httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b6Zxj_YWng
Better, Gene?
Friday Fuck Books, Let’s Do That Dance Where It Looks Like We’re Running In Place
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGV9G2okC8I
11 Questions for Stephanie Johnson
How do you make these graphics of the book cover standing up, showing fake pages?
I sent 11 questions to Stephanie Johnson about her book, One of These Things Is Not Like the Others, just out from Keyhole, and she wrote back thanking me for my close reading. But such thanks are unnecessary; the book demands and rewards it. If you don’t read One of These Things with a keen eye, it’s possible to miss out on some of the best writing in a year of great writing. I rank Johnson’s book with two of my other favorites of 2009, AM/PM by Amelia Gray and Big World from Mary Miller. It’s not because they’re all women that I make the comparison, or because of the flash sensibilities, but because they all share a profoundly affecting emotional core that, geyserlike, does most of its work below the surface.
Speaking of below the surface, Stephanie Johnson’s answers to my eleven questions are below the fold. READ MORE >
html giant vs. htmlgiant
word.
It’s really hard to make a new compound word, especially when one of those ‘words’ is an acronym. Those of us born before, say, 1990 will remember that html stands for “hypertext markup language.” That the former two words are themselves compound words leads this post to a place a don’t wanna go. 70% of the time people searched the erroneous “html giant,” which I think points to a reluctance, even skepticism, of new words. I wonder how long it took for “the morrow” to become “tomorrow.” The revolutionaries wanted it today, and they said the morrow. So I say to you today: htmlgiant
Power Quote: Henry James
Stole this from my friend Usedbuyer 2.0. It’s quite good:
“The American was thin, dry, fine, with something in his face which seemed to say that there was more in him of the spirit than of the letter.”
From The Modern Warning
A Book That Books What A Book Would Do
Does anybody know anything about this book, The City and the City? I heard it discussed on Morning Edition today and had one of those driveway moments or whatever. It sounds flabbergasting. Apparently, it’s a detective story that takes place in a city that has another city right on top of it — but not, like, above it — both cities occupy the same space. It was funny to hear Robert Siegel trying to wrap his mind around it.
I don’t know more than that, but here’s a good review at The Guardian. I’ve never read anything by China Miéville, but this concept has me intrigued enough to maybe buy his book from wherever people buy these books from and bring it on the road with me next week.
Justin Taylor—
NYC REMINDER: Lutz, Schmburg & Krusoe at St. Mark’s series at SOLAS Bar TONIGHT. Details here.
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Sam Pink—
sean lovelace releases his new chapbook HOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE THEIR EGGS (rose metal press) onto the world much like a mean janitor releasing the class pet just to make everyone sad. read an excerpt here. the excerpt is really good. it has fullness.
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FENCES by BEN BROOKS
ben brooks wrote a book called FENCES. fugue state press published it. james chapman (editor) mailed it to me recently. it is fucking righteous. i read it in like two hours. i couldnt stop. most important to me was my ability to concentrate on it. lately i have a bad attention span but this book booted that lack in the throat. FENCES contains some of the strongest lines i have read in a while. it’s not a book for someone looking for a traditional story or anything. it’s more like a somewhat-narrative poem. but for real, it’s so well done. you can feel the filth of solitude from the very beginning where the narrator is “in a hole” where “nicotine eyes” stare at him. the book then seems to progress by branching off endlessly into different tracts of hopeless love, self-hatred and general dismay. this book is the message left by a burning tree blowing ash against the side of a garage where inside a man huffs gas to feel like a king. the biggest success of this book to me was how disconnected it was while remaining engaging. fuck. good job ben. don’t kill yourself yet.