Raúl Zurita @ AWP
It’s hard to keep track of anything if you’re going to AWP, but here’s one I’m making sure not to miss: Raúl Zurita reading and in conversation Friday at Noon in support of his new book from Action Books, Songs for His Disappeared Love. From Johannes: “This is like getting Neruda to the fucking AWP. This guy spent 6 weeks in a shed being tortured following the Pinochet coup.” More info and locations here.
While you’re at it, come by and say hello as a bunch of us from HTMLGiant will be at a monster table chillin.
What other events are worth seeing?
An apolitical writer?
For the past 36 hours or so, I’ve been hooked on Al Jazeera.
Egypt. Fuck. Things are happening. Yemen. Jordan.
And yet, on writing blogs and other social networking sites, almost nothing is being said about it, at least from the writers. It leads me to think that many writers develop an apolitical stance, a focus on aesthetics as politic rather than politics as politic. Ken Baumann wrote a smart rant about electronics, which was ridiculed by some, praised by others, but what’s noteworthy is the immediate suspicion and rebuttal against his overt political message. Why is this?
Should we care about Egypt? Why? Why not? Do you see this apoliticization and what do you think causes it? Or: please prove me wrong.
Literature Party at AWP
(Thanks to Matthew Simmons, whose gif I’m recycling.)
Usually when I try to get my friends to go to a party or a show or something, they ask for details. And usually I’ll just know one vague thing, Uh, it’s this writer-lady who I met once and she seemed pretty cool. Like, I won’t even know what time it starts, except for, You know, rock time.
But I’m damn knowledgeable about Literature Party, the main event at AWP this year, and this time I’m telling all my friends. Here’s the straight dope.
Literature Party is a reading that’s more of a dance, and it’s intended to benefit 826DC. (You’re probably familiar with the 826 organization. It’s that thing that was founded years ago by McSweeney’s as like a literacy program, to help kids outside school and to help teachers in school. A new office opened in DC last year.)
It’s being held at the Black Cat’s main room. Will someone from DC chime in with a Yelp! about the Black Cat? I’ve been there a couple times but never to the main room. It’s big, though. It holds 700 people, and we want to squeeze in every last person.
Blake is going to host a short reading to kick off the event, because this is AWP, after all. It’s going to feature Amelia Gray (whose reading at Vermin on the Mount: Denver last year was The Best Reading of 2010), Tao Lin (who, frankly, is a pretty boring reader but that’s what makes it so rich) and Patrick Somerville (whom Featherproof swears by but I’ve never seen). One of the problems I’ve had with off-site AWP readings is that you can’t hear anything, but the soundsystem at the Black Cat will fix that. If it’s good enough for The Get Up Kids, it’s good enough for very short fiction.
There will also be immersive performances, too. You can have Melissa Broder read your fortune, for instance. You can confess your publishing sins to Richard Nash. Go head to head with Giancarlo DiTrapano in arm wrestling. I’m going to walk around with an electric guitar and a pocket amp so I can hear you, um, shred. And more.
But the best part, I think, is just going to be the hanging out. DJ Lil ‘E, who is amazing, is going to play songs (and she wants to know what to play: make a list in the comments at the Facebook page). We’re just going to chill out with some new and old friends.
There’s more info and a complete list of sponsors at the Literature Party website. Tell your friends.
A REPORT: PEN USA / JAMES SALTER / PLAYBOY
I was in a thrift store buying some clothes last week and under the counter I saw a stack of old Playboy magazines. Although it’s hardly possible to be an adult in America and not have at least a passing acquaintance with hardcore pornography, I realized I couldn’t remember ever having looked inside an actual copy of Playboy. So for $5 I bought the copy on top of the stack, the June 1973 issue featuring Marilyn Cole, playmate of the year, with fiction by Joyce Carol Oates, Robert McNear, and George MacDonald Fraser (yes, the issue contains three short stories).
where is she now?
Bay Area locals please join us at a reading in support of The Really Funny Thing About Apathy with our own Chelsea Martin, Reynard Seifert, and myself; and introducing Alese Osbourne, this Sunday November 14, 6 p.m., at Royal Nonesuch Gallery in Oakland, California.
Being Andy Devine
Along with the great discussion about how to read Andy Devine’s work in the LMC (which, really, is just cool), today at Electric Literature’s blog, Julia Jackson posts a write-up about Being Andy Devine, Andy’s tour across the states. Next stop, Solar Anus.
Very Important Dates in the World of the Nerd
Two of my favorite banned books.
Today, friends, we celebrate the seventh annual National Punctuation Day. The organizers of this illustrious holiday are holding a haiku contest to commemorate the occasion. Apparently, you can win a plethora of punctuation chotchkes! What does that mean! Last year while visiting a friend in D.C., I saw a man in a question mark suit. I feel like that might be the only legitimate way to celebrate National Punctuation Day. Or you could correction-graffiti a mis-punctuated billboard on the highway. Maybe one of those abortion billboards that reads YOU’RE BABYS HEART BEETS NOW. ITS ALIVE! ITS ALIVE!
In other important news, tomorrow marks the beginning of Banned Books Week. I learned yesterday that Where’s Waldo has been banned because there’s a topless lady in the beach scene. I found her yesterday, and she is, in fact, topless. Also, the dictionary has been banned. No words for you. This I took from the Banned Books Week website:
According to the American Library Association, out of 460 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2009.
The 10 most challenged titles were:
ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, drugs, and unsuited to age group
And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually
explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Reasons: racism, offensive language, unsuited to age group
Twilight (series), by Stephanie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
READ MORE >
Live Giants #8: A Crew of Mary Ruefle
In celebration of the release of Mary Ruefle’s Selected Poems from Wave, the eighth installment of the Live Giants online readings series will be next Tuesday, September 28th, at 8PM Eastern. This time we’ll be broadcasting live from two different cities, Chicago and New York, with small crews of local poets in each place reading from Mary’s work, all available for watching here on the site from your computer.
“Source” New Work by Mike Germon & Truett Dietz
If you happen to be in Atlanta tonight, this is where you should be. Saw the opening preview last night [which Eugene Marten read at, from Firework, brutal] and it is gorgeous and exciting show. At Beep Beep Gallery 8-11. If you are not in Atlanta, you can also check out more of their work online:Mike Germon | Truett Dietz.
Here’s a video of Germon trying to build a ceiling-high tower of books, which didn’t last, and in the show is altered to a kind of book pyramid:
