Matthew Simmons—
Something else: a quick note of thanks to all those who donated to or simply wished me the best on my Race for the Cure run on Sunday, June 7. I managed to meet and exceed my $400 goal. I also managed to run the 5k without stopping at the top of any of the hills to catch my breath, and crossed the finish line in 24 or so minutes. Not bad for a fat guy. Anyone still itching to help out might consider donating a little to HTML Giant regular reader David Heath. He’s walking farther than I ran, and collecting a lot more. Every little bit helps.
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Matthew Simmons—
Last time I linked to a Twitter feed, it was Fake Steve Buscemi. Brought up all sorts of questions of identity and all that. This is different. I’m not sure if it’s possible at this moment to confirm the identity of this person—and certainly don’t think I have the ability to do so—but regardless, for the next couple of days, YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS PERSON’S UPDATES.
Play by Samuel Beckett, Parts 1 & 2
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdTjRumkT9k
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EkI1KS3uRA
via the blog of the much-admired artist Robbie Cooper.
Gordon Massman’s ‘The Essential Numbers’
Ready to want to buy a book?
Read the poem on the back of Gordon Massman’s The Essential Numbers: 1991-2008, just out from Tarpaulin Sky Press:
Yeah.
I’ve been reading this for a couple weeks now, a few poems at a time, because it is so brutally right there and fucked and ready to fuck your head, it needs the slow imbibe, the good one. Where so much ‘poetry’ can be yadda, these are words saying something hard and loud, and meaning it.
Sampled from 18 years of Massman’s writing, poems all numbered for titles, all to the teeth.
I.e. here is the first full sentence of 1262:
Dear God: thank you for the physical beauty in the world, etc.
and get fucked.
Jonathan Allen and Steve Carey
The artist Jonathan Allen (and dear friend, full disclosure) designed the cover for The Selected Poems of Steve Carey (Subpress, click here to see the cover ). Jonathan Allen’s website makes for fantastic browsing. He recently had a painting at The Whitney Art Party and it was featured in Style (which is sort of funny, considering his art questions the values of such magazines, according to me). The man is a massive talent. He’s designed other covers for books of poetry and journals so contact him via his website and get a piece of him before he becomes so huge he retires to a Greek Island or something.
Another long interview (this time with Žižek brain, Adam Kotsko)
Haha, he looks funny
When Adam Kotsko’s book Žižek and Theology was published about a year ago, he was still working on his PhD at Chicago Theological Seminary. It’s an impressive feat and an impressive book. Certainly there are better introductions to Žižek’s thought than Adam’s book, which takes as its starting point the issue of where Žižek aligns with theology — duh — but I still found it to be a valuable crash course. (Does anyone else find it useful to approach a new subject from a specific perspective, and then apply what you know about that perspective to the subject? I risk conflating the two things when I do it this way, but wtf: I’m okay with being wrong.) READ MORE >
Blake Butler—
Congratulations to the Giant of all Giants, our own Gene Morgan, on the birth of his new daughter, Pearl, weighing in in this corner at 7 lbs. 12 oz. We could never have too many little Genes in this world.
A deal from Dzanc: Suzanne Burns’s ‘Misfits & Other Heroes’
Dzanc Books is happy to offer the readers of HTMLGiant.com a special deal on our latest title. We’ve read some really nice things about Dzanc over here, and really feel that Suzanne Burns and her story collection, Misfits and Other Heroes, is one you’ll all enjoy.
Suzanne Burns’ Misfits and Other Heroes is a wickedly insightful, brilliantly constructed collection of 14 stories which are at once fearless and full of hope. In tales of the familiar turned on their heads, Burns introduces us to lovers and travelers, dreamers and daredevils, a man the size of a drinking straw and a magician with a masochistic streak. Acts of murder and mayhem run alongside a middle-aged woman dreaming of a different life. In each tale Burns consistently hits the perfect chord. The stories do not just present the strange, but use the bizarre to accent what is human in all of us. Mixing the best of Palahniuk with the keen clever humor of Aimee Bender, Burns is a writer of unique wit and wisdom. Misfits and Other Heroes is a debut not to be missed.
READ MORE >
Sampsell. Crime. The two of em.
Crime in a rainy city.
Kevin Sampsell, incomparable writer/booklover, has edited a crime fiction anthology for Akashic Books: Portland Noir. Kevin, admittedly a noir noob, talks about the process over at the Powell’s blog. I’ll go ahead and reposition Kevin’s question for the HTML Giant audience: Which books in the crime/noir/mystery genre should he/I/we be reading? I recommend Dashiell Hammett.
Uncategorized / 58 Comments
June 15th, 2009 / 2:03 am
June 15th, 2009 / 2:03 am