i'm going on 'vacation' tomorrow until monday the 8th of july. hopefully i'll be able to sort through some things, get some sleep and perhaps a little food. I won't be able to update until then. Not meaning to infer that this will be a change for you.

things get worse before they get better

well, i don't really know what to say about this past week. monday i tried to get work done for school, but found simple distractions too much to overcome.

tuesdays' class was also a bit of a let down. We've really not had a whole lot of time to discuss things in class. i'm not sure that we would have even if we did (have time), though. it is community college. The movie we watched was Amadeus, which won a lot of awards in 1984 (i think). It was good. I never would have watched it on my own, just because of the time period and subject matter. It was a close, fictious look at the life mozart, through the life of another composer at the time. Of course i found something to relate to in it all and just felt miserable afterwards. but it did hold my attention.

Wednesday i tried to get things done, but was met without much sucess. my apartment is still an orderly train wreck, and there are places i just ignore completely, won't even look at. ironically there are a lot of cobwebs and dust bunnies that seemed to have popped up a lot easier than other places i've lived. oh, the ironic part being that without the supplies i have at work i'm really quite powerless to clean. Dishes and laundry too, just keep getting pushed back to the next day. heh, so has eating, if you think about it.

Thursday, not knowing that disaster had struck, i headed down to the southern pittsburgh suburbs for a promising art house flick at a quasi-art house theatre, which was being run by moody teenagers who obviously felt that common courtesy wasn't worth the $5.50/hr or so they were getting paid, and a manager who was cleaning her nails when i came in and filing them when i left.
in a different tone: have you ever watched a movie in the theater alone? I still don't know what i think of it. It wasn't bad, it was decidedly nice, but other than that i couldn't tell you. also, it was one the first times in a very long while that i came out of a movie and it was still light out. summer's good like that.

work as an interlude: you should know that work is a bit more messier since the switch to daylight. I like having my own work and my own time to get it done. i don't really feel like going into the details, but it seems like, with this big switch in work and home, that i've traded one set of stressful problems for another.

anyway, the weekend, for the most part, has been ridiculous. bittersweet highlights have been the denali show friday, brad loaning me a great and life saving amount of money, and finally watching the vigin suicides last night. there is little else i wish to salvage at the moment.

and yet it still remains. this incessant refrain: "you're just like the rest. your restlessness makes you lazy."

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an excerpt from Jesus Christ Lord of Hosts Meets L.A. County
by Holly Day

Jesus is walking down an empty stretch of road next to a poorly maintained farm dotted with scraggly yellow grass and dried-up shrubs. The sun beats down on His back and neck, unbearably hot, and finding a shade tree to sit beneath is becoming more important than reaching L.A. before dark. He knows He should have started off earlier this morning, but His ridiculous nomadic compulsions don't ever seem to occur at convenient or logical times.

There is a small stream up ahead, running parallel to the highway, barely a trickle, but obviously steady enough to support the decent-sized group of trees crowding the banks. He picks up His pace and hurries toward the oasis, praying it's real, not some wicked mirage.

It is not a mirage. Jesus kneels down on the sandy bank and splashes cool water on His face, on His neck, sucking up whole handfuls as quickly as He can. The trees provide more than adequate shade, the grass is soft here - His eyes begin to close against His will and He has to lie down. He sinks to the ground and rests against a pile of smooth gray boulders. Cattle have been here recently, their stink still thick in the air. Jesus notices that the boulders under His head feel soft, warm, and smell like yeast. He finds His stomach is not asleep. The flat, gray stone breaks off easily under His fingers. He puts the pieces to His lips, in His mouth, and gratefully swallows the warm pebbles, remembering to thank Him who is responsible for these impromptu miracles.

"Hey, Mister," says a voice behind Him. He turns around, and two boys on bicycles are staring at Him. "Hey, mister," the taller of them says again, a freckled redhead. "Are ya lost?"

"No," Jesus replies, but that isn't the end of the conversation.

"This is my uncle's land," says the boy. "I don't recollect him invitin' nature freaks to camp out here."

"I just need to rest a while and I'll be on my way," He answers. "I'm not looking for trouble." Jesus finishes His meal as He speaks, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. The boys stare at Him, at the gray crumbs on His face, the half-eaten boulders broken at His feet, and walk away slowly, backwards, facing Him until they are far enough away to leap on their bicycles and speed away. Jesus chuckles to himself and turns over onto His side for a nap.

When He awakes, the boys have returned. They have brought three older men with them. Jesus sits up quickly, wary of their intentions. The men are dressed in flannel shirts and ripped-up jeans and have little or no teeth left in their mouths. One of them, a slightly-pinheaded man with a limp, hobbles up to Jesus and grins idiotically. "My name is John," he says.

"Hello, John," Jesus answers. He holds out His hand. The farmer stares at it in puzzlement. Jesus lets the hand hang there for a moment, then drops it back down to His side.

"My name is John," the man says again, then shuffles back to join his friends. Jesus scoots back a little against the rocks, nervous. John is kicking at little clods of dirt, the stupid grin back on his face.

"You a magician?" ventures another one of the motley crew.

"Why, no," Jesus answers, even more nervous. "Why do you ask?"

"You eat rocks." The man gestured to the boulders broken up around Jesus' feet.

"These?" Jesus laughs. "I don't know what they are, but they're not rocks. Someone dropped some bad bread or something. They're just dirty loaves of bread. See?" He picks up one small rock and finds that it is heavy, solid. He tries to find another of the faux rocks and decides that He must have eaten them all. The old man smiles triumphantly at his friends.

"You eat rocks," he states again. "You eat rocks."

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This concludes the Electronic Reading Tour! Your regular website operator will return shortly. Thank you to all readers and all hosts of this tour. If you've enjoyed the week's stories and excerpts, check out the newest issue of LITTLE ENGINES at tnibooks.com.

Hello! TNI Books has occupied this website for a brief period of time. It will be over before you know it, and odds are good that if you've come here in search of something interesting, you won't go away disappointed.

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excerpts from Les Savy Fav: Cheerleaders for the Apocalypse
interview and story by Mike Daily

Lifter Puller singer/guitarist Criag Finn, now lyricist for The Brokerdealer, sums up everything he has to say about Les Savy Fav in this anecdote:

"We played with them in Detroit at this club called the Gold Dollar," Craig says. "The first band, a local band, was playing to a pretty much empty room. As part of their set, this band was auctioning off items from their living room. They attempted to get the bidding going on a lamp. 'Do I hear one dollar? Would anybody want to buy this lamp for one dollar�?' No takers. Finally, Tim Harrington, frontman for Les Savy Fav, stands up and gives him a dollar and takes the lamp�

"Tim brought the lamp back to the Les Savy Fav merch table and put a Les Savy Fav sticker on the lampshade. Later that evening the club was full and the band was putting on a typically amazing show. Tim pulls out the very same lamp and says, 'Who wants to buy a Les Savy Fav lamp for $10?' He sold it immediately to a guy in the front row."

* * * *

lyrics: "hip hip for imperfection / I want to make a mess / I've got a secret theory / that disarray works best / and though it can't work often / oh my God when it does / watch as the outburst softens / it's had its way with us�

These lines really say a lot to me about Les Savy Fav.

As the band races in their tour van from San Francisco to Los Angeles to make a show that evening at the Troubadour club, where I'll be seeing them for the first time, I tell this to Seth, the guitarist in the band, by phone.

"Really, that's awesome," Seth says. He relays it to the rest of the band: "He says that those are lines that really say a lot to him about us."

"I could see that," Tim says.

* * * *

The wordplay of Tim's lyrics can be playful but it can also be dark.

"Yeah, I feel that way too, I guess," He tells me. "I agree with that. Lyrically I like to do a sort of cheerleading, the idea of sort of like a bleak cheer. The kind of thing that you sing along and then all of a sudden you're like, 'Wait, what do those lyrics mean? Someone else might say, 'Well, it's heavy lyrics, it's got to be sung in a heavy manner.' Or everything's got to be just so sincere. I'm much more interested in this, sort of like the tension of, 'Oh, this sound sounds one way - the mood, the tone is more subtle, more complicated, so you have to do a cheerleading'� someone who would be like Cheerleader for the Apocalypse. Like, cheerleading bad news." He laughs. "Something you feel and you're like, 'Huh, that makes me feel good and bad at the same time.'"

* * * *

That night at the Troubadour, Tim is in especially fine fettle. He's wearing a gauzy scarf that he says belongs to his mom. "Does your mom dress you?" a guy in the audience says. Tim doesn't hear him. The music commences with authority and he hoists the weighty mic stand overhead, singlehandedly balancing it upside down before setting it back down and rushing the front of the stage. Apocalypse now. He crouches to shout lines in audience members' faces, which show surprise, exhilaration, wonder.

Respect.

The singer takes off his shirt and pats his protruding belly. He veils his face with the scarf then simulates a bra with it. The music is getting to him and he pours half a bottle of red wine over his head, vocally going off like a fringe character in a low-budget movie. He takes a big slug from the bottle and motions to a guy near the front to open his mouth. The guy shakes his head, no, smiling. Another volunteers and the wine is dribbled from mouth to mouth, with some success. Tim balances an apple on his head and stands at attention, then picks it off and chomps at it, pieces crumbling from his mouth. He changes into a shirt that says NEW YORK CITY, people cheering it. Was the prop an oblique reference to The Big Apple? Out come flashlights. Tim steps offstage into the crowd and collapses to the floor, still singing. Then he's back on stage. He goes into the wings and returns with a blue blanket, which he drapes over the shoulders of Seth like a cape.


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For a paper copy of this story, along with other fine surprises, check out the newest issue of LITTLE ENGINES at tnibooks.com.

Hello! TNI Books has occupied this website for a brief period of time. It will be over before you know it, and odds are good that if you've come here in search of something interesting, you won't go away disappointed.

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Letters to a Grade School Teacher
by Anonymous Students

Dear Mrs xxxxxxxx,

I wood like to make one thing cler. I don't ate grad annd gas, and my besk is to small for me.

* * * *

I was not able to go to lunch to day because of what happened yesterday. And I really could not go because I was actting up right now. I could avoid it by listening to the techer. But I didn't and right now it is to late.

* * * *

I pledge alegents to the flag of you ninenets state of amarica untell this plubie wich in sante one nachon under god inviezabull untell this wich in public.

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For a paper copy of this story, along with other fine surprises, check out the newest issue of LITTLE ENGINES at tnibooks.com.

Hello! TNI Books (tnibooks.com) has occupied this website for a brief period of time. It will be over before you know it, and odds are good that if you've come here in search of something interesting, you won't go away disappointed.

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The Pockets
by Paul Maliszewski

"There is nothing that makes one feel so much at home in a foreign city as knowing a good bar: a place where on can feel comfortable quickly, and go back to, in the hope, if not the certainty, of being recognized."
-Financial Times

Let me give you this example: In Marrakech, at Tapster's, everyone knows my name. Because I tell it to them, straight out. In a way I instruct them, but totally without guile, mind you. I say to them, I say, Sound it out now. I say, Listen to me. I say, Watch my mouth. See my lips? It's easy. I say, Listen, a wise man once told me that no sound is sweeter to a man than the sweet sound of his own name. And I say to them, Ergo, because I like the sound of that too, Ergo, I will pay you, right now, right here, understand? to tell me mine.

I've discovered that money, when strategically deployed, assists the process of memory formation and, in particular, promotes the cementation of certain long-term memories. The upshot there being that everywhere I go people know who I am.

I carry all the funny little pink and yellow and orange currencies of the world, in my pants pockets, my wallet, and stuffed in my back-up billfold. Some I have zipped into my belt, in a discrete pouch. I line my shoes with the stuff; I walk all over it. In my hotel room, alone, before venturing out into the night, I sit on the edge of the bed and fan a sheaf of bills into a thin layer and spread it over my calves. The TV in the corner is tuned to VH-1, replaying an in-depth documentary history of rock history documentaries. My gold-toe socks, pulled smartly up and over the bills, hold the thin layers of currency in place.

The wondrous elastic properties of my socks have never once embarrassed me. Disinterested third-parties have commented that the subtle effect on my legs' musculature is somewhat stunning, provocative even, so long as I'm seated just right, and there's the sort of light that not so much hides as forgives flaws and perhaps a little of that music they play, in the background, not blaring, never blaring, and so long as I have my one good leg dangling jauntily over the other, and then the cuff of my pants (worsted wool!) creeps up just so. It's quite perfect.

You may have to work at it, but they'll remember your name provided you get a fix on their price. Don't let the "language barrier" grind negotiations to a halt. Use your hands, gesture if you have to, speak loudly. My name, I say, pointing to myself. My name, I repeat, thumping my sternum with cupped hands. Cupped hands being what you call your inclusive, gentle, and warm body language.

I have inner pockets, coin purses, money clips, a beautiful chrome change machine hanging from a leather strap around my neck. My checkbook's the size of a photo album, one for a big family. Everything's monogrammed, embossed or engraved or otherwise emblazoned with the initials that spell the very names by which I'm known and are sweet for me to hear. These days I pad the shoulders of my suit with rolls of American quarters, which coin seems to be hot with the kids. Used to be nickels were. Even my pockets have pockets, and they're all full.

My bad leg doubles as a bank safe. The Vault is what I call it. It's got a surgical steel, triple-tumbler combination lock machined right into the kneecap, just set right into the sucker. The combination changes each month. Has to, for security. Additionally, I possess a killer fanny-pack whose equal is not known, will not, in fact, ever be known, because I had it custom-tailored in southern Italy, out of Spanish leather and the finest Libyan thread. This southern Italian guy did the stitching using a fossilized pine needle from a rare tree found only near the very top of the western face of Mt. Sinai, he told me.

You can hold your fingers up to show how high you're willing to go. For instance, two fingers means you'll give them two of whatever it is they happen to want most of all in the place wherever you happen to be at the time. My name, I say, gesturing openly and warmly, and then hold up seven fingers in front of my face. Then I look at my fingers outstretched like that, nodding at them from left to right, to emphasize the sheer plenitude of digits I'm abstractly offering in place of what they want most of all.

When in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, you have to track down Lou's or Tip-A-Few if that's closed the night you go. The Kazakhs moved their capital last summer sometime, I think, or maybe the year before, so neither place is overrun with miserable administrator types anymore. You get a whole different crowd, friendlier and polite like you wouldn't believe, while still not compromising the frisson of danger thing I associate with all those breakaway republics.

Which reminds me, there was a place on the island of Borneo, this is in the interior, that used to be called Olde Ale House. It got bought out five or six years ago by Slim's. Slim's is sort of a semi-local chain of similar independently-managed establishments in the western Pacific Malay region. In spite of the new owners and what have you, it's still good. They kept the same bartender on. Definitely worth the trip if you have time off in Jakarta and just want to get away from everything for awhile.

In Cabo Frio, which I prefer to Rio de Janeiro - same coastal clime, same access to airports, same etc. - do yourself a favor and inquire about this place that's a bar disguised as a fully-operational eighteen-wheeler. It doesn't even have a name. Say the truck/bar is driving by, on the outside it looks every bit the spitting image of those trucks that carry the poisonous gases, all plastered with red signs and stern prohibitions, saying whatever 'notice' and 'warning' are in Portuguese. But inside they've got a teakwood bar that will quite simply impose a stiff excise tax on your lungs.

The next time you're in Djibouti, try Ed's. I met an Account Rep for Barbasol in Gdansk who told me about it. He was there creating some new popular thinking about facial hair. And go to The Pub in Perth. That's what they call it, everyone'll know what you mean. At the South Pole, there's a little place, Eddie's Tavern. It's quaint but not too. Not so many people know about it yet. You can walk in there a second time with every certainty of being recognized as a regular. You don't get that whole expense-account crowd in there.

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For a paper copy of this story, along with other fine surprises, check out the newest issue of LITTLE ENGINES at tnibooks.com.

(MONDAY)

Hello! TNI Books (tnibooks.com) has occupied this website for a brief period of time. It will be over before you know it, and odds are good that if you've come here in search of something interesting, you won't go away disappointed.

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Welcome to the
LITTLE ENGINES Issue Three Electronic Reading Tour!

The person and/or company that operates this website (along with 30+ other website operators) has volunteered to donate an e-venue for an electronic reading tour. This exercise is designed to introduce readers to a magazine called LITTLE ENGINES. Should you already know about LITTLE ENGINES, do not fear! You're allowed to enjoy the coming events as well.

LITTLE ENGINES is a magazine built like a book, with 128 pages bound between a beautiful full-color cover, designed and produced with careful grace. The contents of the new issue of LITTLE ENGINES include: one excerpt from a new book by a rogue rock and roll critic, ten panels of Olav Kahovec and his 4-D mentality, one clever comic strip, seven shortish pieces of fiction, one interview with and story about a band whose lead man sometimes pours red wine over his own head, and five letters to a grade school teacher from anonymous students.

For the remaining four working days of this week, material from the brand new issue of LITTLE ENGINES will appear on this website for your reading pleasure. Should you have any questions about this tour or the magazine, please feel free to get in touch. Tomorrow, we'll begin with a story from Paul Maliszewski. It'll be a good time. Come back and see.

Obviously, this tour would not be possible without the help of all the website operators kind enough to lend a helping hand. For a complete list of all the fantastic participants in this tour, or to buy a copy of LITTLE ENGINES, visit tnibooks.com.

Thanks for reading. We'll see you tomorrow,

Adam Voith & TNI Books

DISCLOSURE: We stole (with permission) the idea of an electronic tour from SoNewMedia, who came up with and executed the concept brilliantly for a book they recently published. SoNewMedia, like TNI Books, is a tiny independent publisher who longs for new ways to tell you about their good wares. In the same manner that zines spread the love of great underground rock bands before television ruined music for everyone, so too might weblogs, livejournals and small company websites tell the world of a seething group of souls selling great new writing in the form of books and magazines in online stores and limited bookshops around this great nation. Hurry up! Find us! Before Barnes and Noble ruins it for everyone!

the whoring of an east-coast blog to a west-coast, independent publisher

well let's see. So the past week or so i have had the internet here, but otherwise, i've been having a rough time of it. At this moment, i am exhausted, so i'll get right down to it. As I'm still taking time to adjust, this tni books "e-tour" is well timed. The format will be a little different. there will only one days' worth of posts on display, but you'll be able to see the any that you miss by way of the achieves section, of course. I have some stories and such from TNI that i'll be posting monday through friday. Glancing over it quickly, it looks worth taking a peek at. though you can't really beat having the words on paper.

I will probably have something to say of my own, and will perhaps throw that in a post separate from the TNI material. We shall see. Basically these last couple weeks, i've been living upside-down. And have been without energy to write.

i have seen it all

Which monkey are you?

credit goes to michelle for this find.

LITTLE ENGINES Issue Three Electronic Reading Tour
This website is lending a helping hand and celebrating the release of a new issue of Little Engines. You can learn more about (and purchase) the new issue over at TNI Books. Stay tuned! The tour begins the week of June 17th!

run lola, run

hmm, well... i'm feeling a little better mentally, and a little worse physically. found it hard to be poor in a brand new place, so i dropped my psych class. Really, the teacher was a disappointment. and so unnecessary. i will be back online monday night i believe. how this journel will take shape from there is anyone's guess. for now i need to eat and get to work.

4 hour jet lag, lasting a week... still breathing alaskan mist

time code

here i am. at the library b/c i don't have a phone line set up in my new apartment yet. i haven't checked my e-mail in days. sadly, it was found to be an unnecessary gesture. really it's hard not to be dissapointed. despite the fact that's no surprise. this is how i've become. just terribly self-absorbed. and it's even harder not to go, depressingly, on and on about how i depise this person that has seemed to have taken over bit by bit (and still going) without being consciously aware. or at least, not all the time.

but today, this weekend, this move, marks a new chapter. i've got class to tonight. and though i don't have enough money for the book, there will be a social challenge, of sorts. it's exciting now, but in a short while i'll be numb again. but perhaps, you the reader will get luckily and it will be a blissful engagement. for now, i'm just too overwhelmed with shit.

you're a disgrace to the concept of family