the paintings of e.e. cummings
As a poet, E. E. Cummings has enjoyed tremendous popularity throughout the 20th century, and great critical acclaim from many different literary circles. His poetry has been widely hailed for its experimental form, typography, grammar, and word coinages, as well as for the subtlety and sensitivity of its perceptions and feeling…Less well-known, however, are Cummings’ achievements as a visual artist and the extent to which they express in an entirely different medium the same aesthetic principles and rigorous artistic intelligence that inform his poetry. Cummings viewed himself as much a painter as a poet…
What Matters, What’s Remembered, What We Care About
Bear with me. People have opinions about Jonathan Franzen. These opinions are rarely mild. There’s something about his personality and the way he negotiates his public image that invites discussion. I thought I had an opinion about Jonathan Franzen but the more I think about it, the more I realize he is not part of my literary vocabulary. If I never read another book of his again, my life would not come to an end. I loved The Corrections. That seems like a contradiction. I thought The Corrections was a great story, meandering and sweeping and engaging. But I’ve only read it once. I loved it but have never felt compelled to pick the book up again so maybe I don’t love The Corrections. Maybe I just really like it. I am excited to read Franzen’s forthcoming novel, Freedom, which I will be enjoying with The Rumpus Book Club. On Facebook, I think, I saw someone (Kyle Minor?) observe that people seem to enjoy taking down successful, ambitious people in reference to a lot of the recent commentary in various outlets about the VQR “situation.” I do not necessarily disagree. Successful, ambitious people are easy targets because we see them plainly and we have opinions about what they do and how we would do what they do and whether or not they deserve to those things they do and the privileges they enjoy because of how well or the public perception of how well they do the things they do.
128 Comments
September 2nd, 2010 / 3:19 pm
September 2nd, 2010 / 3:19 pm
I would like you to hit me in the head with something.
Sorry to be picking on my hometown blog commenters here, but seriously, does no one understand meter?
I mean, I know I’m just a fiction writer and all, but I at least sort of get it. I think. Maybe I shouldn’t let this get to me, but we’re only talking about a couple of syllables here. And it’s not like the limerick is a sestina or something. It’s really not that complicated.
There once was a man with a stein,
Who thought Coors Light was just fine,
‘Till his friend said “fuck it,
just drink out of the Honey Bucket
you’ll think that shit is wine.”
Posted by Skip on August 25, 2010 at 11:29 am
Folks at Google are probably not giving us a hint with “ex pat,” short for expatriate, but I wish they were. Yes, the example provided is of Pat, or Patrick, who, like most of us, want to venture off east- or west-ward over seas to more exotic places — as critique of America, or simply for better food — but simply stayed, for a mortgage, career, relationship, or other thing one is supposed to have. The big bros Google and Facebook know your IP location at all times, and should those vectors point to your office, living room, or bedroom, then let’s say it’s not your fault, but the fault of this internet who re-wired us into thinking that 4 hrs offline is some venture into dark mysterious non-connected places. A text that isn’t answered in 5 minutes is symbolic dust in the shape of a middle finger. True, the expatriate wouldn’t be so free were it not for ongoing travel logistics one attends to over email, but the inadvertent “ex pat” username is a good reminder of the tethers to which we are bound by carpal tunnelled wrists. I went canoeing yesterday with co-workers who were freaking out because they hadn’t checked their email in over 4 hours; some of us flipped, our cell phones and wallets floating down stream in neurotically sealed zip-lock bags. We came across a deer carcass who, from the degree of its decomposition, hadn’t checked its email in like 14 days. Holy shit, the river went.
“Be careful and you’re not.”
Check out this cool video for the novel Bad Bad Bad by GIANT Commenteriat regular Jesus Angel Garcia. The video’s all about asking people what they fear. My favorite is the lady who says “Falling off a cliff!” immediately and cheerfully. I also really like the indignant guy with a missing tooth. Some people seem to fear themselves or “actualizing” themselves, and I have no idea what that means but I think it has to do with facial hair. Me I’m afraid of major burns. And maybe that one kind of inverse amnesia where you wake up as the only person who remembers a certain thing, like the Chicago Blackhawks or Cheerios.
Friends, ‘Friends,’ and Book Reviews
by natalie Dee
I live in Brooklyn which means I can’t even leave the house without twisting my ankle as I trip over an author, often one whose book is already on my shelf. Just yesterday this guy was asking me if I had any spare change and I said, “Wait isn’t this you?” and held up the book I was reading. He just blushed and ran away. They are a timid species.
This would be a happy problem if I had just remained a reader and writer, but I started reviewing books last year and recently I got an assignment from Time Out New York to review Tao Lin’s newest, Richard Yates. READ MORE >
Using the clone stamp in Photoshop, artist Paul Pheiffer, in his digital print and video work, meticulously erases — or more accurately, imposes background space onto — surrounding areas, leaving one sole basketball player suspended in air without any context of ball, net, or other players. The result is uncanny and stunning, and initially brought to mind the Crucifixion, whose main character is also abstracted in front of a spectacle. The jersey design and player number have been removed, perhaps in wishful allegiance to John Lennon’s imagining that there were no teams or corporate sponsors. Galleries and sports stadiums function as modern churches, a place of worship [see related post]. Last night looking over this series entitled “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (ongoing, which began ten years ago), I was suddenly reminded of the lynchings against blacks, like a rope photoshopped out of our minds.
WRITER’S EMBARRASSMENT
mortification
One time I saw the film director Paul Thomas Anderson give a talk to a small group of college students. A burly male student made the mistake of asking a question that went something like, “My problem is that I feel embarrassed to show my work to people. Do you have that problem?”
Blake Butler—
What are some awesome Must Read more experimental or weirdo graphic novels? I enjoy, like, Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes but I feel severely out of touch.
107
It is Friday: Go Write Ahead
previous generations of American writers pointed the way
and why would he be murdered when everyone in town knew he had terminal cancer?
i wanted to be “a pure mathematician” more than anything else (the mathematician as artist)
and for a while I even lived in a tree house
i was still drinking in the minor leagues at the time
bees don’t stop drinking
excuses to go to the store
warm beers in the attic again
a flag flew, lit by a spotlight, indicating the man was in residence
three reasons why alcohol and the writer go so well together.
1. Trance-like states
2. Nothing is free on planet E
Author Spotlight & Random / Comments Off on It is Friday: Go Write Ahead
August 20th, 2010 / 5:39 pm
August 20th, 2010 / 5:39 pm