I CAN'T SLEEP / Kio Stark

This is not a vitamin

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:14:00 -0400

At the turn of the year, my friend Austin Kleon posted about his annual logbook project, a record of events in a page-a-day calendar, from significant to mundane, equally weighted. I find it hard to resist projects that involve fancy notebooks and aids to memory, so I tried it.

I write fiction, and I don’t know if that excuses me. I am the mother of a small child and I don’t know if that excuses me. Every day the things I wrote were interior. What happened in my head as if it was an event. Because there were few other events, and even those were repetitive. Wrote. Took daughter to park. Daughter’s new words. Napped. Strange dreams. Couldn’t sleep. And then. And then. The things that went on in my head ran up against the limits of a single page. I’m not a journal keeper, and all this interiority embarrassed me. In those same cold months, I had finished writing a book of nonfiction, a very practical book, and I wanted, with my few spare moments, to begin a new novel. A few spare moments don’t really lend themselves to new novels. But one day there was a single sentence that I worked over in my head as I went through the cyclic events of my day. So I turned the embarrassing notebook sideways and wrote it down. With that I changed the purpose of the pages. I started writing a single sentence a day. The first one was this.

Only the person who slides between two lives can say “it was always you” and have it mean anything at all.

This started...

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:05:12 -0500

This started in a very different place than it ended up.

I moved in the hot summer and there are still a few boxes at the margins of the house. A few days ago I found the one with all the film cameras. Dianas, Holgas, my first 35, a canon, my boyfriend’s Nikon, lenses and flashes, an angled mirror spy attachment I bought when I first saw Sophie Calle’s book Please Follow Me. I was 19. In the way that we sometimes repress our influences so that we can work freely, it was only today that I noticed the resonance of my own novel’s title, Follow Me Down, with hers, my story with her book’s story, how long I have been obsessed with strangers and followings. That all has something to do with what happened.

[The rest of the story at…Municipal Archive]

Wow, Don’t Go Back to School is in the Washington Post (in great company, I might add)!...

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:23:46 -0500

Wow, Don’t Go Back to School is in the Washington Post (in great company, I might add)! http://t.co/3yMduSJg h/t @dansinker

MT @kbarbarossa: watch @doctorow on the coming war on general computation. its important....

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:36:18 -0500

MT @kbarbarossa: watch @doctorow on the coming war on general computation. its important. http://t.co/Gpkkk6Eq [me: great talk+ Q&A]

Consensus overwhelming: ignore the trolls. Runner up, sweet dismissal. Promises from my sleeper-cell...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:16:49 -0500

Consensus overwhelming: ignore the trolls. Runner up, sweet dismissal. Promises from my sleeper-cell army to defend me = cherished.

Really liking http://t.co/AXrNvfSc today! http://t.co/I74poQrG

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:34:07 -0500

Really liking http://t.co/AXrNvfSc today! http://t.co/I74poQrG

Don’t Go Back to School is @galleycat’s featured project of the week!...

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:07:49 -0500

Don’t Go Back to School is @galleycat’s featured project of the week! http://t.co/8gbjARdf

I think the last time this many people marched across the B Bridge was 2003 blackout when everyone...

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:33:51 -0500

I think the last time this many people marched across the B Bridge was 2003 blackout when everyone had to walk home.

n+1’s Occupy Gazette #2 is out bit.ly/tkTZNF including Rebecca Solnit, whose writing always...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:13:48 -0500

n+1’s Occupy Gazette #2 is out bit.ly/tkTZNF including Rebecca Solnit, whose writing always makes me swoon

In Cambridge? Go hear @jeffsharlet at @PorterSqBooks at 7pm.

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:45:45 -0500

In Cambridge? Go hear @jeffsharlet at @PorterSqBooks at 7pm.

Astra Taylor’s account of the eviction http://t.co/bFP8welK

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:47:37 -0500

Astra Taylor’s account of the eviction http://t.co/bFP8welK

Amazing—Don’t Go Back to School is 50% funded in 5 days. Still a long way to go, but...

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:25:47 -0500

Amazing—Don’t Go Back to School is 50% funded in 5 days. Still a long way to go, but wow, thank you everyone! http://t.co/MOzxdrjt

Anyone out there have a copy of the Chronicle of Higher Ed this week? If so, save it for me? Thanks.

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:38:00 -0500

Anyone out there have a copy of the Chronicle of Higher Ed this week? If so, save it for me? Thanks.

So far it’s an even split between people who want digital vs. print copies of Don’t Go...

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:11:15 -0500

So far it’s an even split between people who want digital vs. print copies of Don’t Go Back to School. http://t.co/MOzxdrjt

thanks @picklesnumber1 @stfn42 and @josholalia !

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:04:56 -0500

thanks @picklesnumber1 @stfn42 and @josholalia !

Lovely post from @jomc about participating in my stranger interactionworkshop at @bmwgugglab last...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:22:10 -0500

Lovely post from @jomc about participating in my stranger interactionworkshop at @bmwgugglab last month. http://t.co/ARm569Uq

Can anyone explain to me what Auerbach means by ‘externalization’ as a literary device?...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:26:57 -0400

Can anyone explain to me what Auerbach means by ‘externalization’ as a literary device? #ifeelstupid

RT @red_lemonade: Red Lemonade Reading: @kiostark, Terese Svoboda and Dave Sterner at Southside...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:07:32 -0400

RT @red_lemonade: Red Lemonade Reading: @kiostark, Terese Svoboda and Dave Sterner at Southside Coffee 652 6th Ave BKLYN 7pm tonight!

snowing!

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:08:24 -0400

snowing!

“It cannot be overstated that the youth raised on video games were also raised on fear &...

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:36:55 -0400

“It cannot be overstated that the youth raised on video games were also raised on fear & the specter of terror from all directions. ” c prev