On “e”
e-cigarette
There’s something very strange and non-ironic about the Electronic Cigarette, a cigarette shaped device which mimics an actual cigarette using electronically vaporized liquid nicotine, rechargeable battery, and pressure sensors. (Check out these companies here, here, and here.) I can’t figure out if E-Cigarettes are supposed to help you quit smoking, or to exploit the gestural and oral flourishes of smoking, or simply to deliver nicotine without the other harsh elements to your body and/or environment. I won’t get into the culture of smoking — its hegemony of rebellion and corporately endorsed counter-culturalism — but rather, investigate the prevalence of this “e” prefix.
Home Alone by Raymond Carver
I was standing in front of the living room window, my reflection half transparent, drinking a gin and tonic. My family had left me alone for the holidays; I just didn’t feel up for the motions and devotions necessary to complete the season. That was the thing with years: there were always more. My face through the window seemed lakelike; each squint, as I tried to make myself out, a little ripple moving outwards towards the world at large. The failed hail of snow had fallen. Two men knocked on the door and I started to run away.
That was mine, yah, sorry. Now it’s your turn to give it a go in the comments section — nothing too long, just a couple of sentences. Others are welcome to critique entrees; why is it or isn’t it Carver? Let’s try to find out what it was he* did, and how he* did it. (*Yah, Lish, I know.) For me, Carver is romantic without being romantic. It’s reticent emotional hyperbole, which is like, uh, really difficult. Good luck!
Jimmy Chen—
“Real” diary entries of a young farm girl in 1937 told on Twitter. Meet Genevieve Spencer.
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Martha Stewart’s Oral History
Courtesy of Bike Snob NYC, in an article in Martha Stewart’s Living about Maine’s Acadia National Park, the eponymous woman was quoted saying “Great Head takes about an hour and a half to complete.” She was referring to the trail Great Head, but what both concerns and elates me is how none of the editors caught it.
Or maybe the editors did catch it, taking extreme liberty in interpreting the trail path. It seemed too good to be true, and I just had to Google map the actual “Great Head” trail to see if it was indeed cock n’ ball shaped. It kinda is, though my bets are on the graphic topographer who took an opportunity to render the path more suggestively. Perhaps a shafted disgruntled employee? (See related Little Mermaid Phallus.) A forever fiend of choad? Or maybe just a guy with a sense of humor.
Google map version
Speaking of guys with a sense of humor, I think God himself always has the last laugh. And for an atheist, that’s a huge compliment. In the photo essay, we see Martha and Co. walking around, walking around, smiling for the camera — until that one photo where there in the distance — wtf are those balls? I’ve been saying a post-Nietzschean “Gay is gay” since circa 1987 people. Someone call me prophetic.
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July 31st, 2009 / 12:18 am
July 31st, 2009 / 12:18 am
Jimmy Chen—
Thomas Pynchon’s LA is growing as people contribute their own annotations — and while I’m on the subject of him, you think “Smells Like Teen Spirit” got its hook from a Pynchon song? And is this funny or cruel?
Jimmy Chen—
Um, EVER, Scorch Atlas, Lamination Colony, No Colony (w/ Ken Baumann), HTMLGIANT (et al.) — and now Year of the Liquidator (w/ Shane Jones), please where is my elephant tranquilliser gun? I need to shoot someone.
Dzanc Best of the Web 2009
Dzanc emailed contributors encouraging them to spread the word, and I figured — and yes, I’m self-conscious about this — I’d employ my capacities at Htmlgiant and do it. Slightly edited from their template letter:
Dear Readers,
I’m excited to tell you that Blake’s and my stories have been included in the Best of the Web 2009 anthology recently published by Dzanc Books. The editors at Dzanc read thousands of works published by exclusively online journals last year and put together this collection of the 59 best short stories, poems and essays.
Last Tuesday there was an Invasion of the Internet as many of the authors included in the anthology wrote guest posts for various literary blogs, or were included in one large guest post for Book Notes at the Large Hearted Boy blog. A full list of these with links can be found here.
The book is available in Barnes & Noble, and Independent stores across the country, via Amazon, and the publisher’s website; I hope you’ll consider buying it to support our work, and the other great authors whose work you’ll get a chance to read.
Thank you.
Sorry for the disclaimer, but the implicit etiquette is generally not to promote one’s own work; but there are many other awesome writers involved with this book, and my aim is at them: Waqar Ahmed, Arlene Ang, Michael Baker, Marcelo Ballve, Marge Barrett, Carmelinda Blagg, Benjamin Buchholz, Amy L. Clark, Amber Cook, Bill Cook, Michael Czyzniejewski, Darlin’ Neal, Matthew Derby, Ryan Dilbert, Stephen Dixon, Alex Dumont, Claudia Emerson, D.A. Feinfeld, Marcela Fuentes, M. Thomas Gammarino, Cassandra Garbus, Molly Gaudry, Anne Germanacos, Matt Getty, Todd Hasak-Lowy, Karen Heuler, Ash Hibbert, Philip Holden, Roy Kesey, Hari Bhajan Khalsa, Tricia Louvar, Peter Markus, Michael Martone, Heather Killelea McEntarfer, Lindsay Merbaum, Corey Mesler, Laura Mullen, Joseph Olschner, Jeff Parker, Elise Paschen, Elizabeth Penrose, Kate Petersen, Glen Pourciau, Sam Rasnake, Jonathan Rice, Tom Sheehan, Claudia Smith, Lynn Strongin, Terese Svoboda, Jon Thompson, Davide Trame, Donna D. Vitucci, Helen Wickes, Kathrine Leone Wright, Jordan Zinovich.
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July 27th, 2009 / 1:21 pm
July 27th, 2009 / 1:21 pm
Index of Poetry Slam Looks
I’ve always been fascinated by all the hand and body gestures employed in the reading of slam poetry. Slam poetry’s cultural rhetoric is often that of political disenfranchisement and harsh urban experience, so there’s a certain indignation which at times feels, to me, insincere. But hey, I’m a middle-class wounded narcissist, so there. What follows are my theories about what each gesture and/or overall gestalt means.
I. THE “LET ME TELL YOU HOW IT FEELS TO ME” LOOK
Here, the poet points at himself — kind of like “extreme first person,” where self-absorption is interpreted as introspection. This guy is probably saying: I just got back from Hawaii / where I gots this shirt bitch/ thems Hawaiian’s ain’t down with us black folks/ pacific ocean demotion y’alls.
RIP Eyeshot
EYESHOT IS OVER
Nearly ten years exactly after conception, Eyeshot is over for now. We have not much e-enthusiasm, and we rarely read “online lit,” so why provide it? Books are where it’s at! Real live bound specimens you can throw across the room. Buy one today! Like the Hunger Artist, Eyeshot now melts into the straw of its cage, so it can be replaced by a lively panther. The site will not disappear. The archives will remain. This home page here may sometimes propagate the editor‘s purposes. If you’re feeling nostalgic, here’s a collection of some of the more popular things posted here. Thanks to everyone who ever contributed, submitted, or visited. Lates for now. More later . . .
Good luck and best wishes Lee Klein for a decade of dedication, and for being one of the first to get this “online lit” thing started. I feel like any more commentary on this would only get us in trouble. I appreciate Eyeshot very much — as I think many of us do — and will say “thank you.”
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July 25th, 2009 / 1:31 pm
July 25th, 2009 / 1:31 pm