[Jandek] RE: jandek Digest, Vol 54, Issue 173

[Feigin Boris]

Hi all:)

Just wanted to say a big Hi to everyone on this list. This is my first 
posting:) I am definitely interested in getting this book. Is there any way 
I can get it in Australia?

Cheers,
Boris

>From: jandek-request at mylist.net
>Reply-To: jandek at mylist.net
>To: jandek at mylist.net
>Subject: jandek Digest, Vol 54, Issue 173
>Date: 1 Sep 2006 21:00:25 -0700
>
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>Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Jandek Fictional Biography Forthcoming; Author to Read/Sign
>       in Toronto & Chicago (Danen D. Jobe)



>From: "Danen D. Jobe" <djobe at uark.edu>
>To: jandek at mylist.net
>Subject: [Jandek] Jandek Fictional Biography Forthcoming;Author to 
>Read/Sign in Toronto & Chicago
>Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:18:45 -0500
>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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