It is Friday: Go Right Ahead

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you’re going to do a good job with it

I want to wrangle. Who wants to wrangle?

Arc of delight

Bumped into the commode!

Oohh, look what we have here (scotch under car seat)

That morning she pours Teacher’s over my belly and licks it off

I need a festival

Here is some math: fuck plus you

Hummers? What are hummers? Hummers are time-controlled shots of liquor

Look, counsel and process the events, or

decorate the loaf. Send it to the oven

Friends, I thought this was living. A house where no one was home, and all I could drink.

Random / 10 Comments
April 30th, 2010 / 5:22 pm
—

how long is a book though

60

5 for Freakin

1. Kevin Sampsell’s Book Notes playlist for A Common Pornography, in the style of Joe Brainard @ Large Hearted Boy
2. Alissa Nutting’s writing desk in Las Vegas @ Las Vegas Weekly
3. Lindsay Hunter fucks up some baby @ Everyday Genius
4. Forte Magazine is wtf.
5. Friday po it up with that trunk

Roundup / 14 Comments
April 30th, 2010 / 1:20 pm
—

what’s it feel like to hold your own book for the very first time?

28

Representation Without Taxation

I find myself obsessed with two things this morning, the first being the viral video of Lin Yu Chun singing a flawless rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RgXC303Q5A&feature=related

The second artist Alexa Meade, who paints human flesh so that the subject appears to be a painting rather than a living person; the backgrounds, too, are painted to look like a painting, thereby making a photo look painted:

What is the literary equivalent to Lin Yu Chun’s uncannily flawless performance? How do we complete these analogies; what are the X’s in

“Lin Yu Chun : Whitney Houston” as “Writing : X” ? Or the more direct, “Photograph : Painting that looks like a photograph” as “Writing : X” ?

Music & Web Hype / 10 Comments
April 30th, 2010 / 12:38 pm
—

Do you read YA fiction?  If not, why not?  Did you read it when you were younger, and then stop?  On some level do you consider it “less respectable” to read or write it than to read/write literary fiction for adults?  Can you define the difference?  If you wrote a novel intended for adults with an adolescent protagonist and a publisher said they’d take it but only if they could market it as a YA novel, would that be cool with you?

127

winner winner hot sauce dinner

Ok, for the “Wink Wink” contest, the 2010 results are in!

It was tough, very tough–like counting lilies in a pond or bicycling on a bowling lane tough–to reach a decision.

I want to thank everyone including the various ANONs who turned in the usual crudely sexual themes. The internet could not exist without you, ANONs of the world.

The winner is “twice, never again” by Tom.

I found it ambiguous in a satisfying way, as opposed to confusing. I found I could read off-the-page and feel personal (I’ve felt this way with drugs, diet sodas, noodle shops, certain bedroom follies, etc.) but also universal (forgiveness of_____, themes of relationships, guilt, etc.). I thought it worthy of a late-night ponder. It generated momentum. It did not teach or preach. It appealed to my deeper self.

Congratulations, Tom. Send me an email (leapsloth14@hotmail.com) with address for your book, hot sauce, and deck of cards.

Finalists include:

“spooning in church” by Ben Brooks and “Corby trouser press” by Donald.

Look out in 2011 for Wink Wink 2.

Contests / 15 Comments
April 30th, 2010 / 9:57 am

Good Advice

The new issue of Gulf Coast features a roundtable between Matthew Rohrer, Heather Christle, Matthew Zapruder, & Zachary Schomburg on what “surrealism” means today in American poetry.

Most interesting is what Matthew Rohrer says about surrealism and optimism.

READ MORE >

Craft Notes & Power Quote / 10 Comments
April 30th, 2010 / 9:32 am

Batter my heart, third-person omniscient god

Unicorn Mask print by Matty8080

What is your preferred point of view? Your go-to voice when you write, if you write, or the one you’re happiest to see when you open a new book? Can you use second-person without feeling like a wanker? Do you love “I” for its accessibility, its steadfastness, its immediacy–the narrative fuzzy bedroom slippers ever  at the foot of your crafty little bed? Because I can be “me” but “not-me,” whereas you is always only you, and third-person, well, forget it. That actually starts to feel like work.

READ MORE >

Craft Notes & Vicarious MFA / 41 Comments
April 30th, 2010 / 2:03 am

Live Giants with Michael Kimball

You missed the 4th Live Giants reading with Michael Kimball, and Andy Devine.

Through tomorrow you can get Devine’s Words for $8 from PG here.

Consider checking out their work, here and here.

Web Hype / 42 Comments
April 29th, 2010 / 9:14 pm