Sam Pink Interviews Barry Graham for Orange Alert
I love these guys
Mean Monday: Narrative Magazine Again! A Comment That Takes Things One Step Further
I was starting to understand Blake Butler’s argument regarding the amount of solicited writers that Narrative Magazine publishes versus the money they take from the unsolicited pile. And then David Kemp left this in the comment section, which spreads the responsibility even further than the editors of Narrative and I found his comment more or less convincing:
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March 16th, 2009 / 8:29 pm
March 16th, 2009 / 8:29 pm
Hit and Run Magazine
Hit and Run Magazine (click here to check it out) is a new online journal that features the scraps, notes, doodles, “rough draft scribbles” and so forth that writers make while, er, writing. It’s fun! Paul A. Toth, the author of the novels Fizz, Fishnet and the forthcoming Finale (July 2009), is the editor and is accepting submissions. (Check out his website and learn more about him here.) The official description is after the jump: READ MORE >
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March 15th, 2009 / 8:24 pm
March 15th, 2009 / 8:24 pm
“Parker’s Back” by Flannery O’Connor
(New! Femme Friday: Every Friday I’ll write a review, post an interview, or discuss in some way, a female writer or editor that rocks my world. I’ll alternate between Indie scene people and more well known or established women, living and dead. Next friday, look out for a review of Jackie Corley’s book, The Suburban Swindle (from So New Media, click here so you can buy it and read it before my review). And- Spoiler Alert! “Parker’s Back” is discussed in full here.)
“And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” Exodus 3, 2
In the short story “Parker’s Back” by Flannery O’Connor, as in all of her work, there is an absence of overt moralizing and yet nearly every moment of the story, every action depicted, expresses the human soul’s struggle against, and toward, the power of God. O’Connor is radical in her de-emphasis on belief: many of her truly saved characters and prophets don’t properly believe in God, but it is God that takes them anyway. O’Connor’s vision of God is more or less that God is something that happens to us.
Mr. Quickly: The Greatest Amazon Reviewer of all Time
Once, when I was desperately trying not to work on a novel, I spent a great deal of time on Amazon reading fake reviews. I discovered Mr. Quickly. I contacted him, asking him to work with me on a book of a collection of Amazon Reviews to be entitled, Fake Amazon Reviews. It would be a little “gift” book, something you pick up on your way out of the bookstore, a little slip of a book, right near the checkout. I think I insulted him by assuming his reviews were “fake”. Sigh. Mr. Quickly, if you are out there? I love you. Here are some of his great reviews:
Anthropology Lessons from Metal Magazines: A Variation in a Series
This Guy is Metal, but not from Wino.
Perusing Metal Maniacs, I happened upon the band Wino’s new release, Punctuated Equilibrium (check them out on myspace)! My minor in college was in anthropology and it really should have been my major, but I was too lazy and cheap to go back and take all the pre-requisite stuff. In my evolutionary theory class, punctuated equilibrium was well discussed. Stephen Jay Gould and the lesser known Niles Eldredge (good link to Gould’s work here), beyond coining the phrase, developed largely the most radical variation on Darwin’s theory of natural selection and specifically, the idea of gradualism (although since then, I think other stuff has come about in the field. I was in college, um, 20 years ago). I read so many xeroxed papers that Gould wrote in obscure academic anthropology journals! He was supposed to come speak once to our class- he didn’t, though. I thought he was rad. And I think Wino is rad. Here’s a brief description of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, taken from Wikipedia, but it explains the theory well enough: READ MORE >
AGRICULTURE READER #3
Agriculture Reader #3, edited by Htmlgiant’s own Justin Taylor and Jeremy Small, is out and full of amazing work, not to mention that this annual journal of the arts is artfuly made itself by the amazing design firm, X-ing Books. Click here to order your copy. Here’s the full list of mindblowingly great contributors, including Diane Wiliams, Eileen Myles and Matthew Zapruder: READ MORE >
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March 10th, 2009 / 10:10 am
March 10th, 2009 / 10:10 am
Mean Monday on Sunday Night: PR’s Office
This is my office where I work about six months of the year. I was just there this weekend and I took some pictures to share with you all. I am a slob. I roll around in a pile of dust and books. Make fun of me. Talk about how happy you are that you don’t really know me. I am going to explain stuff and post some nice close-ups after the jump:
Thom Jones and Schopenhauer
I Have Some FUNNY Ideas!
About fifteen years ago, or something like that, I read The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones. I liked it very much. I also thought it was funny how he chews over the same stuff in most of the stories. More than once, some character of his talks about Schopenhauer. I had read some Schopenhauer in college, but after reading The Pugilist at Rest, I decided to read some more. I liked him very much, more than any other philosopher at that time in my life. (I read very little philosophy, so that is not saying much.) So, today, when I fell over a pile of books that are laying on the floor in my office, I fell over Schopenhauer. And I found something really funny. Now, I am posting this excerpt, but this is not to say he didn’t say lots of cool stuff, too. Anyway, here it is:
