December 2009

Best Comment Exchange Ever?

Maybe the sommelier will pick this up later but: This just in: READ MORE >

Author Spotlight & Massive People / 11 Comments
December 18th, 2009 / 3:26 pm

Dennis Cooper posted today about his current theater project, which sounds and looks just too ridiculously cool for words: [Basics: ‘This Is How You Will Disappear’ (2010). Director: Gisele Vienne. Texts & Dramaturgy: Dennis Cooper. Score: Stephen O’Malley (w/ Jim O’Rourke, Merzbow, Boris, Peter Rehberg). Lighting Design: Patrick Riou. Fog Effects: Fujiko Nakaya. Holographic Effects: Shiro Takatani. Performers: Jonathan Capdevielle, Jonathan Schatz, Margrét Sara Gudjónsdóttir.] Also, if you are in NYC, his ‘Jerk’ will be at the Under the Radar festival from January 7-17, tix available here. I’m aiming to make a special trip.

Box Hype Contest

box

See that little advertising box up in the right hand corner? Right now it’s scrolling through 3 different pictures, which in weeks and months to come will be populated with new ads, images, etc. We thought it would be cool inside the stream if we opened that space up to our users, as a chance to promote their books, chapbooks, magazines, pics of self, or anything else. So we’re opening the gates…

Through the end of next week we’ll be accepting entries for the first of a monthly series of contest prompts where one person will get a free slot of any picture they’d like to see rotating in that box (linked out to wherever, waking hype, traffic, etc.). 1 in 3 viewers of the site will see it each time it reloads. No, it can’t be porn, or really disgusting. We reserve the right to streamline too much baddy.

To win this spot, for month 1, we’re asking that you submit a response to any piece of creative work published online. A mini review of a story you liked in Diagram, or a poem you liked in Typo, or a review of a chapbook, book, anything. Critical response, creative response, whichever way, but please make it clear what you are responding to (and include a link!). One winner, out of however many entries, will be selected by a HTML Giant contributor to be named later, and that winner will select an image/link to put in the box for the next month. Simple, fun, pimping.

Posts should be 300 words or more. We’ll reserve the right to use any entry, including the winning one, as a post on the site (with you credited, of course). Send your entires through next Sunday the 27th to contest@htmlgiant.com. We’ll pick the winner and host them through January of the new year. And then February, a new contest. Etc. Go!

Contests / 8 Comments
December 18th, 2009 / 2:09 pm

How to fucking format a multi-page poetry/flash manuscript in MS Word

On a PC, hit CTRL-Enter. On a Mac I think it’s more difficult. You have to go to Edit > Insert Page or something like that.

Please, don’t hit return a million times. I will kill you.

Behind the Scenes & Craft Notes / 161 Comments
December 18th, 2009 / 11:58 am

Everyone, please help us welcome our last 3 new lovely contributors: Sean Lovelace (author of How Some People Like Their Eggs), Matt Bell (editor of The Collagist and author of, among many things, the forthcoming How They Were Found), and Lily Hoang (author of Changing, Parabola, and about 50 others). We’re busting up!

“At least I was able to penetrate into the mysterious and magical belly of a movie star”

norman-mailer

As a novel about sexuality, told in what Mailer had thought was a style imbued with sexual energy, The Deer Park had offended his original publisher, who dropped it in page proofs; ironically, Mailer found himself changing some of the phrases to which the publisher had objected, not on moral but on aesthetic grounds. “Fount of power” for female genitalia became “thumb of power.”

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Craft Notes / 21 Comments
December 18th, 2009 / 11:37 am

A Credo for a New Humanism

Out now from Harvard University Press, On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction by Brian Boyd.

Michael Bérubé reviews it for American Scientist:

On the Origin of Stories attempts an evolutionary explanation of the appearance of art—and, more specifically, of the utility of fiction. From its title (with its obvious echo of Darwin) to its readings of The Odyssey and Horton Hears a Who!, Boyd’s book argues that the evolution of the brain (itself a development of some significance to the world) has slowly and fitfully managed to produce a species of primate whose members habitually try to entertain and edify one another by making stuff up.

Uncategorized / 12 Comments
December 18th, 2009 / 11:26 am

You Owe Me Nothing! (And, You Sir, Will Pay)

bill

Yesterday my employer, a local university, sent a bill to my house. I owe the university $0.00 immediately! That is Zero Dollars and Zero Cents. The university is not playing around. In their words: PAYMENT DUE. In their words, my options are an INSTALLMENT PAYMENT PLAN or LATE PAYMENT FEE. I am also instructed to KEEP TOP PORTION FOR YOUR TAX INFORMATION.

What are your favorite surrealist/absurdist artists or text?

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Random / 33 Comments
December 18th, 2009 / 9:28 am

HOW TO SEE AVATAR

it's really quite good

it's really quite good

Just saw Avatar.  Hardcore noble savage leftist story; Dances with Sexy Blue Catgoats.  (I like that it was all, “Kill the humans!”)  Fucking incredible immersive 3-D.  Definitely worth going, you’ll be like WHOA the whole time.  I really regret seeing it in a regular state of mind.  My advice is: Don’t.

Random / 33 Comments
December 18th, 2009 / 5:14 am

Book-o-the-Day: Chump Change by Dan Fante

smashglass10I like to read a book a day, except for on Fri/Sat, when I read ½ book a day (I binge drink on Friday, complete the book, forget every word in a poisonous fog, wake, reread it on Saturday—do the math.)

Today’s book was Chump Change, by Dan Fante.

Dan Fante writes like Charles Bukowski who writes like John Fante (Dan’s dad, Buk’s muse). All three believe they descend from Jack Hemingway, the love child of Ernest and London.

They do not.

J Fante has the best book of the three (Ask the Dust). Bukowksi writes the most agreeable characters (usually through their self deprecation—one technique of developing sympathetic characters.)

I like the play of words: Chump Change. This book is product placement for Mogen David 20/20 (Aka Mad Dog). The best sentence is on pp. 155: “I decided to beat off with her, move for move, so I set my food aside.” Before heading off to L.A. to purse your glittering halos of need, I suggest you read this book. It will take you one hour, fourteen minutes to finish.

That is all.

Uncategorized / 31 Comments
December 17th, 2009 / 9:14 pm