Chance and Attention
Ideally what happens in creative writing classes is less different from the way we write on our own than academic trappings and the rituals of workshop™ might make it seem. We’re hopefully reading widely and intently regardless, developing a personal canon and an ear for line-level nuance, an eye for overall shape. We identify techniques, try them out, learn to recognize our failures, and move on. We do most of this on our own, and presumably want to.
While planning the introductory poetry and fiction class I taught last fall at UMass, foremost in my mind was how in classes I’ve taken, discussions led me to my own variations of terms or techniques, either right then while class went on around me, or later over texts whose formerly mystical workings became suddenly plain. Happy accidents—the confluence of readings, instructor, classmates, beverages caffeinated or alcoholic. In each instance, class was only the primer. The instructor didn’t know what proved important for me; I don’t know what others in the class might have fastened onto. And each instance occurred during craft study, not in workshop.
From the Margins: An Interview with Peter Davis
With just two books of poetry, and a third on the way, Peter Davis has already established himself as an innovator with a great deal of intelligence and skill. Modest but assured, he explores ideas most poets would not think to broach and pushes the accepted limits of form in ways that expand what a poem can be. Whether pondering the heinous mustache of the previous century’s most infamous tyrant, or inventing satirical monologues for real and imagined audiences, Davis knows that in order to break ground a writer must be bold and open to uncertainties: “An artist has to pursue something he or she is unsure of, but then pursue it recklessly.” While these pursuits make great comic shtick, they are only half the story, for Davis’s sense of play services a unique moral vision. The text below is a collation of one face-to-face interview in April 2011 and several email exchanges from April to June 2011. – Tony Leuzzi
What was the genesis for the idea of writing an entire book of poems about Hitler’s mustache?
Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia: Homage Without Artistry
Not this time.
In the opening extreme slow-motion shots (the only appetizing thing in the Melancholia, though these brief scenes seem to be leftovers of his style in Antichrist), Lars Von Trier pays homage to no less than four masters: Ingmar Bergman (the close-up of Kirsten Dunst), Alan Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad (the giant hedge garden, with tree shadows this time), Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (the slow planetary movements to classical music), all of Andrei Tarkovsky, but specifically Solaris (the Breughel painting) and The Mirror (objects falling in slow-motion, a fire seen through a window)—the end of the world scenario while people bob and weave around an opulent country house is right out of Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice. Von Trier’s whole opening sequence mirrors the opening to his Antichrist (using Handel’s music instead of Wagner) which scintillatingly displayed intercourse and the death of a child. One can only hope that Von Trier will go beyond homage and create something compelling, but it is not to be.
Tao Lin’s Big Kid Book Deal
I hope this is the last time I’ll find myself writing about Tao Lin. In July I wrote a lengthy story for The Morning News that delved into Lin’s publishing venture, Muumuu House, and looked at a few of the prominent (allowing for a loose definition of “prominent”) writers in his literary cadre. (The post engendered quite a comment chain on this very site.) Mere weeks later, Lin landed a $50,000 book deal with Vintage for his next novel. And that was when someone commented on the Morning News piece that they’d be “interested in an update on all of this” (presumably they meant an update from me) and wondered whether his deal would “change things.”
It does change things, yes. The fact that his next novel (it’s tentatively called Taipei, Taiwan) will come out under the Vintage label means that, like it or not, it’s going to get a lot more notice than his books have had in the past when published by Melville House. And that’s no knock on Melville House, which does a fabulous job both with publicity (the Moby Lives blog is fun and occasionally gets good pickup on Twitter etc.) and with the aesthetic look of its titles (see: the Art of the Novella series). But it’s still a tiny press. A book published by Vintage will be seen, not just by critics that have managed to avoid Lin and maybe still haven’t even heard of him, but also by mainstream readers, the Barnes & Noble shoppers who have definitely not heard of him and who read the Stieg Larsson trilogy. This isn’t to say they’ll pick up the novel and buy it, but it may catch their eye, they’ll take a look, and now they’ll know who or what a Tao Lin is.
ToBS R2: calling anything you write a manuscript vs. Gmail chat people who are always visible
[matchup #45 in Tournament of Bookshit]
There’s nothing wrong with always being visible on Gmail chat, except that it comes off as pathetic. Talk to me, talk to me, won’t you please talk to me? Yes, I am the asshole who will talk to you, because you’re available, because I’m available too, not available like single but available like I’ve got nothing else happening in my life, or maybe I am available like single and you’re available like single and then it’s triply pathetic because we’re talking on the screen and maybe we’re flirting, maybe you say something clever about writing and I say something clever about writing and we’re both smug with our cleverness, because we both know when we meet face to face at some shitshow like AWP that we’ll both be too awkward to squeeze out a two minute conversation, much less a two minute romp in anyone’s hotel room. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: discussion of gender in publishing vs. dinner at Chili’s
[matchup #44 in Tournament of Bookshit]
I’m pretty sure that Chili’s is really fucking gross. In fairness, I don’t think I’ve been there in over fifteen years or so. I’ve been riding that wave a lot of us are on, where I justify my lack of actual political actions by my worldly, educated decision making and feeling like it is something akin to “personal protest.” I eat organic kale often, and I feel superior packing it in my reusable tote, is what I’m saying. However, Chili’s has one thing that self-congratulation does not– the Awesome Blossom, which, for the sadly uninformed, is a “bloomed” and deep fried sweet onion with a dipping sauce topping out at 2,710 calories that often sparks large waves of passion and controversy. The texture is oddly light and easy to digest, a hint of spice in both the breading and the sauce. It finishes on the palate as a well-balanced dish, surprisingly light on the acidity. Once, when I was about ten, I remember my sister attempting to order an Awesome Blossom as an entrée for herself. It left the family with disturbing questions to answer. Will she also be eating her fair share of the Awesome Blossom ordered as its proper course, an appetizer for the entire family? Could this possibly sustain her for the rest of the night? Etc. etc. etc. READ MORE >
Boudinot! An Appreciation by Aaron Burch
[Massive Novel Alert #2! Here's a Boudinot appreciation, a little bit of online journal history, and a "This Is Your Life," sort of piece by Mr. Aaron Burch, the man behind the unstoppable Hobart journal. The occasion for this appreciation? The publication of Ryan Boudinot's stellar new novel, Blueprints of the Afterlife.]
In 2003, I think it was, I still lived in Seattle. I’d moved away, and then moved back, and had been doing Hobart for a couple of years. I’d just put out #3, a joint issue with Monkeybicycle, because they (Steven Seighman and Shya Scanlon) were also on their third issue, and we were all in Seattle, and none of us really knew what we were doing, but we were figuring it out and everything seemed new and exciting. And readings! Steven and Shya started a Monkeybike reading series and brought together people in and around the northwest (Kevin Sampsell! Matthew Simmons! Ed Page! Sean Carman! Matthew Stadler! Adam Voith!) and we formed something of a lit community, reading with each other, hanging out and drinking, seeing one another at other readings – at Elliott Bay or University Bookstore or various cafes and bars and even a makeshift garage or warehouse or someone’s living room. READ MORE >
Home for the Holidays’s “What is your book about?”
One Holiday gift you can expect from friends and relatives is the question, “What is your book about?” or, “What are you working on?” In need of advisement, I asked several authors how they reply to Uncle Scott while enjoying the crown roast.
I don’t blink–I think that is important. I say that I’m working on a novel whose style can best be described as the lovechild of John Grisham and Dan Brown, and that it’s the first book of a trilogy set entirely in an Applebee’s restaurant. I transform my voice into a strained whisper at this point and admit that the pressure is causing me to have a crisis of faith, then I make vague allusions to something I state I may or may not have done at a rural truckstop. If they’re extra-persistent, I say, “Let me just explain the book’s main plot,” and then I describe the most recent Hoarders episode I saw on A&E. – Alissa Nutting, author of Unclean Jobs For Women And Girls
ToBS R2: ‘short-short’ referring to whiskey consumption vs. ‘curating’ a reading series
[matchup #43 in Tournament of Bookshit]
“short-short” referring to whiskey consumption
A “short-short” when referring to whiskey consumption is when a short person is drinking from a short glass of whiskey. The short person is almost always less than four feet tall and the glass must only be a shot glass but they sip from it, so it’s like a regular glass for them. Often times the short person is also wearing really short shorts but just like the glass, the shortness of the shorts looks normal against the scale of the short person. When the short person is a woman drinking from a short glass of whiskey, they are called a “short-shorty” (see also: Dr. Ruth (http://drruth.com/)). It’s recommended that you know the “short-shorty” before calling her this, as short women are habitually feisty and like to climb things. “Short-shorties” tend to get drunk rather quickly, so if you are looking to hook up with a “short-shortie”, its best if you holler right at or before her third drink.
The first recorded “short-short” was a man named Carrey O’Carroll in 1542. O’Carroll was 14 when he traveled from Ireland to work in the court of King Henry VIII of England as the official merkin adjuster of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. A few historians have disputed that he is the real father of Queen Elizabeth I but others say she may be too tall to be his. He is also credited as the creator of the “body shot” as he frequently spilled his whiskey on the women whose merkins he adjusted. Later descendants of O’Carroll were known to have perfected a method of distilling rye that yielded 273 proof scotch, but after several “short-shorties” drank the beverage and went blind, the method was quickly abandoned. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: Celeb fiction vs. talking shit about the New Yorker while submitting frequently to the New Yorker
[matchup #42 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Since 2004, Katie Price, the British glamour model, singer and actress, has written four autobiographies and seven novels. Her novels are called Angel, Crystal, Angel Uncovered, Sapphire, Paradise, The comeback girl and Santa Baby. Lots of people love to read these wonderful books because they give realistic insights into the ultimate human lifestyle that everyone aspires to live in 2011: CELEB/CELEB-SPOUSE. The novels contain a lot of very detailed descriptions of outfits and accessories and perfumes and luxury products that everyone wants to buy. The main characters of the novels are usually the wives of footballers or glamour models. Everyone wants to be a wife or model so it makes sense that the books are so popular. Also they are beautifully written. Here are examples of the writing in Santa Baby: READ MORE >
ToBS R2: Daily facebook updates of what you ate / listened to while writing today vs. Gordon lish
[Matchup #39 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Daily Facebook Food Updates
As I write this comparison I am eating a burrito composed of Eden Organic Black Beans (no salt added), Seapoint Farms Veggie Blends with Edamame (the wonder veggie), Sunripe sweet grape tomatoes, and Sabra brand, all natural spicy guacamole; the burrito is topped with diced red onions, Polly-O shredded low-moisture part-skim mozzarella (an excellent source of calcium), and Cholula Chili Lime flavor hot sauce, and while enjoying it very much, I admit that my meal is tainted by a somewhat wistful wish that I had a liberal dollop or sour cream or perhaps even crème fresh with which to adorn one of the two large whole wheat tortillas given to me, gratis, by Rock, the Korean owner/operator of the grocery on the first floor of my building in downtown Manhattan’s Financial District. I feel I should explain that my wistfulness is perhaps due primarily to the fact that I’ve only recently returned from a vacation in Tulum, Mexico—an important vacation for a variety of reasons not relevant here—wherein I was continually treated to vast quantities of high quality, though often quite simple, Mexican food, made from fresh local (though doubtless not “organic”) ingredients, and prepared with dutiful attention and care by people whose sincere smiles smashed through my preconceived notions about the disdain and disgruntled attitudes my presence might inspire in the local population. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: ‘everybody has a story’ vs. following several thousand people on twitter
[Matchup #37 in Tournament of Bookshit]
‘everybody has a story’
Right off I’ll bypass the obvious sphincter analogy here and instead say: I’m willing to embrace this everybody-has-a-story-notion as a hypothetical. At an abstract level, it speaks to the unlimited potential for human creativity, the idea that if we turn inward long enough and well enough we can eventually locate and activate that nascent Shakespeare hidden in all of us. Okay, pretty trippy, but sure. It all reminds me of that psychedelic scene from the gnostic gospel of St. Thomas when Jesus turns to his disciples and says: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Of course it’s not the easiest of orders if what you’re attempting to bring forth is serious literature or great art. With stakes like that suddenly self-destruction seems not only possible, but plausible, maybe even inevitable. This, I suppose, is why it seems like so many of our best scribes are bad livers with bad livers. In saecula saeculorum. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: Calling yourself the editor-in-chief of an online journal vs. bowties
[Matchup #36 in Tournament of Bookshit]
I know what you’re thinking: clearly the answer is “Having an opinion about MFA rankings.”
But we have to work with what’s given us which means other possible solutions (“Garamond,” and “Fetishizing experimentation while hating on those who fetishize narrative” among them) are left unavailable as is information seemingly vital to out trial. Do these online literary journals actually have sub-editors? Are these bowties pre-tied? Is this a wedding? If the editor-and-chief marries a sub-editor does the sub-editor move up in rank? Does the rank require a uniform? Does the uniform require a bowtie?
Clearly the answer is “Writing a Story That Uses the Word Pus.” READ MORE >
ToBS R2: [yourauthorname].com vs. working at Best Buy
[Matchup #35 in Tournament of Bookshit]
adamrobinson.com redirects to some Sarasota Real Estate company. That’s stupid. adamrobinson.org is “The Truth,” a Christian dude’s fervent website. He was married in November. Congratulations to you both! adamrobinson.blogspot.combelongs to a bass player who hasn’t updated since 2004. So basically [yourauthorname.com] sucks for my fellow Adam Robinsons. Except for maybe the preacher and his Dreamweaving and his wife/husband and his devotional books which are available at bulk pricing in case you’re interested. But enough about myauthorname.com – how’re things for yours? I do appreciate being able to go to one site and seeing all of your publications listed, for when I’m bored and hiding out in the bathroom at my job working at Best Buy, crying and scrolling through your mobile site on my Samsung Vibrant S2, reading your sweet poems on the toilet with my pants up. Plus that blue shirt matches my eyes and I happen to know a lot about RAM anyway, and sound cards (SOUND CARDS!!! People upgrade your SOUND CARDS!!!), and how Dell’s GX270 desktop form factor has a known issue with the nodes leaking on the motherboard so, sorry mister, you’ll probably need to buy a whole new machine if you’re going to finish that manuscript which I hope you saved to one of our external harddrives. But in this challonge I need to hearken to the best authorname.com case study, which was aboutjatyler.com, made famous by those early Stamp Stories. I mean, damn, that’s how you get your name out there, on the backs of little slips of paper.
- – – READ MORE >
Other People: An Interview with Brad Listi
Other People with Brad Listi is a twice-weekly author interview show with a unique literary emphasis. Rather than focusing on their books, Listi asks his writer guests to open up about their lives as writers, what’s driving them, how they work, their personal philosophies and their opinions of other writers’ books. Sometimes an episode seems to be about everything except the subject’s latest book. Whatever they talk about, the shows—which typically clock in at just over an hour—are almost always filled with interesting conversation, and Listi has, in just a few months, had a lot of terrific guests, including Blake Butler, Steve Almond, Victoria Patterson, Joshua Mohr, and Dennis Cooper.
Hearing it for the first time, one wonders why it took so long for this podcast to arrive. The thread that runs through every show is Listi himself: intelligent, self-conscious and completely open about his own idiosyncratic approach to life as a writer and reader. In addition to posting two new episodes of Other People each week and serving as editor at his online culture magazine, The Nervous Breakdown, Listi works as a novelist. His first novel, Attention. Deficit. Disorder. was released in 2007. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: the guy who goes 20 minutes over the suggested reading time vs. AWP
[Matchup #34 in Tournament of Bookshit]
To locate the source of a power that’s true and absolute, a power that comes from the center of the integrity of the essence of each contestant, one must not go through hate, but love. So hear you this, Guy Who Goes 20 Minutes Over the Suggested Reading Time—GWG20MOTSRT, if I may be so bold—you have made me love you. You’re right, for the first 50 minutes, I wasn’t really even paying attention to you or the carefully coiffured bedhead you clutched as if in pain in between poems, though I did come up with some handy new ways to discreetly check my email on my phone, and looking back now, it’s safe to say I was taking you for granted, GWG20MOTSRT, or GWG20MO, can I call you GWG20MO? But G-MO, a few moments before it’s been suggested by who knows what power (probably that guy sitting in the front row who introduced you not 57 minutes earlier) or what authority (God’s) that you step down or at least cede the floor to a Q&A, I begin, at last, to notice you. I notice your breath, the speed and cadence of your voice, the way you shift from foot to foot, with an increasing and increasingly wild alertness, as if there is some kind of pattern to be discerned there, a pattern that might gesture towards a greater, future happiness. Perhaps two swipes through that hair, now drooping despite its coif, means two more poems; perhaps when you’ve leaned on your right elbow’s jacket patch for the length of three gossamer moons and a grackle, the task of supporting of your own admirably well-kept head will become too much and you’ll be forced to shut the book—GWG20MO, I can’t take my eyes off you. It’s as if we’re the only two people in the room. You’re sweating now and I can see it and it’s so intimate. Do you give even one good God damn for me? Can you hear me shift and sigh and slouch towards you? Is this punishment for those times I very suavely deleted messages from Groupon about 25% off tanning with the heel of my boot while American starlings combed pensively those vast and lyric skies? I am rapt. I have failed to resist you. I have, so very badly, to pee. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: middle age white male sex scene vs. middle age white male self published sci fi novel pt 1 of 4
[Matchup #31 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Holy receding hairlines! This is quite the week for middle-aged men, with no less than two new texts targeting the graying templed-set: Middle Aged White Male Heterosexual Sex Scene AND Middle Age White Male Self-Published Sci Fi Novel Pt 1! TJY and the Actionettes have made no secret of our fetish for hot, pot-bellied daddies – so this is the kind of news that has us sweating off our makeup, creaming our sequins and quaking in our stilettos! READ MORE >
ToBS R1: trolling for spelling errors in blog posts vs. changing your facebook picture daily
[Matchup #27 in Tournament of Bookshit]
I don’t know.
I’ve never had a blog.
I haven’t been on Facebook in almost a year.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this, what the fuck “Trolling for spelling errors in your blog vs. changing your Facebook profile pic daily” means.
This would be so much easier if I’d been given something easy, like:
Jimmy Chen vs. every woman on HTMLGIANT.
Or HTMLGIANT 2009 vs. HTMLGIANT 2011.
Or being Matt Bell vs. not being Matt Bell.
Or telling Blake no vs. telling him yes.
(Is it possible for the gender with the vagina to tell Blake Butler no?)
Fuck Blake Butler. Fuck HTMLGIANT. Fuck “mean week.” READ MORE >
