Well, Matthew Simmons’s two-line post from Friday, about a new temporary Tin House submission policy, has now drawn 212 comments, with more still coming in. The discussion has been protracted and bizarre, as well as occasionally quite ugly–some of which was my fault; but also, it’s important to note, some of which wasn’t–but there have been some moments of real insight and/or useful dialogue, and I’d like to share my favorite one here. It appeared in the comment thread on Matthew’s post yesterday evening, but I’m just noticing it now. Its virtue is not merely in what Andy says–though he says a lot of insightful and useful things, which are the categories of merit on which the award is based–but also in the calm and open manner in which he says them. Unsurprisingly, the position he takes is more or less exactly the same as my own, minus the rancor, which is probably the direct result of his not directly engaging with anyone. He just says what he thinks. As Commenter of the Day, an office which I just made up and which it may well never occur to me to think to award  again, his duty is simply to do what he already did–post the comment which got my attention in the first place, and so he (and everyone else) can rest secure in the knowledge that his being awarded the office coincides exactly with his fulfillment of its duties and therefore, at midnight tonight, the completion of his term. Here is his comment, reproduced in full:

July 4th, 2010 / 6:31 pm edit Andy Hunter—

My first reaction to the Tin House policy was, “Ha Ha. Good for them.”

The economic arguments against it are a joke, as are the ‘local bookstore’ arguments. Most people can afford to buy a couple books a year. Most people live near bookstores. And if you don’t? Write a note explaining that. Not much to get outraged about.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how quickly commenters get outraged around here, but then I realize: being outraged is fun.

Anyway, the condescension complaint is valid, although I think TH meant it in good humor – which apparently didn’t come off.

The thing that I think many here are missing is the incredible volume of submissions Tin House must get. EL is not half as well known, but we get thousands of submissions every issue, and even with 35 readers, it’s very hard to keep up. Especially because everything is read twice. Sometimes we regret our open policy, but it was the policy we wanted to see when we were on the other side, as writers. Now that we’re on the publisher side, it gets a little rough. There are many, many writers who are scanning duotrope and submitting to magazines they’d never fit in. The majority of these writers don’t seem to read enough, to be honest. They really ought to buy and read more books. Collectively, EL spends thousands of hours reading submissions, which is exponentially more time than we spend on anything else. The temptation to put up a small hurdle for submitters is understandable. Especially one that is directed at helping your industry, and supporting what you love.

For about 4 months, EL offered $6 off subscriptions to writers who submitted work to us, via a coupon code. It brought the cost of a digital subscription down to $3 an issue. Out of over 3,000 submitters during that time, less than a dozen used that code. I’m sure Tin House has similar stories.

There has been a lot of wondering, here and elsewhere, if emerging writers do enough to support the institutions which they wish to support them (i.e. ever buy a literary magazine). Tin House decided to playfully push the issue, and lighten the slush pile for themselves at the same time. It’s not so horrible.

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PS- As a special and counter-intuitive reward for having achieved distinction in the comment thread, I have disabled comments on this post, granting Andy–and everyone else–relief from any perceived obligation to respond, nitpick, attack, or praise. You can still do those things, but you’ll have to (and you should) do them over in the already-existing-thread on the post from which these words were drawn.

I’m moving in a couple days and this weekend I finally packed my books, a task which I put off for quite a long time because I was overwhelmed by the thought of transferring so many books into boxes in a stifling hot apartment with no air conditioning. I couldn’t delegate this task to my boyfriend because I wanted to go through my books and organize them in a certain way. I am a ridiculous control freak. Like most people who love to read I am a inveterate book buyer. I buy books because I read a review or because they have a pretty cover or because I like the way the paper feels. I’ll make a purchase based on a whim or a recommendation or out of spite to see if a writer really is as good as everyone says they are.

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"Ceci n'est pas une hotdog"

[via Fail Blog]  Magritte’s semantic play may have borrowed from the Tower of Babel, or the prophetic man just knew. Every time a pulled-over crack head pleads to the officer “this is not a pipe,” art wins. I knew a guy who deep fried sushi after it went bad, until it became good again. I guess that’s moral relativity.

The Opening Page

Amazon Description:

The Giant’s Fence (by Michael Jacobson) is a unique book. Instead of being filled with words, it gives you 80 pages of trans-symbolic script. Each page has several lines of linked, dancing symbols. They live, move, mutate, and die. The whole book could be interpreted both as the song of how we humans invented symbolic communication, and the telling of its slow disintegration. There are at least 2 ways to “read” The Giant’s Fence. You can begin at page 1, scan the first line, scan the second line, and so on, as you would read a regular book. You can also flip to a random page, and jump to a line which catches your eye. Some pages distort the rows of horizontal lines of symbols into curves, so you can’t exercise your usual reading habits. The Giant’s Fence stimulates new ways of reading and new ways of thinking. As the introduction says, “any meaning” the reader constructs “is a correct translation.” The book’s title is a translation of Finnish “Jatulintarha”, a name given to many of the stone labyrinths found in Finland. The only precursors to The Giant’s Fence are the hypergraphic novels of the Lettristes (such as Alain Satie’s Ecrit en Prose) and some of the more complex works of asemic poetry. If you want to step outside of language, and bathe in unmuddied waters, this book is for you.

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I commend Faces of Meth for showing us what happens to people on methamphetamine, but here is an example of someone who simply needs either a comb or a hair cut, and I suppose a shave. I’m sure meth has a lot to do with his overall disorganization in life, but really, he looks fine. Seems like he even put on a few healthy pounds.

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Earlier this morning, probably around 6am or so, I was writing, not an unusual thing. I wrote the phrase “curry favor.” Then, I thought: Maybe it wasn’t curry favor but curry flavor, or maybe it was carry favor, though I was pretty sure my original word choice was right.

So rather than continue writing, which is what I should’ve done, I went to Google…

Many people believe that “to curry favor” originated from the mishearing of curry flavor, which was my error as well. It is in fact based on a mishearing, though not “favor” for “flavor” but “favor” for “favel.”

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