i'll be sharing

[wilder]

one friend tells me before my final draft i absolutely must read Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes

yes yes yes! I love this book. A reference to it in relation to your own work seems like a compliment in itself.

[jenkins]

it's the evening before Halloween and i'm editing the novella. this is its current status:



the fun thing to spot (imo), outside the number thirteen, an accident i like and will consider a Halloween gift from fate, but the fun point here is 101 pages is an acceptable length for a feature-length screenplay, though here the page count refers to a novella's acceptable length. the dissimilarities between the two forms obvious, my mind enjoys tracing their similarities.

it's supposedly in its full third draft, since i called the last draft the second, but based on how changes are happening i'd say it's more like this is the second draft. it having reached the wordcount goal has and does excites me tremendously, but it's a bit like B.I.G. said, the more words we come across the more problems we see. no one i've shared pages with has discouraged me from continuing to write, which i find encouraging, that sounds logical, and two people even read the whole thing. hell yeah.

i can share the next complete draft with you if you ask me to, if you want to read it at some point and want a peek at the process. certainly i'll openly share it once it's finalized. i'll hope for interest though i've lived long enough to expect nothing.

in the past six months i've thought about epigraphs way more than i ever did before. it took me like two months to concretely remember they're called epigraphs not epigrams. maybe in the future i won't use an epigraph at all. i might use a dedication instead. i don't desire to use both at once. maybe i'll finish this novella and write another. i don't fucking know. the point here is the epigraphs as they are: at various times there were two or one, i chose three, since i've come to love these three such that i can't leave them. this page will make it to the end, it'll be the first page. i'll share it now, for the sake of sharing and whatnot:



crono told me about Tavares btw, and Valéry refers to another writer. happy Halloween. it's maybe Two Dollar Radio who's convinced everyone Garamond is the best reading font.

[Garam]

it's maybe Two Dollar Radio who's convinced everyone Garamond is the best reading font.

100% agree

[jenkins]

i'm not going to make a book trailer. i wish right now i could go make a short, and at the end of it the team agrees to mention Larry Angeles (the title), but i'm not going to make a book trailer because like everyone i have to measure outrageousness against time.

there could be a fascinating trailer of straight context clues. as Jarmusch has said:

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."

that quote is Godard good and he knows it. bless.

today i had to look into:



because that's an example of an epigraph i read and from which i actually stole and needed to remember the specifics of:



that could be mentioned in the trailer kidding not kidding kidding i'm not making the trailer.

some of Larry Angeles reads like aphorisms.

aphorisms were a thing on my mind during the writing. Hippocrates, Greek, he called it. he said "Ars longa, vita brevis." he said "Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience deceptive, judgement difficult." the Greeks hit everything out of the park when they went to bat, that's a thing artists have to accept. Larry Angeles quotes a person speaking an aphorism, "Our days are long, our years are short," and now i'll share with xixax a quote from Larry Angeles:



looking both ways before i crossed the street, i already google searched it and that seems like a solid original. except it strikes me as obvious enough that i suspect it to exist elsewhere. also in Larry Angeles i mentioned the character as a paranoid person. i'd say he's quite realistic.

i don't expect there to be much interest here when i share Larry Angeles, which is nearing its final-final draft, and the cover should be on its way to me shortly, but i do look forward to the people whom i suspect might give it a go indeed giving it go.

i think it'll be worth it but i guess of course i do. people who've read it have been positive in specific ways i attribute to the text.

then i'll end this post by quoting Jay Z, which i don't do in Larry Angeles, but that's too bad, really, in my opinion:

Whoever said illegal was the easy way out
couldn't understand the mechanics
and the workings of the underworld,
granted
nine to five is how you survive
I ain't trying to survive
I'm trying to
live it to the limit
and
love it a lot

[jenkins]

"i'll be sharing" should probably be my Personal Text. this year Morgan and i finished our third poetry book. here i've mentioned before that what we do is we finish our poetry book by January 1, so that we feel good and strong going into our year. like, now someone asks me, "Hey it's January 2, what the hell have you done so far this year?" then i look the person in the eyes and say, "I finished my poetry book," and i feel satisfied. that's our working theory.

Morgan chose the title this year, and i like it. it's a classic greek word that translates into "don't be depressed." ancient people also thought it was maybe better not to be depressed. here's the working cover:



you can me pm if you want to read it, but sharing poems is weird i guess. unfortunately i don't think people walk around searching for poems to read. shout out to those who have read previous books <3.

it's cool because we have a plan this year. now that this is our third time completing a poetry book, we've decided to self-publish each as a chapbook, and sell them in notable independent los angeles book stores. this will be an adult world maneuver on our part. we're very much looking forward to it and moving forward with plans of implementation. we didn't deliberately wait to do this, but i think the advantage now is three of these chapbooks (each with a photo of us on the cover) will be on the shelf in the store. we'll appear as if we've already been around. i think that's a good feeling to give a person who's considering a purchase.

and regardless, it'll install us in the cultural fabric of word land. no one asked for us, but there we'll be. we like how we currently feel.

best wishes to you and your own new year, by the way, xx.

[jenkins]

the above cover looks like that and there are two more poetry books in a series titled Annals of Los Angeles and its complete set is available on Amazon. i'm a fan of all three because i wrote them with my friend. so, this crowd isn't being marketed, so that's not what's happening, because you can pm if you want 'em, and who reads poetry i mean seriously.

this is a celebration of a minor-moment for me being shared as a story to my internet friends. that's what's happening. you're too many sentences. so our first set of physical copies came in glossed covers without back covers. the interior spacing was scrutinized with agreement. it was very low-rate.

we were so excited to hold our poetry books, which we published for 'bout twenty through the internet, that we took them to the nearby bookstore. i was astonished by how familiar the bookstore was with people bringing books they want to sell. this was called a "submission" in this bookstore across from my apartment. morgan and i were there together. he brought up, "hey, we have two poetry books and we want to sell them," we signed our phone numbers on paper but didn't give our emails because accident. we hadn't talked about the books with the workers, who were mild-to-low interested in us being there. i wrote a single sentence on the paper that said ~, "These are our demos, which we intend to perfect, thanks," and a week later we haven't heard back about that. so that's bound to be a sadluck story of outrageous rookie behavior, which we attempted based on "if you try you might fail, and if you don't try you'll definitely fail," and we were excited and eager so we acted like kids but we're adults. that's not going to score in the adult world.

but, i wrote the line i wrote and it happened how it did because. morgan and i are because people. the original proofs were glossed and without backs, now they're matte and these are their backs:



insert:



this has more of the chapbook feeling that was the original intention, and matte is better than gloss for some reason i agree. the poems are now also paper formatted to fit within a tidy spatial framework, and there's the basics:



we covered some basics this time around. better than the photo makes them look (mentioning). i simply used the wa font for the title page because that's what i've been taught to do. my idea is to show the bookstore these books when we pick up the demos we brought in. these are much more appealing. (we didn't hear back from the bookstore.) overall morgan and i have this philosophy that we aren't going to wait for someone to give us self-confidence. we already have it from having written our things. i forgot to mention Annals of Los Angeles was an impulsive name i gave them for categorization as a series, and they're sectioned into art annuals and social philosophy, though we considered some solid regional poetry topic, which we couldn't find after i'm sure i saw it, and anyway we don't buy poetry books.

the matte proofs arrived tonight. i texted photos to morgan, made this post, and there's a side-story i'm leaving out, the side-story is related to this barely batters btw, and good fucking look anything happens. so, by publishing on amazon we've flown some planes into the clouds. we don't have sales, and how they're going to come is a complete mystery to me. luckily i'm not in this for the money. after we check our proofs (which we'll do together), we'll sell the physical books on Amazon for $8.99. the ebook is $2.99. that's 2016 self-published. we'd want the proofs anyway, of course, so this'll cost us $30, from buying the right to say on amazon that these books are published by Neon Burrito Publishing instead of Createspace. That was worth $30. they conned me a bit, you ask me, since in the contract, for liability purposes, they expressed the fact that i'm the publisher. but the name buy was a soft con toward an overall feeling of a li'l accomplishment within this contemporary world.

but, that's what i'm saying, we're some planes in the clouds, who cares. no one cares. i feel glad we're at cruising altitude. we're going to take the new proofs to three other bookstores in this area. we have Martin O'Malley odds of success from where we've been. that's the type of guess i make about these things. and this story was embarrassing when it entered into paragraphs. it's solid if you (reader) made it to here, it's solid if you skipped to the end, and it's this silly message board that's actually filled with people who act like a message board, this is when i mention acting like annual art poetry book here. alright.

[in the next episode i publish my novella through the same route described.]

[jenkins]

at one point i thought here i'd write out the story of putting together Neon Burrito Publishing. but now short and sweet is on my mind.

the three poetry books were collected together into:



you click the book you head to amazon. colored spines was a technique installed here. the back cover is a collage i made and which shoutbox chatted me through one afternoon. on amazon you can see the back cover.

"big news" for me is my novella is available as a physical book:



i didn't make it available as an ebook because physical is better. it's better to hold the book you're reading.

this is the synopsis i gave amazon:

Larry, Los Angeles, two thousand fifteen. That and everything else.

How he really is is how he's written. Where he really lives is on the page.

For fans of movie stunts and pickle jars.

i got the marketing on lock down (pray for me). there's a quote on the back cover -- after writing the book i found myself often recalling its final phrase, so i slapped it on the back.

i already made back the $60 it cost for me to set up Neon Burrito. that feels nice because it's definitely not money on my mind. i had to buy ISBNs, they're each $10, that does indeed mean another book is on its way. its proof arrives tomorrow. the poetry books are 5" x 8", the novella is 6" x 9", this will be an 8.5" x 11". it'll be titled My Autobiography Is My Manifesto: Volume One. i want it to read big and easy like a kid's book.

with the books published, our next plan is a marketing triad. there will be flyers. bookmarks. pamphlets. Morgan mentioned doing a reading. i already feel great as a writer, it's a matter now of people feeling great as readers.

who the readers are here i'm not sure. i'll assume everyone and no one. i'm proud of Larry Angeles and it's worth reading, i'll tell the readers. it's a memoir that uses the filtration device of third person. what litworld calls autofiction. which i love reading. and you write what you would read, you know.

non-readers don't worry, we're both mostly curious and partly terrified. general positive vibes aren't like equal to a read but close enough.

[wilder]

Ordered Larry Angeles. Super excited.

[jenkins]

an addendum on Larry Angeles:

a common strategy within the book, without being named Xixax is mentioned, leading into the same for Axolotl. who's also described, once quoted, once paraphrased, and there's almost an abrupt aside wherein i explain that axo makes me feel less alone in the world from a fundamental perspective.

being in the book, axo has read it. he said only nice things. which means a lot to me, and within the personal meaning i find from hearing people respond to the book there's the category of accomplishment felt from the nice things the book causes people to say.

as in, this, from a reader friend, has been the fullest response to the book, and what i'm saying is i like not only that he says nice things, but the nice things the book inspires him to say:

… It's rare to read pages and character so painfully rich with interior detail that also have an incredible forward momentum. I flew through this thing and plan on starting it again this weekend, slowly and more deliberate. There's really nothing about it I don't like. You've written something so honest I feel as if it's really invulnerable to criticism anyway and probably the only thing worth critiquing is honesty. I don't know how you did it, but it feels like you were able to peel away layers of existence in a way most of us (other aspirational types) dream/wish/pretend/lie about.

There are so many sentences that inspire me. The prose feels so delicate and deliberately chosen. Even your sentences that don't contain wonderful thoughts or strange realities are a joy to read owing to rearrangement and consideration of verb/subject/preposition/punctuation placement (or perhaps you've become a word musician playing like a soloist in a bebop band)

It's sad and funny like all good things, like life itself.

I relate to Larry very much which is possibly an illusion, but also a testament to how fully formed he is.

i'm choosing to say, to help or hurt myself, that Larry Angeles is pure prose. this wasn't writing for the page for the screen, and i find it challenging to imagine the movie form of this book.

this was possible because the conceptual rhythm is emotion. the outside world isn't ignored at all, but the sensation of it is being created by interior prose. this is a way do things, and a narrative history of this comes from The Bell Jar, Good Morning Midnight, Bonjour Tristesse, which became a Preminger movie, so let me close with another great example: Breakfast at Tiffany's. Blake Edwards directed the movie version, written by George Axelrod, starring Audrey Hepburn. that's Hollywood's finest. that's a movie worth watching. but, and this is when words and movies weren't seeing eye-to-eye, because loving reading causes you to love words differently, and people were reading back then, point is the movie can't touch Truman Capote's prose. it can glance at it. it can suggest it. it can bring music, colors, lights, etc. the movie can summon but it can't touch the prose.

the reality of certain prose is between the reader and the page. it's another way of thinking about how you're writing. it can be another way of thinking about how you're reading. Larry Angeles is mostly unlike the other books i mentioned, and movie stunts and pickle jars aren't even mentioned, by the way.

[wilder]

This book looks great in-person:





It reminds me of Denis Johnson's 'The Incognito Lounge'

[jenkins]

 

[wilder]

I only intended to start Larry Angeles last night, but your novella swallowed me whole and struck nerves I didn’t want struck but couldn’t shy away from. It was relatable in the best and worst ways, as truth should be, and you’ve got a reader for life here if you decide to deliver more prose. There are so many passages I want to quote, that do such a justice to the fragmental nature of thought process without ever feeling like forced imitation. Maybe I will, later. Human alligators.

Larry Angeles feels like Notes from the Underground for the modern age. The night I first read this is now an ingrained memory, a book whose ghost and impression I’ll carry with me like Less Than Zero, Notes from the Underground (of course), The Year of Magical Thinking, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, etc.

I’ve read Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel and tbh he should be the one visiting you at Skylight Books.

REVERSAL.

Everyone read this. This book deserves to be read widely and deeply, but it goes down like liquid because reading jenkins' voice is like listening to a friend you feel you've always had.

[Drenk]

I bought your book, Jenkins. It was on Amazon.fr and it says I should receive it in a few days. The universe is big and powerful so I trust what the internet is saying to me. Anyway, it's on its way.

[jenkins]

keeps me going (mean it), and i feel solid because i think you’ll like it. essentially the book is the good fight, and if you know the good fight and you like to read we’re meant to be friends.

you had a direct influence on the final epigraph. when i sent out a final draft to others there was what i thought and still think of as a fabulous Jean Baudrillard paragraph. about how it feels impossible to hold reality. but what’s printed and makes me fully comfortable is a simple and elegant Diane Williams line, which you thought was the choice option back when i’d brought up epigraphs.

amazon being everywhere made this situation possible, and amazon has been a total chiller. they don't give me street cred, but i feel good about these books and, you know, they're for sale on amazon. this simply makes me feel cyberpunk af



it's even for sale from another vendor, which trips me out. i mean, the books are printed by amazon. at amazon.com it's for sale from three other vendors. these are retailers connected into the amazon vendor system. Eudaimonia has sixteen vendors, including five listing as used, in both Like New and Very Good condition. they're going to have the books printed by amazon and sent to you, but you'll have to pay more. that's fascinating to me.

Morgan and i have initiated our flyer plan, toward hoping to find readers. this is in front of Canter's, there's also one in front of Supreme, The Hundreds, Purple Reign, Cinefamily, and other places around Fairfax and Melrose:

[Drenk]

This isn't really a review of the book because I wouldn't know how to do that. Instead, I'm writing some things...

Autofiction is a delicate thing. And I'm interested in the difference between autobiography and fiction. What is autofiction, though? It's a way to share a specific moment of time with the writer. Maybe? I don't know. Larry Angeles made me feel like I was sharing a specific moment of time with the writer. As it is written, it couldn't have been written in another time. The book isn't about missed opportunities, but it is refreshing to realize that whatever you've never done what you're doing now and what's important to you now could only be possible now. I often think about that.

This is a novella about a novella being written, the experience of writing it. I don't like to say that books are about something, so why am I doing exactly what I don't like? Metafiction, like autofiction, can be tricky. Here it engages the reader (which here means: me).

This isn't a novella about a novella being written, it's about how words can be our own reality despite the fact that words/moods/feelings/thoughts aren't Reality, and Larry Angeles embodies this idea in a poetic way. The epigraph is great because it is a relevant door to the book. (What is an irrelevant door? Discuss.)

The writing is simple, powerful and unique, and I particularly enjoyed how paragraphs were used. These days, I often think about paragraphs. Albums have sequencing and books have paragraphs. I was hooked by the writing, then hooked by what was written.

Then, there is Larry. Our character. And if the function of art is to make people feel less alone, this book definitely made me feel less alone. Emotionally, I feel connected. And yet, I couldn't have written this particular book—and this is what is fascinating.

You should all read it. It's worth it.