October 3rd, 2010 / 12:38 pm
Behind the Scenes
Blake Butler
Behind the Scenes
HTMLGIANT Birthday #2
How many fingers are we now? Two fingers. Any two you want! Thanks for hanging out and being cool and talking about books.
This weekend I ate bbq and read past page 750 in 2666 and had some gin and coffee (not together) and deleted a bunch of words out of a manuscript. What did you do?
i dunno. google books is kinda sweet.
happy birthday, HTMLGIANT. this weekend i got blackout drunk and watched football. gf got sad.
Happy Birthday. Blake, I can’t believe HTMLGIANT is so new. It feels like it’s been here forever. And that’s a good thing! Thanks for what you do.
I read Scorch Atlas on the A-train. Happy 2, HTMLGIANT.
happy birfday HG. this weekend i missed a train, went to the artifice mag release party, stayed up drinking until 6 am, woke up at 10:30 with the worst hangover i’ve had in 2010, spent a day staring at my computer screen still not really feeling human, and today i will hopefully get some work done.
Thank you KMA
thanks Al!
Hard to believe that in two short years a website has become such a large part of my interior life and the way I think about and approach my own work. For a long time — ever since I went into exile in Toledo, Ohio — I’ve been looking for a community of writers and readers with whom to share the life or reading and writing and thinking about literature. If that community is somehow less immediate for being virtual and far-flung, it is also somehow more intimate for being present anytime I fire up my Dell or Mac or Acer Notebook and seek the companionship of intelligences not my own. For all its rawness (and in some ways because of it), HTMLGiant is a huge gift to those of us who because of it are less alone.
(should be “life of”)
To echo Kyle, this place completes the internet. Do you think it’s accurate to say that what we’ve got here is a 24/7 literary salon? Only without most of the elitism. Happy 2nd. Do you think we’ll get to 10, or will the internet be totally gone by then? In that case maybe we’ll reappear in the suprainternet or whatever comes next.
the city of glass! i lived in perrysburg for ten years. htmlgiant is indeed a huge gift. i bailed on ohio state’s writing program and two years ago moved to san francisco where i knew nobody. i found htmlgiant because i was stalking my ex’s ex, and it’s been the best creative writing workshop program class happy hour bed partner ever. only 2 years, wow.
this weekend i puked at a flaming lips show, ate toast, and read the second and third chants in guyotat.
holla holla holla
What if Google buys HTMLGiant?
i dunno. google books is kinda sweet.
Happy Birthday, HTMLGiant!
This weekend I cater-waitered the 25th reunion at a small christian college, read some books, and drank some beers, and bought local bacon (highlight).
what if some day there’s a movie called ‘the internet literary magazine blog of the future’ ?
hi z
It feels like longer than two years! Thanks to everyone for the conversation & play. This is a good sandbox.
Gene and Blake:
If Google offers to buy HTMLGiant, take the money and run.
i love html giant so much i wish i could squish it to death. or pet it. html giant is like an oppressively cute kitten. happy second birthday. i have wasted more time on html giant than any other site in the past two years, other than gmail.
i thought this said, edited by the author 35 times. and i was like damn alec.
Feel much the same. Hugs all around.
Happy 2nd Birthday! I’ve only been reading for like 3 weeks and this site is amazing! Hoping for at least 50 more.
This weekend I read Chaucer, Jeff Chang, Daniel Kane and Jane Austen. I finished two out of the four and read a page out of one. Which do you think it is?
What if HTMLGiant buys Google?
Happy Birthday, HTMLGIANT! This weekend I plagiarized a novel, got kicked out of a bar in Sausalito, lost my wallet, lost my keys, had a dance party in my bedroom, got kicked out of my apartment, got asked to come back live in my apartment, broke up with my boyfriend, masturbated seventeen times and counting, ate vegetarian chicken wings, barfed.
whoops. hit like when i meant to hit reply. so, that’s that.
original reply was simply going to be: ‘hiya m’
um. so hows’re things?
the morningstar ones? i like those.
happy birthday, okay. great job existing, keep going another two or two cajill. happen and make yours right by us.
today and yesterday, i listened to einstein on the beach in its entirety for the first time. submitted yesterday and received today acceptance and then posted quickly new piece at eyeshot. read about 50pgs of witz, about ten more pieces from GLs Collecteds, a few chaps into motte’s oulipo primer, a page and half of F Wake, continued to try to learn the first two staffs of schumanns traumerei, ate things like yogurt and v8 and beer and chicken salads, put up new abjective piece by parker tettleton, may have watched tv maybe, i think i watched, no, i watched a documentary i had seen before on nadja salerno-sonnenberg called speaking in strings, and also noticed that glass’s 2nd violin concerto has been recorded and will be available on itunes on oct 12, and i have tickets to see it on nov 3, and i am contemplating whether i want to like listen and study before like i usually like to do or if i should wait and let the live be the first experience. hmm.
um. good. you?
i gave you a like back
i’m getting really tired of seeing my avatar though, seriously, i should change it
you’re avatar is austere
Yes, big happy b-day! It’s been about a year since I first came across HTMLG, which helped me figure out what to do w/ my own creative projects simply by giving me a better bigger picture of the range of work being produced by so many serious artists.
Today? Trying desperately to not work. It’s, um, not working.
I shot at the same deer three times with a bow and missed it three times. Fuck. I cracked open a Budweiser Ice and downed it, tucked it back into my camo fanny pack. Then I read Oxford American. The future issue. All of this about 35 feet above a wonderful oak forest spotted in sun bent by wind and rustle. I swayed in the wind.
Glow, basically.
Happy B-day, HTMLG! Seriously, to echo Kyle’s comment, I spent a couple years floundering around post-college, without any real sort of writing community to talk to and challenge my ways of thinking about myself or my work. HTMLG has given that back to me and reminded me why I love sentences and the people who love them. Thanks for that everyone!
This weekend, I went to hang out with A. Burch in Champaign for his book release party. I passed out on some chick’s couch while Aaron…
Well, Aaron can tell you if he wants. What happens in Champaign…
this is indeed a womb-spurt to celebrate. i shall ceremoniously light my vanilla scented yankee candle shaped like a foot for you, HG.
how many nights over the past year have i not been able to sleep and lurked in the corners of this screenlight, and learned so many things, and marveled, and laughed, and been moved in some way. there is no place like here. thank you.
this weekend i read a book about a mother and a father and a son and a house that grew and grew and grew.
hi fellow Mills person.
I shot at the same deer three times with a bow and missed it three times. Fuck. I cracked open a Budweiser Ice and downed it, tucked it back into my camo fanny pack. Then I read Oxford American. The future issue. All of this about 35 feet above a wonderful oak forest spotted in sun bent by wind and rustle. I swayed in the wind.
Glow, basically.
Gene Morgan will be played by James Franco.
i wasn’t going for austere, but thanks! i think.
your avatar is now.. random traditional chinese characters? i think the context of that sign is missing..
[…] we posted about our birthday and had a Backwards Birthday Celebration. Thank you for your nice comments and emails. We really […]
…and then you can launch HTMLMidget
happy bday HTML, i’ve gotten so much out of your postings, rants and reviews – thanks for all you do, you enlighten me on a daily basis
Happy toBornottoB-Day, htmlgiant. You are my Infinite Jest. You are my Sin and Punishment. You are my Huis Clos and Nausea.
z –
here’s the context, semi-random:
http://williamblakethoughtcollision.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-post_04.html
austere was a compliment
– m
I love you, HTML Giant. Happy birthday.