an excerpt from The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 (but published in 1970)

pg. 24

The 23

Ah, it feels so good to sit here in the darkness of these books. I’m not tired. This has been an average evening for books being brought in: with 23 finding their welcomed ways onto our shelves.

I wrote their titles and authors and a little about the receiving of each book down in the Library Contents Ledger. I think the first book came in around 6:30.

MY TRIKE by Chuck. The author was five years old and had a face that looked as if it had been struck by a tornado of freckles. There was no title on the book and no words inside, just pictures.

“What’s the name of your book?” I said.

The little boy opened the book and showed me the drawing of a tricycle. It looked more like a giraffe standing upside down in an elevator.

“That’s my trike,” he said.

“Beautiful,” I said. “And what’s your name?”

“That’s my trike.”

“Yes,” I said. “Very nice, but what’s your name?”

“Chuck.”

He reached the book up onto the desk and then headed for the door, saying, “I have to go now. My mother’s outside with my sister.”

I was going to tell him that he could put the book on any shelf he wanted to, but then he was gone in his small way.

if i should die before you do

When
you wake up
from death,
you will find yourself
in my arms,
and
I will be
kissing you,
and
I
will be crying.

– richard brautigan

a great reading of ‘complicated banking problem’

Torpedo is a 4x a year literary journal / magazine / printed object / whatever we call them these days.

The most recent edition is dedicated to Richard Brautigan. His daughter, Ianthe, wrote the intro and was involved in selecting contributor pieces. The magazine contains works of Richard’s (stories from Revenge of the Lawn, excepts from In Watermelon Sugar, Trout Fishing in America, A Confederate General from Big Sur and others)

The Book Show is a radio program from Radio National / Australian Broadcasting Corp and last week’s (April 20 2009) show featured Torpedo in ‘Fishing for Richard Brautigan’.

The show features a brief interview with Ianthe Brautigan. The majority of the program is talking to the the founder/editor of Torpedo and contributors of the latest issue of torpedo

probably the most interesting thing (IMO) is ianthe’s quote regarding not feeling like she needs to protect her dad anymore.

she also briefly talks about teaching ‘trout fishing in america’ to one of her classes. how cool would it be to be in one of those classes!

there’s a lovely interview with ianthe brautigan about writing, being an author and her dad’s writing- here

Gretchen at the happiness project has posted ‘i was trying to describe you to someone‘. she talks about using the poem at her wedding. and then a convo re: copyright occurs in the comments

it’s always nice to see something about brautigan in press. on the supposed anniversary of richard taking his own life, ben myers of the guardian uk books blog writes what could be called an intro to brautigan .

rob has written a fantastic review of john barber’s new book: Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writings And Life.

amazon has it in stock if you’re looking for an xmas present…

make sure you check out some of richard’s halloween poems.

happy halloween!!!!

jack from ny recently emailed me about Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate by steven bach. bach was the head of production at United Artists from 1978-1981 and was the executive in charge of the movie.

jack said the book mentions there was an attempt in the late 1970s to make ‘the hawkline monster’ into a movie starring clint eastwood AND jack nicholson. how amazingly cool would that have been!?!