What is the most disturbing book on your bookshelf? Title and author, please –
(Obviously, if it is illegal, or could get you fired, please think carefully before posting)
***
Curriculum vitae
A recent email from Kevin Killian to James Nulick –
You are a very warm guy, very loveable. People who write scary books often are!
***
My father owned a wrecking yard in the Seventies. He had a contract with the city and impounded vehicles for banks, people who couldn’t make their payments. He also towed abandoned vehicles from shopping centers and Greyhound bus stations, cars abandoned behind apartment complexes, cars destroyed at accident sites. You learn a lot about a person by popping open their trunk, looking under the driver’s seat. Multicolored magazines with names like Hustler, Juggs, True Detective, Stag, Cheri. My father kept most of the magazines in storage, waiting for the return of their rightful owners – but there were always a few tucked in the drawers of his great wooden desk. Sometimes when he went on a call, I would be left at the office to answer the phone. My favorite magazine was Hustler, a good choice for a queer ten year old boy because it had a monthly column called One for the Ladies, which featured a nude young man – with or without an erection – for the enjoyment of any ‘ladies’ who may be reading their husband’s heavily-thumbed copy of Hustler. God bless Larry Flynt, a man who obviously knew his audience. He was a psychologist, a publisher, a true visionary and a champion of human rights – a man of rare qualities. And his magazines make a nice bookend for my Andrea Dworkin collection. If it wasn’t Hustler it was True Detective, or Master Detective, or DC Comics, all courtesy of the vehicle abandoned behind the Greyhound bus station downtown. And so I grew up – a disturbed, joyful child – reading hardcore porn and death mags intended for men with mortgages and wives and drivers licenses. And I learned at an early age that death and pornography are perhaps our greatest teachers when attempting to understand the fragility and the strangeness of the human condition.
***
A few of my most disturbing books, in no particular order –
Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler (1998 – Mariner Books)
Amok Journal Sensurround Edition, Stuart Swezey (1995 – Amok Books)
Tool, Peter Sotos (2013 – Nine-Banded Books)
Mine, Peter Sotos (2013 – Nine-Banded Books)
Practical Homicide Investigation, Fourth Edition, Vernon J. Geberth (2008 – CRC Press)
Autoerotic Deaths: Practical Forensic and Investigative Perspectives, Anny Sauvageau, Vernon J. Geberth (2013 – CRC Press)
Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation: Practical and Clinical Perspectives, Second Edition, Vernon J. Geberth (2010 – CRC Press)
A Fundamental Experiment, Rene Daumal (1987 – Hanuman Books)
Closer, Dennis Cooper (1989 – Grove Press)
The Royal Family, William T. Vollmann (2000 – Viking Press)
Apocalypse Culture II, Adam Parfrey (2000 – Feral House)
True Detective magazine, 1970s
***
Unedited quotes regarding some of the books I own from a few nice people on Goodreads and Amazon and etc…
Health warning : This is a big glossy book of essays about the outer edges of society.
It's fun.
Oh, all right, it's actually not fun.
The only book I wish I could ' unread ' somehow ~
Inflatable friends would have solved this problem. They are easier to clean too, just hose them down
there's things in this book you cannot unsee
I love humans when their different
Even in black and white, it’s too much
This book has gruesome pictures in it. Ugh. What was I thinking
The last time I looked at this book I screamed like a girl closed it and hid it under a bunch of other books. it's not just graphic photos there’s graphic knowledge in here. nothing I've ever seen on television or in a movie prepared me for this…
The 762-page book also included at least a dozen photographs depicting the child engaged in sexual activity with his governesses, particularly Sara Kelley
a tragically murdered 11 year old boy; an angry, mentally ill, and gay 15 year old boy; and a bizarre
a true tour-de-force of how the best way to embarrass your parents is to kill yourself while masturbating in really whacked out ways. The book does not disappoint with picture after picture
Got this many years ago for the amputee fetish section and was thoroughly pleased and excited by the pictures of trepanation and auto-erotic asphyxiation. A classic.
Page 465, my fault thanks to boredom, a xerox machine, an envelope, and a stamp
you'll find that your complexion is now an unappealing sea-green and you rather wish you hadn't read it at all, and you'll find yourself looking upon the simplest domestic items with new insight - the curtain rail, the ironing board and the humble carrot will never be so innocent again
Possibly the driest, greatest, wildest, unsettlingest book ever. I couldn't stop reading it and finished it in one sitting. My mind was reeling after.
*
p.s. Hey. Here's an interesting question to occupy you during whatever portion of your weekend that you plan to dedicate to thinking aloud. It comes courtesy of Mr. James Nulick, author of two highly acclaimed novels and a purveyor of many other things, known and unknown. Please be the classy, talkative (typative?) guys you can be at times and join him in laying out the scariest items on your bookshelves for all to see. Thank you, James. ** Bill, I totally agree. Oh, to possess the required bucks. Those local specialties sound very in need of being described by you, so I hope you will. ** David Alan Binder, Oh, wow. Thank you. I don't have any published books. I've never been interviewed before, and I find the prospect too intimating, but thank you for asking. I'm afraid to look at your website, but I'm sure it's great. I don't write emails, but, if I did, you might get one. If you were an actual ghost, I might be interested. I don't know what a Write Coach is. Farewell. ** Armando, Hey. Uh, oh, I can try to see if there's a way you can get the book. Yeah, I'll try to figure that out. Yes, I understand there's a new Zac German look, but I haven't figured out how one can buy it yet. I posted the Buche Beauty Pageant a few weeks ago. Hold on. Here. 'San Andreas': I thought it was a remarkably efficient, non-flabby, go-for-the-goods disaster movie, and I love that genre. Thanks for your best films list. I haven't seen almost any of them. And I don't know your music faves either. Shit, I'm making notes. If you're taking about the actual writing time, my 'fastest' novel would probably be 'My Loose Thread' because writing it as quickly as I could was part of the novel's strategy/ structure. But I did spend a long time editing it. But, yeah, I would say that was the quickest one maybe. How long? Oh, gosh, I honestly don't remember. I would have to look back at my notes and stuff, and I think they're at NYU. Happy weekend! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Oh, that's'45 Years', gotcha. I'll go learn about it courtesy of you, thank you. You're so lucky to live in a country where you don't have to think about how Charlotte Rampling is a political conservative and Sarkozy supporter. Everyone, Mr. E has written what looks to be a very interesting piece on (including interview with) Andrew Haigh, director of the much liked new film '45 Years'. And it's called 'On an Andrew Haigh High', which is nice too. And it's ... here. Go. Please. ** Aaron Mirkin, Happy day after! No, we're too warm too, but only, like, a few degrees warmer than it's supposed to be -- noticeable but not as overwhelmingly alarming. Oh, maybe I know of him through Derek (too). I didn't search him out yet, but I will this weekend. Thanks, buddy. ** Steevee, Hi. I'm sure I've mentioned that some years back I tried to get a publisher interested in me writing a memoir with the help of a ghostwriter. I thought a writer having a ghostwriter was interesting and funny. But no one in publishing thought so. And then the idea got boring. But yes! I look forward to seeing what happened to your top ten films list when the context of Gay City News affected it. Everyone, here is Steevee's top 10 films of 2015 list in its Gay City News version.** Moumita Dey, Oh, wow. Camilla’s Annual Boxing Day Sale Returns Dec 26? That's today! Holy shit! I'm going to go empty my bank account into your bank account as soon as I finish the p.s. today. Thank you! ** Misanthrope, Hi. Thank you for going over the post in detail. I appreciate your having done that and having let me know you did that. If vague but sincerely intended future plans pan out, I will be going with Gisele, Stephen, and Zac to experience the annual Krampus parade/attack in person, and possibly die from blunt force trauma, in Austria a mere week or so from now. Ah, sneaky, yes, that's a different can of worms. A far less attractive can. People who get addicted to drugs usually lie about their usage to one degree or another. I think that's one of the few fun and creative parts of addiction for them. I wonder if Jarod settled down in Hawaii. That's curious. Oh, actually, I haven't seen a FB post by Kyte in a while, now that you mentioned it, so maybe I got edited out too. My Xmas was boring and sucked, but the buche was good. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Thank you, man. That is very scary about the Xmas temperature problem. Like I told Aaron, it's a little too non-cold here, but the difference doesn't have that end-of-the-world vibe. Yeah, you've been under the weather with one thing or another every time I've had the honor to speak with you here lately. Jesus, do get back to the doctor and make him fix you even if you have to wrap his stethoscope around his neck and threaten to throttle him. I haven't seen either of those films. Curious about both. 'Tangerine' especially. I like her poetry, but I like her fiction much more. Gary Snyder ... I honestly haven't tried to read him decades. His work was kind of trendy and much talked about back in the 70s, 80s. I tried it, but I couldn't get into the nature/ zen/ maleness examining thing, and I guess not into his writing itself. But it took me a long time to get into Philip Whalen, so I should try Snyder again. So, no, I guess I'm not a fan, but I'm not clear enough on his stuff to pass any kind of judgement. If you do read him, I would be very curious to hear what you think. Feel better! ** S., Hi. Post-Merry merriness. I read and really liked your story! Sweet! Thank you! Oh, cool, thanks. The buche was very delicious and looked cool. I should figure out a way to share photos. Let me sort that out. Moscow, yikes. Paris, yay. Ha ha, nice clip. Everyone, follow S.'s lead and get one last Xmas thing in video form under your belt. It's only 1:14. And it's eerily incisive. Here. ** Kyler, Hi, K. Honestly, with a name like The Ramrod, the fact that it was boring does not surprise me. Asking your parents to watch 'Happiness'? You are a troublemaking devil. ** Liquoredgoat, Hi, D. Exactly! 'Painter' is amazing. My favorite McCarthy, and one of my favorite artworks period of all time, is 'Family Tyranny' (1987), featuring Paul and Mike Kelley. Have you heard the new Ulver? I haven't. I'm not sure if it's actually out yet. ** James, After-Merry After-Xmas to you! And please take 'in-person' thanks galore for this weekend's post and for the merriment it will inspire! ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, B-ster. Nice gifts you got. Santa completely blew me off. I didn't get a single present. Not one, zero, zip. ** Thomas Moore, Hi, T. Tasty is what counts, man. And I bet it looked cool. Mine was/is good. Yeah, I'll get a pic or two somewhere accessible. Thank you for paying such lovely, close attention to the Xmas show and for letting me know you did. Gotcha on the Bellingham. I would die to have that Charles Ray work. Happy weekend! ** H, Hi. Yes, nice, the Armleder tree, no? Xmas was barely a break, and there were no loved ones. Shit happens. Yours sounds much better, good. I've heard of that book, hm. I'll investigate. Thank you. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Thanks a whole bunch, man! Ha ha, yeah, aliens as Krampuses, nice, scary. I do imagine aliens being a little more fleet of foot, maybe even being able to shape shift and stuff. Like figurative laser light shows or something. Outer Space is so flexible, isn't it? It's cool. Aw, thanks. I hope you had a Xmas that lived up to what Xmas was meant to be way back when it was originally invented and, was, thereby, as a consequence, a very exciting and groundbreaking holiday! ** Right. I'll leave you and yours to contemplate and share the titles of the scariest book(s) resting on your bookshelves with James and with each other now, and I will return to mop up on Monday.