Obituary: AWP (1967-2010)
AWP (The Association of Writers and Writing Programs) – (1967 to October 25, 2010) One of the longest standing and thereby most-oft-cited-like-prom-in-relation-to-the-space-where-act-is-not-act-but-goober-city events in the lexicon of rising and extending the social life of the author passed away just before someone’s lunch break this afternoon when a mangy maned and business suit clad middle aged man stormed into the AWP offices in Fairfax, Virginia and released an airborne toxin that immediately brought to their knees said officeholders and those in an outlying .5 mile radius of the building. Authorities are still working in their off hours of other atrocities to identify the corpse of the perpetrator despite his wearing a laminated ID tag suspended from a necklanyard relic of the 2010 convention of the AWP faculties and associates in Denver, Colorado, as they quickly found that the name printed on the tag, Alice Munro, was not the perp at all but someone authorities believe may purportedly be a “writer” herself, though not a “writer” capable of such will. A manifesto found on the perp’s body, which was mostly eaten alive by the angry bees attracted by the scent of writer toxin, like sandwich musk and want, while the numerable “highest level” AWP employees, whom no one has ever met, escaped through an unidentified aircraft toward the blinker of the sun never to return, stated the motive for the destruction as such: “I’M FUCKIN SICK O THIS SECRET HANDSHAKE HIPPIE WANKER ASS SHIT WHERE YOU HANDY DANDIES COME AROUND SELLIN YR POETRIES AND YR MAGASHITZINES TO EACH OTHER WHILE WHEN ANYTIME I BRING AROUND MY OWN REALER MAGAZINES AND TALK ABOUT TO TELL YOU WHERE MY LAUNCH PARTY IS AT TONIGHT YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE I’M TREVOR MCDUNNAWAY, WHICH I AM, WHICH TO YOU MEANS SHITZIP AND I’M FUCKIN SICK OF TYPING AND I MISS MY DAD MOTHERFUCKER FUCK WRITING BITTCH YR SERVICES ARE VOID.” Eighteen copies of the remainder of the manifesto, which the perp, who has since been identified not as the aforementioned “TREVOR MCDUNNAWAY” carried on his person extended in one long armreach with a pricetag of $24.95 in softcover with “discount sale!” stickers reducing said price to $22.90, were still held tightly by the author’s corpse against his sternum so well infused that his remains will be cremated, along with the lanyards and programs and attendance roster of the previously planned 2011 convention of AWP to be held in Washington D.C., a fire that burned purple for six hours in the light of the other ashes in our special government atrocity cremation center before finally muttering out into another pile. Subsequent strains of the airborne toxin, briefly considered deadly to all nations, have been found to only affect those of the weakest temperament to sick, via skins of thin mettle and minds of weak acumen predetermined to attend panels on Life Poetics in the Work of Cracker Barrel Anthologies and Nature as Conduit for Metaphor, and even in those few sadly exposed bodies only inducing mild conditions of pasty foreskin/labia, heavy breathing, and sometimes a hunger for flamebroiled meat. Book objects and chapbooks remaining unsold and thereafter abandoned at AWP locations of the past 40 years will be donated to a new, more vital writing services program, where the corpus of such paper will be burned to heat the homes of indigent but still somehow willful writers. Anyone not already involved in publishing their own magazine had no comment on the logically pragmatic death, though remembrance services for Mr. “MCDUNNAWAY” will be held at Shortback Books in downtown Presererancese, Wisconsin featuring readings by Bob Hicok and Steve Almond. Remembrance services for AWP will take place over the next two to seven years as longtime members, attendants, would-that-I-were-not-married-I-could-have-gotten-out-there-cuz-I-hear-sometimes-there-are-people-there-who-both-like-books-and-will-fuck persons, and please-emblazon-my-name-on-your-paper-I’ll-do-anything-even-though-there’s-nothing-to-do-but-keep-pretending-I’m-listening-and-shake-some-hands-with-eyes-averted-and-keep-drinking hucksters spread the flame of memory from one to another via the age-old echo party celebration cue, “Are you going to you AWP?,” which regrettably this year must be answered by one and all, “I can’t.”
Two LitBlog Obituaries: Trick With A Knife & Big Other
[Throughout the week we’ll be posting a series of literary obituaries, as as we well know there are many things literary at the knell of death. Observe. – ed.]
Trick with a Knife (February 23, 2010 – October 25, 2010) Trick W. Knife passed away peacefully in relative obscurity after a long bout between editor P.H. Madore’s various schizophrenic personalities, all of whom accused one another of nepotism. Born out of envy, it garnered in its heyday approximately 110 hits a day, despite its one-dimensional reactionary posts and inadvertently ironic “anti-gossip” gossiping. The bereft contributors wish to express mild dismay, tempered with relief that they don’t have to write there anymore, and can go on to do what they do best, namely, torturing small animals behind high schools from which they barely graduated. Trick Knife is especially survived by contributor Nathan Tyree, son of a bitch. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to P.H. Madore, so that he may acquire camouflage high thread-count sheets, and even more server space subject to his misdirected use. Committal Services at Holy Shit Cemetery will fortunately be private.
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Big Other (October 11, 2009 – October 25, 2010) “Online forum of iconoclasts and upstarts focusing its lens” on various cultural detritus, Big Other, led by editor/hair-stylist John Madera, dies at puberty after struggling for relevance, permanence, and a site design. Born Small Brother, its default WordPress template theme is “Mistylook,” which may serve to explain the misty look in Madera’s eyes, having seen many of his contributors migrate to HTMLGIANT, who offer a larger and more immediate readership. Big Other’s allusions of being a giant “other” alternative to HTMLGIANT was not subtle enough, though just passive-aggressive enough for the latter’s editor, who received the former’s inception with subdued enthusiasm. With an average of 3 – 5 comments per post, the Bulimic Other has little to barf up, save the disjointed syllables such comments are comprised of. A memorial service will be held at some local bar at which Madera’s fusion rock band Mother Flux will perform their elegy “G-string in A sharp.” The contributors request donations to the Alzheimer’s Foundation, quickly, before they forget who they are.
Mean Week is This Week What Does that Mean
All writing is pigshit.
pla(y)giarism versus plagiarism
Consider these two texts. The first was published on 28 June 2010 at Everyday Genius, the second was published yesterday at Metazen. The second author is very familiar with the first author.
The first text:
Rip off the wings of dragonflies
Rip off the wings of dragonflies, take their “spines,” their central lengths and a bit of paste, affix them down noses, between the eyes, one per customer. A dream.
The most important thing
The most important thing, about this pen, is to maintain inkflow: (the idea that) the ink must flow and continue flowing, at all times.
A Certain Angle
Remember, he said, when loaning it to me, this pen won’t write unless held at a certain angle.
It is said of the Emperor Fu Kang
“It is said of the Emperor Fu Kang: that He, with eyes unflinching, and a hand at peace, would have His enemies, and He had many, executed by decapitation. Further, that He would have their heads scooped out, embalmed then impregnated with magnet: the cavity that held the brain would be filled with iron, mined in the furthest West. During His ample leisure He enjoyed tossing these magnetized heads at a metallic surface. Actually in later years, with His son gaining influence, His Empire modernizing and so falling to ruin, this metal surface was often the door to an enormous refrigerator, then the largest to be found in the universe (opening it required two teams of oxen and an equator of rope). Inside this fridge the Emperor kept his foodstuffs, luxuriously imported at our expense, at a temperature most appropriate.”
Angry People Blurbed Us
Yesterday, we posted about our birthday and had a Backwards Birthday Celebration. Thank you for your nice comments and emails. We really liked that. If you haven’t yet, send us an email to be eligible for the gift drawing.
Today, however, we celebrate the hate. I’ve tried to gather a few mean blurbs, some from our own comments section and others from around the internet. Some are sincerely angry, others are meant to be silly (I think?). I’ve pulled them out of context and pasted them below for fun, but no linkies. You could find the sources if you wanted, I guess.
Feel free to add to the blurb collection: complain, whinge, talk shit, poke fun, lambast, and otherwise roast us if you’d like.
That’s all from me today. Have fun and thanks for reading. I’ve got a bandwagon to board.
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“Reading HTMLGIANT is a pretty good way to get burned out on contemporary literature. Honestly, they promote and overpraise some senselessly crappy stuff.”
This Is What Happens When After Being Dreadfully Cold All Week I Lie in a Hot Bath Trying to Write a Blog Post After Having Not Written One in Awhile
I almost told you, we must resist asking what it means when we haven’t yet determined what it is. But I grew bored; I’ve never been much lit up by resistance, a heavy sprinkler on the same clipped lawn. For what is there to resist besides the sun? I prefer insistence. To insist that we won’t know what it is; we will only run our fingertips through the traces. We turn from the spectacle not because it dazzles us but because we want to see the faces of our fellow theatergoers. The trouble comes when they too turn, and they face our glancing faces.
I hate them!
I mean it!
Theories on Religion & Writing Proficiency
From OkCupid blog
OkCupid, a stupid dating website that has yielded no results (my summary being “disappointed narcissist seeks unconditional love and ride to parents’ house”), has a blog that at least is not stupid. They matched up profile religious affiliation with writing proficiency. Without being politically correct and sparing any feelings, here are my theories about the results:
Notes on the Testicular and Penile Theories of Talent
Celebrating Norman Mailer
I have a terrible confession to make—I have nothing to say about any of the talented women who write today. Out of what is no doubt a fault in me, I do not seem able to read them. Indeed I doubt if there will be a really exciting woman writer until the first whore becomes a call girl and tells her tale. At the risk of making a dozen devoted enemies for life, I can only say that the sniffs I get from the ink of the women are always fey, old-hat, Quaintsy Goysy, tiny, too dykily psychotic, crippled, creepish, fashionable, frigid, outer-Baroque, maquille in mannequin’s whimsy, or else bright and stillborn. Since I’ve never been able to read Virginia Woolf, and am sometimes willing to believe that it can conceivably be my fault, this verdict may be taken fairly as the twisted tongue of a soured taste, at least by those readers who do not share with me the ground of departure–that a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.
–Norman Mailer
Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.
–Alejandro Jodorowsky
With them that day were various members of [Salvador] Dalì’s Divine Court: Gala, his muse, coiffed and rouged like a ventriloquist’s dummy; Prince Dado Ruspoli, famed as having the largest penis in Europe; Princess Nanita Kalaschnikoff, with her celebrated Louis XIV profile; the collector Sir Edward James; painter Léonor Fini and the unimaginably gorgeous Amanda Lear who, like Léonor, could not paint, as Kirk Douglas learned from his host, because genius is only found in the balls.
‘Paint is about time, space and balls. And Amanda doesn’t have any,’ said Dalì, bringing his palms together as if in them he held two bricks.
‘Genius,’ she [Léonor Fini] screamed. ‘Is in the slit.’
(From here)
The winners of the Norman Mailer Nonfiction Writing Awards were just announced. A lucky college student will be now be $10,000 richer. Since the awards are intended to honor the legacy of Norman Mailer, now seems like an appropriate time to defame his name by remembering what a sexist asshole he was. Thinking about Norman Mailer’s legacy, I am reminded of the way in which he advanced what I call the Testicular Theory of Talent (TTT).
Fresh Air Exclusive Transcript
Terry Gross with Jonathan Franzen
TERRY GROSS: A lot of people think we look very similar, would you care to comment on that?
JONATHAN FRANZEN: Well Terry, you do sort of look like a man; no offense, and I’m dating a feminist, so we’re on the same team here. Most women have long hair and softer features, which is where the problem is. I just think Americans really need to step back and realize it’s not all about capitalism and gender. My new novel Freedom aims to expose the underbelly and subconscious of the American pathos.
TERRY GROSS: Thanks, that was really touching — speaking of which, what am I hearing under the table?
JONATHAN FRANZEN: Well Terry, I’m under contractual agreement with my publishers to “pound away at [my] future,” and this moment I’m focusing on DNA.
TERRY GROSS: Gross.
JONATHAN FRANZEN: Franzen.
Directions to forever
The top ten list just released [left] is almost identical as last year’s [right], except University of Massachusetts Amherst was dropped, replaced by Syracuse University. If you care about your future, the drive will take you approximately 4 hours and 23 minutes. If you have to cry in the car, please roll down the windows, as your tears will evaporate quicker. A good place to hide acid tabs should you be pulled over is under your eyelids. A good place to blow someone is America. The best way to get there: