The Believer has run two excerpts, here and here, of my forthcoming interview with Mark Leyner. The full interview runs around 6 thousand words and covers not only his new novel The Sugar Frosted Nutsack, but his early influences and his years spent script writing in between novels.  

I interviewed Sheila Heti for The Huffington Post about the 10^th anniversary edition of her first collection The Middle Stories and a little bit about her upcoming novel, How Should A Person Be? That and Leyner’s book were my favorite reads of the last year as both managed to scrape the barnacles off the idea of what a novel could be.

One of the more interesting facets of this project has been the speed at which it has been discovered and written about. I was juggling an interview schedule not a week after posting what I thought was going to be a slow burn participatory project—I was new to Tumblr and didn’t know if fellow Tumblrs would respond.

That meant I really didn’t have time to think about why I was doing the project much less why it was proving popular. It wasn’t until this week when I found myself getting my first full body airport scan that I started to grasp why The Composites found a place in culture so quickly, and internationally.

Here’s a breakdown:

US: People Magazine, The Atlantic, and CNET.

UK: Guardian and BBC.

International: Rue89, Stern, Slate France, Sky Italy, Lidovky (Czech Republic), and El Periodical (Spain).

In North America, technology and culture have been in a 10-year sprint to forensicize everyday life far beyond the need of basic law enforcement.  Internationally, of course, that has been the case much longer with Europe especially having to negotiate surveillance culture for decades. I think that theory is borne out by the fact that reality television wasn’t popular here until the mid-aughts.

Christian Bök called The Composites notably Ballard-esque (Vaughn from Crash was one of the first characters created) and riffing on that I’d also say that the combination of a law enforcement media and literature is a snapshot of inner space right at a time when literature is experiencing an ontological crisis. Writing’s struggle with digitization emulsifies well, it seems, with technology’s struggle with issues of privacy and security.

Where this goes from here, I don’t know. I will continue to take suggestions—1,000 and counting—and post one or two characters every week. I’ve really enjoyed collaborating with the readers on Tumblr, as they’ve dispelled the notions that the Internet fluent don’t read and that readers don’t like “unlikeable” characters.

Vaughn, Crash, JG Ballard

I always liked Tumblr but for the last year had been out of luck in terms of coming up with a good idea for it. Then I bought a contemporary software program after my interest was piqued in vintage Ident-Kits (see below) and Police Composite Sketches of Literary Characters seemed like the perfect project for Tumblr.

I’ve asked people to contribute suggestions and have a surprising amount of descriptions already. I will get to them over the next couple of weeks, as well as some of my own that I’m still working on.

Smith & Wesson Identi-Kit, year unknown

…And Megan Garber did an excellent overview of the project at the Atlantic, here. The Guardian also has a fair assessment here and the BBC filmed me talking about the project on Living Online.

Word Brooklyn is a great bookstore that’s launching its online ebook storefront. They’ve invited Joyland to put together a reading and talk this February 8 at 7PM. I’ll be reading—maybe from The Consumed Guide, definitely from I, Tania—along with my co-publisher Emily Schultz and Joyland author Jim Hanas.  We’ll be giving away print copies of Joyland Retro to anyone who buys an ebook in-store. It’s a fascinating meeting- halfway-point for anyone following the digital versus brick-and-mortar store discussion. More info here.

Joyland will be running a table at this year’s AWP book fair in Chicago.  We’ll also be hosting a reading night at Quimby’s  with Dzanc Books featuring readers Jeff Parker, Kevin Chong, Eugene Cross and Megan Stielstra. That is Thursday March 1 at 7PM. More info here. I would like to thank Quimby’s for the second chance. My last event–with a pre-Mayor Rahm Dan Sinker— ran up against a freak hailstorm and the penultimate episode of Lost.

The limited edition version of the The Consumed Guide is now available thanks to Insert Press. You can order a copy here or read more about this text project here. Funny enough, last week I tracked down a copy of my first ever publication, a collage featured in the insert for Jello Biafra’s album, Beyond the Valley of the Gift Police.

In 1989 I’m sure I was like many other 14-year-olds in that I collaged found images together with notices of bizarre deaths from the newspapers and mailed such things to Jello Biafra. Five-years later in 1994, I had forgotten about those mail art projects and graduated to what we now call “street art” but back in the day was just called vandalism–installing oversized Xeroxed collages on banks, hoardings, etc. I was also working at a college radio station and when I was going through the new arrivals one day I caught my name on the back of the Biafra album, in among names like Dan Clowes and Tom Tomorrow. It was an interesting moment in a young life, when you realize there are things like trajectories, narratives and oeuvres. In my case, the oeuvre begins with…

Buying for a critic who hates everything this holiday season? Pre-order the ltd edition of The Consumed Guide from Insert Press. You can read more of and about The Consumed Guide here.

Over at the Huffington Post is my article on journalist Brock Brower’s lost, and now reissued, novel The Late Great Creature. Fans of Derek McCormack, James Ellroy and New Journalism take note. Brower’s novel really is a poisoned treat.

 Miss Radiation 0% plagiarized.

Portable Altamont 10% plagiarized.

(There are more poetry “covers” than rips or substitutes.)

Ronald Reagan, My Father 15% plagiarized.

(One short piece takes the Wiki synopsis for El Topo and replaces “El Topo” with Joseph Lieberman. Another short piece uses instructions on surviving a nuclear attack but with the words “sexy hair” substituted in the place of “nuclear attack.” These instructions are public domain.)

I, Tania 30% plagiarized.

(Kurt Cobains’s Wiki combined with Sparky Anderson’s Wiki. Mary Lou Retton’s Wiki combined with GG Allin’s Wiki. John McEnroe’s Wiki combined with Ian Curtis’ Wiki.Three reviews of the Tony Scott film Domino.)

Voice Over 100% plagiarized.

Johnny 100% plagiarized.

The Consumed Guide 100% plagiarized.

Music

Yesterduh 0% sampled

(Technically, it’s an acknowledged cover.)

Eula 50% sampled.

(Lyrics were from Sony BMG’s End User License Agreement. Arrangement was original.)

Minima Moralia 80% sampled.

(Text was taken from Adorno. Music was all sampled. Vocals were original.)

Ten Banned Albums Burned Then Played 100% sampled.

Greatest Hit 100% sampled.

“Awesome.” —Sasha Frere-Jones

“The Consumed Guide takes music criticism and renders it obsolete.” —Kenneth Goldsmith

I’m happy to announce Insert Press of Los Angeles will be issuing a limited edition print run of The Consumed Guide. December 1, 2011 is the tentative street date and copies should be available through Insert and Small Press Distribution.