From Lapham’s Quarterly, via Chris DeWeese
Ben Mirov’s Ghost Machine
This book is freaky, incredible, and one of my favorite sublime objects in a long while.
You can buy it from Caketrain for $8.
An Open, Earnest Letter to People Who Like Gruesomeness in Books & Film
This is your brain on fear. As it turns out, Hippocampus isn't fat camp for Latin nerds.
Dear People,
I’m the pain in the ass who makes deciding on a movie en masse impossible. But is it violent? How violent is it, if it is? Do animals get murdered? Do children get murdered? Eventually we’ll decide on a bonehead comedy or a beautifully shot Icelandic film about rafts in the gloaming.
Let’s Get That City Good and Opened
Three pieces of news from our friends at the other O.C (above, not left).
First, from the Department of How Time Flies- has it really been a year since the last Open City benefit? Well, judging by the fact that the linked-to post is from exactly a year ago tomorrow, I would say “yes.” Last year’s event, at the National Arts Club, featured (among other things) an open bar and a reading by Billy Collins–the two went very well together. This year the benefit is being held in a private residence (wanna bet it’s a nice one?), and will feature a reading by Walter Kirn, author most recently of Up in the Air, which you might remember that Hollywood liked so much they Clooneyed it. (Aside: anyone other than me remember (read= “love”) Kirn’s first book, My Hard Bargain, a taut, brutal little collection of stories edited by some guy named Gordon Lish?) Anyway, it ought to be clear to you by this point that whether it is publishing books and the magazine, or whether it’s fund-raising, the one thing Open City does not do is screw around. These guys define what it means to be indie without being small-time, by which I mean to simply say that I think they are great, but the casual reader may wish to steel her reserve before clicking through to check out all the details and price tickets. If it’s a bit out of your range (dollars-wise or distance-wise), no shame in treating yourself to a shiny new subscription, and/or a couple of books, and calling it a day.
Second, from the Department of Education. The First Annual Open City Summer Writing Workshop will be held at the NYU Writers House over a long weekend in high July. The core faculty is Thomas Beller, Jason Brown, Martha McPhee and Said Sayrafiezadeh. Visiting writers include Mary Gaitskill, Sam Lipsyte, Edmund White, David Goodwillie, and the great David Berman–plus a whole lot more; interested parties should avail themselves of the full details, which live here. Good times!
Last but not least, the 2010 RRofihe Trophy is currently accepting submissions, and will be through October 15. At first I thought (read=”hoped”) that this somehow had something to do with Katie Roiphe, but it turns out to really about short fiction, which is pretty good, too. It’s a contest, to be judged by Rick Rofihe of anderbo.com, and the winner gets $500, an actual trophy, and publication in Open City.
And that’s pretty much everything I can possibly tell you about Open City, short of the colors of their underwears. Reader–would that I could.
Will the Open City benefit look like the above? Mischa Barton wonders, but is sad because she knows that she will probably never find out.
1st trip 2 the pub
Ok, George Saunders first published in that little Conde Naste magazine out of New York City. But this was (I think) my first publication. They claim to be “Reviews from Rural America.” The last two pages are poems, and this is where I appear, with a little ditty about squirrel hunting. Mimeographed, 10 pages, 3 staples, out of Healdsburg, CA, a Misty Hill Press production. This was 1996. I can find nothing about the publication now, though I did locate a Misty Hill Press, in another California town.
I was/am happy to begin with a stapled together newsletter. There is a sort of ladder (naturally subjective) to these things, and the process of climbing makes one a more serious/less serious (not a contradiction) and humble writer. Possibly. I certainly look back now at the title and have to give a chuckle. I teach a lot of beginning writers, and many, many of them need to understand it’s a hard row to hoe. Not impossible, just hard. Some of them seem to think the writer’s life is a water slide–just chuck yourself down. Wheeeeeeee. I prefer the image of the dirt field. Here’s your seeds and your gardening tool. Start hoeing and pray for rain.
Where were you first published?
Rule of Threes
1. Now you can screw around with magnetic poetry wherever you are.
2. Matt Hart’s new chapbook, The Hours, from Cinematheque Press is sure to be fucking fantastic. No, I haven’t read it yet, but if his other books are any indication…. And look at all their other good stuff.
3. I know Justin posted about Sommer Browning recently. But I want to reiterate: her tweets have been making me laugh for months. Her comic has been killing me since AWP.
Roxane Gay—
The Nepotist is a new magazine with an anonymous editor who simply wants to publish his or her friends, loosely construed. Maybe you will be invited into the inner circle!
4
Evidence of why there hasn’t been a good American film in 20 years
This is a half-scale, all CG simulation of the ‘elevator of blood’ from The Shining that I did just for amusement in spare hours. I never expected it to look exactly like the real thing. The RealFlow fluid sim uses only about 1.6 million particles and therefore appears thicker and ‘blobbyer’ than an actual water-like liquid at this scale. I think at least ten million particles would begin to look convincing, but since this took about a month to calculate and render on on I-7, 3.2gh quad core, it isnt practical to attempt more particles without a far more powerful and prohibitively expensive computer.
Sixth Mess Section
1. Alone, for one moment. –directions to performers from Erik Satie
2. Lutgardis, mystic. Born at Tongeren in 1182, died at Aywieres in 1246. Lutgardis’s family fobbed her off on a Benedictine nunnery when she was still a girl. In her mid-twenties she decided that she needed a more austere existence and so joined a group of Cistercian nuns near Brussels. There she levitated and dripped blood from her forehead and hair. –Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present” In Another Context
3. “Try going a day without it you’ll miss it Charlie–” –Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule is live
4. The Pharmako trilogy by Dale Pendell is a massive accomplishment, and great to read. You will want them. Look inside.
ADDITION: 5. The hallway of blood scene in The Shining, recreated with CGI. Look up.
SMIZE: Tyra Banks is Going to Write The Best Book Ever
Did you hear? The news broke late last week. Tyra Banks is going to become a YA author. For those of us who (used to) watch America’s Next Top Model, this is excellent news because now she will bring her signature flair to the written word. If you go to the website of her imprint, BANKABLE BOOKS, she helpfully explains how to pronounce the title of her first novel, Modelland. If you’re curious, that is Model Land. She also says, “I think Modelland is going to really touch the dreamer in all of us, whether you’re aged anywhere from 8 to 80.” This is good news for all of us.
Since the announcement, I’ve seen a lot of snark and garment rending and the sort of reaction that arises any time a celebrity or other literary untouchable (blogger) dares to dip their unanointed toes in the holy waters of literature. How dare they sully the serious work of the serious writer! Yes, I recognize that this is a fairly ridiculous situation–Tyra Banks with a three-book deal while we toil in obscurity is certainly frustrating but do any of us write anything remotely similar to Modelland? Does her book deal mean we won’t get one? Why do we so often begrudge certain writers their book deals? Is anyone else as excited as I am?