Brandon Scott Gorrell is a writer of poems and stories. His last book, during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present, was published by Muumuu House. I think I’ve seen it on sale at the Anne Bonny. I also saw it in the ‘zine rack at Healthy Times Fun Club. The book gets around. Currently, Gorrell is working on a novel to be published in Europe by 3:AM PRESS, and currently talking to a US publisher. He is considering another project, tentatively titled ‘ASIA’. We Gchatted sitting next to each other at Online Coffee.
during my nervous breakdown i want to have a blogger present
I bought and read during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present and liked it, deeply identifying with Gorrell’s depression / anxiety / alienation. I was initially struck by the speaker’s strange world. Relationships are distant, frustrated; thoughts dash from the super personal of “i continued avoiding eye contact / because when I looked at your eyes, i couldn’t resist smiling” to fantasies of mutual space travel and suicide, and later to global apocalypse (mostly at the hands of the speaker but in one case thanks to clone aliens). The poems are often strange but more often than not they are grounded in the real, in a person thinking strange things. I imagine the speaker in ‘reality’ saying, “with a calm facial expression i will expand / into a giant flesh thing / the size of a volcano / and roll over seattle and head south” rather than it actually happening. The speaker is imagining. “Halloween Party” engages that sense of imagination but in a slightly different way, with the speaker stating, “Casey is a bird, Timothy is a Karate Kid, and John is a giant / floating emoticon…”. This is plausible; it’s a Halloween party. However, this poem is the one place for me where the book takes a turn for the really unreal:
Casey crouches on the carpet in the middle of people and
flies around the room making bird noises and hits some
curtains and hits a lamp and lands on a window sill with her
body pressed against the glass and flaps her wings a little.
I’m really interested in this passage because I first read it as Casey acting like a bird; I interpreted “flies around the room making bird noises…” as “[a drunk Casey] runs around the room quickly making bird noises”. I think this made the most sense given my impression of the book’s world. I further interpreted the party goers’ collective reaction (“Everyone stares at Casey”) as referring to her having done something disruptive but not totally unreal. But then Casey is asked, “how did you do that” and responds with bird noises. I am wondering what the intention was of this flight into the really unreal.
I should have asked this. I guess I could Gmail him about it but this seems better somehow. I’m not sure if this analytic excursion is warranted or if it is even grounded in any way. But this is how I want to describe what makes me excited about the possibilities of Gorrell’s poetry besides my initial emotional response to the work.
why are you a bird?
I was interested in interviewing Gorrell
I knew that Gorrell lived in Seattle, and furthermore surmised from his blog that he lived in a neighborhood that sort of adjoins mine. This suspicion was confirmed when my copy of dmnbiwabp showed up at my house bearing an address from a neighborhood adjoining mine.Because of this I felt irrationally connected to him. Though I had originally envisioned us chatting each other from different locations, I came to think that it would be more interesting if we Gchatted each other in the same place. Maybe even from across the same table. (We weren’t far apart, after all.) He agreed to this plan so we did it. I’m glad we did it this way because he’s already done a more interesting Gchat interview with Bostonist. I honestly had thought that this Gchat interview thing was a genuine innovation / extension of things that have inspired me.
Though we spoke words to each other before and after the interview we did not speak during the interview. Rather, we communicated via Gchat.
RPP: I guess this is how we are doing this
Brandon Scott Gorrell: it’s okay, i’ve done this type of thing before, kind of. it’s a little strange
I know. This is my way of getting out of transcription. What are you working on right now?
literature?
Yeah.
i am editing a final version of my novel. i’m trying to change the ending, kind of, for a publisher in the states that might take if it i do that. i am also working on getting all the stuff written down for another novel i recently started working on, tentatively titled ASIA.
Neat. I saw your posts on your travels. I identified with the toilet scene. Maybe that was in that short story on Muumuu’s site.
[The toilet seemed very clean but was irregularly shaped and low to the ground. It did not have a seat. I remembered that Asia had toilets where you had to squat to shit instead of sitting down. A feeling of foreboding briefly overcame me. I pulled down my pants and squatted over the toilet. I was afraid of shit somehow going into my pants. I shit a little and looked into the toilet to see if I had aimed correctly. I saw no shit. I moved my hand around in my pants and didn't feel any shit. I shit more, this time watching my ass to see the shit come out. It came out and landed in the bowl correctly and then quickly slipped into the hole out of view. I shit more and did a very loud, sustained fart. I laughed. I looked at the toilet paper holder and saw that there was no toilet paper. There was a hose next to the toilet that had a spray nozzle attached to the end of it. I felt very bad.]
Yes, it was.
Damn. Feel unprepared right now. Are from Seattle originally?
i moved here three years ago, from salt lake city, for a job writing for a reality television show, which ‘went under’ 3 months after i got here. in salt lake, i went to high school. before i was in salt lake, i was in harrisburg, PA.
Oh yay. PA. Great place…what are your impressions of Seattle?
I feel different about seattle at different times. after i got back from asia i felt that seattle was bleak. my good friend had left and i had just broken up with a girl, who i live 2 blocks away from. other times i have liked it. when i feel that i have a lot of options for distracting myself, or not being alone, i feel better about seattle. i don’t feel impressed by the city or something. i feel indifferent to seattle ‘as a city,’ i think. i feel more concerned with if i have…friend options.
I hear that it’s hard to ‘break through socially’ here or something.
people say that, but i don’t know how seattle would be any different than any other city, in terms of making friends when you’re completely alone. seems really hard in any city. you can’t just walk up to people, if you don’t have a job you have to like, go to embarrassing social functions, like readings, or something, to meet bitches. and bros..
I haven’t gone to a reading in Seattle. How’s the scene here?
i can’t really tell. yesterday i went to ‘cheap beer and prose’ at the hugo house and it was ‘completely packed.’ it was really hot, and there were a lot of girls in american apparel gear, and a lot of alternatively dressed guys….and older, wine drinking people. they were serving 16 oz. pabsts for $1. at other readings that i’ve been to in the past, it hasn’t been ‘near as crowded,’ and only local ‘staples’ have shown up, like matt briggs, or matthew simmons, or people more well-known. it seems to be getting bigger and more alternative, lately.
Oh. Sounds sweet. How often do you read in the city?
i haven’t often read since the summer, when my poetry book came out. i think i had like 4 readings over the course of 2 weeks, or something. since then i think i haven’t had any readings. i might have had one but i’m unsure. i don’t read often now.
I guess that’ll happen when you finish the novel?
yeah, that’s likely.
Who is publishing that?
3:AM PRESS is publishing it in france and the UK, and it’s being considered by another publisher here. it will come out in the spring or summer of this year, in europe.
So Europe gets to read it before we do? Damn. Is the novel ‘about you’?
yeah, they will. the novel was based on events that took place in my life from january 2008 to april 2008, i think. it was also based on how i interpreted those events. editing it now, i have tried to preserve the feelings i had during the time which the novel is based on.
Is it difficult to preserve those feelings? Are you ever tempted to radically change the work, given that you see things differently than you did then?
i think i feel as if i’ve defined those feelings, retrospectively, and have been editing on the basis of that definition. like when i was writing it originally, i didn’t really know what the main character’s issues were, or what made him feel the way he felt. after completing perhaps the 10th draft, or something, i think i felt different about things and was able to understand why the character felt certain ways. then i acted on that understanding, and have been since then. i used to kind of ‘radically’ change the work a lot, before that change occurred, that i just described, because i didn’t know what i was doing. now i feel like i know what is happening and that i just need to do certain things to make it more believable, or more readable, or something. brb.
So instead of starting again you can make it better…or something.
yes, i think so.
When did you have the sense that you knew what you were doing?
i’m not sure. awhile ago. there was one point when, over the course of a week, i think, i edited the novel from 30k words, to 15k words, based on something i had understood about what the finished novel should look like. then there was another point where i added, i think 6k words over the course of a week, that have mostly remained ‘to this day,’ and that was another event that i think represented that i understood more clearly what i should be doing.
You’ll know when it’s done?
it’s basically done. i might modify it for a publisher, but that already has like a clear goal, for me, so it will be easy to know when it’s done.
Ah. You still have a day job?
i get most of my money from a company that sells academic papers to ‘students in need.’ mostly undergraduate, masters and doctorate level papers. i write them. i get an amount of money for other freelance ‘gigs,’ such as writing for the matador travel website, and more professional ‘copy’ for some other websites. i get an amount of money from blog gimmicks and book sales and literature-related things. i don’t have a typical ‘day job’.
Does that mean you get to work from home? Or Online Coffee?
yes, it’s like 100% ‘telecommute.’
Sweet. That’s like me right now except I make zero money.
damn…
I know.
friday night…
What are you doing Friday night? PARTY.
tonight’s friday night….i’m not sure, either my ex-gf is sleeping over, or i’m chilling with clancy, probably drinking. waiting for the verdict on the ex-gf thing…
Sounds fun. Who is Clancy?
my friend. he is 25. he’s an ‘enabler.’ i need him in social situations sometimes. if i hope to meet people, i need him. his ‘superpower’ is his ability to do seemingly-retarded things that attract women toward our table and eventually make contact with them.
I feel like those are necessary. I had two of those in Philly but now I’m the closest thing to that. Which means that I talking about doing seemingly-retarded things that attract women…I think this is the bro/wingman relationship…
i like it.
I miss it. Before we wrap up. Do you have anything you want the internet to know via this interview?
you want to know my thoughts on any question, please ask me them on my formspring account: http://www.formspring.me/lydiadavis
Cool.
sweet.
I’m going to start talking……………………….
