Technology

kiddies, need 2 steal a paper on Moby Dick?? u can have mine 4 free!!!

The Multivalent God of Moby Dick

by you!!! <3

Herman Melville’s complex renderings of god convey the influence of a dichotomous religious upbringing. On Melville’s mother’s side was the Dutch Calvinist church, with its focus on man’s sins and damnation. From his father, he gleaned the more liberal values of Transcendentalism and Unitarianism: a faith in man’s essential goodness.1 “We incline to think that God cannot explain his own secrets,” he wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1854, “and that He would like a little information upon certain points himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us.”2 In Moby Dick (1851), Melville employs multiple symbols, including the ocean and the whale, to illustrate a god in flux. God is portrayed as an entity, which, like the whale, is not completely visible or knowable to man in its entirety. God’s existence, the shape it takes, depends on the perspective of the human who perceives it. Each character’s view of god is molded by his own innate attitude or constitution, as well as the external events of his life. In turn, a weave is created, wherein god and man are both contributors to the shape of a man’s destiny, as well as his perspective of a supreme being.

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Technology / 25 Comments
January 27th, 2012 / 9:51 am

The unpublished concept notes for a book on social media marketing

A Google Document authored by Adam Humphreys and Erik Stinson that had not been opened for 9 months:

 

Socraft
A book for people who already get it.
What is the big smoke package?”
By Adam and Erik

Insight:
Most books about social media are written for clueless older MBA guys, by slightly less clueless, slightly younger MBA guys. They are used to selling things for Proctor and Gamble and started their personal blog in 2009.

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January 20th, 2012 / 11:24 am

The Day the Comments Died

 
Deadgod writes a memoir.
Bookslut starts talking about rap.
The openended snippets eat their young.
Poets have sex.
You try to “like” a Denver omelet.
The omelet gets an MFA.
Jimmy Chen starts juxtaposing billboards on a highway.
Some of the drivers are menstrual.
Big Other blows up.
Montevidayo blows up.
Submishmash combusts.
Ploughshares raises their submission fee to $400 a word.
Obama hits a kill switch.
There’s no one left worth killing.
Brandon Gorrell adds the “Scott” back to his name.
Everyone else is still named Jonathan.
AWP is MLA.
MLA is Fur Con.
Syllabi are lonely.
Experimental literature is words.
People “like” their own reflections.
The reflections unsubscribe.
Shame dies.
Fear lives.
Technology / 22 Comments
January 17th, 2012 / 11:08 am

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January 16th, 2012 / 4:21 pm

Technology / 13 Comments
January 10th, 2012 / 6:41 pm

BOOKS + BEER: Dune and Budweiser

Why? Because a student handed me the book and suggested I read it? No. Students routinely want me to read books and they are usually this one, or Neil Gaiman and I’m not reading any fucking Neil Gaiman. I’m an adult. I read it because so many of my students are writing Sci Fi lately. From a genre trickle to categorical gusher. Could be my doing this semester. I instructed them to write a QUEST. I think some of their brains went quest=genre, though I showed them many, many quests that were just like two dudes trying to get to Hollywood or the latest Jennifer Aniston Must-Get-A-Man flick or just some guy swimming away into cognitive dissonance or a newlywed couple needing to rob McDonald’s but no/no/no they go genre, fantasy or Sci Fi.  That’s OK. I mean we had no zombies. (Best zombie film to show students about genre irrelevant—characters matter.) I could be like some in academia (and literary publishing) and say no to genre. OR…I could admit many literary works are indeed gestures of genre…OR I could/should meet the students half way and feel a need to increase my knowledge base on Sci Fi, admit I haven’t read Sci Fi in many years (is Vonnegut Sci Fi?) and so feel a pedagogical necessity to read something and Dune is on all the lists and I know Sting is in the movie version (though I’ve never seen it and have no plans to) and so here we go into the box, the hour glass, the sand.

Three things we know: 1. You can show all the patriotic commercials in the world, but Anheuser Busch is still a company owned by Belgium. 2. Women die when they get near August Anheuser Busch IV. 3. Budweiser is Ok to drink. Not great. Not absolutely bad. (Fuck off, beer snobs, we know how much you blar this beer and, honestly, it’s a little ridiculous.) But OK, an OK beer, in certain situations…

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Random & Technology / 27 Comments
December 13th, 2011 / 11:17 am

UTOPIAN VISIONS OF KESHA

STEP ONE ON A SERIES OF POSTS DEVELOPING A THEORETICAL-FICTION TOWARDS WHAT I WILL COIN A ‘RECKLESS UTOPIANISM’

I DECLARE WAR ON REALISM, I DECLARE WAR ON A WORN-OUT JOY, I DECLARE WAR ON EVERYTHING.

SOMETIMES YOU GET DRUNK EVERY NIGHT FOR TWO WEEKS, SOMETIMES YOU MAKE OUT WITH A DUDE IN A CAB AND THEN YOU END UP DOING DRUGS AND PULLING YOUR DICK OUT IN A BAR YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO BEFORE, SOMETIMES YOU BUY MORE WHISKEY AND GO BACK TO YOUR PLACE WHERE YOU FUCK AROUND WITH THE DUDE IN YOUR LOFT WHILE YOUR ROOMMATE’S FRIEND SNORES ON THE COUCH BENEATH YOU, SOMETIMES YOU DON’T GO HOME FOR 36 HOURS, SOMETIMES YOU FORGET THAT YOU HAVE THINGS TO DO OTHER THAN GOING TO WORK AND GETTING DRUNK & LAID, SOMETIMES YOU REALIZE YOU HAVE THE CAPACITY TO MANIFEST THE FUTURE SIMPLY BY MAKING THE DECLARATION, SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO REALIZE THAT POP MUSICK IS A FUTURE THAT WE’RE ALL AFRAID OF, AND THE POP MUSIC THE LITERATI ARE NOT AFRAID OF IS ONLY FALSE, SOMETIMES WE ALL KNOW THAT THE WORLD IS ALREADY OVER AND FEEL GREAT ABOUT IT, HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS THING CALLED CAPITALISM? IT’S STUPID. THERE’S A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TELL YOU WHY IT’S STUPID, MAYBE YOU SHOULD LISTEN, SOMETIMES YOU KNOW THERE’S FINALLY A CLASS WAR GOING ON AND LIFE STARTS TO MAKE SENSE FOR THE FIRST TIME, SOMETIMES YOU WAKE UP NEXT TO SOMEBODY AND YOU DON’T REMEMBER THEIR NAME, SOMETIMES YOUR BEST FRIENDS SEND YOU THE BEST TEXT MESSAGES YOU’VE EVER READ IN YOUR LIFE, EVERYTHING IS SURPRISING, SOMETIMES WHAT LIFE AMOUNTS TO IS NOTHING BEYOND WHAT YOU CAN REMEMBER, SOMETIMES WHAT LIFE AMOUNTS TO IS NOTHING BEYOND WHAT YOU’VE FORGOTTEN AND YOU FEEL GREAT ABOUT IT.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON’T DO ANYTHING, SOMETIMES YOU TRY TO MAKE PANCAKES AND YOU USE BAKING SODA INSTEAD OF BAKING POWDER AND THEY TASTE LIKE POISON, SOMETIMES YOU READ NICK LAND ESSAYS ON THE BUS AND YOU ACTUALLY LAUGH OUT LOUD, SOMETIMES YOU KEEP FORGETTING TO DOWNLOAD A PDF OF NIETSZCHE’S BIRTH OF TRAGEDY SO YOU CAN PUT IT ON YOUR PHONE TO READ WHILE YOU DRINK ALONE AT THE BAR, SOMETIMES YOU FORGET ABOUT LITERATURE COMPLETELY BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO BUSY FUCKING WITH SOME CONCEPTUAL EXPERIMENT THAT ASSUAGES YOU OF ALL MORALITY OR GUILT, SOMETIMES THIS MAKES MORE SENSE THAN ANYTHING YOU’VE WRITTEN OR READ, EVER.

LADY GAGA IS A FACADE.

LIFE IS ONLY FLOATING. FAME IS IRRELEVANT. STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING. MOMENTUM AS CONTRAST TO REALITY. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? WE CAN GO ANYWHERE WE WANT TO. THE WHOLE WORLD NEEDS TO DIE BEFORE WE CAN REST.

Technology & Word Spaces / 44 Comments
November 5th, 2011 / 8:46 pm

Choose Your Own Adventure!

Technology / 28 Comments
November 1st, 2011 / 7:02 pm

I WANT TO PAY A LOT FOR PREMIUM DIGITAL CONTENT

let me pay for premium online content.

i tried to get a digital-only subscription to the new yorker. but it doesn’t exist. i want it in my car service when i leave my advertising agency at 10:30 pm. i am always busy. i need speed and i desire information. i want to have access to that content in a fluid way.

i would pay 100 dollars a year for a digital subscription to the new yorker. 30 dollars more than the physical paper subscription price.

i want to read a digital version of vanity fair on my phone and not have to throw away a physical magazine. when i am in the hamptons, i want this very much.

let me pay.

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Technology / 22 Comments
October 24th, 2011 / 4:55 pm

Barrelhouse Online Workshops

Can writing be taught? Can writing be taught online? Is the Internet a valid place to workshop poetry?

After hours and hours of editorial GChats with Melissa Broder, I’ve come to think that it’s not just possible, but that the Internet is a great place for this kind of work. There is something about the detachment of not being present, combined with the fluidity of the format. It makes people more concise, more practical, and more willing to hear differing perspectives.

So I’m really interested to hear how Barrelhouse’s online workshops go. Our own beloved Mike Young is facilitating one now. Don’t nobody know no poetry like Mike, neither — so if you want more than THIS AMAZING LIST of “moves in contemporary poetry”, you should consider giving his online class a look. The 8-week sessions starts on October 24.

Has anyone done an online class before and was it good?

Technology / 2 Comments
October 12th, 2011 / 11:50 am