December 26, 1994

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November 3, 1994

“Stop eating all of my chocolate.
Eat salad instead.”
— The Fall

May 22, 1995

I asked B— to sing along with Van Dyke Parks’ “The All Golden” in return for opening a bottle of vodka for her.

June 22, 1995

About six foot four, long black hair, lots of eye makeup, naked and covered in the blood from the waist up, carrying a knife. Oh wait, that’s not J—’s ex, that's Diamanda Galas! I got confused.

August 17, 1994

When you steal all the bubble gum and aspirin from Ellen’s desk can I have half?

August 7, 1994

Later in the dream, “weird death monsters” dance in Jandek’s living room, with “macabre deathly motions.”

May 23, 1995

New York minuses:

• Entrances to bridges and tunnels too far from water
• Modem causes static on clock radio in motel room

January 26, 1995

After “Williams Mix” comes an audience war: some clap, others boo, and each group gets louder and louder trying to drown the other out. This goes on for at least a full minute. One guy sneaks in a "Bravo!" just as the battle is ending.

January 16, 1995

The only thing I miss about DeKalb is the university library, with its long shelf of Gertrude Stein books, its bird living in the ventilation shafts, and its mindbending op art carpets.

January 21, 1995

After H— and J— hawked their CD and book, respectively, D— asked the audience if anyone wanted to buy his violin.

July 18, 1994

From the Hijokaidan interview, Jojo on portion sizes at American restaurants: “If Japanese ate that much their bodies would fall apart.”

December 6, 1994

I pretended to be asleep so I didn’t have to go on the riverboat gambling expedition.

October 26, 1994

“Pithoprakta” is Greek for “not so much garlic, please.”

January 11, 1995

Josh: There are Jim O’Rourke and David Grubbs interviews in You Could Do Worse #3.

I’ve read them. The interviewer manages to insult both Jim (by calling his music “formless”) and David (by calling his lyrics “ironic”) and they both get noticeably annoyed.

August 18, 1994

One time B— and I tried to put up posters at Wheaton College and the police stopped us after about five minutes. Eventually the policeman let us go, but he kept asking me why I was wearing a bathrobe. He was also puzzled by our posters: “Are these supposed to convince people of something, or what?”

November 12, 1995

I’ve told you of my love for dams, bridges, tunnels, canals, and other public works projects, right?

February 16, 1998

I’m trying to kick my Carmex addiction by switching to Chap Stick.

February 4, 1998

Is Bigfoot ever spotted in Chicago?

November 12, 1995

In the future this is how I will manipulate you into listening to something: one cryptic mention followed by six months of silence.

November 13, 1995

Received today: “I was just about to write in the name on the money order and I just thought I would check to make sure that I should right it out to Seth Tisue. That is a rather uncommon sounding name, and I thought I would check to make sure that I'm not writing it out to an internet nick name, other wise you might have trouble cashing it. And if it is your real name, please don’t feel at all insulted. It is much better then having a really common name like mine.”

May 20, 1995

They’re whispering “Josh Ronsen” in all the banks, boardrooms, and saunas.

May 15, 1995

What is your favorite proofreading mark?

January 4, 1994

I gained new respect for the Jehovah's Witnesses when I stayed a weekend at Xexoxial Endarchy in Madison, in a building known as the Avant-Garde Museum of Temporary Art. The front yard was filled with twenty-foot high nailed together & wildly painted sculptures, mannequins, and so on. In order to get to the house and knock and offer us literature, the Witnesses had to walk through all this stuff and past a large sign reading "Church of Anarchy". If I were a Jehovah's Witness I would have just gone to the next house.

December 14, 1993

They are shiny if you shine them.

December 14, 1993

I’m lucky it didn’t end up covered with bongwater stains and bullet holes.

April 28, 1995

It’s called “Meet a Friend on the Web”, but I suggest it be renamed “Laugh at a Loser on the Web.”

April 18, 1995

Josh: Can you say blah?

I can not only say it, I can live it.

March 31, 1995

Best spurious rumor about Albert Ayler’s death: that when they pulled his body out of the East River, it was tied to a jukebox.

January 6, 1994

I noticed she got stuck on one note for a while.

January 6, 1994

Have you seen the photo of Cage and Stockhausen riding together in the toy airplane?

May 17, 1994

They probably took your money and spent it on marmalade and hashish.

May 29, 1994

My elbow is sore from playing darts. The hallway outside our door smells like garbage.

July 3, 2000

“When replying, it is often possible to cleverly edit the original message in such a way as to subtly alter its meaning or tone to your advantage while appearing that you are taking pains to preserve the author’s intent. As a bonus, it will seem that your superior intellect is cutting through all the excess verbiage to the very heart of the matter.” — from the Symbolics Guidelines for Sending Mail

March 27, 2003

When I hear the word “scowl” I picture K—’s scowling face pasted over the face of whoever’s scowling.

May 24, 1995

He does have a temper, but I did not detect a green tint to his skin.

May 24, 1995

I hope to find the Universal Omega Point lying in a gutter in lower Manhattan tomorrow.

June 9, 1995

If only I could “buy” it in the sense of buying all rights to it, so I could sink it to the bottom of the ocean forever.

June 20, 1995

Things I did in Washington:

• watched Senate committee meeting; Bob Dole made brief appearance
• listened to the strange little electronic tunes the Metro trains hum to themselves

Things I did not do in Washington:

• eat some of the 2000-pound U.S. flag cake unveiled at the Washington Monument
• witness the Senate’s passage of the Communications Decency Act

June 22, 1995

If it were an anti-matter drum machine, I would buy it, because I could collide it with S—’s drum machine, and then both drum machines would be annihilated forever and S— might be annihilated as well.

March 6, 2000

“The Tao of progress appears as retreat” — Lao Tzu

July 7, 1995

I dreamed I was blamed for Warren Beatty’s broken neck. He spent years in bed recuperating. I had been trying to defend my mother from Beatty’s sexual advances. A jury found me guilty because Subway bribed them with sandwiches all during the two-year trial.

The dream ended with David Grubbs clinging to the front of a bright red speedboat and singing a song about the trial. After he sang it I read the printed lyrics and they mentioned a Lee “Scratch” Perry song called “8'x9'x6.5' Spirit”. No, there is no such song. In the dream I thought the feet marks meant inches, because I remember thinking an object that size would fit in your hands.

July 8, 1995

Now: Schiffsglocke. Next: Nebelhorn-Tuten.

March 26, 2003

Josh: C— is naked on the floor, writhing on blankets, in an arty not sleazy way.

For a moment there I thought this dream was going to get sleazy.

August 23, 1998

Josh: She told me about her desire to do a poetry open mic this evening.

I’d never confess that to someone I wasn’t really close with.

March 4, 2000

I dreamed I got the electric chair in Texas. I was terrified the chair would be defective, making it torture. I asked for a shot to make me unconscious but it just made me all groggy.

August 23, 1998

Supposedly at NU you can go to the health service, particularly around exams time, and claim to be all stressed out, and they will give you Valium on the spot, but you can’t do it too many times because they keep track.

September 21, 1997

“The problem of vision, as far as Watt was concerned, admitted of only solution: the eye open... The results given by the closed eye were, in Watt’s opinion, most unsatisfactory.” — Samuel Beckett, Watt

August 18, 1995

interviewer: One more question about “filiation”: On the one hand, you describe yourself in a relation of filiation, of respect with regard to “symbolic fathers”, even if that is a strategic matter, but on the other hand you have other types of address. I had the feeling that you address questions or appeals more than you transmit messages, the latter being more consistent with the symbolic notion of the Father (I am thinking of figures like Lacan); I was thinking that you create around yourself a network that is more one of affinity or attraction (in response perhaps to the “come”), than of affiliation.

Derrida: Perhaps...

August 7, 1995

Josh: Have you heard the Nono piano and tape piece whose title begins with 5 (five) .’s and ends with 3 (three) .’s?

No, but I’ve read “IIIIIIIIII” by Gertrude Stein.

July 19, 1995

Or, “Well, they may be heavier than Motorhead, but if Mauricio Kagel were far heavier than he actually is, he would be heavier still.” Remember to use the word “tactile”.

July 11, 1995

I’m sitting in an office with three ammunition experts.

July 23, 1995

The hairless groundhog B—’s parents found in their backyard died at the wildlife shelter.

April 29, 2003

My next painting: an alien (the same one from the bigfoot painting) standing in your creek, eating pizza, and listening to Mingus. You are looking at the alien expectantly; the alien seems puzzled.

April 29, 2003

Somebody asked “What IS yogurt?”, but no one at the table knew.

October 17, 1997

Sometimes people jump off dams to kill themselves, not realizing that they’re not as vertical as they look from the top. There’s no flesh left on their bones by the time they reach the bottom. I read it in a book.

December 8, 1997

If Jandek had been one of the bicyclists in Breaking Away, or maybe one of the textile workers in Norma Rae...

March 30, 2003

I think you should call your next record Verb Music for David Lee Roth.

December 3, 1996

I dreamed I read a magazine article or book in which the author described a visit to Jandek’s house. Jandek was in his early 40’s, married with children, and lived in a house in the middle of a swamp. His real name was John.

January 10, 2000

It’s from a gas station men’s room cologne dispenser.

January 13, 2000

Ha ha ha you dumb fuck, that’s a FORM LETTER!