Untitled Sunday Evening
If Plato’s Allegory of the Cave gives us shadows on the wall, the residual simulacra of light as farce of being, then Allegory of the Popcorn may be light’s emanation into the butter-scented theater, the one-sided cube of the silver screen into which we go dumping our dreams. Or, this Allegory of the Retina, light’s retarded power point presentation in the mind, one redundant slide at a time, our wavering arms in front of us grasping at the punctured sack of the outside world, the world we share.
A Socratic question is an arrogant passive-aggressive one; didactic, with presumptive maturity, an ostensible “instructive” question. For example, mother asks me when was the last time I washed the sheets, an answer which in a couple of months can be described in years. “One year Ma, lay off me”; and so her nightmare of bed bugs laying eggs is hatched in her mind. The last Socratic question I asked was this morning: wtf I said to the brand new day. Philosophically, we all live in Greece.
Differences, casually.
Maybe the primary makings of and differences between art and entertainment are this: art is more intensive, and entertainment more extensive. That the properties of art that seem powerful are harder to measure, harder to define or classify. That entertainment is more obviously calculated, patterned. And that, if you feel you have to, you can measure both properties and use whichever name you want.
ZSNYRB
Zadie Smith writes with mixed feelings and a note of condescension in the New York Review of Books about The Social Network, a movie I saw four times in the theater. (Enough times to know that she misquotes the dialogue.) From the opening scene it’s clear that this is a movie about 2.0 people made by 1.0 people, she writes, and it does its job so well that it feels more delightful than it probably, objectively, is. Mercifully she ignores the tedious controversy over the film’s alleged misogyny in favor of a nuanced analysis of its generational significance. Remember half a decade ago, when you’d meet someone and one of you would say, “Are you on Facebook?”
Historical Shop Talk
A letter from H.D. Thoreau to Unitarian minister H.G.O. Blake, mostly about the subject of Walt Whitman:
Dec. 7, 1856
That Walt Whitman, of whom I wrote to you, is the most interesting fact to me at the present. I have just read his 2nd edition (which he gave me) and it has done me more good than any reading for a long time. Perhaps I remember best the poem of Walt Whitman an American & the Sun Down Poem. There are 2 or 3 pieces in the book which are disagreeable to say the least, simply sensual. He does not celebrate love at all. It is as if the beasts spoke. I think that men have not been ashamed of themselves without reason. No doubt, there have always been dens where such deeds were unblushingly recited, and it is no merit to compete with their inhabitants. READ MORE >
book or else specter
Calling for a new type of submission: I’m starting this project, book or else specter, which basically consists of aphorisms on potentially any topic (sports, cars, Keynes, hunting, another aphorism). First and only aphorism so far is our own Jackie Wang, who I hung out and had a lot of fun with last week here in Florida. Aphorisms can take any form and reach any length. Either submit by emailing me (alecniedenthal@gmail.com) or through the Tumblr.
I don’t know, I think the aphorism is a form that demands new life and new flesh. (Maybe it’s like I’m asking you to donate to my charity or something.) If we’re too much measure and precision, where is the condensed flash and dissolve.
Three Things of Interest
1. Gina Frangello is the new Writer in Residence at Necessary Fiction where this month, she will be featuring a series of stories, Body Parts. The first installment, Hole, is quite stunning.
2. How to make the Internet very very angry: 1) Steal the work of a writer, publish it in your magazine, and when said writer addresses the copyright infringement, say that writing on the Internet is public domain and tell the writer they should thank and compensate you for stealing and “editing” their work 2) Have word get out via popular writers like Maud Newton, John Scalzi, Neil Gaiman, and countless others. Even Gawker! NPR is talking about it too! A round up, here. 3) Sit back and relax. You have to feel a little bad for the hapless editor who unwittingly stepped into a very angry hornet’s nest because the pile on taking place is a bit… shocking.
3. Dzanc Books has launched an e-book club where you will get 11 books for $50 . If you’re looking for some good e-reads, consider signing up.
Libraries are churches, style is content, ideas are around.
People say mathematicians have wild dreams.
What I want to know is do they have better sex.
Einstein on the beach. With a lady.
Buckminster Fuller pointed at this idea:
We might be beamed ideas from outer space.
And that this is where we get what we call intuition.
The other day I saw a high speed chase, in progress
loudly near a lauded liberal arts college, for women.
{LMC}: Talking With the Tyrant
The Literary Magazine Club has a UStream channel. Head on over and join the chat. You can login with Twitter, Facebook, OpenID or a Ustream account and then you can ask Gian all the burning questions you have about NY Tyrant 3.2, and well, anything else.
Marcotte on West
Here is my working theory of Kanye West: Many years ago, he won the love of some ancient god that no one believes in anymore. When he rejected the affections of this god, he was cursed. Though he would continue to find fame and fortune, he would also be unable to resist a very specific situation. Whenever people gathered together and there was some elephant in the room composed of bullshit that everyone was dutifully ignoring, West would be compelled to open his mouth and say something, and in a style that implies he was the only one who didn’t realize that it wasn’t socially acceptable to speak truth right at this moment. And despite his truth-saying abilities, he would be shunned. Whatever he said would be blown way out of proportion, as if it was the most hurtful thing ever. He would be forced to retreat to Twitter and wonder aloud why he’s cursed in just this way.
“Kanye West is the Cassandra of our Troy” by Amanda Marcotte