Google Searches & Maurice Blanchot
At his blog, Mathias Svalina’s many screen-captures offer a better argument for Flarf than it ever dreamed of making for itself.
And over at his blog, today Dennis Cooper is all about the amazing Maurice Blanchot.
My speech is a warning that at this very moment death is loose in the world, that it has suddenly appeared between me, as I speak, and the being I address: it is there between us as the distance that separates us, but this distance is also what prevents us from being separated, because it contains the condition for all understanding. Death alone allows me to grasp what I want to attain; it exists in words as the only way they can have meaning. Without death, everything would sink into absurdity and nothingness. (Blanchot, The Work of Fire, 323-24)
Time Out New York and Poets&Writers say kind things about things
Michael Miller wrote a nice article in the latest issue of Time Out New York praising three fine journals: The New York Tyrant, Agriculture Reader, and NOON. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s an excerpt or two:
Started in 2007, The New York Tyrant is the brainchild of GianCarlo DiTrapano, a former intern at FSG who decided to sell his house in New Orleans to start a literary mag, which he now produces in his studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. “I look for writing where it’s evident the authors have sweat over it,” he recently told TONY over drinks in midtown. “I respect writing where the authors expose the shit out of themselves and take risks.”
And this:
Agriculture Reader is so DIY that the first issue was entirely handmade. This is no small feat: According to Jeremy Schmall, who edits the publication with Justin Taylor, each cover had to be hand-painted and hand-cut. Now in its third installment, the zine-ish publication leans more toward poetry than the Tyrant does, but it shares a commitment to publishing bold voices and finding an audience.“Publishing is a conversation, and we don’t want to only be talking to our own little clique,” says Taylor. “I wouldn’t say that we have any particular aesthetic criteria, other than that the work has to thrill us in some way.”
I wish I could say that I was tired of this news cycle
If Justin Taylor has taught me anything, it that we won’t be able to beat the pirates until we understand the pirates. I’ve put together a quick primer for budding armchair piracy experts:
1) Seven Tenths: The Sea and its Thresholds, by James Hamilton-Paterson. The ocean is vast. Real vast. Supports much life (including buccaneer life). Says Hamilton-Paterson:
It is well known in these parts that fish choose not to speak in order to risk nothing worse at men’s hands. Being wrenched from the depths into thin and bitter light to drown slowly in is bad, but not bad enough to merit speech.
Contest Insanity
Aside from the Keyhole bidding war ($405 at the time of this post) that has broken out recently, there are other insane contests around the internet that I wanted to link to.
First, I present to you a number of spambot contests running over at PH Madore’s blog and at Blake Butler’s blog. These two contests involve spreading word of the contest in as many other places as possible and then commenting in the respective blogs comment sections to link to where entrants have spread word of the contests. Jason Jordan is another blogger in the habit of running these sorts of contests over at his blog, which require entrants to comment on the post as much as possible in order to win free stuff, like issues of Ninth Letter and Annalemma. So keep an eye on him.
Tim Jones-Yelvington, frequent HTMLGIANT reader, is running a contest at his blog that asks entrants to describe in <1,000 words what their dinner with Lydia Davis might be like. Winner of the “My Dinner with Lydia Davis” contest will receive a one-year subscription to the lit journal of their choice. Wasn’t Lydia Davis married to Paul Auster at some point?
Three Things I’ve Found Interesting Within the Sphere of ‘Booklyfe’, or: Booklyfe 3
This is what all talent/literary/federal agents look like. It's code.
1. Literary agent Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown, Ltd. is offering readers the chance to play Literary Agent for a Day over at his blog. It’s pretty simple: Read the posted queries, pick the queries you think belong to books about to actually be published, win ______ (he hasn’t specified the prize).
2. Via Matt Briggs, an essay from Frederick Barthelme published in 1988. I’m sure quite a few of you have read this already, but I hadn’t. I think the essay is definitely worth talking about, still.
3. Interview Magazine writes about Five Dials, a .pdf/email distributed literary journal. Hey, who knew this interweb thing could be used for like, literature and stuff?
I’ve already blabbed about this stuff elsewhere, if you’d like a quicker river.
Crispin Best Needs Stuff about 1492
Crispin Best is editing a great project called For Every Year. Here’s a bit from his first post in October of 2008, in which he introduces the site:
A story for every year since 1400.
The story just has to be in honour of that year, it doesn’t have to be set then.
So. For example. Chaucer died in 1400, so that explains that. And. The first written record of whiskey appears in 1405, so that explains that.
Pick a year since 1400.
Write a story dedicated to that year.
Uncategorized / 20 Comments
April 15th, 2009 / 5:22 pm
April 15th, 2009 / 5:22 pm
Youtube teaches me something about writing.
I think maybe this has something to say about how significantly tone can shape a story.
We have something familiar—the opening to a sitcom. We haven’t changed a single visual element. We have instead changed the music. And we’ve gone from the fun-loving antics of a rich man and his adopted African American kids, to the disturbing story of a predator clearly intent on abusing and possibly ritually sacrificing two boys he has convinced to get into his limo.
(Is it just me, or does the car seem to be moving slower than it did in the original version with the upbeat music?)
Maybe tonight we should all spend some time trying to retell an old story with a completely inappropriate tone. See what happens.
Open letter to the underemployed
Graduate school is fun huh? Or are you just ‘in between’ ‘real’ jobs with the economy n’ all? Or maybe you have 12 roommates, sleep in the pantry, and can afford this HTMLGIANT lifestyle. Coming here everyday and refreshing the browser every 20 seconds and gravitating towards arguments is not going to get you on the road to self-sufficiency. Maybe I’m gettin’ old, but sometimes I just want to scream get a real job, like the one I’m at right now, refreshing the browser every 20 seconds and gravitating towards arguments. Let’s just say I’m neglecting my work and boss is not happy. When HR/payroll pulls the rug, can that pantry fit two? I always feel like somebody’s watching me. Yah, my boss. Chapbooks are nice, but health insurance is better. Get a job jerkfaces.
Malcolm Lowry’s Letters
Malcolm Lowry’s letters interest me more than his fiction (I don’t have this edition linked here, I have an earlier one). I’m not sure why that is, but hey, it’s just how it is. Here’s one of them:
Keyhole Lifetime Subscription on Ebay
Um, wow… here’s a rad one:
Keyhole Lifetime Subscription
The starting bid is 99¢
*U.S. bidders only*
Subscription includes all past releases that are still in print and everything we release in the future.
What you’ll get now:
Keyhole 5 (handwritten issue)
Keyhole 6
Questionstruck by William Walsh
Spill by Curtis Crisler
Later this year you’ll get:
- Phantasmagoria by Thomas Cooper (May)
- One of These Things Is Not Like the Others by Stephanie Johnson (June)
- Now Playing by Shellie Zacharia (September)
- How to Predict the Weather by Aaron Burch (December)
- Plus 3 new issues of Keyhole, a quarterly, perfect bound journal (May, August, November)
That’s 11 books this year aloneWe’re lining up some good stuff for next year too, including William Walsh’s collection of stories, Ampersand, Mass.
And we’ll throw in a free one-year subscription for a friend
I think you’re going to have to fight me for this. Let’s go.