AAWW Publishing Conference
Guess what: Being Asian American is not a pre-requisite. Being a writer does.
Saturday, December 8th, 2012 from 12PM-6PM
@ Daruma Asset Management
80 West 40th Street, 9th Fl., NY NY 10018
Tickets for sale online!
You’re a writer. We know it. You know it.
The Poetry Brothel Will Actually Take Place This Sunday
Due to Betty Freidan’s pet rooster, or, as Mayor Bloomberg calls it, “Hurricane Sandy,” a lot of things were discombobulated, including The Poetry Brothel.
But now The Poetry Brothel has been rescheduled for this Sunday , 17 Nov. 2012. It will be from 8:00-1:00 at the Backroom on 102 Norfolk Street.
There will still be magic, music, burlesque, tarot cards (which I still don’t believe in), and tons of public and private poetry readings.
Dorothea Lasky and Ariana Reines will be there. So will the Princess of Brattydom, Carina Finn, and the Princess of Spanish Harlem, Jennifer Tamayo. What will happen when these two royal figures collide? Will it turn into a girly, more fashionable version of the exciting Israel-Hamas war?
Also, while I’m on the topic of prostitutes, I want to cite one of the most intriguing prostitutes ever (besides Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8): Vivian Ward, played by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
Vivian’s long curly red hair is really fairy tale. If it would’ve ran for president of the United States of America I maybe would’ve supported it.
If you aren’t entertaining the possibility of viewing Pretty Woman right this second, then you are like the shop girls in the movie who are rude to Vivian/Julia, which means you are a brickhead.
So… please consider coming to The Poetry Brothel and contributing to a theatrical and glamorous poetry event.
Here’s another picture of The Poetry Brothel’s madam, Stephanie Berger:
Dressing Appropriately for Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy was utterly unpleasant. She caused a lot of deaths, a ton of destruction, and a cancellation of a highly anticipated shopping excursion. There has been speculation that Sandy was once the pet rooster of second-wave feminist Betty Friedan. While these rumors have not been verified, there is no denying that Sandy was an angry animal. What Bertha did to Lord Rochester’s estate, Sandy did to the tri-state area. But you don’t have to descend to Sandy’s savage, dimwitted level. You can take the high road (though not to Brooklyn) by dressing yourself up in dignified outfits that are also appropriate for the ever-changing circumstances that Hurricane Sandy will throw your way.
Events & Massive People & Mean / Comments Off on Dressing Appropriately for Hurricane Sandy
November 6th, 2012 / 12:52 pm
November 6th, 2012 / 12:52 pm
A Summary of Our Academic Conference, The Unstable and [de] Mutable Boundaries Between Meteorological Atrocities and Human Political Economies with Bodies-as-Subjects Coming Into Being As They Are
Governor Cuomo
The approach of Hurricane Sandy has already altered the entire course of me and my friend’s lives. On Sunday, I was supposed to shop for vintage sweaters and attend a poetry brothel. These would’ve probably been some wonderful moments. But Hurricane Sandy put a stop to all my hypothetically marvelous adventures.
Instead my friends and I were bunkered in our apartment in Alphabet City.
What were we to do?
If we were VIDA, then we could count the number of times a masculine pronoun appeared in this week’s NYT Book Review and then compare it to the number of times that a feminine pronoun appeared in this week’s NYT Book Review and then get really angry about it and channel all of our anger into a neat and tidy chart.
If we were overly anxious New York Jews then we could close down the subway system at 7 PM, hold press conferences using folksy idioms like “up and about,” and dress like men who spend a great deal of time in well-off subdivisions of Connecticut.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Also, if we were male homosexuals, we could have sex nonstop sans condoms.
But my friends and I aren’t any of those things. So, in lieu of that, we chose to hold an academic conference that had an awful lot of relevance to our current predicament. Our conference, which was held last night (28 Oct. 2012), was called The Unstable and [de] Mutable Boundaries Between Meteorological Atrocities and Human Political Economies with Bodies-as-Subjects Coming Into Being As They Are. This conference has already been compared to some of the most vivid and vivacious academic conferences ever held.
Here’s a summary:
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October 29th, 2012 / 12:27 pm
October 29th, 2012 / 12:27 pm
The Poetry Brothel Is Sunday
On Sunday there will be a Poetry Brothel.
It will be held in The Back Room at 102 Norfolk Street, which is in the Lower East Side.
The Brothel will start at 8 and end at 1.
There will be masks, music, tarot readings (which I don’t believe in, but still), burlesque, magic, and lots of poetry.
All guests may purchase private readings with the poets, which include the splendidly shrill Dorothea Lasky and the plucky Harlem princess Jennier Tamayo. Also available for a private reading is Carina Finn (the East Village princess behind The Bratty Poets), Ariana Reines (if you haven’t read Mercury then you don’t have proper priorities), myself (Ann Romney 2012!), and lots more.
Throughout the evening, each poet will also give a public reading.
Please come and support poetry that is theatrical and fabulous.
Stephanie Berger is the madame of The Brothel. This is what she looks like:
For further information or to purchase tickets in advance please click here.
Epic Flying Object Raffle: Win Lots of Sweet Shit For Not Much $$$
If you want a pumpkin donut at Dunkin’ Donuts, your window is limited, and you’re in it. Ditto for your opportunity to win crazy awesome books and records and whatnot and help out an amazing space a parking lot away from the Dunkin’ Donuts on Route 9 in Hadley, MA. Yes, I’m talking (as we’ve talked before in this starscape) about Flying Object.
Flying Object: a poetry mecca, an old firehouse, a place where you can play ping-pong in the rain, where you can smell at a first edition Blood Meridian, where you can drink lemon seltzer and wine and eat olives and cheese and cookies as fast as you can while secretly fuming at me for eating way more than my share of olives and cheese and cookies, where 300+ artists/writers/musicians have done their thing, where there are giant green mechanical things that cut shit and letterpress very impressively—and now where you can win prizes from 50+ presses and places for basically drinking money.
On October 13th, Flying Object is celebrating two years of being alive. Is there a party? Yes, there is a party featuring performances from CA Conrad, Ben Hersey, and Dorothea Lasky (who will be telling fortunes). As part of the celebration, they’re raffling away a shit ton of prizes. From so many presses. So much good stuff. You can see not even all of it in the picture up there, so after the jump is an insane list of donors and even more pictures. (Uh, a lot of pictures).
Award winning poets have gone on private record as being concerned that their partners went overboard in collecting donations for the raffle, and said partners have concurred that they probably went overboard—but what do you care? What you care about is there is so much cool shit to win. And all you have to do is donate $5, $10, or $20 and you have a really good chance to win a lot of cool shit.
It doesn’t matter where you live. FO will distribute your raffle tickets evenly among the prizes. Then they’ll mail you what you won. How about that for a party? Read the list of donors under that READ MORE. Look at the pictures there too. Dude, you’re going to win something. Don’t let me stop you. Happy birthday, Flying Object. We love you. READ MORE >
14 reaminations of humor and memory
1. The Washington Post has an interesting “How to Save an Indie Bookstore” blog post here with lots of glow links to booky things.
3. Here is your Charlie Sheen metaphor of the day:
My life was a dream I couldn’t wake up from, a train I couldn’t get off of, except that I was the conductor.
The Time I Shot Andy Warhol
14. Oldie but goodie: You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino‘s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveller. Relax. Let the world around you fade.
2. Latest (I think) Charles Yu interview:
Sadness broods
over the world
I fear to walk in my garden,
lest I see
a pair of butterflies
disporting in the sun
among the flowers.
(“Night Rain” by Bruce Lee)
5. Do you like reality shows? Do you like poetry? Well, here you go:
6. An obvious Banksy Olympics thing:
LIVE: It’s about to rain in NYC
City of books. City of power. City of finance and fashion and media properties. Don’t give in to fear, gentle children of the world wide web.
Q.E.D. – Part 3: An evening of Authentic Objects
The MAK Center Schindler House, Los Angeles
13 June 2012
Context Note: In April, May, and June of this year, Les Figues Press hosted a short series of long conversations on queer art and literature. Titled Q.E.D., in honor of Gertrude Stein’s novel by the same name (and one of the earliest coming-out stories), each Q.E.D. event explored the constructions of speech, art, literature, materiality, and sex. The conversations were moderated by Vanessa Place at the historic MAK-Schindler House, L.A.’s original nod to green architecture.
Q.E.D. Part Three featured Dodie Bellamy, Julie Bamber, and Terry Castle.
***
An evening of Authentic Objects: Julie Bamber, Dodie Bellamy and Terry Castle in conversation.
In the third installment of Les Figues Press’ Q.E.D. Series, moderated by Vanessa Place, the initial questions were, “Does an object need a form? Does an objection? Does anything speak for itself?” Artist Julie Bamber, writer Dodie Bellamy and critic (and writer and artist) Terry Castle assembled in the MAK Schindler House in West Hollywood to discuss questions of object-hood before an excited audience.
Patrons gathered, drank Pellegrino and looked at programs. Grapes and cookies sat on a table on the lawn. The copper of the fireplace was bright, next to the concrete walls of the house, with low beams suspended with small lights. A sliding door opened the wall. Afternoon light slanted across the concrete floor, grey.
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July 6th, 2012 / 12:00 pm
July 6th, 2012 / 12:00 pm