I Will Smash You
I’ve been excited for a while now about the forthcoming film I Will Smash You, a collaboration between Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball for Little Burn Films. As of now, the project is complete and getting ready to make the rounds of the independent film circuit. Some new information has also been released:
First, a new trailer, featuring Adam Robinson smashing a hymn:
Why Fellner Removed His ALC Post
For those still interested in the ALC/Fellner story, I spoke with Steve Fellner over the phone on Saturday. I want to share his side (with his permission) regarding why he took down the original post that vehemently condemned Seth Abramson’s MFA application consulting firm.
Sam Pink—
have you ever gotten into a routine that required a specific environment/ambience when working on a project? have you ever tried to only work under certain conditions? what were the results? is it best to always change up the environment? are there any more well-known books that resulted from such an experiment? i just feel interested in this because sometimes i get into a project and it requires the repetition of almost the exact same room, food, time, cat-petting, and music. but then, at a certain point, i change it all so i can test the moods in the project.
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Please Support InsideOut Literary Arts Project [A letter from Peter Markus]
The Calm, by Timothy Pace
Dear Friends,
The InsideOut Literary Arts Project, where I work as its Senior Writer, is looking for your help.
For the past 15 years, InsideOut has placed creative writers—poets, novelists, short story writers—into Detroit Public School classrooms as a way of getting students to actively engage in the power and pleasure of language and the imagination.
I’ve been a writer with InsideOut since its inception. It’s a part of who I am in the world. I can tell you, first-hand, that the work we do changes lives.
When a child picks up a pencil and is asked to gaze up inside it, anything—no everything—is possible.
When you write it down, I often tell them, people have no choice but to listen, to see what you see, to know what you know.
See for yourself. Check out this poem written by a 4th grader at Fitzgerald Elementary.
READ MORE >
Blake Butler—
Anyone know of any good movies in which a labyrinth or series of tunnels figures heavily (such as The Shining or Satyricon, or even, in its own way, Solaris)? Having fucked maze dreams lately and want to extend it into waking life.
WILA (Women In Literary Arts)
Cate Marvin & Erin Belieu are starting a movement for a conference based solely on women’s writing, with an emphasis on contemporary women’s writing.
Dear Friends,
A few days ago, Cate Marvin sent out an open letter to a group of women writers detailing her concerns about certain aspects of the AWP conference and asking if other women felt the same way. She then suggested the brilliant notion of a women’s writing conference and wondered who would be interested in such a thing. The letter has since gone out to hundreds, has been posted in many places, and the response has been absolutely tremendous. This leads us to believe that our moment is definitely NOW (pun intended).
Check out the rest of the letter, along with Marvin’s original letter, by visiting their Facebook group — which already has over 3,000 members (including me) — and while you’re there you should consider joining.
ONEDREAMRUSH & Harmony Korine
This is rad [via Harmony-Korine.com]
Harmony Korine is one of 42 contributors to the project ONEDREAMRUSH, a creation of the New Zealand vodka company 42Below that invites various individuals to create 42-second videos exploring dreams. Other contributors to ONEDREAMRUSH include Kenneth Anger, David Lynch, Leos Carax, Larry Clark, Jonas Mekas, and Gaspar Noe. In time all of the films are to feature on the project’s website here. Korine’s part, titled Crutchnap, has already been made public and can now be found here (.mov/56MB).
Also notable is the information that: The Toronto International Film Festival will host the world premiere of Trash Humpers, a new feature film by Harmony Korine. Trash Humpers has been described as a “handheld video of a loser-gang cult-freak collective who do antisocial things in a non-narrative way, except for the song-and-dance numbers.”
YES.
New Business Model: Celeb Lit
Actual photo evidence of B. Spears reading
What if instead of celebrities paying to have shitty biographies ghostwritten for them, they published good progressive/fucked ghostwritten novels? ‘White Larvae of the Ill Nacht’ by Tom Hanks. ‘Borsmissisott’ by Lil Wayne. I’d read a Lindsay Lohan novel if it was written by Brian Evenson, and so would several hundred thousand little girls. That seems like a ‘new literary business model’ I could get behind, one that would actually make some serious $$$. Now offering my recently competed 70000 word ‘post-structuralist language novel’ to the first rock star/model/actor willing to take it on. I’m serious.
Specimens of our Species
Princeton University Press recently released an interesting-looking book called An Intellectual History of Cannibalism by Catalin Avramescu Translated by Alistair Ian Blyth.
“An Intellectual History of Cannibalism is the first book to systematically examine the role of the cannibal in the arguments of philosophers, from the classical period to modern disputes about such wide-ranging issues as vegetarianism and the right to private property.”
Here’s a review by Jenny Diski at London Review of Books.
Uncategorized / 7 Comments
August 9th, 2009 / 10:44 am
August 9th, 2009 / 10:44 am
Sonnets for Saturday
I googled "sonnet" in images and a million pictures of this lady came up.
I briefly studied poetry with William “Bill” Matthews eons ago. I liked him very much. I was a bad poet. He made us write sonnets. I wrote one that narrates a mother teaching her daughter how to masturbate in the shower. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like much of my work, and yet, we liked each other. After the jump is my sonnet. Feel free to share your bad sonnets in the comment section.