BOOK REVIEWS & Interviews
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARC P. ON HIS NEW BOOK BURNOUT!
MANNEQUIN HAUS: What is your writing process look like, do you keep notes, write lists?
MARC: Yes, and yes, and all over the place, bits of scrawl in the margins of otherwise stupid documents, audio recordings on my phone, everything is always in play. Then, assembling: currently, laptop on my right knee, a pile of stray pages on my left, a few windows open on the laptop with other scraps—I try to fit them all into a piece someone might want to read, and a dozen other ideas spin off in the process. Then there are times when a whole, finished piece plops out, I like to think my life is a process of creating a field of potential poems/songs/stories, and then coaxing them to emerge.
MH: Do you keep journals on paper, or are you composing on a laptop? Or do you sit at an old typewriter?
M: Yes, all but the old typer, which I lost years ago. Also texting myself ideas, I have different accounts so I can text myself ideas from a different name. Really, per last question, everything is a surface.
MH: Elements in this new book BURNOUT! suggested to me the surreal work of lautremont, and Kobo abe specifically, and also excited my playful nature, do you read or have you taken interest in the surrealists, or people like Antonin Artuad, with his theater of cruelty?
M: I have read Maldoror, and Kobo Abe ( the face switch novel I found when I was a kid), Apollinaire, also Blaise Cendrars, Lorca, Octavio Paz, – come to think of it, so much of any imaginative literature is surreal, and was even before Breton announced there was such a thing, the Kalevala, Parliament of Birds, Lucian's True Story, shit every religious book is pretty fucking surreal, really, but I don't really think about it in terms of the genealogy of artistic movements, except very, very broadly. Mallarmé's marking the spot where poetry became reportage, for example, is something I think about as an historical boundary worth trying to reach across. I think what draws me toward more surreal art is that reality never seems anything less than surreal. I am thus disappointed in art that tries to surround and flatten the weirdness of existence, make it more palatable, thinking the audience wants to feel less weirdness, rather than more.
MH: What do you think of modern (giant) publishing houses like random house, and others?
M: They may have had room for art some decades ago, I don't know, I've heard that was true. Now, they are corporations driven by short term profit margins, and are shrinking people's ability to read outside of what they already know as a result. Science Fictions is a pretty clear cut example: books need to be 300+ pages, and set up for a series of sequels to be considered, unless you are Ted Chiang. The I'm sure there are people trying to infiltrate and change reader's minds by sneaking worthwhile books , or I'd like to think so, and then I see Johnathan Franzen is still getting spread around lie peanut butter, and Louise Erdrich is taking a craven stab at the dystopian novel again, and I wonder who really is trying to be Jerry Rubin. And then I remember what happened to Jerry Rubin, and fuck it, no more space in my life to think about big publishers.
MH: Do you like to listen to music when you safe composing, and if so, what are some of your favorite bands.
M:Ha, yes, sometimes, geez, that is a large question. I have lately been digging Dakhabrakha, SsingSsing, Legendary Pink Dots, Khraungbin, Shan Ren band, Kikagayi Moyo, as with most culture, I am voracious, and the internet has made it so I can be a giant ear all day long.
MH:What books would you recommend off hand?
M:Like, best ever for someone who does not read, or shit I've just found and started digging, or—I'll take it as whatever pops into mind first, which is the series of graphic novels Jodorowsky did with Mœbius, the Incal series. Also, James Kelman. How Late it Was; Matei Calinescu, The Life and Time of Zacharias Lichter; Roland Topor, The Tenant, Blaise Cendrars, Moravagine; Lucia Berlin's Manual for Cleaning Women; Barbara Comyns, The Vet's Daughter-- of course, these are all ones I am wondering if you have read, following the character of the questions.
MH:I feel that science fiction is such a great way to explore themes that fiction itself usually cannot, does writing sci fi help you open the flood gates of creativity?
M:I write deliberately scifi novels to play with the genre, not necessarily because other kinds of fiction disallow certain themes, if that makes sense. The idea of writing with a genre, that genres create expectation that genre satisfies, paraphrasing Kenneth Burke, is a way of making certain assumptions explicit: Burnout! takes place on a ship operated by an alien intelligence, which gives me a starting point for creativity, absolutely, but then I want to use that starting point to explore things that scifi, as a genre, does not necessarily explore, like sexual “perversity,” in a way that isn't Chuck Tingle. A long-winded way of saying I like to know where the borders are so I can try to re-draw them.
MH: How do you get all the bills payed as an author, what kind of work (Job) helps inform your literature?
M:I teach at a community college, which I find really rewarding, and also really weird since I got kicked out of high school (repeatedly) and only went to college in my mid-20s because I wanted to find other artists and people who thought about art. And I did, and eventually found that helping people understand that the world was far more huge than any of us could ever comprehend was a good way to learn a living. Before that, I was a cook, telemarketer, worked construction and day labor, etc, which was also fine but instead of that work feeding my need to create, my need to create became a remedy for the day's work. So, I decided the best way to make my life more conducive to making art was to find the job that fed my art enough without making art my job, and right now teaching college is that job.
MH:I like that you chose a pen name for your fiction, it reminded me of the punk rock ethic of writing zines, and keeping literature underground, what do you think about this whole rise of chapbooks, and the declining of zines, fan zines, punk zines, and the element of professionalism that is saturating the underground movements?
M: Now you are scaring me, is professionalism seeping into the underground? I hope not, haven't really paid attention to that but now I will. Yes, I made zines with a lino kit and typed sheets and the copier at the grocery store, and was excited that the internet would allow me to now ship them to Sudan, and then the inevitable consolidation of media started... still, fuckwits at the FCC aside, it is still much, much easier to distribute art across vast distances, which I suppose makes it harder to find good stuff exactly because it is so easy. The zines and such are still there, they are just harder to find and sort through, so it's a matter of creating a nexus of like-minded people, a resource, and there are things like Red Fez and Broken Pencil and Microcosm Publishing and Zine union and etc that help that along, I guess. Then again, that was the problem before, too—but folks just bought a copy of Factsheet Five and that was enough, the world was more narrow.
MH: I believe that authors and editors should network with each other, and respect each others work, and even try and help them along, keep an open forum of communication between the publishing houses, do you agree with this, and would you like to comment on it?
M: Absolutely, I have no idea why anyone in involved in publishing thinks themselves in competition with anyone else. I understand that some people want for this kind of work to allow them to eat and have a drink and not freeze, but even then, mutual support lifts all boats. Jackals snarling over a dried up well, someone said. That said, some writing sucks, some is great, yet the whole idea of the tastemaker critic seems precious, like those jockey statues some folks still have on their lawns, the genre of literary criticism is in need of shock treatment, methinks, even though it is important and, when I think about it, really a part of the mutual support you mention.
(A REVIEW OF BURNOUT! AND ORDERING INFORMATION ARE FOUND BELOW)
MANNEQUIN HAUS: What is your writing process look like, do you keep notes, write lists?
MARC: Yes, and yes, and all over the place, bits of scrawl in the margins of otherwise stupid documents, audio recordings on my phone, everything is always in play. Then, assembling: currently, laptop on my right knee, a pile of stray pages on my left, a few windows open on the laptop with other scraps—I try to fit them all into a piece someone might want to read, and a dozen other ideas spin off in the process. Then there are times when a whole, finished piece plops out, I like to think my life is a process of creating a field of potential poems/songs/stories, and then coaxing them to emerge.
MH: Do you keep journals on paper, or are you composing on a laptop? Or do you sit at an old typewriter?
M: Yes, all but the old typer, which I lost years ago. Also texting myself ideas, I have different accounts so I can text myself ideas from a different name. Really, per last question, everything is a surface.
MH: Elements in this new book BURNOUT! suggested to me the surreal work of lautremont, and Kobo abe specifically, and also excited my playful nature, do you read or have you taken interest in the surrealists, or people like Antonin Artuad, with his theater of cruelty?
M: I have read Maldoror, and Kobo Abe ( the face switch novel I found when I was a kid), Apollinaire, also Blaise Cendrars, Lorca, Octavio Paz, – come to think of it, so much of any imaginative literature is surreal, and was even before Breton announced there was such a thing, the Kalevala, Parliament of Birds, Lucian's True Story, shit every religious book is pretty fucking surreal, really, but I don't really think about it in terms of the genealogy of artistic movements, except very, very broadly. Mallarmé's marking the spot where poetry became reportage, for example, is something I think about as an historical boundary worth trying to reach across. I think what draws me toward more surreal art is that reality never seems anything less than surreal. I am thus disappointed in art that tries to surround and flatten the weirdness of existence, make it more palatable, thinking the audience wants to feel less weirdness, rather than more.
MH: What do you think of modern (giant) publishing houses like random house, and others?
M: They may have had room for art some decades ago, I don't know, I've heard that was true. Now, they are corporations driven by short term profit margins, and are shrinking people's ability to read outside of what they already know as a result. Science Fictions is a pretty clear cut example: books need to be 300+ pages, and set up for a series of sequels to be considered, unless you are Ted Chiang. The I'm sure there are people trying to infiltrate and change reader's minds by sneaking worthwhile books , or I'd like to think so, and then I see Johnathan Franzen is still getting spread around lie peanut butter, and Louise Erdrich is taking a craven stab at the dystopian novel again, and I wonder who really is trying to be Jerry Rubin. And then I remember what happened to Jerry Rubin, and fuck it, no more space in my life to think about big publishers.
MH: Do you like to listen to music when you safe composing, and if so, what are some of your favorite bands.
M:Ha, yes, sometimes, geez, that is a large question. I have lately been digging Dakhabrakha, SsingSsing, Legendary Pink Dots, Khraungbin, Shan Ren band, Kikagayi Moyo, as with most culture, I am voracious, and the internet has made it so I can be a giant ear all day long.
MH:What books would you recommend off hand?
M:Like, best ever for someone who does not read, or shit I've just found and started digging, or—I'll take it as whatever pops into mind first, which is the series of graphic novels Jodorowsky did with Mœbius, the Incal series. Also, James Kelman. How Late it Was; Matei Calinescu, The Life and Time of Zacharias Lichter; Roland Topor, The Tenant, Blaise Cendrars, Moravagine; Lucia Berlin's Manual for Cleaning Women; Barbara Comyns, The Vet's Daughter-- of course, these are all ones I am wondering if you have read, following the character of the questions.
MH:I feel that science fiction is such a great way to explore themes that fiction itself usually cannot, does writing sci fi help you open the flood gates of creativity?
M:I write deliberately scifi novels to play with the genre, not necessarily because other kinds of fiction disallow certain themes, if that makes sense. The idea of writing with a genre, that genres create expectation that genre satisfies, paraphrasing Kenneth Burke, is a way of making certain assumptions explicit: Burnout! takes place on a ship operated by an alien intelligence, which gives me a starting point for creativity, absolutely, but then I want to use that starting point to explore things that scifi, as a genre, does not necessarily explore, like sexual “perversity,” in a way that isn't Chuck Tingle. A long-winded way of saying I like to know where the borders are so I can try to re-draw them.
MH: How do you get all the bills payed as an author, what kind of work (Job) helps inform your literature?
M:I teach at a community college, which I find really rewarding, and also really weird since I got kicked out of high school (repeatedly) and only went to college in my mid-20s because I wanted to find other artists and people who thought about art. And I did, and eventually found that helping people understand that the world was far more huge than any of us could ever comprehend was a good way to learn a living. Before that, I was a cook, telemarketer, worked construction and day labor, etc, which was also fine but instead of that work feeding my need to create, my need to create became a remedy for the day's work. So, I decided the best way to make my life more conducive to making art was to find the job that fed my art enough without making art my job, and right now teaching college is that job.
MH:I like that you chose a pen name for your fiction, it reminded me of the punk rock ethic of writing zines, and keeping literature underground, what do you think about this whole rise of chapbooks, and the declining of zines, fan zines, punk zines, and the element of professionalism that is saturating the underground movements?
M: Now you are scaring me, is professionalism seeping into the underground? I hope not, haven't really paid attention to that but now I will. Yes, I made zines with a lino kit and typed sheets and the copier at the grocery store, and was excited that the internet would allow me to now ship them to Sudan, and then the inevitable consolidation of media started... still, fuckwits at the FCC aside, it is still much, much easier to distribute art across vast distances, which I suppose makes it harder to find good stuff exactly because it is so easy. The zines and such are still there, they are just harder to find and sort through, so it's a matter of creating a nexus of like-minded people, a resource, and there are things like Red Fez and Broken Pencil and Microcosm Publishing and Zine union and etc that help that along, I guess. Then again, that was the problem before, too—but folks just bought a copy of Factsheet Five and that was enough, the world was more narrow.
MH: I believe that authors and editors should network with each other, and respect each others work, and even try and help them along, keep an open forum of communication between the publishing houses, do you agree with this, and would you like to comment on it?
M: Absolutely, I have no idea why anyone in involved in publishing thinks themselves in competition with anyone else. I understand that some people want for this kind of work to allow them to eat and have a drink and not freeze, but even then, mutual support lifts all boats. Jackals snarling over a dried up well, someone said. That said, some writing sucks, some is great, yet the whole idea of the tastemaker critic seems precious, like those jockey statues some folks still have on their lawns, the genre of literary criticism is in need of shock treatment, methinks, even though it is important and, when I think about it, really a part of the mutual support you mention.
(A REVIEW OF BURNOUT! AND ORDERING INFORMATION ARE FOUND BELOW)
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