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 >
ToBS R1: horny middle aged balding poetry professor on campus vs. horny college age dude-bro poet on facebook
[Matchup #26 in Tournament of Bookshit]
internet vs. intellect
i’ll probably never get a facebook friend request from a dude or an email from a male professor again, but:
horny middle aged balding poetry professor on campus vs.
horny college aged dude-bro poet on facebook
starts talking to you about gender and offers you an independent study on Judith Butler
starts talking to you about gender and offers to publish you in his online journal
winner: if the journal is well put together with other impressive contributors, bro READ MORE >
ToBS R1: lit blogging at age 35 vs. tweeting at age 45
[Matchup #22 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Using two specific examples I will discuss lit blogging at age 35 versus tweeting at age 45 and declare a winner. I’d like to note that this entry is merely in the spirit of Mean Week. I respect both Matt and Deb. The idea alone that I thought of their names when considering this topic should only be aligned with admiration. And neither is a true winner. If you’re involved in any way – writer, reader, twitter user, lit blogger – in the “lit scene,” you’re a loser by default. Happy Mean Week, nerds.
Example One: Lit blogging at age 35 READ MORE >
ToBS R1: calling anything you write a manuscript vs. author photos
[Matchup #22 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Calling Anything You Write A Manuscript
I just copypasted my blogger into google docs for a 45,000 word count. My nanowrimo just feels right. The manuscript I drafted and polished in February is complete. A novel in tweets. Everything I write is gold. This is like _______ meets ________. It’s _________ with a twist. I think people want to read about my breakup. It’s 50,000 on my daily bathroom experiences. I oulipo’d this baby without the first half of the alphabet. It’s called ‘beastial fiction’. I just wrote down everything my mother said. I’m a method writer. Why do you think the title is “Cock In Hand”? I used a typewriter for authenticity. The blank spaces represent epic minimalism. READ MORE >