[Jandek] Jandek Fictional Biography Forthcoming; Author to Read/Sign in Toronto & Chicago

[Amy Frushour Kelly]

No way I can make it to either of your readings, but congratulations. Sounds
wonderful. (Will they be recorded?) After reading your e-mail, I'm
definitely buying at least one copy.

Cheers,

Amy Frushour Kelly


On 9/1/06, Danen D. Jobe <djobe at uark.edu> wrote:
>
> Okay.
>
> So I've sent out dozens of press releases and spent a solid year now
> working on this, and yet this is the email I've had the most difficulty
> composing. Really - started and stopped it six or seven times in the last
> three weeks. If you want the short of it, skip a paragraph or two. But for
> THIS list - people I genuinely care about and trust - I want to give an idea
> of what writing this has been like. So here goes:
>
> As a few of you know, I've been working on a fictitious biography based on
> Jandek, written with Corwood's cooperation and approval.  It uses the Jandek
> name, song titles, lyrics, album covers, music descriptions, etc though it
> in NO way is to be mistaken for the REAL story of Jandek.  Rather, this is
> culled from - literally - HUNDREDS of hours of listening to the music,
> discussions with a few people involved with Corwood at one point or another,
> numerous back and forth letters to and from Houston, a chapbook publication
> that caused me to destroy (by fire, thank you) EVERYTHING and start over -
> this being exactly one week before my thesis reading at the University of
> Arkansas (which I've been writing this project for). Coming up with the
> RIGHT story, finally, for said reading and then spending the summer
> hammering out some 200 pages of sprawling story, followed by me asking
> Corwood if they thought it might be a good idea for me to read in Chicago
> and Toronto (they agreed), an
> d me thinking, "you know, it might be nice to have something published,"
> followed by the WONDERFUL folk at Single Cell Press (out of Glasgow - so
> fitting) agreeing to publish this first installment in what I see as a
> "Jandek trilogy," three weeks of editing, re-writing, re-thinking and
> ultimately agreeing on 63 pages of content, coming out this month on Single
> Cell Press, and which I will be reading from the day after the Toronto show
> and the day before the Chicago one.
>
> And now for more specific details: in Toronto I'll be at Circus Books and
> Music on Monday, September 18th at 6 PM. This is located at 253 Gerrard
> Street East (I'll give better directions and a phone number in a following
> email as I figure it out myself) and should be a blast. From there I get to
> make a maddash back over the border to read at Quimby's Books in Chicago
> (154 W Northern Street, Chicago - more info www.quimbys.com) at 7 PM
> Tuesday the 19TH at 7 PM. I can promise the best excerpts I can come up with
> from the book, which is closest to dark Southern Literature (it's what I
> write), tracing the future Corwood Rep's life from childhood to his garage
> band days, growing up in the Ozark Mountains admist much family turmoil (his
> mother and father leave him to care for his developmentally disabled brother
> at one point - his mother moving off to Kansas City and Dad going on a
> six-month bender). There are also other fictiionally recast real people
> here, most significantly one
> Frank Stanford, whose poetry you can check at www.alsopreview.com.
> Stanford is the young narrator's shadow twin, so to speak, and also the
> person who gets said narrator to take his musical roots and do something
> with them. Frank happens to be married to Nancy, who ends up singing for the
> original garage band (and John, the drummer, lifts many of the instruments
> from "people who won't miss them). It includes sections of the narrator
> developing the guitar sound (which, by the way, I picked out myself on a
> 40's era black Gibson acoustic, picking at the strings over Charley Patton
> songs until it emulated what Jandek does on the early acoustic albums) and
> falling in love - not with Nancy, but with Frank's fiery sister Jessica.
> There's also "fictionalized' versions of Son House (he gets a great scene)
> and a poet/novelist named James Whitehead who's well worth checking out.
>
> Okay, that's enough. If you want more I've got a few excerots up at the
> Myspace page I've created for this puppy: www.myspace.com/niagrablues.
> I'll keep updates going there. Also, please check my publisher's website at
> www.singlecellpress.co.uk, as this is where the book will be available
> (unless you buy it direct from me). While you're there, pick up a copy of
> Jackie Gilroy's slang-crazed "Thugs and Thieves." The writing style of our
> books couldn't be any more different and yet there's a communal spirit
> there. But seriously, Gilroy is the rightful heir to Bukowski, and I mean
> that lovingly. My book is probably closer to Carson McCullers' "Ballad of
> the Sad Cafe" or maybe a bit of Cormac McCarthy, but I've worked hard to
> have it be it's OWN thing first and foremost. Hope anyone who reads it feels
> the same.
>
> Anyway, PLEASE contact me for more info. Now that I can relax (having
> finally written this) I can say that I hope at least some of you can attend
> these events - I intend for it to be a pretty wild tour: Jandek on Sunday,
> my reading on Monday, another reading on Tuesday, Jandek on Wednesday and
> then I sleep for a week. Somehow my employer at the University has decided
> this is a good "academic" thing and is supporting this, so I feel all
> "official." I don't know. Books will be dead cheap (I've got to move them -
> you knew that was coming, right?) but the readings are free. And hey, I
> intend to max out a credit card buying pitchers afterward. Seriously. Also,
> if anyone has floorspace in Toronto or Chicago let me know. This was going
> to be a family trip but looks like it's a solo thing now (a cost-efficient
> idea - got the wife and kids' support but this is gonna be a bit intense for
> young ones), so I find myself in need of floor space. I'll even bring my own
> pillow and free books
> a'plenty. I also make a mean coffee.
>
> Oh, and finally, there is a tour "pre-launch" radio show at 88.3 KXUA
> radio from the University of Arkansas next Wed night at 9 pm CST. Fear not,
> non Arkansans (which is what, all of you?) - it will be streamed on the net.
> I'll get details for that in the next few days, but PLEASE, if you happen to
> listen in, call and request. It's going to be a very loose show covering
> what I feel is his key moments mixed in with some of the Summersteps'
> tributes (including stuff off the new Corwood Variations handmade - I think
> the "Om" is a must) and a few "Corwood influences" like Blind Willie
> Johnson. This is going to be three hours long and something special indeed.
> I'll also read a few short passages from the book.
>
> Whew! Okay, I've done it. Thanks for your patience (those who made it this
> far) and I hope a few of you can make the readings. I think you all know the
> great respect I have for this artist so please trust that I've put
> TREMENDOUS effort in making this as good a story as possible, staying true
> to the roots of Corwood Industries.I'm proud to say that I got the "thumbs
> up" from Corwood last week in a lovingly detailed letter that gave what may
> be the world's first lyric correction from the source: the opening passage
> from "Niagra Blues" should read: "Sometimes go to Niagra/sometimes go the
> grave/crazy 'bout your dreamer/crazy 'bout your dark night." And here, for
> thirteen years, I've thought the "uh" after dream was an inflection. Wow.
>
> And again, any questions please send my way. As I said, more detailed maps
> and such as we get closer to reading dates. Books will be for sale until
> Single Cell Press is so tired of me they toss the rest in the ocean. Thanks
> again for listening, all!
>
> Danen
>
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>



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