Over the course of 2020, Brad Phillips and Gideon Jacobs are writing a 12-chapter "serial novella" for Autre. It will be written Exquisite Corpse style — they will alternate who writes each month's chapter, and won’t have access to the previous chapter until it has been published. Brad and Gideon have not discussed plot, structure, format, themes, characters, etc, and promise not to do so even once the project is underway. The idea is to react to each other's work, and hope the final Frankensteinian product is something that deserves to exist. If the authors like what they've made when it's done, the editors might publish it as a "zine." Installments will go up on the 15th of every month. Click here to read Chapter 3: Luridly Liminal / Liminally Lurid.

text by Brad Phillips (and Gideon Jacobs)

Here is a list. I’ve yet to meet a person who does not like a list. In fact, a person who does not like a list seems, to some extent, unhinged.

Bahrain & Germany

Barbados & Greenland

Guatemala & Bolivia

Georgia & Benin

Botswana & Greece

Bhutan & Guyana

Gabon & Burkina Faso

Gambia & Belgium

Brunei & Grenada

Bulgaria & Ghana

Guinea-Bissau & Brazil

Gabon & Burundi 

Ten Minutes Later 

Good & Bad

Beautiful & Grotesque

On discovering the text, the repeated use of names starting with G and B (obviously signifying Gideon & Brad) was seen as clever. Were they both still alive to read that adjective, ‘clever,’ one can only assume that Jacobs and Phillips would most likely feel hurt, as to many writers and artists, being called clever registers like a punch in the stomach — but only if the intellect is stored in the gastrointestinal system, where it most obviously is not. Writing allows these nonsensical connections. Nonsensical connections generated much of the text they wrote together. We must do our best to explore the elasticity of language and meaning! (a corny line seen in an early essay written by Phillips on the work of New York based photographer Daniel Arnold, who was a personal friend of Jacobs’). In reality, there’s nothing particularly bad (and on further examining the text, it can be seen that the two writers hint at Buddhist ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, being nothing more than constructs; constructs that have no moral or critical purpose or value. Two white guys talking obliquely about Buddhism — I’m certain were they given the opportunity to reflect, both would agree the writing could’ve been more successful without those esoteric tangents about being clever. Clever is fine, so long as it functions as an ornamental flourish attached to words like: genius, insightful, intellectual, transcendent, prescient, and brilliant. 

In the world of coding, gaming, no one faults the most gifted game designer for throwing in a few ‘easter eggs.’ Clever is a signature, and its manifestations can be seen as simple gifts, offerings — generous and kindhearted acknowledgements of the game players commitment to the game.

Spot the B in Barack (chapter 3) — Gideon is tipping his hat to Brad, as well as thanking the reader. Spot the G in Gordon (chapter 2) — Brad is tipping his hat to Gideon, as well as thanking the reader. 

These two writers, talented or as untalented as time will judge them to be, were, if nothing else, grateful for having been read. They sought to please their readers while also challenging themselves to produce quality literature. This seems like a kind and pleasant thing to do, but god knows that considering the audience is often viewed as tantamount to blatant pandering. Were she still alive, Michiko Kakutani might’ve focused on this desire to be kind and pleasant to the reader as a means to eviscerate the entire project; to label Jacobs and Phillips as hacks. Of the two, one might’ve been able to endure such an assault. Having known them both to some extent, I can attest to the fact that Burundi, as opposed to Guatemala, would most likely perish from the insult. Within any type of couple (including a couple of writers), as much as people don't like to admit it, there is always a weaker member of the team. Phillips being much older than Jacobs and far less robust, Jacobs being much more fit, both physically and mentally — I feel safe in assuming that Phillips wouldn’t have been able to weather the blow, whereas Jacobs, full of the buoyancy of youth, would’ve found a way to soldier on.

Ms. Kakutani. You remain forever the prettiest girl in high school. We want you to notice us, even take us up on our offer to carry your books, but the likelihood of your rejection is so terrifying that few are able to muster the courage and make the gesture. 

In early February of 2020, Brad and his wife Cristine spent a week in Gideon’s spare room, Gideon having offered it out of kindness, as Cristine had an art exhibition open on Henry Street, and Brad (along with Gideon) were part of a reading at Honey’s Brew Pub just blocks from Gideon’s home in Ridgewood. They wouldn’t have been able to spend a week in New York without Gideon’s generosity. Brad and Cristine were able to have dinner with Verne Dawson and his wife Laura, and the next day visit some galleries uptown with Verne.

Verne had long been Brad’s favourite painter, and he’d recently published an essay on Verne’s work for Autre Magazine. Brad ‘looked up’ to Verne, but not really, but also — sort of he did. He and Cristine enjoyed hanging out with older people, and while Brad was past the age at which one is susceptible to starstruckedness, he did feel a not insignificant sense of frisson being near someone—being listened to and fed by someone—who he’d admired so much two decades before. Verne had also finished Brad’s portrait, which he’d begun in October. Brad liked the painting. Verne said that he thought Brad looked like Saint Jerome in it, and Brad nodded and smiled and agreed, with no idea whatsoever of what Saint Jerome looked like. Later he asked Cristine if it were even possible for there to be an agreement about what a saint might look like, seeing as they all existed before photography. Cristine’s reply on the train back to Queens was,

“Let’s thumb fight.”

For more from Brad Phillips, follow  @brad___phillips on Instagram. Click here to read Chapter 5: Cheaters.