Random Thoughts, or, Me With My Head Up My Quasi-Intellectual Ass

The following is a collection of thoughts I had while sitting through a lecture on writing and then an interpretive dance performance. I offer them only because they made me laugh and to show that I am just as much a pretentious dick as the next guy:



“Literature” is a loaded word. A stuffed hot dog pretending to be steak.


“Writing is a calling.” When someone says this I feel the urge to tell them they have shitty phone reception.


I only write because to not would nullify experience.


We are too obsessed with documenting our lives. Guilty!


I don’t pretend to be a writer, in the sense that I don’t feel any more qualified to claim that title than anyone else. I do pretend to be a writer because I actually sit down and write. I know a lot of writers. They all know how to talk.


If someone calls me a poet I feel insulted.


I think far too much about writing books and far too little about why.


Eating is consumption. Cooking is creation. Maybe so, but eating can be creative as well. Why put all the burden on the cook?


If a reader has no imagination, books are piles of shit.


Food is too often an afterthought.


“Eating Poetry” was one of the first poems I read for pleasure, not because some asshole teacher was making me read. I still love it, but it seems dangerous. Harvesting, growing, picking, and consuming poetry. Tisk tisk…


I’d eat Mayakovsky pickled. Amachi raw. Mansour stewed. Brodsky with fiber. Akhmatova with tomato. Vallejo soaked in nectar. As for Parra—eat him slowly. Bukowski quick with B12. O’Hara tartar. Cardenal with root vegetables.


Eating Basho? Barley seems obvious. Maybe, to be contrary, he’d be best with brandy.


Digesting—one needs fiber, not intellect.


I am opposed to the idea of pure art, health food, constant nutrition. Mix it up with fat and sugar.


If all we do is what is good for us, when do we remember we’re human?


Someone, I don’t remember who, said that there are two kinds of writers: those who believe death is inevitable and those who do not believe death is inevitable. I prefer writers who reject the idea of death being inevitable but want to die anyway.


If art is forever, why worry about death?


I would never expect anyone to like anything I write. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.


Artists are liars without purpose. Liars with purpose? We call them lawyers.


When I meet an artist under the age of 50 I feel combative.


I only miss the idea of things I no longer do: smoking, drinking coffee, playing music, going to school. Ideas are always better.


I still enjoy alcohol, but I enjoy the idea of drinking even more.


I am watching a dancer explain her dance. She asks the audience what they think, if they have questions. She begs for questions. She is anxious to explain her art. Noting is worse than an artist explaining their art. Art is not show and tell.