Dear Sirs:

Some day you will move me almost to the verge of irritation by your chuckle-headed, goddamned fashion of shutting your goddamned gas off without giving any notice to your goddamned parishioners. Several times you have come within an ace of smothering half of this household in their beds and blowing up the other half by this idiotic, not to say criminal, custom of yours. And it has happended again today.

Haven’t you a telephone?

Ys
Samuel L. Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain)
A letter to the gas company; February 12, 1891

I am reading Mark Twain's autobio. When he had a public speaking engagement, he would sometimes tell a stupid, boring, unfunny anecdote in a deadpan voice on purpose. No one would laugh. He would repeat it over and over, identically, usually 5 times before the audience would roar with laughter. That kind of performance art predated Andy Kaufman by a century! I wonder if Kaufman read that book?

Chuck P. is sometimes compared to Kurt V. I found these two short essays on writing by Vonnegut that seem to go against some of the tenets of minimalism. What do you guys think?
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Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Ever known anyone who shit out their mouth? I have. That only happens in cases of extreme bowel obstruction. The feces actually travels out of the intestine, back through the stomach and back through several sphincters to come merrily out your mouth. Surgery is required to fix the blockage; in this case, the removal of about two feet of intestine.

That’s not the only rectal problem she had. Prior to surgery, and after years of straining due to the blockage, she sometimes had rectal prolapse. That’s the medical term for your shit-pipe falling out of your asshole and protruding 5 or 6 inches. That’s not always a plus for a stripper.

She told me her asshole once fell out while on stage. The patrons were all like, “OH MY GOD! WHAT THE FUCK? *RETCH*”. A bouncer quickly threw a towel around her and dragged her off. Thankfully she is too brash and dumb to be embarrassed.

Nearin is my friend. Her full name is NEAR-IN GRACE BLACKWELL. Her mom was going through a religious phase when she named her. I’ve known her for about two years now. Nearin is an Aquarius like me. We were born the same year, 3 days apart. She loves to read. She likes to draw cartoons and she writes a little poetry. Her late father was Ed Blackwell, a noted jazz drummer. Google him; he was cool. He played on the track “AOS” on the Yoko album of Plastic Ono Band. He once wrote a song for Nearin called “Near-in”. A reviewer called it an “extended and hypnotic piece for wood drums.”

Nearin is well read and has been around. Her best friend is a college professor with a PHD. Nearin grew up traveling with her musician father, often living in Europe and Africa years at a time. I visit her periodically.

In prison.