Most Useful Information December 2023

Pizza, shit, perfume, using a cat as a shotgun, farting on an airplane, and Parker Posey

What’s the point?

It’s possible I’m conflating several Seattle trips, but I think I got a ride with friends who were flying to Panama to build tiny houses or something. I wanted to go to a comic book convention. We were going to stay at Jeff’s house. Sometime around evening we got to Jeff’s and walked somewhere to eat cheese burgers. I don’t really remember, but we prolly walked to a half price books too. There was a blade runner on laser disc, I think. Back to Jeff’s to sleep on the floor. My friends woke up early and I assume caught a flight. I woke up later and went to the comic book convention.

At the comic book convention I got a comic book signed by an artist. For a small price he drew me a picture of Captain America. There were more famous artists to get signatures and for larger prices get drawings of Captain America from, but the lines were long. From a distance I saw Lou Ferrigno walking around. I left. 

Back at Jeff’s house. For dinner Jeff said there was a good dumpster nearby for pizza. We walked around the block and voila pizza hut (or dominos, I don’t know). Pretty quick we found an untouched pizza. We took it back to his house, warmed it in the oven, and feasted. I don’t remember anything else.

The next morning I got up early and walked down to the bus station. Before the end of the walk my stomach was talking, telling me it didn’t like dumpster pizza. I had to shit. It was dire. As soon as I got to the station I went straight to the toilet and let loose. The room was gross already. No need to feel shy about my noisy mess. By the time I finished I’d missed my bus. They gave me a ticket for the next bus out of town. It left in, like, six hours. 

I went to an Asian grocery store. Instead of buying snacks I looked at manga. It was in Japanese. I didn’t buy any. I don’t read Japanese. A few years prior I’d been in Seattle and had found a nice bookstore with a cafe in the basement. Figured I’d try to find that place to again. Found it without trouble. The bookstore wasn’t there anymore. Just emptiness. I went back to the bus station. Tried to sleep on a bench.

Tried to sleep on the bus. Like, six hours later the bus dropped me off in my town. Near downtown. Walking home I passed a dominos (for sure dominos this time). Stopped to check the dumpster for pizza. There were, like, six perfect pizzas. Took them home. Warmed them up in the oven. Feasted, again.  

I bring all this up because everything I read this month involves garbage and shit. 

Enjoy! 

History of Shit by Dominique Laporte. First published in 1978. Translated from French into English by Nadia Benabid and Rodolphe el-Khoury. Published in 2000 by MIT Press.

In 1539 an ordinance of Villers-Cotterets announced that language for the sake of the country and for civilization needed to be cleansed of foreign influence. “We declare that henceforth all edicts, as well as other procedural documents originating in our sovereign courts as well as in subaltern or secondary institutions… shall be pronounced, registered, and delivered to the appropriate parties in no other than the maternal French.” No Latin. No German. No English. Definitely no African languages. Only French. French is pure and pristine. Beautiful and orderly. No confusion. No misunderstanding. Perfect language for perfect people.  

At the same time the king of France made a decree that people for the sake of country and civilization needed to get rid of their own shit. Feces covered the streets of Paris. It was now the responsibility of each person, of each household to dispose of their waste and make sure no one outside could see or (more importantly) smell their shit. “We forbid all emptying or tossing out into the streets and squares…of refuse, offals, or putrefactions…We enjoin all proprietors of houses, inns, and residences not equipped with cesspools to install these immediately.” No garbage. No shit. Perfect streets for perfect little feet to walk on.

These two attempts at sanitizing public life are essential in the foundation of the modern individual. They are also tools of colonialism. France can force Algerians to speak French. They can force towns to adopt their sanitation practices. Doing so imposes a morality and a way of life onto subjects.

What happens if a proprietor of a house, inn, or residence does not build a cesspool? Their property is forfeited to the state. France at the time was a place where living inevitably produced waste. Yet, waste is gross and shameful, so France needed to find a way to hide gross stuff. If all the gross stuff was gone people would think France was perfect. Apparently the government couldn’t figure out what to do with waste and instead of trying to adjust so to produce less waste, they put the onus on individuals. It’s the individual’s duty to figure out how to get rid of gross shit and if the individual fails—punishment. Very cool.

I’d venture to say America and most of the developed world still function this way. Very cool.

Good smells reveal the existence of awful odors. Why would anyone need to wear a scent unless they sometimes smelled bad. Our attempts to sanitize only highlight our disgust. “Even when exquisite, it will hint at hidden filth submerged in excessive perfume, its very sweetness redolent of intoxication and vice.” That’s why I don’t wear deodorant. 

Not all waste is bad. 

Once distanced from disgusting human bodies, human feces can travel through an alchemical process to become effective fertilizer for farmers. “Human waste must be filtered through a purifying chemistry before it can enrich the earth and sprout again as gold.” This is necessary because “The body’s legacy of original sin contaminates even its waste. It would seem that human excrement, like the soul, carries the ‘noxious’ trace of the body it departs. There is a wickedness in shit.”

The process of turning shit into something useful fits nicely into a capitalist template for production and reproduction. Produce endlessly. Use whatever excess to produce more. Not only do individuals in society need to work and produce value, the shit of individuals also needs to produce value. During the period of transformation, when shit is still shit and not a golden, useful fertilizer, it must remain private. If private shit was made public, it might become apparent that the state, the city, public life isn’t pure. Allowing that to happen is a wickedness.

It doesn’t have to be this way. 

People can rebel. “To ‘prefer public shit to private shit’ is thus to knock down the partition that separates public from private, to deny the ‘totalitarianism of the state’ its access to the private through the construction of this dialectical division.” I think History of Shit is a rebellion against the tyranny of cleanliness, of purity, of pristine language, and certain understanding.

It's not like this everywhere. 

Some people believe waste is good. Urine is a fountain of youth that can “increase hair growth, beautify skin, improve complexion, make scars vanish and heal chapped hands.” There’s a lady of “high standing” who keeps a young, athletic man around to shit in a pot. Right after he goes, he puts a lid on the pot. Later he collects the moisture that collected on the inside of the lid. Our lady of high standing rubs the moisture on her face and then lives forever.

In Samoa mothers name their children after one of their many gods, so kids are called “Shit of Tongo” or “Shit of Satia” or something. Children are considered the shit of god. To be shit is to be a part of your creator. 

One year during college I lived in a four bedroom house with 5-6 people. We had two five gallon buckets underneath a tree in our yard. As a joke we all peed in it. As a joke we all kept peeing in it. As a joke when food started to go bad we’d drop it in the buckets. As a joke whenever someone new came to our house we’d ask them to pee in the bucket. One roommate said he was going to make an acrylic cube and fill the cube with our collected waste, seal it, and submit it to an art show. He didn’t do that. When we moved out, I kicked over those buckets and the grass died instantly. I put on rubber gloves and a mask and walked the buckets to a dumpster in the parking lot of an apartment complex across the street. I threw them in and ran away. 

Our experiment in piss turned from a collective act to an individual one. We peed together. I cleaned it up alone. Fun as a public good. Bad as an individual responsibility.  

Garbage Times/White Ibis by Sam Pink. First published in 2018 by Soft Skull Press. 

My buddy Eric asked if I’d read Sam Pink. I’d read something online, but no novels. Always meant to. A couple weeks later the mailman left Ketchup and Witch Piss on my doorstep. My buddy Eric said Ketchup reminded him of when I moved to some random snowy town in central New York. I read it first. It reminded me of when I worked in a Greek restaurant next to a pawn shop, tye-dye store, Greyhound bus stop, and a seedy hotel. Hung out with some real weirdos at that job. I loved Ketchup. I read Witch Piss second. I loved Witch Piss too. Next was Garbage Times/White Ibis, two novellas in a single volume. Loved it too.

Sam Pink isn’t interested in hiding shit from public view like a 16th century French king. Garbage Times is about a bouncer at a bar in Chicago. He kicks people out of the bar when they need to be kicked out of the bar. He cleans toilets when toilets need to be cleaned. 

Shit isn’t an individualized problem in Garbage Times. It takes a village, or whatever. There’s a moment when the narrator realizes one person couldn’t possibly produce as much shit that is in a toilet. People shit on top of shit. A parliament of shit.  

One person could never shit that much…and so, would that suggest that people just kept shitting on that shit? I ask you!

I stared at the shit for a little bit, checking on it.

Yo

Having a good time?

Among the filth is something like joy. The book is divided by months. Each month the narrator goes about his days like normal. Drunks in the bar. Rats in the bar. Shit and puke in the bathroom. Walks with coworkers. Pretending the cat is a shotgun. It’s a joy to follow along on his normal days. Throughout a normal day he finds joy in unremarkable places.

One of the only joys at work was when it got warmer I worked a day shift and could stand outside and watch the birds eat garbage off the sidewalk. 

There isn’t a plot. Instead the book moves through interactions with people, with animals, with the world. Some real. Some imagined. He loves picking up his cat and using the cat’s ass as a shotgun. Joy comes from seeing the world through his perspective. 

The time is somewhere between 5 and 6 a.m. — where every emotion happens at once—and everything makes sense—but it’s still all very sad—and something is about to climax—but it doesn’t—instead slowing down to long frames where nothing happens—and the braking train outside sounds like a thousand dogs shrieking—and everything else—and a gigantic version of myself stands up from Lake Michigan, holding Dotty upside down—pumping her tiny ass like a shotgun and shooting it at the city, except the first shot barely comes out and rebounds off a building into my face and Dotty and I fall backwards into the lake, gone forever.

Deep insights or analysis of the events or the context in which they happen don’t exist. All that exists is the narrator and the people, animals, things he encounters. 

White Ibis doesn’t have as much shit. But still some shit. 

Benny came running out of some bushes, with a leaf stuck to his ass.

He started shitting, eyes half closed in troubled ecstasy.

Expelling liquid shit in convulsions, hovering his ass downward, both eyes nearly shut, squirting out shit with a shaking of his ass.

I was laughing so hard.

It was, perhaps, one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.

Yes, I was afraid it was the sign of an animal about to die, as much as I have thought about myself when taking similar shits.

But, whatever.

Live on, Benny, live on.

The narrator moves from Chicago to Florida. In Florida he lives with his girlfriend. Charming interactions with the denizens of a grubby Chicago bar switch to charming interactions with the denizens of Florida society. At a party he goes outside to find his girlfriend’s dad sitting alone. He shows the narrator his gun. The narrator pulls out a squirt gun he uses on his cat when the cat misbehaves. 

As with Garbage Times there’s a line break after every sentence. Both books are breezy but somehow White Ibis feels lighter. Not as in less substance but as in less dark. Maybe its the setting. Sunny Florida versus snowy Chicago. Maybe it’s the reduced shit. There’s some kind of hard to pin down difference.

With everything I’ve read by Sam Pink what happens isn’t as compelling as the way it happens. Sam Pink communicates a unique way of being in the world. Reading his books is experiencing his way of being. So instead of trying to summarize a plot I am going to try to summarize what I see as a way of being.

The narrator of Garbage Times/White Ibis is extremely open. Not in a gush about private life sort of way. But, like, open to possibility. Whatever happens or whatever someone says, the narrator goes along with it. Going along with it without  expectation, judgment, or commentary allows the narrator to find humor. It allows everything and everyone to be itself/themselves. It makes everything and everyone so endearing.  

Garbage Times/White Ibis are massively enjoyable. Every Sam Pink book I’ve read is. But real pleasure comes from reading several Sam Pink books. There’s a remarkably consistent sensibility. From one book to the next the point of view and humor remain distinct. There’s no question it’s by Sam Pink. He is himself and it shines through everything. There’s a voice and a style, but it’s not just style. Or, style is significant.

Consistent style, consistent humor across books build a world. There’s a Sam Pink universe and the creation of that universe is only possible because of the distinct, fully formed, Sam Pink sensibility. Just as there is a world in the work of Sam Pink there is a worldview. He doesn’t lay it out because that would be didactic and lazy. He is better than that. The worldview is embedded in the world. The world is created through style and perspective. So style isn’t superficial. It’s deep. It’s a worldview.

What is the worldview you ask?

A whole world.

A whole beautiful world.

Always more than everything right now.

One of the most noticeable things in Sam Pink’s style is the simplicity. One sentence per paragraph. Short sentences. Each sentence is more than itself. Just as the world is more than everything in it. Simple sentences don’t suggest life, people, feelings, or experiences are simple, but it suggests feelings and experiences can be communicated simply. There’s a lot of bullshit in life, but Sam Pink’s style offers a way to see past bullshit. Instead we see real shit. Any number of other writers would bog White Ibis down with sly asides or tactless rants about the political and social climate of Florida. Almost certainly some of the people Sam Pink encounters in Florida are unsavory with unsavory beliefs, but their unsavoriness is beyond the scope of the world being built. In Sam Pink’s world people are allowed to be their goofy, endearing selves, which is what make his books/his world so enjoyable to exist in. 

No one is unworthy of attention. Savory or unsavory. Whether it’s a rat in a restaurant, a cat shitting outside, insecure girl scouts, old women playing cards, or a wasp outside the window everyone is an opportunity for connection. One simply needs to be open to potential. People are drawn to the narrator because he’s open to it. Welcomes it. Once in the narrator’s orbit the people become charming and endearing because given attention and space, most people are charming and endearing. 

Garbage Times/White Ibis describes a lot of gross stuff, but the book is beautiful, kind, gracious, and most importantly, very, very funny.

Junk by Tommy Pico. First published by Tin House Books in 2018.

Junk is different than garbage. Garbage is tossed out and dropped in a landfill. Never used again. Junk is something that’s temporarily lost it’s use and is waiting to be found and used again. Cars in a junkyard are waiting for someone to come and take their parts and put them to use. Give them value. Give them meaning. So the pizza I ate out of a dumpster was junk, not garbage. It was waiting for me to find it and put it to use.

Junk is an epic poem written in couplets about a break up. Being dumped is being turned into junk. He feels bummed and useless, but hopes someday to find a new boyfriend who returns his utility. Being dumped is being junk. Being Native (or in Pico’s spelling “NDN”) is also being junk. A once flourishing society has been tossed aside. They have value and meaning and are just waiting to be able to express it. “Junk isn’t/garbage It’s not outlived its purpose—Junk awaits its next life.”  

With Janet Jackson as his muse Tommy Pico goes on an odyssey through New York City encountering, praising, consuming, and describing junk. Pico is also himself junk, “I hold all my selves all my Junk.” Whatever junk he encounters it becomes a part of him. He is formed by junk.

Pico makes junk into an ethos, a way of being. There is a world governed by utility and respectability and junk exists outside. It is why junk is often distasteful. It no longer fits in the framework invisibly governing society. Junk is aberration, culturally, aesthetically, morally. Pico sees himself and junk as the waste that French society tried to hide from public view. Junk makes the world look and smell bad.

Junk is so anti-pretty it’s actually beautiful I like funny-macabre

A wicker casket, for example What’s good? No, literally, what is

“Good”? You say good looking or good writing or True Detective

I don’t understand the proxy convo you’re having couched in

“Aesthetics” I can’t even hear the cicadas over the sound of yr

judgment Listen, I don’t want to be Trojan Horsed or nothin

but yr taste is too canonical to me “Control” by Janet Jackson

Is one of the greatest songs in the nation Warm hearts sparkle

In colonial afternoon Control is a reaction to something

Smacking that cracks the future w/ no precedent We call this a

Paradigm shift

There’s definitely a sense of defiance in this, but also a genuine question as to what is good. The reason Pico has to ask, I believe, is because he feels he’s formed by a different “paradigm.” Elsewhere in the poem he talks about growing up on an Indian Reservation, his mom working in a thrift store (junk shop), and how he doesn’t feel like he or his family were allowed the opportunity to have a history because, you know, genocide. So sure, he’s rebelling against standard order of propriety, sensibility, and respectability. He’s shitting on the canon and the privilege inherent in having a cultural canon. But also he was raised outside all that. His values are fundamentally different and here he is trying to understand what a non-NDN thinks is good. Because he doesn’t know, or it’s not obvious to him.

Other things Pico doesn’t really respect, understand or have time for: purity (its fascist), foodies (everyone has to eat, there’s nothing special about being really into food), lunges (they don’t make his butt cuter), correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, or language (he’s a stew-stew of lang-lang).

Being dumped is junk and being Indian is junk and, for Pico, being gay is also junk. Throughout the poem he writes about sex with little propriety. Junk is liberally used as a euphemism for genitalia “I can’t stop/looking at ppl’s Junk generally so u can imagine how hard it is/at the gym”

I would very

much like it Very much beg u dunk yr front Junk into my back

Junk

Despite Pico pointing to his marginalized identities as contributing to his status as junk he doesn’t feel sorry for himself. He is proud of being junk. Junk is liberating:

To ascribe victimhood to Junk is to miss the point completely There’s a

calm outside the anxiety of utility There’s freedom from use

for the sake of use An affection for just being, a new kind of

worth outside the object

So when we live in a society that it’s safe to say is pretty fucked (Pico uses constant mass shootings as an example of the fucked world, but there are other examples) junk is an alternative. Rather than valuing utility or cultural capital or whatever, value things that society casts off. While “capitalism” wants us to think of junk as useless, as trash, this book is a compelling argument that, “It’s important to value the Junk.” It asks us to question why we value what we value and gently suggests that maybe we should value something we don’t value. 

Also, Junk is so funny. Here are some examples:

Example one:

Is saying ‘goose flesh’ instead

Of ‘goose bumps’ evil incarnate

Example two:

I’m writing a 

sitcom about butts and counting called Number Two the tag-

line is ‘turn the other cheek’

Example three:

You know how some ppl are workaholics

Well I’m an alcoholic

Example four:

For a minute we were in the

Donut I mean moment

Example five:

My bff says poets are the stewards of language

And being a stew-stew of lang-lang, I came up with a new word:

sleeding.

Example six:

America is all action, no memory Me,

Mostly memory and farting on airplanes.

***

I started reading Junk on Sunday morning. There are a couple lines I marked:

Content as it applies to creative effort and Brand

As it applies to identity are the most disgusting words in human

history

Late Sunday afternoon I watched Josie and the Pussycats. In it evil record producers (Parker Posey and Alan Cumming) use subliminal messages in pop songs to brainwash people into buying whatever they (Parker Posey and Alan Cumming) want them to buy. It’s a movie about consumerism. People putting brands and products before their real life friends. The movie has its cake and eats it too. It goes far to make fun of and criticize a culture of consumerism. Still, I dare you to find me a movie with more product placement. Things in Josie and the Pussycats quickly become junk. De Jour is the most popular band in the world until they are tossed aside and Jose and the Pussycats are the most popular band in the world, until Josie tosses her bandmates out and Josie becomes the most popular musician in the world. At the last minute De Jour regained their utility. For the whole movie they were junk waiting to be used again. They save the day, helping defeat the evil record producers and reunite Josie and the Pussycats.

Did reading those lines in Junk brainwash me into watching Josie and the Pussycats? Probably. 

***

Junk and Garbage Times go together really well. Both try to be in the donut, I mean moment. Both offer a perspective/way of being outside generally accepted frameworks of meaning and value. To some extent both writers are outsiders. Both are so, so funny. It’s possible fans of one don’t know the other.