httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6PSbUl_68k
Two things for you to do if you live where I live and like things like things I like, which maybe if you are like me you will, or if you aren’t like me but you like me, or if you don’t like me and want to know where you can find me because you want to find me there so you can hit me when you find me, which, please, do not do because I don’t deserve that kind of treatment because I didn’t do anything to deserve it, unless I did, and don’t remember or didn’t realize, which is totally possible, but still please don’t hit me
First a reminder that The New York Tyrant event for #7 and for BABY LEG BY BRIAN EVENSON kicks off in just a few hours. Details at Blake’s post from the other day.
Also, I am reading on Monday 11/23 at PS122, with the Wu Ming Collective, that group of Italians who write novels together. I will (probably) be reading from my novel-in-progress. If I don’t chicken out or otherwise lose my shit, this will be the first public reading of material from the ostensible “book.” I don’t know what Wu Ming will be doing. Details at the event’s Facebook page.
No Easy Cure for Novel-Nausea
Zadie Smith has a long essay in The Guardian that is half about David Shields’s forthcoming, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, and half about her own frustration with novel writing. Go read it. It’s longish, but it is completely worth the time. I am not going to include an excerpt here. Once you’ve read all of it, read the rest of this entry. READ MORE >
eBooks are probably going to pass away within 10 years
There is no way to sustain interest in reading Catch-22 online. But does eBook also refer to handheld readers like the Nook (whick looks to kill the Kindle)? Cuz I dunno but those things might catch on.
Anyway, Jane Friedman, who used to be the head of HarperCollins but got retired, just started a company called Open Road Integrated Media with the guy who made the movies You Can Count on Me and Boys Don’t Cry (fuckin ICK) (JK). They’re like millionaires or whatever and their plan is to release 750-1000 eBooks next year. Their strategy is to use an unnamed platform to promote the titles on blogs and Twitter. Read about it at NYTimes.
Really what they are is a content marketing system. They’re “publishing” old books which are, you know, like already typed up and stuff, and maybe mostly public domain (I dunno), and don’t need to be manufactured etc — so it’s pretty smart of them to recognize the real work is in marketing the titles. Their secret marketing discovery is the real story. They call it a “multi-platform universe.”
And they’re going to offer self-publishing services. So POD is now ePOD. I think what this means is you send them your book as a PDF (designed to their specs) and they’ll plug it into their doohickey and put you out there for consumption. Which seems like a weird doublething, if you try to think of them as a publisher. Which is how I think of people who put out stories by William Styron and Pat Conroy. But then if they also publish my self-published book, either my book isn’t self-published or they aren’t publishers.
Which I guess is why they call themselves a content marketing company.
Which I guess is just another kiss farewell to doing books with editors and junk.
So maybe not in 10 years, but someday we’re all going to die. In the meantime I’m going to go reread Heidegger’s essay “The Thing,” which I’m sure I can find online somewhere.
Power Quote: Beavis
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdmSFXKM_QU
“I think that the problem with this video is it is highly derivative of many popular bands within the genre. Although when viewed on its own merits, it does have a deeper groove. However what it has in groove it lacks in originality. One can’t help but be reminded of such bands as Pearl Jam, White Zombie, Suicidal Tendencies and other bands that bear the mantle of so called “Alternative Rock.” One is even reminded of Laurie Anderson when she wore curlers. This video speaks less to the heart and more to the sphincter. In closing, I think Korn would do well to learn more from…”
— Beavis and Butt-head
Friday Fuck Books, Let’s Us All Fall.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZSXlNvAiI
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m2lfk4Bm34
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utjyI3WpGNg
Blake Butler—
Some say Thomas Pynchon got nabbed of the 1974 Pulitzer for Gravity’s Rainbow due to a majority of the presiding panel’s distaste for his scene where our hero eats feces out of the ass of a prostitute (not to mention a very particular description of what sort of whose anatomy the protruding waste reminds our hero of). Indeed, it’s a pretty hard scene to shake after reading. What are some of the scenes in books that are most indelibly in your mind, and what do you think it is about them that makes them stick there?
I Like My Students a Lot
I asked my Introduction to Fiction students to ‘creatively reinterpret’ a story from the Anchor Book of New American Short Stories (or another story/book at my discretion). They were to turn in a creative project and an essay reflecting upon and explaining their project. The goal of the assignment was to get the student to try to consider reading stories and telling stories from a new perspective, to let him or her be creative and examine that creativity, and to step away from the standard ‘lit-crit’ essay. Many of these projects were, I think anyhow, a nice break from the grind, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. It’s these sorts of things I’ll miss about teaching.
After the break, you can have a quick look at four projects (posted with permission of the students). These are just a few of the great projects I saw. Other students wrote diary entries for the characters, made scrapbooks and photo albums to narrate the story, rewrote the endings (“Do Not Disturb” by AM Homes received this treatment quite a bit), illustrated various scenes. One student planned a three course meal based on “Sea Oak” by George Saunders; she brought pumpkin pie squares in for the class. Another student set up and video recorded four interviews with actors, two of which were based on characters from “Do Not Disturb” by AM Homes and “The Girl In The Flammable Skirt” by Aimee Bender. The other two interviews dealt with real events in the actors’ lives. The idea was to examine the similarities between fiction and reality. Finally, another student wrote and recorded a punk song based on Sam Lipsyte’s “I’m Slavering.” The song was supposed to be a demo tape from Gary’s days of trying to be a rock star despite his having a dead thumb.
More below the thing. Enjoy.