Blake Butler—
Another killer interview from Michael Kimball, this time with Brian Evenson, at the Faster Times.
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Michael Kimball Interviewed on NPR
Unless you’re weird, you probably already listened to Giant amigo Michael Kimball’s interview on NPR. It’s about his project, Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (On a Postcard), which, unless you’re weird, you’re probably already hip to, too.
I thought the interview was great, that what he said was about more than his project, and more than a criticism of Facebook culture — that we’re all promoting ourselves but no one cares — but it was about a profound sort of other-centeredness, about Story and the importance of getting to know the story of other people’s lives.
I’d say more but I gotta go read some Levinas. What did you think of the interview?
Oh, and check out this video of Blaster Al Ackerman reading for the 60 Writers movie Michael’s making with Luca Dipierro (I know, Sam linked to one yesterday but what the heck, my man was just interviewed on NPR).
Blake Butler—
June issue of Elimae is now live with many wonderful words, as well as a particularly interesting interview of Unsaid’s David McLendon by Michael Kimball.
NEW LAM-COL DEPLETES HEMORRHOIDS WITH A WARM PIN
there is a new lamination colony. lamination colony is by far my favorite online journal. the new lam-col was edited by michael kimball, who i’m assuming is the brother of detective john kimball from kindergarten cop. so far i liked the work by michael bible, adam robinson and gena “thug life” mohwish.
Uncategorized / 29 Comments
March 31st, 2009 / 11:18 pm
March 31st, 2009 / 11:18 pm
‘I Will Smash You’
Michael Kimball and Luca Dipierro have been working for a while now on a video project, ‘I Will Smash You,’ which entails, essentially, videos of people smashing stuff, most often items germane in some way to their life.
A new trailer for the film features Michael Kimball going to town on a desk, which is a dark fantasy I live through almost every day. It is nice to see the release contained:
Crystal Gavel, New Lights Press, Michael Kimball don’t ever change (your jacket)
Sean Lovelace turned me on to his new Ander Monson-inspired journal, The Crystal Gavel (v1). This first issue features new work from Ander Monson, Darby Larson, Daniel Bailey, yours truly and more. Not just anyone can get published there, though: Amazon is handling the rejections.
This is an important idea, really. Fight absurdity because it is yours to defeat. I am excited to see what’ll happen in issue 2.
So what else is new?
Aaron Cohick of New Lights Press, the wizard that brought us the $400 Brian Evenson book (no shit, $400 – I offered Cohick $200 cash on the spot for a copy and he declined — what an ethos! Eat it, JA Tyler and your $2 Evensons [do we need a link?]!) is looking for writers who want to work with him on an artist book version of their work. Check out the press, consider it carefully, see what happens.
Also, I really, really like this video about Michael Kimball and his book Dear Everybody (which, though it’s a pretty high-ranking book, has only half the reviews that the crystal gavel has) (eat it, Michael Kimball). Michael Kimball once published a poem in The Quarterly that went like this: Now Do You Remember?
This concludes my first ever HTML Giant mamma-jamma (sp?).
Michael Kimball, Postcard Genius et al
If you haven’t heard by now, Michael Kimball, who I also like to think of as a genie who broke through his own bottle, was recently inducted into the Guinness Book for International King of Postcards.
Over the past few months, Kimball has been working on a series of postcards in which, after speaking to his subject for a while, he condenses their life story into a text small enough to fit on the back of a postcard. Then he mails them the postcard. It’s a pretty peculiar experience, to receive this little piece of paper that encapsulates you into these amazing microwords, lanced by Kimball’s stellar, steady eye. Me, I can’t even draw a decent sketch of a dude’s head.
The results, besides being in the mail, have been cataloged online at his postcard life stories blog. Among others, you can read, in less than a couple minutes, the lives of folks like Kim Chinquee, Adam Robinson, Myfanwy Collins, Josh Maday, Jen Michalski, and a wide range of people from out of nowhere. The scope of the thing is just kind of flabbergasting: Kimball as a filter for all these people’s years. I can’t imagine anyone else capable of such an undertaking.
Oh, and besides all that, he just so happens to have also published one of the hottest, most innovative books of the year.
