Ounce of Pound: Special Sunday Edition
Do you in any way distinguish between writers whom you ‘like’ and those whom you ‘respect’?
Why, and how?
– ABC of Reading, p. 81
I will not comment on this post
I promised myself I would not inflate this ridiculous situation, but Jereme’s comment really pissed me off. (Fuck off Jereme.) He is suggesting that I’m remaining reticent out of ‘publishing diplomacy,’ being that I have 4 pieces in TJ, and have established ‘friendship’ with Mark Baumer. And obviously, I’m friends with Blake and Justin and the rest of Htmlgiant. I’m not being a coward dickshit, I’m being (trying) civilized.
I will admit, I was put in a strange situation because a) I didn’t provoke this situation, b) mutual overlap of ‘interest’ cited above. Matt and Blake provoked this situation, and Justin and the loyal commenters inflamed it.
This is what I think:
Matt did two shitty things: 1) Out of nowhere he posts a passive aggresive comment basically calling Blake Butler untalented and suggesting that out of pettiness did not link TJ. 2) The shittiest thing, the shittiest thing of all, was he deleted Blake’s story, which is just tacky and small, and kind of stupid.
Blake did one shitty thing: Instead of just fucking linking TJ, he tried to publicly humiliate Matt with the ‘how to get linked post.’ This just inflamed the situation, to which Matt over-reacted by deleting Blake’s story.
Justin’s post about ‘unpublishing’ I actually really liked. It really made sense. When you delete a story due to personal matters, you implicate editorialship as being what it’s often accused of being: a favor-nepotist bank of who you like and who you don’t. The problem with Justin is he’s really smart, and his post seemed like an objective argument (which it ‘objectively’ was), but really Justin–weren’t you just backin’ up your buddy Blake? Isn’t it obvious everyone is/was on Blake’s side?
Mark’s email to Justin was not neccessary, and it was also not neccessary for Justin to post Mark’s email.
As for the comments–I get sad when I read them, because it’s so self-absorbed. It’s basically the same 6 people going on and on about nothing. Somebody attacks king Butler, and the troops go out for the kill. PH Madore, Matt, and Mark never had a fucking chance with all you fucking clever people.
And who wins? Christ, who cares. Everybody has acted like a little bitch. People are starting to shit-talk Htmlgiant, the same way they shit-talk gawker, McSwnys, N+1, or any solipsist ‘in-crowd’ that self propogates its own ingrown rhetoric. You know, I bet you for every comment that is left, there are 30 that aren’t–just people who stumbled upon the madness. And those people think: “Christ, what a bunch of self-absorbed assholes.” I really think they think that.
So, um, Matt: I like my 4 peices in TJ, and I try to always send you my ‘better’ shit. If you delete my stories, that’s okay. The internet is not real and I have a day-job.
Blake: I like being a contributing writer here, but if my sentiments are viewed as dissent, fire me.
Justin and Mark: Hi, thanks for playing.
Fuck you Jereme. Htmlgiant has become too important in your life. Your rhetoric is transparent, I know you just want attention.
pr, barry & co.: go outside, turn off your computer and just go outside and the sky is blue and there was a cloud or something and I will destroy this relationship today.
Tao always wins.
Jesus Christ you people, you forced me to write this.
HATE YOURSELF MORE THAN OTHERS
it is ok for someone to dislike you based on something of yours they have read.
it is ok to be called a dickhead or any other name by someone you don’t know on the internet.
it is ok to take someone’s work off your site because you believe that will make you feel better.
it is ok to accept someone who does not accept you.
it is ok to try to demean and refute someone in a comments section.
it is ok to write something that no one likes.
it is ok to get rejected.
it is ok to be offended by minor things.
it is ok to dislike something and then feel so insecure that you have to try to persuade other people to dislike it.
it is ok for everyone to hate you.
it is ok if magazines really like your work and accept it all the time.
it is ok if none of them ever care.
it is ok to say nothing in defense of anything else.
it is ok.
What happens when you give Gary Lutz to a 14-year-old
these kids don
The other day I was somewhere waiting on something with a fourteen-year-old kid that I know and he didn’t have anything to read and I happened to have two books: Happy Birthday or Whatever by Annie Choi and Stories in The Worst Way by Gary Lutz. For some reason I thought this would be a good time to expand said kid’s literary horizons, but I was wrong. It was not. He took one look at the cover and grimaced.
“It’s good,” I said, “and they’re really short, so you can just read one and see if you like it.”
He opened to a random page and started “Waking Hours” by first reading the title outloud and seeming unpleased with it.
After he got a page and a half into it he said, “Oh, Nope. Too weird. Ew.”
“What?”
“Right there, look at that,” he said, pointing at a paragraph and scowling.
He was pointing at the word “seepages” and I thought for a second that this was the one about the guy with cloitis, but that wouldn’t make sense because what 14-year-old wouldn’t want to read about a guy with cloitis? Well, actually, probably not this one because his favorite show is Friends and he’s recently discovered that he likes using a stair master.I don’t know. You figure it out.
But this one wasn’t the one about the guy with cloitis anyway, it was the one about the gay, divorced, depressed guy who thinks people in his apartment are arranging their furniture exactly like his and mirroring all of his actions. It was the word “seepages” that pissed him off. Seepages. If he had gone on to read another paragraph he would have gotten to the gay bar scene, but I think he was skimming anyway.
‘How to Get Linked on HTML Giant’: A 2 Step Primer
For future reference, and because it’s recently come up, if you are wanting in the worst way to get linked on HTML Giant (man, I don’t blame you, it’s a firestorm in here), it’s really pretty simple. In fact it’s so simple, there are just two steps. Here are those two steps:
PRIMER STEP ONE: (For primer step one, I am going to defer to the guidelines for submission at Muumuu House Press, which I think are absolutely brilliant, and probably the most honest thing I’ve seen a publisher write about the way they select texts:
To submit to Muumuu House find a person who has been published by or is associated with Muumuu House and read their blog. If you like their blog make a comment in their comments section in a sincere and natural manner, expressing your feelings. Eventually someone associated with Muumuu House will probably read your comment and click your name and find your blog. If that person likes your blog, to a certain degree, then they will probably tell other people in emails or in real life and then at some point you will probably be emailed, not necessarily about Muumuu House, but maybe about Muumuu House. I think this is more natural. It supports a ‘there is no good or bad in art’ mentality, is probably faster and more efficient than emailing submissions and having people read them and respond to them, and I think it decreases loneliness, boredom, and despair more effectively than with ‘normal’ submissions, based on my experiences with the internet, I believe. Muumuu House is edited by Tao Lin.
PRIMER STEP TWO: Do something good.
That’s it. Those can occur in any order. They can occur exclusively of one another. They are also dependent on me forgetting everything else already me like the fact that I really want to go run a few miles right now at 11:25 PM, which I will do right after I finish this, forgetting that and other bullshit, and thinking about these things that happen, which can happen at any instant, and then I will click the buttons and copy and past the address and you will appear like magic in the brown letters on the foam green backdrop (I am suddenly doubting my recall of our color scheme) and people maybe will see your name there and maybe sometime click on you even though if they are here and they are looking at the ‘other places’ section will likely have already heard of you because the people who tend to read shit here tend to give a crap about books and have probably already over the course of however long they’ve intermingled that caring about books with the internet somehow stumbled on those places, rendering our links section and any links section just another thing that is a thing is probably not worth mentioning most of the time, like old baby blankets and tennis socks. You might notice I haven’t added a link to the journal I’ve been editing for more than 5 years. That’s just how much it doesn’t matter. And anyhow, more often, things that get linked here that ‘we’ give ‘a shit’ (more Muumuu House props, I guess) about are linked in the blog body because this is a blog and that’s what the blog is for and that’s what happens. I am still typing.
The main way not to get linked is to blind query the HTML Giant email inbox because (a) I don’t know that anyone checks it regularly except for Secret Santa things recently, I know I have looked twice, again it is a ‘token’ (b) I like to find things and remember things rather than being told, I have a mother already and (c) refer to PRIMER STEPS 1 and 2.
The for certain for sure super way not to get linked, if you did go ahead and send one of those ‘link me dear god link me please!’ emails, is not to get your tits in an uproar when 6 days later you haven’t gotten an answer back (current flood of other inbox Santa happies notwithstanding), and then come publicly bitching about how you’ve published several of our writers so why not why not why? I’ll admit I’ve added two links to the links as a result of the editor emailing, but only because I did like those places, and they did not call out about who/what/when/where was published, and let me pick up the email on my own and think, oh, yeah, that’s cool, I can do that, I want to do that. Done.
I like a lot of things. I also like to be a stick in the mud and look at my own ass. It gets me off.
Daily Ounce of Pound
Shouldn't the Union have seen this one coming?
Before deciding whether a man is a fool or a good artist, it would be well to ask, not only: ‘is he excited unduly’, but: ‘does he see something we don’t?’
Is his curious behavior due to his feeling an oncoming earthquake, or smelling a forest fire which we do not yet feel or smell?
Barometers, wind-gauges, cannot be used as engines.
–ABC of Reading, Chapter Eight
Books That Saved Someone’s Life
A very smart woman I know started this site called Books That Saved My Life and it’s pretty self explanatory. She pusblishes people’s essays about particular books of books that have saved or have the capacity to save someone’s life. It’s still new, but there are already some good essays up, one of my favorites being Fan Letters to Judy Blum by CJ Evans.
I think she’s looking for more essays, so open that word document titled “LoveSongtoWhiteNoise?” and polish that sucker up.
Capitol Letters Writing Center Seeks Donations
A friend of mine, the talented Mike Scalise, is working on this new project in DC to open a creative writing center for high school students. The project is called Capitol Letters; here is the program’s mission statement:
Capitol Letters Writing Center believes that within every student lives a brilliant writer. We support and challenge those writers through workshops, tutoring, and student publications that complement the classroom goals of educators in a safe and creative environment.
Based on what he has told me, Capitol Letters is working towards establishing for DC school children an extracurricular community similar to what is going on in 826. I think in DC especially, given the state of the school system there (according to what I’ve read, anyhow), such a community can make a big difference.
This post is to say, hey, these people are asking for donations. I dropped $5 off to them. If you’re interested in donating, head on over to Mike’s page and do a quick paypal transfer.
Just another way to get involved.
Education for Indie Heathens
On this site, in a recent post which garnered 200+ comments, someone quoted Ezra Pound; the source, Pound’s instructional text A B C of Reading.
Lego my Ezra
In the book’s introduction Pound writes, “For those who might like to learn. The book is not addressed to those who have arrived at full knowledge of the subject without knowing the facts.” He goes on to describe A B C as a text-book ” ‘for pleasure as well as profit’ by those no longer in school; by those who have not been to school; or by those who in their college days suffered those things which most of my own generation suffered.”
Obviously Pound had HTML’s audience in mind.
After the jump is a passage that hasn’t aged a day since its 1934 publication.
The Jeopardy! Report #2
par oft an ongoing series, wherein my friend Danielle watches Jeopardy! and then emails me a diary of her concerns.
Oh my God, Alex Trebek has totally crossed the line now. First of all, the panel must have the lowest combined age of all time, and they’re attractive too. It’s like for one magical day someone parted the dark, pendulous storm clouds that hang eternally over the Jeopardy! set, and the light shone down upon these three rare specimens. And this totally sexy-librarian type is answering almost every single question; I mean she’s killing it. And as hot as that is, I almost feel bad for the dudes because they seem, of all things, pretty okay. Anyway, the girl just goes on smoking these guys’ asses and at the first commercial break I’m like, You know, there’s something magically rad about this episode. Okay, so: commercial break, and then back to the show, and as they zoom in on the set, I’m feeling pretty sweet. And then I realize that Alex has moved from his podium. He is standing next to the cool, nerdy girl, asking himself the question that–let’s face it, I watch a lot of Jeorpardy! and I think we can both agree that I really get it, so just trust me–could–nay, will– change her life forever: Of all the dumb facts on this gay blue card, which can I use to bring the greatest shame and humiliation upon this woman and her family? “She has a Master’s degree in something that I think would be very, very useful and important in this day and age”? Really? What? It seems that Alex is actually quite taken with her and not at all his usually you-look-like-someone-who’s-got-a-vagina-so-it’s-time-to-think-of-a-way-to-make-you-feel-bad-about-yourself self. It turns out that her degree was in Plant,Soil, and Environmental Science, but she was in the sustainable agriculture program doing good for the underdog but helping small farm farmers reduce their reliance on herbicides. “Okay, so what’s the best way to do that?” he asks. Really? What? Fill me in on the major findings of your master’s thesis and do be aware that I will interrupt you almost immediately? It’s like he’s an asshole by accident whenever he’s not busy being an asshole on purpose. So she handles fine and says “Be careful” which is kind of whatever, but okay at least you said something. And then Alex says, “That’s it? Just be careful?” RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. He ruined the whole show for me.
[the following appeared a few minutes later in a separate email. -ed.]
The guy next to the environmental scientist just graduated from business school, where he studied marketing, and Alex tells him, Good for you, good for you.
