Expanding Emily Dickinson’s Wardrobe
This past weekend I sort of wandered around Brooklyn. As I jaunted past a 
two-story Burger King, humming my favorite Lesley Gore tune of the moment, I ran smack dab into the ghost of Emily Dickinson.
“Hi,” I said to Emily’s ghost, calmly. I had no reason to be flummoxed since this sort of thing occurs frequently.
“Never mind the chitchat,” replied Emily (rudely, if you ask me). “Let’s get down to brass tacks. A cute and charming 21st-century poet has translated every single one of my verse compositions, attracting new fans and admirers. I certainly don’t want these fans and admirers to only see me in my one outfit – my white cotton dress. I want the world to think that I am a fashion-conscious girl who possess a plethora of clothes. Can you assist me in expanding my wardrobe?”
Have you read xTx?
So, I’m late to her work.
I kept meaning to give it a try, to check it out, to purchase her book Normally Special from Roxane’s cool-looking micro press Tiny Hardcore, to pay attention to her blog, to order her chapbook He Is Talking To The Fat Lady, but I got behind and I dropped the ball.
And then Dennis Cooper mentioned reading (and loving) her forthcoming Nephew imprint Billie the Bull, which caught my eye. So I decided to listen to the new Death Grips album while motoring around cyberspace checking out her work.
In the process I came across this e-book called Nobody Trusts A Black Magician. Holy heaven. It’s mesmerizing, sinister, passionate, potent, over-the-top, excessive, relentless, indecent, reckless, and utterly amazing. You can also listen to her read it, which adds a level of awesome. I paused Death Grips to listen to this, from the titular piece:
I want to fuck you. May we fuck? We should fuck today. Tomorrow we could fuck. I could fuck you yesterday. I could fuck your beard. We could make cupcake fucking. I could fuck you like ham. I want to fuck you like burned pancakes with my panties in our mouths. Let’s fuck like we met on the internet. I just want to fuck and fuck.
I mean, seriously.
If you haven’t entered into her work yet, take this chance to experience it. Perhaps like me you will become an admirer.
Dressing Up Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is one of the best books ever composed by a girl or boy. Charlotte’s 
eponymous heroine encapsulates many of the traits that I admire the most. Jane is sassy. She’s not afraid to give a little lip. When her cruel aunt tells her that she’s not fit to associate with her own cousins Jane retorts, “They are not fit to associate with me!” Jane is also cleverly violent. She deforms a deceptive boy (Rochester) and kills her competition (Bertha) without lifting a pinky finger. Mary Tudor never had to lay a hand on the Protestants that she burned and neither did Jane. Jane is a queen. A queen requires a fabulous wardrobe. Here are outfits that will sustain Jane through each of the five stages of her royal trajectory.
DIED: Griffith Edwards
Griffith Edwards, Oxford-educated MD and addiction specialist, invented alcoholism. In 1976.
That is to say, he and a cowriter named Milton Gross first published a description of Alcohol Dependence Syndrome in the British Medical Journal in 1976, making the whole darn thing official.
Edwards spent his life considering, studying, talking about, writing about, and helping others with addictions.
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ALCOHOL in HISTORY: Edited Highlights READ MORE >
No Tricks
Like many of us, I’ve read “On Writing” by Raymond Carver numerous times. It holds many useful ideas. There is a stage of our own creative writing. (I believe this phase usually arrives in the mid-20s, but possibly I am in error—perhaps it arrives after so many years of practicing the craft, not so much a writer’s age.) Either way, this stage involves reading copious interviews, craft books, and essays on writing, by writers. Apparently, as writers, were are seeking some golden ticket, some integral advice, etc. I believe most writers leave this period, and then, you know, write.
What is the most famous (or infamous) line from the Carver essay? No tricks.
“No tricks.” He says. “Period. I hate tricks.”
First, I like tricks. So what? Others have written the same. Second, Carver is wrong. He doesn’t hate tricks, he uses them. He especially employs tricks in the shorter form. Why? Because “tricks” are not tricks. Tricks are technique. Technique is important to the short story, very important to the sudden fiction, and absolutely essential to the flash fiction form. We flash writers have fewer words. We need artistry.
Let me show you Raymond Carver using some tricks. Read “Little Things” here.
OK, onward.
Chris Toll (b. 1830, d. 1886)
Chris Toll, author of several books including The Pilgrim’s Process, Love Everyone, Be Light, The Disinformation Phase and the soon-to-be released Life On Earth, died on Thursday of natural causes. It was unexpected and unbelievable and too soon.
Chris was a poet and collage-maker. He lived in Baltimore, where he was an integral part of the literature scene. I invited people to send me their memories, which I’ve compiled here. Hopefully people will feel free to add more in the comments. READ MORE >
Adam Smith’s Multi-Touch Invisible Hand
In school there was always the grade. Now we’ve graduated to a system of answers privately corrected, and of public failure. Do you know the markets? I play them sometimes. They are not always open, you see. Though I suppose there are these constant rumors of emotional success. Yoga, for example. Parenting? The system of invisible and unpronounceable truth partially submerged in unfolding experience: value. I think I like to see it both as our American currency, and as the sort of power you can have in bed or at the office.
This Isn’t Really an Interview: Robert Alan Wendeborn Talks to Dan Magers and Carrie Murphy About Their New Books
Robert Alan Wendeborn: So, first I guess I want you two to say something about yourselves, intro or whatever…
Dan Magers: Carrie do you want to go first?
Carrie Murphy: haha sure
what do you mean, robbie?
like a mini bio or like a funny fact or something?
RW: um, introduce yourself
mini bio
on the fly
CM: ok, i’m carrie murphy, i wrote a book called Pretty Tilt, from keyhole press, i’m from Baltimore, MD, i got my MFA (with robbie) at nmsu in las cruces NM
Invent your monsters sparingly: a conversation with Ned Vizzini
I sat down with Ned on a Saturday. He was feeling rough, having consumed something gnarly at a dinner party the night before in an incredibly storied Hollywood Hills house. Soon after this interview, he was struck with food poisoning. Ned’s a busy guy: his book, The Other Normals, comes out today, and the TV show he writes for with Nick Antosca, Last Resort, premieres in two days. He’s also working on a movie with Nick called Woogles, and writing a series of middle grade novels with Chris Columbus (of Harry Potter fame). And he’s a relatively new dad. Below is a transcript of our conversation, Ned drinking down gut-calming tea…
I’ve known you since you first came to LA, and I wanna know if there was any event in particular that coincided with you starting this book.
Yeah. There were two things about a decade apart. One was towards the end of high school. I was out with some friends, hanging out in the park. And I hung out with a lot of Russian kids in high school. And I had a shorter, more wily Russian friend, who’s in my first book. His name is Owen. I also had a taller, bigger, more militaristic—
A Dolph Lundgren?
In that vein. He ended up joining the military. He’s the person who told me that the US military still trains against the Russians, that when you’re doing an exercise in the military, you’re still—
Fighting the commies.
Yes. And I asked him why, and he said, “Because we’re the baddest motherfuckers around.” READ MORE >
Birds Blur Together
R.M. O’Brien and Lesser Gonzalez-Alvarez are two wicked awesome Baltimore multidisciplinary artists who recently collaborated on a quiet, handsome little book of poems called Birds Blur Together (buy it for $6 here). Look at that cover—tell me it doesn’t look like something missionaries would hand out in South America? R.M., who runs the great reading series WORMS, put the 25-poem book out on his own WORMS PRESS because he can do whatever the fuck he wants to do. Like, just check out this video of his old band Nuclear Power Pants. Bob gots the beard and the stabby back. READ MORE >