Poet Craig Arnold Missing in Japan
Hey all. Not exactly an upper, but I received this e-mail from a friend and it seems like an apt place to use our powers for good (!) and get the word out.
The poet Craig Arnold is currently in Japan with the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission’s U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship and has been missing since April 26th (evening Monday April 27th Japanese time).
‘A Jello Horse’ Contest
True HTML Giant Matthew Simmons will release his first book, a novella, in May from Publishing Genius, fantastically titled ‘A Jello Horse,’ the inversion-politics of which already have me bubbling.
In the spirit of this soon forthcoming title, Matthew is running a contest at his blog: The Man Who Couldn’t Blog, in which you can one of a very limited run of hardback copies of the book.
Please do indeed:
Gulag Archipelago 2
“In prison, they saved. They saved cigarette ends to make full cigarettes from the tobacco. They saved bits of turnip to eat at night when they were hungry. They saved shoelace ends to tie together to make new shoelaces. They saved the stumps of rotten teeth that fell out of their mouths.
“It was 2010 and they were in prison.”
What’s Up Rumpus? Two Pieces of Very Awesome News
(1) The Rumpus is having a book review competition open to all undergraduate and graduate students. There is no fee to enter. Book reviews must be at least 600 words (no longer than 1,500 words) and concern literary fiction, creative non-fiction, or memoir. The publication date of the book is irrelevant. The deadline to submit your review is June 1, 2009. (I know for a fact that editor Stephen Elliott is really psyched about this contest. If there’s a college student in your life (or if YOU are the college student in your life) who is interested in this sort of thing, you’d be doing him or her a big favor by passing the word along. Click anywhere here to see the details at the Rumpus.
(2) THE LONELY VOICE: A New Column About The Short Story by Peter Orner What else could you possibly need to be told about this? There’s basically no level at which it’s not exciting.
2009 Triangle Award Nominees
I have been invited to the 2009 Triangle Awards, which will be held May 7 at The New School in New York City. I’m not sure exactly how I got on their send-this-guy-a-card-inviting-him-to-this-thing list, but maybe it’s because I’m a New School alum? (Also, I’m pretty sure it’s a public event, but I did get an actual card in the actual mail, so it’s still a little extra special.) Well whatever the reason, it’s always nice to be thought of, so I’m going to go ahead and put this one on the calendar. You can learn more about the Triangle Awards and view the complete list of this year’s awards categorees and nominees for same by clicking anywhere in this part of this sentence, but I’d like to take a moment here and quickly shout out a hearty CONGRATS to the folks on here whose names I recognize- Alistair McCartney’s The End of the World Book (University of Wisconsin) is nominated for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction; Blair Mastbaum’s Us Ones In Between (Running Press) is nominated for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction. Cheers, gents!
R.I.P. J.G. Ballard
The Ballard stories I always think of whenever I hear his name are “The Enormous Space,” “Report on an Unidentified Space Station,” and “War Fever,” all of which are included in the collection pictured above. The first two stories I studied as an undergraduate, not in a creative writing class but in a literature course called “Eccentric Spaces and Spacialities.” Not “space” as in “outer space,” but as in “the distance between here and there, or “the place I call home,” etc. We read Ballard alongside Gaston Bachelard (Poetics of Space), Marilynne Robinson (Housekeeping), excerpts from Dante and Homer (descents into Hades), Jules Verne (Journey to the Center of the Earth) and plenty more that I’m forgetting just now. The third story, “War Fever,” was on my radar when I was editing The Apocalypse Reader, but my query about reprint rights wasn’t returned by FSG until well after the book had been finalized, and sent to press. But it’s a magnificent story–they all are.
I wish I could say that I was tired of this news cycle
If Justin Taylor has taught me anything, it that we won’t be able to beat the pirates until we understand the pirates. I’ve put together a quick primer for budding armchair piracy experts:
1) Seven Tenths: The Sea and its Thresholds, by James Hamilton-Paterson. The ocean is vast. Real vast. Supports much life (including buccaneer life). Says Hamilton-Paterson:
It is well known in these parts that fish choose not to speak in order to risk nothing worse at men’s hands. Being wrenched from the depths into thin and bitter light to drown slowly in is bad, but not bad enough to merit speech.
“Inherent Vice” by Thomas Pynchon
Is Thomas Pynchon not cool anymore? Is literary relevance chronologically sensitive — meaning, certain things lose their importance depending on when they are published? Do interesting things become boring over time, or is the reading public simply fickle? I ask these questions because nobody seems that interested in Pynchon’s forthcoming (August 2009) Inherent Vice — kinda has a loopy-hippie Vineland feel to it. I must admit I fanned through his latest novel Against the Day like a telephone book with no one to call, sighed, and put it down; and Pynchon is one of my all time favorites.
Big Ken Baumann News: ‘Unguentine’ the film
The most amibitious and awesome news update I’ve had the pleasure to divulge in a while, from none other than our own Ken Baumann. I’ll let his own words do the talkin’:
So I’m finally in the clear in a legal sense to divulge the promised information: I’ve optioned the film rights to Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, and will be writing the screenplay.
A little back story: On recommendation of Blake Butler and others, I bought the book. As soon as it arrived in the mail I sat with it. I read it in two (unfortunately two — it would have been one if not for having to drive somewhere) sittings, and from really what was the fifth page in it began to percolate and pool within me. I was viscerally struck. Less than halfway inside I began to think ‘This would make a beautiful film.’ A few moments after I finished reading I felt I had to bring the story to a wide audience and a new medium. Patrick Welborn, my friend and agent, read the book and agreed. And now I, with the help of many many others, will do just that.
Ungeuntine on film? A story on a boat in a blur world where time is flesh and language is flesh and each page is fever sleep meshed with weird acid and a gloaming sense of death?
A huge undertaking, and an exciting one. In Ken’s hands, I feel ready to be eaten alive. Here’s to good luck in power and light, brother.
If you haven’t yet consumed this masterpiece, it is available in new edition from Dalkey Archive. Do yourself a favor.
Shya Scanlon and elimae want you!
From the elimae announcements page:
Shya Scanlon is organizing a marathon reading of elimae contributors in NYC. Each reader will perform one or two short pieces, totaling no more than 3 minutes. If you live in the area and would like to participate, contact him at shya(dot)scanlon (at)gmail(dot)com.
Shya, a buddy of mine and a buddy to literature, is a nearly absolute good. Elimae is an absolute good. Be a part of this.
Do it.
FROM SHYA:
“No bios, no introductions, just a continual series of readers reading really brief pieces. It’s going to be like streaming elimae content, live and in the flesh.”
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Unrelated announcement:
I would like to revive the long-suppressed* Giant Blind Items feature. This is the definition of a “blind item.”
You can send blind items to giantblinditems at gmail dot com.
* suppressed by me because I think it is a really, really bad idea.