James Hamilton-Paterson: Green opinions you can trust
Saltier than thou
“The oceans have long been, and will long be, subjected to ruthless exploitation and even, in places, to ruin. It is not really the sea which is in recession, though, but wildness itself. Wildness is everywhere but it can no longer be seen; and its apparent vanishing is a direct consequence of the new conservationism. ‘The Wild’ is nowadays a concept ringing with the overtones of patronage, of collections by schoolchildren on its behalf. The present generation is as much contaminated by its own reverential and placatory attitude as the older was by domination. There is something ignoble about it, compounded as it is of urban sentimentalism, virtuous concern and sheer panic at having irrevocably fouled the nest while so comfortably lining it…Virtue and the wild share no common universe.”—Seven-Tenths: The Sea and its Thresholds.
My Inaugural Post
a schematic
Hello Everybody!
To kick off my tenure here at the Giant, I thought I’d point y’all to a new issue of the web journal Flash Point, which is dedicated to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Much to explore and devour, from poems to essays to illustrations to audio of Joyce reading excerpts. Whether you’ve soaked in the Wake for years or been afraid to dip your toes, I recommend checking it out.
Uncategorized / 19 Comments
July 16th, 2009 / 9:16 am
July 16th, 2009 / 9:16 am
The Codex, the Hurders, and me: a new book, an old book, and two years of intermittent emailing
If I had to pick the single piece of my own writing that has generated the most reader responses, I would without hesitation name “The Codex Seraphinianus: A Fragment of the Complete History of an Unknown Planet,” an essay about Luigi Serafini’s hallucinatory faux-encyclopedia which The Believer published in May, 2007. (Aside: I’m hoping to meet or beat this record with “A Figure in the Distance Even to My Own Eye,” my new essay in the current issue of The Believer.) Two years out, the Codex essay continues to bring me new and interesting correspondence, to the tune of at least a letter or two per month. People write to say they enjoyed the piece, to thank me for turning them onto the Codex, or to share their own stories about when they first discovered it, or what they think it all means. Sometimes they want to know if the text has been “deciphered” yet, or if I personally think it can be deciphered at all. Often, they just want to know if I can send them the full text of Calvino’s introduction (it isn’t available in English, so I commissioned a translation from the French version, but it was only briefly quoted in the essay). Anyway, today I’m thrilled to share with you all news of a new Codex-related publication: Confronting and Collecting the Works of Luigi Serafini, available as a severely-limited edition (100 copies!) chapbook by Jordan and Justine Hurder.
Plotting with 419Eater.com
I somehow spent an hour or so this weekend reading various ‘baits’ in the PublishYourWork forum over at 419Eater.com, a site devoted to the art of scambaiting (if you’re not familiar with scambaiting, read this post by Tom Whitwell at The Times Online).
As I read through the threads, I was surprised at how scambaiters talk about their work. Scambaiters use specific terms to describe what they do: a ‘lad’ is a targeted scammer, a ‘trophy’ is something the scambaiter receives from the lad, a ‘mark’ is a victim of a scammer (known as a ‘mugu’ in scammer circles apparently), and so on.
I was also impressed with how involved some of these ‘baits’ are. A few of the better scambaiters put a lot of effort into working the scammers: they play multiple characters, from clergymen to hackers to other scammers; they do their best to send the exchange into odd twists; and they often wait until the right moment, just when the scammer has done all he thought he needed to do in order to get the money, before revealing the hopelessness of the situation/play their trick/etc.
Blake Butler—
I am home from The Dollar Store Show Tour, thanks to all who came out and hung out and were rad people, I had a blast. Back to living on a netbox. Upon my return, I’d like to welcome the advent of the newest HTMLGiant contributor Chris Higgs, who I couldn’t be much more excited about having on board. Welcome, Chris.
8
Displaced Press
From the minds of Daniel Borzutzky, Brian Whitener, and Steven Hendricks, the ultra new and sexfed Displaced Press, who have come out of the gates hard and strong with two titles of powertext, one a translation by Johannes Göransson of Johan Jönson, Collobert Orbital, and Yedda Morrison’s girl scout nation. Both titles have just been released, and are available through the press’s site, as well as via SPD.
Check the specs:
Haut or Not: Your Tattoo
One light hug from this “arm of wrath” and suddenly your vision of the future looks rather grim. Imagine this guy on a date: “Hey babe, let me get some more pasta for you, and yah, people are phony and socialist or something, and like the world is gonna end.” The Fountainhead and 1984 were both written as arguments against Socialism, though their meanings have been diluted to vague political restlessness in contemporary culture. I just typed “contemporary culture,” someone shoot me. My prob with books like this (‘cept Catcher – and what the hell is Perks?) is that their didactic agenda overshadows their artistic one. As for Choke and its author Chuck, dunno, that hyped up Red Bull-ish man/boy fascination with violent transgression just doesn’t do it for me.
Rating: Not
Little Roundup
(via Rumpus) At The Millions, Sonya Chung writes about the bizarre process of picking out a cover image for her first novel. (I just went through a similar process, and though I can’t share the image yet, suffice to say it pleases me greatly and I’m eagerly awaiting the day when I can.)
Coldfront has a new Poets Off Poetry, this time authored by the vicious and delightful Erin Belieu.
And a new issue of Trickhouse (#5) is up, featuring an experiment conducted by Brandon Shimoda and Lisa Schumaier. They need you to participate, so you better get over there.
Oh and Slate’s got Katha Pollitt on Edna O’Brien on Lord Byron.
Solar Anus reading series ISO new blood
Hello from Hong Kong, everyone. Among the various goings-on I’ve missed blogging during the past few days, this one’s especially close to my heart, seeing as how the Solar Anus reading series is jointly run by Our Own Herr Butler, my dear friend Amy McDaniel, and all-purpose badass Jamie Iridell. Amy posted the following to facebook yesterday-
Hi writers!
I co-run a poetry and fiction reading series in Atlanta called Solar Anus. Past readers include Justin Taylor, Johannes Goransson, Rauan Klassnik, and Bruce Covey. In the interest of future readings that are every bit as fabulous, I thought I’d reach out to all of you in two ways:
First, please let me know if you will be in the Atlanta area…ever. I’d love to discuss the possibility of hosting you to read to us.
Second, pass this along to other writers whom you respect who either live in or near Atlanta or who might be passing through. Encourage them to query me at amymcdaniel@gmail.com with a brief bio and a link to something they’ve written. We especially love promoting writers who have books or chapbooks to sell.
Very many thanks.
Amy
Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.
Hey do you remember ska? I do! It was SO GOOD. My parents were all like ‘don’t listen to that razzamatazz!’ and I was like ‘but mom there are HORNS in there!’ and she’s like ‘well, can’t argue with a good horn section…’ and then this gave her the opportunity to make me listen to Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass and then I saw the album cover and my eyes were all like ‘boinnnnng!’
I started listening to ska because Melissa Napoleon (happy Bastille Day btw) had a patch on her Jansport that covered up the Jansport that said ‘SKA’ on it! At first I thought it meant SKATE or POLSKA but nope! So I went to the Princeton Record Exchange and bought three albums! Skankin’ Pickle – The Green Album! Fugazi – Repeater +3 Songs! Gorilla Biscuits – Start Today! Two of them changed my life! One of them did not!
Either way, we can all laugh about it now! (Literary Ska-Band Names: David Foster Skalas, The National Books Critic’s Circle Skaward, One Hundred Years of Ska-litude)
Except for SOMEONE WE KNOW. Yes, Pitchfork Media, the Internet equivalent to that one friend who is kind of a douche but sometimes suggests decent stuff except when they went on that art-noise kick (ew!) had a layout change a few months ago. In this giant html htmlgiant-like facelift, they did a little bit of housekeeping, including eliminating the 9.5 review they gave of Save Ferris’ debut album ‘It Means Everything’. A 9.5! Wha! You remember those guys! They were famous for being mis-identified as No Doubt when you downloaded their feel-good cover of ‘Come On Eileen’ off of Napster! They had a song called ‘Spam’ that was about ‘Spam’ the meat not ‘Spam’ the email! 9.5!
Seriously…the review exists (it was one of the super short ones way back when) and is absolutely nowhere to be found on the Interwebs; a link from Wikipedia is dead. We at Le Giant are no stranger to unpublishing and the risks of publication online, but this is a conspiracy like that conspiracy movie! If you can find this review it needs to be saved 4ever! SAVE SAVE FERRIS
42 Comments
July 14th, 2009 / 7:47 pm
July 14th, 2009 / 7:47 pm