Your Taste: A Review
I searched “my books” and “my bookshelf” on flickr and reviewed stranger’s tastes in literature.
Did you read Everything is Illuminated twice? I read the first 5 pages once, then felt irritated and put it down. Kudos on Lolita though, it really is an awesome book, and answers in full ‘why men love bitches,’ so I don’t see the point on reading an entire book on that. They made a movie out of The Namesake with Kumar. It was like Joy Luck Club except with Indians. I teared the entire movie, though I think it was the curry. As for ‘how to save your own life,’ don’t fly if you’re scared of it. Just fly a kite.
An Open Response re: HTMLGIANT
The following are answers to questions posited by Brandon Scott Gorrell about HTMLGIANT. I don’t think he was being sarcastic, and I will honor these questions with sincere answers. I am not trying to put him on the spot. I think BSG is one of our best writers around, and I respect him. These answers are respectful. [*Disclaimer: this is not a solicited interview. BSG asked these questions on his blog, and I merely answered them. He and I had no direct discourse.]
what happened to htmlgiant
I think you mean, maybe, like it’s ‘different,’ or worse, ‘not as good.’
was it something inside me or inside htmlgiant
I feel like you’ve been more alienated lately, like you fake-deleted your blog, and came back from NY depressed, and you are questioning your existence more and more. So 60% of it is you, but 40% of it is HTMLGIANT.
i used to read htmlgiant feeling excited
I think when it first started, there was a rush of excitement that has since diminished. Posts used to get 200+ comments, now it’s 20+ on a good day. I think, if a journal or website is to last, it needs a) devoted contributors and b) a consistent ethos. I think we have both.
now i feel a little bored and alienated
That’s probably 88% you, sorry. I will admit we are 12% boring and alienating.
Opium’s Network of Writers Experiment
The “Opium’s Network of Writers Experiment” is seeking quotes about writing one writer passes along to another. The latter writer is to submit the quote to Opium. (I don’t think either writer needs to be ‘famous,’ though I may be wrong.)
The Lost Generation had Paris, we have the internet. Short of any idealistic ‘organic’ ‘philosophizing over absinthe’ process, I think it would be most effective to streamline this son of a bitch by posting a comment about writing – as an open submission of sorts – for anyone to pick-off and relay to Opium if they wish. The deadline is March 3.
So, two things will be done: 1) leave a comment about writing (with full-name as you wish to be cited), and/or 2) pick a quote you like and submit it to Opium.
Here are examples provided by Opium (which seem a little stuffy and pedantic to me, so let’s show those kids how it’s really done):
“Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. Write around 700 words a day and then stop.” –Mieke Eerkens was told by Vikram Chandra.
“You shouldn’t write a novel unless you have an idea for one.” –Jamey Genna was told by Lewis Buzbee.
Submit appropriated quotes here: opiumwritersexperiment@gmail.com
In narcissistic delight, here’s my quote, if any of you want:
“No double-spaces or cramps after the period.”
God damn I’m subtle.
Updates
This post simply brings to your attention things worthy of attention, with extremely light commentary from me.
- Ellen Kennedy’s new book Sometimes my heart pushes my ribs is available from Muumuu house. This is probably widely known, but I wanted to officially note it here. Ellen Kennedy feels like a Dorothy Parker who doesn’t have enough energy to rhyme.
- Chelsea Martin’s new book Everything was fine until whatever will be released March 2009 by Future Tense Books. Watch her read this piece. The ingrown logic and breath-taking/sigh-inducing excess of each subsequent line reminds me of Tao Lin’s ‘the next night we ate whale,’ except each line is different.
- The prolific J.A. Tyler redesigned Mud Luscious archives and ML Press, and his entire site. He would scare me if he wasn’t so nice. His obscene publication list is prone to make one feel like a slacker.
- Juked No. 6 is out. Check out the contents and order. Juked is one of the oldest literary websites out there. It makes me feel good that they are so consistent and devoted.
- Robot Melon Issue Seven is live, including J.A. Tyler, Crispin Best, yours truly [gag], Ryan Manning’s ode to Sam Pink, and one of my personal favorite online writers, Krammer Abrahams. I really like the ‘head trauma at night in the woods’ design.
So those are my updates. I could not find a picture that embodied this post. [*UPDATE: Ryan Manning sent me a picture to post for this post. The 4 colors do not match the 5 updates. He was no doubt driven conceptually.] Thank you for supporting online literature.
Submission logs
The tight-rope of submissions, simultaneous submissions, acceptences, rejections, withdrawals, forthcomings, etc. is hard to balance. I eventually got too confused, and committed too many faux pas, that I finally devised an excel spread sheet listing a) the title of the piece, b) where it had been submitted too, c) where it had been rejected, and d) optimal/potential places to submit if needed. I think most writers have some sort of system. So what does your submission log look like?
Here’s mine:
Tabbing from cell to cell often feels like Frogger — squish.
Uncategorized / 61 Comments
February 20th, 2009 / 7:43 pm
February 20th, 2009 / 7:43 pm
Travis Bickle tries his hand at Sam Pink’s blog
RIP YOUR PLACENTA WITH YOUR TEETH THEN EAT IT
i wiped off last night’s ejaculate and drove the taxi again. there was a pregnant woman screaming to get to the hospital. i told her i was in her womb at that moment and that i wanted to start chewing upwards from her spleen to her mouth. she was with her boyfriend who punched me in the neck. the bruise was shaped like africa and all the africans were crushed. he looked like harvey keitel and i realized he was her pimp because instead of origami the hundred dollar bills were flat. i dropped them off at the hospital and picked up this guy scorcese who wanted use a shotgun on a woman. i put my words and thoughts into a paper bag like the ones you give people with asthma and told him all words were shit and he could throw the shit bag at the person he wanted to murder instead. kill your enemies with thoughts of kindness then kill yourself. then i followed betsy around and her hair looked like the shed feathers of two dying swans lit by a day broke sun and my veins felt cut from inside by a thousand pieces of confetti for a celebration she and i will never have. back at the apartment i asked the mirror some rhetorical questions and burned myself with blue flames.
Valentine’s Post
As cued by asstastic pr, here’s a valentine’s post:
My favorite love story is “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period” from Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger. There’s something rather unacademic and cliche about loving Salinger, but seriously, he might be the best writer in the world.
Let me be brief, redundent, and pedantic: “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period” is about a young smug painter who moves to Canada to teach painting with a weird Japanese couple; hilarity ensues. (I’m butchering this already.) Put short, he is a lonely asshole. He falls in love with a student — through paintings she sends in the mail for him to critique — and, in that sacred way, courts her with the untaught heart that makes love unbearable. The student is a nun Smith invisions as young ripe 18yr old nubile, in denial of the fact that she’s really around 60 yrs old. Upon recieving Smith’s heated letter/booty call, the seminary retracts the nun’s enrollment in the painting program. Smith loses not only his prospects of getting laid, but much more (there’s a lot of Christ symbolic stuff that I won’t get into). Smith dresses up in a tux and gets hammered, to make a memory out of nothing, and through a stunning moment of reflected sunrise light only Salinger could imagine and convey, Smith realises that “everyone is a nun,” which, in my mind, reads as “god is everywhere.”
Salinger’s god is love. Happy Valentine’s day.
Cribs: Literature special
This post is somewhat of a stretch, but I figured (as a non-AWPer) it’s my duty to post something at least once before their long awaited return.
Last night I watched MTV Cribs, which I’m sure most, if not all of you know, is a show which follows celebrities around in their homes. The first home was 50 Cent’s; he lived in a mall-type castle, with a movie theatre, recording studio, complex lagoon system, and live strip-club (with actual bitches n’ shit — sorry, just keepin’ the vernacular fo realz). The rappers and basketball stars seem to live in the most oppulent places, which are (despite their success) probably on lease. Anyways, I have a point.
EVER: A Review
The narrative constraints of Ever – presumably a woman inside a room; that’s it – is a precarious way to write a novella. Without characters, plot arcs, locations, etc., language itself is summoned as a surrogate protagonist. The writer – thus reader – are both stripped of the typical arsenal of fiction; what is left is simply language’s ability to summon or evoke the most intrinsic visceral ‘truths’ of being alive, a collection of nerves funneled into a consciousness.
And that is, at heart, what Blake Butler’s Ever is about, a kind of timeless consciousness that is, remarkably and/or ironically, very relevant to a particular time: now – dispersed with cryptic evocations of some post-apocalyptic world, as in “[…] not that we knew the moon here anymore […]” Notice that Butler chooses the word ‘knew’ instead of the more likely ‘saw’ or ‘had.’ This suggests either a cognizant or intuitive decision to focus more on perception than facts.