A book by its cover
It’s funny how publishers convey to their readership how tedious and non-pleasurable a book will be based on the lack of color on the cover. Stick some guy’s grainy face on there and consider the suicide pact signed. In my indulgently dour youth, I would only read books with grim black n’ white covers, thinking that such monochromatic plight was “deep,” and that I was similar to those intense and austere men in our refusal of hue. True, many of these books and their designs happened before color photography, but it seems most of the incidents were retroactive.
Happy Birthday, Acid.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-rWnQphPdQ
Happy birthday, LSD. Thanks for all you done for us over the years.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fyxNPz9-ks
Blake Butler—
For Amber: Has anyone had experiences as a student of the online workshops at Zoetrope or Gotham Writers Workshop? Or any other online writing seminar? Would you recommend, not recommend, etc.?
66
Colson Whitehead for Secretary of Post-racial Affairs
Published a couple weeks ago in the NYT, but I didn’t know about it till I saw it linked on Amber Noelle Sparks’s blog, which itself is today’s fun new discovery.
Examining the Ruth Lilly $$$ (1) A Guest Note from Joseph Goosey
In response to my call for “close reads” on the Ruth Lilly fellows earlier today, Joseph Goosey sends us some examinations of the phrases used in this bit by a dude by the tag of Joseph Spece.
Among Elks
BY JOSEPH SPECEWoke in the brume,
lilacs like turf stars.The late fawn
standing in his syrups;bucks down the swale
chewing sedge.We move south
to slopes of sleeping poppy,past the white alder,
bending heads to scentof calx—in natural dark
a man tries his handat belonging. He
with greave of hide, a bornhood, lay with three
spikes in the clay, greenpeak in the breeze.
He whose breathingwrongs the still.
You stir now to mend,to redress?
To be one of us, after all this?
Take a word on this from Joseph after the break.
Classic Word Spaces (5): Vladimir Nabokov
On the last morning of my summer stay in St. Petersburg, I briefly left my wife and her family to walk to 47 Bol’shaya Morskaya, the childhood home of Vladimir Nabokov. The building, originally the mansion of the Nabokov family, houses on its first floor a museum, which I entered and was allowed to tour on my own for 100 roubles
To celebrate the publication of The Original of Laura, I’d like to post an illustrated account of my visit to the Nabokov Museum. I stupidly did not pay the extra 100 roubles to take photographs, so what follows are pictures I have lifted from around the web, sorry. I’ve also tried to explain, as best I can, what I learned of Nabokov’s life in this house – I consulted the museum website and Wikipedia when my memory failed me. I hope you enjoy, and please, if you have corrections/additions/Nabokov stories, share in the comments.
INTERVIEW WITH MOLLY GAUDRY
Molly Gaudry is the author of We Take Me Apart (ml press, 2009). Here is an excerpt of the book. Molly is an editor for Keyhole, Willows Wept Review, Twelve Stories, and a contributor for Big Other. She has a face, and hair and fingers, and a place to live and probably a personal computer. Here is an interview I conducted with her:
“Everyday Pretending is something you do with a bit of your brain, with the edges.”
Via Boing Boing, here is an awesome photoessay by Russell Davies on playfulness originally delivered at the Playful conference in London. From the essay:
Everyday Pretending is something you do with a bit of your brain, with the edges. It’s a thing of inattention, not concentration. Compare, for example, the Theory Of Fun piano stairs with Greyworld’s tuned railings. The stairs thing is fun and it makes a point, but it would drive you mad after a while, there’s no subtlety to it, no joy in the discovery, nothing hidden, it’s all on the surface. It’s that totalising instinct of so many ‘brand’ people – make things obvious, make things clear. There’s a parallel in the maniacal world-building instinct of games people – leave no detail unturned, offer no escape from the vision … We don’t need many cues to help us pretend. We’ll find meaning in the noisiest noise – just give us a tiny signal and we’ll come up with a message.
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November 16th, 2009 / 2:25 pm
November 16th, 2009 / 2:25 pm
Blake Butler—
NYers: this Thursday, 7 PM at Littlefield NYC, the Post Apocalypse Survival Party feat Survival Panelists: Andrew W.K., Tony O’Neill, Matt McCarthy, and a bunch of other craze. The panel is free with electronic RVSP (see website), and afterwards is a party open to the public. Makes me wish I had the NY blood.
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