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MIKE DAILY INTERVIEW
In your book, Valley (Bend Press, 1998), you utilized a footnote style that was fresh and unpretentious. What's your idea of a good footnote? Commentary. Straight information. Surprise. Delight. I am most interested in the kind of footnotes where the reader, and indeed the author may not be sure who is talking in the footnote, or why. But it has to add rather than distract from the text. I liked Dave Eggers' footnote in the foreword he wrote for the paperback edition of his book. The footnote said, "What the fuck is ironic about this?"
You also do a zine called SPUN. There seems to be many found objects in each issue. Do you believe that life is made up of random accidents? Incidents, yes; accidents, no. Found objects are fun. I believe we order our own realities. I believe [the idea of] Fate is for people on first dates, Tarot Card readers and amateur astrologers. And according to Burroughs, there are no accidents.
Tell me about California. Everyone is famous.
Now say something nice about Portland, Oregon. People read here.
Are you a literary obsessive? The mania is on the rise once again, yes. I am avidly reading Fiction Collective writers at the moment, the harder to find the better. I'm satisfied with a readable copy of any book. Like a resinated jewel case of a Touch & Go or Sub Pop goodie, books that have been well-read hold character. Ten years ago I was into Literature. Today I am more interested in what could be called Anti-Literature. "Fuckaround Fiction" I call it. Or, fidge.
Will there ever be another issue of your literary journal, Stovepiper? Thanks for asking. Yes. Stovepiper: Book Two will be somewhere around 300 pages when it comes out...when? No set date yet, but the work has been accepted from such writers as Fred Voss (printing his previously unpublished novel Goodstone Aircraft Company and the Acid as a special center section), Charles Bukowski, Peter Relic, Gerald Locklin, Andy Jenkins, and several others. A theme has emerged and I'm excited about it.
Do you eat food when you read? What food is good for those moments of reading pleasure? I don't eat while reading. I eat too fast and read too slow. Try Mochi ice cream pastry balls from Trader Joe's, mango. They're good.
What do you hope your last words will be? |