July 23, 2012
The silence preceding the anticlimax. A pitiful bid for validation or a claim on eternity. One keeps going despite continual rejection and lack of reward, spurred on, presumably, by some measure of self-belief – doomed to ambition by a sense of superiority or insecurity. The fantasy that we have something going on – that somebody is listening, somebody is watching – facilitated by the insidious web of social media that all too easily creates the false impression that one’s life and one’s musings might be of interest to others. It doesn’t seem to occur to most people who write that nobody’s going to want to read their work. Then again, there are enough unread (and unreadable) books out there already. One more won’t hurt.
Posted in Prose of Regret and Resentment |
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June 6, 2012
The most important thing is to stop writing, now: to stop prioritizing this so-called work that generates no income and that nobody will ever read. This futile, masochistic, self-indulgent pretense of industry interferes with everything; it is carried out at the expense of love and work: real work, that is, the kind that is a visible manifestation of mental effort, not this endless supposed honing of my craft compounded by the preposterous conceit that the torturous process of giving shape to my thoughts actually serves some sort of purpose, when it is mostly an excuse to immerse myself in a morbidly self-reflective haze, of which there is seldom any visible manifestation.
Posted in Prose of Regret and Resentment |
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April 20, 2012
April is the cruelest month at Book Soup.
Posted in Shameless self-promotion, The Inertia Variations |
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February 7, 2012
Standard Hotel, West Hollywood. Valentine’s Night, Feb 14th. Complimentary wine served between 7 and 8pm. Readings by Ezrha Jean Black, Zak Smith, Sophie Sills and John Tottenham at 8pm.
Posted in Antiepithalamia, Art Damage, Shameless self-promotion |
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October 31, 2011
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But if you feel like dragging your ass across town at 7pm on a Tuesday evening to watch five middle-aged literary hacks hold forth, this might be what you’ve been waiting for.
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August 2, 2011
There are no levees capable
of withstanding the torrents of distraction
that surge through my mind. Tender
resentments, useless trivia and tired lusts
are carried along like debris on a swollen river,
from which, very occasionally, a lucid thought
emerges, only to be sucked back down
into the sewage of pettiness and vanity.
Posted in John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations |
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May 24, 2011
I saw the sun rise by accident.
It was a horrible sight.
Annoyed by its splendor, I sought refuge
in a moist pillow, and lay there, alone,
at the dawn of another day,
that brought me closer to another death,
pondering the vanity of my solitude,
the vanity of procrastination,
and the tiresome inevitability of waking up
again the same person.
It might still be possible to change,
but obstinately I remain the same,
hoping that others might take solace
in my consistency.
But perhaps they take no solace in it,
perhaps they too find it tedious.
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John Tottenham 