Please remember
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
i am poor; oh i know, ill buy more stuff
I’m sure a lot of people are getting this in their mailbox. I received it twice, so I figured I’d add to the chaos of the universe and post it here. McSweeney’s is having a sale to promote being poor. It’s cute, just like potty training, and it’ll probably work. I’m seriously thinking about buying some books or something from them.
Here’s the email:
M c S W E E N E Y ‘ S C R A Z Y E X C E S S I V E S A L E
Crazy Excessive Sale through this Friday, November 21.
Cheap, fast, painless, mutually beneficial. Also, good books. Do not deprive your loved ones! Please go now: store.mcsweeneys.net
Want more? How about this: if you spend over $60, you get a FREE copy of either Nick Hornby’s new collection Shakespeare Wrote for Money or Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends. All you have to do is spend $60 (not including shipping) at our online store; then, at the bottom left of the first page of checkout, find the field for Promo Code. In this field, type in the code for the book you’d like:
– MAPS AND LEGENDS promo code: MC01
– SHAKESPEARE WROTE FOR MONEY promo code: NH05
You feel poor. We feel poor. Let’s feel poor together. This week only, almost everything is half-price at store.mcsweeneys.net. Escape the holiday rush and cross every name off your list in one cheap swoop.Angsty cousin? All Known Metal Bands. New fan? The Better of McSweeney’s. Paleontologist in the family? “What Happens in La Brea Tar Pits Stays in La Brea Tar Pits” t-shirt. Newlyweds spending their first winter together? The Secret Language of Sleep. Michael Cera fan? Wholphin No. 6. And so on — we’ve got all your bases covered, and it’s all excessively discounted, all right here.
Do it. And good luck. The economy can only get better.
Coldfront reviews the National Book Award poetry nominations
Uncategorized / 6 Comments
November 19th, 2008 / 4:24 pm
November 19th, 2008 / 4:24 pm
Are you Henry Mansfield
I owe Monkeybicycle a lot. My first ever print publication was with them. One of my first online pieces appeared on their site. And for a brief time, they turned editing duties for their site to me—probably long before I was really ready to do it, too.
The last thing published before I took over (the last thing edited by Shya Scanlon) was this piece:
America Fell In Love with the Explosions Technician
Did you read it? Go read it. It rules. It seriously rules. It makes my top ten best fucking things published online list. (As does the previously linked to Thomas Game Boy thing Gene wrote.)
At some point during my tenure as the editor, I wrote to this person, this “Henry Mansfield” and attempted to solicit more work. I never heard back from him. I’ve never seen anything else by him online.
So I figure its a pseudonym. But I can’t be 100% sure.
Dear reader, are you Henry Mansfield? Say hello! Write to me at giantblinditems at gmail dot com.
Dear reader, find Henry Mansfield! Dear reader, let’s make a saint of Henry Mansfield.
Dear reader, write the hagiography of Henry Mansfield in the comments. A prize for my favorite.
Faux-Democratizing Links Section * Opportunity Knoxxxxxx
In the spirit of broadening the Giant’s beholden link section (**SELF AGGRANDIZING CONTAINED** since our link taste is so badass), and because we already have established ourselves firmly in the elite anti-email response genre of outfits like Octopus, Action Yes, Pitchfork, Dump Tumumbulum, and etc., here is your opportunity to help us help ourselves so that we quit looking like secret handshakehandjob daddies (which we are).
The links section of the Giant (seen to the right here, and inclusive of only a small smattering of print presses and online journals, etc.) was constructed in about 8 minutes of ‘this is what I look at most’ from one editor’s head. The sole criterion, outside of being places often frequented, was that the aesthetic of the journal, or such places, is in its own way singular and tasty. That is, no ug pieces and no ga-ga. Beyond this short list, there are several many places I go at to do looks, but these are the ones I thought of in those 8 minutes.
Now, readers, I open it up to you: who should we be linking. All suggestions will be taken whole-heartedly, if then either ignored or scoffed at for their self-pointing, or just laziness, or just because the whole intentionally smarmy tone insists that we now ignore any fruits that are borne from it.
Really we like a lot of people, and we just haven’t felt the urge.
But yeah, let’s hear it. What should be linked? Should we include authors or just institutions? What deserves attention? How many people we aren’t already sucking on read this site anyway?
How far up my own ass should my fist fit?
Am I getting older too fast? Is the Sunn o))) discography a bunch of ass-palpitating bullshit or is the sound my refrigerator makes actually a deleted Steve Reich composition?
What happened to all the tits?
Dick and tit submissions are mailable to htmlgiant [at] gmail [dot] com 24/7/364 (fuck you, I sleep on Thanksgiving).
Eyeshot’s Readerly Resonance Chamber
Lee Klein, an official HTMLGIANT massive person, under the pseudonym ‘Throop Roebling,’ has been writing reviews of books and music (in his ‘upon listening’ series) sporadically in eyeshot for sometime. Throop has also been known to publish amazing stories in eyeshot, no doubt nepotism, especially this (mock?) homage to the last chapter in Ulysses.
Anyways, Klein has unmasked himself (or at least I am right now) with eyeshot’s new “Readerly Resonance Chamber,” wherein the vigorous writer peruses and pursues a handful of books. Klein has a meaty way with words, and thoughts, and I can’t wait for more. My reading list just swelled, and comparing myself to Klein, my brain just shrunk.
Uncategorized / 15 Comments
November 19th, 2008 / 1:07 pm
November 19th, 2008 / 1:07 pm
this morning in breathless, endless, pointless Tao Lin coverage
If you don’t already know from having seen it on his own blog (where I found it), you might or might not be interested to know that a person named P.H. Madore has posted something he calls 8,794 Rambling Words On Tao Lin. I don’t know what it is about Tao that somehow, simply by existing in the world, he is able to bring out the stupid in otherwise reasonable people–or else to bring out the stupid people into otherwise reasonable discourse.
I’m always in the tank for Tao’s writing, and I’m usually in support of whatever bizarre culture-jam or e-bay auction or stunt he’s got going on, but man–his super-fans are just some of the most irritating fucking people you’ll ever encounter.
As soon as I saw that Part One of this post was entitled “Half-Assed Introductory Words,” I started yawning. I can’t stand it when people start out by telling me what a piece of crap the thing I’m about to read is. Why do so many writers do this?
SELF-FLAGELLATION #1: YOUR PERFORMATIVE SELF-ABUSE REVEALS ITSELF AS A CRY FOR ATTENTION AND PITY.
I thought to myself, who is P.H. Madore? So I skipped the next 8790 words, and went down to his bio note, which reads >>P. H. Madore was once a finalist in Riot Lit’s novel contest. That novel sucked, but you can read it and other stuff through his website, freemadore.<< More self-abuse. How charming. Also, I’m sure Riot Lit (whatever that is) will be thrilled to know that the novel they almost published “sucked,” though in all fairness to Madore, it probably did, which in turn begs the question: why would anyone want to read it? It would be easy–perhaps, too easy–to read this bio solely through the lens of S-F#1, pictured above. But friends, before you jump to hasty conclusions, consider another option:
SELF-FLAGELLATION #2: YOU ARE ACTUALLY VERY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS--AND GUESS WHAT? I STILL DON'T CARE.
Anyway, the rest of the post is a lot of transcribed g-chats, emails between Madore and Tao, categorically idiotic assertions such as “Tao Lin is a better artist than Andy Warhol,” and a section on a dozen writers who Madore considers Tao Lin “followers.” “[M]ight be you can count me among them,” he writes. Good company! A few lines down, he tells the followers not to lose heart, because “[a]rticles like this will be written about each of them one day…” Don’t worry Gene Morgan, everyone grows at their own special pace! Keep drinking milk! You too, Brandon Scott Gorrell!
Was the young William T. Vollmann a Tao Lin follower?
If I had to identify one truly, unimpeachably excellent thing about this post, it would be that somewhere in the middle of it there’s a link to this picture:
Don’t worry, Ellen Kennedy! Even though P.H. Madore ranks you with the other followers, he knows that you’ve got your “own things going on.”
Ryan & Christy Call’s POCKET FINGER
New from Publishing Genius:
Wow. POCKET FINGER represents a new level of ‘wow, fuck’ from Adam Robinson, the Publishing Genius. Insane and beautiful enfolded images from the clearly new and intricately spare imagery of Christy Call, meshed with bro-for-life Ryan’s knack to meld the everyday of fathers, fishing, and tradition with some tonally-wicked phrasing.
Read the shit out of this.
Tyrant on Tyrant: 3 Sentences
A GUEST TRANSMISSION from the great GIANCARLO DITRAPANO of NEW YORK TYRANT:
Hello, great minds of HTML. Blake has been kind enough to let me put up this post. Thanks, Blake.
Now here’s the post:
The New York Tyrant made a new website and re-opened submissions. We wanted to try something new. The deal is this: We only accept regular mail submissions now, but if you insist on sending electronically, please test the waters with the THREE BEST SENTENCES from your story. If we like it, you will be asked to email the rest of it to us for consideration. If not, back to the drawing board. So the writing/submitting world kind of has a gamble. In all honesty, I wanted to taper off the amount of electronic submissions, but not lose a potentially great story written by a writer that is perhaps too lazy to make it to the post office. Say you have a complete story in hand. Is it fair to reject the story after reading just a couple of sentences? Is it perhaps MORE fair to reject it if ALL you have is three sentences? Could this perhaps benefit the writer, by making them find the best three sentences of their work? Will this make them concentrate more on the sentences they compose, just in case they are planning on submitting to NYTYRANT’s weird new submissions policy? Should I feel bad about the environment because I am accepting only regular mail submissions? Does this perhaps SAVE the trees by rejecting writers electronically and keeping them from printing one out to send in the mail? Am I concentrating too much on “sentences” rather than narrative? Is this stepping away from “short fiction” and stepping towards something…else? Is it possible that many bad sentences can, in concert, make a beautiful story? What, after all, is the big deal with great sentences?
Some examples of what we have received so far. Would you tell the writer to “send more” or ask them to resist? (I have left the authors names off.) (Yes, some aren’t even three sentences. Writers never follow the rules. Bravi, writers!)
Writer A sent this:
It is impossible for you to understand anything else about my disposition unless you can understand just how emotional a thing as simple as drapery can make me; how on days when the sky is filthy with grey clouds I find myself sitting in that very room, anxiously struggling to solve the dilemma of whether I should wait for the light or seek my shelter. I could cry for hours on a day like that, I swear.
Writer B sent this:
Ironically, sunny warm Florida in North America to a cold rainy mountain city in Latin America. There are worse things than rain. Thinking you’ll be alone forever is one of them.
Writer C sent this:
The name of my agency came to me when I saw the movie I Am Legend with a hottie named Stella who kept saying I reminded her of Will Smith, although he’s a whole lot balder, has much bigger ears and a darker complexion. So I had it painted on my office windows facing Cabrini Playground here on Barracks Street in the Lower French Quarter — I Am Adventure. Catchy, right?
Thank you for your thoughts! Sorry for such a long post. Hope it isn’t too boring.
P.S. Two parts: Who is the guy from Rome Review blowing to get an interview with Junot Diaz and pieces from Heti and Means without even having one damn issue out yet?? And B, who do I call to offer the same service, only longer and better and with more slobber?
Uncategorized / 90 Comments
November 18th, 2008 / 12:50 pm
November 18th, 2008 / 12:50 pm
The New Socks Economy
Thanks to Brian Foley’s sharp eyes, here is a terrific NY Times profile on Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift, the contemporary artist’s Bible and parking meter guide to plying our (or “their,” if you hate artists and you just came to this blog looking for our we’re-a-real-literature-blog practice of Boobs Friday) “trade” in an era of commodified everything, when you have to explain how poetry is supposed to make you the skrilla. We don’t even have patrons anymore! So how–ask the barrel-chested Rotary Club wardens of the world–is poetry supposed to seat us cleanly on the respectable cultural (read: cash exchanging) train of gravy? Hyde is the original and saintly articulator of the “gift economy” theory, which answers that question by pointing out how commodity trading economies throughout histories have cordoned off space for an alternate system of exchanges based on gifting, giving things to people as gifts and accepting gifts in return, where you have 1 to 1 value (“oh, that is your gift, here is my gift”) and not weighted currency (“two of your sheep for eight of my fingernails”). This system builds its own communities based on–think Christmas afternoon–a kind of buzzy empathy.
Though I’ve never read Hyde, I’ve heard enough about this “gift economy” idea second and thirdhand to understand the basic principles, and I’ve always been kind of skeptical. Not because I’m into making bank off my litter-a-churr, but because I’m a little uncomfortable with the whole idea of “gifts,” the latent obligations of them (“dear grandma, thank you for the lizard balls”) and their harrowing ideological weight (“’tis tradition, young man, this gift giving!”). “Gifting” seems to formalize in some unnatural and self-congratulatory (self meaning group self here) way a process that should feel, I don’t know, more humble and altruistic or something. If we want to trade poetry, why can’t we just trade poetry? Maybe it’s just that the whole “gift economy” idea seems to be apologizing to the capitalists (“oh, here it is in a way you can understand, you know Christmas, right? you know about the ‘gift’ of talent?”), and that leaves a shitty aftertaste.
But! Like I said, I’ve never actually read the silly book. And this profile makes Hyde’s philosophy seem really appealing. All the ideas about how we’re communally developed, for instance, and how whatever genius might arise is not unique but accumulated: that sounds good. So maybe I will read the book now. And I’ll like gifts more.
What thinketh the commentariat?