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

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unpublished Beckett in FULCRUM 6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FULCRUM #6 (730 pages) features previously unpublished and uncollected writing by Samuel Beckett, Robert Frost and Octavio Paz; original scholarship on "Samuel Beckett as Poet" by Christopher Ricks, Eliot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Poet" feature, edited by Philip Nikolayev, presents Beckett's neglected masterpiece "Ceiling" and other uncollected and unpublished poems, essays by Christopher Ricks, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Marjorie Perloff, Eliot Weinberger, Simon Critchley, Anne Atik, S.E. Gontarski and others, life drawings of Beckett by Avigdor Arikha, and a previously unpublished conversation between Octavio Paz and Eliot Weinberger on Beckett. A number of the essays quote Beckett's unpublished correspondence and manuscripts.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