January 2009

Mean Monday: Again, Not Really Mean. But Where Are You, Land-Grant College Review?

Where ARE YOU!!???

Again, I am not really being mean here, but where are you people? Your issue number 4 (2007), which I own, is so great. Amazing work by Christine Schutt, Nicholas Montemarano and Kevin Wilson. Actually, all of the stories were rock solid and pushed the limits of what is allowed. And then?? And then -where are you people? Here is a fantastic bit from a deeply disturbing, amazing story called “The Lucky Ones Get to Be People” by Rachel Haley Himmelheber:

READ MORE >

Mean / 7 Comments
January 12th, 2009 / 8:24 pm

“Slush” by Joshua Cohen

Not sure if anybody’s noticed, but I’m a bit of a creature of habit. I like getting turned onto new stuff, sure, but once I’ve found something I like I tend to stick by it like a truly neurotic compulsive or perhaps like a faithful hound. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I was very happy to learn that Joshua Cohen, whose multi-part Nextbook essay about Kafka’s office writing I covered here, has a new piece of short fiction up at The Fanzine, which is a very cool site and probably not as widely known as it ought to be. So do yourself two favors: first, check out Cohen’s story, “Slush,” and second, start checking on Fanzine more often than you’ve been.  (if you want to do yourself a third favor, pink up a copy of The Weaklings, Dennis Cooper’s most recent collection of poems, which Fanzine published in a special illustrated limited edition of unlimited awesomeness.) Here’s the beginning of “Slush.”

 

Dear Aaron Priestly,

Thank you for letting us take a read on your manuscript. STORY OF MY LIFE was bold, and compelling, but ultimately I was not convinced that I was the right person to represent it. I just did not find this a must read. It did not click, I regret to inform. Nor did it hold ME. I find your premise lacking, quite. Good luck elsewhere (*I can no longer accept queries from writers who have not been previously published or who have not been referred to me by a colleague*)
    Please accept my very best wishes for the success of STORY OF YOUR LIFE. Though I did not fall in love with your story enough to continue reading it, I pass. We must pass. Obviously not for me, obviously. He, she, it, passes.

Author Spotlight & Excerpts / 1 Comment
January 12th, 2009 / 5:12 pm

Diode

wdibk

Diode v2n2 is now live, featuring work by:

Dilruba Ahmed
Aaron Anstett
Tamiko Beyer
Ash Bowen
Charlie Clark
Arpine Konyalian Grenier
Angela Hibbs
Dennis Hinrichsen
dawn lonsinger
Bobbi Lurie
Ron Mohring
George Moore
Deborah Poe
Patrick Rosal
Michael Salcman
Maureen Seaton
Floarea Ţuţuianu, trans. Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Giannetti
Jakob VanLammeren

Have a read.

Uncategorized / Comments Off on Diode
January 12th, 2009 / 4:27 pm

Michael Madsen is a Writer I’d Like to Fuck

Dear M n M- Fuck me-- Please?
I know what you all are thinking: Michael Madsen is not a writer! He is a movie star! That is cheating! Right? You think I am cheating. I am not cheating. Madsen has written more books of poetry (that you can check out here on his fabulous website)  than Viggo Mortenson (and he doesn’t show his anus and ballsack, like Viggo did in that Cronenburg movie, and like, made me feel less hot for Viggo, seeing that.  I do like Viggo. Maybe that will be another post.)

 Now, again, you are not going to really believe me here, but I don’t actually really LIKE movies stars, as a general rule. Firstly, I watch very few movies, because hockey doesn’t take place in them often enough. Secondly, once I saw this thing on TV about Russell Crowe and they were showing this “behind the scenes” thing and he was pretending (acting) all tough, and then they said “cut!” and he stopped acting ,and they came and fixed his hair. Like he was some girl, getting his hair fixed. Not sexy to me, acting.
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Author Spotlight / 54 Comments
January 11th, 2009 / 8:38 pm

FOUND/LOST/SALVAGED: The Recently Deflowered Girl, by Edward Gorey

My friend Alice Townes, layout editor at R2: The Rice Review, forwarded me this non-Rice-related link the other day to a post in the found_objects livejournal community. A guy named bo_bailey wrote: “I found this book on my friend’s 84-year-old landlord’s bookshelf. Published in 1965 with illustrations by Edward Gorey, I present to you The Recently Deflowered Girl.”

He posted scans of the whole book on Jan. 7th. Alice turned me onto it a couple days later. I fwded to my friend Amanda and planned to post on the book today. But then last night, while I was in Coney Island eating food from the  Mongolian-Russian border region and watching snow fall on the beach, Amanda was writing me back that the link I sent her didn’t work. So I tried opening it myself, and sure enough–the post seems to be gone. (If it revives in the same spot, it was here.)

Luckily, I still had the now-gone page open in my browser, so I saved all the jpegs, and was going to just post the thing myself, but then I decided to Google it first, and it turns out that some quicker-on-the-trigger fellow had already had that bright idea.  So, now with gratitude to Alice or the original tip, and to Joey Devilla for saving me a bit of work, I present to you: The Recently Deflowered Girl, by Edward Gorey.

Author Spotlight & Excerpts / 8 Comments
January 11th, 2009 / 12:47 pm

Swim Poem

for Barry

for Barry

 
The Nude Swim
by Anne Sexton

On the southwest side of Capri
we found a little unknown grotto
where no people were and we
entered it completely
and let our bodies lose all
their loneliness.

All the fish in us
had escaped for a minute.
The real fish did not mind.
We did not disturb their personal life.
We calmly trailed over them
and under them, shedding
air bubbles, little white
balloons that drifted up
into the sun by the boat
where the Italian boatman slept
with his hat over his face.

READ MORE >

Excerpts / 28 Comments
January 10th, 2009 / 2:15 pm

NERVE: THE FIRST TEN YEARS- Vote Now (or Later)! And an HTMLGIANT Contest!

Hey Cutie!

Hey Cutie!

Nerve is coming out with a best of the first ten years book, called Nerve: The First Ten Years. Vote for your favorite stories (and photographs) and make a writer happy. Also, I ate a very greasy re-heated grilled cheese sandwich and my stomach sort of hurts, (I’ve had a mild hangover  today, too.) And for some wierd reason, looking at this photograph  makes my stomach hurt a little bit more (but also makes me feel celebratory in the magic that is the internet sort of way). Someone post more stuff -quick! Oh wait! It’s Friday! You’all are out.

Wait! A Haiku contest- the best haiku about this picture gets a package of indie press books from me!  Bring it on.

Uncategorized / 59 Comments
January 9th, 2009 / 7:42 pm

Boobs Friday:BFF

201136488_19acdbf81c let’s be breast friends forever.

Uncategorized / 23 Comments
January 9th, 2009 / 6:03 pm

First City Review

 

First City Review

First City Review is a new print journal edited by the wonderful Michael Pollock, an old college friend of mine and a passionate editor.  I have a photo  of Michael wearing lipstick and sporting an ironic perm, kissing a mirror. I wish I could somehow get that photo up here, so you could understand how fantastic Pollock is, but I can’t because I don’t have the negative, and it is from a ye-olden times camera, if you can believe that. Pollock and I both worked (but at different times) for Fiction Magazine with the awesome Mark Mirsky and I believe his new journal reflects the integrity and brilliance of Fiction Magazine while also being very much its own animal. First City Review features a diverse array of writing, mixing up narrative fiction with experimental and meta-fictional work. The first issue includes the cerebral, wry work of Johannah Rodgers alongside the hilarious Thaddeus Rutkowski’s contribution. In other words, everyone should submit and subscribe, because there is something in First City Review for everyone. You can submit electronically or by mail, because Michael is really nice.

Uncategorized / 6 Comments
January 9th, 2009 / 3:19 pm

2 New from Black Ocean

from Black Ocean:

with-deer-cover2We are swollen with pride and brimming with relief now that our next two books of poetry are at the printer. Please consider pre-ordering either/both of them now, at a specially discounted rate of $10, plus free shipping. In doing so you will not only help us quickly recoup some of our overhead expense (and in these dark days of publishing all expenses seem to be over our heads har har), you will ensure yourself that status of ‘coolest kid on the block’ when you receive your copies weeks before they’re even available on Amazon. But hurry: this offer expires on February 11th. All pre-orders will ship on March 3rd. A little bit about these titles:

WITH DEER by Aase Berg / translated by Johannes Göransson
In this, her first single-volume collection to be published in English, Berg works a wicked necromancy in her poems. Filling each page with fluids and viscera she plunges into the palpable, pulsating center of our psyche—pulling up fistfuls of nightmares at once strange and familiar. To read this book is to glimpse the ecstasy you always suspected lay at the heart of every rapturous horror. With Deer [Hos rådjur] was Berg’s first full-length book of poetry, originally published in Sweden in 1996. Since then she has published four more books in her native language, exploring the divine terror throbbing beneath the surface of a naturalistic and barely human world. Read advance praise from Cathy Wagner, Dodie Bellamy and Michael Gira (and place your order) at blackocean.org.

SCAPE by Joshua Harmon
Scape, a poised and attentive debut collection by Joshua Harmon, engages with various landscapes—from the constructed and debased world of parking lots, potato chip factories, and cul-de-sac traceries to the “rural equation” of woods, fields, and “clouds’ crumpled page” to create a series of conversations and engagements with the idea of the natural. Through his precise observations, Harmon defines landscape—the word and the idea—through an insightful and meticulous relationship with language. For Harmon, landscape is never static; instead his poems map a constantly changing terrain, in which the interior is imposed on the exterior as a frame for seeing it. Read advance praise from Lydia Davis, Michael Davidson and Noah Eli Gordon (and place your order) at blackocean.org.

Quite stoked on both these, my order is in. The Berg (who is indeed an incredible poet, can’t wait to see this one) has a blurb from Michael Gira. Fuck. At $10 a pop, free shipping, this is a do-it-now.

Presses / 4 Comments
January 9th, 2009 / 1:53 pm