Birthday buddies
I was just checking the first part of a forthcoming graphic biography of Trotsky titled, I guess, Trotsky. It’s by Rick Geary and comes out, of course, in October. I was just reading about the anniversary of Tiananmen in the news, and am also making my way through this sprawling and accessible history by Archie Brown called The Rise and Fall of Communism—so a Trotsky comic book seems to fit right in with my reading arc at the moment. I’m hoping for something along the lines of Chester Brown’s awwweeesssommme Louis Riel, but I doubt anything can touch that, at least in terms of graphic bios. Before terrorism there was communism. Think about it.
The Quarterly on Ebay
My pal Garett Strickland has just put up his collection of all of the issues of Lish’s The Quarterly for auction on ebay, along with bonus issues of 3rd Bed, New York Tyrant, Noon, and lots more. 40 Journals of experimental prose, all in one buy. Too rad.
Right now the auction is at $25. Give her a go.
New bookstore in Fort Greene
Greenlight Bookstore. Deal with it. Well, except for you, Jimmy Chen. You don’t have to deal with this at all. What’s the first book you’ll buy there, Brooklyn people?
Quick roundup & then I’m outta here
By this time tomorrow I’ll be at JFK airport, probably getting grilled about my associations by humorless Shin Bet agents. That’s right, kids, they’re sending me to Israel, so this is your last mess of links to my regular obsessions until at least the 15th. Keep my side of the bed warm, wouldja?
MOBYLIVES announces new occasional feature on “unusual book events given by something other than the usual suspects” to be written by MHP-author Zachary German. I’m not sure what any of that means, exactly, but Zachary’s first post is about Dennis Cooper’s conversation with Tony O’neill, which took place at the Bryant Park Reading Room the week of BEA. Also, Time Out New York digs Ugly Man. Also^2, Dennis posted some really good vintage gay porn on his blog yesterday.
Pieces from Mathias Svalina’s “Play” are now available at This Recording. Other pieces from “Play” are available in the current issue of The Cupboard Pamphlet. A future issue of TCP, btw, will feature Joshua Cohen, who has an essay in the current issue of New Haven Review (heads up it’s a PDF): Hung Like an Obelisk, Hard as an Olympian: An alphabet of English-language literature in Paris.
A few weeks ago Dave Eggers gave a talk in NYC wherein he promised to personally email a reassurance that print isn’t dead to anyone who wanted one. He didn’t count on that promise getting leaked to the web, and then being flooded with emails. So personally sort of fell out of the question, but he did send a pretty amazing mass email out, about the future of indie publishing and newspapers. Someone else on this site should/will spend some more time parsing what he said, but in the meantime, Gawker has the full text of his letter.
Finally, the NYT asks “Is Slam in Danger of Going Soft?” There are two possible answers: First, obviously, is “who cares?” The more nuanced approach, however, would be to say, “well, if the Times is covering it now, then the answer must be ‘yes–two and a half years ago.'” Either way, there’s really no good reason to click that link.
Later, kids.
Getting Back Into Getting Back Into Anarcho-Mysticism
This man wants to tell you something. Are you going to listen?
Was anyone else on this blog ever really into Hakim Bey (aka Peter Lamborn Wilson), author of such classics as Pirate Utopias, The Temporary Autonomous Zone: Ontological Anarchy and Poetic Terrorism, and myriad other political/philosophical/religious tracts and edicts? As I mentioned the other day, I recently re-bought and am now re-reading DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, and one of the most powerful scenes in that novel–which I’d pretty much forgotten about, until I re-encountered it–is of billionaire Eric Packer’s white stretch limo getting caught up in the middle of an anti-globalization demonstration that suddenly breaks out into a Seattle ’99-style riot.
Seriously Not Safe For Work! Ernie Conrick’s GOLDEN HEMORRHOIDS
This is my second inappropriate post in a row. I feel like a fifteen year old boy with a constant hardon who skips school to look at porn magazines behind the 7/11. Any day now, I’m going to write a nice book review, but in the meantime….what follows is a video of the writer Ernie Conrick reading a very outrageous story called “Golden Hemorrhoids”. I had the great pleasure of hearing him read the story that night- it was very much the highlight of the evening in a “Holy Shit” sort of way. Mixing politcs and anal sex, man. I had a drink with him afterward- I love this guy. He also has a fucking brilliant, different story in the Susie Bright edited anthology, X: The Erotic Treasury (click here to go to the incomparabe Susie Bright’s blog and to learn more about her latest book). Oh, and he’s also the author (under a different name) of The Upside Down Tree: India’s Changing Culture, which you can read more about by clicking here.
Rumpus/Giant/6word Contest: WE HAVE A WINNER
Congratulations to JENNIFER, for her winning entry in yesterday’s contest. Here’s what she wrote-
I have always been my opposite.
[Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides]
Runners up, honorable mentions & other details after the jump, but first: TO ALL THOSE OF YOU WHO DID NOT WIN / ENTER: WHY NOT COME TO THE EVENT ANYWAY? TICKETS ARE STILL AVAILABLE, AND THE LINE-UP KEEPS GETTING BIGGER AND MORE AWESOME. THIS MORNING THEY ANNOUNCED THE ADDITION OF AMANDA PALMER FROM THE DRESDEN DOLLS.
What’s Up, Rumpus?
Well, let’s see, shall we?
“A Faithful Grope in the Dark” – Joshua Mohr writes about trying–and failing–to place his first novel, Some Things that Meant the World to Me, with a major publisher, and then finding a happy home at Two Dollar Radio (publishers of Rudolph Wurlitzer and the new Gary Indiana).
I then spoke with a former editor at several major publishing houses and asked how she knew what would sell. “It’s a crapshoot,” she said. Her tone wasn’t smug or ambivalent; the calm way she conveyed this sentiment made it feel honest.
“The Last Book I Loved” is an ongoing Rumpus feature. Right now they’ve got David Ebershoff on City of Theives. Recently they also had friend-of-Giant (or is that Giant Friend?) Kevin Sampsell on Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Lincoln Michel on Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, and person-who-is-me Justin Taylor on Bleak House.
Also, the latest installment of Peter Orner’s column devoted to the short story, The Lonely Voice, is about John Edgar Wideman.
Oh Also too, if you live in NYC, know that the Rumpus is coming. The NYC event, You Are Not Alone, is May 30. You can get more info about the event (Eugene Mirman, Anthony Swofford, Amy Tan, the list goes one…) here, or check back in with Giant early next week when we’ll be giving some tickets to it with some sort of contest that’s so simple and fun and right-on that I still haven’t figured out what it will be.
You Must Be This Tall To Ride Anthology
Folks,
A new anthology, called ‘You Must Be This Tall To Ride’ is a collection of ‘Coming of Age’ stories (fiction and nonfiction alike) and includes some nuclear writers such as Michael Martone, Aimee Bender, Dan Chaon, Kate Bernheimer, Stuart Dybek, etc etc etc. Furthermore for all you teacher folks out there, each story includes a ‘craft essay’ which explains the process of writing these stories which can prove beneficial to your little aspiring Stephanie Meyers.
In other words, this thing rocks; more info (and submission guidelines for book version 2.0) at http://www.youmustbethistalltoride.net/
Muumuu fantasy gmail chat
Tao Lin will never publish me, so I did it for him.