YOU DON’T NEED PERMISSION
Speaking of Egon Schiele and “Adrien Brody,” Jezebel ran an exclusive exposé in November about the novel You Deserve Nothing, by Alexander Maksik. You Deserve Nothing is about a thirty-something teacher at an American international school in Paris who has an affair with, and impregnates, one of his seventeen-year-old students. Turns out (according to Jezebel) Maksik was a teacher at an American international school in Paris who had an affair with, and impregnated, one of his seventeen-year-old students.
Requited Journal #6
"Call and Response" by Adam Grossi
As the nonfiction & reviews editor of the online journal Requited, it’s my pleasure to announce that Issue 6 just went live. In the Essays section you’ll now find:
- an autobiographical comic by Keiler Roberts (Powdered Milk Volume 5);
- a video essay by Julianne Hill (“So, Mary?”);
- and interviews with Robert Ashley, Vanessa Place, Rosmarie Waldrop, and Curtis White regarding the materials and habits of their respective writing practices (see the introductory note here).
There’s also a new review: Jeff Bursey‘s take on J. Robert Lennon’s story collection Pieces for the Left Hand.
And much more!
Officially Released: NowTrends by Karl Taro Greenfeld
Big whoa to Hobart for this amazing addition to their Short Flight/Long Drive series — it’s Karl Taro Greenfeld’s collection of short stories, NowTrends, and it’s officially released today.
The book in total neatness features three different covers, and it’s designed to resemble a travel guide.
I had a chance to travel with Karl this weekend, as he read in Baltimore and DC. Here’s the dirt: He ate pizza with chicken on it. Then, at the Baltimore reading he read a story about a guy who had to come up with a propaganda cartoon for the Japanese during WWII. He prefers whiskey to beer. In the morning he turned away the wrong Eggs Benedict, the ones with crabmeat. Later he didn’t eat pizza but did eat a few wings and stood several rounds while we watched the Bills play the Cowboys. There, he told me about an article he’d recently written about Scott Norwood. Norwood is the guy who shanked the Superbowl-losing fieldgoal for the Bills back in the time that I lived for Andre Reed and Don Beebe. Then at the DC reading he plied me with more beer and read part of a story about a boss who joins a soccer team with his underlings. Both stories that he read in these two nights worked for me. Then he took a train back to NYC.
At the DC reading he said he thinks his publishers are playing a joke on him, making him read in rooms that are constantly getting smaller. That’s because the reading for the Three Tents series in DC is held in a small room. Coincidentally or not, in that room he read with Megan Boyle, whose book also just came out today (as Blake noted).
In conclusion, Karl Taro Greenfeld is a good guy and his book is an impressive addition to the Hobart catalog (and if you buy it directly, you can get the ebook versions free).
The Marbled Swarm swarms now
Today is the release of Dennis Cooper’s latest, The Marbled Swarm, and it’s truly something else, even for someone you expect to knock your head off every time.
I reviewed it here for Fanzine; Ken reviewed it here on HTML.
You can buy it now.
R.I.P. Jiří Gruša
He passed away today, in Germany. He was 72. I don’t know much about him. But I really enjoyed his novel The Questionnaire; Dalkey reprinted an English translation of it in 2000 and I read it upon arriving at ISU:
Originally circulated in Czechoslovakia in an underground edition of nineteen typewritten copies (which landed the author in jail for “initiating disorder”), The Questionnaire is Jirí Grusa’s internationally acclaimed masterpiece.
In completing a standard employment questionnaire, narrator Jan Kepka manages to write a beautifully impressionistic history of his life, his family, and his hometown as he obeys—with mock solemnity—the handwritten command on top of the form: “DO NOT CROSS OUT.”
Here’s a link to it at Google Books. And here’s an interview with him, conducted by my friend and former Dalkey workmate Ana Lucic. In that interview, Gruša mentions some of his other books, and that he planned to write a few more. I don’t know if he ever did. The other books, to my knowledge, haven’t been translated. But The Questionnaire, that’s a good one.
Godspeed, you Czech Emperor.
Nick Antosca—
Some of you know Innocente Fontana, so I thought this might be of interest: I wrote a piece for the Paris Review‘s website about my relationship with him, who he really is, and his extraordinary novel that was just republished.
8
Tao Lin Tweets a Non-Meta Tweet
Earlier today, Tao Lin tweeted an entirely non-meta tweet.
in ~’93 in ~5th grade, i think, there was a ‘meme’ at my school of throwing things at (or ‘simply’ hitting) ppl then saying ‘ricochet’
Notice the lack of self reference or promotion, reference to the nature of said tweet, bracketed ambiguous/conceptual “thought[s],” esoteric ongoing commentary of [something] semi-contextualized via hashtag.
Last month, The New York Observer reported that, for his third novel, Lin was working in what he describes as “Lorrie Moore’s prose style and tone.”
This tweet seems to suggest that very notion. What I mean is, I could see a thought like this appearing in the inner monologue of a Lorrie Moore character, is what I mean. Or I guess even that it seems like something from Bed.
You guys got anything else to say?
Comics in Cambodia
With only seven days left to get the donations, Sara Drake has almost reached her kickstarter goal which will enable her to “In collaboration with Arts Network Asia (ANA) and Anne Elizabeth Moore,” to travel “to Phnom Phen, Cambodia to teach an introductory comics and self-publishing class to young women.”
Here’s what Sara has to say about her project:
I was recently selected by Anne Elizabeth Moore’s initiative Independent Youth-Driven Cultural Production in Cambodia (IYDCPC) to teach and promote media production to young ladies in Cambodia. IYDCPC is an international institute based in Phnom Penh that encourages multidisciplinary creative responses to issues related to popular culture, with a particular focus on media, advertising, marketing, youth, gender, democracy, human rights, and globalization in Southeast Asia. Primary partners work in institutions and organizations in Phnom Penh, and affiliate organizations are brought in on a project-by-project basis. Programming hinges around an international residency program with a cultural producer who comes to the region to work with groups of young people on projects that allow them to creatively reinvision public space, global media, and their society. Projects are collaborative and emerge from Phnom Penh and thus primarily address the needs of Cambodian youth, but also respond to the needs of youth and adults throughout Southeast Asia.
The class itself, will help equip young women with the skills needed to cultivate their own personal narratives and encourage them to share their stories.
To do this, I will be teaching daily over the course of two months, beginning this November.
Your contributions will help me with traveling expenses, classroom supplies, and publishing costs.
I met Sara while I was living in Chicago at one of the Ear Eater readings which she has co-curated with Cassandra Troyan for a little over a year. He comics are absolutely fantastic and so is she.
In August, Sara did an interview with the Chicago art blog Bad At Sports with deals both with her praxis and the Cambodia project itself: click here to read it.
Also, here is a link to Anne Elizabeth Moore’s (whose project Sarah hopes to continue) book, which was just released: voila.
Oil Changes to Garlic
Jono Tosch is a poet and artist who blogs at Oil Changes, a rolling document that knocks you over the head with its absurdist, agricultural, and poetic thought. Jono bangs a drum similar to what I imagine Thoreau would kick and scream like today were he to be wormholed from the past and into our era. And like Thoreau, Jono is a self reliant, rare to ask a hand for help unless it was of a total necessity.
But now, Jono is asking for help, help to fund a month of “agricultural research” on the famed garlic farm of Stanley Crawford, author of Log of the S.S. Unguentine. By helping him make his way from Massachusetts to New Mexico, Jono promises to trade ” top-notch road and farm content if you pony up some gas $$$.”
Big Ray by Michael Kimball
Congratulations to Michael Kimball, author of Us, Dear Everybody and The Way The Family Got Away, because this: “I’m having a pretty great year so far and I feel really grateful for it. I don’t even know how to explain how grateful I feel. I’m so happy to announce that I just sold the world rights to a new novel, BIG RAY. It’s the story of a son coming to terms with the sudden death of his obese father. It’s told through 500 brief entries, moving back and forth between past and present, the father’s death and his life, between an abusive childhood and adult understanding. BIG RAY went to Kathy Belden at Bloomsbury USA, which will publish in Fall 2012, and Michael Fishwick at Bloomsbury UK, which will publish in Winter 2013.”
Call Heather Christle at (413) 570-3077
On the occasion of the release of her second book of poems, The Trees The Trees, which just came out from Octopus, and is indeed mazelike, Heather Christle has secured a phone number that you can call her at, through which she will read to you a poem. This begins today and will continue through July 14th.
The number is (413) 570-3077
Calls answered during Eastern Standard Times:
M: 10am-6pm
T: 10am-1pm
W: 10am-6pm
Th: 10am-1pm
F: 10am-6pm
S: 12pm-6pm
Su: 12pm-6pm
Get the book while you’re at it; it’s unprecedented, and gorgeous.
J. A. Tyler, ZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Author J. A. Tyler has put together a neat thing, a story across five stories, across five publishers. He calls it “wreckage” and describes the story with his uniquely destructive voice:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ is wreckage. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ takes place as five distinct works, all built around the same core story. Each narrative is that of a girl who holds the last water in the world, a herd of chaos that takes it from her, and the boy who comes to resuscitate it all. But each story takes this kernel and shreds it in a new direction, incorporates other elements, reshapes the narrative in its own image. And each press that came aboard this project, releasing this wreckage into readers’ hands, worked on the same principle of core unity with distinct press-specific alterations. All that is left is the beautiful static hum: zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
The publishers, linked here, are:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ [a well]: Greying Ghost
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ [the stars]: Warm Milk Printing Press
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ [this town]: The Collagist
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ [an island]: NewLights Press
This week I received the installment from Aaron Cohick’s NewLights Press (home of the $400 Brian Evenson book), and it is an amazing artifact. It’s completely letterpressed inside and out, and sturdily constructed. It’s hefty. It’s probably about 30 pages, depending on how you count them.
You can see images of the NewLights book here.
Leonard Stern 1922-2011
I’m sad to hear that Leonard Stern, co-creator of Mad Libs, has died (via Flavorwire).
Chris Toll, The Disinformation Phase
Video by Stephanie Barber
Book by Chris Toll
Pre-orders close this weekend. Order now for advance discount and a chance to win books by CAConrad, Heather Christle and M. Magnus. Chances of winning are high right now.
“I do believe Hell could be driven from the heart with Chris Toll’s amazing new book.”
CAConrad, author of The Book of Frank
“…these poems are tenderly repossessing the ineffable and the commonplace.”
Heather Christle, author of The Trees The Trees
“The Disinformation Phase is conspiracy theory in poetic practice.”
M. Magnus, author of Verb Sap
Twitter MFA
In which we do a close-reading of a Tweeter’s Tweet draft and assess its tone, theme, synecdoche and narrative arc, among other things. Today’s Tweet draft was written by Drew Kalbach. This is the final installment of Twitter MFA. Thank you for reading.
The Tweet draft:
my face is continually jealous of my face
Drew Kalbach’s Tweet draft utilizes a heavily deconstructed sonnet sequence to describe the dissolution of a romantic relationship between his face and his face. With its ABBA rhyme scheme–the pairing of ‘face’ and ‘face’ and the softly assonant ‘continually’ and ‘jealous’–Kalbach alludes to a Miltonic sonnet in 140 characters or less.
Take two for wanting
1. Beecher’s Magazine is now available. Look at the list of contributors. I like how they show what’s poetry and what’s fiction.
2. Feast your eyes on the cover of Heather Christle’s new book, which will be available July 1:
Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch on Food Network!
Not really, but close. In this new episode of Emily Gould’s “Cooking the Books,” Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch make green juice and read from their collaboration Ten Walks/Two Talks. Along the way we learn that Cotner and Fitch met as 19-year-olds in Boston. They were both crashing on someone’s roof, and started talking. They’ve kept talking. We also hear some thoughts about Basho and zits.
Timothy Donnelly, who selected Ten Walks/Two Talks as a Best Book of 2010 for The Week, included an excerpt from Cotner and Fitch’s new project Conversations over Stolen Food in Boston Review‘s National Poetry Month celebration. The short piece is called “Spiritual Laws.” It takes place in a grocery store they call “W.F.” This excerpt moves from Emerson, to a kid who soils his shorts, back to Emerson, then ends with a discussion of anxiety and bicycles.
