Emperor X, etc.

'selections' from my twitter account were recently published on the muumuu house website.

my twitter account should in no way be confused with the footballer Chris Killen's twitter account.

i am having an 'Emperor X dance party' in my flat at the moment.

kind of.

it just involves me sitting here on my own listening to Emperor X on my computer.

i'm not actually dancing. just typing and sitting here.

it's nice. i like Emperor X.

here's what i'm listening to.

i have had no official replies from lonely/bored Dutch or Dutch-speaking people yet (see below post).

i just wrote 3,000+ words of something that wasn't my novel.

i'm excited about something i'm bidding on on eBay. i feel so pathetically excited and secretive about it, i don't want to type what it is in case someone else starts bidding on it. listening to Emperor X is a clue, not that anyone cares.

the guy from Emperor X is currently singing "go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go g go go go go go go" really fast.

fao: lonely/bored Dutch people

oh dear. i 'defaced' my blog (see above) last night, a bit drunk, at about 2 in the morning. i don't know why i thought 'glasses, moustache, jazz beard' was a good idea. i'd change it back except i'm not at home and don't have the picture here to change it back to. original picture 'forthcoming'.

also forthcoming:

'selections from chris killen's twitter account' on the muumuuhouse website, i think.

new short stories in ROADS AHEAD (tindal street) and PAINT A VULGAR PICTURE (serpent's tail).

lots of readings at various places.

i am reading at Nottingham Waterstone's THIS THURSDAY NIGHT. 7-8:30pm.

the next NO POINT night is tonight. i am excited about this. i think it will be 'fun and shambolic and more-relaxed-than-normal' hopefully. we have a surprise guest.

i received 7 copies of De Vogelkamer today, the Dutch version of The Bird Room. it looks really nice. i want to post lots of pictures of it, but i lent my digital camera to a friend. my digital camera is currently on a plane to Seattle right now, i think.

i don't know what i am going to do with 7 Dutch copies. if you are a lonely or bored Dutch person living somewhere outside of Holland, or studying Dutch or have lonely or bored Dutch or Dutch-studying friend send me an email with a description of yourself/your situation. if i deem you 'lonely/bored/Dutch' enough i will post you one of the copies for free.

i think my favourite song at the moment is 'City Song' by Emmy the Great.

no point in not being friends 9

i made a poster yesterday for the next 'there's no point in not being friends with someone if you want to be friends with them' night:

click here for more info about the night.

exclamation marks!

i just thought, 'maybe all sentences on my blog should have exclamation marks at the end of them from now on!' exclamation marks have changed in 'meaning' a bit, maybe! they just look kind of funny and sarcastic to me now! i don't know if this is a good idea! is this a good idea! how long would this be funny for! just a couple of days! or would seeing every post from now on, for like the next two years or something -- including serious/dull 'news updates' etc. -- all with exclamation marks at the end of every sentence, be something funny on a 'grander scale'! i could become 'mister exclamation mark' maybe! i feel like this blog post is going to make me cringe in under an hour and i will have a giant urge to delete it but there will probably be a comment on it by that point which will stop me deleting it due to feeling bad about also deleting someone else's comment!

is this a good idea!
am i making a fool of myself!
no one cares probably!

3 poems

i have three 'poems' in the March issue of the Trof Times. the Trof Times is a free newsletter thing about Trof with interviews and listings and things in it. i imagine they have copies at Trof and other places in Manchester, probably in the Northern Quarter. i picked my one up at Picadilly records.

the 'poems' aren't new. they are 3 of the 5 things i did for the Gravity's Rainbow/Mason & Dixon chapbook with Shane Jones last year. click the picture to make it large enough to possibly read them, if they're legible. i don't know. the print might be too small:


the picture is of Micachu & The Shapes. there's an interview with them on the other page (left). i bought the Micachu album yesterday. i like it.

i looked at the Trof Times thing a couple of times, without registering that the cover has a drawing of a simile of my penis on it:


one of the 'poems' has the line 'My penis feels like a miniature swan, sat at a table, trying to polish an apple with its wings' in it. i felt very good and excited when i saw the penis simile on the cover.

interview, etc.

the beat just posted an interview with me.

**warning: interview spoiler**

i say 'like' 9 times in this interview.

i say 'i don't know' 3 times in this interview.

**end of spoiler**

also, bookgeeks did an online bookclub discussion on The Bird Room, and recently posted the 'highlights', including them asking me some answers and me answering them.

amazon update:

'mild' upwards sales rank movement.

2 or 3 new customer reviews, including a postive one and a 'this is ok' one.

my life update:

i just found a flat. i have good feelings about the new flat. the bathroom looks a bit like a miniature hotel bathroom. the carpet has tea stains on it. it has a good balance between 'this looks nice' and 'i can make a mess here comfortably'. also, it has radiators.

i started a twitter account. i am afraid to write anything on it. maybe i just won't write anything on it. that could be my 'thing'. i don't know.

"male balls"

Ellen Kennedy's book 'Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs' (Muumuu House) arrived in the post yesterday. hooray. i am halfway through. review forthcoming.

The Bird Room amazon.co.uk update:

40 customer reviews.

'significant' sales rank movement (downwards).

two new 'particularly scathing' customer reviews. they seem 'genuinely affronted' by the novel/me/how much it cost/how short it was/etc.

from Marco Busani "Proven Intellect":

The Bird Room is one of the shortest novels that I've ever read. In an effort to beef up the size of the book, blank pages are inserted between the bitesize chapters in order to try and create the false illusion that the book is more substantial than it in fact is.

The main character Wil cuts a pathetic figure that is consumed by self-doubt, self-pity, jealousy and pretty much operates minus a set of male balls. It's difficult to empathise with a character that is so melancholy and depressive; Wil allows his thoughts to escalate to near Titanic crisis proportions. Whilst, reading I felt almost embarassed for how enfeebled Wil is; Killen has created a character that comes across as being utterly unrealistic.

from Mr N. Haynes "stern":

Wooden characters who are insufficiently real to even dislike (you just don't care who's who and how it turns out) combine with a smugly confusing plot (shallow and simplistic, but then screwed around with by the writer giving the impression he's an empty little person who thinks he's cleverer than his readers) make this a frustrating rip off of a read.

The glowing reviews on the back of the book are by nobodys who upon closer inspection of Killen's acknowledgements seem to be employed by his publishing house (is that legal?).
This book reads like it was written by an undergraduate; convinced of his own genius, probably with unopened copies of Dostoevsky and Satre on his shelves to impress the girls. He can't write dialogue (indeed he never even tries, he just sticks to staccato monologue), he can't write sex and with the exception of a competetent opening when he sucessfully invokes a genuine feeling of obsessive jealousy, and two very pleasing adjectives he conjures up this is a very poor book and ridiculously overpriced.

ouch.

de vogel kamer

the Dutch version of The Bird Room is out now, or soon, or soon-ish, published by AmboAnthos.


hooray.


[note: that is not a picture of my carpet. it is a picture of a carpet somewhere in Holland, i presume]


excerpt from De Vogel Kamer, translated back into English using babelfish:

Friday night. Its long black coat no longer hangs to the bracket. Them is the door from. She is at Will. She does not come home. Three hours at night. I lie on the ground in pace at the voordeur, as a table mat. Them on me must will stand if she comes in. She will wipe off its feet to me. I looked on whereas she prepared himself to leave. I was behind its then she made up himself for the bathroom mirror. I ran behind her to the sleep chamber and looked on how she opened the hunk and there three different jurkjes removed, all black. She kept them for its body and moved back and forth, looked at to themselves in the large mirror on cupboard. She chose the shortest jurkje. She acquired ear bels in, fragrance, and smoothened her its right and with a grip. She did an hour and a half. She listened to Erasure and then to Prince. Them zongmee. `I wanna be your lover. I drunk on bed and looked on how she prepared himself. I said nothing. Now I lie on the floor in pace and look at to the slit under the door, guard to light becomes or to Alice comes home and me finds, it or the other one there. I do not will fall in sleep, say I against mezelf. If I wakker become, there a free newspaper on my leg lies. By the slit helderwit sunlight come. It does pain to my eyes. I look at laboriously to the coat rack. Its coat hangs to the bracket. Its boots resist at the door. Them stands under the shower. I hear her. Them sings.

bird room expensive viral marketing campaign, continued:

Crispin Best made a short advert for The Bird Room. see this post on his blog for the 'story behind' the advert.



i 'wholeheartedly' encourage people to make interesting, funny videos which are actually just adverts for The Bird Room.

i think this is a 'one off' though.

thanks, Crispin.