Last one about Bolano. I swear....

We all know, or we all should know, that Roberto Bolano was one of the original founders of the Infrarealists Poetry movement. Here is the group's manifesto, translated in to English for the first time. It reads like a beautiful, long prose-poem and was penned by R.B. himself.

http://altarpiece.blogspot.com/2009/06/first-infrarealist-manifesto-english.html

Also, check out this old picture:

Reading Challenge

It's a little late now, but I just found out about this reading challenge. I would suggest Bifurcaria bifurcata (the original poster of this challenge) extend this opportunity to next year, thereby attracting more new readers of Bolano. Just click on the picture below to check out the challenge.

More Bolano to be published

It seems there's always more being dug up every year - six new works by Bolano will be published in 2012.

Third Reich was just released the 22nd of November and a little before that, Tres was released. It's exciting and almost overwhelming for those of us who came to Bolano after reading the all-encompassing 2666 or The Savage Detectives. It would be surprising if anything slated to be released was at the level those two novels were, but Bolano is one of those unique poets-cum-novelists who can say in one word what it would take for most others to say in a paragraph.

• The Secret of Evil - a posthumous prose collection.
  
• Advice from a Morrison Follower to a Joyce Fanatic - an early novel written with Bolaño's friend A. G. Porta. You can't judge a book by its cool title. But it could earn some points.
• Diorama - one of 3 books discovered among Bolaño's papers. Still unpublished in Spanish.
• A Lumpen Novella - El futuro, the film adaptation of this book, is already being shot on location in Rome. It will be perfect if the short novel will come out as a movie tie-in. It had a rather interesting premise. 

• The Troubles of the Real Police Officer - another discovered manuscript. It came out in Spanish early this year. It's very likely it will be released in English in mid- to late 2012. And the wonderful Natasha Wimmer will probably translate again for FSG. 
• The Unknown University - the last of Bolaño's 3 major collections of poetry translated by Laura Healy. New Directions will most likely publish this in 2012.

Preview of new article about homelessness

This is an interview I conducted a week ago with a man at one of the shelters in town. In it, I think one can get a sense of how the homeless are faring in Indianapolis. Keep in mind that this is only one voice and everyone I've talked to is extremely diverse in their situations and reactions. This is meant to be informative and I hope it sheds a but of light on a problem every city faces.

*Pseudonym for purpose of the interview – Mike

Mike’s* a stocky guy with a buzzed head and a cursive script tattoo on his neck that’s faded to illegibility. He’s been in a gang since he was a young teen, has two children, and was in jail for 18 months at age 26. He has large bags under his eyes and a forlorn, despondent look. But, behind that look, there’s a certain unidentifiable pride and fearlessness. Mike speaks out of the left corner of his mouth with a long drawl and answers in short, clipped sentences.

NUVO: How long have you been coming to Horizon House?

Man 2: I’ve been coming since ’09.

NUVO: How long have you been homeless?

Man 2: Off and on for two years.

NUVO: What’s your story?

Man 2: I came out of prison. No family up here. I got a bother and sister, but they live pretty much far from here.

NUVO: Why were you in prison?

Man 2: For battery, possession of dope, and possession of a handgun.

NUVO: What services have you been using at Horizon House?

Man 2: Medical, showers, phones, wash my clothes.

NUVO: Where do you stay?

Man 2: Actually on the streets.

NUVO: On the streets? Do you have a little spot?

Man 2: Under the bridge.

NUVO: So tell me, who are you, who were you, all that.

Man 2: I’m from Brownsville, Texas. I moved up here when I was about 12 years old. Both of my parents are deceased now. I was born in the gang life. Been a gang member since I was about 13. Like I said, I came up here when I was 12. Lived on the Southside all my life. Started getting in trouble and I came up here when I was about 13 – stealing cars, breaking in to houses, robbing people. Been to juvenile, been to boy school, satellites, boot camp. Then age 16, I had my first baby. She’ll be 13 the 27^th (of Nov.).

I mean, I’ve had my own house before. The first house I bought, I was 19 years old. And then, age 21, actually 20, was my first time going to jail up here. That was for a PI. Then around age 22, 23 my other son was born, age 23. I was with my baby’s momma for four years and then 23, 27. Let me see, I went to prison. Came out the age of-I did 18 months.

NUVO: Was that your first time in prison?

Man 2: Mhmm.

NUVO: How old were you?

Man 2:

Let’s see I’m 30 now (long pause). 2011 (trails off). Went to prison in ’07. So, that’d make me 26. Then I came out, had nowhere to go, walking around the city. Then, I finally went down to Delaware Mission where the mission actually was. And I was there for a couple days. Then, I ran to my Mexican brother. Stayed with him four about 3 or 4 months. Then went homeless again. On the streets. Taking care of business. Come here. Do my thing at Horizon House. Wash my clothes. Shower. I actually had a job when I was homeless this past year working at the car wash over here. Lost that job.

NUVO: Why did you lose it?

Man 2: I had a death in the family and I didn’t let them know I was leaving. Then, I went back to Texas. Then, I came back up here. So, unfortunately, I’ve been homeless, like I said, off and on for two years now. I mean, I got places where I hit and go. Stay with a friend here. Stay with a friend there. Most of the time, I’m under a bridge over here. So.

NUVO: Is enough being done in Indianapolis for homeless people? Are there enough places to stay? Is there enough to eat?

Man 2: Food-wise, yes. Places, no.

NUVO: No? Have you ever had trouble finding a place to stay?

Man 2: Sometimes, yeah.

NUVO: What do you do in those cases?

Man 2: I just go back under the bridge where I come from. If I can’t get a shelter or nothing, I’ll just go back down there.

NUVO: As far as places to wash your clothes, free medical clinics, is there enough of that?

Man 2: No, I think there should be more. But, I think they got them here. I mean, they got them all over town, but sometimes they’re just so far away some people can’t even get to them.

NUVO: Have you ever had that problem?

Man 2: No, I come for my medical. If I really need medical, man, I’ll walk to the hospital.

NUVO: What else could be added to the services? What do we need more of in Indianapolis for the homeless population?

Man 2: Honestly, more shelters. I think they should put enough more to where they can like a halfway house for people they can bring off the streets. You know? And help them out. Help them out with their addictions. Drug addictions, sexual addictions, gambling addictions, alcohol addictions.

NUVO: Do you see a lot of homeless that are addicted.

Man 2: (quietly) A lot.

NUVO: And how do you feel about that?

Man 2: I mean, it’s sad to see, but there ain’t nothing I can do. I wish I could, but I can’t.

NUVO: So, what else. You’ve experienced it first-hand.

Man 2: I mean, there should be a lot more clothing, clothing pantries for homeless people. You know, to where they can go in and get a couple outfits here and there when they need them. Like this time of the year, it’s hard to get clothes. Sometimes you miss out to where, you know, they’ll come out and you’re not there, then, you’ll just miss out on the whole thing.

NUVO: What about trying to find a job? Are you trying to find one right now?

Man 2: Oh yeah. So far, it’s looking good. Cause I’m close, if I move to the Southside he’ll give me a job.

Ann Beattie's Seven Truths about Writers

Excerpt from Beattie's new book Mrs. Nixon. I found them humorous.

1. They take souvenirs of Important Evenings for their “mother.” This is like taking leftovers home for the “dog.” Of course, some mothers do get the souvenirs and some dogs do get the scraps. However, it is not likely.

2. If they find a copy of Richard Yates’s Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, they buy it. It is as if they’ve found a baby on the front step. They peek inside, examine the dog-earing, the marginal scribbles. Or perhaps it’s a clean copy, which carries its own kind of sadness. In either case, they embrace it, though they already have multiple copies. Those are irrelevant to the one they would be abandoning if they left the book behind. This is a hostess gift you can give any fiction writer, guaranteed to delight her even though she already has it. Regifting becomes an act of spreading civilization.

3. It makes the writer’s day if he or she can include the opinions of a truly stupid character or text in the story, punctuating those announcements with exclamation points, which are the icing on the cake. This situation is to be found in novels, too, but novelists are less likely to be immensely flattered if you have noticed their needle in the haystack(!). For particularly adept and judicious uses of the exclamation point, see the works of Joy Williams and Deborah Eisenberg.

4. Without these things, many contemporary American short stories would grind to a halt: fluorescent lights; refrigerators; mantels. They are its gods, or false gods. In that it is difficult to know Him, these stand-ins are often misspelled.

5. Poets go to bed earliest, followed by short story writers, then novelists. The habits of playwrights are unknown.

6. Writers are very particular about their writing materials. Even if they work on a computer, they edit with a particular pen (in my case, a pen imprinted “Bob Adelman”); they have legal pads about which they are very particular—size, color—and other things on their desk that they almost never need: scissors; Scotch tape. Few cut up their manuscripts and crawl around the floor anymore, refitting the paragraphs or rearranging chapters, because they can “cut” and “paste” on the computer. As a rule, writers keep either a very clean desktop or a messy one. To some extent, this has to do with whether they’re sentimental.

7. Writers wear atrocious clothes when writing. So terrible that I have been asked, by the UPS man, “Are you all right?” An example: stretched-out pajama bottoms imprinted with cowboys on bucking broncos, paired with my husband’s red thermal undershirt (no guilt; he wouldn’t even wear such a thing in Alaska) and a vest leaking tufts of down, with a broken zipper and a rhinestone pin in the shape of pouting lips. Furry socks with embossed Minnie Mouse faces (the eyes having deteriorated in the wash) that clash with all of the above.

It might be two years old, but it's relevant - "One For the Good Guys" (it's also written by Dave Eggers).

The link above is a book review about Kurt Vonnegut's book of short stories Look at the Birdie.

I've been doing some volunteer work for the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. I've never personally seen an entire city adopt an author so readily and whole-heatedly. It's extremely satisfying to see constant remembrances of a man, an artist who just seemed to have things right. My favorite line from the article is, "In a 2003 interview, when asked the softball question 'How are you?' he answered: 'I’m mad about being old, and I’m mad about being American. Apart from that, O.K.'”

A giant mural of Vonnegut has gone up on Massachusetts Avenue. It seems damn near twenty feet tall and captures perfectly that sagacious smile right beneath that perfect Midwest mustache of his.

Vonnegut had a lot of good things to say about people and about his home, Indianapolis. Even though his genre of choice, science fiction, was one most people shrug off, I think he pushed the boundaries of literature and, if I can say so, human thought.

So, all of this is to say, today is Kurt Vonnegut's birthday - his 89th. Let's remember him in the way we all might see fit.