I have a story in New York Tyrant issue 6 (Vol. 2, No. 3, I think). It should be available at your local Barnes and Noble, or independent book stores that carry a nice selection of literary journals.

It may also be available at this link, or it may be sold out there.

Features stories by:

Daryl Scroggins, Ronald Hobbs, Jody Barton, Greg Mulcahy, Erich Hintze, Scott Garson, Christopher Kennedy, Jesse Ball, Daniel Grandbois, Cooper Renner, Michael Hemmingson, Darby Larson, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Christine Schutt, Ken Sparling, Robert Lopez, S.G. Miller, Atticus Lish, Michael Leone, Kim Chinquee, Anthony Luebbert, Rachel Sherman, Jason Snyder, Kevin Sampsell, Diane Williams, Justin Taylor, Jessica Anya Blau

I have a story in No Colony Volume 002.



No Colony

Along with: Isadora Bey, Kristina Born, Aaron Burch, Blake Butler, Luca Dipierro, Scott Garson, Rachel B. Glaser, Chris Higgs, Brandon Hobson Edward Kim, Matt Kirkpatrick, Rauan Klassnik, Lee Klein, Darby Larson, Evan Lavender-Smith, Patrick Leonard, Eugene Lim, Sean Lovelace, Conor Madigan, Gene Morgan, Bryson Newhart, Christian Peet, Jennifer Pieroni, Kathryn Regina, Joanna Ruocco,Bradley Sands, Ken Sparling, William Walsh, Corey Zeller

Nice!

This quote, from the French Laundry Cookbook, teaches something important about craft, by way of snails:

"Snails are now commercially cultivated in California, giving us a new ingredient to work with. I wanted to use them in a way that wasn't stereotypical but also wasn't so far away from traditional preparations as to be contrived or confusing."

I make a guest appearance in today's Food Junta, after causing an existential crisis for the author of the blog post.

Pretzel Rolls, epicurious search results, German death...

Tonight's dinner: Roasted Beet Salad, Gruyère Cheese Gougères (from The French Laundry Cookbook), and Roasted Brussels Sprouts. I was responsible for les gougères; Rachel did everything else. Beautiful food. (Not pictured: Haagen Dazs vanilla milkshakes.)

Last night contained something like 24 pieces of sashimi, 2 sushi rolls, 2 hand rolls, and 8 of those pieces of fish tied to a square of rice with seaweed.

We then suffered fish farts and mercury poisoning.

Had an amazing evening last night.

Rachel made pork chops with bacon and ham shavings, some ungodly good potatoes with apples, and salmon tartare cornets.

Oh, yeah. . . those salmon tartare cornets.

And then she gave me the French Laundry cook book. She was piling it on. I nearly proposed, but we had to clean the table off so that a million people could come over to celebrate my birthday and/or the holidays.

Heaven Hill Bourbon was brought by Padgett Powell, who drank ice water and liquor-less nog. Rachel played happy birthday on ukulele. David Leavitt put too many candles into my birthday cake. I received a fantastic hand-made card. We nearly got drunk on cake. There was slight making out in the hallway.

And I broke Rachel's plate.

Because .info domains were 99 cents:

http://www.anthonyluebbert.info

Rachel showed me the below paragraph by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) today.

A character named Adolphe owns a unicorn with a special attribute. Here Venus plays with the unicorn:

"Venus caught that stunning member in her hands and lay her cheek along it; but few touches were wanted to consummate the creature's pleasure. The Queen bared her left arm to the elbow, and with the soft underneath of it made amazing movements horizontally upon the tight-strung instrument. When the melody began to flow, the unicorn offered up an astonishing vocal accompaniment. Tannhauser was amused to learn that the etiquette of the Venusberg compelled everybody to await the outburst of these venereal sounds before they could sit down to dejeuner. "

Illustrated:

Tonight someone was saying some bullshit about Great Gatsby. And someone else was saying more bullshit about Raymond Carver. Right in front of me. Straight up. As if what they were saying was true. As if it were real. As if, somehow, they understood Fitzgerald and Carver. And I don't understand either, but I knew what they said was bullshit. And I had to leave. I had to go home and have a drink and console myself.

Because nothing else matters. Nothing matters more than the green light and the hot rolls at the end of A Small, Good Thing.

I don't believe that, but I will cry myself to sleep thinking of that, and one other thing.

"Well, on this gunky straw Diane pulled her pants down and we looked for about five seconds. Then she was headed back up the trail fast, leaving us with the mystery. Before we could begin to work on it, we saw the bus and started running too—again very subtle, all of us running after Diane Parker out of the woods. She made $1.25. I had this feeling sort of like I needed to pee when I saw her naked. This was aggravated during the run to the bus, but subsided. I could find out what this was if I pored over the literature, but frankly I don't care to. I am sure that Diane met her contractual obligations, showing us what she did, but I knew when I saw it that there was more to it than this little cleft-chin thing you marvel at how smooth it looks. I thought at least it would move. Which speaks my case: all the hollering about this soft little nose you can see for a quarter is about something else. What, I don't know."

-Powell, Edisto

I'm reading, writing, eating, and baking. Listening to music, watching the rain. Pretty much what I've always wanted to do. Hope life is always like this.

Photo of the International Space Station passing in front of the sun.

Be sure to check out the full-res version of the photo by clicking on it - - incredible.

Every time I read The Great Gatsby (which is probably far too often) I fall in love with female golfing sensation Jordan Baker, whose relationship with the narrator is off the charts in its haphazard apathy. (Fitzgerald quote from a few posts ago is in reference to this relationship.)

I always pictured Jordan Baker as my ideal woman: brunette, a little boyish, wearing polos and skirts, making money doing a completely inane activity.

And now I know she's my ideal - - check out this list of 50 hot female golfers:



phew! I'll have to start paying attention to the LPGA.