FEDERMAN'S BLOG [the laugh that laughs at the laugh...]

"Green light Go" by Simone Federman

2011-05-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

Simone & Raymond Federman
The Coliseum

My eyes were as bottomless as his, hollowed in my tiny face. And my mouth was almost more jaded - perfecting the scowl of a French-movie gangster, the attitude, if not the accent, that made him so charming. I would have smoked Gauloises in the car if he'd let me, the way he did, with the windows rolled up so his hair wouldn't blow, as we cruised the town, partners in crime, till Mom got home.

My mother sparkled with Hollywood sunlight, whereas my pop and I flickered in the shadows of the place where we lived when she was not around, where all his stories and the movies he'd taken me to from the time I was born converged. Errands were just an excuse for a stake-out; a trip to the bank, casing the joint for the big heist "the Organization" had planned.

Our swarthy complexions suited our roles as the good kind of bad guys, though I was more of a cowboy than he was, with half a half-gallon hat in the back seat to prove it, and he admired that about me. I was, after all, a real American, unlike him.

"Zoot, alors!" he'd say, forced to stall at a red light, and I'd take aim with my pistol finger tip, waiting until just the right moment - "Pow" - to shoot it green.

I love you Pop, miss you so much. Happy Birthday - Simone

Blogmaster's Note: Sunday is Ray's birthday.

SHHH

2011-01-21T07:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.starcherone.com/federman.html

Free New Federman‏

2009-12-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

"LIST OF SCENES FROM MY CHILDHOOD TO BE WRITTEN" by Raymond Federman

http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n12/htdocs/list-of-scenes-of-my-childhood-260.php

An excerpt from the forthcoming Starcherone Books novel, SHHH: THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD, in the current VICE MAGAZINE, "The Fiction Issue."

You are invited to a celebration of the life of Raymond Federman

2009-10-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

November 29th 5:00 PM

Bernardo Heights Country Club
16066 Bernardo Heights Parkway
San Diego, California 92128
Phone: 858-487-4022

Rsvp: moinous@federman.com

FROM SIMONE FEDERMAN (October 6, 2009)

2009-10-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

October 6, 2009

My father died this morning. Last night I read all of "The Voice in The Closet" to him in one breath, 75 pages: one sentence. I stopped on page 61 to cry, and then we both cried at the end.

He had not been responsive for more than 24 hours, so this was especially magical. I thanked him for all the books, all the beautiful sentences, this being the most beautiful I had ever read. I thanked him for being the best father I could ever imagine. I told him he would always be my best friend. His eyebrows told me to stop crying. So I did. I told him I understood because he had taught me about laughter.

I went to bed on the pull-out couch next to his bed. I half heard his loud heavy breathing stop and roused to call my mom, who had already had a beautiful tearful last goodbye, and the nurse. He had died. We said kaddish for him at the mortuary, and he was cremated, as he wished, like his mother, father and sisters, at about noon.

We are planning to spread some of the ashes, maybe some noodles too, at his golf course, maybe even make a drop at the casino, and then bring some to France to spread at his former apartment and Le Cimetière Marin (the one in the Valéry poem he wanted me to read to him last week).

My mother and I, my sister Robin and brothers, James and Steve are planning a memorial celebration of his life in San Diego in the coming weeks, details to come.

We are okay, feeling strong. We had a really special last few weeks with him, not to mention a really special 47 to 49 years. I apologize for the group e-mail. I just wanted you to know.

Much love,
Simone
Le 6 octobre 2009

Mon père est mort ce matin. La veille je lui ai lu tout "La Voix dans le débarras" d’un seul trait, 75 pages : une phrase. Je me suis arrêtée à la page 61 pour pleurer, et ensuite on a pleuré ensemble à la fin.

Cela faisait plus de 24 heures qu'il n'avait plus réagi, c'était donc particulièrement magique.

Je l'ai remercié pour tous les livres, toutes les belles phrases, celle-ci étant la plus belle que j’ai jamais lue. Je l'ai remercié d'être le meilleur père que je puisse imaginer. Je lui ai dit qu'il serait toujours mon meilleur ami. Ses sourcils m'ont dit d'arrêter de pleurer. Donc je l'ai fait. Je lui ai dit que je comprenais parce qu'il m'avait tout appris sur le rire.

Je me suis couchée sur le clic clac à côté de son lit. J'ai entendu à demi sa respiration lourde et bruyante s’arrêter. Je me suis levée pour appeler ma mère, qui lui avait déjà dit un bel et tendre dernier adieu, ainsi que l'infirmière. Il était mort. On a dit le kaddish pour lui à la morgue et il a été incinéré, comme il l'avait souhaité, et comme sa mère, son père et ses sœurs l’avaient été, aux alentours de midi.

Nous avons pour projet de disperser quelques unes des cendres, et peut-être aussi quelques nouilles, sur son parcours de golf, de peut être même passer en laisser quelques unes au casino, et d'en apporter ensuite certaines en France pour les étendre dans son ancien appartement et au Cimetière marin (celui dans le poème de Valéry qu'il a voulu que je lui lise la semaine dernière).

Ma mere et moi, ma soeur Robin and frères James and Steve allons organiser une célébration commémorative de sa vie à San Diego dans les semaines prochaines, les détails suivront.

Nous allons bien. Nous venons de passer quelques semaines vraiment magnifiques avec lui, sans compter 47 à 49 années non moins magnifiques. Veuillez m'excuser pour cet e-mail de groupe. J'ai juste voulu vous mettre au courant.

Je vous embrasse,
Simone

Raymond Federman (1928-2009)

2009-10-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

Raymond Federman
Photo: Bruce Jackson

New from BlazeVOX [Books] — THE CARCASSES: A Fable (Paperback) by Raymond Federman

2009-08-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

— but she knows from her experience on planet Earth that even if she denounces her comrades she will be thrown on the pile of carcasses known as the pile of eternally rejected carcasses — it is the worse condition — the most terrible fate for a carcass is to know that she will never be transmuted — that there is no hope of ever be transmuted — not even as an ugly vegetable — let’s say as a carrot — or as a ridiculous object like a chamber pot — meanwhile the secret forces of the authorities — known as the authoritarian militia — are in the process of arresting all those who are involved because even if the NAFC did not give their names -- the OFCS denounced them — no need to say more about the pathetic failure of this revolution — what will happen in the zone of the carcasses will be told in a subsequent chapter — but as it is now said and repeated in every corner of the zone since the miscarriage of this revolt — the more things change the more they’re the same —

ORDER THE CARCASSES HERE

final escape

2009-07-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

how will it happen

the final exitus

will it be violent

will it hurt

or will it be quiet

full of silence

will the sordid images

that have haunted us

be suddenly erased

or will they be replayed

endlessly replayed

in virtual reality

will we fall

or will we rise

or simply pass through

as one goes through

an open door

to enter a room

perhaps it will be

an escape

another escape

from the little box

where it all started

among empty skins

but this time it will be

the final escape

from the great cunt

of existence

and this time

without any gurgling

will the stolen sugar be

as sweet as the first time

and what of the moon

tiptoeing on the roof

will she smile upon us

or remain indifferent

will there be words

left to describe what

is taking place

words and silences

or will there be only

cries and whispers

Raymond Federman

voici les carcasses

2009-06-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

www.leoscheer.com/spip.php?article1984

my lovely daughter Simone wrote my obituary

2009-06-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

Pop ad infinitum

So here it is the first of many reflections,

ah federman already with the evasive pretensions what do you mean reflections? you mean to say obituary

- No he is still living, very much living, he played golf the other day, went to the casino, won ten dollars, for god’s sake- do you think he would like you mentioning that god guy

- oh he wouldn’t mind he is very open minded at this point

- you did say his name in vein

-oy now you too.

So as I was saying I imagine I will write stuff

–better-

like this over and over but upon reflection I realized Federman himself would be the one who would most like to read it, so why wait? Like an espionage agent, he would love to be able to get a glimpse of what is being said about him once he isn’t saying it anymore. Those of you that know him know all too well this is true. So Pop this is for you too. These comments are open to your reflections upon them, edits, critiques, response or even silence

- That would be very uncharacteristic.

– Can’t you find another format for your digressions? The lack of punctuation and these italics interruptions may irritate the reader.

-His readers are extremely patient with all sorts of hijinks

- This is important, the guys fucking obituary after all. Shouldn’t you be more serious and sincere?

- Without the digressions I might wax sentimental and maybe even grim

- That would really bug him he hates those two things

- True, he has spent his life making a point of, an oeuvre of, not talking about the dead at least not sentimentally for god’s sake

- there’s that g-man again

- okay you made that point, let’s carry on

- carry on.

-Shouldn’t we first acknowledge the fact that this whole style thing is bald faced plagiarism

- He spells it playgerism; anyway, he likes that mostly when it is from le source.

- Ah le source, yes, he likes that, the blood, the Federman line, the lineage.

- Hey this is my obituary now you are hijacking it, write your own.

- Oh come on, we can share this one. go on where were we, sorry, I mean you? Oh. Wait! before you go on blame him for the fucked up punctuation and the way it is hard to understand who is talking. Remember you tried to correct it when you worked on sssh but he was stubborn about it. This dramatic dialogue format works well.

- He wasn’t very stubborn we had a great time working together. It made me feel so proud to be his daughter.

-Okay I think we are back to where you need to be, watch the tears though, he hates that and you are getting the keyboard all wet!

Raymond Federman means many things to many people. Hundreds if not thousands of people love him very much, will mourn his passing with profound sorrow. For me it is beyond comprehension. He is my Pop, my best friend, always has been for the last forty six years. Maybe before but I wouldn’t know,

- Ah so you’re thinking you are a fictitious fabrication?

- Only he would know because he is older than I am. He was there before I knew I was.

- He doesn’t always act it, older that is.

- This is not the place for insults.

- It was a loving joke, not an insult; his youthful exuberance is one of his best traits why don’t you mention that.

- I will if you could just control the interruptions, I was just getting on a roll

-d’accord, go ahead.

- Even if he said we had been friends, best friends more than forty six and a half years he might be lying; he is not a very reliable story teller

- You could ask your mother she is more grounded in reality

- Really you think so?

- Okay maybe not, but she has sure helped him.

- As his mother would say “he always has his head in the clouds”

- Well, that is what you say he says she said.

–True that but so it is written, as they say...

So Pop, my Pop and I ARE CLOSE, REAL CLOSE.

-wHOA that was weird why did everything go big all of a sudden? For emphasis?

- No I just hit the “CapsLk” key instead of the shift key I do it all the time.

- You don’t type very well, do you think that is because of all the afternoons you spent in his office after school writing concrete poetry on his IBM Selectric

- Yes the one with the ball, maybe…

He was so loving those afternoons in his beautiful office, on the old campus on Main St. He always made me feel like those poems I wrote, most of them just letters all garbled up not even words, were really brilliant. He has always made me feel like I am brilliant. I hated it when the ball would get jammed. He seemed so smart the way he could get me rolling again making that sound I loved so much. I would hear that sound all the time, the sound of the Selectric.

I used to love the sound when I would hear it stop upstairs on the third floor and then the best sound of all, the sound of his feet gliding down the edges of the stairs as he flew down the stairs, down to the second floor where I was often playing. I used to practice sliding down the front of the steps real quickly like him. I don’t know if it was practice I think I just am a lot like him

- You still are.

- I know, sad isn’t, I will miss him so much.

- Oh don’t start your crying again, “stop your balling” as Patsy would say

- I had terminal cancer I had good reason to cry

- You and your excuses, I suppose you think you have good reason now too, finish your story…

Where was I, where am I going with this? I guess I could start describing the most vivid memories I have of our time together. Being that he is still living and I talk to him every day, usually a few times a day I should probably use the present tense. It may be confusing, this living obituary style is a new form.

- The quotation marks he would have hated, don’t you think?

- Probably, but they do come in handy. Present tense!!..

The last time I saw him he tried to shoot the traffic light like he always did when we were in the car together which was often. He could shoot the light and make it turn green. His aim was not always good but he would just try again and again and eventually he always hit it. I think what is so remarkable about that was the frequency with which he played that game and still does. And every time I still feel amazed by the magic.

- While ridiculing his silliness. Not the last time you saw him forever just most recently.

-This tense shit makes me tense…

I loved our outings. Every Sunday morning we would drive to the drugstore to pick up the New York Times, it is only as an adult I realized it could be delivered. My Pop would buy Gauloises, often a carton always non filtered. He would give me my dollar allowance and I would shop for a Hot Wheel car for my collection. At the cashier he would pretend he didn’t have any more money when I asked him for the $.06 I needed to complete my transaction. The Hot Wheels cost $. 99 with tax $1.07. He always said he didn’t have it he always gave it to me anyway. He still does. He usually says he can’t afford anything then he is very generous, extravagant even.

If my mother asks him to bring her a drink of water he always says “Non” as he reaches for the glass

- What a character, an idiosyncratic individual. Give another example…

When he sees a view he likes to

- Not likes to, it is he can’t control himself.

-Good point- now shut up for a minute...

When he sees a view he goes “Oh lala!” a really great view gets “Oh lalaOhlala merde c’est formidable!” always with a “regarde Simone, regarde Erica!” There was a trip when the three of us drove across Europe. We would stop at many, many view platforms or rather places on the side of the road and he would make us get out of the car and he would always let out an “ Ohlala” sometimes with an exclamation point kind of loud and operatic “Ohlala, Ohlala!” sometimes soft and slow, quietly no exclamation point.”ohlala,olalaola” I used to count how many refrains he would make and I decided the most were at Kotor Yugoslavia. We were on a curvy road up above the village of Kotor. I don’t remember how many “ohlalaOhlalaOhlala”s occurred but it was a lot, believe me, the most ever. I was almost in more awe of his persistence than the view but it was very beautiful. I remember that view, that day very clearly for some reason. Maybe it is because one year later I read in the paper maybe saw it on TV; there had been a horrible earthquake in Yugoslavia and a road had collapsed on a tiny village named Kotor. It was completely destroyed, vanished.

- You still have your memories.

- Oh don’t be trite. This isn’t a sappy movie. I am dealing with the most difficult thing I have ever had to deal with in my entire life, worse than my own illness. I am trying

- You are doing a good job. I’m sorry. It is really hard for me too you know.

On that trip we had a project: to kept track of the best crème caramels in the world. We were the self appointed judges of the European Crème Caramel Competition. We tried them everywhere and ranked each one we tested.

- So which one won, our readers might like to know, this book might actually contain some worthwhile information.

The Best Crème Caramel was definitively anointed at a small restaurant in France- bien sur called Hotel Luberon, I think that is the name of the town too. Might be misspelled

- Maybe you should look it up while I write this damn obituary before we all die!
Mom most likely found the place in the Michelin guide. I think they might have had a bottle of some fancy wine from 1928 that night too. I remember that because that is the year he was born.

-I am starting to think you are making this stuff up!

-Okay maybe that wasn’t the same meal but it was the same trip and his birth date is documented. There are documents, I have seen his birth certificate that he found in the little closet in the bedroom when he went back to the apartment after the war. (Read about it in ssh due in bookstores fall’09) Anyway, what does it matter he won’t remember and makes stuff up all the time.

-He has no memory just fictitious fabrications.

-Is there really any difference?

- Of course not, that much he taught you.

Maybe this would be a good place to insert my published piece Mon Pere le Fictionare

– You are starting to throw in an awful lot of advertisements don’t you think? French no less!

- That’s true it is published in both languages.

-This insertion stuff is so derivative too, it was confusing enough when he did it all the time in Sssh. I thought you were trying to avoid his preclusions

- I think it is too late for that

- Besides your readers have probably already read that damn piece in French or English or heard it at your slide show in Buffalo, you are bugging me a bit the way you are so much like him, kind of creepy

- Oh relax, they can skip over it if they want.

- Well then include the slide show narration, and then the publisher can throw in the photos, people like that. Besides you will probably have a wider readership than he ever did with those Federman A to XXXX books.

- True he is bound to get really famous posthumously.

- Always happens.

- Sad isn’t it he always wanted the notoriety, acclaim.

- He did pretty well for himself.

- Yeah but he wanted to write that one great book the one he would be remembered for.

- Oh he will be remembered no question.

- He wrote a great story in the form of many books.

- Like Proust? Beckett?

- No even better he wrote them like Federman.

- No one like him, just one Federman.

- No one but you.

- True but I think he would be happy I was riding on his coattails.

- He always wa..is so proud of you.

-I love him so much.

- Me too.

-I know you do.

-Is that it? Are we done?

-For now. He isn’t dead yet silly.

-Good point. Done with this installment then.

Novelist Raymond Federman Honored at Washington College's 2009 Commencement, May 17

2009-05-23T12:06:00.001-07:00

Chestertown, MD — National Public Radio's Diane Rehm, a living legend of broadcast journalism, addressed the graduates at Washington College's 2009 Commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 17. Rehm received an honorary degree in addition to being guest speaker at this year's Commencement.

French-American novelist Raymond Federman received an honorary Doctor of Letters along with Rehm, and addressed the graduating class.

Raymond Federman is a French-American novelist and academic, known also for poetry, essays, translations and criticism. He held positions at the University at Buffalo from 1973 to 1999, where he is now Distinguished Emeritus Professor.

Federman is a writer in the experimental style, one that seeks to deconstruct traditional prose. This type of writing is quite prevalent in his book Double or Nothing, in which the linear narrative of the story has been broken down and restructured so as to be nearly incoherent. Words are also often arranged on pages to resemble images or to suggest repetitious themes.

Born in Montrouge, France, Federman emigrated to the U.S. in 1947. He studied at Columbia University and as a graduate at U.C.L.A., where he earned a doctorate in comparative literature on Samuel Beckett. He is also a co-founder of the Fiction Collective, a publishing house dedicated to experimental fiction and its writers.

A Matter of Enthusiasm

2009-05-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

I am rereading Malone Dies
just to mock death a little
and boost my cancerous spirit.

I shall soon be quite dead at last
Malone tells us at the beginning
of his story.

What a superb opening
what a fabulous sentence.

With such a sentence
Malone announces his death
and at the same time delays it.

In fact all of Malone’s story
is but an adjournment.

Malone even manages
to defer his death
until the end of eternity.

That
soon is such a vague word.

How much time is soon?
Hoe does one measure soon?

Normal people say
I’ll be dead in ten years
or I’ll be dead before I’m eighty
or I’ll be dead by the end of this week
Quite dead at last
Malone specifies.

Unlike Malone prone in bed
scribbling the story of his death
with his little pencil stub
normal standing people
like to be precise
concerning their death.

Oh how they would love
to know in advance
the exact date and time
of their death.

How relieved they would be
to know exactly when
they would depart from
the great cunt of existence
in Malone’s own words
to plunge into the great lie
of the afterlife.

How happy they would be
if when they emerge into life
the good doctor
or the one responsible
for having expelled them
into existence
would tell them you will die at 15:30
on December 22, 1989.

Could Sam have written
I shall soon be quite dead at last
had he known in advance
when he would change tense?

Certainly not
because as Malone tells us
a bit further in his story

I shall die tepid
without enthusiasm.

Does that mean on the contrary
of those idiots on this bitch of an earth
who explode themselves with fervor
to reach the illusion of paradise
while taking with them other mortals
that Malone’s lack of enthusiasm
towards his own death is a clever way
of delaying the act of dying?

A lack of enthusiasm for something
is always a way of postponing
the terms of that something.

The soon of Malone mocks
the permanence of death
and his lack of enthusiasm
ridicules the expression at last.

And so before he reaches the end
of the first page of his story
Malone has already succeeded
in postponing his death to
Saint John the Baptist’s Day
and even the Fourteenth of July.
Malone even believes he might be able
to resist until the
Transfiguration
not to speak of the Assumption
which certainly throws some doubt
as to what really happened
on that mythical day
or what will happen to Malone
if he manages to hang on until then.

In fact Malone defies his own death
by giving himself
birth into death
as he explains at the end of his story.

All is ready. Except me. I am being
given, if I may venture the expression,
birth to into death, such is my impression.
The feet are clear already,
of the great cunt of existence.
Favorable presentation I trust.
My head will be the last to die.
Haul in your hands. I can’t.
The render rents, My story ended
I’ll be living yet. Promising lag.
That is the end of me. I shall say I no more.

Nothing more to add this evening.
Malone said it all for me.
I can go to sleep calmly now.
Good night everybody.

Raymond Federman

important letter

2009-03-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and more

this letter came to me out of nowhere
I'm still under shock
What will I say

I didn't know when I read this
if I should have tears in my eyes
or if I should burst into laughter

CLICK LETTER TO ENLARGE

oh very easy

2009-02-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

UP OUT AND BLOWN AWAY*

every time I see a
blue bird I think of
Ronald Sukenick

maybe there was
a blue bird in one
of his stories

maybe there wasn't

Mike Daily

____
* Title by Raymond Federman.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Daily
To: Raymond Federman
Sent: Sun 22 Feb 2009 6:14 pm
Subject: title

Ray, can you think of a good title for this? Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Raymond Federman
To: Mike Daily
Sent: Sun 2/22/09 9:15 PM
Subject: title

oh very easy

UP OUT AND BLOWN AWAY

-----Original Message-----
From: Raymond Federman
To: Mike Daily
Sent: Sun 2/22/09 9:16 PM
Subject: title

IF YOU WANT YOU CAN PUT THAT POEM ON MY BLOG
OF COURSE WITH YOUR NAME

time for a little poem on the blog - a bilingual one

2009-02-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

Apocalypse Now

hey
you guys
over there
you humans
wait till Jesus really comes back
things will really get worse

if you humans
were smart
you would leap over
the second coming
directly into
the
apocalypse

Apocalypse Maintenant

hé
vous les gars
là-bas
vous les humains
attendaient que Jésus revienne
les choses iront encore plus mal

si les humains
étaient pas cons
ils sauteraient par-dessus
l’éternel retour
directement
dans
l’apocalypse

carcesses in portuguese‏

a good friend -- she's portuguese -- she wrote her doctoral dissertation about my work - just did a translation of the carcasses --

RAYMOND FEDERMAN, As carcassas
(tradução: Manuela Alves de Abreu)

Ontem comprei um novo gravador de voz – e hoje gravei nele uma história – e chamei essa história –

As carcassas

Estou sentado no meu escritório – é assim que começa a história que gravei – Estou sentado no meu escritório na Califórnia – San Diego Califórnia – pertinho do sol – há quatro anos mudei-me para cá para terminar o meu trabalho e fazer contas comigo mesmo – estou sentado à secretária e olho pela janela a vista esplêndida à minha frente – incríveis o vale a montanha as árvores o céu – é digno de se ver – magnífico – hoje um bom dia para mim – sinto-me bem – começou por uma boa partida de golfe esta manhã – consegui uns 81 – sim 81 – 38 nos 9 primeiros buracos – sete green em regulation - dois birdies – nos últimos buracos um 43 – dois miseráveis bogies - dois erros estúpidos – o espírito vagueia por vezes quando passeamos pela natureza – mas umas sólidas 81 pancadas não é nada mau para um velhote como eu – depois regresso a casa para trabalhar em O meu corpo em nove partes com os seus 3 suplementos – a versão em língua inglesa – My Body in Nine Parts – hoje trabalho as minhas cicatrizes – mas num momento de reflexão levantei os olhos lá para cima para as almofadas do céu e depois para a vista esplêndida à minha frente – incrível – e pensei – quando morreres tudo isto vai apagar-se – mais nada para ver – nothing more – apenas a escuridão – será como se mergulhasses num grande buraco negro – primeiro a cabeça que cortará o ar – e nesse rodopio para o abismo tudo ficará negro – mas pensar isso e dizê-lo assim só me compromete a mim – será que isso sugere a possibilidade de um depois – de um além – de outra forma de vida após a morte – como se me tivesse enganado toda a vida – não – não vou cair na grande patetice meta-pata-física - não – nada de passe de mágica – nada de mentira sobre-humana – nada de intervenção divina – sou um ser humano – sou consciente de ser um ser humano e até bem vivo – que se lixe o além - mas para brincar imagina agora que estás morto – lá estás tu na fila no meio da longa fila das carcassas mortas que acabam de chegar na zona das carcassas – sim é assim que se chama esta história – as carcassas – aqui estão elas – todas atoladas umas por cima das outras com velhas peles vazias – e agora estás tu por cima desse monte - todas atoladas umas por cima das outras à espera da sua vez de serem transmudadas – as velhas que esperam há muito tempo – as novas que acabam de chegar curiosas e ansiosas por saber quando serão transmudadas – pois a transmutação não se faz imediatamente - as carcassas não são logo reencarnadas quando chegam na zona das carcassas – há um período de espera – um período de incubação – se posso assim dizer – portanto estás ali à espera da tua vez – não há nenhum efeito de mágica como já disse – é preciso esperar que as autoridades se decidam – sim chamemo-lhes assim – as autoridades – as únicas que podem decidir quando vai ser a tua vez de ser transmudado – não me perguntes quem são essas autoridades nem onde se encontram – na zona das carcassas não se colocam tais perguntas – na zona das carcassas fecha-se a matraca se queremos ser transmudados - portanto um dia as autoridades convocam-te – eh tu aí chega aqui – e dizem-te que vais ser reenviado – mas não forçosamente para o planeta donde vens – as carcassas chegam de todos os lugares do universo – o lugar onde as carcassas ficam empilhadas é uma zona à parte no grande vazio do universo – ninguém sabe onde se situa exactamente esta zona – mas é como um enorme armazém – um pouco como a Samaritaine1 - aí encontramos carcassas de todos os tipos – de todos os tamanhos de todas as formas – a maior parte em mau estado – estão à espera que as autoridades as chamem para serem transmudadas – não se pode discutir com as autoridades – temos que aceitar a sua decisão – e então a tua vez chegou – lá estás tu de volta num planeta em insecto – sim – em mosca – imagina-te agora a viver a tua vida em mosca – primeiro a vida da mosca é curta – uma vida efémera como se diz – mesmo assim é uma vida – qual é o teu principal objectivo nesta vida de mosca – a tua razão de ser – primeiro morfar a merda das outras espécies - zumbir – sim zumbir à volta dos olhos das vacas que não param de te mandar bofetadas valentes com a cauda – ou zumbir à volta dos humanos – à procura da merda nos vidros das janelas ou nos ecrãs das televisões – mas um dia quando aterras no braço ou no cimo do crânio dum homenzinho – zás - esmaga-te com a mão – esmaga-te – extermina-te e voltas a ser carcassa – que tipo de vida é esta – e lá estás de novo na zona das carcassas – ah já voltaste dizem-te aqueles que ainda lá estão à seca – o tempo passa – não o tempo não passa porque nesta zona das carcassas o tempo não anda – não há tempo – não há nada – mas mesmo assim agora a tua vez chega depressa - não há nenhuma razão para isso – não se questionam as autoridades – desta vez reenviam-te em flor – uma bela rosa vermelha no pequeno jardim de um desses novos ricos dos subúrbios que moram na costa californiana – estás orgulhosa porque sabes que és bela e que cheiras bem – e as senhoras que vêm visitar a senhora burguesa para jogar bridge olham para ti e dizem – oh que bela rosa – mas um dia a dona da casa pede à criada para colher uma das flores do jardim e para a colocar num vaso na sala de jantar – a criada chega então com uma tesoura e corta o teu caule – depois coloca-te num vaso com água – mas muito rapidamente a água começa a cheirar mal – torna-se insuportável – e começas a murchar e a murchar e a dona da casa diz à criada deite fora esta flor murcha – então a criada verte a água salobra na banca e deita-te ao lixo – e lá estás tu de novo entre as carcassas – que tipo de vida era essa – ficas à espera novamente – esperas muito tempo desta vez – talvez mais de dois séculos – até mais – mas como o tempo não existe na zona das carcassas não te dás conta de quanto tempo ficas à espera – mas chateias-te – estás farto – gostavas de ser transmudado mais uma vez – invejas as carcassas que são reenviadas – estás-te nas tintas para aquilo que poderias ser logo que te transmudem – e finalmente as autoridades chamam-te e dizem-te que és chamado para o meio dos leões de África – há uma penúria de leões machos no planeta Terra – a maior parte dos leões ficaram estéreis – por isso aqui estás em África – no Quénia no meio de três leoas muito sexys e de um bando de jovens leõezinhos – cada quinze minutos – isto foi escrupulosamente observado pelos caçadores de leões durante observações científicas – uma das leoas vem te titilar para uma partida de cambalhota – levantas-te do teu canto à sombra de uma grande árvore exótica – montas a leoa dás uma queca e voltas para a sombra da árvore exótica sonhar com outra vida – rica em alimentos – as leoas ficam atentas a isso – muita carne de gazela – e depois tem graça brincar com os filhotes – mas um dia chegam homens de cor diferente – os negros são meio nus e dançam – os brancos trazem chapéus coloniais esquisitos e espingardas - mas não estão aí para fazer de ti uma carcassa – querem capturar-te – apanham-te numa grande rede – metem-te num barco ou num avião e mandam-te para aquilo a que chamam a sociedade civilizada – por sorte para ti – não te instalaram no zoo de Buffalo onde terias ficado enjaulado o resto da vida deitando-te e enrolando-te na tua própria merda – sem poder montar nenhuma dessas leoas sexys – de qualquer modo agora que já não podes galgar livremente pela natureza já não fazes exercício – és incapaz de entesar o pau – mas que sorte para ti – instalaram-te no zoo de San Diego – magnífico zoo – até construíram para ti aquilo a que chamam lá um ambiente natural – claro que é aldrabice – isto é tipicamente a Califórnia – não há nada de natural neste ambiente que construíram para ti – é puro cenário de Hollywood – sabes disso – sabes que é tudo mentira – mas fazes de conta que és feliz para que os humanos fiquem contentes para não te mandarem para o zoo de Buffalo – mas chateias-te a valer neste ambiente Walt Disney – dormes a maior parte do tempo – ou fazes de conta que dormes – sobretudo quando trazem os miúdos para que os assustes - gostavam de te ver feroz – mas ficas calmo – por vezes um humano pica-te no rabo para que reajas – e tu rosnas – que tipo de vida é esta – está bem – dão-te a comer bons nacos de carne – essencialmente carne de boi - mas um dia trazem-te um pedaço de carne podre – e morres da doença da vaca louca – e eis que voltas de novo para o meio das carcassas – bom – não vou imaginar todas as possibilidades animais ou humanas ou vegetais nas quais poderias reencarnar – imagina-te voltar em rabanete – ou em alcachofra – concordo em árvore não é mau – uma grande árvore majestosa – um carvalho soberbo – desta vez estás satisfeito – as árvores duram muito tempo – mas aí todas as árvores à tua volta têm inveja de ti porque és o maior – ou porque o teu tronco é o mais grosso – mais sólido que o delas – ou porque a tua folhagem é mais verdejante – ignora-as porque ser uma árvore é sem dúvida uma bela forma de vida – mas um dia um ser humano chega com uma serra eléctrica e corta-te para fazer de ti lenha para queimar – que tipo de vida é esta – e eis que voltas de novo para o meio das carcassas – e reflectes enquanto esperas a tua vez ou a tua volta – bem sei que as carcassas mortas não costumam reflectir - mas para a comodidade desta história digamos que as carcassas são capazes de pensar – por isso pensas – por que não posso ter uma palavra a dizer – por que não posso eu próprio decidir o que hei de ser da próxima vez – por que não posso inventar o meu próprio... – ia dizer futuro – bem digamos apenas a minha própria carcassa – imagina agora que sejas um escritor numa dessas tuas transmutações – e que compões uma mensagem muito estilizada destinada às autoridades – imagina que nessa mensagem lhes dizes que talvez tenha chegado o tempo em que as carcassas têm alguma palavra a dizer a respeito das suas transmutações – e imagina que daí se segue uma balbúrdia na zona das carcassas – por todos os lados – discussões – debates – sondagens – e todo tipo de coisas do género – imagina que finalmente as autoridades concordem – as carcassas podem elas próprias decidir sob que forma voltar – é um processo muito longo e complexo mas podes eventualmente decidir por ti só o que queres ser – eu por exemplo disse muitas vezes que gostava de voltar em gladiador romano – assim poderia comandar a revolta contra um imperador romano – ou voltar em mosqueteiro – ou em french lover – ou em – em – em – merda não é fácil decidirmos de que forma gostaríamos de voltar – por isso penso que o melhor que possa fazer aqui – quero dizer nesta história – é deixar os leitores escolherem por si a forma sob a qual gostariam de voltar – e se esta história chegasse a ser publicada – digamos na Nouvelle Revue Française – aí insistia para que a última página ficasse virgem para que os leitores pudessem escrever nela o que gostariam de ser na sua próxima vida – claro um dia – quando a ciência tiver progredido – as carcassas serão talvez capazes de voltar em objectos – imagina voltar em fogão a gás ou em barbeador eléctrico – ou melhor até – em taco de golfe – oh que vida interessante seria essa – serias um driver Taylor Made titanium 360 novinho em folha com uma vareta em grafite – seria uma vida excitante – pelo menos até que o golfista te ache culpado das suas pancadas falhadas e decida comprar uma carcassa reencarnada em King Cobra 560 driver com uma vareta anti-slice – e te atire para o meio do lixo – imagina que vida pode ser essa – olha a noite caiu – a vista esplendida à minha frente desapareceu na escuridão por traz da janela – para mim está na hora de acabar esta história – carrego na tecla off do gravador – bem volto para o meu trabalho de Mon corps en neuf parties – acerca das minhas cicatrizes – e esqueçamos as carcassas –

____
1 Ndt La Samaritaine é o nome de um dos grandes armazéns de Paris.

LETTER FROM CHUCK RICHARDSON ABOUT THE CARCASSES

2009-01-14T22:28:00.000-08:00

A former student of mine -- Chuck Richardson -- who took several of my creative writing courses at SUNY-Buffalo wrote an amazing piece about The Carcasses. Back then Chuck proved to be a fine young writer. He's publishing his first novel. We exchanged a few emails, and I sent him The Carcasses -- several sections of that book in progress already appear on the blog -- so visitors of the Federman blog will know what this very perceptive reading of that book refers to.

I'm getting better here -- stronger every day -- started writing again and even playing golf.

Raymond

Dear Raymond,

I’m deeply honored that you shared this. I’m sorry it took a little while to respond. I was a bit worried you sent me something that would render me speechless, but you’re writing something that puts my head in its favorite place. And I can say things from there even if they’re nonsense. So here goes some nonsense.

The first relative thing I thought of while reading was The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or Book of Natural Salvation, which I prefer [Huston Smith translation], and Kafka’s Parables and Paradoxes and some of his other short work [I wrote something about K.’s short work that Mauro Nevi posted on The Kafka Project. I’m not a scholar or expert, I just love Kafka]. Both of those works have made huge impressions on me.

What cemented the Tibetan connection in my mind was when you write “…it must be terrible to come back to life…and live each time with the fear of death.” The detachment sought by Tibetan Buddhists to achieve natural salvation in harmony with the wheel of life seems akin to the narrator’s search in Carcasses [which, for some reason, I keep pronouncing “caucuses” in my head]. There’s a part in the Tibetan book where the soul, moments before it enters the womb, begs the man and woman to stop copulating because it so dreads a return to life on Earth.

Also, the authorities seem somewhat akin to the Buddhist gods [manifestations of personal desire…though now I think I’m going astray a bit] that represent aspects of the human soul [whatever that is—it doesn’t seem to be mind, matter or energy, or even a combination thereof, the way you’re dealing with it, but something else elsewhere, an “I/eye” beyond language].

And for some reason, on page 3 I couldn’t help thinking about “The Law.” There’s something about Kafka’s approach to [] in The Law that seems a counterweight to what’s going on here. I can’t put my finger on it yet, though. I also couldn’t stop thinking of A Report for an AcademyIn The Penal Colony. The work seems to be creating an expectation for some sort of testimony in a trial about a cosmic torture mechanism that fatally tattoos prisoners of the flesh/mind/energy.

Somewhere in this psychological seam between the Tibetan Book of Natural Salvation and Kafka [of course, this is the way I’m reading it, I won’t guess what your intentions were/are] the question is asked on p. 10 “why can’t I choose what I’m going to be?” Normally I’d scream out “karma” as an answer, but you’re getting into the karma of karma [Meta-karma?] and I’m waiting to see what you do with it.

And the narrator seems to have fnacs dancing around Satan’s rebellious role in Heaven by calling for a democratic transmutation of the dead—politicizing metamorphosis, the apparent essence of nature itself. There’s a rebellion against karma and nature as well as paradise that, upon some thought, seems absented from the text. The narrator, perhaps seeking a change in the cosmic process enveloping him, still seems rather sanguine about everything, as if it humors “him,” but that’s not all, “he” doesn’t really find it all that amusing, I think. I anticipate that hole, what the narrator is not amused about, perhaps getting bigger, or just the right size, attaining its own balance or imbalance or not [I’m also thinking this second how karma, nature and paradise are three different things; how Jaffe says “find a seam, plant a mine and slip away;” how Acker wanted to “explode the duality;” Federman is expanding/exploding duality into a tri-ality, finding a seam among [not between] karma [indefinable], nature [indefinable]and paradise [the same], fostering an emergency that might be described as a triaxial esemplasy [an expansion of Barth’s co-axial esemplasy…your play gives me psychologorrhea][sic].

At the same time, when this word-being asks why she can’t choose what she’s going to be, a quote from Bukowski pops to mind: “I never met another man I’d rather be.” This striving and longing to be something other than what we are seems futile. The fact too many seem forced to be something they’re not appears unjust. Yet futile injustice seems to be what is—what seams—from a human perspective. So you go beyond that, pointing where we need to go, pointing to that mystery we are strangely attracted to throughout our phase space trajectories toward that black hole at the center of our Existence, a seaming recursive symmetry across scale and aspect.

This is not a human-centered text, it’s not even biocentric, since there’s a likelihood at some point in our eternities we’re going to come back as a piss pot. I appreciate the flexible topology, the permeability of self, the apparent possibility of some future enlightenment/escape from the karma…in the end these feelings are all irrelevant, so much freedom that freedom’s meaningless. Yet we care…what does that mean?

On p. 22 I also started thinking of Camus’ The Rebel, basically about the way rebels have no idea what to do once they’re in power, other than take control of the existing mechanisms for its administration, finding themselves in the end only corrupted by and addicted to the apparatus/mechanism/system they sought to manipulate to their advantage. The main thing is, from my point, is the shift in psyche, an end to our crisis of perception, or the further evolution of it into evermore life-full experiences. I don't know. But that's a minor point, this common view of the rebel that unlike most common perceptions seems uncommonly accurate, at least from my experience. What is the actual recursion between these functions? I wonder.

I know this is a rough draft and there were a few typos. Perhaps these were typos or not, and I’m pretty sure they’re on or right around p. 3, you type “Wall-Mart” and “dinning table.” Each are better spellings, in my opinion, than what the dictionary offers, for whatever that’s worth. I like happy accidents in my own work. In fact, all the stuff I enjoy most is a happy accident.

Finally, I’d say I see mind, matter and energy seeking to sustain their inter-related disequilibria for as long as possible [an unsentimental journey with a dash of Calvino’s “lightness,” perhaps?].

Again, I’m very honored and I hope I haven’t said too much or made an ass of myself [though I’m rather used to both]. When I’m working on things I like to hear what a reader's reading contrasted with what I think I'm writing. And I also don’t like hearing too much. Hope I kept this short enough. I apologize for the sloppy somewhat incoherent remarks but they come from a reading in progress.

Can’t wait to see more Carcasses [I sound like Idi Amin!]--can’t wait to see how this fable works itself out [just occurs to me I said nothing about fables or the fabulous...]

Peace & Cheers,
Chuck

FEDERMAN ON FACEBOOK . . .

2008-12-27T23:15:00.000-08:00

FEDERMAN IS ON FACEBOOK

A brief answer to an inquiry from friends who care about my present medical condition

2008-12-10T17:44:00.000-08:00

to put it in a few words medically speaking

feeling much better each day each day more or less going for a walk further and further driving the car even went to the movies and the casino a couple of times since the operation on election day which shows that I am doing okay even if during the night unable to sleep on the left side where I am always the most comfortable and have my best dreams I have to sleep flat on my back and that prevents me from not only sleeping but from having good dreams I would describe the position in which I am forced to remain because of the long incision on the left side of my body an incision that goes from my pubic hair half way up my back around the waist so to speak I would describe that position flat on my back as being semi-nocturnal rather than totally nocturnal whatever that means a condition during which I contemplate my mortality or as the poet once put it where je hume ici ma future fumèe ...

otherwise not much else to report

Erica takes good care of me and so soon I will be back to the Federman I was before ... before ... you know what I mean yes soon quand le vent se lèvera il faudra tenter de vivre as the poet once put it

oh a very good and long review of Pssst [the German Chut] in the Frankfurter Raunchau -- and another one coming soon in FAZ, I am told

Stefan Weidle the publisher informs me that Pssst has been awarded a prize as one of the most beautiful books of 2008

Stefan didn't say if there was money coming with that honor or just a medal or a certificate

in any case all that helps the morale

we got hit hard by the economic crisis [the Bush Crisis it should be called] so Erica announced the other day after she visited what's left of my pension of a poor retired [distinguished] professor she declared calmly that we had lost two years of life -- implying that we should consider changing tense two years earlier than anticipated because the cash has run out – so it goes

well I said joyfully this way we'll be back to where it all started back to the marvelous beginning of our grand wild glorious chaotic adventure towards ... towards ... just towards ... whatever is out there in the great cunt of the universe as old Sam once put it and this way I added we will have gone full circle from poor to rich [and almost famous] back to poor in and all our problems will be resolved -- so be it!

Raymond Federman

FEDERMAN HORS LIMITES

2008-11-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

Venez me rejoindre sur mon blog http://mariedelvigne.com

Marie Delvigne

A L'OCCASION DU FEDERMAN HORS LIMITES CHEZ ARGOL.EDITIONS UN AUTRE TYPE DE RENCONTRE: un portait à deux voix , la mienne est « américaine ».

Rencontre avec l'écrivain Raymond Federman (TEXTE LU DANS LE CADRE DU FESTIVAL IN D'AVIGNON EN 2004)

Who are you Federman ?

Texte de Marie Delvigne et de Raymond Federman [inédit]

a compulsive masturbator
ça se voit dans ma typographie déréglée

a displaced person
Moinous et Charlot à Washington square
Frenchy dans sa Buick spéciale
Boris à Nouillorque

a true orphan
Federman dans La Ferme
quand le Ministre des Victimes de la guerre
le déclare orphelin de 77 ans

un gourmand
y a de la crème caramel
partout
dans les romans

de Federman

et du fromage aussi

un con
quand Moinous se rend pas compte
que Sucette se fout de lui

a genius
quand Federman
raconte ses histoires

an acrobat
quand Federman essaye
de raconter son corps

ou de compter ses boites de nouilles

un trouillard
le gosse dans le closet

a deranged or demented person
de répéter toujours la même connerie
qu'il est immortel
jusqu'à ce qu'on lui prouve le contraire

un grand délirant
quand il raconte son golf

un rigoloman
quand tous les alias Federman
se réunissent chez lui
pour se raconter des histoires

un rien du tout
quand il reçoit un rejection slip

un petit monstre
l'animal sauvage
qu?il devient quand il baise

a nice person
on le dit gentil et généreux
mais on sait pas lequel
de tous ses lui est comme ça

un fouteur de merde
faire ici une petite visite à La Ferme

a fool
quand il s'imagine
qu'il va devenir riche
en écrivant des livres

un grand amoureux
c'est pas a lui de le dire

un néantiseur
quand il disparaît dans
son écriture

paranoid
tous les êtres que Federman invente
souffrent de ratologie

lecherous
Boris baisant la mère
de son meilleur copain

shy
le gosse qui ose pas
toucher le cul de josette

crazy

frenchy qui s'engage
dans les paras

happy
quand il écrit des lettres d'amour

envious
de tous ceux qui sont
riches et célèbres

parce qu'ils savent pas écrire

salacious
partout dans son corps
mais surtout dans
les suppléments

depressive
quand madou lui écrit pas
ou oublie de le bizouter

unbearable
quand il se tape sur la poitrine
et se prend pour Tarzan

impotence
a cause de ses cicatrices

speechlessness
quand on lui dit ztm

pain
le célébre dicton de Moinous
all my life my feet have been
killing me

loneliness
Moinous à Washington Square
Frenchy at Fort Bragg
Boris a Grand Central Station
The Old Man in the Spaceport
Le petit garçon à Montflanquin

obesity
les américains

rats & snakes
à cause des sabots dans la ferme

death
X-X-X-X

a song

2008-11-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

I'm out of the hospital with only one kidney now

doing ok

remember how Frank Sinatra used to sing

I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO

well Federman is writing a song
that goes like this

I LEFT MY KIDNEY IN SAN DIEGO

just out in France

2008-10-31T13:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.argol-editions.fr/f/index.php?sp=liv&livre_id=25

On reading The Road

2008-10-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

whatever you're doing
stop
stop right now
even if you are in the middle of a dream
go immediately buy THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy
right now --

No book has gotten to me that much since I first read Molloy or better yet How It Is

this book shows us How it will be

No book has moved me [even when I first read Calvino] than THE ROAD since I felt the little slippage when I first read Sam

it may be because of my present condition as I confront my mortality up close

it's a sad mysterious cryptic and crystal clear
we are in the No-man's land of deviltry
there is urgency to each page
raw emotional pull

you cannot stop reading even if you don't know where this road is taking you

it is as if you must keep reading so that the father and the son can stay alive

so they can survive this horrible How it will be if humanity doesn’t stop going full speed towards eternity

it's a violent story

a grotesque landscape not unlike that in which Pim Pam Pem etc are crawling in How It Is

a horrible landscape rendered beautiful and melancholic even though it is atrocious

a darkness that glows with intensity

a huge gift of language

it is not the language of Sam in which one always hears a little laughter

the language here is all sadness

and yet happiness too the way the father loves his son

the son who carries the fire
the fire towards which they are perhaps going
should by accident stop humanity doing
what it is doing and reinvents love compassion and fear

it is a disturbing book that exposes the blackness
that lies beneath this surface of grief and horror

it is the inevitable culmination of everything becoming nothing

just ashes

yes ashes that's all is needed to know when and where we are
on the road to nowhere

it's hard to comprehend how the writer managed to write the apocalypse in such beautiful words

Well there is a bit of biblical stuff that circulates in this book
but wasn't that true also of Sam's language
but with Sam we don't fall into the trap
here it's not always clear it's ambiguous

what is for sure
McCarthy is the perfect cynic for our time

a word to describe this book – devastating – yes a book about devastation --

lovely and sad
so sad it's hard at the end not to let out a few tears when the father dies

but then one remembers what we read a few pages earlier

Every day is a lie ... but you are dying. That is not a lie.

Yet amid this Godot-like bleakness, McCarthy shares something vital and enduring about the boy's spirit, his father's love and the nature of bravery itself when it's a matter of survival

Raymond Federman

the way Federman sees it

2008-09-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

the way Federman sees it

should McCain and Palin be elected
which of course would be a disaster
for the country

a few months after McCain is in the White House
he dies of a cancer
or else Palin has some Alaska goon
assassinate him so she can be President
immediately she unpacks her private arsenal
and declares war on Russia
and leads the troops herself into Russia
from Alaska which she says she can see
when she stands on the roof of her house

WORDLE: Based on Raymond Federman's Who Will Crack First (a conceptual play in the form of a poem)

2008-09-08T15:42:00.001-07:00

From: Bent Sørensen
To: moinous@aol.com
Sent: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 10:40 am
Subject: A Wordle For Federman

Dear Ray -

A Wordle (a word cloud based on the frequency of words used in a given text)...

Best,
Bent

wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/169121/For_Federman

READABILITY - UNREADABILITY

2008-08-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

I am involved in doing a book with my German publisher -- a long interview -- it runs about 100 pages in the book

he sends me one question each day -- and I answer -- in my typical critifictional way

here is the question he asked today
and my answer
7 – Writing avant-garde for you is an existential decision, because what you experienced could not be reflected in ordinary ways of literature like linear narration. Is that true? And what does this mean to avant-garde writing today? Does "avant-garde" mean a period of time in the history of literature or is it a part of literature that's always a part of it.

I do not write avant-garde. Others tell me when they read my books that I am an avant-garde writer. So I ask them what makes you say that? Is there something about the way I tell my stories that is so out of the ordinary that makes me avant-garde?

And they explain to me – those who read my books – that they find them to be totally unreadable – but in the good sense – meaning that they cannot read my books the way ordinary books are read. They force the reader into a different mode of reading.

A more active mode, they say, those who read my books. Reading a book like Double or Nothing is like doing gymnastics. It demands not only a great mental involvement with the writing but also a physical involvement with the book itself. One reads this book with the mind and the hands – in other words, with the body. Reading Federman is exhausting. It's very demanding. And funny at the same time.

So according to those who read my books and find them avant-garde because of their funny unreadability.

Yes, I suppose one can say that it was an existential decision that I took when writing such books as Double or Nothing and Take It or Leave It. Books that unsettle the reader's passive way of reading books.

I cannot resist here to quote a passage from one of my essays -- What are Experimental Novels? And why are there so many Left Unread? – which reflects on this question of easy readability and complex unreadability.

Exactly! Why bother with unreadability? Especially when it isn't necessary, and there is so much "readable stuff" around.

But then one must ask: what is readability? I cannot resist -- here we go to my Webster's:

READABLE: ... that can be read with ease ... legible ... pleasing, interesting, or offering no great difficulty to the reader ... clear in details and significance of symbols ... that can be read throughout.

I see! Readability: what is clear, easy, legible, pleasing. Very interesting. In other words, what reassures us in a text (a novel) of what we already know, what comforts us because we easily and pleasurably recognize the world (at a glance) and ourselves in the world (at another glance) in what we read.

Readability: what is instantly and clearly recognizable, and thus orients us, within ourselves and outside of ourselves, in the "reality" of the world. Readability: what guides us back from the text to the security of the world, and therefore gives us comfort -- the pleasure of easy recognition.

Of course: The author cannot choose to write what will not be read, and yet, it is the very rhythm of what is read and what is not read that creates the pleasure of the great narratives: has anyone ever read Proust, Balzac, War and Peace, word for word? (Proust's good fortune: from one reading to the next, we never skip the same passages).

That, I suppose is what is meant by The Pleasure of the Text, or as Roland Barthes put it in that brilliant little book by that title:

What I enjoy in a narrative is not directly its content or even its structure, but rather the abrasions I impose upon the fine surface of the text: I read on, I skip, I look up, I dip in again.

But there is a paradox here (and Roland Barthes knows this):

Read slowly, read all of a novel by Zola, and the book will drop from your hands; read fast, in snatches, some modern text [let's say John Barth's Letters], and it becomes opaque, inaccessible to your pleasure: you want something to happen and nothing does, for what happens to the language does not happen to the discourse.

First conclusion: If readability is the pleasure of recognition (easy pleasurable referential recognition), then unreadability must be the agony of unrecognition.

Unreadability: what disorients us in a text (especially in an experimental novel) in relation to ourselves (and I do not mean here the bulk, the thickness, the degree of difficulty, the self-reflexiveness, the tediousness of the text -- these are weak excuses for not reading a book). Unreadability: what prevents us from recognizing that something is happening, but also prevents us from looking up and away from the text to relocate ourselves in the world. Unreadability: what locks us into the language of the text.

Imagine then how lost, how confused, how desperate some unprepared readers must feel when reading a text where nothing happens twice, as in some of Samuel Beckett's novels or plays, or where the language moves in a nonsensical direction and therefore means-not, as in some of Donald Barthelme stories, or where everything changes like a cloud as it goes, as in a Ronald Sukenick novel, or where everything leapfrogs toward cancellation, as in my own novels [please excuse the narcissistic reference here, but the beast in me often thinks inter-textually when writing about experimental fiction].

But then, as I once proclaimed at the beginning of my novel Take It or Leave It: Writing is not the living repetition of life. And then I added: Reading is always done haphazardly.

The pleasure that a readable text affords us is that of recognizing our own knowledge in it, our own culture -- of recognizing [righteously] how cultivated we are, and con-sequently how coherent, continuous, whole, rational, logical, how secure we are in our culture. The readable novel reassures us of that.

But what about the unreadable novel then? And precisely, Roland Barthes in The Pleasure of the Text makes a crucial distinction between these two types of text:

1) Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading.

[That would be the readable novel].

2) Text of bliss: the text that imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of a certain bore-dom), unsettles the reader's historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes, values, memories, brings to a crisis his relation with language.

[That would be the unreadable novel -- better known in the supermarkets of books as the experimental avant-garde novel].

And so here we have it! Second conclusion: a) The usual, traditional, conventional (readable) novel that which is linked to a comfortable practice of reading and preserves, guards, protects culture. b) The experimental, innovative (unreadable) novel, that which undermines culture and brings to a crisis the reader's relation with language.

Now I can come back to your question. It is because I chose to write Texts of Bliss – or what I call Laughterature – which we have already discussed – that I’ve been labeled, avant-garde, which also mean experimental. And after that all kind of other labels were shove on me, and I could not escape them. I was told that I was a metafictional writer, that I was a self-reflexive writer, that I was an anti-fiction writer, then I declared myself a surfiction writer, and then I went further and exposed myself as a critifictional writer.

Yes, why not go all the way when making such an existential decision to write the only way I know how to write.

Do we still think of Proust Kafka Joyce – the great trinity of the first half of the 20th century as avant-garde writers. Absolutely not. We have now accepted the fact that this was the only way these great writers could write. They were writing themselves in their time. And their time was a rather turbulent time that demanded a kind of introspective writing to make sense of it. Proust Kafka Joyce were not avant-garde.

Those who put that label on their work did it out of despair for not having understood why Proust Kafka Joyce wrote the way they did.

It's as a simple as that. I wrote the way I wrote because I was living in a very turbulent time. A time even more horrific than that in which Proust Kafka Joyce wrote.

I was pigeon-holed in the cage of the avant-garde writers because like them I was questioning the very language in which I was existing -- questioning whether it was still possible to write with that polluted language that was now in circulation in the world.

A ready-made language full of cliches and lies. A language inappropriate to tell the stories I had to tell. A language too pacified to tell the tragicomic stories I wanted to tell.

If I had written my books with that pacified language, I would have been forced to write ordinary books in a linear fashion, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. And I would not have been able to answer your question.

The problem with an avant-garde movement is that is quickly absorbed into the mainstream. It becomes publicity. There is more avant-garde in the publicity of the rich glossy women magazines than in the novels being published these days.

Perhaps the turbulence of this time – no need to go into details of the horrors that go on in every corner of our world – is too confusing – perhaps even more horrific than the turbulence that shaped my work – for writers to be able to come to terms with it. That is to say write about it, by which I mean, they have not yet found the language appropriate to write the atrocious turbulence of our time.

When they try to write it with the same old pacified language the turbulence itself becomes pacified. That is the case with the many bad books that have already been written about 9/11 – the name given to one of the unimaginable events of our time.

Or maybe such avant-garde novels about the turbulence of our time have already been written, but remain unpublished because they were found unreadable by the publishers or the editors or the literary agents or whoever decides what is readable and what is not readable.

federman frenzy: the cult in cult/ture, the me in me/mory, the he in his/story...

2008-08-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

Download PDF for free here.

Purchase the book
[ISBN: 978-8-7992-4564-2 ]
here from lulu.com!

www.lulu.com/content/3065382

federman reading from the voice

2008-07-20T22:04:00.001-07:00

Raymond Federman -- internationally acclaimed author of DOUBLE OR NOTHING, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, THE TWOFOLD VIBRATION, and more than 40 other titles -- reads a selection from his 20-page novel THE VOICE IN THE CLOSET, originally written as part of THE TWO-FOLD VIBRATION and currently in print from Starcherone Press.

The Voice in the Closet -- like much of Federman's surfiction, critifiction, laughterature deals both directly and obtusely, seriously and playfully, tenderly and violently, tragically and comically with his experiences during and after the Holocaust. A living legend.

Filmed at Naropa Summer Writing Program 2008, Boulder, CO.

CLARIFICATION

2008-07-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

Il y a une question qui revient toujours dans tous les entretiens que j’ai faits. Le rapport entre ma vie et ma fiction. C’est une question que je ne peux pas éviter. Mais je voudrais clarifier une chose une fois pour toute. Oui, une grande partie des histoires que je raconte dans mes livres sont basées sur des événements que j’ai vécus. Mais j’insiste. Ce que j’écris n’est pas de la fiction autobiographique, et certainement pas ce qu’on aime appeler ces jours-ci de l’autofiction. En fait, il se peut même que mes livres ne soient pas des romans – romans dans le sens que les éditeurs donnent à ce genre de livres. Le sous-titre de Quitte ou double [le premier volume du grand livre que j’écris depuis plus de quarante ans] dit bien ce que j’écris : Un vrai discours fictif.

Pour moi, dès que les événements [de ma vie ou de l’Histoire] passent dans le langage ils deviennent fictifs. Mallarmé l’a très s bien dit : Tout ce qui s’écrit est fictif. Donc ma réponse est simple : j’écris de la fiction, même si cette fiction semble raconter ma vie – réelle ou imaginée.

Le plus souvent les gens qui insistent que ce que j’écris est autobiographique ne savent rien de ma vie. Voila ce que j’ai dit à un éditeur qui avait refusé le manuscrit de La fourrure de ma tante Rachel, parce qu’il le trouvait trop autobiographique : Mais monsieur que savez-vous de ma vie pour dire cela? Et il me répondit : Rien.

CLARIFICATION

There is a question that is always asked when I give an interview. The relationship between my life and my fiction. This is a question I cannot avoid. But I would clarify this once and for all. Yes, a good part of the stories I tell in my books are based on events that I have lived. But I insist. What I write is not autobiographical fiction, and certainly not what the French like to call, autofiction. In fact, it is quite possible that the books I write are not novels - novels in the sense that publishers give to this type of books. The subtitle of Double or Nothing [the first volume of the big book I’ve been writing for more than forty years] states clearly what I write: a real fictitious discourse.

For me, as soon as the events [of my life or of history] are related with words they become fictitious. Mallarmé said it very clearly: all that is written is fictitious. Therefore, my answer is simple: I write fiction, even if this fiction seems to tell the story of my life – real or imagined.

Often the people who insist on saying that what I write is autobiographical know nothing about my life. This is what I once asked a publisher who rejected the manuscript of My Aunt Rachel’s Fur because he found it too autobiographical: but sire, what do you know about my life to say this? And he replied: nothing.

A SCARY PRONOUNCEMENT

2008-07-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

Bum 1: Listen to this. Listen to what is written in this book here: I have not come into this world to make men better but to exploit their weaknesses.

Bum 2: Who said that?

B1: Adolf Hitler.

B2: It's a scary pronouncement, but I'll tell you something. I would be even more frightened of the one who says: I have not come into this world to exploit the weaknesses of men but to make men better.

B1: You don’t think humanity should be improved.

B2: What do I know of humanity. I could tell you more about red radishes.

▬▬▬

unpublished Beckett in FULCRUM 6

2008-07-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

FULCRUM #6 (730 pages) features previously unpublished and uncollected writing by Samuel Beckett, Robert Frost and Octavio Paz; original scholarship on "Samuel Beckett as Poet" by Christopher Ricks, Eliot Weinberger, Marjorie Perloff and others; a special section on "Poetry and Myth"; poetry by George Seferis, Boris Vian (translated by Raymond Federman) and Francisco de Quevedo; a great deal of outstanding current poetry and literary criticism; and visual art.

The "Samuel Beckett as Poet" feature, edited by Philip Nikolayev, presents Beckett's neglected masterpiece "Ceiling" and other uncollected and unpublished poems, essays by Christopher Ricks, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Marjorie Perloff, Eliot Weinberger, Simon Critchley, Anne Atik, S.E. Gontarski and others, life drawings of Beckett by Avigdor Arikha, and a previously unpublished conversation between Octavio Paz and Eliot Weinberger on Beckett. A number of the essays quote Beckett's unpublished correspondence and manuscripts.

FULCRUM #6 is 730 pages long and offered at an artificially low price.
Please visit www.fulcrumpoetry.com for more information or to acquire a copy.

federman frenzy

2008-07-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

I'm in boulder doing a creative writing workshop at naropa

but today I got the news of this new book about federman
here is the link

www.lulu.com/content/3065382

A LA QUEUE LEU LEU / THE LINE (R. FEDERMAN & S. ROUZE)

2008-07-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

A LA QUEUE LEU LEU / THE LINE (R. FEDERMAN & S. ROUZE)
Uploaded by lelem

FILM DE LA LECTURE DE "THE LINE" ET DE SON ADAPTATION FRANCAISE "A LA QUEUE LEU LEU" PAR RAYMOND FEDERMAN ET STEPHANE ROUZE. L'HISTOIRE D'UNE FILE D'ATTENTE. TEXTE PARU CHEZ CADEX EDITIONS EN 2008. FILM PRODUIT PAR PIXEL1 (BENG@).

A LA QUEUE LEU LEU (FEDERMAN & ROUZE)

2008-07-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

OFF D'A LA QUEUE LEU LEU (FEDERMAN & ROUZE)
Uploaded by lelem

WHO WILL CRACK FIRST [a conceptual play in the form of a poem]

2008-06-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

the beginning 

a distant hollow voice explains

the situation

two old friends have decided never
to speak to each other again

they feel that the affection
and respect they have for each other
is gradually dwindling away with each word
that passes between them

the voice emphasizes

the situation is dramatic
but not melodramatic

another voice explains calmly this is

a play for two actors
and two loudspeakers

and that

the voices on the loudspeakers
are the voices of the two actors

a third voice specifies

stage dark at first
gradual light reveals
the two friends seated
their backs to each other
one left one right of stage

another voice interrupts and specifies

loudspeaker over the head
of each friend

loudspeakers speak alternatively

loudspeaker left tells why
friend left will not crack first

loudspeaker right tells why
he thinks
friend right will not crack first

all three voices together chant

and so on
and so on

first voice explains

while loudspeakers speak
seated friends react restlessly
with bodily and facial gestures
to what is being said
above their heads

second voice emphasizes

loudspeakers get louder
more argumentative
more aggressive
angry and enraged
as play progresses

third voice explains

argument turns to a debate
it’s a competition
a trial

loudspeakers together improvise

words of encouragement
for friends to remain firm
in their silence

loudspeaker left

tells that the reason
friend left will not crack
is because he is a poet
and poets know
silence and solitude
poets know that one
suffers from not suffering enough

loudspeaker right retorts

that friend right is an actor
and actors know how not
to crack during a play
actor have control over
their emotions

loudspeaker L laughs and says

that friend L
will not crack first
because
once upon a time
during the great war
he was tortured
he was tortured
because he knew
something secret
something unspeakable
the enemy tortured him
but he did not talk
he refused to talk
he did not crack
for weeks and weeks
he remained silent in torture
and silence became for him
the reverse of torture
that is why friend L
will not crack first

loudspeaker R counters by saying

that anyone
in friend L’s situation
would have done the same
would have found the courage
not to crack
it’s normal it’s natural
it’s the rule when one is being tortured

loudspeaker R continues

friend R found much more
courage for something
much more traumatic
though less melodramatic
and he was only seven then
the day his father beat him
with his belt for no reason
slashing at his body
with the leather of the belt
and even the belt buckle
and that day friend R swore
to himself in his pain
that he would not talk
to his father for a whole month
and for a whole month friend R
did not speak a word to his father
and he was only seven then

loudspeaker R concludes forcefully

only a few human beings
can find that kind of courage
the happy few yes the happy few
and friend R was only seven then

after a long silence loudspeaker L declares

that friend L wants to become
a serious religious poet
that is why he can no longer
communicate with friend R
because he is an actor
actors are blasphemous
especially when they make
people laugh

loudspeaker R replies

that friend R can no longer
look and speak at the sad
face of Friend L
because he has just accepted
a role in the human comedy
to make people laugh
night and day

loudspeaker L sings softly

I am Jesus I am Moses
I am Mohammed
I am the Holy Ghost
I am immortal

loudspeaker R declaims eloquently

I am Hamlet
I am King Lear
I am Phedrea
I am Superman
I am Gogo and Didi

all three voices together chant

and so on
and so on

first voice explains

that loudspeakers
can improvise
any time

second voice explains

as the play progresses
it becomes gradually evident
that the two silent friends
are growing more and more
tense restless nervous
tortured in their bodies and minds

loudspeaker L murmurs

and I saw a mighty angel
come down from heaven
clothed with a cloud
and a rainbow was
upon his head
and his face was
as it were the sun
and his feet
as pillars of fire

loudspeaker R recites sadly

All the old ways led to this
all the old windings
the stairs with never a landing
that you screw yourself up
clutching the rail
counting the steps
the fever of shortest ways
under the long lids of sky
the wild country roads
where your dead walk beside you
on the dark shingle the turning
for the last time again
to the lights of the little town
the appointments kept
and the appointments broken
all the delights of urban
and rural change of place
all the exitus and redditus
closed and ended
all led to this
to this gloaming
where a middle-aged man
sits masturbating his snout
waiting for the first dawn to break

loudspeaker L sighs loudspeaker R laughs

third voice declares
suddenly
while loudspeakers
continue to argue angrily
in a cacophony of words
the two friends
let out a scream
at the same time
which they keep repeating
with anguish and despair

friend R & friend L screaming

say something
please say something
I can’t take it anymore

say something
please say something
I can’t take it any more
all three voices together chant as screams get louder loudspeakers more cacophonous

and so on
and so on

first voice states

stage goes dark

no applause
no curtain call

 the end 

Fwd: What Itzak is up to

2008-05-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

photo of isaac -- my daughter simone's dog -- my grand-dog -- on the blog --

isaac is getting ready to start on a secret mission

-----Original Message-----
From: Simone Federman
Date: Mon, 26 May 2008
Subject: What Itzak is up to

Isaac is trying to blend at Fresh Pond with the preppy Labs. He avoids the Hebrew spelling of his name and frolics, skinny dipping at the golf course, this outfit might make the fact that he only goes in up to his shoulders more conspicuous. Although the air supply does fascilitate longer under water viewing, he brings home the golf balls for Mama.

he apologizes for the group e-mail but wanted to keep his fan club up to date with a hectic golf season...............fore!!

CHUT

2008-05-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

CHUT

2008-05-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AD

2008-05-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.starcherone.com/bums.htm

From: Ted Pelton
To: Raymond Federman
Sent: Mon, 12 May 2008 5:50 pm
Subject: Happy Birthday ad

Ray,

This is the ad I'd like to run in the next Rain Taxi, but I wanted to get your approval. I think it's tender and funny, and I hope you do too. I think it's also in keeping with the spirit of the book and a good advertisement.

Ted

AT THE SORBONNE

2008-05-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

a true story

Yesterday, lost in cyberspace in search of I don’t remember what, maybe looking if my blog hadn’t been vandalized, I stumbled on the site of the Sorbonne. The famous glorious elitist historical Sorbonne in Paris.

Just hearing that word, makes me nauseous. It reminds me that only Les Fils à Papa – Daddy’s Darling Boys – can study at the Sorbonne. Me, the son of that good-for-nothing lazy tubercular gambling womanizing communist artiste manqué who was my father had no chance of ever getting into that pantheon of learning.

Well yesterday, as I stumbled on that site, I came upon the list of the literature courses offered at the Sorbonne for 2008 – not that I was really interested – just curious. When I saw that I called out to Erica who usually plays solitaire on her computer when I get lost in cyberspace,

– Erica, come and see this, I shouted.

– What? called back Erica.

– You won’t believe this. Some lady prof at the Sorbonne is teaching La voix dans le cabinet de débarras in her course.

So Erica comes and right there on the screen of my computer we read this:

ÉCRITURE DE L’HISTOIRE ET POÉTIQUE DE LA VIOLENCE
K3073
Responsable : Mlle Emilie LUCAS-LECLIN
A travers un choix de textes aux formes narratives singulières (un roman aux confins du théâtre, un récit court bilingue, formé d’une seule phrase dénuée de ponctuation et une très brève nouvelle), nous aimerions faire découvrir trois regards sur la guerre, à la croisée des cultures françaises, germanophones et américaines. Nous proposerons, à travers ce corpus, une analyse des procédés liés à l’écriture de la violence et une réflexion sur les modes de résurgence de l’Histoire dans le récit moderne.
Œuvres au programme:

Raymond Federman, La voix dans le débarras / The voice in the closet, Les Impressions Nouvelles

Laurent Gaudé, Cris, Actes Sud, Babel

Peter Handke, « La guerre éclate », nouvelle tirée du recueil Bienvenue au conseil d’administration, Gallimard, « Folio », trad. de G.-A. Goldschmidt (pour les germanistes, Begrüssung des Aufsichtsrats, édition D.T.V.)

Roughly paraphrased in English. Professor Emilie Lucas-Leclin with the choice of three texts with singular narrative forms [a novel in the confines of theater, whatever that means, that’s me talking here; a short bilingual tale, made of only one punctuationless sentence; and a brief short story] would like to uncover three different visions of the war, at the crossroad of French, Germanic, and American cultures. She proposes, through this corpus, to analyze the processes connected to the writing of violence, and a reflection on the modes of resurgence of History in modern fiction.

And after that, the three authors and the title of the works that will be analyzed are listed with the name of their publishers, as it should be.

Me, Federman being taught at the Sorbonne. I can’t believe that. The good little French bourgeois of that prestigious institution are going to read and discuss that unreadable book.

– Are you impressed now, Erica says. Last year they were teaching you at Harvard. The year before at Yale. And now the Sorbonne. Next year for sure, Oxford. You have arrived?

– Stop making fun of me. I’m not impressed. On the contrary, I’m depressed just thinking of the kind of interpretations these Sorbonnards are going to write in their term papers.

– You’re never satisfied. You always want more. I’m going back to my game of solitary, and let you ponder what it means to be taught at the Sorbonne, while still alive. I’m sure that your great Samuel Beckett was never taught at the Sorbonne while he was alive. Think of that.

And while thinking about that, I remembered that once, way back then, I gave a lecture and a reading at the Sorbonne. Yes, I did. That day I read from Take It or Leave It. I remember now. It was in 1977. Soon after the publication of TIOLI.

Five American avant-garde novelists had been invited to come to France, all expenses paid, to talk about their work and read from it. This Sorbonne colloquium had been organized by a group of French avant-garde novelists who wanted to know how we functioned as avant-garde writers and why we were so famous in America. Well, we didn’t want to disappoint them.

Ronald Sukenick, Robert Coover, Ishmael Reed [yes the fantastic black novelist], Raymond Federman and the then famous in Hollywood and infamous in New York, Jerzy Kosinski, who was, of course, the star of our group, were flown to Paris.

So, here we are at the Hôtel du Pas de Calais, rue des Saints Père, on the left bank, as it should be, and we are all gathered in the breakfast room of the hotel before being taken to the Sorbonne, for the first event.

Suddenly, a television crew arrives, with camera, and a sexy lady interviewer in mini-skirt with two sexy assistants, also in mini-skirt. Only the cameraman is not wearing a mini-skirt.

And as soon as they have recognized Jerzy Kosinski, they rush to him, literally licking their rouge à lèvre, and surround him, and the interview begins with Kosinski sitting on the table with one foot on a chair. I should mention that he is wearing one of those Hollywood casual suits that pretended to look in those days like a Mao suit. His was greenish. The interview goes on for quite a while. With lots of giggling on the part of the interviewer and her assistants.

Sitting at another table in a corner of the room away from the interview, the rest of us, Ron, Bob, Ish, and me, are being totally ignored. Not once during the interview does Jurek point to us, or motion in our direction. The interview crew doesn’t even look at us when it leaves.

So now we are at the Sorbonne, in an old dusty rather somber but venerable auditorium. We can feel the history and the historical asses that sat on those benches for centuries.

Today is Jerzy Kosinski’s day. Each of us has been assigned a day. Tomorrow it will be Ish. Then Coover. Then Sukenick. Then me. Me, I will speak and read in French. The others will have an interpreter when they speak and read. But not Kosinski. Jerzy is quite fluent in French.

The entire Polish aristocracy of Paris is crowded in the auditorium. Standing room only for the students. Lots of fancy furs and glittering jewelry all over the place. These are not the Polish coal miners here today. These are the upper-class Poles exiled from Communism.

Standing casually in his casual suit in front of the microphone, Kosinski is describing what the life of a novelist like him is in America. Can you believe, he laments, that my latest novel sold only 350000 copies, while the dumb Americans sit lobotomized – Jerzy’s word – in front of their televisions with a beer can in their hand while their wives are dozing away on the couch. And he goes on telling the distinguished audience what a miserable country America is, and how the people are idiots, and do not appreciate his work.

Well, I cannot remember exactly all he said, but the Polish ladies were tittering and applauding and wiggling their succulent derrieres on the historical benches of the auditorium.

After a thunderous and prolonged applause , the moderator of the colloquium asked if there were any question. We were sitting on the front row. Right in the middle. Ron, Bob, Ish, and me. Ishamel Reed got up, and putting on what I call his gorilla posture and tone of voice, he said, Mister Kosinsiki do you know what the people in America would say if they had heard what you said here, they would say to you, Why don’t you go back to your fucking country. And Ish sat down.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Kosinski did not answer Ish. He just turned to the next person who had stood up to ask a question.

Sukenick, Bob, Ish, and I left the auditorium when Kosinski started reading from his latest novel that only sold 350000 copies, and we went to a gourmet restaurant where Coover, the great wine connoisseur that he is, ordered four different bottles of wine which he insisted on paying with the royalty money he had just gotten from his French publisher for, if I remember correctly, the translation of Spanking the Maid. But that’s another story.

Back in the auditorium at the Sorbonne. Today is Ishmael Reed’s day. Before talking about his work and reading from it, Ishmael thanked – but this time in that marvelous American language Ish can so well write and talk -- he thanked the entire French population, the President of the République, the Minister of Education, the President of the Sorbonne, and everyone else in the audience for giving a poor black writer like him, raised in the ghettos of Buffalol [yes that’s where Ish is from] the honor of speaking in such a prestigious historical place.

By the way, this was Ishmael Reed’s first trip ever to Europe.

And then he read, only the way Ish can read his own writing, as though he was speaking jazz. He read from Mumbo Jumbo.

The audience was quite different from the day before, but the applause were just as loud and as long as the day before. Ishmael Reed had conquered Paris. Or at least, those Parisians who still read books.

Well rapidly now. The next day was Ron’s day. He talked with his usual intelligence and lucidity about the situation of experimental fiction in America. Then he read from 98.6. One of the great American novels of the 70s that probably sold less than 1000 copies when it first appeared.

The following day Coover spoke and read. A reading by Robert Coover is always a special event. Certainly the best reader of all the writers of our generation. He read from Public Burning, that controversial American historical novel. He read the scene where the young lawyer Nixon steps into dog shit on his way to court to burn the Rosenbergs. Those who came to listen where thrilled. I should say the place was full every day.

Even when it was my day. I spoke about what it meant to be a French exiled writer in America, etc. And then I read from TIOLI. The Buick Special Chapter. It was well received. I think.

During the few days in Paris, Ron, Bob, Ish and I, had some superb meals in excellent restaurants. Only the final evening Jerzy Kosinski joined us. The organizer of the colloquium had invited all five of us to a banquet in a fancy three star restaurant. It so happened that I was seated next to Kosinski, and we had a really good talk together. We became buddies. After all we were both exiled writers.

One more thing. One afternoon we went to the old famous Shakespeare Bookstore, where James Joyce and all the writers of the Lost Generation used to hang out. That day, Ron was complaining that his leg was hurting and that he had difficulty walking. When the lady owner of the bookstore heard that, she gave Ron a cane. One of the canes that belonged to James Joyce, she told us. Ron kept it all his life. But it was that day perhaps, back in 1977, that his body started disintegrating.

It got so bad and so painful on the plane back to the States, that when we arrived at JFK we requested a wheelchair to get Ron out of the airport. Ron reminded me of that just before he changed tense, and we laughed. He even remembered how the custom agent said to him, after having inspected his passport, Welcome Home.

So maybe now that one of my books is being taught at the Sorbonne I should not be depressed, but truly impressed. Ron would have laughed with me if he were still around. Federman at the Sorbonne. What cringing irony, he would say.

new book

2008-05-10T13:44:00.000-07:00

a most amazing little book from the point of view of typography and topology

a master piece

cadex-editions.net/article.php3?id_article=312&a

-----Original Message-----

2008-05-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

From: Sharon Blackie
Sent: Sat, 10 May 2008 5:20 am
Subject: Links

Raymond - would be so grateful if you could put a link on your blog to The Sam Book page - it is - tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/The%20Sam%20Book.htm

Also - since we revised the site the url for the Double or Nothing page has changed. Any chance you could update? It is ... tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/Double%20or%20Nothing.htm

And if you want to put a link to the flyer for your London event it is: tworavenspress.com/Logos/Federman%20workshop%20flyer.pdf

Best
S
Sharon Blackie B.A. (Hons), M.A., Ph.D.
Director, Two Ravens Press Ltd.
Green Willow Croft, Rhiroy, Lochbroom, Ullapool, Ross-shire IV23 2SF
Tel 01854 655307; mobile 0770 302 4048
http://www.tworavenspress.com/
http://www.sharonblackie.com/

Cook Books: Deconstructing Books Contest

2008-04-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Watch Raymond Federman, Davis Schneiderman, and Lidia Yuknavitch boil their books in noodles--and find out how to submit your own book-destruction video for a huge cash prize!
youtube.com/watch?v=g0tCMY02awo

Raymond Federman - Un retour dans le débarras

2008-04-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

Raymond Federman - Un retour dans le débarras
Uploaded by thqds1

A l'occasion de la nouvelle édition de "La Voix dans le débarras" et de la publication de "Chut !" aux éditions Leo Scheer, Les Impressions Nouvelles mettent en ligne une séquence réalisée en 2002 pour l'émission Mic Mac, sur Arte. Raymond Federman avait accepté de retourner avec Benoît Peeters à Montrouge, dans la maison de son enfance, où toute sa famille fut arrêtée lors de la Rafle du Vel d'Hiv.

dailymotion.com/video/x4wudm_raymond-federman-un-retour-dans-le_creation

THE WIND RISES ... ONE MUST ATTEMPT TO LIVE

2008-04-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.leoscheer.com/spip.php?article1038

I am working on the English version of Chut/Shhh – the French version is being accused of being repetitious – of repeating stories I’ve already told elsewhere – of being self-plagiaristic – of being too realistic – not experimental enough typographically – not self-reflexive enough – too traditional – and all kinds of things like that are being said in the reviews so far - though all the reviews are very favorable – but since the reviewers say Chut is not really fiction – it’s something else - but they don’t know what - so they say it’s auto-biographical – lucky for they don’t say it’s autofiction -- the word the French love the most to describe a kind of writing that resembles the life of the author – in any case nobody really can tell what Chut is – maybe Chut has invented a new genre that has not yet be classified and pigeon-holed by the cacademics – someone even went as far as saying Chut is not true – I don’t know in what sense – saying that in this book Federman tells things that have never happened to him to make us believe that he had a terribly unhappy childhood – but still the reviewers say that Chut is full of emotions – that it’s very moving – even sad while being funny at the same time – no one dares say that Chut is sentimental because that would really make Federman pissed – he who has resisted sentimentalism by kicking les belles-lettres in the ass at the risk of breaking his leg –

yes of course all of Federman’s books playgiarize each other – he admits that much himself – he warns the readers in advance that he is going to go steal something in the stories he told before – he even give exact references – titles - -page numbers – etc – so that the reader can verify – all this he can do because all the Federman stories are really part of one book – the big book he’s been writing for more than 50 years – so inevitably there are repetitions in that book – with variations of course – with Federman one never knows which is the good version – the true version of the stories he tells – and if you were to ask him he would tell you – the last one I told is the true version – until he tells another version which displaced the version which was the last – and which now becomes the one before the last – and so on until the final breath –

for as long as there is breath
old sam once said
there is the possibility
of telling the same story
another way

I quote

I don’t know why I told this story.
I could just as well have told another one.
Perhaps next time I’ll tell another one.
Living should, you’ll see it’s all the same.

That’s what The Expelled Beckett tells us.

And it is true that in life as well as in literature
there many things that are the same

but to get us out of the hole
in which writers fall in regularly
an old poet already under the ground
whispers to us

Le vent se lève ! ... Il faut tenter de vivre!
The wind rises ! .... One must attempt to live!

That is to say – to write ...

Proust et fragonard

2008-04-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

Quel petit salaud il était Proust – quel pervers ce petit bonhomme qui se baladait la nuit dans des endroits louches – y a que du sexe dans l’histoire que Proust nous raconte – du sexe partout – partout dans les mots -- il suffit de regarder de plus près pour tout à coup se dire – ah merde c’est ça que ça veut dire – c’est de ça que Proust nous parle ici – par exemple prenons -- à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs -- ce merveilleux titre pastoral – cette petite phrase – je me sers du mot phrase dans le sens que Proust a donné à ce mot en parlant de musique – cette phrase qui nous invite d’aller nous promener dans la nature pour regarder les fleurs – eh bien si on regarde cette petite phrase de plus près – et surtout si on l’écoute bien – car chez Proust il faut aussi écouter les mots – il faut écouter les petites phrases musicales qui circulent dans l’histoire que Proust nous raconte -- comme s’il était en train de jouer du piano plutôt que de griffonner des mots sur du papier – la grande histoire que Proust nous a racontée c’est pas seulement de l’architecture – de la peinture – de la sculpture -- mais c’est aussi de la musique -- de la musique avant toute de chose – comme disait Verlaine -- seulement un grand musicien des mots aurait pu inventer Vinteuil – et la fille de Vinteuil – et Madame Swann – et le Baron de Charlus – ah quel musicien du sexe celui-là -- oui quand on lit Proust faut non seulement regarder les mots qui coulent devant nous comme l’eau d’une rivière -- excusez cette mauvaise liquide métaphore elle m’est tombée dessus comme un petite averse sans que je m’en rende compte – oui il faut écouter les mots de Proust -- comme Swann écoutait la petite phrase de Vinteuil avec passion -- phrase -- spécifie Proust en parlant de musique -- mais je me suis égaré dans la poésie de Proust – poésie et musique c’est la même chose -- Proust était aussi un grand poète – Beckett était peut-être le seul à avoir compris cela – parce que Beckett quand il lisait Proust il s’en foutait de ce que les mots voulaient dire – ce qu’il regardait et écoutait la forme que prenait les mots sur le papier – les mots de Proust qui semblaient jouir de leur propre forme – comme le feu jouit de sa forme – bon je disais que partout derrière les mots de Proust il y a quelque chose de sexuel en train de mijoter -- encore une mauvaise métaphore – celle-à ne pas poursuivre – revenons à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs – je disais que si on regarde – si on écoute ce beau titre si lyrique et si mélodique – on entend quelque chose d’autre -- on entend quelque chose plutôt érotique -- en tout cas voilà ce que moi j’ai entendu en lisant cette phrase – à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs – moi j’ai entendu – dans le trou des jeunes filles en chaleur -- bon vous allez me dire que c’est moi le petit dégoûtant – le vieux pervers -- le maniaque du sexe qui se permet de tordre en torchon de mots la musique de Proust – fausse métaphore – mais on s’en fout – ce truand qui se permet de réduire une si belle phrase – qui ressemble à un mignon tableau de Fragonard – en un tableau dégueulasse de Hans Bellmer – vous me direz qu’on a pas le droit de faire ça à Proust – eh bien moi je vous dirai que Proust savait exactement ce qu’il faisait en nous faisant voir un tableau de Fragonard dans la petite phrase de son titre – car comme il l’avait si bien vu lui-même en passant la moitié de sa vie à regarder les tableaux des grands maîtres – les tableaux de Fragonard ne sont que des scènes de cul – des culs en chaleur cachés sous les amples robes des jeune filles sur les balançoires -- Proust avait compris tout cela – mais timide et nocturne comme il était – et refoulé du sexe -- si on peut dire – il a caché tout cela dans la musique de ses mots -- comme s’il voulait nous endormir gentiment pendant que nous écoutions sa zizique -- ou plutôt -- jusqu’à ce que son livre nous tombe des mains – comme il est tombe des mains de Marcel – tout au début de l’histoire que nous raconte Proust il nous fait sentir la volupté de ses mots – il nous séduit

Two Dozen Obligatory Questions An Interviewer Must Ask a Famous Writer [With the Answers the Famous Writer Usually Gives]

2008-03-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Photo: Steve Murez

I was being interviewed for t.v. by this georgous blonde in Berlin

that interview inspired this little piece

Q: Why do you write?

A: Because .... just because ...

Q: Why do you write the way you write?

A: I don’t know any other way.

Q: For whom do you write?

A: For my dog.

Q: Who influenced your writing?

A: Homer.

Q: What would you like people to say about your writing?

A: Nothing.

Q: How old were you when you started writing?

A: In kindergarten.

Q: Which of your books is your favorite?

A: The one I haven’t written yet.

Q: How many cups of coffee do you drink while writing?

A: I never drink coffee.

Q: Do you write during the day or at night?

A: Depends on the weather.

Q: What will be the subject of your next book?

A: Me.

Q: Of your many wives which one inspired you the most?

A: I think it was the fourth one but I’m not sure any more.

Q: Do you believe your work will survive?

A: Depends how long I live.

Q: Why did you refuse to accept the Nobel Prize?

A: I hate traveling.

Q: Do you try to influence your readers, and if so in what sense?

A: In the sense that is most satisfying to me.

Q: Do you do a lot of revisions?

A: I never revise. I just write, and write some more.

Q: How does it feel to be famous?

A: It feels weak.

Q: What do you think of your fellow-writers who are also famous?

A: If only they would disappear.

Q: Do you write by hand or with a typewriter or directly on the computer?

A: It depends on the weather.

Q: How do you react when you books are attacked?

A: I laugh.

Q: How much do you make grosso modo with your books?

A: I never count.

Q: What do you wear when you write?

A: It depends on the weather. But I never wear a hat.

Q: Is your writing autobiographic?

A: Everything that is written is fictive.

Q: As an artist do you feel obligated to have a depraved life?

A: Certainly. Otherwise what would be the point of being an artist?

Q: By the way, how would you define yourself as a writer?

A: Small.

Q: What would you like people to say about your writing?

A: The truth.

NEW EDITION FROM TWO RAVENS PRESS, WITH NEW PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR...

2008-02-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

my British Publisher who just brought out a beautiful new edition of Double or Nothing

the url is below

tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/Catalogue%20novels.htm

CRISIS IN THE OVERSEXED SOCIETY

2008-02-11T08:50:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a country where everyone was oversexed. At night the men went out armed with kinky objects and flashlights and sneaked into a neighbor's house to bleep their neighbor's wife. In some parts of the country it was the women who went out at night to bleep their neighbor's husband. On returning at dawn, exhausted from these adulterous activities, spouses would find that their own spouse had been bleeped as well.

And so everyone lived in sexual harmony, and no one was ever frustrated because everyone had bleeped or been bleeped during the night. A perfect circular system. In that country, bleeping was synonymous with fair exchange, whether you were giving it or receiving it. The government was a perverse organization set up to bleep the people, while the people spent all their time bleeping the government. So life went on its untroubled course, and the inhabitants were neither frustrated nor undersexed.

But then, one day -- nobody quite knows how or why -- a chaste faithful husband appeared. At night, instead of going out with kinky objects and a flashlight to bleep his neighbor's wife, he stayed home, drinking beer, watching TV, reading cheap novels, and once a month bleeping his own wife. When the oversexed neighbors saw what was going on in his house they stayed away.

This state of affairs could not last. The chaste faithful husband was told that it was very well for him to live a life of sexual abstinence with others, but he had no right to prevent others from bleeping his wife, and for their wives to remain unbleeped. For every night he spent at home, there was a wife in the neighborhood who went without a good bleep.

The faithful husband could offer no excuse for himself. And so he too started staying out every night until dawn, but he could not bring himself to bleep his neighbors's wives. He was chaste and faithful, and that was that. He would go as far as the drugstore and look at the sexy pictures in the girlie magazines, and then he would go home to discover that his wife had been visited and bleeped.

In less than a week, the chaste faithful husband found himself with a wife so exhausted from all the nightly visitations she received that she could not give her own husband even a little marital bleeping on the weekend. But he had only himself to blame. The problem was his chastity and his faithfulness: it had thrown the whole social and sexual system of the country out of kilter. Since he allowed his wife to bleep with others without bleeping himself with anyone else in turn, there was always someone who got home at dawn to find his spouse unbleeped and frustrated -- a lonely unbleeped spouse whom the chaste husband should have visited during the night. Soon, of course, those whose spouses had not been bleeped realized that their spouses were so frustrated they no longer wanted to bleep with their neighbors's spouses because their own spouse wanted it so much. On the other hand, those who came to bleep the faithful husband's wife went away so oversexed that, as a result, they became even more oversexed and perverse.

Meanwhile, those who in the past had been bleeping night after night got into the habit of joining the chaste man in the drugstore to look at the sexy pictures in the girlie magazines.

This only added to the country's frustration and confusion, since it led to more people (males as well as females) becoming chaste and unsexed while others who continued their nightly visitations found that there were more sex starved spouses out there than they could handle and so they became even more oversexed and perverse.

Now the oversexed and perverse people understood that if they spent their nights at the drugstore looking at the sexy pictures in the girly magazines they too would soon become undersexed and chaste. And they thought: Why not pay some of the more frustrated people to go bleep the neighbor's spouse for us?

Soon contracts were drawn, salaries, bonuses, and percentages were agreed upon (with a lot of double-dealing on both sides: the people were still trying to bleep one another). But the end result was that the oversexed became chaste and the undersexed became perverse.

Some of the oversexed became so chaste that they no longer needed to bleep with others or even to pay others to bleep for them. However, because they stopped bleeping they soon became extremely frustrated: the chaste people would see to that. So they paid the most undersexed of the undersexed to protect their spouses from all the other undersexed people. Thus a police force was set up, prisons were built, and a judicial system dealing strictly with sexual offenders was established.

So it was that, only a few years after the arrival of the chaste and faithful husband, nobody talked any more about bleeping or being bleeped, but only about how chaste and how frustrated everyone had become. But deep in their souls, the inhabitants of the country were nostalgic for the good old bleeping days, even though they no longer bleeped every night like they used to.

But then, one day, the chaste and faithful husband died of excessive frustration, and soon after the old tradition of nightly visitations to the spouse of one's neighbor started again, and happiness and harmony returned to this lovely country.

ANNOUNCING FEDERMAN'S NEW NOVEL

2008-02-02T11:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.leoscheer.com/spip.php?article1038

Lecture de CHUT par Raymond Federman
Uploaded by laurelit

Avant un repas organisé par Stéphane Rouzé et sa femme, Juliette Mahalin-Rouzé, Raymond Federman nous offre un extrait choisi de CHUT. Un extrait, évidemment, olé olé (puisque choisi).

Entretien avec Raymond Federman sur CHUT
Uploaded by laurelit

Return of the Bums

2008-01-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

RAYMOND FEDERMAN

ANNOUNCING A SPARKLING NEW EDITION OF A BOOK BY TWO OLD BUMS, UM, I MEAN OLD MASTERS!

THE TWILIGHT OF THE BUMS

NEWLY EDITED AND FEATURING COPIOUS CARTOONAGE BY T. MOTLEY!

starcherone.com/bums.htm

Hilarious! Tender! Iconoclastic! Lettres de merde! Laughterature!

"Stan & Oliver. Frog & Toad, Bud & Lou, The Sunshine Boys, Bill & Ted, Bouvard & Pécuchet - but most of all Vladimir & Estragon - stand behind this book like defrocked priests at an inquest. Old men rule!, at least in the glimmer of a watery eye and inconstant heart." - Charles Bernstein

120 pages in oversized format! All at the ridiculously sensible price of $16 of failing American currency! Get yours while supplies last!

Official release on May 15, 2008, the Old Bums' birthday (Chambers 77, Federman 80) -- Available NOW

only on the Starcherone Books site:
starcherone.com/bums.htm

or by mail:

Starcherone Books
PO Box 303
Buffalo, NY 14201

Please add $4 p/h.

Thank you all for your kind attention,

Ted Pelton
Executive Director
Starcherone Books
PO Box 303
Buffalo, NY 14201
716-885-2726
www.starcherone.com
nowwhatblog.blogspot.com
www.tedpelton.com

thank you my friend

2008-01-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

ALARM BOOK/DOUBLE CD RELEASE SHOW DEDICATED TO FEDERMAN: O'GRADY (Mike Daily, jDUB, A.L. Hungate, Chutz Ponderosa w/ Nora Robertson as "Jocelynn") at Phase One: Words + Music at Someday Lounge on June 20, 2007. Portland, Oregon. A film by Kurt Eisenlohr. Produced by Chutz Ponderosa at The Enginehouse.

Daily name-drops Larry McCaffery at 02:05 in the clip/dedicates the performance to Raymond Federman at 02:30 in the clip.

youtube.com/watch?v=k_p_SVE5vKs

TIME AND TIME AGAIN

2007-12-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

Time rolls on
in due Time
Time flies
keeping Time
once upon a Time
Time goes fast
killing Time
Time to go
every Time
Time is slow
bed-Time
at Time
appointed Time
all the Time
takes Time
every Time
the arrow of Time
Time is up
Time to stop
Time to start again
no Time for trifling
war Time
Time out
lost Time
half-Time
Time piece
plenty of Time
Time-worn
a long Time
in the course of Time
from Time to Time
at the same Time
harvest-Time
hard Time
happier Time
Time zone
as Time goes by
Timelessness
a good Time
Time is money
play for Time
past Time
Time immemorial
Time-keeper
sign of the Time
serving Time
Time exposure
no Time left

A CONVERSATION WITH MILOI

2007-12-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

a young romanian student who went to listen to a lecture given by a professor from Denmark wrote me asking questions about why writers write diaries --

I put together the exchange of email we had

Hello Mr. Federman. My name is Miloi Ionut, I am a forth year student at the University Babes-Bolyai, Faculty Of Letters, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Recently I have attended a conference given by Professor Camelia Elias, from Roskilde Univesity, Denmark with the title "Sesame Undone: Negotiations of (Virtual) Space in Raymond Federman’s first person narratives". I am writing to you because I am doing a research for a couple of years about the problem of the diary and the narrative techniques (in the diary as well as in the novel) and I would like to ask you, if you are so kind to tell me what do you think regarding the following questions:

1. 1. Do you think that Rimbaud’s words – Je est un autre- is still viable regarding to the diary. How can one, how is writing for himself about himself, in order to a better understanding of himself, to be another one? In the case of fiction or poetry the things are very clear, but what about in the case of the diary?

2. Do you thing that Proust’s separation - the biographic ego and the profound ego – can be applied in the case of the diarist, or an analysis in the way Saint- Beuve did is more appropriate?

3. How sincere do you think a diarist is in his diary, knowing that his diary will eventually be published?

4. Don’t you find it interesting that, although the diary is like a self-portrait of the diarist, and although we find so many things about his inner life, all that we hear is just his voice, but we never find a line or a word about his face (physical appearance)? What do you think about this?

5. What do you think about the problem of the time in the diary?

I would appreciate it very much if you would find the time to answer me, because I am
studying these problems for a couple of years and I am very anxious to find how do you see all these.

Yours truly,
Miloi Ionut

Dear Miloi

Did you like what professor Camelia Elias had to say about my work?
I assume when you say diary you mean the private journals many writers keep in
which they write notes and descriptions of what they do or ideas they have.
I do not keep a diary. I have no need for one. I do write notes in various places, but I do not keep a regular journal.

To answer your questions.

I think Rimbaud's famous statement Je est un autre is still very viable regarding diary because writing about oneself is in fact writing about the other selves that exist in all of us. Are you familiar with a very interesting book written by Roland Barthes called -- BARTHES SUR BARTHES -- it is as though Barthes is writing about himself as if he were another person -- another interesting book in the same category is the book written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau entitled JEAN-JACQUES JUDGES ROUSSEAU.

Writers often write about themselves in the third person. I do it often. And when I
inscribe my own name in my fiction I become -- in the sense that Rimbaud gives in
his statement -- an other Federman.

It's been a long time since I read Saint-Beuve, and I was never a great admirer of his work -- but I am a great admirer of Proust and I still read him regularly -- I do not believe that there is any separation between the biographic ego and the profound ego in Proust. The entire project of Marcel Proust is the same as the project of Marcel [the fictitious character in the novel] : to reveal who they are while postponing their death -- they both speculate about who they are. I highly recommend, if you have not read it, the little book by Gilles Deleuze called PROUST ET LES SIGNES.

I think all writers who keep a diary are insincere. They are aware that their diary will be part of their archives and that what they write will become public after they die.

Therefore they invent things - they make up stories. One should almost read the
diary of a writer as as work of fiction -- Andre Gide says that much in his Journal.

Also it is possible that writers who keep diaries may censure themselves knowing that
what they write may injure their posterity -- or on the contrary they may write certain things to make people think they were better or smarter or more original or whatever than they were. They improve themselves in their diary.

I am not sure about this question - I have not read enough diaries of writer to say that one hears only a voice.

I think many writers like to write self-portrait of themselves. It may not be in the form of diary but in some other form of writing which can be read as diary. For instance in my case I recently published a book entitled MY BODY IN NINE PARTS -- I wrote it in French and also did an English version. This book could be read as a kind of diary -- a description of my physical appearance.

As for the problem of time in the diary -- that too can be problematic. There is not a way to prove -- to assert that when a writer puts a date to an entry in his diary that it was the real date. I am sure that writers make entries in their diary retrospectively -- or invent certain things to which they give a date because they wrote nothing on that date -- I do not think diary respect what we call real time.

Well that's the best I can do with your questions. I hope that will help you.

All the best
Raymond Federman

Hello Mr Federman! First of all, I would like to thank you very much that you find the time to answer my questions. Now, to answer your question, I would like to say that I found very interesting the things Camelia Elias said in her conference and I think that she did a great job and I admire her for her visit from Denmark to Romania to give us this conference about your work.

I am very thankful that you correspond with me and exchange ideas and thought. I see this as a privilege. I have started to study the problem of the diaries because in the last years I noticed a large number of personal journals in libraries and I asked myself why aren’t people (readers and writers as well) interested as they were in prose or poetry and they now prefer the small, insignificant history of a certain individual. Another point in starting my research was noticing the fact that the postmodern novel is starting to imitate some narrative techniques that belong to the personal journals such as writing in the first person singular, the fragmentary form, describing or talking about the narrator’s private life, to include fragments from real or imaginary diaries (do you agree with this idea? ) So I asked myself “ Who is talking in the diary, who is being silent and why?”

Regarding the problem of time, you are correct. No one can have the proof that the date of an entry is real or not, but I was referring about the fact that the novel introduces us into a different time, an imaginary one, while the diary tries to present us a time which seems as real as the time the writer lives. The time in the novel is a virtual one, while the diary is trying to achieve a present time without the pressure of the day to day life, and the writer by expressing his own inner time hopes to obtain a fully image of himself. I think that the time in the diary is somehow parallel to the real time (similar but not identical), while the time in the novel is a virtual, imaginary one. It goes without saying that the time of the diary is the present tense, but by keeping a diary don’t you think that a writer has the opportunity of reliving the same event twice – once in the actual world, and than by narrating it in the same day, still at the present tense? This is just a thought, but I am very anxious to see what do you think about this, as a fiction writer who is dealing with imaginary time.

I wish you all the best
Yours truly,
Miloi Ionut

Hi Miloi
Yes Camelia is quite a woman and quite a scholar -- I like the way she read my work –
good question - why are people more interested to read about the writer's life and his debauchery than read the fiction the writer has written -- I raise these very questions in my essay entitled Federman on Federman: To Lie or to Die [do you know it? I will attach it -- and also in another essay I published recently entitled ti Critifictional Reflections on the Pathetic condition of the Novel in our time] --
I think it is because people have such doubts about their own existence and who they are -- in other words the banality of their life -- they try to identify with writers -- since it is assumed that most writers are weird and live interesting lives. Which is not really the case -- especially in America where most writers are drunks and conduct their lives irresponsibly.

But that's not the only reason. The real reason is because the publishing industry decides that’s what the people really want to read. The commerçant of books impose those kind of books on their readers -- just as hollywood decides for the people what kind of movies they should see -- mostly dumb movies for dumb people – and the same thing for the auto industry which imposes on the people their ideas of what a car should be -- the cars that have become dangerous and useless little trucks called SUVs so that the entire family can get in -- but most of those who buy those SUS no longer have families -- meanwhile litterature is quickly becoming a supplement of culture.

So the question should be : why the fuck do you continue to write novels Federman?
Why don’t you write a diary? Or why don’t you give up writing?

Answer -- if I didn't write I would spend my time going to the movies to watch the dumb Hollywood movies and I would become like the people who drive SUVs. And besides, my novels are written like diaries.
Imagine that.
Well enough for that --
So you are a student writing on a really fascinating subject. May I ask how old you are?

And also -- excuse me for asking such a dumb question -- but your first name Miloi forces me to ask -- is it a feminine name or a masculine name? I have never seen or heard that name before.

Next question --
Who is talking in the diary, who is being silent and why?
The many selves of the writer talk in a diary -- because one day it is the man and not the writer who makes an entry in the diary -- the next day it's the writer but that day he's in a bad mood and that affects what he write -- another day it's the alter ego who talks – whatever name he goes under -- sometimes it is the masculin in the writer who talks -- and other times the feminine in the writer -- all writers are ying yang -- they all suffer in different measure of narcissism schizophrenia and especially doubt -- but that's another question.

Meanwhile the real writer -- the one who sits down to write the novels or the poems - he remains silent because he doesn't need to talk in the diary -- talks in his fiction and in his poetry --

Now the problem of time.

Yes you are right, there is a difference between time in a diary and time in a novel --
By rule – by convention – by reflex -- or simply because those who write diaries never
wonder why they continue to enter their entries in chronological order -- putting a date to the first entry -- and then each time they open their diary they date the entry they are about to make thus establishing a chronology for their diary.

But – and that's an important but – did the writer who made the first entry in his diary really gave the real date of that day or he just put any date -- and same things for all the following dated entries -- it it well known that writers are liars and manipulators of time -- and of space too - but that's another story --

As for time in fiction -- the most interesting aspect of it is how fiction distorts abuses negates reverses transforms time -- making the story go forward in time or backward in time or making it stand still in time --

So one can say that the time in a diary pretends to be the real time -- but what is real time -- that's another story-- while time in fiction deliberately fucks up time – or what the great Beckett once called that great fornicator -- that double-headed monster.

Well that’s what I think – but of course – as it is well known – Federman always contradicts himself.

In any case – take it or leave it -- as the saying goes --
Raymond

STATUES OF KINGS

2007-11-29T13:51:00.001-08:00

Pablo Picasso, Le Vieux Roi (The Aged King), 1959

STATUES OF KINGS

Statues of kings can be categorized as follows:

1. Kings seated on:

a) a throne
b) a stool
c) a boulder
d) a horse (often)
e) a donkey (rarely)
f) a quadruped (an elephant or a camel in exotic places)
g) the shoulders of another man (occasionally)
h) the roof of a building (extremely rare occasions)

2. Kings standing on:

a) the ground
b) a podium
c) a stage (official occasions)
d) a stool with a back
e) a stool without a back
f) a pedestal (often)
g) a horse or any other animal (awkwardly)
h) a man lying on the ground (unusual circumstances)

3. Kings seated or standing with:

a) their arms falling to their sides
b) the left or right hand on the chest
c) both hands on the chest
d) one hand in the pocket of their trousers
e) both hands in the pockets of their trousers
f) one hand on top of their head (almost never)
g) their legs crossed (very often)
h) their eyes closed (only when they are dead)

4. Kings lying down:

a) usually during insurrections or revolutions
b) normally while making love
c) when they are dead

RAYMOND FEDERMAN

A REVOLT IS BREWING IN THE ZONE OF THE CARCASSES

2007-11-06T19:52:00.000-08:00

From: Raymond Federman
Sent: Mon 11/05/07 3:02 PM
To: Mike Daily

mike

I don't think this chapter of the carcasses is on the blog

if not put it up

how are things otherwise

RF

A REVOLT IS BREWING IN THE ZONE OF THE CARCASSES

A disturbing rumor is circulating in the zone of the carcasses – it seems that a newly-arrived-fresh-carcass from a troubled region of the planet earth is trying to convince the resident carcasses that it is time for them to get rid of the authorities and form a new system to decide how and when the carcasses should be transmuted – this newly-arrived-fresh carcass claims that she knows what she's talking about because she was involved and implicated in a revolution on planet earth even though that revolution failed – reason in fact for her being such a young fresh carcass – she was tortured and put to death by the agents of the totalitarian government the revolutionaries wanted to overthrow – it seems then that this newly-arrived-fresh-carcass -- to accelerate this chapter newly-arrived-fresh-carcass will be given as nafc – is spreading revolutionary ideas in the carcass zone -- she argues that this is the perfect moment to overthrow the authorities – especially since they are getting more and more tyrannical – nafc explains that once the authorities are removed the carcasses will then be in total control of their transmutation destiny – they will even be able to choose themselves the kind of species and even gender they would like to become when transmuted – the recently arrived carcasses agree with nafc and are willing to start the revolt immediately – but the old carcasses oppose this idea – especially those who have been stuck in the zone from time immemorial without ever having been transmuted – these old carcasses are very reactionary because they really don’t want the conditions in the carcass zone to change for it would certainly affect the possibility of their possible transmutation – a notion which for most of these old faded carcasses is pure delusion – these old faded carcasses – who will now be called ofcs to accelerate this chapter – are worried that such subversive ideas will destroy the stability of the zone – for in spite of the seemingly chaotic conditions one notices upon arriving in the zone there is a kind of symmetry in the way the piles of carcasses are situated in various regions the zone – when new carcasses arrive they do not simply flop on top of any pile – they are directed – mysteriously directed towards a specific pile – reason in fact for one of the piles to be bigger and higher than the others – it is known as the earth pile – for it seems that more carcasses arrive from a certain direction in the universe which according to the authorities points to planet earth – anyway excuse the digression – we wanted only to show how things fonction in the zone of carcasses – back to the nafcs – that's the name the ultra revolutionary carcasses are now called because of their leader -- the nafc who is leading the revolt – back also to the objections of the ofcs – the ofcs argue that when the authorities granted the carcasses a voice in the decision concerning their transmutation this was enough of a concession – they fear that if more is asked of the authorities the carcasses may lose what they have gained – but the nafcs argue that the concession given by the authorities is fraudulent because when a transmutation is about to take place it is the authorities who have the final word – for more details about that earlier futile revolt see the last pages of chapter one -- meanwhile the nafcs continue to spread their slogans everywhere in the zone of carcasses – they explain that once the authorities are overthrown a committee will be formed to which all the carcasses – young and old -- new and faded – will be able to submit their transmutation requests – all the carcasses will be equal – the young carcasses are all in favor of this revolution and want to get started immediately – but the old carcasses lament that if there is such a revolt only the young carcasses will be rewarded – and transmuted first – because of their participation in the revolution -- the ofcs who did not participate in the action because of their rather pathetic condition will continue to vegetate for eternities without any hope of ever being transmuted – but even among the nafcs there is dissension – two groups -- two clans -- two sects – one should perhaps call them political parties -- are formed -- there are those who want the revolution to take place immediately without any delay in the entire zone of carcasses – let's screw the whole system -- that's the moto of this faction of fanatic nacfs – the nafcs of the other faction believe it would be more prudent to go slowly -- not overthrow the authorities all at once but subtly and gradually because no one knows what power and what secret means of defense they have – these reluctant nafc feel that an immediate revolt in every region of the zone is doomed to failure because of a lack of preparation and a lack of knowledge about the power of the authorities – they say that first it is important to infiltrate the authorities and gradually undermine their power – the fanatic nafcs shout back that everything must go at once – tabulae rasae – everything has to go back to zero – the prudent nafcs reply that it is impossible to go back to the origin of the zone when conditions were paradisiac – there has been too much corruption in the zone – there are discussions debates meetings furtive demonstrations – even scuffles – manifestoes are being circulated -- all this secretly in order not to attract the attention of the authorities – reason why this revolt is known only a rumor – but one of the ofcs who is convinced that such a revolution would condemn her to remain un-transmuted for eternities sneaks into the bureaus of the authorities and denounces the nacf who is preaching and leading the revolt – she’s immediately convoked to appear before the authorities and asked for an explanation and to name all the nafcs involved in this conspiracy – having gone through such an interrogation on planet earth the nafc refuses to answer – she is tortured but does not crack – she knows that she cannot die since she's already a carcass -- but that does not mean that she cannot feel pain – and the authorities have very violent and persuasive tools of torture – still the nafc resists – she's told that if she doesn’t name those who are involved in this rebellion she will never be transmuted – but she know from her experience on planet earth that even if she denounces the her comrades she will be thrown on the pile of carcasses known as the pile of eternal carcasses at perpetuity – it is the worse condition - the most terrible fate for a carcass to know that she will never be transmuted – not even as an ugly vegetable – like a topinambour – or as a ridicule object – like a chamber pot –

meanwhile the secret forces of the authorities – known as the authoritarian militia – are in the process of arresting all those who are involved because even if the nacf did not give their names -- the ofcs denounced them – no need to say more about the pathetic failure of this revolution – what will happen now in the zone of the carcasses will be told in a subsequent chapter – but as it is now said and repeated in the zone of the carcasses since the miscarriage of this revolt – the more it changes the more it is the same –

LETTER TO FC2

2007-10-16T17:48:00.001-07:00

Brenda

Can I have a copy of my old friend Steve Katz's new book -- I am broke -- I just came back from an expensive but happily busy month in Europe -- there are only a few of us left of the original FC bums -- soon we'll all be gone – I deserve a copy of that book – I hear it's very funny – and I am in need of laughter right now – my computer crashed – I had to buy a new one – more reasons for being broke – send the book to my regular address --

Meanwhile a great piece of news to be passed on to those FC2 writers who deplore that their books are not being reviewed not being sold not being read ...

do not despair
hang in there
one day you too
when you turn 80
will sign a huge contract
with a major publisher

Federman's new novel which he wrote in French out of despair [because of what's happening to literature in America] entitled CHUT : HISTOIRE D'UNE ENFANCE is now under a generous contract with Les Editions Leo Scheer in Paris [one of the major French publishers who continues to publish literature and not what passes for literature -- look up Editions Leo Scheer

Meanwhile the French version of Return to Manure [rewritten in French by Federman himself] was adapted to the stage and performed in St-Etienne, Villefranche, Lyon, Paris. It was also adapted into a radioplay by Deutschland Radio in Berlin.

Meanwhile to celebrate Federman's 80th birthday several books will appear in 2008 --

in French a book entitled FEDERMAN HORS LIMITES [a 250-page dialogue with a French writer about Federman’s life his work his golf his adventures his misadventures his books and the world in general -- with photos and documents]

in English a book entitled FEDERMAN AT 80 [a collection of some 25 essays about Federman's work by different scholars and writers to be published by SUNY-Press]

A celebration of Federman's oeuvre will take place at Lake Forest College in march 2008 – another in Buffalo organized by former students and friends of Federman in the fall 2008 --

new editions of The Twilight of the Bums [illustrated], and The Voice in the Closet will be out soon.

I'm not mentioning all this to draw attention to myself [well obliquely maybe] but to give hope to those FC2 writers who may despair that the situation is hopeless ...

2007-09-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

i am in france until oct. 10

a young poet in iran translated my story The Worm into persian

look at it

www.degaran.com/vizhe/v7/mohamadhayativ7.html

Concerning the Original Masturbatory Gesture

2007-09-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

One wonders what the first homo sapiens must have thought [if thinking he could] or did [certainly he could do] when he awoke one night in the dark of the cave and reached with his hand under his dirty animal pelt covering his groin to touch an unexpected erection [perhaps not the first but the first he reached for] to touch it feel it squeeze it rub it shake it until it made him squirm on his dirty pile of moss and then scream with this newly discovered sensation which he could not yet name or explain but which later much later some french homo sapiens named jouissance.

Yes one must wonder what this first one among this newly erected species felt before finding his way to the pleasure of a twat with this thing in his hand. What did he do? Did he scream? Laugh? Burst into tears? Or did he rise to his feet in the dark of the cave and shout to his fellow-cavemen lost in the little death: Hey you guys wake up wake up you won’t believe the incredible discovery I just made!

And one can further wonder as to what took place in the dark of the cave the following night when all the cavemen reached under their filthy pelts to explore the discovery the first among them had made. Of course one should also wonder what the cavewomen did or said when the first man among them shouted his discovery in the dark of the cave.

CARCASSIAN STORIES

2007-08-29T22:03:00.000-07:00

Often when carcasses return to the zone of carcasses after a transmutation they like to tell what sort of life they had wherever they were sent and in what form – the old carcasses who have been waiting for eternities to be transmuted and who may never be take great pleasure in listening to these stories – it makes them feel as though they share in the transmutation experiences of these story-teller carcasses – some of the stories are often sad and depressing – revealing how miserable the new life was – sometimes these stories even reveal how disgusting it was to have been transmuted – for instance the case of a carcass who was sent back to planet earth as a chamber pot – what kind of a life could this have been -- one can imagine – but even though this story was sad and sordid it greatly amused the old faded carcasses – other stories are funny and often quite sexy – for instance the story of this carcass who had been transmuted as a condom – well no need to go into the details of what this carcass told – even if she exaggerated somewhat -- but that story was funny and exciting – though the end was quite sad and tragic – the carcass told how after having performed what she was intended for -- and used and abused with great pleasure and dexterity -- she was thrown into the toilet bowl and flushed into the sewers of the planet earth where huge rats fought to devour her -- and after that how the rat who had won the fight defecated her into the putrid water of the sewers where she became a carcass again – but not all stories end so miserably – for instance the carcass who had been transmuted into scented massage oil told what a happy and sensuous life she had up to the end when she was dissipated on the body of the one who was being massaged – in this case – at least in the story told by this carcass – the sensuous body of a hollywood starlet – well one could go on retelling many other such stories told by the returning carcasses – some quite gruesome and ghostly – others lively and even experimental – but without going any further it should be mentioned that the authorities – which are still in power in spite of the failed revolution – became very interested in these stories -- for reasons that are too evident – and have decided to gather all these stories into a huge volume which will circulate in the zone to calm the fanatic carcasses who yearn for a change of direction – but also to calm the old carcasses who have been stuck in the zone for eternities without any hope of ever being transmuted – here is the title the authorities have decided to give to this anthology –
The Great Book of Carcassian Stories

LES CARCASSES EN RÉVOLTE

2007-08-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

une rumeur circule dans la zone des carcasses. Une nouvelle carcasse toute fraîche vient d’arriver d’une planète en révolution et il semble que cette carcasse toute fraîche essaye de convaincre les carcasses qu’il est temps qu’elles se débarrassent des autorités qui décident pour elle quand elles seront transmutées et dans quelles formes. Les vieilles carcasses qui traînent dans la zone depuis des éternités s’inquiètent que de telles idées subversives pourraient causer un délai dans leur transmutation éminente. Enfin c’est ce que ces vieilles carcasses se disent.

Surtout que maintenant à cause du changement démocratique qui s’est produit dans les décisions de transmutation depuis que les carcasses ont obtenu une sorte de participation. Mais la nouvelle carcasse toute fraîche explique que si les carcasses se révoltaient et formaient leur propre comité d’autorités toutes les carcasses deviendraient égales et pourraient alors soumettre leur requête aux membres du nouveau comité qui seraient comme elles d’anciennes carcasses. Les jeunes carcasses récemment arrivées dans la zone sont tout à fait d’accord pour que la révolution se fasse. Mais les vieilles carcasses arguent que s’il y a une telle révolution seulement les jeunes nouvelles carcasses seront transmutées d’abord tandis que les vieilles carcasses continueront a poireauter pendant des éternités.

Deux groupes deux clans deux sectes se sont formées. Deux camps. Celui des carcasses qui veulent que la révolution se fasse immédiatement. Sans délai et partout dans la zone des carcasses. C’est le camp des fanatiques. Ceux de l’autre camp disent qu’il serait plus prudent de ne pas essayer de renverser les autorités d’une seul coup parce qu’on ne connaît pas vraiment le pouvoir qu’elles ont. Que cette révolution doit se faire petit à petit en infiltrant les autorités. Mais même dans le camp des carcasses qui veulent la révolution il y a une faction qui dit que la révolution devrait se faire lentement et subtilement. Tandis que les carcasses de l’autre faction disent qu’il faut foutre tout en l’air d’un seul coup. Et recommencer à zéro. C’est-à-dire revenir à l’origine des la zone des carcasses quand c’était encore une zone paradisiaque. Les discussions se font partout. Des débats. Des meetings. Des démonstrations. Des manifestes circulent en secret.

Tout cela en cachette pour que les autorités ne découvrent pas ce qui se passe dans la zone des carcasses. Raison pour laquelle l’idée de cette révolution n’est qu’une rumeur. Une rumeur transmissible à l’infinité dans les deux directions.

Mais une des vieilles carcasses qui est convaincue qu’une telle révolution la condamnerait à rester non-transmutée jusqu’à la fin de l’éternité se faufile dans

les bureaux des autorités et dénonce la nouvelle carcasse toute fraîche qui prêche la révolution. Celle-ci est immédiatement convoquée devant les autorités qui demandent des explications et de nommer tous ceux qui conspirent avec elle. La nouvelle carcasse refuse de répondre. On a la met à a torture. On lui dit qu’elle ne sera jamais transmutée si elle refuse de dire qui sont les autres carcasses engagées dans ce complot. La jeune carcasse toute fraîche qui avait déjà été torturée pendant la révolution sur sa planète sait à quoi s’attendre même si elle révèle les noms des carcasses qui préparent la révolution. Elle sait qu’elle sera jetée sur la pile de carcasses connue sous le nom des carcasses éternelles à perpétuité. Celles qui savent qu’elles ne seront jamais transmutées. Même sous la forme d’un légume laid comme un topinambour ou d’un objet ridicule comme un pot de chambre. Entre temps les forces secrètes des autorités connues sous le nom de la milice autoritaire sont en train de rafler ceux qui préparaient la révolution car même si la nouvelle carcasse tout fraîche n’a pas dénoncé ses camarades d’autres vieilles carcasses l’ont fait.

Bon pas la peine d’en dire plus sur l’échec de cette révolution. Ce qui arriva ensuite tout le monde le sait même les carcasses. Ou comme on dit maintenant dans la zone des carcasses : plus ça change et plus c’est la même chose.

REPORT FROM THE WORLD FEDERATION OF DISPLACED WRITERS

2007-08-04T18:57:00.000-07:00

We had never known Federman to be that violent, on the contrary, more like him to talk or double-talk his way out of a fight, either in French or in English, or both simultaneously, except once, in 2028, the day of his birthday, yes May 15, imagine that, premember the future if you can, our old man getting into a fight at his age.

Yes now I premember, it was in Sofia Bulgaria, Moinous exclaims, when he kicked a guy in the ass, a critic, and then punched him in the mouth.

That's right, it was during a literary conference, a huge international conference on the future of literature, in Sofia, Namredef confirmed, The World Federation of Displaced Writers, the WFDW, we were there with him of course, and Federman too.

All the literati in the world were present, some already dead, others half-dead, others on their way out, they had gathered urgently in the Dimitrov Great Hall of the People to discuss the critical situation of contemporary literature at a crucial moment in history when literature was seriously and painfully questioning its raison d'être, was on the verge of becoming a mere supplement of culture, when the very act of writing was being challenged and displaced from all sides by technological substitutions and all sort of creepy gadgets and artificial languages ad computerized intelligence, as the western civilization was dwindling away into scientific technocracy and pseudo-mystical fantasy.

The critic in question, the guy who got kicked in the ass and punched in the mouth, was some pitiful entremetteur of literature, for every cliff there is always someone to jump off, Moinous cut in, a pushy pimpled juvenile cacademic critic in his early twenties, and embryonic mind from John Hookers University, at least that's what the name tag on his lapel said, a typical file-card PMLA scholar, yes PMLA was still going on, who stood up in the middle of an animated argument about the present and future morality of the novel, that stubborn moribund genre which was still, even then, refusing to die.

John Gardner and his clique and Larry McCaffery with his clan were tackling each other, moralizing on the one side and demoralizing on the other, when that pushy asshole of a critic jumped right in to take side with the moralizers and complain, in twisted xylophagouscacademic terms, that fiction today has become totally unreadable, that it had lost touch with reality, imagine that, as if that dead horse, that carcass of reality was still something to be concerned with, because, he went on, too many writers are indulging in egocentric logomachy.

He was obviously referring to Federman's work and to the little speech Federman had made earlier, quite eloquently, in defense and illustration of what Federman called the leapfrog technique in digressive fiction, yes definitely referring to Federman and to some of his contemporaries even though he did not mention names, that little shit pot, writers such as Ronnie Schlunick, Clarion Vapor, Stove Klotz, Warner Abolish, Dave Plush, Morbid Caillou, Ludovic February, Bill Gasoil, Phillipeau Soleil, Tudor Les-Oies, Oswal Bartender, Johnny Vulture, Giorgo Bedroom, to name only a few, and others of that generation with whom Federman had been associated for decades as a daring disruptive subversive experimentalist, all them present of course that day in the Great Hall of the People, and who were still at the center of the lively controversy about the validity and superiority of post-future fiction versus neoantediluvian fiction, that endless quarrel of the post-ancients and the supra-postmoderns.

That dumbass critic was complaining, whining rather, that all these s-called sursurfictioneers are masturbating their futile experiments without any regard for communication and existential gestalt, wallowing instead in self-conscious solipsism, destructuring and desyntaxing language for the sake of playfulness and dislogotraction, ludique laughterature, oh he had some vocabulary that puny critic, he paused a moment to admire his little pun, and consequently, he went on, these superegoisticalnarcissists are deserting their moral responsibility toward Man, with a capital letter he emphasized, and Society, also with a capital letter, can you believe that, one still argues on such a pathetic basis, in 2028, doesn't that little fizzle of a critic understand that these avant-garde writers neither think a kick because they fell a kick nor feel a kick because they think a kick.

But he went on, that intellectually retarded paraplegic parasite of mediocrity with his squeaking effeminate voice which kept rising as he spoke, saying that the concern of most of these elitist collectivists today is only with language, language and nothing else, but a theory of fiction as mere logos doing its tricks is an outlandish notion, I am quoting him verbatim, Namredef pointed out, and he continued, he was endless that criiiitic, explaining that reading fiction should not merely be an act of looking at words distributed on the pages, but rather should be like falling into a dream that foregrounds reality, and that after reading a few pages of a novel the words should simply disappear, what an idiot, language disappear, yep vanish, just like that, pssitt, muscade et voila, what a cretin, and only images should unfold pleasurably in the mind of the reader, unbelievable, like a private television show, mental cinema.

Roland Barthes was sitting a couple of seats away from us and I heard him mumble, how stubborn these illusionists can be to still want to peddle leur cinéma intérieur in 2028 as the primary function of the novel, but what about l’émotion, pourquoi serait-elle antipathique à la jouissance, c’est un trouble, une lisière évanouissement, quelque chose de pervers, sous des dehors bien-pensants, c’est même, peut-être, la plus retorse des pertes, car elle contredit la règle donnée à la jouissance une figure fixe, forte, violente, crue, quelque chose de nécessairement musclé, tendu, phallique.

At this point Federman stood up, he was sitting directly behind that constipated critic from Johns Hookers University whose name of course will not be revealed here, and turning to Roland Barthes he said, t’as raison Coco colle-lui ton phallus dans le cul, and as he said this he kicked the critic in the ass, and I mean hard and right on target, the critic almost fell forward over the people sitting in front of him, you pompous pederastic pedantic punk, he shouted letting his lips explode scornfully into the alliterations, don’t you understand that a concern for the dignity or decrepitude of language is, after all, a concern for the dignity and decrepitude of man, for a writer to disdain to do anything more questionable with his art than explore relentlessly the nature of his own medium, in this case words in extemporaneous arrangements, the question of human dignity can not present itself in any other terms than those of the dignity of human language, even if language was originally une erreur de la nature, and as he said this Federman waved to Antonin Artaud who was seated a few rows back.

Half of the audience applauded with dignified enthusiasm while the other half booed and hissed nervously, it was indeed a very mixed literary crowd representing many tendencies and movements and schools and cliques and clans, from all extremes, passionate avant-gardists, breakthough fictioneers, surexperimentalist, paracritics, social neoreligiousrealists, antipostsymbolists, neoprehistorians, superpastirrealists, and even a few aposteriornaturalists.

The pushy critic meanwhile turned toward Federman fuming with rage and still rubbing his ass shamefully, he tried to grab Federman by the neck, and that's when Federman punched him in the mouth, a perfect solid right uppercut to the jaw.

Immediately the participants split into two camps, the postanciens with their critics and their theoreticians on one side, and the postpostmoderns with their paracritics on the other, and everybody started punching, scuffling in the aisles of the Great Hall of the People, throwing books at each other, pamphlets, dictionaries, even unpublished manuscripts, pens and pencils, portable typewriters, laptops, scirptodictos, erasers, anything they could get their hands on, they were spitting on each other, pulling each other's hair and beards, yes there were many bearded participants as is always the case at literary conferences, scratching each other's faces with overgrown nails.

It is well known that writers are noted for being dirty fighters, as when Charles Perrault and Nicolas Boileau scratched each other's eyes out during the famous Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes in 1693, amazing how the world of littérateurs vibrates in a twofold manner every two or three hundred years, or better yet when Norman Mailer gave Gore Vidal one of his resounding knee-in-the-crotches publicly at a fancy literary cocktail party in 1977, what a scandal that was, we were there that day, the four of us, Federman, Federman, Moinous and I, specifies Namredef, standing only a few feet away from Mailer and Vidal when the blow happened, and we even heard what Mailer said, My dear Vidal there are those who kick balls and those who get kicked in the balls, I am sure you know in which category you belong, and when Gore Vidal tried to scratch Mailer's face, the latter shoved his knee up Vidal's testicles who folded at the waist and shrieked, Oh you animal, big brute, it was quite a scene indeed, amazing how history always repeats itself, as it was happening in the Great Hall of the People, but on a much larger and much more violent scale.

And so here in Sofia Bulgaria we were in the middle of another historic brawl, the battle was raging, Namredef and I were watching from a corner of the conference room standing on top of a table, trying to duck the blows and the flying objets d’art, cowardly as we are we preferred to stay above the melee, fantastic Moinous said as he caught a copy of The Divine Comedy in full flight, we had lost sight of Federman in the commotion, but finally caught a glimpse of him buried under an angry pack of neo-classics gothic novelists, he was flat on his back and these burly fellows were pounding at him with their fists, but it was impossible for us to go to his help, all avenues of approach were blocked, so we remained on our observation table, keeping track of the skirmishes, recording individual and collectives victories.

Finally someone managed to crawl to a microphone which had toppled over on the floor and screamed into it, in Polish, I think it was Polish, or perhaps Slavonic, the official language of the conference, Hey you idiots, stop that, we are translating here for the commodity of this report what the person said, we didn't come here, he continued, to have a literary riot, especially now when half of the planet is still starving for knowledge, obviously the speaker was an erudite social realist, but it was useless, and now the sirens and whistles of the Bulgarian militia were screeching in the streets and in the corridors of the Great Hall of the People as the battle raged on until a raucous authoritative voice came over the loud-speakers in the ceiling.

Achtung, Achtung, it was the voice of Günter Grass who was then President of WFDW, Bitte mien Damen und Herren, I must say the women participants were just as active and belligerent in this confrontation as the males, using their innate feminine agility to overcome their more loutish male assailants, at one point Moinous and I watched Joyce Carol Oates flip Gabriel Garcia Marquez over her back in a neat judo move while next to her Margaret Atwood was twisting Alain Robb-Grillet's arm behind his back.

Bitte meine Damen Und Herren, the voice of Günter Grass insisted, behruhigen Sie sich, lassen Sie uns mit Würde, besonders jetz wo dies ganze Welt uns behobachted, besonders wenn did Bletchtrommerl des Opposition heult wie dis Hundejahrsoldaten der Vernunft must standhaft beliben un nch umfallen nich Katze und Maus spielen, ja, muss nich flappen, Btte kehren Sie zu ihren stühlen zuück und lasse Sie uns in Ruhe fortsetzen, and these powerful rational words worked like magic, instantly everyone stopped fighting, there was an embarrassed moment of silence while the audience regained its composure.

Then Harold Pinter, who had just been awarded a second Nobel Prize for literature, and well he deserved it, approached the microphone on the main platform, he stood there for a full minute staring at the audience while shaking his head in a gesture of reprimand.

Behind us we heard in a Japanese whisper someone say, Amenokado hitotsu hirakete mae ni ari utsukushiki kana yama ni tatsu niji, Moinous turned around, Sssh, he said, Oh so sorry, so sorry, my name is Yosano Hiroshi, I am a poet, who that speaking now, can you tell me, so sorry.

That's Pinter, Harold Pinter, the famous British playwright, the only one to ever receive two Nobel Prizes, I informed the Japanese poet, Ah so, there before our sight one of the gates of heaven swung wide and how beautifully stands the bright rainbow on the mountain brow, recited the Japanese Poet in broken English which is difficult to imitate here, Can you please be quiet, Moinous said, and skip the poetry?

Oh yes yes, ah so. So sorry, the Japanese poet said bowing to Moinous.

Pinter began to talk, pointing to Federman while marking each word with deliberate Miltonia emphasis.

I do not know this gentleman personally, or perhaps yes we did meet once, a long time ago, in a pub, but that's not important, I have read his books, I have read and reread them, and let me tell you, the farther he goes the more good it does me. I don't want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement, he is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the shit the more I am grateful to him, he's not fucking me about, he's not leading me up any garden, Right on that's the way to go man, someone shouted from the back of the conference room, Ah shut the fuck up you jerk, someone else shouted back, Pinter banged his fist forcefully on the podium and continued, he's not slipping me any wink, he's not flogging me a remedy or a path or a revelation or a basinful of breadcrumbs, he's not selling me anything I don't want to buy, he doesn't give a bollock whether I buy or not, he hasn't got his hand over his heart, Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'll buy his goods, hook, line and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely, he brings forth a body of beauty. His work is beautiful...he paused and stared haughtily at the young critic who had been the cause of the disturbance, the room grew restless, Pinter leaned forward over the podium, beaut-ti-ful, my dear Sir, he repeated detaching each syllable, even if it is un-read-able.

Samuel Beckett who was sitting quietly in a remote corner of the great hall stood up and started applauding, all eyes turned to him in deep reverence, honni soit qui symboles y voit, he said in a soft tone of voice and he sat down.

Federman was deeply moved, visibly moved, he had difficulties holding back the tears of appreciation, and we did too, it was the first time, as far as we know, in the many many years he had been scribbling words, working uncompromisingly in the lonely semi-darkness of unrecognition, that someone, no not just someone but a world-renowned writer whom he greatly admired and respected had praised his work in public, he stood up, blew his nose in a large handkerchief, walked over to the platform tipping his head slightly to Samuel Beckett as he walked past him, and shook Harold Pinter’s hand with marked emotion, Pinter embraced him while half of the audience applauded its warm approbation and the other half whistled and hissed its vicious objection, and so it goes with literature, always split down the middle.

It was May 2028, now some people might say that such a report is not very encouraging, but one must replay that it is not meant to encourage those who say that, after all literature is an engendered species.

friends of the poet [you have 24 hours...]

2007-08-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

I changed one word in this old poem
to bring it back to life [no pun intended]
it's an important poem in the life-cycle
of the poet

it finally raises the final
I was going to say solution
but no
the final episode
you'll see what I mean
if you can recognize the one word
that was changed which totally
altered the sense of this poem
I mean of the original version
then you will be rewarded with
a recent photograph of the poet

the first to identify the word that
was changed will also receive a bonus
but we cannot reveal now what it will be

for the sake of equality
among the contestants
in this one-word rewording of
this poem

final escape
for Ingmar Bergman

how will it happen
the final exitus
will it be violent
will it hurt
or will it be quiet
full of silence
will the sordid images
that have haunted us
be suddenly erased
or will they be replayed
endlessly replayed
in virtual reality
will we fall
or will we rise
or simply pass through
as one goes through
an open door
to enter a room
perhaps it will be
an escape
another escape
from the little box
where it all started
among empty skins
but this time it will be
the final escape from the great cunt
of existence
and this time
without any gurgling
will the stolen sugar be
as sweet as the first time
and what of the moon
tiptoeing on the roof
will she smile upon us
or remain indifferent
will there be words
left to describe what
is taking place
words and silences
or will there be only
cries and whispers

you have 24 hours to submit your answer
many of you will recognize this poem
but how many will notice which word
was changed

without having to cheat
and look at the original version

2007-07-25T23:05:00.001-07:00

FACING THE HORIZON

2007-07-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

The imaginary is the square root
of a negative number
and as such does not have
the common-sense meaning of illusory

One cannot discuss the imaginary
in ordinary physical terms
nor can one measure the length
of the imaginary in temporal terms

To ask how long is an imaginary year
is meaningless and self-defeating
because there are no singularities
in imaginary time only endlessness

As for imaginary space it is perhaps
finite but without boundaries
just as the surface of the earth
is finite but unbounded

The horizon always recedes
when we move towards it
and so whenever we face the horizon
eternity passes by in an instant

RAYMOND FEDERMAN

PLAYING THE ROULETTE OR ONE UP ON MARCHEL DUCHAMP

2007-06-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

I never studied new math -- I barely know my tables of multiplication which I still do in French -- I am numerically deprived and depraved -- Marcel was deep into numbers -- he invented a system to win at the roulette table -- I also have a system which I believe is 9 times better than Marcel’s -- my lucky numbers at roulette are 7 8 9 17 18 19 27 28 29 -- if I place one chip on all 9 numbers -- let’s say a 5 Euros chip for the sake of verisimilitude -- the last time I played roulette was in a German casino -- I have then committed to one spin of the wheel 9 chips -- since the 9 always cancels all the other numbers when they are added together in essence I have canceled my own bet -- I have taken the risk of losing 45 euros in one spin of the wheel -- however should any of these 9 numbers come up I win 175 Euros -- 35 times 5 -- in German casinos a full number pays 35 to 1 instead of 36 -- 36 being the number of numbers on the roulette wheel -- 35 x 5 = 175 -- after I have deducted my initial investment of 45 Euros and set it aside I now have 130 Euros of profit to reinvest -- before I lose this entire profit -- we are of course speculating here as in all business ventures -- assuming I continue to play the same 5 Euros chips -- I can play the same 9 numbers 2.8888888 with my 130 Euros profit -- one arrives at 2.8888888 by dividing 130 by 45 -- 45 being the amount being risked with each spin of the wheel -- which gives 2.8888888 -- the number of times I can play my 9 numbers -- but since -- to be consistent with my system -- I cannot play .8888888 time -- unless I change the amount I place on each number or the number of numbers to play -- but that would screw up my system royally -- therefore I can play the same 5 Euros on the same 9 numbers only two times -- the .8888888 uninvestable profit being set aside with the original 45 Euros -- according to the law of averages it is almost impossible not to hit at least one of 9 numbers in two chances -- I am therefore assured of having a winning evening -- if I gamble in the evening -- or a winning afternoon if playing in the afternoon -- that is if I do not play beyond two spins of the roulette wheel -- correction -- three spins since theoretically my initial gain of 175 Euros occurred on the first spin of the wheel -- but of course for my system to work it is absolutely essential that one of my 9 numbers comes up on the first spin of the wheel -- if none of my 9 numbers comes up on the first spin then I must rethink the entire system -- or else stop playing immediately and resign myself to the loss of 45 Euros -- of course if one of my numbers comes up on the next two spins then I must recalculate the number of times I can play and the amount I am willing to invest with the extra profit-- but if one of my numbers has come up on the first spin but none comes up on the next two spins I can always try again with the original 45 Euros I have set aside -- and so on as long as one of my numbers keeps coming up on the first spin -- each time setting aside .888888 of profit -- but if none of my numbers comes up on the first spin I must resign myself to the loss of 45 Euros and quit -- I am not familiar with Marcel Duchamp’s system but I believe I am one up on him --

raymond's manure reviewed on blog‎

2007-05-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

From: David Moscovich
Sent: Thu 5/24/07 4:57 PM
To: Mike Daily

hey mike

i've calculated the secret to raymond's novel Return to Manure.

200 pages, 25 lines per page, 12 words per line.

it's all about the word count.....

dm

Visit the Center For Dyslexistential Studies
http://www.dyslexistential.blogspot.com

If Raymond wants to publish QLL'S MOVIE in his blog‎

2007-05-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

From: stéphane rouzé ( s_rouze@yahoo.fr )
Sent: Mon 5/14/07 4:24 PM
To: mike daily

Hi Mike If Raymond wants to publish QLL'S MOVIE in his blog put this code in it

A LA QUEUE LEU LEU FINAL
Uploaded by lelem

A la queue leu leu (FIN)
Uploaded by lelem

A la queue leu leu (2ème extrait)
Uploaded by lelem

Alaqueueleuleu 1ère partie (1/3)
Uploaded by lelem

Federman_s_The_Line
Uploaded by lelem

Words gathered from the weekly dialogues of the two bums [typical federman chambers exchange]

2007-05-14T00:56:00.000-07:00

may i be the first
to greet you this 12th

(yes...let's faast & bpra baruch addonsi eliuhenu
too late
my daughter already did that
oy veis mir
but better second than last
I might even fast that day
that's not old enuff
how about when
you take a crap
and you spend
10 minutes admiring
what you defecated
buy a new one
the one I gave you must be polluted
totally old!!\very fine

to wake up totally old

completely 100% old certified
guaranteed

happy birthday minus 8
totally old means
that now you can
look at a beautiful ass
and remember how
it would give you
a hard on
no fanfare
nothing
just an ordinary day
decided to skip this one
i think it was in a set a 3 in 1 deal
it was imp to me at the time you sent it

buy a new one

the one I gave you must be polluted

"minus 13 & counting"
why don't we celebrate today and forget about the 15
e bought me a new tv - one of those flat ones
it's so flat I can literally go inside
no! keep counting!
I can only count up to 72
I never learn more
so tell me
how many hours until that day
when we were expelled into the world
no! keep counting!
(KJ i frgtt!
translate please into numbers
ah
Ah we are waiting for Pozzo
stop counting and just prepare yourself
mentally
physically
emotionally
psychologically
etc etc etc etc etc
for the worse

I am scared
maybe I'll wake up
on may 16 totally old
meanwhile
a little piece of writing
to celebrate for our birthday
Concerning Enthusiasm
while you are dreaming
your wonderful strange
dreams
you no longer
share with me
I am reading Malone
just for the fun of it

I shall soon be quite dead
at last in spite of all
what an opening
what a fabulous sentence
with a sentence like this
Malone can delay his death
and even cancel it
until the end of eternity

soon is such a vague word
how long is soon
how do you measure soon
normal people say
I'll be dead in ten years
or I'll be dead before I am 80
or by the end of next week
I'll be quite dead
unlike the prone Malone
most standing people
like to be specific
about their death

oh how the standing people
would love
to know in advance
the exact time and date
of their death
how happy and relaxed
it would make them
to know exactly
when they would leave
the great cunt of existence
to enter the lie of after-life

how joyful they would be
for the rest of their standing life
if at birth they were told
by the good midwife
who expelled them
into existence
the exact time and day and year
of their death

these are delicate questions
to which one cannot give
a rational answer

Could Sam have written
I shall soon be quite dead
if he had known in
advance that he would
change tense
on December 22, 1989
certainly not
because as Malone says
further down the page

I shall die without enthusiasm

if I understand the clever Malone
that means that his lack of enthusiasm
is a way to delay his death
until he finds a way to outsmart
his own death by coming out
of the great cunt of existence
[that's his words] backward
feet first

to die with enthusiasm
does that mean that unlike
all those idiots on this planet
who blow themselves up and others with them
Malone’s lack of enthusiasm
toward his own death
is another sneaky way
of delaying the action
as it echos the vagueness of soon

soon undermines and mocks
the permanence of death
implied by quite dead
since we cannot tell
how long soon is
in temporal terms

and the lack of enthusiasm
ridicules the in spite of all

in spite of what
the many possible
causes of death
right there on the first page
Malone has already
managed to postpone
his death until the Assumption
which of course throws doubt
about what supposedly happened
that day to the saintly virgin
to the saintly virgin
or will happen to Malone
on that day
that's how Malone outwits
his own death
by coming out of
the great cunt of existence
backward feet first
just as the neurasthenic Marcel
delayed his death so well
in spite of his lack of enthusiasm
for what he was doing
or as he wrote at the end of the book
... at least, if strength were granted me
for long enough to accomplish my work,
I should not fail, even if the results
were to make them resemble monsters ...
wonderful gets better as it goes
must get out my copy
what you talking about
getting better
this is one of the worse pieces
I've written in 37 years
but do reread malone dies
it will lift you up
and teach you how
to outwit death

(often in contrib comments in seelc
lit journals one will read

GC (1931-2001)
that's a typo
it should be
GC (1931-2081)
as for RF
it says RF (1928-?)
totally old!!\very fine

to wake up totally old

completely 100% old certified
guaranteed

happy birthday minus 8
totally old means
that now you can
look at a beautiful ass
and remember how
it would give you
a hard on
that's not old enuff
how about when
you take a crap
and you spend
10 minutes admiring
what you defecated
I decided to skip this one
no fanfare
nothing
just an ordinary day
I might even fast that day

FOOTPRINTS

2007-04-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

she comes
to me
in joy
and tells me
that her god
is carrying her
in his hands
I tell her
it's not possible
that her god
if he exists
is too busy
to be concerned
with a single being
she insists
that she knows
her god is carrying her
in his hands
I ask her
how she knows this
she tells me
that the other day
at the beach
she felt light
and exhilarated
and when
she turned around
she saw only
one set of footprints
behind her in the sand

look at this

2007-04-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

La Compagnie des Lumas

et

le Théâtre de Villefranche sur Saône

vous invitent

les 21 et 22 avril 2007 à 14h30 et 19h00

au Théâtre de Villefranche sur Saône

à assister au spectacle déambulatoire

Retour au fumier

D’après le roman de Raymond Federman

Adaptation et mise en scène Angélique Clairand et Eric Massé

Lumières Thomas Chazalon / régie générale Julien Louisgrand

vidéo Guillaume Marmin / chorégraphie Axelle Mikaeloff

avec

Charlotte Duran, Marion Lubat, Géraldine Masquelier, Benjamin Villemagne

Un groupe de comédiens Caladois, ateliers du théâtre de Villefranche, chorales et ensembles de l’école de musique, résidents de l’Oasis, société généalogie du Rhône, club de natation de Villefranche, section natation synchronisée, le Cep, résidence de personnes âgées, radio Calade, collège Jean-Moulin, association tendance et section hip hop du service jeunesse

--------------

Retour au fumier : C’est un road-movie en voiture de Raymond Federman et de sa femme, de Paris en province, à la recherche de la ferme où il a passé 3 années de sa vie, caché des allemands, pendant la seconde guerre mondiale.

LINK

"for me now it's floating language..."

2007-04-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

www.lichtensteiger.de/floatingLanguage.html

An Invitation from The Cacademy of American Poets

2007-04-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

time to put something new on the blog

this is true -- it really happened

I got an invitation to belong to the cacademy of poets

a good review of Return to Manure will appear in next ABR

and there is a good one also in the printed Rain Taxi

An Invitation from The Cacademy of American Poets

Federman was officially invited today, in a letter signed by the Chancellor of the Cacademy of American Poets, to become an Ass-
ociate Member.

Not a Full Member! Just an Ass-
ociate member [hyphenated like that at the end of a line].

Associate Member! Does that mean that Federman is an Ass for not having already joined the Cacademy of American Poets?

He is not an American? And is he not a Poet? So he claims. Ok, a naturalized American, and a peddler of words.

But Associate Member? Does that mean that Federman will be like a Junior Member of the Cacademy with the potential of someday becoming a Full Member eventually?

Or does it simply mean that in his present position as a Poet among American Poets Federman is Associated to poetry only partially and distantly?

Or could it be that the Chancellor of the Cacademy thinks Federman is not ready yet to become a Full Member because he has not yet been recognized fully as a Poet in America?

Or could it imply that because Federman is not yet fully recognized as a Poet in America, he can only be an Associate Member?

But the questions to ask, as Federman ponders whether or not to accept this invitation: How did the Cacademy of American Poets recognize that Federman is a poet? On what basis? And why does it find me worthy of becoming an Associate Member of the Cacademy?

Federman has never published a book of poems in America. In Europe he has published 10 volumes of poems , but none in America. And nobody in America knows about these 10 volumes of poetry.

Three bilingual volumes in France, and seven bilingual or trilingual volumes in Germany.*

Federman has published many poems in magazines in America, and on the internet, and dropped many of them at street corners, but no one ever paid much attention to them.

Federman never had a poem appear in The New Yorker. But he does have many friendly and encouraging rejections slips from The New Yorker.

Unless suddenly there is an immense interest in his poetry, of which he is not aware, that would explain why the Cacademy is anxious to have Federman as an Associate Member.

But all these poems he dispersed in America must not have been recognized as poems since none found its way into an anthology of American Poetry, and will probably never find its way into that great Pantheon of Poetry The Norton Anthology of American Poetry from 1796 to 2036. 2036, the year Federman is due back on my planet.

What shall Federman do? Accept this invitation, or write a letter telling the Chancellor that he feels he is not ready and worthy to become an Associate Member of the Cacademy of American Poets because he has not yet written his one great poem.

Oh it should be mentioned. To join the Cacademy of American Poets one must pay an entry fee.

And depending which place, or which seat, or which rank one aspires to inside the Cacademy, one must decide how much one wants to invest to get in.

$25 – Contributing Members. Probably those who are not yet considered full-fledged Poets, but have the potential of becoming Poets.

$45 – Associate Members. Federman was delighted to see that he has skipped the Contributing Member rank and been promoted to the Associate Member Rank. This must mean that he is somewhat recognized as a poet beyond his potential.

$100 -- Sustaining Members. That must be for older poets who can no longer sustain themselves as Poets and need the security of the Cacademy. Even though on recent occasions Federman has been called an old fart, he does not consider myself ready for the Sustaining Rank.

$250 -- Patron Members. Obviously for those who would like to become the bosses of Poetry and set the Rules of Prosody. The ambivalence of this rank is that the Patron Members face the risk of being demoted to the rank of Sustaining Members should their stocks in Prosody go down.

$1000 – Benefactor Members. Clearly the rank of those who are on the verge of changing tense, and are considering whether or not to exclude the Cacademy from their Poetic Testaments.

$2500 -- the Chairman’s Circle Members. These Members not only get all the benefits listed above but upon admission receive a limited-edition broadside of the Chancellor’s best poem signed and dated by the Chancellor of the Cacademy himself.

These are the options for admission into the Cacademy of American Poets.

Had Federman been invited to join as a Member of the Chairman’s Circle he would perhaps have accepted immediately just to be able to seat at the Chairman’s table in the circle of the great Poets of America and drink with them the expensive French wines Poets of the Cacademy always drink.

Federman would gladly have shelled out 2.5 grand to be in the Chairman’s Circle.

But to be asked to join as an Associate Member for 45 bucks that’s insulting.

What would Federman get for 45 bucks as an Associate Member of the Cacademy of American Poets? A glass of Perrier!

His decision is final. He will decline this invitation. Even if it means that his poems will never find their way into The Enlarged Norton Anthology of American Poetry from 1796 to 2036. The year he will climb Mount Olympus.

* Here are the titles of the 10 volumes of poems.

France:

Parmi les monstres / Among the Beasts
Future Concentration / Future Concentration
Ici & Ailleurs / Here & Elsewhere

Germany:

Spieltexte / Playtexts
Nun Den / Now Then
Duel- / Duel / Duel-l
99 Handwritten Poemes / 99 poèmes-faits-à-la-main
Offene Schuhe / Loose Shoes
L’Extatique de Jule & Juliette
Die Stimme im Schrank / The Voice in the Closet / la voix dans

A LA QUEUE LEU LEU de et pour Raymond Federman‎

2007-04-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

From: stéphane rouzé ( s_rouze@yahoo.fr )
Sent: Wed 4/04/07 2:33 PM
To: Mike Daily

Hello Mike

How are you?
well i hope
i send your english extract with late
i want to publish the french movie A LA QUEUE LEU LEU
for the Raymond's Birthday on MAY 15.
perhaps i could put few English extract in the French
movie en clin d'oeil
the english movie will be publish after.
i send you a very little french extract if you want to
try to read it in french too.

Bises
Stéphane

A LA QUEUE LEU LEU

a good decent honest line perhaps a bit too chaotic but nonetheless adequate a line to which people could come without apprehension and once in line without having to complain too much about being stuck there for the main concern in line was civility and generosity many had come to the line quite unprepared not having anticipated the fact that it would be a slow endless process so that waiting would be in vain just as progress would be in vain therefore they had not brought with them the essential in food and clothing to last or continue to last in line so that food drinks and clothing would be shared generously among the liners it was not unusual to see groups of people who had never met before eating from the same picnic basket or drinking from the same bottle or handing pieces of clothing or blankets to people who suffered from the cold more than others especially during the night after sundown but particular care was given to the young and the very old for there were people of all ages in the line male and female of course and of all ways of life educated and illiterate rich and poor this was apparent from the clothes and manners of certain people many races and colors were also present in line but usually these people preferred to stay together in bunches in remote parts of the line naturally there were also people of different religious beliefs this was evident from the discussions and arguments having to do with questions of morality for one of the major concerns of all the people present was the morality of the line and when disagreements occurred on this question the line would become extremely agitated though it should be noted that not all discussions had to do with morality or theology in some places people would get together to sing songs in unison while in other places someone would suddenly stand on a box to make a speech

AMERICA: A SELF-PORTRAIT (CIRCA 1980)

2007-03-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

Armstrong tires grip the road
Avis tries harder
Eastern earns its wings everyday
Coca Cola tastes better
Hertz is number one
STP really helps
Masterline defies detection
Minute Maid is goodness at its best
Ford has a better idea
Sony is a dream machine
American Express: don't leave home without it
Orange Juice is not just for breakfast any more
Volkswagon does it again
CBS is coming on
Contac is the complete medicine
Acme is a super saver
King Fiesta is fantastic dessert
Clorex doubles the bleach
Johnson's Baby Powder touches you like a baby
Nationwide Life Insurance is on your side
Woolite the self-cleaning self-cleaner
You're in good hands with All State
Folgers is the best part of waking up
With Schwab the Savings are big
Merrill Lynch a breed apart
How do you spell relief? R*O*L*A*I*D*S
Gravy Train makes the gravy your dog craves
Pepsi the choice of a new generation
Call us toll free: 1-800-AMERICA

TWO NEW FEDERMAN VIDEOS

2007-03-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

for the blog

federman reading eating books in buffalo

http://www.starcherone.com/RF_at_92nd_St_Y56K.mov

http://www.starcherone.com/RF_at_92nd_St_Y56K.mov

federman reading the voice in the closet at the 92nd in new york

Ted Pelton -- publisher of the new edition of The Voice in the Closet and of My Body in Nine Parts and the forthcoming illustrated new editions of Chambers/Federman The Twilight of the Bums
recorded these videos

VISUAL POEMS FROM BRAZIL

2007-03-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

From : Raymond Federman
Sent : Tuesday, March 6, 2007 10:23 AM
To : [BLOGMASTER] Mike Daily
Subject : Fwd: Rv: Querido Raymond , de Ruben Grau - vasos comunicantes - bs as.

mike

this poet from brazil has gotten in touch with me

he has put some of my poems on his blog

I told him I would put some of his on my blog

can you look at his blog and put some of his poems on the blog

they look interesting - the visual poems especially

From: ruben grau [ rubengrau2002@yahoo.com.ar ]
To: Moinous@aol.com
Subject: Re: Rv: Querido Raymond , de Ruben Grau - vasos comunicantes - bs as.
Sent: Tuesday, March 6, 2007 7:31 AM

Hello dear Raymond.

Great ,thanks for yours invitation, i send the work,

Orfeo negro (Black Orfeus) - Poesia pentagramada

i made five poem with a doconstruction of one postal cars

please you choise that you like it.

In this blog http://rubengrau-poesiavisual.blogspot.com/ i have plublished

this poem and I make a link to your dada poem - i like too much).

Desde Buenos Aires. un abrazo

Ruben

Obra reciente
http://rubengrau.blogspot.com/

Obras anteriores
http://www.rubengrau.com.ar

Poesia visual
http://rubengrau-poesiavisual.blogspot.com/

Joyas de autor
http://adrianabarassi.blogspot.com/

Moinous@aol.com escribió:

hello ruben

great to have you as a fellow-writer-friend --

I visited your site -- excellent

send me a poem of yours in your language and we'll put it on my blog

ok

where are you exactly - which city

salute

raymond

LOVE IN SOAPLAND

2007-02-28T00:34:00.000-08:00

Over yonder in Soapland nobody watches television. In Soapland everybody is too enmeshed in love to waste time with TV. Anyway, by avoiding television one preserves one's sweetness. In Soapland love occupies 97% of the average person's time. That's a lot of time spent on love. It doesn't leave much for watching famous killers doing their things, or movie stars being sued, or athletes being busted, or rapists being paroled, or politicians being accused of improprieties.

Right now in Soapland, Edmund is marrying the most beautiful young brain surgeon ever produced by Johns Hopkins University Surgery Department. Her name is Dr. Karen Much. Their love was touch and go for a while because it looked as if Edmund might be in love with Brooke, who was on the rebound after being jolted by her husband Tad, who is now in love with Dixie, whose marriage to Brian never worked out.

The wedding ceremony of Ed and Karen, incidentally, has interrupted the trial of Erika accused of stabbing her latest husband, Dimitri, in a fit of hysteria brought on by the fear that Dimo (as Erika always called him before she eliminated him) was in love with Kendall, Erika's teen age daughter by crafty old rapist Charlie, but it turns out that Kandall did not give a shit about Dimitri because, in fact, all along she has had her eyes on the lady brain surgeon. But that's another story.

CONCERNING HOTEL SOAP

I found the following exchange of letters between a London hotel staff and one of its guests in a trash can on Picaddilly Circle during a recent visit to the U.K. I am taking the liberty of reproducing them here to protect those who may be considering traveling to the U.K. and staying in one of the fancy London Hotels.
R.F.

----------------------------------------

Dear Maid,

Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my bathroom since I have brought my own bath-sized Dial. Please remove the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicine chest and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way.

Thank you,
S. Berman

----------------------------------------

Dear Room 635,

I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from her day off. I took the 3 hotel soaps out of the shower soap dish as you requested. The 6 bars on your shelf I took out of your way and put on top of your Kleenex dispenser in case you should change your mind. This leaves only the 3 bars I left today which my instructions from the management is to leave 3 soaps daily. I hope this is satisfactory.

Kathy, Relief Maid

----------------------------------------

Dear Maid - I hope you are my regular maid.

Apparently Kathy did not tell you about my note to her concerning the little bars of soap. When I got back to my room this evening I found you had added 3 little Camays to the shelf under my medicine cabinet. I am going to be here in the hotel for two weeks and have brought my own bath-size Dial so I won't need those 6 little Camays which are on the shelf. They are in my way when shaving, brushing my teeth, etc. Please remove them.

S. Berman

----------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Berman,

My day off was last Wed. So the relief maid left 3 hotel soaps which we are instructed to do by the management. I took the 6 soaps which were in your way on the shelf and put them in the soap dish where your Dial was. I put the Dial in the medicine cabinet for your convenience. I didn't remove the 3 complimentary soaps which are always placed inside the medicine cabinet for all new check-ins and which you did not object to when you checked in last Monday. Please let me know if can be of further assistance.

Your regular maid,
Dotty

----------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Berman,

The assistant manager, Mr. Kensedder, informed me this morning that you called him last evening and said you were unhappy with your maid service. I have assigned a new girl to your room. I hope you will accept my apologies for any past inconvenience. If you have any future complaints please contact me so I can give it my personal attention. Call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

----------------------------------------

Dear Miss Carmen,

It is impossible to contact you by phone since I leave the hotel for business at 7:45 AM and don't get back before 5:30 or 6PM. That's the reason I called Mr. Kensedder last night. You were already off duty. I only asked Mr. Kensedder if he could do anything about those little bars of soap. The new maid you assigned me must have thought I was a new check-in today, since she left another 3 bars of hotel soap in my medicine cabinet along with her regular delivery of 3 bars in the bath-room shelf. In just 5 days here I have accumulated 24 little bars of soap. Why are you doing this to me?

S. Berman

----------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Berman,

Your maid, Kathy, has been instructed to stop delivering soap to your room and remove the extra soaps. If I can be of further assistance, please call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.

Elaine Carmen,
Housekeeper

----------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Kensedder,

My bath-size Dial is missing. Every bar of soap was taken from my room including my own bath-size Dial. I came in late last night and had to call the bellhop to bring me 4 little Cashmere Bouquets.

S. Berman

----------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Berman,

I have informed our housekeeper, Elaine Carmen, of your soap problem. I cannot understand why there was no soap in your room since our maids are instructed to leave 3 bars of soap each time they service a room. The situation will be rectified immediately. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.

Martin L. Kensedder
Assistant Manager

----------------------------------------

Dear Mrs. Carmen,

Who the hell left 54 little bars of Camay in my room? I came in last night and found 54 little bars of soap. I don't want 54 little bars of Camay. I want my one damn bar of bath-size Dial. Do you realize I have 54 bars of soap in here. All I want is my bath size Dial. Please give me back my bath-size Dial.

S. Berman

----------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Berman,

You complained of too much soap in your room so I had them removed. Then you complained to Mr. Kensedder that all your soap was missing so I personally returned them. The 24 Camays which had been taken and the 3 Camays you are supposed to receive daily. I don't know anything about the 4 Cashmere Bouquets. Obviously your maid, Kathy, did not know I had returned your soaps so she also brought 24 Camays plus the 3 daily Camays. I don't know where you got the idea this hotel issues bath-size Dial. I was able to locate some bath-size Ivory which I left in your room.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

----------------------------------------

Mrs. Carmen,

Just a short note to bring you up-to-date on my latest soap inventory. As of today I possess: On the shelf under medicine cabinet - 18 Camay in 4 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2. - On the Kleenex dispenser - 11 Camay in 2 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 3. - On the bedroom dresser - 1 stack of 3 Cashmere Bouquet, - 1 stack of 4 hotel-size Ivory, and 8 Camay in 2 stacks of 4 - Inside the medicine cabinet - 14 Camay in 3 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2. - In the shower soap dish - 6 Camay, very moist. - On the northeast corner of tub - 1 Cashmere Bouquet, slightly used. - On the northwest corner of tub - 6 Camays in 2 stacks of 3. Please ask Kathy when she services my room to make sure the stacks are neatly piled and dusted. Also, please advise her that stacks of more than 4 have a tendency to tip. May I suggest that my bedroom window sill is not in use and will make an excellent spot for future soap deliveries. One more item, I have purchased another bar of bath-sized Dial which I am keeping in the room safety vault in order to avoid further misunderstandings.

S. Berman

----------------------------------------

FEDERMAN READING AT BERNARDO HEIGHTS COUNTRY CLUB

2007-02-10T23:05:00.000-08:00

I've been asked to give a reading from my work at the Bernardo Heights Country Club - of which I am a member in good standing -- up to now -- this reading will take place at the end of a gourmet dinner in front of some 100 members -- all of them fanatic golfers -- so this is what I'm going to read -- let me know if you approve -- I'm sending this message to all my friends -- their opinion counts for me --

here is the piece I selected from my oeuvre

[by the way I am not being payed for this reading - -I am doing it at the requests of the membership of BHCC]

Yesterday I bought a new tape recorder – and today I recorded a story on my new recorder – yes when I am alone I often talk to myself aloud – this is the story I recorded – I call it –

THE CARCASSES

I am sitting in my study -- that's how the story I recorded begins -- I am sitting in my study in San Diego California -- close to the sun -- where I moved seven years ago to be with myself and finish my work -- I am sitting in my study looking out of the window at the splendid view before me -- incredible -- the valley the mountains -- the trees -- the sky -- the birds in the sky --beautiful --

I had a good day -- I feel great -- a good round of golf this morning -- shot an 81 -- yes 81 -- remember this is fiction – 38 on the front - I hit seven greens on regulation -- had two birdies -- back nine a 43 -- two lousy double bogies -- dumb mistakes – the mind wanders sometime -- but a solid 81 -- then home to work on my new novel – My Body in Nine Parts with 3 supplements -- today I am working on my scars -- and I look up and there before me the incredible view --

and I think -- when you die all this get extinguished -- nothing more to see -- it's like plunging into a big black hole -- everything becomes dark --

but then it occurs to me that to say that -- to think that -- implies the possibility of an after -- of some kind of existence after you die -- could I have been wrong all my life -- no -- I'm not going to fall into that meta-pata-physical stuff -- no magic trick -- not divine power or intervention -- I am human -- I am conscious of being human and alive --

but let’s say now you are dead -- so here you are among all the dead carcasses -- yes that's what this story is called -- the carcasses -- here they are -- the old ones that have been around for a long time -- the new ones that just arrived -- all piled up on top of one another waiting for their turn to be transmuted -- transmutation does not happen all at once -- does not happen instantly the moment you become a carcass --

carcasses are not reincarnated the moment they become carcasses -- there is a waiting period -- a kind of incubation -- so here you are waiting your turn -- no magic trick as I said -- just that you have to wait for the authorities to decide -- yes let's call them that -- the authorities -- nobody knows who they are -- but they are the ones who decide when it's your turn to be transmuted --

they call you -- hey you over there comme over here -- and they tell you we’re sending you back -- back to wherever you came from -- doesn't have to be the planet Earth -- carcasses come from all sorts of places in the entire universe --

the place where the carcasses are piled up is a separate zone in the great void of the universe -- nobody knows where it is -- but it's like a huge department store -- a bit like Wall-mart -- and there carcasses of all sizes all types all shapes all forms all colors -- most of them formless -- wait for the authorities to call them to be transmuted -- one cannot argue with the authorities -- you have to accept their decision --

and so your turn comes and you are told that you are going back as an insect -- yes -- as a fly -- imagine yourself now living the life of fly -- ok it's a short life -- but still -- what is your main purpose in life - your raison d'être -- to buzz around -- to bug the shit out of the other species -- buzz around the eyes of cows who try to smack you with their tails -- or buzz around humans -- shit on windows panes or T.V. screens -- but one day you land on the arm or the top of the head of a human and – bang -- he slaps you with his hand -- and crushes you -- splashes you -- and you're dead – what kind of a life is that --

so here you are again among the carcasses -- oh you're already back the other carcasses say to you -- I mean those who are still there waiting their turn --

and again you wait to be send back -- well this time your turn comes quick -- no reason given -- you come back as a flower -- a lovely red rose in the suburban backyard of some nouveau rich on the coast of California -- and you're proud because you know you're beautiful and you smell good --

the ladies who come to play bridge look at you and say -- oh what a beautiful rose -- but then one day the lady of the house tells the maid to go get flowers in the garden to put on the dinning room table -- so here comes the maid with her clippers or whatever she uses to cut you off -- then she sticks you in a vase with some water -- and soon the water starts smelling foul and it's unbearable -- and you begin to whiter and the lady of the house says to the maid -- get rid of that dead flower -- and the maid throws you in the garbage can -- and empty the smelly water in the sink -- and here you are back among the carcasses -- what kind of life was that --

now you wait again -- this time a very long time -- maybe a couple of centuries -- even more --

time does not exist in the carcass zone --- so you really don’t know how long you waited – but finally the authorities call you and tell you that you are needed among the lions of Africa -- there is a shortage of virile male lions on the planet earth -- and so they are sending you back to be a lion in Africa -- so here you are in Kenya with three sexy lionesses and a bunch of little cubs -- and it's a good life --

every fifteen minutes -- this has been carefully observed by lion observers -- one of the lionesses comes over and licks you for a little humping -- so you rise from your dreamy slumber -- hump the lioness -- and then go back to the shadow of the trees where you were dreaming of another life -- it’s a good life --- plenty to eat -- the lionesses see to that -- lots of gazelle meat -- and it's fun to play with the little cubs -- but one day a bunch of humans of different colors come along -- the black ones are half naked and danse around -- the white ones wear funny colonial hats and have rifles --- but they are not here to make a carcass out f you -- they want to capture you -- and they do with a big net -- then they stick you in a box and ship you to what they call the civilized world --

lucky for you -- they don't put you in the Buffalo zoo where you would have spend the rest of your temporary earthly life in a cage wallowing in your own shit -- and with no sexy lionesses to hump because now -- for lack of exercise in the wilderness -- you're incapable of getting it up –

yes – lucky for you -- they put you in the San Diego zoo -- and build for you what they call a natural environment -- of course it’s fake -- this is California -- there is nothing natural about this environment they build for you -- it’s pure Hollywood decor – you know that -- you know it's fake -- but you pretend it's really nice just to make the humans feel good and happy so that they don't send you to the Buffalo zoo --

but you're bored in this phoney Walt Disney environment -- most of the time you sleep -- or pretend to be asleep -- especially when they bring the kids to look at you in fear -- they would like you to look mean and act ferocious -- so a human pokes you in the ass with a long stick so you can roar -- what kind of a life is that --

okay they bring you these big chunks of meat -- beef -- but one day they give you a piece of meat that comes from a sick cow and you die -- you die of the mad cow disease -- and you're back among the carcasses --

well I won’t go into all the possible animal or human or vegetable form or whatever you could come back --

imagine yourself as radish -- what kind of a life that would be -- or an artichoke --
okay a tree -- a big majestic tree -- that would be okay for a while -- but then all the other trees around become jealous because you're taller -- or because your trunk is bigger then theirs -- or your leaves more greener --

then one day some humans come with a big saw and cut you down to pieces and burn you -- what kind of a life is that --

and here you are back again among the carcasses -- and while waiting for your turn to come again you think --

I know that dead carcasses are not supposed to be able to think -- but for the convenience of this story let's just say that they are capable of cogitation – so you cogitate --

why can I have a voice in the decision of what I will become next -- why can't I make up my own ...

... I was going to say mind -- but carcasses have no mind –

so let's just say why can I have a little something to say about my next transmutation --

and since you were -- once upon a time -- a writer in one of your previous transmutations -- you compose a very stylish message addressed to the authorities asking if maybe it isn't time for the carcasses to have a say in the process of their transmutation --

this stirs up thing in the carcass zone -- there are discussions -- debates -- arguments – polls – votes – and all sorts of things like that --

but finally the authorities give up and agree --

so now – when the time comes for a carcass to be transmuted -- the carcass in question must appear in front of the authorities to discuss what they would like to become --

it's a very complex and lengthy process but eventually you a joint decision is made -- and you become what you really wanted to become --

for instance me -- I often said that if I were to come back I would want to come back as a roman gladiator so that I could lead a revolt against the roman emperor -- like Spartacus – or come back as a musketeer -- like Dartagnan – or as a French lover -- like le Marquis de Sade –

or – or -- or – as -- as -- as ... it's not easy to decide yourself what you want to come back as --

this is why I think the best thing to do here -- I mean here in this story -- is to let the readers decide themselves what they would like to come back as --

and if this story if ever published --

let's say in the New Yorker --

then I would insist that the last page of the story be a blank page where the readers can write what they want to be in their next life --

of course someday -- the way science is making progress -- carcasses might be able to come back as objects --

imagine coming back as stove or an electric razor -- or a toilet seat – what kind of a life would that be –

or better yet -- come back as a golf club -- that would be an interesting life -- a brand new Taylor Made titanium 607 driver with a graphite shaft -- not a bad life --

well at least until the golfer decide that you're driving him crazy with the way you slice the ball and decides to buy a new carcass reincarnated as a King Cobra 560 driver with an anti-slice shaft -- and throws you – the Taylor Made -- into the garbage -- imagine what kind of a life that would be --

by the time I finished recording this story it was dark outside my window – and the splendid view had vanished into the night –

Raymond Federman

"People of the Book: American Jewish Literature After Mimesis" by Phillip Ernstmeyer

2007-02-05T09:15:00.000-08:00

LINK

Excerpt from article:

Verisimilitude and its association with mimesis has largely determined the structure of the novel since its origin in 18th Century. Narrative must incorporate certain elements in order to achieve a convincing portrayal of reality. It must have plot: an organized beginning, middle, and end, moving from cause to effect in their natural order, and finally leaving no details unexplained. It must have a setting: a time and locality sustained throughout the narrative; if altered, the alteration must be accounted for within the narrative and its plot. And it must have character(s): agents who act within and compel/are compelled by events in the story; likewise, they must possess unity, a definite identity containing neither contradiction nor insufficient motivation. Very few novels undermine these standards. The American Jewish novelists mentioned earlier — Bellow, Malamud, Roth, and Singer — obey such laws to the letter. Alternatively, Acker, Federman, Katz, and Sukenick are outlaws, renegades of the desert, desperados.

In many ways, the separate literary enterprises which Acker, Federman, Katz, and Sukenick have accomplished can be generally considered “nonmimetic novels.” Sukenick has proposed “a generative theory of fiction” (“Twelve Digressions” 434): a fiction that is written as writing being written. Federman has called novels which practice such a theory “surfiction” (“Surfiction” 7). The “fiction” of the surfictional text would be an excess of fictionality, or over fiction, as if beyond mimetic narrative, separating itself from “reality” while becoming continuous with it. “Rather than serving as a mirror or a redoubling on itself, fiction adds itself to the world, creating a meaningful reality that did not previously exist” (“Imagination” 569). Adding itself to reality, fictionalizing ex nihilo<>, “surfiction” cannot mimic; nothing outside it exists to duplicate. “As such, fiction can no longer be reality, or a representation of reality, or an imitation, or even a recreation of reality; it can only be A REALITY — an autonomous reality whose only relation to the real world is to improve that world” (“Surfiction” 8).

Apocalypse Now

2007-01-24T00:16:00.000-08:00

hey
you guys
over there
you humans
wait till god really comes back
things will really get worse

if you humans
were smart
you would leap over
the second coming
directly into
the
apocalypse

WE NEED YOU TO READ FEDERMAN'S TEXT

2007-01-16T10:29:00.000-08:00

Recommandé par des Influenceurs.

film réalisé à partir de l'eau nouilles Raymond Federman vidéo dogme

2007-01-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xx893_eaudenouille

la dynamique des Nouilles/ Noodles in movement by Raymond Federman [designed by stéphane rouzé]

2007-01-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

Des nouilles ensuite
y faut bien! les
nouilles
macaronisspaghettispennescoquillescoudestorsadesdescanellonismanicottisfriséessprirales
La variété ça donne du piment à la
vie Même si après un
certain
temps ça se répète Un type doit varier s'il veut
survivre
Doit inventer le laisser arriver
lui-même laisser le putain de
truc se former lui-même Créer de
nouvelles formes de
Nouvelles nouilles Improviser tout ce
qui est possible
Improviser sur une bouffée de fumée
Vite Et ne pas s'arrêter

NEW! RETURN TO MANURE . . .

2006-12-28T22:45:00.000-08:00

Return to Manure on Amazon.com

Return to Manure on Overstock.com

Return to Manure on fc2.org

Return to Manure on The University of Alabama Press website

A review of Return to Manure on The Compulsive Reader

FEDERMAN'S PHOTOS / THE FARM

2006-12-28T20:11:00.000-08:00

BLOGMASTER'S NOTE: Click pictures to enlarge.

The Cherry Tree / The Barn

2006-12-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

The Door to The Barn / The Farm

2006-12-28T20:09:00.000-08:00

Door to The Barn and Manure / The Plow

2006-12-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

The Donkey / The Plow

2006-12-28T20:07:00.000-08:00

Erica and the Farm House / MONFLANQUIN (Lot et Garonne)

2006-12-28T20:04:00.000-08:00

The Cows in the Meadow / The Castle

2006-12-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

The Farm Kitchen / The Wine Shed

2006-12-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

The Church / MONFLANQUIN (Lot et Garonne)

2006-12-28T20:00:00.000-08:00

Return to Manure / Inscribed to The Blogman

2006-12-28T19:58:00.000-08:00

the provenances of federmania

2006-12-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

BLOGMASTER'S NOTE: Raymond Federman and Mike Daily (Federman's Blogmaster) at Beyond Baroque in Venice, Calif., February 2004, for the 30th Anniversary of Fiction Collective publishing. Photo (Polaroid) by a member of Ray's family.

Today, Tuesday, December 26, 2006, at 8:20 AM, Ray emailed me something for the blog--30 ANAGRAMS FOR RAYMOND FEDERMAN--adding that he forgot who sent him that [in 2005]...

fed, I wrote back, I compiled those! you madman playgiarizer!
__________________________________
30 ANAGRAMS FOR 'RAYMOND FEDERMAN'
IN THE FORM OF A COUNTDOWN
by MIKE DAILY
__________________________________

30. RON FED MADMAN RYE

29. MADE DAMN RENO FRY

28. DENNY FROM A DREAM

27. A FANNED DR MEMORY

26. RED MEN FRY A NOMAD

25. FRY ON EDEN MR ADAM

24. MY NON DADA MR REEF

23. MY NON REEF MR DADA

22. DENY A DAMN REFORM

21. MY FREE MR NON DADA

20. ADORN MY MADE FERN

19. MY ANDROMEDA FERN

18. MR NON DAYMARE FED

17. RANDY FED MEN ROAM

16. A YARN MENDED FORM

15. A YARN FORMED MEND

14. DEFORMED YARN MAN

13. A MANY FORMED NERD

12. MEN END A FORD ARMY

11. FOR A DAMN DR ENEMY

10. MADAM END ON FERRY

09. MADE DON FAN MERRY

08. A MANNED MOD FERRY

07. MERMEN FOR A DANDY

06. A DAMN DEMON FERRY

05. MEN REFORM A DANDY

04. ORNERY FED MADMAN

03. DENY RON MADE FARM

02. MY MANNERED DR OAF

01. END FARMYARD OMEN

00. RAYMOND FEDERMAN

--M D

End Notes:

RON = Ronald Sukenick

DON = Double or Nothing

FARM = The farm
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BLOGMASTER'S NOTE (CONTINUED): I just finished reading Return to Manure, I wrote to Federman this morning. What a very fine read--totally epic--so many funny bits amidst the travails--laugh-out-loud funny bits--really well put together. Seamless in fact for a craft of such frequent digressions. Thank you for the signed copy.

Now please remember the provences of federmania.
__________________________________

From : Raymond Federman
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 10:44 AM
To : Mike Daily
Subject : Re: 30 anagrams

oh you were the guy who did the anagrams

I must be cultivating senilities

yes put it up on the blog with the proper credit

thanks for the good words about Manure

it was not an easy book to write

more soon

happy new year
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BLOGMASTER'S NOTE (CONTINUED): Return to Manure is a major work, I responded. A major Federmanic work. Novel. I like the Table of Contents at the end. You have matured. You should be very proud of the work. Thanks again for sending it. People need to know this is one of your best books.

Do you have any of those pictures described in the book? You should scan some and send to me. I'll post them on your blog. If you scan them, scan at 100 dpi. That's plenty for the web. Go to Resolution when you scan and select 100. It will probably want to scan at 300 dpi (dots per inch) but you want 100 dpi.

And being a wealthy man of the world you must have a digital camera.

Send me some new pics of The Pen Man.
__________________________________

From : Raymond Federman
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 11:23 AM
To : Mike Daily
Subject : Re: 30 anagrams

yes you are right mike

return to manure is an important part of the great book that federman has been writing for more than 40 years

and yet Manure came out in September and so far only one little review in Publishers Weekly [did you see it]

From Publishers Weekly:
Wry, cantankerous and darkly hilarious aren't the adjectives one expects to use in describing the story of a young boy orphaned by the Holocaust, but veteran experimental writer Federman (Aunt Rachel's Fur), who lost his own family to the Nazis, eschews overt horror and sadness in favor of a lively exploration of the way memory both stimulates and frustrates the storytelling urge. The novel recounts the attempts of the narrator--whose name, biography and bibliography are nearly identical to Federman's--to locate the French farm where he hid from authorities during World War II. It becomes clear early on that the reader is being led on a "double journey...a journey in search of the farm...And the journey in search of the book." As in the best experimental fiction, form and content compliment one another, and the narrator's fragmented memories unfold in a series of engaging anecdotes involving a misanthropic old farmer, a lonely farm wife, a soon-to-be castrated bull and a mysterious woman in a nearby castle. As the title suggests, there are plenty of mordant musings, à la Beckett, on the nature of life, death and excrement. There's also plenty of pathos: the narrator's memories of his father, "the dreamer, l'artiste manqué, the tubercular romantic," are both merciless and deeply moving. A self-conscious and soulful novel, Federman's latest will be relished by his fans and new readers alike.

tell all your friends to review Manure

I don't have a scanner so I cannot scan photos -

maybe what I could do is send you a couple of the photos we took when Erica and I went to see the farm

I'll make copies at kinko and send them to you

how does that sound
__________________________________

BLOGMASTER'S NOTE (CONTINUED): GREAT.
__________________________________

From : Raymond Federman
Sent : Tuesday, December 26, 2006 11:36 AM
To : Mike Daily
Subject : Re: 30 anagrams

maybe I should just send you the photos and you scan them and send them back to me
__________________________________

BLOGMASTER'S NOTE (CONTINUED): GREAT.

Eureka! I just found something while fishing around in my archives. Eureka.

Have a look at this incredible retold story (circa 2005) by my man Moscovich:

__________________________________
HOWLOOSEANATION OF THE HAND
by DAVID MOSCOVICH
__________________________________

It took my retelling this story to several people before it clicked in my mind - still the words do not describe what had been prescribed.

How do I begin?

I was sitting in my reading chair. I had the corner lit with candles, and I was preparing myself for the short-acting ten minute psychedelic experience. Let's just say this drug is called howlooseanation. I loaded the pipe. Focus. I burned. I took it in. I set the pipe on the window sill. I was staring at the candles, when they shattered into a billion puzzle pieces, and I disappeared. The next thing that happened was this giant HAND. The HAND was composed of thousands of people, but at the same time I was the HAND as a whole. The HAND had five fingers, just like most HANDS. The people inside the HAND were trying to get out. Some entity had just left us here like this. As one large HAND. The entity left it to us to figure out who's who. Nobody knows. We're having a hard time separating out the individuals. Everyone is vibrating, feet are moving, people are slowly evacuating, scattering away from the hand. If only I knew which finger I was hiding inside. Then I could at least narrow it down a bit. What finger am I? Let's try to wiggle the finger. As I try to move it, more and more individuals break away. So many people are breaking away, away from what? The crash site. This was an accident. Interplanetary. Suddenly a HAND is born and here we are. Evacuating the HAND. As I focus on the finger, it seems to be slipping away from me. I can't focus. Which finger is it? More and more people slip away, claiming their individuality. Claiming themselves. When I come to, I grab the book on the window sill. The Two Fold Vibration, by Raymond Federman. Someone says, Oh, so that's whose book it is. Federman, eh? And the pipe, too. That's yours as well? I look over to the window sill. On impulse, I run into the CLOSET directly in front of me, open a dresser drawer and shove the pipe inside, closing the drawer and breathless I lean up against the CLOSET and open the book. I begin reading aloud, hoping that my voice will bring me back, this very passage:

wrinkled old body undying sitting in the final closet, the waiting room, the transitory space of his potential future among the stars, and like many others, men, women, children of all races, also waiting each in their own antechamber of departure, thousands of them, the new year's eve 1999 contingent, already dressed in the traditional white tunic of those marked for the colonies...

When I told a friend [Daily] about it, he mentioned a play by Raymond Federman about a HAND which plays out all the main roles. And also the significance of the CLOSET - Federman actually wrote a short story titled "The Voice in the Closet". He was hidden in the closet as a child during the nazi Holocaust escaping persecution. This explains my fear and the sense of hiding the pipe, the need to get away.

Society for Claims of the Paranormal, anyone?

--DM
__________________________________

FINDING FEDERMAN ON THE WEB

www.federman.com
www.raymondfederman.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/raymondfederman

__________________________________

MÉMOIRE EN MIETTES

2006-12-23T20:57:00.000-08:00

je trouve parmi les débris de ma vie déchirée par le temps un morceau de pensée qui pousse sur le crâne creux de ma géologie intime où ma végétation humide attend gentiment le vent de la vieillesse en se tordant les mains et tout à coup le rire se lève il faut tenter de respirer même s'il est impossible de voir l'insecte qui me gratte déjà la fesse gauche tandis que sous ce toit tranquille où cavale les cafards des souvenirs obscurs qui broutent des fourmis rangées en spirale dirigeant leurs cercles alchimiques vers des serpents tordus qui se dévorent eux-mêmes en se creusant la tête triangulaire ah la chair est vicieuse hélas et j'ai lu tous les bouquins pornos mais je m'en fous je partirai un doigt dans la bouche oh lala que d'amours fous dans des nuits sans nuit je rêverai la bite dans la main en écoutant celui qui pleure ici si près de moi oh sois sage oh ma douceur et chatouille le divin ennui de notre recueillement sans rage ni désespoir de ne pouvoir savoir dans le noir revoir les bons soirs remplis de nos illusions perdus dans les goémons verts où une étincelle y pense à nos amants et pourtant je ne regrette pas les murs écroulés de mon passé ah quelle boue dans le gouffre de mon cou coupé dans le grand trou d'outre-tombe où j'attendrai en vain de devenir un très méchant fou suspendu à mon sperme me regardant me voir dans les îles chaudes du coeur croustillé d'or las de l'amer repos ...

note: I put this piece on the blog as a challenge to visitors to give the name of the poets [all of them French] whose poetry was playgiarized by federman and of course reconstituted according to a secret federman principle