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On August 28, 2010, the Montauk Bookshop hosted a reading for Conjunctions:54, Shadow Selves (Fall 2010). This special event celebrated the creative process that takes between writer and editor, and drew attention to the curatorial space of the journal, as Conjunctions contributing editor Martine Bellen read from Rae Armantrout’s poems in Shadow Selves, and managing editor Micaela Morrissette read from Julia Elliott’s story “Freak Magnet.&rdquo Contributing editor and Shadow Selves contributor Frederic Tuten read a doppelgänger to his “Self-Portrait with Sicily” in Shadow Selves, the story “Self-Portrait with Circus,” from his just-released collection Self Portraits: Fictions (W. W. Norton, 2010).

Remarks by Frederic Tuten

I want to join in the thank yous, to Perry [Haberman, Montauk Bookshop proprietor] for having this wonderful little place, which will become a giant place spiritually; what it lacks in size, it will have in spirit. And, of course, the Conjunctions people, Martine and Micaela, for producing this event. And I want to say something about Brad Morrow, since [Martine] mentioned him.
      We lived in the same neighborhood, I’d see him for years, years ago, in various places, openings and such, and stuff like that, and we’d nod to each other, we’d say friendly hellos. But then one day I was walking on University Place, we stopped to say hello, just a perfunctory hello, and he looked at me and he said, “Why don’t you ever send anything to Conjunctions?”
      This was about six years ago or something. And I got up on my very high horse and I said, “Because I was never invited.”
      So he looked at me and he said, “I’m inviting you.”
      And I sat down, I was so excited, because I loved this, I had loved it—you know that kind of thing you feel you wish you were part of, but you feel that you’re not included, and you’re sort of upset about it, but secretly desire it, like a woman you’re in love with, say, who doesn’t really give you two cents’ worth of hope.
     So I wrote my first story. In maybe thirty-five years or forty years, since I was in undergraduate school, I sat down and I wrote my first story. It was called “My Autobiography: Portable, with Commentary.” And it really was my autobiography, in about five pages I just sorted of summarized my life, from birth until the other world, somehow. In which Susan Sontag and I were going to watch movies together.
      I say all that not just to pay homage to Brad and to the magazine I love so much. But this is the first reading I’ve had of this book— it’s the first place that has the books! I don’t know how Perry got them, because they’re not officially out until the thirteenth of September, but he found a way, I think he had them airlifted here, helicopter dropped, or something like that. So it’s very exciting for me to see it in a store, in a place that sells books, with my own name on it and everything!
      I could have just called this The Conjunctions Anthology, because of the thirteen stories here I think nine of them were published in Conjunctions. And I have a story in the current issue, this wonderful issue; it’s called “The Veranda.” And part of that story takes place in Montauk, so it would have been an appropriate story to read here. I’ll give you a brief summary in case you really want to know. It’s about a very serious, unfashionable artist. How can I say it? I mean it’s so corny to say it—a man of integrity, of character. He has a vision, it’s not current, it’s not trendy, and he does it all his life; he’s very quiet, very unassuming, and very shy. Except with women. And with women he dares everything. So his feeling about life is, to lose an opportunity to meet a new woman that you’re attracted to is to lose a part of your life. So he takes chances. And one day he’s in the Louvre, and he sees this beautiful woman, and he follows her, and she gives him the brush-off.
     That’s the beginning of the story. Now I’ll read from something else. I just hoped to tempt you into getting that issue of Conjunctions.
      One of the reasons I wanted to read this, apart from just wanting to read from the book itself, is that it’s brief and painless, I hope. I mean, among the many things that inspires one’s despair and anger in life—politics can do it, horrible people, and all that stuff—but one of those things that has always sent me off into rage, a quiet, kind of modest rage, is when people read, and they keep reading. I’ve had that happen to me in life. When the other readers have read for the usual fifteen minutes or eighteen minutes or so, and then this person comes on, and it’s … on, and never ending! And just when you think it’s over, it’s not over! It’s just sort of the preface. And worse than that is when they begin to tell you, you know, how the story was created, and what the characters are about—in case you don’t get it.
      So—I was one of those people. And I’ve been cured. I hope.
      So I want to read this little story to you. It’s one of the self-portraits. There are many little self-portraits here; one is called “Self-Portrait with Icebergs,” and one is called “Self-Portrait with Circus,” which is really the cover of this book [Self Portraits], which was a painting by Roy Lichtenstein called Self-Portrait with Circus. And I wrote a short story in homage to Roy, he was my oldest and closest friend and he did actually two of the covers of my other books. Now he wasn’t able to do this one because he’s not with us, but I was able to borrow from the fund of his work.
     But this one is called “Self-Portrait with Circus.” And it’s really about—you know, not about circuses, it’s about, other things, like metaphysics and … I'm just going on and on—it’s a parody, I’m making a parody, of my former self.

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MP3s OF THE READINGS