Do you need a Hug?
How about a good old fashioned smothering?
You do? That’s great, ‘cuz we’re giving ‘em away,
400 pages worth of Hugs! For free!
Here’s what it is:
(Warning: this book may or may not be full of tiny plastic bears, so open at your own risk)
Here’s where you can get it: HarperCollins.com
Here's what the jacket (not a members only) has to say about it:
"Selected from the range of Cooper's essays and reportage in Artforum, Bookforum, Detour, Interview, LA Weekly, Spin, and the Village Voice, among other publications, Smothered in Hugs presents the best nonfiction of one of America's greatest writers. Cooper has written on grave social issues, producing touchstone pieces for a generation of readers. His obituaries for Kurt Cobain, River Phoenix, and William S. Burroughs offer portraits that are both crystallizing and appropriately indefinite. His reckonings of contemporary writers are astute and unsparing. And, of course, he serves as witness to the work and play of an illustrious roster of cultural personalities—and does so with an acuity and fairness missing from most pop culture criticism."
And here’s Mr. Cooper’s The Snow Globe for the uninitiated, or the memory-challenged, which you can see read taste smell hear in NOӦ 11:
____________
A SHAKY FLASHLIGHT BEAM illuminates a stiff. Is that the boy you hit? It’s prone beneath the snow wearing your overcoat and dirty, scotch-taped glasses. Yes, sir
He had a deep depression, the worst one in our short lives’ storied history. It reduced him to a speck. The storm helped. That snowball hid a rock.
You froze to death ten feet from here under white out conditions. It took years, this glass of scotch, and a cheap crystal ball to find the body.
He hobbled through a blur and hurled his snowball at my head. That missed. Later, he’s lit by a jittering beam. Once this ugly little globe was the whole earth.
___________________
Here’s what you need to do:
Post a comment by: November 15th,
on the topic of:
Craziest dreams you've had involving literary figures
That’s it! You can even make something up! Now, get busy dreaming!
8 comments:
I once had a dream Lil Wayne was on the ground near a urinal where I was trying to piss. Then he gave my ex-girlfriend and I a ride in his used Porsche that smelled like cigarettes.
I had a dream that Flannery O'Connor wasn't sucking my dick. I wanted her to and I thought her refusal meant she didn't love me, but she really didn't even notice me. I was really convinced that the only way to know if she loved me too was to suck my dick, and I just sat sulking in the corner while her and her friends played games like who could talk the best with a knife between their teeth. I remember waking up and calling myself "such a pussy."
I was picnicking with Vladimir Nabokov and Michael Phelps in a wooded clearing.
Michael Phelps was devouring his usual 10,000 calorie breakfast – the whole buffet – eggs, bacon, pancakes, French Toast, a few roast chickens, a couple of liters of Coke.
Nabokov said, "No, no, Michael Phelps. That's no way to start the day.”
He brought out a basket of delicately fried iridescent blue butterfly wings from under the wooden table where we three sat. He began eating them one by one in dainty little nibbles, with great relish.
"See," he said, as he continued crunching. "Like this."
Though I was sitting between them, I said nothing.
I never had a dream with a literary figure or author until I read this post yesterday and then slept last night. In my dream last night, I was doing a trapeze act with Hemingway. I was none too happy to be there. I'm scared of heights. And I dislike Hemingway. Both of these carried into the dreamspace. And so there I was, swinging in the air with Hemingway. Jumping into his arms and grabbing his feet. The whole time, I was nearly shitting in my pants. And so after every jump I made, when Hemingway was holding me, he would throw some verbiage at me. Called me a pansy. Told me I was wasting his time with shit jumps like that. Challenged me to do some somersaults or at least something interesting. The rest of the dream is kind of a blur. I do remember he was sort of frothing at the mouth when he yelled at me. He may or may not have been wearing a dress (that could be another dream leaking into this one). The important thing was though that Hemingway's mustache was trimmed much like my own. When I noticed this, Hemingway started laughing really, really loud. I don't remember saying anything in the dream.
...last week i had this dream, such didn't feature any literary character though. there i was in a student center in campus, trying to prepare a presantation on a novel by possibly Naipul and probably 'Guerillas'. It may have been Conrad's 'Nostromo' either. I am not sure. The only thing I am sure about the dream was that Tao and I were trying to put down this presantation on Microsoft Powerpoint successively cursing on the whole Microsoft stuff that froze and reboot the computer each time we were about to finish the fucking presentation. Then we headed for my temporary flat on the Asian side of Istanbul, soaking in from eyes to the anus, we were cursing a guy who was then selling stinky intestine burgers in the corner, and Istanbul as well for she doesn't host one single vegan bar whatsoever. We had to walk to miles to get a couple of carrot juice. whatever. in the morning both me & tao couldn't get up on time as well as the fact that i missed the first ferry that'd take me to the class just in time. bleaky as it would be.
Sometime this year, or may be last year had a dream about driving to Hawaii with Blake Butler. I was annoying him. He wanted the windows open. He wanted to go to Hawaii alone. We stopped at a filling station and he almost drove away without me when I went to use the toilet.
It's nighttime in my dream, but I can't sleep, so I walk into my complex's shared kitchen, intending to make some cookies. Only Sylvia Plath is already using the oven, her top half shoved all the way into it, so all I can see are her legs and ass. I cough politely and ask how long she thinks she's going to take. She tells me not long. So I get busy making the cookie dough (chocolate chip I think though I can't really remember now) and get 'em on the tray. I ask again, she tells me she just needs five more minutes.
Eventually we get to talking, I'm leaning against the counter or some shit (all I remember is looking down at her and seeing her ass move as she talks) and it's pretty banal at first. At some point it finally hits me Plath is trying to kill herself, and I get upset and beg her to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE OVEN. She refuses, I start crying and try to to pull her out of there. She splits open like a pinata, perfectly round dough balls bursting out, and disappears. I finish up baking, including the Plath cookies (which I clearly remember were ginger snaps) and then sit down at the table and proceed to eat EVERY SINGLE ONE. When one of her kids comes in I pour him a glass of milk and we sit in silence for awhile, then he reaches across the table and slaps me.
Man, it just sounds weird now that I'm writing it, but it was seriously depressing at the time. I couldn't eat cookies for awhile after that.
Sara wins.
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