As a person that has grown up within a family that owns concession stands since the 50’s—- fair after fair after festival. So many towns—- you described that coin toss game perfectly appealing to every sense I remembered it as a child. I, too, stood there and listened to that sound— the dimes made the best plinks!!! I miss sneaking into the side shows and making friends with all the different carnival folks. They always watched out for me when I wandered in and after some time, brought me back to our stand. I had so many adventures. The fairs really did take on a whole different personality at night than the day time. Almost mythical.
Hahaha. They sure did. There’s that olfactory memory, too. The Scrambler and the coaster that went in a circle— vomit over lost personal items. Also, hot mid- summer sun on contractor trash bags in metal barrels overflowing with fair food trash. Copious amounts of fair French fries that never quite make it in that barrel, ever. And— always piss. Forever, well water and piss— walking past the buildings that were restrooms/showers for us staying there the whole week.
The strangest show barn that was always just sad and seemed misplaced, was the agriculture barn—- tall, touching the rafters, dried sunflowers, with winning ribbons on them, celebrating their growth and ultimate death as I would walk by— jars of canned items behind glass with ribbons. No stories—- just backlit jars with vinegar sustained fruits and vegetables haunting their onlookers. Just writing this— creeped out all over— I was also roaming around all these buildings alone— so, that probably added to it.
How beautiful you write! In "We've Always Lived in the Castle" Shirley Jackson describes the cellar of the house. It's lined with generations of preserved fruits and vegetables in glass jars. All of them in the deep reds, greens, yellows of stained glass, but so old they've become toxic. An entire history of the female side of the family was preserved there. That accumulation of gorgeous, poison relics. Read it!
Chuck, you’re assisting to prompt writing in me I haven’t gone back to since my spoken word days. Thank you. Being on my own canning journey— I feel a connection to the past I really needed. It’s been 100% cathartic. Thank you again for what you’re doing here. I’m on my way to looking for the book. 🤓
There's a short story...it riffs on Keats' Eve of Saint Agnes, with a memorable image of the apothecary's colored-glass bottles in reds and blues cascading colors over a pharmacist's assistant who is sick with consumption...can't think of the name. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
I read Stephen King’s “It” while in high school— longest book I had ever read at that point— of course— up comes a fucking clown from the sewer. I kept reading— but— damn. Also, after reading Stephen King’s “The Library Police,” I sure didn’t turn in a book late ever again.
And this is why I have canvasses with weird demon faces all over my apartment. Those peel-off pore-shrinking masks? Just stick them to a wet canvas and add a few layers of paint and waalaa, creepy AF art!
There's a gorgeous guy on Instagram, burly with a beard, who jokingly calls himself Bluto from Popeye. Every day he posts himself saying "Mornin'" is his hunky deep voice, just that one word. It's a shot of dopamine right to the brain, and I get sad if I miss it in his stories. I get the same feeling when you write "whatnot." Thanks for the double shot.
What about new slang? I just learned oomf/oomfies today. Acronym for one of my followers (in terms of social media) as in "Chuck Palahniuk has a plethora of kind and weird oomfies."
Maybe I'm the last one to learn it (cuz I'm not a millennial).
Great post. The nature of being an artist —irrespective of the medium—is exploring materials, inklings, ideas, obsessions, repulsions, emotions and the unconscious without judgement. Some of the most fun I've had making stuff occurred back in the 00's when I started collecting materials I found repulsive: pounds of drier lint from the local laundromat; discarded refrigerator doors; foam from curbside couch cushions; used coffee grinds, used cotton swabs; and other random items that were dirty, broken, and generally considered "unclean" by the general population. I'd pour liquid latex out onto a large sheet of plexiglass. Peel it off like skin, then wrapped the refrigerator doors packed tight with the collective lint of other people's laundry. The effect was uncanny. I felt nervous about what people would think about me as a person—but I was having so much fun I started to not give a shit. I'd also heat dark wax for lost was bronze casting, cut up old house painting brushes, carve the foam cushions with an electric carving knife one might use for a Thanksgiving bird, and made sculptures that looked like they been discovered in the basement of an abandoned mental hospital. I had some interest from a suburban gallery in Jersey for one of the tamer pieces, but the experience of allowing myself to play with these materials and processes was priceless.
A favorite quote of mine attributed to McLuhan: We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish.
I would say yes. For example, Bill Traylor's stuff was so outside what was considered quality mainstream art. His work was way ahead of anything else going on during his time. Even today it has a certain timeless quality and sophistication rarely seen; using a bare minimum of forms and counter-forms.
To tie together this post and your previous post— Not that it ultimately matters, but I'm wondering if Tom Spanbauer's approach to writing could be considered a form of outsider art in some direct or indirect way? I am embarrassed to say I haven't read him yet.
I was anticipating the content of this post after you alluded to what was to come in a response to a previous question of mine from yesterdays post. The anecdote and information included here were well worth the wait! Have you ever "unearthed" something through your writing which surprised you to any degree? For example, have you ever intended to write about something only to realise that you may have been "unearthing" something else entirely?
Also, I thought I'd mention today that myself and a few other students from my Uni English Lit group were interviewed by a BBC journalist about Offence and Censorship in Literature (which, given the ephemeral theme going on in your posts, I found to be a little coincidental considering I asked if you would maybe at some point in the future do a post the very same subject only a few days before). I'm mentioning this I as I spoke a little about you, and more specifically, your short story "Guts" as a talking point. To paraphrase myself here, I believe I said: "In regards to stories that can be considered taboo or upsetting, Chuck Palahniuk wrote a story called "Guts" which, and I know this might sound like exaggeration, has actually made people faint. I knew about this when I read the story, and even so, I felt nauseous reading it. I actually took a break and found myself laughing a little because of how squeamish I felt. I think this is kind of the same in principle as the to the reasons why people ride rollercoasters or watch horror movies. They get a controlled thrill. Something's evoked from them within the confines of a safe environment. And, like I said, "Guts" made me feel a way in which no other story or piece of media has before. And I love it for that."
The recording might be a little less eloquently said than how a paraphrased it and is unfortunately spoken in a monotone voice that would put Darth Vader to shame. They also may or may not include it when they broadcast the final recording in the next two upcoming months.
Speaking of "Guts", and having the opportunity, I'd like to thank you for one of the most viscerally evocative reading experiences I've had in my life. I've yet to find something to equal it.
Look for the short story on Saturday. There's no repeating "Guts" because that would in itself be tedious. But with stories like "Zombies" where I can hear young men in the audience crying, that's something. To take a profane path and arrive in a profound place is always the goal.
Brand new story. Only here. Saturday at 9:00 PST. I'll post a newsletter backstory on it also.
And yeah, I've gone down the road for years after a book before realizing the true, private thing I've tricked myself into revealing. Panic ensues. On the plus-side, by then my emotional attachment to it was so exhausted that the issue didn't much faze me.
Yesterday I google-hunted down a production company that made several memorable films in my youth. When I figured out the name-- Wonderworks, FYI-- and read its history, what mattered most was the company's vanity card. An animated hot air balloon.
I don't know why yet, but that's what I was looking for.
Unlike yourself, Mr. P., I found myself ashamed at my fickle memory. Thank you, so very much, for helping me consider it under a more productive (and multicolored) light.
Bwah! You got me again, Mr. Unreliable Narrator. Damn, you do that well. I couldn't get the image out of my head. A teenage girl in kitten heels climbing a lattice of lead solder. Poppycock! And then you hooked me. "As for me, I want you to think I’m a liar." Crafty you are, with rainbow lights and words.
Hey (horrible dweeb secret revealed) I used to do stained glass so I know that soldered lead can support a few pounds. Stretching that came (not a euphemism) takes some real strength. Yes, copper foil wouldn't support a fly, but good solid half-inch lead came... a little teen... yeah.
And, yeah, while other kids were going to prom, I was probably cutting opalescent glass.
Dare I claim that the dweeb gene is the proud, unifying force of this group? And I stand correct. I'll be patient and take Sam's daring at face value (for now).
Growing up I'd go to the Puyallup Fair outside of Tacoma. What I remember best was the pneumatic machine gun BB gun shooting gallery where you had to shoot out this little red star to get a prize. They'd only put one hundred BBs in the gun (or so they claimed)—just enough so you couldn't get the whole star. I can still hear that pneumatic sound of trying to get the whole star. Damn carnies!
I have a good, yet dangerous tale about a haunted carnival “Bo-Bo” machine my family owned, aka “dunk tank.” I’ll post about it on my next newsletter. 🤭🤫
There’s a guy on YouTube who exposes the fair games and points out which ones are impossible. The bb rifle star shoot out is considered near impossible because of some of the physics behind shooting out any shape with tiny holes. Even if aimed perfectly, that last remaining bit needed to be removed has has no resistance left. You can try the experiment with a pencil or other sharp object.
Also, that quest yields a prettier result than, say, building a Devil’s Tower replica out of mashed potatoes and freaking out your family (which is the first thing that came to my mind).
In 1981 my elementary school class was given a presentation on electricity by a now mostly forgotten inventor of the three-way lightbulb. It was so long ago now that I really only recall that he seemed incredibly old and that he had the class hold hands to demonstrate how we could form a circuit to illuminate a lightbulb. There’s a fair bit of illumination (and even some virtual hand-joining) happening around here. Thanks for sharing, teaching, providing, and chatting. I’m positive that I’m not the only one feeling charged up here.
Nice. That reminds me of my story "Zombies" about how everyone grabs the guy who's about to kill himself with electricity. They save him by putting their own lives at risk. I hope the guy who invented the bulb got royalties...
Reading this, I could not stop thinking of Denny and his rocks. It almost seemed like a parallel, how you didn't know why you felt so drawn to it until you had collected enough to make the connection, Denny doesn't know yet what he plans to build with his rocks. Although, Denny's habit was a replacement behavior, I still couldn't get that out of my head. I looked in the comments and didn't see if anyone else noticed, so maybe it's just me, but I think it's cool how I'm sure you've already subconsiously written this scene into one of your books.
This prompted me to post my first Substack story. I originally wrote it while exploring my childhood with my therapist. So often my memories are triggered by sights or sounds or smells. Sometimes those memories are quite vivid, sometimes so fleeting and amorphus that I've spent years trying to grab on to them when they appear.
Several years after writing that one, I read (or heard) somewhere you saying something about people writing in second person often do so to distance themselves from the subject matter. I had originally written it as an exercise in second person, but after that quote was never really sure if I had, or if I was attempting to keep myself at arm's length from the story.
Oh, I can believe that- I struggle to write darker or violent scenes in first or even third person. I'd like to stop shying away from that, but it's definitely been a challenge.
So far this is the only time I've ever written something autobiographical and wondered later if I had been uncomfortable about it. But I don't consciously feel like I am so I'm unsure at this point.
There's a print on my wall from 1902 I'm looking at now and wondering if I might be cool with it in a newer frame...student loans, man.
But anyway, I haven't peaked over the ledge that is my memories of growing up beyond the artificial facts of it in a long while. It's kind of intimidating, if I'm being honest. I guess I probably just have to find the courage to leap instead of waiting for someone to shove me, you know?
I am going down to the Prineville Reservoir to look at stars using my Dobsonian telescope. I hope to see some wonderful things at this certified international dark sky park. Maybe these things will inspire some cosmic horror writing from me in the future, when I get reminded on how insignificant we are in the universe. If anything, I can do some rock hounding at the park for some future art projects. I have always felt that my creative projects have helped to inspire my other creative endeavors. Thank you for the wonderful story.
As a person that has grown up within a family that owns concession stands since the 50’s—- fair after fair after festival. So many towns—- you described that coin toss game perfectly appealing to every sense I remembered it as a child. I, too, stood there and listened to that sound— the dimes made the best plinks!!! I miss sneaking into the side shows and making friends with all the different carnival folks. They always watched out for me when I wandered in and after some time, brought me back to our stand. I had so many adventures. The fairs really did take on a whole different personality at night than the day time. Almost mythical.
I still hate clowns though. No.
Did they put down sawdust at your fairs? Ah, the bitter smell of puke around certain rides.
Hahaha. They sure did. There’s that olfactory memory, too. The Scrambler and the coaster that went in a circle— vomit over lost personal items. Also, hot mid- summer sun on contractor trash bags in metal barrels overflowing with fair food trash. Copious amounts of fair French fries that never quite make it in that barrel, ever. And— always piss. Forever, well water and piss— walking past the buildings that were restrooms/showers for us staying there the whole week.
The strangest show barn that was always just sad and seemed misplaced, was the agriculture barn—- tall, touching the rafters, dried sunflowers, with winning ribbons on them, celebrating their growth and ultimate death as I would walk by— jars of canned items behind glass with ribbons. No stories—- just backlit jars with vinegar sustained fruits and vegetables haunting their onlookers. Just writing this— creeped out all over— I was also roaming around all these buildings alone— so, that probably added to it.
How beautiful you write! In "We've Always Lived in the Castle" Shirley Jackson describes the cellar of the house. It's lined with generations of preserved fruits and vegetables in glass jars. All of them in the deep reds, greens, yellows of stained glass, but so old they've become toxic. An entire history of the female side of the family was preserved there. That accumulation of gorgeous, poison relics. Read it!
Chuck, you’re assisting to prompt writing in me I haven’t gone back to since my spoken word days. Thank you. Being on my own canning journey— I feel a connection to the past I really needed. It’s been 100% cathartic. Thank you again for what you’re doing here. I’m on my way to looking for the book. 🤓
There's a short story...it riffs on Keats' Eve of Saint Agnes, with a memorable image of the apothecary's colored-glass bottles in reds and blues cascading colors over a pharmacist's assistant who is sick with consumption...can't think of the name. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
We're coulrophobia sisters, you and I.
Fuck clowns, man.
I read Stephen King’s “It” while in high school— longest book I had ever read at that point— of course— up comes a fucking clown from the sewer. I kept reading— but— damn. Also, after reading Stephen King’s “The Library Police,” I sure didn’t turn in a book late ever again.
Chuck— I ordered the book.
Hey, who am I to judge? At twelve I read "Let's Go Play at the Adams'." Still processing that experience.
Woof—— that’s a really dark story!!! 😨
Hah! Grady Hendrix and I talked about that book extensively. He thinks the ending is deeply spiritual. "... and all the light went out of the world."
And this is why I have canvasses with weird demon faces all over my apartment. Those peel-off pore-shrinking masks? Just stick them to a wet canvas and add a few layers of paint and waalaa, creepy AF art!
There's a gorgeous guy on Instagram, burly with a beard, who jokingly calls himself Bluto from Popeye. Every day he posts himself saying "Mornin'" is his hunky deep voice, just that one word. It's a shot of dopamine right to the brain, and I get sad if I miss it in his stories. I get the same feeling when you write "whatnot." Thanks for the double shot.
How about "gimcrack"? Whosis? I love old slang.
Gimcrack is fantastic.
What about new slang? I just learned oomf/oomfies today. Acronym for one of my followers (in terms of social media) as in "Chuck Palahniuk has a plethora of kind and weird oomfies."
Maybe I'm the last one to learn it (cuz I'm not a millennial).
PS It's KILLING me that we can't fix our own typos here. I get it, but still. Grrrrrr.
Copy text, delete old post, paste incorrect previous post, then correct :)
Yeah yeah, but then I would have lost Gimcrack.
The world would have lost Gimcrack.
The world appreciates your sacrifice.
If Mr. P. teaches us one thing, it's that flaws often turn out to be the opposite. Bug? Or feature?!
It's the caterpillar's boots!
I had a staredown with a solar light destroying backyard raccoon. I hope he enjoys fifty vases filled with glass pebbles.
Great post. The nature of being an artist —irrespective of the medium—is exploring materials, inklings, ideas, obsessions, repulsions, emotions and the unconscious without judgement. Some of the most fun I've had making stuff occurred back in the 00's when I started collecting materials I found repulsive: pounds of drier lint from the local laundromat; discarded refrigerator doors; foam from curbside couch cushions; used coffee grinds, used cotton swabs; and other random items that were dirty, broken, and generally considered "unclean" by the general population. I'd pour liquid latex out onto a large sheet of plexiglass. Peel it off like skin, then wrapped the refrigerator doors packed tight with the collective lint of other people's laundry. The effect was uncanny. I felt nervous about what people would think about me as a person—but I was having so much fun I started to not give a shit. I'd also heat dark wax for lost was bronze casting, cut up old house painting brushes, carve the foam cushions with an electric carving knife one might use for a Thanksgiving bird, and made sculptures that looked like they been discovered in the basement of an abandoned mental hospital. I had some interest from a suburban gallery in Jersey for one of the tamer pieces, but the experience of allowing myself to play with these materials and processes was priceless.
A favorite quote of mine attributed to McLuhan: We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish.
Maybe this is the appeal of outsider art? It's not decreed by some school.
no. looking into it now. thank you
I would say yes. For example, Bill Traylor's stuff was so outside what was considered quality mainstream art. His work was way ahead of anything else going on during his time. Even today it has a certain timeless quality and sophistication rarely seen; using a bare minimum of forms and counter-forms.
To tie together this post and your previous post— Not that it ultimately matters, but I'm wondering if Tom Spanbauer's approach to writing could be considered a form of outsider art in some direct or indirect way? I am embarrassed to say I haven't read him yet.
Thank you Chuck. This is so beautifully written. Thank you for sharing. I'm loving your Substack!
Thank you!
I was anticipating the content of this post after you alluded to what was to come in a response to a previous question of mine from yesterdays post. The anecdote and information included here were well worth the wait! Have you ever "unearthed" something through your writing which surprised you to any degree? For example, have you ever intended to write about something only to realise that you may have been "unearthing" something else entirely?
Also, I thought I'd mention today that myself and a few other students from my Uni English Lit group were interviewed by a BBC journalist about Offence and Censorship in Literature (which, given the ephemeral theme going on in your posts, I found to be a little coincidental considering I asked if you would maybe at some point in the future do a post the very same subject only a few days before). I'm mentioning this I as I spoke a little about you, and more specifically, your short story "Guts" as a talking point. To paraphrase myself here, I believe I said: "In regards to stories that can be considered taboo or upsetting, Chuck Palahniuk wrote a story called "Guts" which, and I know this might sound like exaggeration, has actually made people faint. I knew about this when I read the story, and even so, I felt nauseous reading it. I actually took a break and found myself laughing a little because of how squeamish I felt. I think this is kind of the same in principle as the to the reasons why people ride rollercoasters or watch horror movies. They get a controlled thrill. Something's evoked from them within the confines of a safe environment. And, like I said, "Guts" made me feel a way in which no other story or piece of media has before. And I love it for that."
The recording might be a little less eloquently said than how a paraphrased it and is unfortunately spoken in a monotone voice that would put Darth Vader to shame. They also may or may not include it when they broadcast the final recording in the next two upcoming months.
Speaking of "Guts", and having the opportunity, I'd like to thank you for one of the most viscerally evocative reading experiences I've had in my life. I've yet to find something to equal it.
Look for the short story on Saturday. There's no repeating "Guts" because that would in itself be tedious. But with stories like "Zombies" where I can hear young men in the audience crying, that's something. To take a profane path and arrive in a profound place is always the goal.
Brand new story. Only here. Saturday at 9:00 PST. I'll post a newsletter backstory on it also.
And yeah, I've gone down the road for years after a book before realizing the true, private thing I've tricked myself into revealing. Panic ensues. On the plus-side, by then my emotional attachment to it was so exhausted that the issue didn't much faze me.
Yesterday I google-hunted down a production company that made several memorable films in my youth. When I figured out the name-- Wonderworks, FYI-- and read its history, what mattered most was the company's vanity card. An animated hot air balloon.
I don't know why yet, but that's what I was looking for.
Unlike yourself, Mr. P., I found myself ashamed at my fickle memory. Thank you, so very much, for helping me consider it under a more productive (and multicolored) light.
Bwah! You got me again, Mr. Unreliable Narrator. Damn, you do that well. I couldn't get the image out of my head. A teenage girl in kitten heels climbing a lattice of lead solder. Poppycock! And then you hooked me. "As for me, I want you to think I’m a liar." Crafty you are, with rainbow lights and words.
Hey (horrible dweeb secret revealed) I used to do stained glass so I know that soldered lead can support a few pounds. Stretching that came (not a euphemism) takes some real strength. Yes, copper foil wouldn't support a fly, but good solid half-inch lead came... a little teen... yeah.
And, yeah, while other kids were going to prom, I was probably cutting opalescent glass.
Dare I claim that the dweeb gene is the proud, unifying force of this group? And I stand correct. I'll be patient and take Sam's daring at face value (for now).
Also, if you think I'm being a dick, know that I don't mean to be. I'm just riffing and having fun. You can tell me to put a sock in it at any time :)
Growing up I'd go to the Puyallup Fair outside of Tacoma. What I remember best was the pneumatic machine gun BB gun shooting gallery where you had to shoot out this little red star to get a prize. They'd only put one hundred BBs in the gun (or so they claimed)—just enough so you couldn't get the whole star. I can still hear that pneumatic sound of trying to get the whole star. Damn carnies!
I was JUST there a couple of weekends ago. I looked at alllll those games with side-eye.
I have a good, yet dangerous tale about a haunted carnival “Bo-Bo” machine my family owned, aka “dunk tank.” I’ll post about it on my next newsletter. 🤭🤫
There’s a guy on YouTube who exposes the fair games and points out which ones are impossible. The bb rifle star shoot out is considered near impossible because of some of the physics behind shooting out any shape with tiny holes. Even if aimed perfectly, that last remaining bit needed to be removed has has no resistance left. You can try the experiment with a pencil or other sharp object.
Also, that quest yields a prettier result than, say, building a Devil’s Tower replica out of mashed potatoes and freaking out your family (which is the first thing that came to my mind).
In 1981 my elementary school class was given a presentation on electricity by a now mostly forgotten inventor of the three-way lightbulb. It was so long ago now that I really only recall that he seemed incredibly old and that he had the class hold hands to demonstrate how we could form a circuit to illuminate a lightbulb. There’s a fair bit of illumination (and even some virtual hand-joining) happening around here. Thanks for sharing, teaching, providing, and chatting. I’m positive that I’m not the only one feeling charged up here.
Nice. That reminds me of my story "Zombies" about how everyone grabs the guy who's about to kill himself with electricity. They save him by putting their own lives at risk. I hope the guy who invented the bulb got royalties...
Are we sure it was a guy?
Reading this, I could not stop thinking of Denny and his rocks. It almost seemed like a parallel, how you didn't know why you felt so drawn to it until you had collected enough to make the connection, Denny doesn't know yet what he plans to build with his rocks. Although, Denny's habit was a replacement behavior, I still couldn't get that out of my head. I looked in the comments and didn't see if anyone else noticed, so maybe it's just me, but I think it's cool how I'm sure you've already subconsiously written this scene into one of your books.
Hah, thank you! My entire life is a replacement behavior. I love that term.
I also thought of Denny!
This prompted me to post my first Substack story. I originally wrote it while exploring my childhood with my therapist. So often my memories are triggered by sights or sounds or smells. Sometimes those memories are quite vivid, sometimes so fleeting and amorphus that I've spent years trying to grab on to them when they appear.
Several years after writing that one, I read (or heard) somewhere you saying something about people writing in second person often do so to distance themselves from the subject matter. I had originally written it as an exercise in second person, but after that quote was never really sure if I had, or if I was attempting to keep myself at arm's length from the story.
Oh, I can believe that- I struggle to write darker or violent scenes in first or even third person. I'd like to stop shying away from that, but it's definitely been a challenge.
So far this is the only time I've ever written something autobiographical and wondered later if I had been uncomfortable about it. But I don't consciously feel like I am so I'm unsure at this point.
There's a print on my wall from 1902 I'm looking at now and wondering if I might be cool with it in a newer frame...student loans, man.
But anyway, I haven't peaked over the ledge that is my memories of growing up beyond the artificial facts of it in a long while. It's kind of intimidating, if I'm being honest. I guess I probably just have to find the courage to leap instead of waiting for someone to shove me, you know?
I am going down to the Prineville Reservoir to look at stars using my Dobsonian telescope. I hope to see some wonderful things at this certified international dark sky park. Maybe these things will inspire some cosmic horror writing from me in the future, when I get reminded on how insignificant we are in the universe. If anything, I can do some rock hounding at the park for some future art projects. I have always felt that my creative projects have helped to inspire my other creative endeavors. Thank you for the wonderful story.
That was beautiful.