BARRY HANNAH: Dispatches from Captain Maximus (guest posted by Michael Bible)

Dispatches from Captain Maximus (guest posted by Michael Bible)

Michael Bible, a former student of Barry Hannah (and wearing one of the best names around), shares some of his Hannah light:

Zita, an odd and earnest woman in her 60’s, sat in on Barry Hannah’s workshop. She often reeked of gin. She hounded Barry so much about “rules” to writing (something he preached hard against) that he finally caved and wrote out a few things for her about her writing. She photocopied the handwritten “rules” and passed them out to everyone in the class the next week. So when reading this remember they are addressed to her.

1. [Your writing is] in the rut of adjectives and “Life Studies.” In the rut of people who aren’t there.

2. When you tell a story think more in terms of yarn, tale, even whopper. Then tell it subtly. DON’T think of nuance or “interior decoration.”

3. Your characters HAVE to be people of interest. Neither suburban, rural or local “types.” They must be in conflict, with a life or death problem at stake.

4. Pride, dignity, humiliation, wild pones, criminal, impotent watchers of sex (Popeye with the corncob.)

5. Your style should be vivid and memorable, something from the loins, gut, heart and head that is strong even if it is soft. Tell a story naturally. See if you HAVE a voice that has not been trained out of you by other writers, teachers, or even the favored classics of literature. Try being alone and honest very hard. Love your loneliness. Get close to your page. Just START TALKING, as Mark Twain did. He was the first natural voice, he WAS the first truly American writer.

6. In grad workshops your can make QUANTUM LEAPS in your art as you cannot with a piano or saxophone. (Perhaps you can in painting or photography e.g. my own [illegible] where I am never going to be better than an adequate cartoonist or late modern [illegible]. But you cannot WANT to learn, not want to listen to the advice of professional writers. You can just cool your jets and be mediocre the rest of your writing life. RETREAT is what I see happening too much. The adventure is left out. You are afraid of reading into the ACTS of others, you are stuck in mere conciseness. So DO something more and leave complacency—give your men and women something to do, to say, to move, to explode or implode.

This second item is Barry Hannah, Larry Brown and Brad Watson chatting on the radio. I have no idea what it was for. I got it from an old friend of Barry’s. It’s from 1994 and is about an hour long and damn funny. Barry really gets going by the end and Larry is typical badass self.

LINK EXPIRED BUT HAVE JUST DL'D A NEW ONE.  WILL TRY AND GET IT ON THE POST FORTHRIGHTLY.

– Michael Bible is the author of the forthcoming chapbooks, “My Second Best Bear Rug” (Paper Hero Press) and “Gorilla Math” (Greying Ghost Press).

HTMLGIANT / Dispatches from Captain Maximus (guest posted by Michael Bible)

Pete Burns UK CELEBRITY WIFESWAP (2 VIDEOS) + 10 Worst Plastic Surgery Disasters - Oddee.com (awful plastic surgery, bad plastic surgery)

Pete Burns: famous singer, spent almost all of his life savings on reconstructive surgery

Celebrity Wife Swap - Pete Burns - Part 2
Peter "Pete" Burns (born 5 August 1959 in Port Sunlight, Wirral) is an English singer-songwriter, known for his work as frontman of dance band Dead or Alive, who achieved mainstream success in 1985 with their hit single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". Pete Burns, former frontman of the British band Dead or Alive --famous for their single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"--, has had extensive polyacrylamide injections into his lips, along with cheek implants, several nose re-shapings and many tattoos. He revealed in early 2006 that he had spent almost all of his life savings on eighteen months of reconstructive surgery after a procedure on his lips went horribly wrong.

10 Worst Plastic Surgery Disasters - Oddee.com (awful plastic surgery, bad plastic surgery)

15 Most Bizarre Patents - Oddee.com

Ladies Underwear with Calendar (US 5606748)

Just in case you happen to forget your period, this underwear will keep you posted. This is how it works: at the front waistband of this feminine undergarment, a clip holding band is equipped by sewing horizontal and vertical threads in a grid form, and below the clip holding band, a date portion is located in which numerals and heart shapes are printed in two lines. Both edges of the clip holding band are designed to be sewn as to extend from the date portion. At first, a gold heart-shaped clip is hooked on the right end portion and a silver heart-shaped clip is hooked on the left end of the clip holding band with a vertical pin and a horizontal pin. Moving the clip on to the clip holding band above the date of the date portion below and allowing the vertical pin tip end to protrude from the clip holding band enables the clip to indicate the date below. This enables the recording of the date when the period began and allows for the computation of the time until the next period begins. Specially designed for forgetful ladies.

Anti-eating face mask (US 4344424)

Tired of trying to go on a diet and failing every time? The Mouth Cage is the solution for you. Designed to allow you to breath and speak but not eat due to the food barrier that's mounted on your face, the Mouth Cage is actually locked onto your head, so you can't cheat the system. Quite a subtle way to lose weight.

(Link)

Bird diaper (US 5934226)

Tired of cleaning your bird's little presents? This "bird diaper" features an enclosed pouch for receiving and containing excrement, and apertures to accommodate both the wings and the tail of the bird. Beat that! (Link)

Automatic Bed Maker (US 4441222)

Sick of making the bed every day? Well now you don't need to! You can use this electrically-operated bed cover making apparatus secured to the frame of a bed and operable to cause a framework carrying a plurality of arms to be lifted from the foot of the bed to the head by utilizing a pair of rotating wheels on either side of the bed frame. How awesome is that?

15 Most Bizarre Patents - Oddee.com

The David Mach CD-ROM

To see footage of the most recent burning of a Match Head click here.

I made my first matchhead in 1982. Kinskihead was a response to a reviewer comparing one of my magazine installations to a weekend modeller making a ship or the Eiffel Tower out of matches. The reviewer talked about matches as if their rightful place was at the bottom of the materials league. I was puzzled by this and immediately attracted to this underdog. Of course the reviewer was referring to modellers who don't use matches but just matchsticks, small pieces of wood. Live matches offer an entirely different proposition. The first head, Kinskihead, was set alight by mistake. It was originally made out of blue and red matches but once burnt they became different shades of grey ash. What interests me is the violence and power involved in that change and the fact that this performance comes from such a cheap, throwaway, almost non-material. Since that first head I have made dozens of matchheads. I am very interested in colouring and markings as well as structure. But in fact it is easy for me to jump from an animal like a giraffe in order to explore the colour and make-up of those markings to a larger than life-size human head and back to a tiny African mask and back again to a gigantic head of a tyrannosaurus rex. All of the heads, large or small, involve a ridiculously detailed building process - something they have in common with the magazine installations, coathanger pieces and my other work. There doesn't seem to be any limit to the subject matter and of course they all have that lethal incendiary device capability. In fact you can describe three clear lives to these sculptures: the original head with colour; the performance of burning it; and the burned head, instantly aged black and white version of the original. Not bad for a nothing material. I am working on a new series of predators; watch out for a tyrannosaurus rex. Look for the poster of the burning skull…