BAUMANNBLOG

Where would you most like to visit on the planet?

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:43:23 -0700

That’s an excellent question. I love that it implies that I’d also like to visit places off the planet, which is very true. I’d love to travel through Brazil next. Also eastern Europe, Congo, see more of Mexico… It’s hard for me to narrow my wanderlust.

Every sentence of Solip is a brazen little puzzle of heavy mystery, which when welded together as...

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Every sentence of Solip is a brazen little puzzle of heavy mystery, which when welded together as an object form the most compact and mask-faced take on the encyclopedic novel I can think of. In the ballroom with Sukenick and Lispector, it’s one that continues to unfold, query, conflate, revealing slick black floors where you thought walls were.
—Blake Butler

Confession time: Ken Baumann’s debut Solip isn’t a novel. Think of how it feels to watch an engrossing film; now imagine becoming that film, your vision little more than a flickering image, your body just a burst of white vinyl. Baumann’s non-novel, a vast detonation of language, not only captures that feeling, but also challenges you not to be held in its thrall. Indebted to Samuel Beckett and Gaspar Noé, Solip asks the reader to give up all human prejudice and surrender to life’s new texture, the flesh become word: a code all Baumann’s own, which bludgeons language as much as it opens prose fiction up to the highest horizon. Solip is a world for those who already dwell in the sentence, an anarchic hell that sounds something like heaven, by one of America’s most promising young writers.
—Giancarlo DiTrapano

out via Amazon, Tyrant Books, bookstores

trade distribution: Consortium

reviews: LA Times, HTMLGiant, 5cense, Goodreads

interviews: VICE, Other People, Banango Lit, Monkeybicycle, HTMLGiant

other press: Huffington Post Live, PopSugar, Access Hollywood, Home & Family

work in progress/making of

a candlelit reading

& thank you.

morrow

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:13 -0700

morrow

"The work is the death mask of its conception."

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:16:03 -0700

“The work is the death mask of its conception.”

- Walter Benjamin

to

Sun, 12 May 2013 10:00:24 -0700

opening

Sat, 11 May 2013 12:00:23 -0700

opening

epigraph

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:00:28 -0700

epigraph

AN UNFORTUNATE SUMMARY OF RECENT ME TALK

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:48:00 -0700

People have been asking me questions and doing things with my responses, lately. The lovely Carolyn Kellog interviewed me for the LA Times. Handsome man Brad Listi let me flap my mouth for Other People*. During What Are You Reading?, Matt Debenham asked me about books and religion and stuff. I wrote about art and video games for Thought Catalog. The outlets have been a privilege.

* Topics for Brad’s podcast include but are not limited to: dead bodies, horse sex, “horse nethers”, raccoon pets, dad profanity, Abilene, parent swapping, young reading, competition, being spoiled, skin in the game, “Fuck your god”, lesbian lap dances, selling Pokémon, the Oakwood, doing drugs/not doing drugs, carbs, moviemaking, Secret Life, meeting Aviva, Michelle Williams, fooling yourself, humans as destroyers, ecology, idealism, societal collapse, too much art, silence, benign pursuits, THE STRANGER, Tao Lin, Blake Butler, Austin Kleon, geography.

mark

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:00:08 -0700

mark

monolith

Sun, 05 May 2013 12:00:24 -0700

monolith

spine

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:00:24 -0700

spine

ledge

Wed, 01 May 2013 12:00:20 -0700

ledge

Because I finished the first draft of A TASK—and saved myself...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:57:00 -0700

Because I finished the first draft of A TASK—and saved myself from financial blackmail—I tried to take today off. A few days back, I decided to start drawing again. I stopped when I was about 14, and I regret it a lot. My recent swirl of fascination probably rose out of two things: 1. I’m reading comics again, and 2. I’m interested in writers-that-draw/artists-that-write, e.g. Zak Smith and Austin Kleon.

Above is the result of a couple of hours of fucking off with a big notebook and a Lamy fountain pen. It was interesting to draw again, and to have to shed the skin that screams YOU’RE NOT GREAT & YOU’LL NEVER BE GREAT while just attempting something dumb and casual. That skin has lost most of its bully power with me while I’m writing, but it grew back—with scales—while I had the pen in my hand today. I don’t think I want to put in the work to claw back my childhood competence, but I enjoyed spending a few hours zoning out into tiny details and converting my unease into a sore wrist and neck.

Used a bunch of snake and monster metaphors in that last paragraph. Blame 12 year old me.

Mr. Baumann I want to be actress in a few years too I started with some little roles in theater but I would like to know how to get ready for the big roles how can I train myself to act good or authentic !? My genre is drama and horror I hope you can help me nice greets from Germany :-) (Sorry for my English )

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:23:37 -0700

I don’t know the secret to great performances, but performing as much as you can will only help. Good luck.

Hi, just read your article on Thought Catalog and thought you sounded like a bloody fascinating person. You're mad clever man. I was wondering how old you were? How old were you when you met your wife? How old is she? What do you do on bad days when your brain doesn't want to co-operate? A lot of questions I'm sorry, I'm just really intrigued! Thanks x

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:13:27 -0700

Hi! Thanks for the praise. I’m 23, and my wife is 28. We met five years ago, dated on and off for years, then finally merged, Captain Planet style. Bad days: if I’m smart, I stop trying/pretending like I’m a thing that’s discernible and important and whole. Thanks again.

"…then i comprehended the ultimate truth of all reality and the supreme wisdom and ultimate principle..."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:06:52 -0700

“…then i comprehended the ultimate truth of all reality and the supreme wisdom and ultimate principle that governs the universe and all its creations and that once understood can be utilized to explain every aspect of the myriad phenomena and to answer every koan and solve every problem and banish every doubt and erase every intellectual care and that supreme wisdom and ultimate principle of the universe is that nothing makes any sense but that nothing ever has to…”

- The Book of Lazarus, by Richard Grossman

what is this, what this is

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:40:00 -0700

what is this, what this is

NYC people: I’ll miss this show by a week, but you...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:51:16 -0700

NYC people: I’ll miss this show by a week, but you don’t have to. Highly, highly recommend this.

I'm sorry, this isn't really a question, it's a comment on this sentence: "Because of humanity’s glut of existing and accessible culture, and our ecological precariousness, might it be better to stop making new culture and instead live a life that is as quiet and non-generative as possible?" I LOVE that you have said this. I believe this is inevitable. What happens when you have too much of a dynamic entity? It maxes out and scales back. This is our future. Thank God...?

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:19:31 -0700

Sure. I don’t want the scale back to be against our will, is all. Hoping we can—for once in history—decide to restrain ourselves. Thanks for like mind.

While Avoiding A TASK

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:12:00 -0700

Nothing like distracting myself from my imminent novel deadline by reading Artaud and Guattari and then having to shout at myself—out loud—to put down the copy of A Thousand Plateaus and just get to fucking work already. And now here I am, writing into this box instead of the novel box.

In the introduction to Watchfiends & Rack Screams, Clayton Eshleman points out that Artaud’s life conforms to the shamanic journey, popularly referred to in Hollywood and in comparative religion studies as the Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell popularized his idea of the monomyth (a word borrowed from Finnegans Wake, which is arguably Campbell’s favorite work of literature), and now Clayton has shown that even the life of a madman—especially the life of a madman—follows the patterns. What Artaud’s shamanic journey lacked, though, was a vital role in keeping his community together.

Now, with philosophers like Deleuze & Guattari ingesting & transforming Artaud’s work into a total philosophical shitstorm of radical analyses and practical methods, maybe Artaud’s view of the world and its pains will have the last laugh, as far as artistic prophecy goes. The world certainly feels crazier every day. Find a person alive that would argue otherwise.

It’s interesting to me that Campbell—who labored his entire life to find the connective spirit in the world’s body of myth/self-narration—would key into Finnegans Wake so much. I love Finnegans Wake. It’s one of those books that I could rave about for hours and hours, and often have, to the distress of anyone around me with ears. But Campbell’s love makes makes sense in a way, in that Joyce compresses so much cultural information, and with such an angle of play and pun and humor, that it would be an unlocked treasure chest for a guy as erudite and open as Campbell. I love the book because of what it does to me, and what I think it’s meant to do. The book takes the rhythms of speech and reminds you that they exist. It brings the music back to communication. Although, I wonder: If Finnegans Wake was translated into Swahili (lord god, I wouldn’t want that job), would the primarily West Germanic and Gaelic rhythms of the book—in its massive use of English and Irish—would they work in Bantu’s structure?

One of my oldest friends and I are engaged in an argument that has lasted about a decade. Our positions, crudely stated: He thinks narrative is a salve, I think it’s a war crime. Of course, we both oscillate between these two feelings, but he more often embraces Story as a Very Important Human Endeavor, while I often think that Story and our brain’s over-reliance on peeing neat little streams of causality on everything is Ultimately Bad, and Will Be The Death Of Us. Trademarks pending.

This is a roundabout way of pointing back at myself and the novel I’m currently avoiding. It is strictly chronological. Mostly. It is narratively comprehensible. Mostly. It’s structurally complicated, but definite in its shape. It feels like a puzzle. I’ve had a hard time with it, because it also dwells in reality. Mostly. I haven’t written anything with such strict limitations and such deep ambitions, in lockstep. It might never see the light of day. Who knows.

Reading Artaud and Guattari, and rereading Straw Dogs, has reminded of a question that I’ve posed to a bunch of friends in the last couple years. It’s this: Because of humanity’s glut of existing and accessible culture, and our ecological precariousness, might it be better to stop making new culture and instead live a life that is as quiet and non-generative as possible? In simpler terms: If there is too much of everything, shouldn’t the next few generations stop making more of everything? Wouldn’t that be a noble sacrifice? This is the question that is posed and radically answered in A Task. But unlike the central presence of the novel, I don’t think suicide is a viable answer to any problem, except the outstanding experiences of excruciating pain, as addressed by people like Dr. Kevorkian.

But every person I’ve put this question to—every artist—has blanched. People that normally will entertain the wildest notions do not want to touch this idea. And I get it. Who in the hell wants to be told that it’s bad to do the thing they most want to do? Especially when it’s something as benign as making and sharing art.

My answer to this question, when I question myself (which is often): Art is about the only domain left we can inhabit without the possibility of hurting people. Its potential to improve someone’s life is intense and private, and its potential to vitally wound someone is slight and singular. (Insert counterpoint.) The most common ill side effect: You waste someone’s attention. Which isn’t harmless, but I’d still rather waste someone’s attention than their health, wealth, or abilities. Art seems like a little pyramid scheme, but the capital is instead attention and imagination. (SECOND DRAFT EDIT: Nice domains that tangibly save lives? Firefighting. Nursing. Be a surgeon, or a social worker. Ken: Please keep inhabiting your little fancy flitty art world, you dummy.)

Apologies if you’ve read this far and have already read writing from me that moves into these ideas. I don’t claim novelty, or the ability to not repeat myself. Yet.

Goodnight and goodmorning.