Tim Barrus Blog
Posts tagged with publishing
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BINOCULARS
all, all/ my books/// have been burned here and there, ripped to shreds, blacklisted, by people on my front porch armed with forks and spoons/ editors get off on sticking it up my ass, well how am i to keep you down/ play it the way feel it/ i get…
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The Great American Novel
Poetic Justice: The Great American Novel has been surpassed by the Great Irish Novel. The Great Irish Novel is more focused and more tied to the idea of reality – one in which great waiting with patience occurs. The Great American Novel is no longer great. It’s worth is a…
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Tim Barrus: New York Times
I COULD NOT BELIEVE THE NEW YORK TIMES PRINTED A VERY COGENT PIECE BY PAMELA PAUL WHO HAS FIRED A SHOT ACROSS THE BOW, AND IT HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED That cannon ball is actually a defence of the status quo in publishing – traditional publishing – where six writers…
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I lived across the street from the bar. Poetry night was on Thursdays.
I was very cautious of becoming recognizable in public. A few people knew who I was. Not many. Not well. Not on purpose. I cruised around the world on a tall sailing ship. The HMS Fantome. The Prince of Wales. Royalty will get you everything. Adolfo came around and snarled.…
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TIM BARRUS, THE NEW YORK TIMES
The best book I have read this year is The Hidden Life of Trees. The seas and the breeze. It’s not about the tease. Let us look at publishing. My annoying whine with publishing is that it doesn’t tell me anything I do not already know. It’s safe. And then…
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Fucking Dragons
So it begins again. A pack of wolves numbering in the thousands, went on a rampage in Venice Beach. Coyotes would attack a car. The wolves had eaten all the dogs. The big cats ate the little cats. Mountain lions ate themselves. Migration was from here to there. Entire populations.…
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Life Forms From a Martian Sea in Seas
The Lurid Book Scene of the fifties and sixties both had to do with soft porn and titillation. Lurid books earned publishers a ton of money in the fifties and the sixties. Dirty, filthy books read by dirty, filthy Homo sapiens. It’s all breeding behavior. Just do whatever the fucking…
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Tim Barrus, New York Times
This Is Not My Story To Tell I’m going to tell it anyway. Suprise. For writers (and delusional editors) telling stories is kinda what we do. A guy came into a bar. Ordinary. Now, let’s change the context. A guy came into a bar butt naked. Two words. Changes everything.…
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NYT Book Podcast
The NYT book podcast is a bit too pleased with itself. I do hope that dialogues among writers and editors continues. But no more congratulations to one another. Publishing itself is about looking back. Publishing looks forward, too. What it finds difficult to sell is immediacy. There are 100 people…
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Tim Barrus, New York Times
Publishing is unforgiving. There are writers who follow the rules. Never, ever coloring outside the prescribed places you can go. Especially rules that challenge the publishing status quo’s take on reality. To call it reality, everyone must agree, even the other writers who will delight in taking you apart, another…
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Tim Barrus, New York Times
New York Times gatekeepers don’t want you to read this. They’re supposed to be anonymous. Sorry. But I just can’t join the Satisfied With Ourselves Party. There’s hardly a voice you publish that takes a solid look at journalism and it’s conflicted relationship with comments. Let’s Have A Hug For…
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Tim Barrus New York Times
The list of things I will not do is far longer than the list of things I will do. For one thing, I won’t get close enough to touch you. I jerk off. Wearing a mask. You watch. And, no, I will not let you touch me for more money.…
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IT IS THE SCANDAL THAT IS THE SCANDAL
IT’S THE SCANDAL THAT IS THE SCANDAL Emmanuel Carrère has set the literary world on fire again. His new book, YOGA, is being sold by its French publisher as nonfiction. The horse is dead. But it gets kicked anyway. In these kinds of economic discombobutations, I make it a habit…
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ON WRITING
To be that naked in front of the world leaves you more vulnerable than you ever were before. Doing it every day, day in and day out, is exhausting. I do not know why other people write. I can only know why I write. It is not a choice. To…
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I AM A COMMUNIST
I am a communist. Writer. There is no such thing as brotherhood. Idealism is so yesterday. Journalists drink alone. All the journalism bars are closed. Do you really think that any major American editor would publish an avowed communist voice. What planet do you live on. David Brooks is right.…
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Tim Barrus: New York Times
“False and misleading statements.” That cotton candy phrase again. The entire Trump narrative is a LIE. The lies just keep coming. But we weaken their power, especially with the use of the term: misleading. As if this slip of the tongue takes us by accident down the Trump rabbit hole.…
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The Great Suspension of Disbelief
We die alone. What of it. We eat we fuck we joke we play we piss we hate we sing we dance we drink we smoke we tell stories we shit we run we race we love. We try to stay alive. We fail a lot. Whelps. Kingdom of the…
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The Walls of What Remains
Among the walls of what remains, there’s always writing. If I am totally alone, and out on the lake on a winter’s night, I will walk across the ice, and looking up, there it is, the past. I can see the past. The Coma clusters have come undone. I make…
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I Opened My Eyes
When Is Cultural Approbation Survival I still get death threats. Death threats are stupid, and stupid people make them. Bring it on, bitch.I opened my eyes. A small group of people in scrubs were looking down at me and they were uniformly grim. Obviously, this was a hospital. Tubes. Beeps.…