Phenomenology of the Lonely Girl

Chris Kraus' name for what she does in her remarkable ecstatic fictocrits, these works of philosophy meets gossip meets essay meets art criticism. I received I Love Dick in the post today, they sent it to me at Semiotext(e), and laid down in bed to read it, became too anxious, too nervous, too jealous or something, it was all so good, good, good. This is how I get when I read something that is so overwhelming to me, I get squirmy, it's probably why I can't really ever climax, it's too much, I get impatient. Can't believe it took me so long to read this. The letters, the wicked humor, the raw confessionalism, the privileging the experience of the abject girl-woman as appropriate experience/subject material for literature....It's so fucking good. I want to be like Vanessa Place's Factory Project and just put my name on it. I will never write like this. I will never write this wickedly funny and brilliantly subversive and playing with forms.

Repat Blues just wrote a post as well about I Love Dick, the desire to plagiarize! Very weird paralleling, even though I knew she was about to read it, but still.

I received a rejection today from Rebecca W. at Fence for Green Girl. It's one of the last places reading, one more left. She wrote: "The marriage of popular girl-longing with high-art name-drops feels, as far as I have read, not as worked out as I would like it to be. I almost think that you should consider choosing which era of cultural reference you want to stick in (I mean for the pop stuff) to help make some of the thrust of it more strong? Not sure if that makes sense to you, but I was finding it hard to keep imagining her in the context of Hollywood glamour, New Wave, and current celebrity crap, and it felt more like a lack of distinctions than a joyous abundance, if you see what I mean." She also had issues with my framing device.

So I feel...I don't know. I feel terrible. Today feels like a terrible fucking day. And it's hot, and family trauma, and the book is almost done yet it's this bloated overlong mess it's not as beautiful and hilarious and wonderful as anything Chris would write...

Ignore me. Come back tomorrow! Oh and Everyday Genius the story today is wonderful, by Rachel Araujo. And all the rest of the week Laura Goldstein, Janey Smith, and a stab yourself in the heart number by Ariana Reines. 

So I will lay in bed and watch the season finale of the first episode of True Blood. And try to force myself to read more of Chris Kraus' epic genius, and cry a little, because it feels like that kind of day.