Something I should’ve read a long time ago but didn’t because I was probably playing video games or sleeping: Animal Farm by George Orwell
It’s like Milo & Otis meets The Hunt for Red October! As I read about Napoleon and Mollie and all the rest of the barnyard communards, I begin to wonder: This isn’t really just about talking animals, is it? It’s, like, a metaphor or something, right? Touché, Mr. Orwell.
The little search engine that should
Allison Glock’s article “I Blame Blogs” at the Poetry Foundation says two things: 1) blogs are bad and people who blog are bad, and 2) poetry is good and people who write poetry are good. (Of course, she doesn’t really say ‘bad’ or ‘good,’ but you can tell from the derisive rhetoric this is some kind of ‘moral’ issue with her.) She says that poetry does for the world what blogs fail to do, which is fine an all, but she’s just so mean about it:
[…] blogs inevitably activate our baser human instincts—narcissism, vanity, schadenfreude. They offer the petty, cheap thrill of perceived superiority or released vitriol. How easy it is to tap tap tap your indignation and post, post, post into the universe, where it will velcro to the indignation of others, all fusing into a smug, sticky mess and not much else in the end.
Eating, Kafka II: Rauan Klassnik interviews CAConrad
Rauan Klassnik recently lived through and posted up an interview with http://rauanklassnik.blogspot.com/2009/05/eating-kafka-etc-interview-with-ca.htmlCAConrad re his wonderful book of poems The Book of Frank. http://BOOKofFRANK.blogspot.com
After all the dust had settled and all the fluids dried (blood, cum, sweat, disgust and hate, etc, etc) they went at it again.
Here, then, is the 2nd interview : Eating, Kafka II
This is the Bio that CAConrad provided:
CAConrad is the recipient of THE GIL OTT BOOK AWARD for The Book of Frank (Chax Press, 2009). He is also the author of Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull Press, 2009), (Soma)tic Midge (Faux Press, 2008), Deviant Propulsion (Soft Skull Press, 2006), and a forthcoming collaboration with poet Frank Sherlock titled THE CITY REAL & IMAGINED: Philadelphia Poems (Factory School Books, 2010). CAConrad is the son of white trash asphyxiation whose childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He invites you to visit him online at http://CAConrad.blogspot.comand also with his friends at http://PhillySound.blogspot.com
Influences 6: Barry Graham
Here is the sixth response to my influences post. The respondent is Barry Graham. He chose Christopher Kennedy’s Trouble with the Machine.
Prompts:
1) Pick one of the pieces you chose and describe the thing about it that seems particularly innovative about it.
2) Tell me what changed about your writing because of that innovation.
Answers after the jump: READ MORE >
A Nathan Graziano story on NIGHT TRAIN
Night Train just published this excellent short short story (click here to read it) by some man named Nathan Graziano (website here). Rusty Barnes over at Night Train does such a good job. I bow down to Rusty. I will add that I like these characters so much I hope he turns it into a longer story. Does that make any sense? Thank you.
Latino Book Contest at Conversational Reading and An Earnest Post About My Favorite Independent Bookstore
To enter, simply email me a short description of your favorite independent book store. Make sure to include the city and state it’s located in, and why it’s your fav. Also include your mailing address (sorry, no entrants outside the U.S. and Canada, and no PO boxes) and make the subject line Conversational Reading May Contest.
I’ll pick five winners at random and announce here next Friday.
Here are the books:
1. B as in Beauty By Alberto Ferreras
2. Into the Beautiful North By Luis Urrea
3. Hungry Woman in Paris By Josefina Lopez
4. The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos By Margaret Mascarenhas
5. Houston, We Have a Problema By Gwendolyn Zepeda
I’m not sure if he’ll post all of the entries, but I hope he does. I enjoyed reading the Bookstores Category at Maud Newton, so it would be nice to have more of that, I think. After the jump, some memories of my favorite used bookstore.
Family Guy Stephen King Tribute Episode
For no particular reason, Family Guy has just done an episode of their own adaptations of Stephen King stories. I watched the episode on hulu yesterday. It won’t stay up there too long, since they only have 5 episodes at any given time, but I think it just went up. The Family Guy episode follows the basic pattern set by the Simpsons’s annual Treehouse of Horror specials, only without the peg to Halloween. The only thing about this that’s a bummer is that they parody the movies made out of the books, rather than the books themselves. Given that the guy is one of the best-selling writers on the planet, it stands to reason that they could have snagged at least ONE of his unfilmed stories to send up. Oh well. The first one, a parody of Stand By Me (published as “The Body” in King’s novella-collection Different Seasons) is definitely the strongest of the three. The second one is a parody of Misery with Brian as the kidnapped writer and Stewie as Annie Wilkes, and the last one is a pretty faithful re-creation of The Shawshank Redemption (originally published as “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, also in Different Seasons). Fun fact: three out of the four novellas in different seasons have been made into films. The third is “Apt Pupil,” about a kid who discovers his neighbor is an ex-Nazi, but instead of turning him in blackmails him and then becomes his sort of weird partner in crime. The movie had Brad Renfro, I think. The last story in the collection, “The Breathing Method,” is the only one not to have been adapted, and odds are against its ever being done. It’s understated, but basically weird as hell– a sort of drawing room ghost story with some weird Lovecraft shout-outs tossed in for good measure.
an interview with riley from “wonder lust magazine”
riley michael parker runs “wonder lust magazine” and wonder lust press. parker is the author of “Our Beloved 26th” (Future Tense Publishing), Boys, and Sophie’s Choice (Wonderlust Publishing – parker’s own private press). i conducted an interview with riley michael parker and it yielded results most pleasant.
[interview after break]
man, this is cool.
molly gaudry (see blog for complete list of duties, honors, writings, amateur boxing record, etc.) has created a poem that is culled from various blogs. each line is a link. fucking cool.
3 Interviews for Tuesday
At Writers Digest, Robert Lee Brewer talks to Justin Marks about his first book, A Million in Prizes, which won the New Issues prize and which is out now.
One of the things a book is to me is in some ways a chart of a person’s development/growth as a writer during the time in which the book was written.
At Jezebel, Anna is talking to Feministing.com’s Jessica Valenti, whose new book, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women, came out just last month.
After all, how is it not focusing on young women’s sexuality by talking constantly about their virginity or bringing them to purity balls? If you are telling young women over and over that what’s most important is their virginity, that what makes them valuable is their chastity – then you’re sending the message that it’s the body and sexuality that defines who they are.
And Emily Nonko talks to Tao over at the Bomb magazine website.
The next two books are completely autobiographical. I just think about the most interesting parts of last two years. And then for the ending, I just ask: does it work?