What’s so funny
What makes you laugh? There was a book reviewed recently in the NYTimes that dealt with the science of revulsion; do you think there is a science to what ignites our different senses of humor? Do you think it could be chromosomal or is it strictly learned? Does anyone else feel sad or depressed when they watch Seinfeld? When Kramer enters a room and everyone laughs, doesn’t it just make you want to cry? Why don’t you find the same things funny as many of your friends? When a fat kid falls down and someone gets it on video and puts it on youtube, is that funny to you? How much of what we deem funny is enmeshed in some idea of power? Of (first) relief at not being the one laughed at, and then a growing delight in the privilege? Are we so lonely that when Kramer walks into the room we feel less alone and so we sigh with relief, the sigh which can be a kind of laughter? Or is Kramer walking into a room somehow “legitimately” (scientifically?) funny? READ MORE >
Coco on Writing
“When I was around [Ice-T] for a couple weeks, I gathered all the facts of what he liked and what he didn’t like, and I just shape-shifted into that woman for him.”
“If you saw my boobs before I got them done, they were actually a nice size; nice and squishy, waterly [sic], flip em’ around, you know…”
“My hips were always a little bit bigger than the top half of me and I wanted to even it out.”
“It’s too time consuming, and honestly, people with lives don’t really have the time to make comments at all. I don’t even have the time to go on the Internet anymore. Who has the time to actually log in, put your email address in, put if you’re female or male and all of that good stuff, and then make a comment…” READ MORE >
Not A-Z, but I-Me
There’s a scene in that movie High Fidelity (based on the Nick Hornby book, I guess, which I didn’t read) where John Cusack’s character reveals to Dick, his record store employee (played quite brilliantly by Todd Louiso), that he (Cusack) was in the midst of reorganizing his record collection–in autobiographical order.
I’ve always loved that idea. READ MORE >
Youtube teaches me something about writing.
Above is video of the reaction of José Saramago to the filmed version of his book Blindness. READ MORE >
This again, not this again
I wasn’t going to write this, feeling like the last thing anybody needs is another post explaining or defending or extolling paper, but then two events became bridged in my mind and I felt like I would be restless until I wrote them, about that bridge, so there you have a little apologia for what follows, which is that I moved some months ago to a new house, and recently found myself sitting on the floor late at night amidst boxes filled with folders and smaller boxes, and several folders were marked MISC and contained all kinds of paper, critical essays that I wrote during college and grad school about Emily Dickinson and Auden and post-structuralism and William Blake, and pages from the first novel I wrote, and pages from the first “novel” I wrote, and notebooks filled with other writings, and long letters never sent, and then I opened a box within a box and it was filled with floppy discs, each one labeled with the year and some vague tags, like “teaching stuff” and “post-mod essays” and “stories/summer” and “Needle,” and I just held those floppies like they were quaint artifacts from my Victorian childhood, realizing that I had no means of accessing their contents, and then stacking them neatly back into their smaller and then larger box, and returning to the piles of paper feeling a kind of profound agitation with regard to permanence or the myth of permanence, and remembering standing outside of the office where I worked just a couple blocks from the World Trade Center READ MORE >
Ken Baumann—
“Whose arm is this?” She said, “That’s my mother’s arm.” Again, typical, right? And I said, “Well, if that’s your mother’s arm, where’s your mother?” And she looks around, completely perplexed, and she said, “Well, she’s hiding under the table.”
– Errol Morris on anosognosia and much much more, in five parts. Starts here.
An Open, Earnest Letter to People Who Like Gruesomeness in Books & Film
This is your brain on fear. As it turns out, Hippocampus isn't fat camp for Latin nerds.
Dear People,
I’m the pain in the ass who makes deciding on a movie en masse impossible. But is it violent? How violent is it, if it is? Do animals get murdered? Do children get murdered? Eventually we’ll decide on a bonehead comedy or a beautifully shot Icelandic film about rafts in the gloaming.
BLIND ITEM: EVERY GOOD SHORT STORY WRITTEN IN THE UNITED STATES
smug asshole
We don’t run a lot of blind items, but it’s an available tag for posts, so… here’s a blind item. READ MORE >
Conceptual Plagiarism
What if someone made a book by plagiarizing the newspaper; then six years later someone came along and made a book by plagiarizing that first plagiarism? Answer:
Day by Kenneth Goldsmith (The Figures, 2003)
From the “Author”:
“I am spending my 39th year practicing uncreativity. On Friday, September 1, 2000, I began retyping the day’s NEW YORK TIMES word for word, letter for letter, from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner, page by page.” With these words, Kenneth Goldsmith embarked upon a project which he termed “uncreative writing”, that is: uncreativity as a constraint-based process; uncreativity as a creative practice. By typing page upon page, making no distinction between article, editorial and advertisement, disregarding all typographic and graphical treatments, Goldsmith levels the daily newspaper. DAY is a monument to the ephemeral, comprised of yesterday’s news, a fleeting moment concretized, captured, then reframed into the discourse of literature. “When I reach 40, I hope to have cleansed myself of all creativity.”
Day by Kent Johnson (BlazeVox, 2009)
From the “Author”:
What he said.
Mightiest of books, mightiest of men
Following the expulsion of Erik Bloodaxe from York in 954, England had enjoyed a quarter-century of respite from Viking attacks. One of the two men responsible for their resumption was Olaf Tryggvason. Olaf’s is one of the emblematic careers of the Viking Age, describing in clear trajectory his graduation from marauding sea-king to missionary land-king. His life and career are the subject of one of Snorri Sturluson’s longer sagas, of one even longer called The Greater Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, and of a lost sage written in Latin by Odd Monk, which nevertheless survives in a free translation.
That bit is taken from Robert Ferguson’s epic, forthcoming history of the Vikings, coveniently entitled The Vikings. If you could have a saga written about you, what would it be called? And who would write it? Subquestion: How do you think Erik got the surname ‘Bloodaxe’?
HYO JUNG
hello hyo jung. i want to interview you for this site. this will allow you to say what you want to say. email me. i can’t find your email address. thanks. sampinkisalive@gmail.com
Our Value
Fellow Giants, I was going to wait until the board meeting on Monday, but maybe I’ll just go ahead and do this now. According to the website $timator, we’re worth $7,049.
I say we sell.
Lost & Found Department: Workshop Edition
FOUND: A printout of what appears to be most of a short story, with parenthetical comments not hand-written but apparently typed into the document before it was printed out. Document pages are not numbered. There is no title or author name or critic’s name or any other identifying marks. The document was found by this agent, at a restaurant a few blocks south of NYU.
All things considered, it seems wrong to have more than a wee bit of fun with this, but a wee bit never hurt anybody, right?
The unravelling aspect of the piece is perfectly timed. The change in Howard’s attitude toward his mother’s situation is not sudden; it builds up slowly, each negative thought concerning Suzette’s appearance erasing her hold on matters. Edith is manipulative, but subtly so. That she is probably as physically frail as Suzette never really becomes an issue; such is her grip on Howard. There are many wonderful comic phrases throughout and plenty of fresh observations, such as the anthropodal patellas and the hilarious notion that obesity offends Suzette, but an obese irresponsible pet owner is more egregious. The only thing I might add is that while the attitudinal changes arise purposefully and come at correct intervals, the actual visit to Edith’s seems quite long. I enjoyed every paragraph, however, so it may not be such a pressing concern.
FIRST EVER HTMLGIANT LITERARY CONTEST (NO ENTRY FEE)
Friends, this picture was provided to us by an anonymous friend of mine, who is an excellent and well-known publisher. S/he forwarded it to me yesterday, with the following message appended: >>this girl made fun of me in high school (pink dress)<<.
For the first ever HTMLGiant literary contest, you are invited to write an original piece of literature inspired by this photograph. Poetry, prose & indeterminate forms are all acceptable. Feel free to simply provide a caption, or to produce a short-short up to, say, 300 words. Leave your entries in the comments section of this post.
My anonymous friend will judge, and it will be up to him/her what–if anything–the winner receives.
Underland Press, Blind Items
One: Blake mentioned the Brian Evenson interview on the Underland Press site. On the Extras page, you will find a really nice, beautifully brutal piece of fiction by Our Fearless Editing Leader.
***
Two: I would like to reboot my Blind Items feature. Please send indie/literary rumors, news, innuendo, and suggestions to giantblinditems at gmail dot com.
Anything, really. Send it on and I’ll consider spreading it.
Let’s play “how do you explain this to Grandma?”
A link to this blog turned up in my inbox this morning, with an attached note addressed to me and my little sister: >>This is my first cousin Arnold’s daughter. I never saw her. I do not know what this means. Can either of you explain it. You can tell me when you get here if you have no time now. Love, Grandma<<
Okay, let’s play the game. You’ve just woken up. You’ve clicked through and read the blog, and watched the video. You pretty much get what they’re up to (e.g. miscellaneous corporate nerd stuff). So……..keeping in mind that your goal here is not to snark your heart or out, sow confusion, or express derision, but rather to communicate just enough meaning to satisfy the person who asked the question……..H0W DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS TO GRANDMA?
