Some random pieces of information that loosely cohere via association

My story White Hands, published by Zone 3 in their Fall 2008 issue, is now online. They've added lots of content to their website. Look for the issue with fiction/an interview with Michael Martone, U of Alabama professor, who is in Tuscaloosa, dealing with the aftermath of the tornadoes. He is OK, and is busy making sure everyone else is OK.


Stacks of paper are piling up here in the haushold. We choose to deal with it by listening to music. During this song, the baby stops what he's doing and gives me a very sweet smile. He's always liked a little Ray.



A peaceful song about less-than-peaceful times. But the baby doesn't know that. Not yet.

About White Hands: I wrote it in graduate school, and I remember my professor being less than impressed with my initial drafts. Unsatisfied is perhaps the better word. Of course it stung at the time, but I realized that having a reader like that is crucial. That is one way to grow: by learning how to be a little unsatisfied with your own work. It's a recurring theme in Although Of Course You End Up Being Yourself by David Lipsky, which chronicles his road trip interview with David Foster Wallace on the Infinite Jest book tour in the late '90s. That, and the dangers of becoming addicted to television. And the Internet. And what-all else you can imagine. The dangers of white noise, once again.

White noise from my inbox: "When your wipes case is this stylish, your diaper bag might actually get jealous."

The ludicrousness of this world, I tell you. (My diaper bag is plenty secure in its self.)

Sudden Flash Youth

Sudden Flash Youth: 65 Short-Short Stories

From Persea Books, now available for preorder. Includes my short piece "For Good," about Cece and Juan at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Contributors include Dave Eggers, Pamela Painter, Alice Walker, Ron Carlson, Naomi Shihab Nye, and more. It's edited by Christine Perkins-Hazuka and Tom Hazuka, and Mark Budman, who also edits Vestal Review (which published one of my flash fictions, He Waits, Wants, in Issue 30.)

Am I sounding convincingly casual? Because, really, I am doing some calisthenics of excitement over here, to be including in this book. Deep knee bends and such. Toe touches. Sudden Flash Youth ships in mid-June.

Musical Youth, if you've clicked the title of this post, is something else entirely. Can we hope for a comeback tour?

All we can do is hope, friends.

Your mission for the day

(From MAKE Magazine, out of Chicago.)

The magical UPS truck

...has delivered my copy of The Pale King, David Foster Wallace's last -- and unfinished -- novel. Sorry, other books. Putting you down for awhile. The foreword tells how editor Michael Pietsch worked on the book from drafts, notes, and how he interpreted Wallace's vision for the work.

On the subject of DFW, this article says more than I could, presently. Writer Maria Bustillos spent three days at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, reading his papers, notes, and a sampling of his annotated books -- some 300 are included there.

I have a copy of this Wall Street Journal piece tucked away, too, in case the Internet ever explodes. "This is water, this is water."



It is an odd thing, missing someone you didn't know. That I'll never be able to send DFW a postcard, or receive one in return. (Imagined scenarios, part I.) That the imaginary postcard would be delivered by a new mailman, the old one reassigned to a new route without even a goodbye. No goodbye!

The UPS truck driver remains the same. Loud music, high socks, speedy. Grateful for my gratitude when he brings me books.

Thanks for the books, sirs. Both of you.