This arrived in my email today:

Dear Ben Peek,

On November 10th, The Institute for the Future of the Book kicks off an experiment in close reading. Seven women will read Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook and carry on a conversation in the margins. The idea for the project arose out of my experience re-reading the novel in the summer of 2007 just before Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Golden Notebook was one of the two or three most influential books of my youth and I decided I wanted to “try it on” again after so many years. It turned out to be one of the most interesting reading experiences of my life. With an interval of thirty-seven years the lens of perception was so different; things that stood out the first-time around were now of lesser importance, and entire themes I missed the first time came front and center. When I told my younger colleagues what I was reading, I was surprised that not one of them had read it, not even the ones with degrees in English literature. It occurred to me that it would be very interesting to eavesdrop on a conversation between two readers, one under thirty, one over fifty or sixty, in which they react to the book and to each other’s reactions. And then of course I realized that we now actually have the technology to do just that. Thanks to the efforts of Chris Meade, my colleague and director of if:book London, the Arts Council England enthusiastically and generously agreed to fund the project. Chris was also the link to Doris Lessing who through her publisher HarperCollins signed on with the rights to putting the entire text of the novel online.

Fundamentally this is an experiment in how the web might be used as a space for collaborative close-reading. We don’t yet understand how to model a complex conversation in the web’s two-dimensional environment and we’re hoping this experiment will help us learn what’s necessary to make this sort of collaboration work as well as possible. In addition to making comments in the margin, we expect that the readers will also record their reactions to the process in a group blog. In the public forum, everyone who is reading along and following the conversation can post their comments on the book and the process itself.

I’m writing you now with the hope that you will help spread the word to everyone who might be interested in following along and participating in the forum discussions.

Thank you

Bob Stein

p.s. One last note. This is not essentially an experiment in online reading itself. Although the online version of the text is quite readable, for now, we believe books made of paper still have a substantial advantage over the screen for sustained reading of a linear narrative. So you may also want to suggest to your readers that they order copies of the book now. Whichever edition of the book someone reads (US, UK or online), there is a navigation bar at the top of the online page will help locate them within the conversation.

Now, I don’t know Stein, or have any contact with anyone involved in the project, and I’ve just been spammed with it, really, but it caught my attention.

It caught my attention because I’m a cynic, and his pitch of the idea translates into ‘Some guy was reading Lessing and decided that he could get some cash for a project by having a minority–in this case, women–read a novel by Lessing and drawn commentary from it.’

Mostly, I just ignore this kind of shit, because I don’t particularly want to validate it on my blog. I’m not sure why, but this blog here has a bit of currency, and occasionally people want to use that. But in this case, the site itself opens up to a whole kind of comedy. You might think, as I did, that Stein found readers who were ordinary, every day folk, or at least grabbed readers who came from a wide variety of social, cultural, and economic backgrounds, and to a degree he has done that. The readers appear to be from different areas in the world, but they share, every single one of them, in the fact that each of them is educated and well read and, I might add, published. Yes, each one of these women involved in the reading are writers, which means, no doubt, that the scribbles in the margins are going to be filled with comments about their own work, how they wish they could do that, or were influenced by it, because the whole thing turns, now, into an advertising campaign for those readers, using Lessing’s own fame to help promote themselves. Like leeches, they’re try and sponge a bit of blood out of the old girl for their own projects. Perhaps I’ll be wrong about that, but I suspect not.

The people involved are, I’m sure, not going to be too pleased by my cynical reading of the project, but I’ve been spammed for a bit of free advertising and, frankly, that can go both ways. Sometimes I’ll get something and I’ll jazz to a project. Sometimes I’ll get something and I’ll laugh at it and link it because I think it’s utterly self serving and ridiculous.

This is one of those times.

Link.

I think we’re coming to the end of 26lies commentary over in the States, but there’s still some more left.

Of interest, perhaps, is what the class has been told to do, and how to read the book, which I am, at least, finding interesting. There’s really nothing to say about it, other than its nice to see so much attention paid to Anna’s pictures.

Comments:

M. Haji Bigman

So Ben Peek’s novel “twenty-six lies/one truth” is a truly different approach at telling a story. In regards to the entries on understanding(the pictures), I feel like Peek is expressing his ability to understand the gravity of the situation. I honestly don’t feel that he intentionally tried to harm G.

Seriously, he cared deeply for her. I mean, what else could he have done in a split second. The choice, in my eyes, was not between who the car was going to hit, but which direction to turn the wheel. He uses his guilt to try and make a rational reason for her death. He even admits that he likes the lies because they make it easier.

What would you have done? Personally, I probably would have turned the wheel to the right because I am right handed. But since this is Australia and the wheel is on the opposite side, this would have protected me and not the passenger. This is probably way over analyzing this, but I think it is an interesting point. Why would someone, even if he hated the mother, hurt his unborn child?

Chelsea Abplanalp

Ben Peek’s entries are all pretty personal but the personal diary entries have that little extra personal touch. When we were asked to re-read JUST the personal diary entries i didn’t think it would make that big of a difference as opposed to when we read them along with the story, but i was mistaken ( i guess we should never second guess our professors). We actually found out a lot of things by reading them all in order, for instance that Ben got his book deal the same day that he crashed the car and G died. We also were able to really see into how he was feeling and how he was dealing with the guilt. I cant really imagine how he felt but the diary entries definitely let us into how he was feeling. One that stuck out to me was the one called vindictive. He talks about all these things he was going to say to G through e-mails, calls, messages, but obviously cant do any of that since she is dead. It;s just another way people deal with guilt and stress. Sometimes if you write things out its a way to get it all out of your system and thats kind of what i think he was doing in this entry.

Doug DeMaio

When I was given the assignment to read all of the personal diary entries, in order, in twenty-six lies/one truth I was expecting some sort of grand revelation to fall upon me like a warm blanket on a winter night. Or something like that. But, alas, nothing of the sort took place.

Did anybody else think something like that was gonna happen?

Instead, the entries just made me feel a whole lot of different emotions that didn’t seem to be tied to anything in particular. My mind was confused, and my heart was confused. I was confused. I still am confused actually…

I feel as though reading all of the personal diary entries raised more new questions than it answered.

On the positive side though, something is to be said for writing that can make me feel so strongly, whether it be sad, confused, or otherwise. And beyond that, something is to be said for writing that could put our entire lit. class into silence like it did today. I think that is the first time that room has been silent (with us in it) since the time in which no one wanted to record the voice-overs for their digital stories.

I also found it ironic that our assignment was to read those, and to try to reach an understanding about “Understanding.” And I didn’t reach a definitive understanding of any of them. Just a little more insight.

I wish I didn’t have two midterms tomorrow.

Drrogers

First of all if any one reads this post please understand that I am really not sure what Ben Peeks Understanding entries are meant to do. From what I gathered in the two understanding entries/pictures is that even though G’s death hurts and depresses him Ben Peek he has to understand that G is gone.
I think that the second understanding post is what really helped me figure out what I thought the meaning of The two understanding posts were. It shows Ben Peek looking over after waking up and seeing that G is not there. The picture shows that G’s spot is imprinted on the bed next to Peek. I think the eyes in the first entry represent his look of sadness and understanding that he is expressing in the second entry on understanding. It is doubtful that after G has been gone for so long that there is still an obvious imprint of her presence still on the bed, but the picture is meant to help the reader understand what Ben Peek is feeling. I think that the first entry of the picture of the eyes is purely a connection to the second entry, just more intimate.
I think that using a picture like Peek does in the two understanding entries can truly help the reader grasp his feelings, and also visualize what the characters look like. With out a picture the whole message the Peek is presenting could be presented too directly. Finally if I analyzed this at all correctly then the two pictures are used simply to help the reader understands Peeks thoughts.

Kaleb

The Understanding entries, to me, speak of someone who made a mistake that really wasn’t their fault and then coming to own the finality of their decision without owning that it really wasn’t their fault. When Ben Peek turned the car away from the truck to make it so that he wouldn’t be hit, he wasn’t actively trying to kill Geraldine Lee. He just jerked the wheel where he felt he would be safest, as any human would.

That he thought “fuck you” is irrelevant as even he doesn’t specify what he was “fuck you”-ing. The survival instinct saved him, but he holds it against himself. In the picture of the eyes, his eyes reflect the full realization that he killed Geraldine, whom he loved, and that she would never be coming back. The understanding was false, though, in that it did not take into account that he really didn’t plan on her death. Turning the wheel so that she was hit was the best option, really, when one considers that as both the side of the car with the wheel and the side of the road people drive on is backward, him turning the wheel as he did would have him moving empirically away from the oncoming truck. Thus it is plausible that he was just trying to get the entire car away from the truck.

On an unrelated note, the Personal Diary Entries were a good insight into Ben Peek’s thoughts about Geraldine and life in general. The only personal diary entry that wasn’t written on Oct. 12, Ben’s birthday, was written shortly before Geraldine was killed. Ben had gotten a book deal and was happy and he and Geraldine were going out to celebrate. Then they somehow became pissed at each other and were driving home angry. Geraldine and her unborn baby were both killed in the crash (actually revealed in “X is where you sign your name”). Ben goes througha deep depression on his birthday, where he doesn’t feel his life matters.

That’s important.

The fact that he feels guilt and remorse on the day he is officially one year older is important because the guilt most likely stems from the thought that he will continue to get older but Geraldine will not. This guilt is compounded by the fact that he only sees himself as respsonsible for the accident.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. You may disagree. I may not care. That sounds harsh. I do care, really. But just a little. Don’t take it personally. I never go back on an idea once I have ideated it. Forget that noise.

Austin Underwood

I was a huge fan of Twenty-Six Lies/ One Truth. So much so I had already read A-M way back in August when I first picked up my school books. I just started reading and couldn’t put it down. I decided to re-read it so I would be able to comment on the book better in class.

The assignment for the first section was to write about our favorite entry, then go back, re-read it, and write some more on it. This is what I wrote

“My favorite entry is the one where Ben listens to a 13 year old girl’s problems and is surprised that his friends think it is a bad thing. I am trying to remember what letter/chapter it was in. Regardless I was a fan of how he brings up the idea of people’s perceptions and how they can stop someone from acting to do something good rather then being afraid of implied ‘dangers’”

the second part went like this

“So turns out that this was in the E section and called Ethics. It is interesting because Ben is commenting on an ethical view people have and this view cold have kept someone from helping this girl. Ben’s voice really comes through when he says “It had never occurred to me that I could be in danger, just for listening to a thirteen year old girl.”

Viewing the Ethics section with the hindsight of reading the L section and Sixteen we certainly are left with a lot to wonder. Is Ben a pedophile? Is he trying to justify it with his descriptions of teen sex idols? Is it a societal standard? Is he implying we should act on our sexuality and desires no matter what they are? Should we judge him harshly? Why did he even include those facts in his book? Are they really a big enough part of him to be included in an autobiography? Is this an autobiography? Was any of this real?

I don’t think I will get an answer to any of those questions and if Ben is really reading this then I suspect he will leave me to wonder as it adds to the artistic merit and interpretation of the work. Or something like that.

I already read the rest of the book and have been trying to keep it special for those who haven’t gotten to the end just yet. I really interacted with the book. A few times toward the end I felt like I had been punched in the gut and had to walk away. Once I even threw my copy across my room in protest.

Erik

So in this post, I expand upon the little passage I wrote in class about the novel “26 Lies/One Truth”. My in class post went a little something like this:
My favorite passage (or passages in this case) were the ones about different Australian or international writers who had written fiction under the guise of it being non-fiction. These authors were usually praised for their amazing work, like one got the Australian writers award or something to that extent. But then it was discovered that they “lied” and the works are pure fiction and then people get angry at them and their reputation is ruined.
Then the second one went a little something like this:
So it turns out one of these authors is Laura Albert, who wrote about a person J.T. LeRoy who wasn’t really her. Another was Helen Demidenko, who wrote about her Ukrainian heritage, even though she wasn’t Ukrainian.
Since writing these two in class, I have also discovered authors such as Konrad Kujau, Norma Khouri, and Rahila Khan (apparently people with “K” last names are more likely to behave this way). I’m sure there are more in the novel too, I just haven’t specifically found them. I know there are a lot. I liked these and they stuck out in my mind because they seem to be an important and integral part of the story, It’s something connected, that is mentioned a lot, and it seems to me like all these stories will wrap up and make some grand and poignant point at the end. They are important, seem interesting, and are throughout the book, so that’s why I liked these passages in “26 Lies/One Truth”.

And this gets a special mention, because it made me laugh:

BEN PEEK! I’m calling you out!

I believe that the Understanding sections represent Ben’s understanding that Geraldine is actually gone. I don’t think it is entirely clear from the first picture. All you can tell is that Ben is looking at something with an emotion, along the lines, of sadness. Once you see the second picture, however, you can see he is looking at an impression in his bed next to him. Presumably that is the spot where G slept and he sees the absence realizing she is no longer there. That is just what I get from it at any rate.

Also my title is trying to get the attention of Ben if he is reading these. I don’t know what to do once I have that attention. Nice book though. Could you e-sign my copy by commenting on this post?

Oh I’m star struck

Austin Underwood.

Overland have put up a new webpage, and hidden within that page, is a story I sold to them last year, entitled ‘Excerpts From Books Fifty Year’s From Now’.

Here’s how it starts:

We buried Jarrah on company time, with me and Birch digging up the earth we didn’t have no rights on.

There’s no kindness to dropping a mate into a hole you just dug, let me tell you. The tall smokestacks coughed up dirty breaths behind us and there ain’t none of Jarrah’s family there and there ain’t never gonna be. Just those stacks and tall, lean Birch with his arms resting on the shovel he didn’t own and me on me haunches like a dog once we’d finished. The two of us as witnesses and diggers and priests staring down at skinny Jarrah still in his worker oranges.

I wanted to say something profound, but all I could think about was working out here in the fucking dirt and on the fucking stacks. About spending ninety per cent of my time in protective clothing with me face sealed behind a helmet. About how most of me conversations were done through the static in a mike. About how when not in the fucking suit, I was sleeping in a fucking oxygen chamber and losing half my fucking pay sucking back that clean company air while resting. Which would mean fuck all if I died like that Jarrah. Dying like him - sudden and right there in front of his mates - means that the toxins got right into me. Me mates’ll bury me like him cause ain’t no-one in the company going to allow you to be cut open for cause of death and they’ll burn first. They got the rights to burn us as they please, too. You gotta sign it to get the job.

But I’m thinking - I’m thinking about what will happen to me if I’m buried like Jarrah? Will anyone have something profound to say? Or will they just stare dumb into the hole, thinking that something ought to be said right before the concrete pours in? There ain’t much to say, I know that. Instead, I tossed a spray of dirt in over Jarrah and said all that there was left: “No more fucking contracts to sign now, mate.”

Inches of Dirt, Talia Gulara, page 1.

I’ve always kind of liked this little story, because it allowed me to play with form and style, which I always enjoy doing, though not every story gives you the chance to do it.

I originally wrote this piece based off the idea of a collection entitled the Worker’s Paradise, which was released by Ticonderoga Publications, a small press outfit run by Russell Farr. I submitted the piece to him, originally, and he asked for a rewrite, which I did, because I thought I could make it stronger on a second read through. I try to avoid re-reading my work for much that reason, mind you, but occasionally it’s for the best. Unfortunately, Farr and Evans, the editors on the book, took something like six months to deal with the piece after that, and while I try to be cool about such things–independent presses are often one or two people projects, and are subject to all that shit you get with it–someone else had interest in the piece, for another book that didn’t eventuate. That new book just wanted rights for another country, but Farr wanted World Rights, and so in the end, I ended up with the story and no place to sell it, which is, you know, how it happens some days.

Selling it to Overland was nice, however, and probably the best outcome for the piece, because it was a publication outside the usual circles for me. You get published enough, and you will find people who dig your stuff, and you can kind of end up in a pattern with them, which is really cool; but at the same time, it can mean you’re only finding the people who already know about you, and you don’t grow your audience, which is one of the goals for short fiction, in my mind. Short fiction is grass roots stuff, and if you’re hitting fifty people with it, hitting five hundred, it’s all good, but it’s also got to be hitting new people to be working properly, I figure. Plus, I’d always liked Overland, and figured it would be kind of cool to say that I’d had a piece there.

Also, they paid me well.

Win win, hey?

In addition, you can find a review I wrote a few issues later. As with any opinion I have about books, an editor took offence, and wrote a nasty email, and I later mocked her on this blog. She may or may not have come back later to tell me what a cunt I was.

Well, what is there to say, really, except that I got it from Lucius Shepard.

I have been discovered:

Today I discovered Ben Peek reads our blogs (or did, maybe he still will because we have yet to discuss the end of the book). It was a very surreal moment when I found out. Kind of humbling as well. I mean, how often have you wanted to talk to the author about anything and everything in their book? Reading his blog I found out he actually posted some of our responses on his blog. It looks like some of us in the class weren’t expecting that, because some of the posts aren’t exactly kind to the novel or to the author. I wonder to what level of offense (if any) he takes to that. I mean, I know not everyone can like a book and everyone is entitled to their own opinions and all that jazz but if I worked hard on a book and thought it was good and worth publishing, I would be a little bias and think that it is a damn good book right? Then when people say otherwise, I would naturally get offended. But maybe real authors have learned to get over this and just ignore the critics, no matter what.

This makes me feel really stupid about my past obligitory 26 Lies post, because looking back on it now it was just something to do quick and dirty to get the requirement done so I could get on with my yucks and youtube videos. But now knowing he actually took a look at them and probably thought “Wow this kid has nothing intelligable to say or contribute to the discussion of my book” makes me. It’s cool how simply the author outside the class knowing about our blogs vindicates these posts. Blog posts I would have otherwise not cared about now become meanful and worth returning too. Interesting how that works.

Anyway, thought it was cool the author was reading our blogs. Hi Ben Peek.

Hi, Erik (and everyone in Erik’s class).

I figure I’ll reply to this post, because I haven’t replied to any of the other posts, and don’t plan too.

I found you guys through a google alert, believe it or not. A lot of artists have them–I learnt to use it from a musician–because it lets you know when reviews of your work show up, or when people start talking shit about you, or love, you know how it is. Anyhow, what I’m saying is I only find out about the blogs when google picks them up. I figure I’ve missed a few, which is my way of saying if I haven’t linked you here yet, it’s simply because I don’t know who you are. When I do, I’ll link you, no hassle, even though I suspect the people who read this blog are getting a little tired of it. When they start complaining, just ignore them.

Like I said, by and large, you’re not going to get much commentary out of me, because when I wrote 26lies, I made a deal with myself that I would never discuss anything within the book. It might seem a little strange, but I don’t want to give validity to anything, or to tip my hand to anything that might not be true in the book–one of the concerns with the book is just how much does ‘truth’ mean to the reader, and how they respond to it, and if I sit round telling you all how to decipher it, it kind’ve fucks up that. Which also ties into the concern you have about not being intelligent enough, or concerned that I might be insulted, or anything like that. It’s really, honestly, nothing you have to worry about. All readings of 26lies are valid, though in discussion, some will prove to be more valid than others; also, in a class environment, where marks are given out, there will be readings that are simply more correct than some others. School, University, College, it’s all about following someone else’s thought and learning the process to reach that end; it doesn’t mean you have to agree with it, but it’s there, I figure.

However, you won’t find me telling you that you have read the book wrong, or that you’ve proved to be the equal to a down syndrome kid because you’ve said bad things about me. The truth is, I don’t know any of you, and so your opinions don’t have any consequences for me. A lot of authors fuck up on that–there was thing a while back when Anne Rice, the author of Interview with a Vampire, among other badly written horror novels, got onto Amazon and started arguing with people about their reviews of her work. It was idiotic, just as it always is when authors argue with you about their work, because you can’t make someone like you’re shit. It’s also idiotic because she ignored the fact that any one of her readers could have been addicted to meth, touched their little brother, and sniffed the underwear of old people, while also being a hardcore Christian who believes that dinosaur bones are God’s test, and the world is flat. Of course, they could also be nobel prize winning activists, porn stars, and people who have worked hard and quietly throughout their entire life to carve out their little bit of happiness in this world, and have a bliss that you and I will probably envy. The point is, you just don’t know, and because you don’t know, when people start saying they didn’t like this or that, you just read it, laugh, and move on, because these people are strangers, and the opinions of strangers are ultimately meaningless to you.

But there’s something more important here, which I’d like you all to consider (and everyone else who reads this, I guess). It’s not wrong to dislike something. You don’t write a book to make everyone happy. You can’t. But what you want is that you want people to feel something–you want to hit some kind of nerve in them. Hating a book means you hit that; loving it means the same thing; but it’s when someone reads a piece of work, and feels absolutely nothing, then you know you’ve missed you’re mark. I mean, what’s the point of doing this kind of shit if it’s just so everyone can say, at the end, ‘I don’t know, I didn’t really think anything about it’? Might as well get an office job, holiday pay, and some super. To me, art is about wanting to make people feel something. You want them to love it. To hate it. To feel something passionate–to feel that nerve inside them being hit, like I said. It can be hit in so many ways, through theme, through style, through content, and it’s what I demand from authors as a reader, and what I demand from myself as an author.

So: You hate the book? Cool. You love it? Fucking awesome.

But at the end of the day, I sleep the same, write the same, hang with me friends, wonder what the deal is with this girl (or that girl), learn to cook a little, and get by the same either way.

Which is my way of saying that you shouldn’t let my presence stop you from feeling that you can’t write or say whatever you want. You can. It is one of the coolest things to have a group of people sit around and discuss your work. The pleasure to be able to read the comments, to watch what you’re all saying, that’s mine, and I don’t aim to get in the way of anything that any of you are doing.

As if I were addicted to crack, I have return to the comments of students in America reading 26Lies. Maybe you don’t find this as fascinating as me… in fact, I’m pretty sure you don’t, but fuck it, hey? I can’t get enough.

We start with a bit of cunt and then move on to images.

James:

Ben Peek and the Letter “C”

I will post what I wrote in class in response to the question: Which entry in “Twenty Six Lies/One Truth” have you enjoyed the most so far? I think we may be the only blog group where every member chose the same entry or entries. I chose the entire “C” chapter in general with some emphasis on the seventh entry.

My favorite entry/chapter was definitely the “C” chapter. This is by no means based upon the sheer profanity or the shock factor. I actually found his argument about why the “C-word” is considered so offensive in our society, where as other words are seen as less offensive when they actually might be just as, if not more, profane or demeaning. Speaking from personal experience, I have never used the “C-word” in the presence of a woman, However, I have seen other males do so to disastrous effect. Adversely I’ve never took much offense to something like “dickhead” which is pretty much a masculine equivilent, so I see his point.
I especially enjoyed the passage from the seventh entry where he argues that females should be offended by the offensiveness of the word, and that some feminists have already made this point. His justification is as follows “If someone was to tell me that my cock was considered the physical manifestation of the foulest word in the English language. I’d be pretty fucking pissed off” I think he makes a pretty good case.

On another note, the eight entry in that chapter is a little bit suspect on a couple of different levels.

Melissa Partington:

So, I feel like we were all told to do this a long time ago, but here goes.

My favorite entry for twenty six lies/one truth  would be Kinship. In this entry he talks about his family on Christmas and how his mom is an outsider. He realizes his mom, sister and him are all outsiders because his father died. He understands how unfair his extended family is to his mom, so he stops seeing them. I thought this entry should good insight into his family.

charlotte snowe:

Trying to Understand ” Understanding”
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I believe that this sketch of what I percieve to be Ben Peek’s eyes, is probably showing how he is still deeply affected the death of his girlfriend, G. Also, perhaps that he is regretting turning the wheel to the left, and wishes he had turned it the other way to take his own life as opposed to his own? Its seems like something he would say.
I’m not sure on my whole take on this book, if it’s really true or really a lie?
I’m not really sure what to think, all i know is that i really liked reading it because Ben Peek was just really blunt and open about everything. He had the confidence to write and didn’t really care what other though or didn’t think about what he wrote.

-aujwat6:

This week, for our assigned blog entries, we had the choice of whether to comment on Ben Peek’s journal entries or figure out what the blog entry “UNDERSTANDING” meant to us. Personally, I like analyzing stuff, so I decided to comment on the “UNDERSTANDING” blog.

For those of you who don’t know, the “UNDERSTANDING” blog wasn’t a written piece but a picture of Ben Peek’s eyes (I’m guessing it was Ben’s eyes). What I gathered from this picture was that first of all, he’s very sad and probably hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep because of the bags under his eyes. This picture was most likely made after G died, and was a representation of what Ben was feeling at that time.

Why he titled the blog entry UNDERSTANDING, is a more complicated matter. I think he titled this the way he did because he finally came to the realization that what happened, really happened. In his blog entry,”Urinal. Personal Diary Entry, October 12th” he mentions that whenever he looks into the mirror in the morning and shaves, he hopes that all the bad things that happened to him the night before will all be cut away. I think that the picture in “UNDERSTANDING” is him looking into the mirror after he shaved. He realizes that shaving, this time, will not cut away what happened, and in turn, he understands that she will not be coming back. This is why he’s sad in this picture.

The next blog entry “UNDERSTANDING,” is another picture of him, but this time, he’s in his bed looking next to himself where G probably slept. This is another representation of his understanding that G is gone forever and won’t be coming back. Everything that happened to him was real, and he can’t take any of it back. Her future was decided for her that night.

Chas:

Understanding
In the book, Twenty Six Lies/One Truth, their is a section titled U with two drawings in it entitled Understanding. One picture is a pair of sad lonely eyes and nothing else. The other drawing is of the author, Ben Peek, lying alone in a bed. I think the drawings are a representation of how he felt after his girlfriend died in a car accident which he caused. When I see them I see sadness and emptiness which is understandable after a loved-one has died. Also I can’t imagine how I would feel if I were the cause of the death. That is just my take I’m sure you all have a different take on it.

Tess:

From what I could tell all of the personal diary entries were on October 12 except for first entry of section B when he’s talking about writing the book. All of these entries relate in some way to the night that G died, whether it’s about how Ben Peek is feeling emotionally, what he is doing, or what actually happened that night.
In all of the entries it seems that he feels guilty about G’s death. In section V one of his entries he makes the point of how he is in denial, “I have done nothing wrong. I keep telling myself that.”, further emphasizing it again at the end of the section where he states, “I HAVE done nothing wrong.”

Slide:

Overall he is thinking a lot about what happened, and at the end comes to the conclusion that “Nothing you do or say takes back a moment”. I think that by this he means that no matter how much he analyzes it he’ll never be able to forgive the fact that he turned his side of the car away from the truck (whether he actually did on purpose or not).

I, like Chas, believe the drawing of the eyes are meant to bring out sympathy and an understanding of how Ben Peek felt during his time of loss.

I think it is one thing to read a description of how one feels and then to actually see an image is not only reassuring to his point but also gives me a better sense of his emotion.

Eyes are said to be the looking glass into the soul and it is easy, as humans, to recognize the sorrow that these eyes are portraying. Peek was strongly affected by his loss and it is through his personal diary entries and a series of pictures that help us understand how great his loss was.

And lastly, there was this, from Chas:

My favorite entry from A-M was the Factotum entries. These entries were about the writer Charles Bukowski, who wrote the book Factotum. Peek describes an interveiw in the last Factotum entry, in which Bukowski gets into a fight with his fiance during an interview.
Here it is

Haha as Peek put it best “Bukowski was an asshole. There is no if, maybe, sorta, could’ve, lets-look-at-this-in-the-parlance-of-our-times statement to add to it.” (p.33) So after actually seeing the footage I went looking for more insight as to who Bukowski was and found some amazing quotes and photos to go with them.

“There was nothing really as glorious as a good beer shit—I mean after drinking twenty or twenty-five beers the night before. The odor of a beer shit like that spread all around and stayed for a good hour-and-a-half. It made you realize that you were really alive.”
—Ham on Rye, 1982

“Human relationships didn’t work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death…in a cesspool.”
—Women, 1978

I explained to Djae last night that one of my books was being taught somewhere, and he laughed, and told me I had suddenly become avant garde. I think I’m going to reference myself in bios this way from now on.

Well, probably not.

I mean, that’d just be wank, and there are enough wanky author bios out there.

Now that’s cool looking.

From Jhayne.

No.

It’s as simple as that, no. You’re wrong.

The fact that you call them terrorists only further underlines it.

You keep going back to this.

It’s proof that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Fuck you.

Fuck me?

Yeah, fuck you.

Want me to say it again?

Say it all you want, but it doesn’t change how wrong you are.

Fuck you.

Disneyland is the best terrorist target in America.

The fact that you don’t see it is due to your entire misconception and romantic view of the subject.

How can you say that?

Do you see this child we’re walking right past?

Did you just point at an eight year old?

Yes.

His mum didn’t look happy.

That’s my exact fucking point.

Look, if you have a sudden thing for kids, man, I’m going to have to leave you here.

Children are sacred.

…

That-

That so doesn’t help you right now.

Why can’t you accept the fact that the presence of children in Disneyland raises it not only as an acceptable target, but the best target for which to strike at the moral core of this country?

Thousands of dead children would create mass fucking hysteria.

I keep telling you: there’s no fucking point to blowing up Disneyland.

It’s-

Terror!

Terror is not the fucking goal of terrorists.

Dude, I don’t know what you been hearing since we got here, but terrorists hate their culture and only what to create terror.

Disneyland is the symbol of that shit and the best way to do it.

That-

The line passes.

Take the fucking line passes for an example.

It’s the perfect example of how money fucking changes everything in this country. See, if you have the money, you get the preferential treatment. Cashed up, you get to avoid all the wait and the fucking unnecessary presence of you’re fellow human beings. It doesn’t matter if you’re good looking, if you save peoples lives, if you’re a serial killer: cash changes the treatment you get.

That attitude has even translated into the world, and is the exact thing terrorists want to strike against: the excess.

How do you explain fat people, then?

What?

If you’re fucking fat enough here, you get to go to the front of the line as well.

Did you not see that dude being pushed around in a wheelchair by his kid? That kid must’ve been twelve and is pushing his Dad round in Disneyland, which as got to fucking suck as a memory, but both of them got ahead of us on the Toy Story ride.

That just supports my excess theory.

Which is where you’re flawed in your argument: terrorism is not a strike against excess.

Fuck me, here we go again: terrorists are freedom fighters.

How can you believe that someone sits around thinking that they’re evil, or a terrorist, or some shit like that?

I mean, do you realise how idiotic it sounds to actually think that someone, anyone, anywhere, sat round and said, “Someone has freedom. Someone has the money for a line pass. Lets take it away by plowing a 747 into them.” It’s like a super villain who wants to destroy the world; it’s a stupid concept because if it succeeds, they kill themselves as well, which makes all elaborate evil plans nothing but suicide plots.

No, man, terrorism is about politics, about making statements. That’s why they pick political targets rather than swarms of sugar hyped white kids.

And dead adults say more than dead kids in your books?

Dead adults don’t mean shit, that’s why their buildings matter.

Fuck that.

And.

And admit it, your desire to pick Disneyland as your target to create terror has nothing to do with the goals of your hypothetical terrorist cell, but rather because Charlie called you this morning and admitted to sleeping with Snake.

…

Which you have my sympathy for, but children shouldn’t have to suffer for that.

It’s fucking bullshit, is what it is.

Yeah, it is.

I mean-

Just.

Just what the fuck, y’know?

…

I thought we had a thing, man. I really did. It was a connection.

And I work with both of them.

It’s all shit, man.

She could have waited, too.

She could’ve waited till I got back to tell me.

She could’ve done it to my face.

She could’ve waited till after she picked us up from the airport.

The worse part, man, you want to know the worse part?

There’s a worse part?

I was looking forward to going back. I’d taken a shit, I’d finally got some movement in my fucking guts, and-

And I thought, when I get home, I can take another shit on my toilet and fuck my girlfriend and not doing anything but shit and fuck for two days.

But now you want to destroy Disneyland.

Yes.

Also, I still say it makes a good target for terrorism.

Don’t-don’t get me started, man.

…

Shit, I am not here for this place.

Look at it, look at all these families, all this fucking colourful shit, all these parades.

Fucking hate them all.

We kind’ve fucked up by coming here on the public holiday thing, got to say.

It doesn’t matter.

This place could be empty, and I’d still fucking hate it for the lie it is.

It’s just an innocent fantasy, man.

Yeah.

Well.

The innocence is gone, isn’t it?

From Threadless, because they send me an email telling me about new shirts, and this one amused me.