BAUMANNBLOG

Shit, Keeping Up, And Moving Away

What a coincidence! 

“The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.”

Just over seven months after the plan to send an additional 30,000 soldiers was announced! What luck. We just happen to find huge deposits of a gold, iron, copper, cobalt and lithium. Lithium, the stuff that we need to make advanced batteries. Batteries that will power our cars and trucks and phones and computers, etc. Like I said: what a fucking coincidence.

Alright. Something else.

Started in on heavy edits for Solip. Figuring out a bunch of structural stuff, and got through the first 1701 words, cutting, tweaking, adding, switching. Feels good. Blake Butler and Michael Kimball have been helping in the most massive ways. Read their stuff, buy their books. They are astounding.

I put my hand on my forehead and can’t tell the proper temperature, so the only way for me to know if I have a fever is to catch myself thinking in weird dimensions. Yesterday I tried to think of the best way to describe moving through time and space in a cursive L. 

Exactly.

I should probably just get permanently ill. Then sculpt nonsense. 

Hard to not talk about things that may happen before they happen. Still convinced this, the not talking, is a good idea.

Going to eat tacos. 

Here’s a pic of me barfing art:

‘Metastasis’ shouldn’t mean what it does.

Reading: Closer by Dennis Cooper. Dennis is a friend of mine, and I’ve only read God Jr. Correcting this. Halfway through Closer, and it’s a stunningly compact text. There are these logical leaps, held in fantasy, throughout that are just wowing me. I don’t think I can respect Dennis more than I already do, but here’s a toast–to heaping! (clink) Also, still and unstill with Finnegans Wake. This is a year of improved reading: I want to read more and better, and I’ve been doing that so far. I wrote my first considerable review. That felt great.

Watching: Last movie to become a landmark was The Thin Red Line. Now I’ve got Malick to catch up on. Malick seems to truly be a philosopher king: studied under Cavell at Harvard, graduated summa cum laude, went on to study as a Rhodes Scholar and almost get a doctorate–apparently he got into it with his advisor about the content of his thesis (the concept of the world in Kierkegaard, Heidegger & Wittgenstein–this is a thesis I want to read). (!!!) So, yes, a philosopher king; a film director. What I wouldn’t give to see that mind at work on set.

Novel: Over 20,000 words. I cannot grasp it.

EDIT: And a couple of people at different publishing companies have asked about Interim, my first novel. It’s nice to feel solicited.

Days Ahead: So much. A Big Thing will be announced this month. Someone told me that you can watch The Secret Life on Hulu. That will be handy for ‘Huh?’ conversations.

The great dam is about to be lifted away, into air.

sta/sis/tus

Reading: Oblivion by David Foster Wallace. First story: Mr. Squishy. I started it this morning in bed. Keeping with tradition, Wallace managed to keep me in bed and reading for an hour or so. I read through hunger. I bet this story is about to shatter me. Picking at Finnegans Wake in ten page returns. Still incredible. Still amazed.

Watching: Synecdoche, NY. Just finished it. This is the 3rd time I’ve seen it. Didn’t cry this time; I’m guessing it’ll take something major inbetween now and next viewing for me to watch again, feel sentimental, cry. Don’t want to think about what that could be. Yes, the movie instills death in you, again. By no means a birthday party. One of the best films around, I posit.

Novel: Still going. Holidays made some lazy in me that I’m slowly shaking off like dew. Around 14k words. Feels right. Need to remind myself of the Milch-mentioned maxim: ‘I don’t think about writing when I’m not writing.’ Work. In the writing you’ll think about it as much as you need to. In the conceptual sitting-on-ass-and-not-writing moments I feel myself afraid. Thinking too far in advance, etc. Enough of that.

Days ahead: Travel planned. Finally get to hang out with Bobby Alter, who set me spun with this story. Do yourself a favor and read it, repeat it.

Sleeping: Not great. On a shifted schedule; was staying up to 5am, 6am. Weening myself back with wakeup times. Hope to join humanity again, within reason. We’ll meet in the middle (hence this 2am post). Bed now.

helix fever

Slow’s been the holidays. Food, overeating, family, clothing, maintenance. December isn’t a bad month for maintenance.

I look at the story I’m writing—Solip—and I’m confused and full of faith. Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein talk about the inextricability of faith and confusion.(?)  Søren said this:

But the absurd is a category, and a category that can have a restraining influence. When I believe, then assuredly neither faith nor the content of faith is absurd. Oh, no, no—but I understand very well that for the person who does not believe, faith and the content of faith are absurd, and I also understand that as soon as I myself am not in the faith, am weak, when doubt perhaps begins to stir, then faith and the content of faith gradually begin to become absurd for me.

Take that, add Camus on Sisyphus, Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism, Ludwig on facts and language games but mostly on the mystic, Vonnegut after a pack of Reds, Joyce singing and Wallace loving, add ice. Blend.

I want to build a car.

I spoke to Zach Dodson tonight for 56 minutes, on the phone. We talked about books. We spoke about secret stuff (not so secret now, is it?; like a known unknown).

Feel like the videogame industry has been stagnant lately. Slicker versions of safe models, etc.

Reconcile your liberal guilt and eco-friendliness with pleasure driving, chump.

Making myself deaf. Blame hip hop.

Big story writing zone, novel or movie, is my championed.

Blake said this: unwavering maturity is immature

That said, to play favorites: Mark Leidner makes me believe.  Mark and Blake and December.  A month of mathematics.

Status Quorum

I’m at about 11000 words on the novel, now.  Been slow because work on the show has picked up; it’s a big episode—the finale—and I haven’t had as much time at home. I think I figured out a big structural & narrative path though, for the novel, and that’s exciting.  The idea came while I ate chips and salsa.  Many of the ideas come while I eat chips and salsa.  Must continue.