Interview: Darby Larson 14
10. You are a sturdy man. How does that affect your writing?
Thank you I think. I’m taking “sturdy” to mean like level-headed or rational or maybe even relativistic, because I’m really out of shape physically. I think it helps but also hinders me (it’s relative!), see answer to #4 above. It’s not healthy to be so level-headed because it leaves little room for heart.
14. “Stop using words” is a pretty heavy thing to write on the page. Yet you write those words in The Iguana Complex. Discuss.
On “Pushcorpse”
The experiment that was “Pushcorpse,” organized (and conceived?) by Shya Scanlon, is now published in No Colony 3. 65 writers all writing the same story, or rather pushing its corpse forward.
Reading it now, no longer as 1/65 of a contributor but just a casual reader, in its final No Colony resting place, what I found to be a curious aspect was that it served as a microcosm for the flow of memes. The one meme that holds on throughout is the Ginger meme. Remember that there was no obligation on the part of anyone to keep any character as a protagonist, yet Ginger continued to fill the role, despite efforts to kill her (often in grotesque description). Yet after she would die she would be back at the bar again a few paragraphs later. The plot summary seems to be Ginger at a bar while 65 people impose their will upon her, often killing her, but in doing so over and over again, keep her alive.
The whole work is an unusual example of metafiction. A reader is constantly aware of the struggle of too many people trying to direct the flow of something. There was meta-self-deprecation when writers felt the work as a whole was not meeting their expectations. The use of STOP became a meme as people became frustrated at the flow and wanted to abruptly change it. There is a moment when the meta element becomes literal (Ginger actually becomes one of the 65 and is trying to decide what to write) and from that point on, the work’s meta-ness becomes a meme and it all ends on this note.
Buy a book; help Japan.
I was thinking yesterday about the parallels between the literary world and the culinary world while my domestic goddess sister and her chef boyfriend spoke to each other about various chefs (the brilliant ones and the megalomaniacs) and restaurants (from gastronomic pilgrimage sites to pretentious failures). The uneasy union between these two disparate worlds? The cookbook.
So, if you are the home-cook variety of lit geek, consider adding one more book to your collection: This all-star collection of recipes from giants of the culinary world– all the proceeds from the sale of this e-book (yeah, I said it) will go to the recovery in Japan.( I can’t think of a better excuse to buy an ebook.)
Of course, you’re not going to find any mass market recipes in there– no sir. These recipes are from chefs who’ve earned things equivalent to the Pulitzer. If you’ve ever wanted to brush up your knife skills or broaden your kitchen repertoire past your mom’s lasagna, now is the time. Braised black cod and wakame soup awaits you.
What Could Small/Micro/Indie Presses Learn From The Concept Of Transmedia Storytelling?
I often think about the various ways in which the small press world differs from the big press world in terms of company practices and choices and how the former could potentially benefit from borrowing some ideas from the latter.
For example, back in the summer of ’09 I asked the question “How come indie publishers don’t do audio books?” This led me to imagine one-upping big presses by suggesting that small presses produce audio commentary for books, like having a writer walk through their book and talk about each section as though it were director commentary on a dvd.
For the most part, neither of those practices have really materialized in the small press world, as far as I know. Although I didn’t do the audio commentary thing, I thought making an audiobook sounded like such a good idea that when the time came last year I made one for my novel, The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney, which turned out pretty cool. (You can sample it here, and you can get it here for whatever price you want to pay — just scroll down when you get there.) Thankfully, Ken Baumann, the visionary behind Sator Press, who published my book, is such a fantastically forward-thinking publisher that he supported and nurtured the idea — making Sator Press the first small press (that I know of) to offer a complete audiobook version of one of their titles. Full disclosure, my audiobook has yet to garner much critical appreciation or even very much public commentary at all — which is probably to be expected, at least in part because it’s such an anomaly — but in fact I have received emails and gchats and even a few pieces of snail mail from people saying how much they dug it, leading me to believe that there is potential interest to be found in this untapped market.
Which brings me to what I propose could be another untapped market for the indie/small/micro press……something called “Transmedia Storytelling.”
Miroslav Penkov on “memory, loss, guilt, identity, family, country . . .”
So there is a story in the book, about the Ottoman times when Bulgaria was under Turkish rule and the Ottomans forcefully recruited Bulgarian boys for their army; janissaries, who were made to deny their families and god. There is a story about Bulgarian rebels who fought for Macedonia’s freedom, about the aftermath of the Balkan Wars. Stories about the 1923 Communist uprising, about the events of 1944 when the Communist Party finally seized control of Bulgaria, about the so-called Process of Rebirth during which the Party forcefully changed the names of all Bulgarian Muslims to what were deemed “proper, Bulgarian” names. There are stories about things I myself witnessed and lived through: the fall of Communism in 1989, the results of this fall, or about the people who leave Bulgaria every year to make their luck abroad. READ MORE >
Bookmaking: Handcrafting Isn’t Dead
I walked into the Writing Center after teaching a course on copyediting last week and found a tableful of mums-the-word students working away diligently on handmade zines. The table was piled with paper and tape, drawing implements, glue. On a nearby table, DIY snacks: celery, peanut butter, hummus, raisins. Two of our Student Writing Assistants organized said zine workshop, provided guidance and ideas and supplies, and BAM! instant zine community.
cats per container about 4
11. Auden’s 1956 book review of The Return of the King. (much thanks to biblioklept)
For objectifying this experience, the natural image is that of a journey with a purpose, beset by dangerous hazards and obstacles, some merely difficult, others actively hostile. But when I observe my fellow-men, such an image seems false. I can see, for example, that only the rich and those on vacation can take journeys; most men, most of the time must work in one place.
11. Valzhyna Mort is a Belarusian badass. Just saying.
11. Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea.
4. All Diagram t-shirts are 10 bucks until they are gone. (I suggest the dead hamsters.)
11. Note to self: continue to eat old book reviews.
“enslaved by its structure”
“When you examine most recent novels or screenplays, you can’t help but notice that there’s a very strong goal-motivation-conflict structure. I watched UP with my kids recently (in 3D!) and every single character, even the giant, voiceless bird, had a very clear goal and motivation that conflicted with the other characters’ goals and motivations in really obvious ways. It was actually kind of irritating, because the conflicts just deteriorated into logistics by the climax (one too many people dangling over precipices for me). The movie seemed enslaved by its structure.” — Rhian Ellis, in 2009.
“I find myself thinking of this as a ‘masculine’ storyline, though I’m not particularly eager to defend that characterization; I will say, though, that the primary way girls get to be the heroes of contemporary children’s movies is by proving that they can do the same stupid shit boys can. Miyazaki, on the other hand, makes movies about intense, often directionless exploration. He is contemplative, and his films often remain movingly unresolved. Pixar movies look great, but the visuals are illustrative. In Miyazaki, the images are the movie. They make the story. I can’t, for the life of me, remember the plot of Howl’s Moving Castle–but I will never, never forget the sight of it. Is this perhaps a feminine ideal–that it is sometimes enough simply to be? In any event, it is a worthwhile ideal, gendered or not.” — J. Robert Lennon, follow-up post, 2011.
“We went through a lot of different options that way. But 
people just coming out of the theater on screening it here for ourselves, felt like, ‘Whoa, were you leaving it open for a sequel, that Muntz is going to come back and get the bird?’ No, we wanted the sense of closure that when the bird goes off with the babies, we know everything’s going to be fine and there’s no danger.” — Pete Docter, director of UP, 2009.
“. . . I did go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts. I defeated him.” – Hayao Miyazaki, 2005.
According to Deleuze, “Artaud considers Lewis Carroll a pervert, a little pervert…”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ty6UCcixlQ&feature=related
[Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” read by David Henry Sterry]
Deleuze discusses Artaud’s dislike of Carroll here in The Logic of Sense
Prelude to Hill William: Questions & Answers with Scott McClanahan
Scott McClanahan, author of Stories V!
MINOR: Stories and Stories II were published by Six Gallery Press, an indie with some street cred. Their follow-up, Stories V!, is published by Holler Presents, which is the same umbrella under which you offer 
the videos you direct, such as (my favorite) Preacher Man. In the video realm, of course, it’s a badge of honor to be able to produce your own stuff, but there’s still that lingering stigma (maybe this is changing) against self-published books. I know you well enough to know you take your writing career more seriously than any ten writers I know. So I’m interested: why this choice, to self-publish this book?
McCLANAHAN: Actually, I don’t think I take it that serious really. There is a part of me that does, but I guess I understand in the end that money’s just something you throw off the back of a train. READ MORE >