
this zine, and some other future projects. It will be called
Metropolis Press, and will basically just be me and maybe some
occasional input from others. I'd like to someday be able to print my
own books, and invite over a few other authors for chapbooks, poetry,
maybe a compilation volume, or a few other books. It all depends on
money at this point. But if you have any input or ideas, such as
distributors, good writers, places to advertize, or whatever, drop me
a line.
No new work has gone down with Summer Rain, but I'm waiting for a
chance to do some edits. I've started thinking about my third book,
and it will probably start where Summer Rain left off, but go in a
different direction. I'm currently incubating the third book,
thinking of ideas and sketching character ideas, but no actual writing
has started yet.
Nothing else has happened, writing-wise. No magazine deals, and I'm
going to stop plugging the ones I was in a few months ago, because
it's become boring. I haven't had time to do much other than edit
Rumored and keep from going insane, so there's nothing else to report.
Also, not many books to review this month, mostly because this Bowles
autobiography took up a lot of my reading time. I purchased a lot of
books, and I started reading more books than I finished. Maybe next
month will have 30 reviews.
And a correction - you can't get Kurt Brecht's stuff in Tower records
anymore. I guess they have a new buyer who isn't cool. Send a SASE
to Kurt Brecht/Dirty Rotten Press, 2440 16th St. #279, San Francisco,
CA 94103 for a catalog of his stuff.
Okay, let's get rolling...
Scraping the Bucket:
A Taste of March's outgoing mail
hey sicko whats up - i am at a cyber-cafe-restaurant somewhat near
chinatown in san fran. i saw the shop of vomit video but i couldnt
find a place to park for 900 miles. it was there tho, saw the videos
from the street and everything. maybe later tonight i dont know.
now that i'm using compuserve ppp, i know why we didnt make our
subscription numbers. you could encapsulate slip over smoke signals
and get a faster throughput.
anyway i was in california and just got back. i had a lot of lot of
fun. i went to san francicsco and saw that big red bridge and i saw a
lot of chinamen and a lot of stuff. it was cool. you shoulda been
there. i got you a t shirt that says you shoulda been there.
hey yes i have your book. you can have it whenever. you should come
back and visit all of us. unfortunately your buddy tim oren isnt here
anymore so you wont be able to hang out with him.
i did hang out with my friend virginia friday night - she came over
and we both dragged out years of spiral notebooks, taking turns
reading alond random pages from each of our journals. lots of kicks
from that - we both have some fucked up moments in our past which are
now funny and memorable.
p.s. i am not here until midnight every night. i usually leave at
5:01 or 5:02, but ive been known to stay as late as 5:11.
you were all drunk and i didnt get a chance to hit on you... sigh
congrats on finishing finals and stuff i didnt have finals i just have
this dumb job
i did get a new pair of shoes boots actually and i want to rush home
and try them on and stomp on things.
oh well what is up here - i keep hearing courtney love sing that live
through this song on the radio there is some live version with her
husband signing the back ups. weird. hey i think that oliver stone
should do a kurdt cobain film and val kilmer could play him. whatta
ya think?
umm that is cool that you got your friend a charles bukowski book he
is awesome. it is not awesome that your friend lives in south bend
though tell her to move or something.
they let me log into my bronze account so i could grab a copy of
everything and change my forward info. all of the mail from limp-hair
is lost. sigh. i guess teh book i end up writing about that era will
be more fact than fiction. oh well. i have thought about writing her
and asking if she had any of the shit i sent her. she is the kind of
person who keeps EVERYTHING i think she has every ticket stub to every
movie shes seen in her life. but then maybe she deleted all that shit
in a fit of rage. who knows.
hey did you join the navy? why were you going to? is it the men in
uniform thing? cant you just get a job at UPS or something?
i am a zombie today very tired from only a few hours of sleep. i had
a dream that they built a 200 story building right next to my house i
was very bummed when i woke up and it wasnt there.
so what else is up - i have been writing and balling insomnia
lately. been having a lot of sleep-related problemos lately which isnt
cool. i think it is because i washed my sheets and now i have some
psycho somatic problems with the cleanliness. i dont know. you tell
me you are the one who knows about psychos and stuff.
I NEED A NAP I NEED A HAMBURGER I NEED AN INFLATABLE DOLL THAT DOESNT
POP SO EASY I NEED A NEW BED I NEED A DOLLAR
ARE YOU THERE HELLO HOW ARE YOU sorry im in one of those moods lots of
insomnia little writing reading or constructive anything really hows
the job? hows the writing? hows umm hows the weather bleah i am gonna
go try to read or draw with crayons or something
all i can really say is that i re-re(re re)read it tonight and
seriously looked at each piece to see if it fit proportionally and
soforth. i'm about halfway through the book right now, either marking
each piece for removal, rewriting or other modification. i like more
of the book than i dont like, which is a good sign. and i have a lot
of ideas for rewriting. ive also decided what pieces i dont want to
include, and right now it is 39 of the first 129 pieces, which isnt a
horrible percentage...
i guess a lot of it is i dont want people to perceive the book as a
comedy book with a bunch of brief one-liner types of gags in it. the
first part of the book is full of that stuff. although its funny and
some people seem to really like it, i want the book to be deeper than
that. i dont want people to read it and think i am a humor writer and
then pick up the next book and get bummed that it isnt the same thing
all over again.
another strong thing is that i have a hard time thinking of this as a
"serious" book because of the short length and because of the really
weak pieces within. I think if I replaced all of the weak parts with
longer, better pieces, I would be much happier with the whole
project. So that's the goal for the next month or so, reworking some
of the draft and replacing some of the pieces with more textured,
literary chunks.
youre going to school this summer? that can be a downer - i did
summer school for a while. i was a gradual student for my last couple
years, just took a couple classes a sem all year round and worked all
year round. now that i just work, it sometimes seems like a
vacation...
always good to hear someone survived doing time up in north indiana,
hell of all hells. sorry your friend is up there and stuff my best
friend was also in south bend when i was in bloomington. he was in
bloomington and moved back over a GIRL what a dumbass she dumped him
later anyway and he was stuck. so i know your pain. well not really
but you know what i mean.
the new metallica was on the radio. dumb dumb dumb. i used to
worship those guys in like 86 or 87 now they are just stupid. their
new album sounds more like blind melon than metal. they should change
their names. the guys in dark angel changed their name to the
organization when they stopped playing metal music.
i vbought a copy of "Deranged" the Ed Gein story for A DOLLAR
paperback at this store. there was some cute red-haired chick working
htere but she looked about 17 or something so i didnt invite her back
to my place to see my serial killer books or anything. that line
never worked anyway and id be scared if it did.
new details magazine is out. nick cage on the cover. love of my life
jenny mccarthy is inside. heh. she isnt really the love of my life i
think tori amos is farther up the top ten list.
im still editing book 2, it is slow but it is going okay i guess... i
went to a writers convention yesterday, i was one of 7 authors who
spoke. i had a lot of fun and i got to meet don mcquinn and fm busby
and a bunch of other people. i talked to this woman who writes
erotica novels and she gave me a copy of her book so i will have to
read it so i am even more sexually frustrated. i also stole some new
milk crates so now i have some more room for books. actually they are
already full, i have way too many books at this point but i guess you
can never have enough. kinda like money, computer equipment, sex, pez
dispensers, any of those things.
I'm not a public speaker. I got out of high school speech, and in
college I took an early morning summer class so I only had to talk in
front of 6 people. The first speech I ever really gave was in front
of about 500 people, consisting of mostly execs and VPs of the company
I work for. This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've had to go up in
front of more than a few people and talk like this. Strangely enough,
I never had stage fright musically, and when I was still playing bass,
I played in front of 10,000 people once. So I don't know what the
deal is.
The wedding, by the way, is July 13th. This wedding will not be a
meat market, it will be a family reunion with a more formal dress
code. Unless I want to do the incest thing and hit on cousins, I
don't think there will be any meat market stuff going down. Also, I
don't really drink, and I especially don't drink around my mother. So
at most I can hope for a short reception and few stupid questions
about what I'm doing with my life. My relatives ask me what I do at
my job, but to them, a three-way lamp is too technically advanced to
understand. And I don't like to explain my writing to people who
can't read. So I'm expecting a real horrorshow, but after I leave, I
will have an incredible newfound respect for the pacific northwest and
its incredible improvements over the midwest.
When I'm depressed, I like to torture myself by remembering that a
woman who works with chimpanzees at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago
couldn't put up with my crap. Oh well..
I sent a resume to that email you gave me. I hope this isn't like
that time you told me that if I sent a death threat to
president@whitehouse.gov, candy would fall out of the computer. I am
still trying to get all of my stuff back from the secret service.
nothing up here just killing time and waiting to go get a haircut. no
no color change. job interview tomorrow. the drapes will still match
the carpet. after i get the job i will consider the carbon paper look
though.
of course i wouldnt have to worry if you came up here to visit and see
laservana because if you saw my pornography im sure you wouldnt be
appalled. same with the collection of dead bodies and various iggy
pop records.
on the dan savage show there were a bunch of people on from an improv
comedy group. and someone called in and they were talking about the
clitoral hood and one of the people mentioned "little red throbbing
hood" and "girls in the hood". heh...
I won't say anything bad about (deleted) because I'm still whittling
away all of the bad karma I earned from signing up (deleted) as a
lifetime member of NAMBLA and putting that ad in the Stranger's "Men
seeking Boys" section with his home phone number. I've learned my
lesson about ordering porno with a stolen American Express corporate
card.
i went to a bar to see a friend's band play. actually, this guy has a
record label, this small thing that he runs in his house with all of
these satanic metal bands. im not really into metal-type stuff
anymore, but it is always a trip to hang out with this guy. it was
free, and fairly fun. but i didnt get all drunk or anything, i had to
walk home from this bar, which involved 7 blocks up the 28% grade
hill. so ya can't get too hammered.
i went and saw BLOOD RITUAL play last night, they are on Moribund and
pretty decent sounding. it was at this indian restaurant right
downtown, near the stadium and the post-baseball game wanderers,
looking for sport bars or new orleans bars or whatever. very surreal
scene, these guys with turbaned heads and giant beards, serving drinks
to people completely decked out in pentegrams and leather. gotta get
back to writing. catch you later.
a lot going on here since you left me high and dry with no email buddy
to write to for the last ten million years. i spent a bunch of money
on books, i probably bought 10 or 15 this weekend. i also bought a
chair, one of the swivel types with the lever that raises it and
lowers it. and two cds - i bought the newest Anal Cunt album, which
is pretty entertaining. they are a noise metal band that's pretty
amusing.
i am sort of depressed and listing to Rollins Band really, really loud
to counteract it. i had this dream about this old ex, one of two
people i was really, truly head over heels in love with. the dream
was incredibly realistic and when i woke up, i expected her to be
right there with me. in reality, i havent heard from her in over a
year and i just passed the four year mark of when i last saw her face
to face. i dont even know what state she is in now. so i am majorly
bummed about the whole thing, which is kind of stupid.
i had a very vivid dream about an ex last night and now i am in this
stupid 'i miss her' kindof mood. i am refraining from drinking a
bottle of windex or something and im glad i no longer own a copy of
pink floyds the wall i am going to find my shoes and go for a long
drive and listen to some dumb loud music and get some junk food with
lots of grease and i will be back to the good old jon we all all know
and love and then i will write you more and maybe even joke around a
little about bondage or frotteurism or something
Spent most of today fairly depressed. I had a very realistic dream
about an old ex-girlfriend (Patty - the one from the Summer Rain book)
- filled with small details I had completely forgotten about her
voice, her looks, her movement... woke up thinking I would just be
able to call her room over in Forest quad and talk to her again. In
reality, it's been probably 4 years now since we've talked on the
phone, and I have no idea what continent she's on.
I'm digging the city now. I got some more money back in January, and
I might be moving to another company in the near future. Now that
I've built a trade for myself with this WinHelp and technical writing
shit, things are getting more comfortable with the job stuff, which
makes the evenings and the writing more relaxing. I'm slowly getting
into the other stuff in the city and getting around a bit more - it's
a lot more ground to cover than podunk, indiana. But I think I'm
staying here indefinitely. The mix of the weather, the attitude, the
high-tech, the cleanliness, and the literary community is pretty much
perfect for me. All of this Kurt Cobain shit is unnerving, but I'm
hoping that will go away at some point. And I picture Seattle as
being a great literary community like SF in the 60s, NY in the 40s and
Paris in the 20s. I think a lot of fucking great novels will come out
of this city in the rest of the 90s. (and I hope one or two of mine
will be on the list - or at least the B-list..)
i was all depresso yesterday and the lack of sleep aint doing much for
it. i eventually ate at dennys and got fried shrimp, which helped me
somewhat. i also listened to loud, dumb music for a while, which
likewise aided me in my turmoil. if i woulda had a video and a bunch
of nasty VHS tapes, i woulda been set.
i read a copy of pregnant woman magazine in the checkout of
Target. theyve sure got some hot pregnant models for some of those
maternity fashions. too bad about 4/5ths of the kama sutra isnt
possible in the 8th month of pregnancy.
nothing is joyous about the little things in life. in fact, they piss
me off. the little things aren't kitty cats and rainbow days. they're
speeding tickets and broken toilets and flat tires and $300 phone
bills and the coke machine eating your last dollar bill. i dont
consider suicide an option because everyone would think i moved to
seattle and shot myself to be just like kurt cobain or something. so
my little things in life that make me go one are a little different.
i like to watch the company's stock drop. i like to watch couples
fight in the parking lot of the movie theatre. i like to go to junk
yards and look at all of the cars and imagine all of the putzes who
wrapped them around trees and think that im better than them. then i
like to write about it. so, how are you?
At one point, I thought of making a zine of just photocopies of all
the checks I couldn't cash, with snide little comments in the
margins. The collection became rather humorous, when you figure all of
the permutations of my name and the fact that people couldn't even
spell the name of my zine. I think I still have some $3 checks to John
Kornrath somewhere in my closet.
Bookworming :
A review of the books I read in May
Paul Bowles - Without Stopping (An Autobiography)
Reading books like this makes me wonder why I have a day job. Bowles
weaves an intricate yet breakneck-speed bio of his life, starting with
childhood and racing to his life in Tangiers in the early 70's. The
biggest shock to me was the amount of work this guy got done. He was
writing ballets, scores, soundtracks, books, poetry, newspapers,
pamphlets, and orchestra pieces almost nonstop. Even as a kid, he'd
write pages and pages a day, and later, he'd type for hours without
stopping, hence the title of the book. His travels are also amazing;
in an age with little air travel he zips to France, Morocco, India,
Panama, Cuba, the Bahamas, all over the US, and dozens of other places
too numerous to count. Plus he's met and had long friendships with
scores of famous people: Salvador Dali, Bela Bartok, Aaron Copeland,
Gertrude Stein, Arthur C. Clarke, Bill Burroughs, Jack Kerouac,
Tennessee Williams, and many others. The book is thick and takes time
to crawl through, but every time I set it down, I wanted to either
start writing a book or a play or take off for a distant region. My
only complaint is that sometimes Bowles like to insert a random line
of French or Spanish, which annoys me because I know either. And he
tends to drop names rapidly, making you wish you had a score card or a
flowchart or something. But Bowles is definitely an interesting guy,
and his life story is worth reading.
Kurt Brecht - Whore Stories
The latest book by the lead singer of DRI, this 54 page series of
stories takes a quick, first person tour of the world's oldest
profession. Brecht tells tales of Amsterdam's red light district, the
Reeperbahn, San Fran's Tenderloin district, Waikiki, and
just-across-the-border Mexican establishments of sin. The stories are
all brief episodes filled with detail about the curious activity of
procuring a prostitute in various places, and each tale usually
involves something humorous or interesting. With a glossy, full-color
cover and artwork, this book is the best yet from Brecht's self-run
Dirty Rotten Press. But as with his older books, it made me wish
there was more! Hopefully, more interesting titles will follow
between DRI world tours. Or maybe Brecht is off getting in trouble in
Eastern Europe as research for the next book? One can only hope...
Kurt Brecht - Notes From the Nest
This is one of those books I love to pull out and read when the bills
start piling and I start thinking MY situation is bad (the other is
the classic Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell). An
earlier book by the frontman of the punk-hardcore band the Dirty
Rotten Imbeciles, this short book tells of Brecht's days between
tours, when he lived in a treehouse in Golden Gate Park and walked to
the nearby Haight soup kitchens for food. The struggle against
weather, discovery, chance, animals and crime is perfectly described
in Brecht's daily routine, and the humor of the situation is also
beautifully captured. The book includes some poems/lyrics, along with
a few illustrations by Mark Sperry and Eric Brecht. Bonus points go
to the book for describing a gig where DRI opens for an early
rendition of the band Slayer. The only criticism is the size - it's a
great value for the price, but it's such fun and interesting stuff
that it makes you wish there were a thousand more pages to read. But
it's definitely a good read, especially if you're bummed about your
own money situation. When you're done, you'll be glad you aren't
living in a tree!
Carole Remy - Beauty of the Beast
I've never really been exposed to the genre of erotica before (unless
you count those letters written in to Penthouse. Do you think they're
real?) but I'll read any book given to me, especially if it's the
author who personally hands it over. Beauty of the Beast ended up a
more traditional story, especially the ending, and wasn't exactly what
I expected. It's about this woman reporter in the 1950's who goes to
investigate this S&M ranch in Texas by disguising herself as a
patron. Once inside, she witnesses all sorts of sexual situations,
and ends up falling in love with the mysterious and perplexing owner
of the ranch. The historical angle puts a good twist on the story and
kept me thinking about the time period, the history, the cars, the
politics, and so forth. Also, the plot's got some minor twists and
turns that kept me reading. The sex part isn't Caligula or anything,
it's pretty straightforward and not entirely as hormonal as I
expected. Overall, I found the book interesting and a refreshing
break from all of this hard-ass literary stuff I usually read. But on
the other hand, Remy really does a good job with characters, setting,
and dynamics, making for decent mechanics under the hood. I can't
judge this book against other erotica, but from a literary standpoint,
I found it pretty solid and a fun read overall.
Etc.
This is our shortest issue ever, but take it as a sign that I'm too
busy with the other writing. As always keep in touch and please keep
your letters and e-mail coming.
Send all comments, questions, praise, food, photos, computer parts,
trades, books, review items, and job leads to:
Jon Konrath
600 7th #520
Seattle, WA 98104-1933
(206) 343-5604 (home)
jkonrath@speakeasy.org
http://www.speakeasy.org/~jkonrath/
Air in the Paragraph Line is published monthly, within a few days of
the top of the month. Issues are a dollar, a trade, some stamps, or
whatever. Back issues are available for a buck or a SASE or IRC.
Issues are free to prisoners, bored people, or anyone who begs or
sends me something cool in the mail. I will review anything that is
sent to me, even explosives or death threats.
Thanks to: Ray Miller, Tom Sample, Larry Falli, Andrea Donderi and the
Coca-Cola Company. No thanks to Evergreen Ford in Issaquah.
Copyright (C) 1996 Jon Konrath. All rights reserved.
The following blank space contains a hit of acid, in memory of Timothy
Leary. Touch your tongue below and think peaceful thoughts:
