I Was Wondering Which Programs Other People Use to Write Their Shitty Poetry
For years I just used TextEdit. It’s free, simple, and takes a second to load on even the slowest computer. I own Word, but Word takes like five minutes to load on my three-year old computer, and is sans Clippy these days, which was one of my only reasons for opening Word. I’ve tried various ‘serious MFA literature’ text editors, stuff like Ulysses and WriteRoom, but beyond their really great full screen modes, they didn’t really give me positive emotions.
I started using Pages this year, and I have been pretty happy. It has full screen mode, and I got turned-on to the typeface BiauKai, which doesn’t have bold or italic versions, but I use on everything I write anyway because I don’t like bolds or italics. Also, I’m hoping to make a sweet family newsletter sometime in the near future, and Pages looks like a real winner for that kind of thing. *fingers crossed*
Thom Jones and Schopenhauer
I Have Some FUNNY Ideas!
About fifteen years ago, or something like that, I read The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones. I liked it very much. I also thought it was funny how he chews over the same stuff in most of the stories. More than once, some character of his talks about Schopenhauer. I had read some Schopenhauer in college, but after reading The Pugilist at Rest, I decided to read some more. I liked him very much, more than any other philosopher at that time in my life. (I read very little philosophy, so that is not saying much.) So, today, when I fell over a pile of books that are laying on the floor in my office, I fell over Schopenhauer. And I found something really funny. Now, I am posting this excerpt, but this is not to say he didn’t say lots of cool stuff, too. Anyway, here it is:
Haut or Not
HTMLGIANT hereby institutes Haut or Not, where we rate your bookshelves. This was initiated and corroborated by J. Taylor and B. Bulter, respectively, and inspired by this recent post and the unfortunate yet captivating Hot or Not series.
Just email htmlgiant@gmail.com a picture of your bookshelf (or stack of books w/ spines showing) and one us will either rate it ‘haut’ (haute, formal) or ‘not.’ You may also email individual contributors at their personal addresses if you specifically want them to rate you, acknowledging that our tastes vary drastically.
Here are the parameters:
Subject heading: Haut or not
pics: 500 pixel-wide jpeg, ~200kb.
Disclaimer: we are also free to rate, or make commentary on, all implicated vicinity of the photo. For example, if in the far distance we see an out-of-focus neon thing that resembles a dildo, we will assume it’s a dildo. You may insist it’s a $275 Roche-Bobois lamp, but we will ignore you. So please, be careful. If you are not prepared to be made fun of, this is not the venture for you.
Muumuu House ‘Care’ Package and a Contest
not ryan call
I received today in the mail a ‘care’ package from Muumuu House and in that package were several books: you are a little bit happier than i am by Tao Lin and Distortions by Ann Beattie and three copies of Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs by Ellen Kennedy. Thank you, Muumuu House, for the ‘care’ package.
And last night a friend and I found a bar in Houston that has ping-pong tables, and we played ping-pong for three or four hours, and I defeated him twice. He did not defeat me. The rest of the time we just hit the ball back and forth and impressed ourselves with our amazing skills. I think I am very good at ping-pong. I think it is the one thing I’m allowed to be good at, maybe. That and washing dishes. I think there is something very satisfying about hitting a ping-pong ball just so, having it do exactly what you want it to do.
To celebrate our finding this bar with ping-pong tables, I would like to offer two copies of Sometimes My Heart Pushes Against My Ribs by Ellen Kennedy, which, sadly, has no poems/stories in it about ping-pong.
Please post your poems/stories about ping-pong in the comments section to be eligible for a copy of Sometimes My Heart Pushes Against My Ribs by Ellen Kennedy. Be sure to include a real email address in the field where it asks for an email address, so I can email you if your poem/story wins. If you are shy, you may also email a poem/story about ping-pong to htmlgiant [at] gmail [dot] com, but if I select your poem/story, then I will post it for everyone to see. This contest is open until 2:00pm CST, Saturday the 7th.
Good work, Muumuu House and Ellen Kennedy, on your first book. I enjoyed reading it.
UPDATE: Winners of the two Muumuu House books are Miles and Darby Larson. Miles and Darby please email your mailing addresses to HTMLGIANT so I can send you your prize.
Thank you to everyone who emailed and posted ping-pong stories/poems.
Butler takes Greenpoint: a photo diary
WHAT: Blake Butler, Gary Lutz & Robert Lopez read at WORD Bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Thursday, 3/5/09.
Sorry, I didn’t get pictures of the other two. I don’t think Gary likes to have his picture taken, actually, and I didn’t want to spook Robert by shooting with a flash without warning first. As you can see, I didn’t give a damn about spooking Blake. He’s staying on my couch while he’s in town. Camera with flash is the least of his worries.
AFTER THE READING WE WENT TO THE PENCIL FACTORY
PR IS: NSFW
This post starts after the jump. READ MORE >
Your Taste: A Review
I searched “my books” and “my bookshelf” on flickr and reviewed stranger’s tastes in literature.
Did you read Everything is Illuminated twice? I read the first 5 pages once, then felt irritated and put it down. Kudos on Lolita though, it really is an awesome book, and answers in full ‘why men love bitches,’ so I don’t see the point on reading an entire book on that. They made a movie out of The Namesake with Kumar. It was like Joy Luck Club except with Indians. I teared the entire movie, though I think it was the curry. As for ‘how to save your own life,’ don’t fly if you’re scared of it. Just fly a kite.
How to Irritate and Confuse People: A Case Study
I don’t know what it is about the internet that causes people to forget what it means to be a human being. Look at the speed at which comments threads degenerate into hateful, vitriolic invective–people spew things out via their fingertips that they wouldn’t say out loud to someone who was mugging or divorcing them. But it’s a two-way street, and to me, what’s perhaps more interesting than moments when somebody forgets that s/he is talking to a REAL PERSON, are moments when the writer seems to forget that s/he him/herself is a REAL PERSON. I’m not asking for Victorian etiquette here. I’m just saying that when you pop into a stranger’s inbox, unannounced, in a message with no subject-line, from a personal email address with a joke-name (“redhotstudonearth”–seriously) asking that stranger to give you things without explaining who you are, what exactly you’re asking for, what you hope to do with it, or why you deserve it… I mean what do you expect is going to happen?
After the jump, the transcript of an utterly surreal email exchange I had yesterday, with annotations.
Another Post With a Different Alice: DIAGRAM 9.1 is live
Holy monkey skank, the new DIAGRAM is good. Gawk this list of contributors, and then a splendid poem by Alice George after the break:
Jason Anthony
Geoffrey Babbitt
Sarah Bartlett
Heidi Bell
Scott Butterfield
Adam Clay
Nik De Dominic
Shira Dentz
Kristen Eliason
Adam Fell
Deborah Flanagan
Alice George
Matthew Glenwood
Ellie Horowitz
Daniel Hudon
Donna Hunt
Michael Jauchen
Krystal Languell
John Joynt
Tim Lantz
Amanda Maule
JoAnna Novak
Erick Piller
Anne Shaw
Peter Jay Shippy
Dolsy Smith
Laurie E. White