3:AM Magazine

Day Two of 3:AM’s Tao Lin Week, and we are pleased to offer you six unpublished pages from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, published by Melville House.

an interesting group of small children
became exponentially less interesting
until finally they approached to solicit my poetry
in manhattan a brief description of homeless people
includes the rhetorical question ‘can we stop at jamba juice?’
enthusiasm over ‘the perfect therapy’ increases in february
i was very emotional that day and even fell off my bike
then i crossed a distance neither temporal nor physical
immediately i began to cry
i first noticed this behind my forehead
written on a billboard above east houston street
look! a perfect diagram of my contorted face!

a massive amount of confusion arrived in my brain
like an obese man exiting taco bell with a twinkle of ingenuity
in both his eyes at the same time
so maybe i am the problem and you are OK
i first noticed this phenomenon on the discovery channel
then i turned off the light and made a high-pitched noise
that was the day i created an enormous distance between us
in the area behind my forehead
which i immediately began to cross

a homeless man lays frozen in his giant coat and no one cries for him
so at midnight he rises to solicit my poetry
an enormous animal floats ass-first through the universe
then it notices taco bell in both its eyes at the same time
i’ve constructed this massive thing that probably doesn’t make sense
but appeals overwhelmingly to our melodramatic sensibilities
concerning ‘how to live’; like the interesting woman who kneels nightly
to touch the frozen, contorted face of ‘the perfect obese man’
i sometimes have an overwhelming urge to confide in you
that i fear i have been exhibiting psychopathic behavior

that is possibly ruining both our lives—
an accomplishment that puts a twinkle in my eye
using expensive gold-inlaid tweezers
if desire is a form of possession
and possession isn’t good, then
what? i believe in the healing power
of focusing on other people when sad
i’ve distilled my novel, short-story, or poem
into its embarrassing, aromatic essence
but i’ve also diagrammed my thought patterns
and discovered a structural correlation with the lord of the rings trilogy
i observe myself from a distance neither temporal nor physical
to cross it would be potentially best-selling

it can take months of concerted effort to replace an irrational thought process
the exciting thing about cognition-based therapy is that it actually works
at taco bell your mother is OK, i’ll cry tears of joy
if you cry tears of joy, and there is no such thing as insane destruction
all instances of sad crying are actually carefully rendered exhibitions
of ‘sad crying’; my face is actually a highly instructional message
in the form of ‘terrible contortions’
to observe this is briefly satisfying
then i realize i’m probably experiencing some kind of anger or discomfort
i once asked a professor of particle physics to diagram my massive confusion
he showed me his literary magazine
but did not solicit my poetry

a loose rendering of my thought patterns into easily communicable ideas
almost always includes the sentiment ‘i am writing some of the best poetry of my life’
early in the morning the sun’s light reveals
that a homeless man has murdered an obese man
in the distance my doppelganger emerges with both eyes frozen
his approach exhibits that he has just watched five hours of the discovery channel
i think he is coming to solicit my poetry
then i emailed the file to myself
and walked to the bus stop
i watched you briefly from a distance
before approaching to hold your hand

To celebrate the publication of Tao Lin’s Cognitive-Behavorial Therapy, 3:AM are hosting a Tao Lin Week. Welcome to Day One. 3:AM offers you “serious literature”, an “exclusive” short film about Tao Lin, for your viewing pleasure. Shot by Chris Killen in New York and staring Tao Lin, “serious literature” also features cameos from Kendra Grant Malone and Zachary German. Enjoy:

Tom McCarthy is exhibiting Black Box Transmitter, a flight-recorder that
transmits INS propaganda messages non-stop around a forty-kilometre area, in Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, in the exhibition Eclipse: Art in a Dark Age. The exhibition, which also features work by Paul McCarthy, Mike Nelson, Dana Schutz and others, runs from May 31st to August 24th. The Museum will also be publishing Tom’s 2003 INS report Calling All Agents: Transmission, Death, Technology in Swedish. Tom will take part in a live panel discussion with the other artists in the Eclipse exhibition on 31st May. A book accompanying this Moderna Museet Exhibition (by curator Magnus af Petersens), comes out next week with Steidl Verlag, in English and Swedish.

The following day, on June 1st, Tom will appear at the Festarch literature/art festival in Cagliari, Sardinia. He will be discussing his novel Remainder onstage with festival curator Gianluigi Ricuperati. Tom writes: “Vito Acconci is appearing at exactly the same time in the next room, so you can also see him instead. I’m tempted to blow my gig out myself for that”.

On June 11th, Tom will be in conversation with philosopher Simon Critchley
at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, to mark the publication of his latest work, The Book of Dead Philosophers.

The new Oneworld Classics edition of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novel Jealousy is out in June, with an introduction by Tom McCarthy. The introduction is also appearing in the June issue of Artforum, which is reprinting diagrams Tom made years ago “when trying to understand Robbe-Grillet’s work”.

The Believer are running an interview with Tom in their June issue. They will also be announcing the winner of The Believer Book Award 2007, for which Remainder is shortlisted.

The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth — which includes a story by Tom — will be published by Serpent’s Tail in June.

Remainder comes out in Italian (Deja Vu, Edizioni ISBN) and Korean (published by Minumsa) at the end of May. Tom will be doing a press event in Milan on June 3rd.

On Spanish TV.

Tom also has a great new Wiki entry.

“Chances are you’ve never heard of Wallace Berman, but you’ve probably heard of someone he hung out with.”

Long-time readers of my other site will know that I’m a fan of Beat poet and conceptual artist Wallace Berman. Berman pioneered mail art through his magazine Semina and in 1957, alongside Ed Kienholz and Walter Hopps, co-founded the Ferus (latin for “wild”) gallery. Within months of the gallery’s opening, Berman’s first and last solo exhibition (in his lifetime), was raided by the Hollywood vice squad following a complaint about “lewd material”. There was an exhibition of the Semina circle’s work in March of last year and I would direct you to RealityStudio’s detailed review. I mention Berman and Semina not only because I’ve come across a website dedicated to the Ferus gallery, but because Stewart Home has pinched the Semina name to commission an exciting series of works through Book Works and there’s still time to meet the Semina (2008) May 30th deadline (just). The first two books in Home’s Semina series—“where the novel has a nervous breakdown”—will be Index by Bridget Penney and One Break, A Thousand Blows! by Maxi Kim, to be released in June as an edition of 1,000 copies, followed next year by Mark Waugh’s Bubble Entendre. 3:AM hope to grab a word with Stewart Home soon.

1) You say on your website that you’re not a professional photographer nor is Derelict London “some trendy art school project”. What, then, made you pick up your camera? What’s the driving force behind Derelict London? Why are you fascinated with what many people would consider eyesores? Also, am I right in thinking you’re a fan of punk music? How much does punk affect Derelict London’s aesthetics, if at all?
During a long walk home early one morning I wished that I had a camera with me to snap a few of London’s less celebrated buildings, sadly decaying places unlikely to be around much longer and so far undocumented. These places all have history not for the picture-postcard hunting tourists but were important to people in their heyday, whether it be their home, factory, local greasy spoon, pool, hospital, etc. So from then on I started wandering around every bit of London often walking 15 miles a day just snapping away and wondering if anyone else would ever be interested in dereliction too. I thought everyone considered these places as eyesores but apparently not due to the popularity of the website.

Yes, I’m a fan of Punk music—I used to be a gig promoter and ran an indie label. The punk diy ethos is very much behind Derelict London—myself having no experience in photography or setting up websites similar to many Punk bands, fanzines and labels driven by a labour of love, learning as they go along without any set rules.

2) Derelict London’s images are annotated by readers of the website, making it somewhat of a living history. Is that a fair description? Or, is Derelict London a visual pschogeography in the vein of Iain Sinclair or Stephen Gill?
It’s more of a living history and something to engage the public—all members of the public including the average person in the street. Some restoration and heritage groups and forums can be somewhat highbrow and cliquey and put off Joe Public. Derelict London is, judging by mail I receive, appealing to everybody—shop workers, musicians, footie fans, war vets, vicars and publicans…

3) Time Out thought the disused pubs section was “surely one of the
most depressing portraits of the capital”. Would you agree? Is there a section you find more depressing?
It’s certainly sad to see all the Victorian boozers boarded up, but equally the old pools and leisure facilities closed due to lack of funding, considering that we are a nation supposed to be so much into sport and the cost of maintaining these places would be a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of the Olympics 2012.

4) Some of the locations you’ve featured on Derelict London have been restored. How does that make you feel?
It’s always better to see a building restored for any purpose rather than demolishing it. It’s ironic, though, that a place such as Tower House in Whitechapel was built as a hostel for the working man—even Joseph Stalin stayed there in a sixpence-a-night cubicle in 1907. After two decades of decay it has now been converted into luxury apartments for £300+ per week.

5) Derelict London has made the transition from web to print; how did you select what went in the book? What are some your favourite images?
I spent the whole of last summer walking around again retaking pics of all the places that were still derelict or had been restored. Many of the old pics on the website were taken with a tiny pocket camera and the quality of the pics weren’t good enough for printing. For the website, I include any derelict places whether I have info on the building or not, but for the book I had to have enough info to write a page to annote the picture.
 
My favourite images change frequently especially as I’m discovering new subjects every week (soon be enough to fill another book!). In the book my favourite images include Palmers Pet Shop (with its Monkeys and Talking Parrots signage), the knackered milkfloat  (the decline of the UK milkman), The Flying Scud pub (a real classic rough-and-ready boozer—my mate Keith tells me some great stories about this place including his Uncle stabbing someone there shortly after WW2). I love that picture of the Gherkin on the very last page viewed though a barbed wire gate into an overgrown alleyway. I always have an update section on the website with my recently taken faves—I’ve just uploaded one of a derelict pub in Vauxhall which had its very own swimming pool.

Derelict London by Paul Talling is published by Random House and is available now. Paul continues to document Derelict London here.

‘Footsteps’, the first in a series of collaborative pieces with Heidi James and Matthew Coleman:

Further: The Offbeat Generation / The Offbeat Generation Film Channel / Matthew Coleman reads ‘Dream Poem’ / Heidi James reads two pieces / Adelle Stripe reads 3 poems / Ben Myers reads four Brutalist poems / Matthew Coleman reads from Her Naked Self / Lee Rourke reads Everyday / Andrew Gallix talks Offbeat / Tony O’Neill reads ‘Mark Twain & I’ / Heidi James: My Favourite Author / Lee Rourke: My Favourite Author / Tom McCarthy: My Favourite Author / Andrew Gallix: My Favourite Author / Sophie Parkin: My Favourite Author

The FT judges Alexander Trocchi’s Young Adam by its cover:

This design for Alexander Trocchi’s existentialist thriller Young Adam is too dour for the classic pulp look perfected by Pan: the half-dressed woman, cowering before the raised fist or gun of a grimacing hoodlum. It is, however, most definitely illustrating a specific scene from the book. The worried-looking Cathie is about to end up in the grey waters of the Clyde canal, though quite how involved the leather-capped Joe – the book’s unreliable narrator – is in this incident forms the murky heart of the book.

Not that we notice the water, particularly, hidden as it is by the publisher’s blurb. It is the grim architecture of industrial Britain – the gasometer and factory chimney – that acts as counterpoint to the focus of the illustration, the girl’s face. The sickly lighting matches the traditional yellow of the Pan title block, and the face itself is a masterpiece in miniature. The ambivalence of Cathie’s expression carries the whole weight of the cover: too naturalistic to be true pulp crime, too menacing to be mere kitchen sink drama. It is our need to find out what she sees in Joe’s face that compels us to open the book.

Further: Return of the Outsider, a profile of Trocchi / The junky genius of Alexander Trocchi / Between the glittering mirage and the dust of reality: an appreciation of Young Adam

“The only book I ever banished from my library was Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, which I felt infected the shelves with its prurient descriptions of deliberately inflicted pain. I put it in the garbage; I didn’t give it to anyone because I wouldn’t give away a book I wasn’t fond of. Nor do I lend books. If I want someone to read a book, I’ll buy a copy and offer it as a gift. I believe that to lend a book is an incitement to theft” Alberto Manguel on his personal library of 30,000 books, American Psycho-free and housed in a barn * The Art of Manliness offer The Essential Man’s Library [100 must-read books to you and me] [via Largehearted Boy] * Martin Amis’s darkly comic novel London Fields is being made into a film * If you’re a would-be writer, it’d be helpful if Johnny Depp was your brother, wouldn’t it? * Poems by William McGonagall, “the world’s worst poet”, go for £6,600 at auction * “An egg sculpted in lard, with goggles on”; the vain Philip Larkin * Nabokov’s The Original of Laura will be published by his son * Resuscitating the dead; Faber launch a print-on-demand service of out-of-print works * And Faber’s photo-gallery of classic covers [via i like] * Are doodled-covers this year’s look? * Kevin Wlliamson, poet and Rebel Inc man, gets his own radio slot * Best enjoyed with an accordion? Music and wine * You thought the Arts cuts were bad in England; it’s just as bad in Scotland * Ian Curtis’s reading habits: “In the same way that Jim Morrison referenced Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night in the Doors‘ moody masterpiece, “End of the Night”, Curtis dropped hints in song titles such as “Dead Souls”, “Colony” and “Atrocity Exhibition” that he had read writers as diverse as Gogol, Kafka and Ballard, while the lyrics reflected, in mood and approach, his interest in romantic and science-fiction literature.” * Hitsville UK, a website of Punk 7″ sleeves [via Design Observer] * Independent, an exhibition of indie record shops [via LeCool] * 3:AM’s Tao Lin recommends a favourite, obscure book, as does Donna Tartt, Ned Vizzini, Jonathan Ames and Sheila Heti [via Literary Saloon] * A Joseph Ridgwell story in Pulp.net * I could link to the Slate’s special issue procrastination, but I can’t be moved * Robotic poetics [via 3QD] * Five sci-fi films that get it right * “A great seducer, adventurer, traveller, spy, musician..theologian” [and librarian]; will the real Casanova please stand up * End of the road for book clubs?