Kyle Beachy's Blog, page 7

The Poo-Bagged Hand of God

Found this sign in Viborg. And can you believe the scales, here? That hand: must be God's herself's it's so big! OR. That dog: what a tiny dog! EITHER WAY. The shit: just huge, comparatively.

Also, the flickr photos below have been updated to include 25 other, less cartoony fecal photographs of Hald Hovedgaard, where I'm living and working, and where they claim a ghost lives, two ghosts — one a "dark man" (your guess is as good) and an old lady. I've seen neither. Waiting. Looking.

A Conversation With Molly Gaudry

Do you have the internet? If yes then you've likely heard of Molly Gaudry, editor of Willows Wept Review, co-editor of Twelve Stories, writer of fiction and poems and revealing personal blogs. Over the past few weeks, she and I have had an ongoing conversation via a very busy google doc, the culmination of which is now available here. And it's a goddamned hoot. Included: sadness(es), gifts, propulsion, popularity, Iowa, travel, assholery, and the thin line between cupcakes and muffins. Enjoy.

Oh That I Could Speak Any Other Language

Remember that hilariously bigoted speech when 13-time Pro Bowl defensive end Reggie White stood in front of the Wisconsin Legislature and praised whites for their ability to "tap into money", Hispanics for successfully fitting "20, 30 people into one home", and the Japanese because they "can turn a television into a watch"? He never made it to the Danes, but I'll take over and say: people in Denmark know how to design. And also be beautiful.

I'm going to write while I'm here. It's the reason I'm

Re: Hot Type

I very strongly support what you're doing here, Dan Sinker, but I believe that a new story every day is too much. I fear  you'll create a new and more devious version of that old New Yorker Guilt, when they come and come and we're busy and they pile. Except in this case we'll have the phone here and we'll see the number growing inside parenthesis in some menu or there on our home screen thing, blinking as part of the app or whatever, and we're busy people after all, I don't see any point in bull

America, Zodiac Sign Cancer

Tonight the Chicago skyline will explode in every direction as neighborhoods vie for dominance, these amateurs who take the holiday very, very seriously. This the best kind of competition in which all of us, the watchers, are the clear winners. That opening shot of Blade Runner, bursts of light against the stark fuzziness of downtown night. To the rooftops, people. With caution.

They Clap Then Stop

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And here is to a world that provides for us such sights as David Weathers facing Albert Pujols with the bases loaded, top of the eighth inning, David's Cincinatti Reds leading the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0. The old respected pitcher faces the future legend in the prime of his career, on pace to legally and naturally break Marris's forgotten record, suddenly made once again relevant.

"He's going to go out there and battle. David Weathers has been an excellent pitcher over the years," says Hrabosky.

T

Sammy Sosa, Cheater

Ah, right, all of that cheating. Let’s today perhaps agree on this: home runs will no longer be the dominant statistic for Hall of Fame votes. Otherwise we sit here whining about the injustice or bamboozlement, the confused voters writing long stupid articles about how they’re going to vote. How about since there’s no quantifiable component of what we mean when we say GREAT, how about we just shift our attention to baserunning and fielding and pitching and number of opposite field singles.

Or bet

Zach Dodson / Plague, Interviewer

Have you read Zach Plague’s book, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring? It’s great, beautiful, greatly beautiful. And did you know that Zach Plague, author, is also Zach Dodson, very talented designer and half of the braintrust behind Featherproof Books? Truth. And a few months back, Zach and I had ourselves a conversation over the INTERNET, and the result is this pretty fine interview that’s been posted on the also great Please Don’t. The interview discusses failure, ugliness,

Summer Business

Happy to be included in this year’s Printers Row Lit Fest, June 6 and 7 in downtown Chicago. Here is Gapers Block describing my panel with the very awesome Nami Mun:

Kyle Beachy’s The Slide, a love story and a portrait of a family in crisis, and Nami Mun’s Miles from Nowhere, a story about a Korean immigrant who runs away from her family at the age of thirteen, have put these two debut local authors on the map. Today they speak with Tony Romano about their work.

That’s Saturday at 1:30. Then I’m o

“Terror, Not Terror”

The June HOBART includes a short story I wrote along with a high-resolution photograph of people marching. It is called, “Terror, Not Terror”, and I hope you’ll find a couple minutes to read.

And incidentally one of the working titles I had  for The Slide was “Yellow, Not Yellow”, which was suggested to me by a friend named Thomas King and then rejected by just about every other person around me, and probably it’s best if one comes up with one’s own book title, I think, unless the equation includ