5 Glots of Snoo
1.) We would rather watch art made than the art itself.
Doesn’t work for books.
“Hey, wanna come over and watch me write?”
“I would rather shoe a snail.”
2.) mud luscious press has a nifty submissions process and a sale. Why not use both?
3.) Aimee Bender interview.
4.) There is a better word than the one you have down. That’s a problem but a koan type of problem. Eventually, you will stop and settle on one word (not the best word). Why? Why then? Is it maddening or gladdening to go through this process? Define the term strike. I thank you.
5.) Just got Ander Monson’s Vanishing Point in the mail! Holy shit. This book bleeds over into the web and then the web bleeds back. More on this later. Monson’s not only ahead of the curve, he’s troweling the curve for us, cut, tamp, curl.
Excited, but not to a Grave-Dancing degree
flikr (Bdiz)
In ’08 when I got a galley of Reality Hunger, it was pretty clear that the book was going to rouse a little rabble when it came out. After I read it for a grad school class, I invited David to speak on a panel discussion I was putting together and I got to speak to him a little about the book and later did an interview. David also asked me to ferry a copy of the book out to the iceberg where Zadie Smith lives to hand a copy of the book to Zadie Smith, who was teaching at my university that year. I managed to get it the book into her hands, albeit blushing heavily. (I do admire her, despite suspecting her blood might run metallic and cold.) My bet was that she was going to enjoy the manifesto, though not necessarily agree with its every platitude.
When Zadie’s strange review in The Guardian came out, I was surprised to have been mentioned in it as the “excited American writing student,” and the implication that my peers and I are dancing on the grave of the novel. (I would link to the article but it’s not up on their site anymore. Here’s something I wrote about it a while ago.) In fact, Professor Smith, I am not dancing on the grave of anything, especially not the novel.
So after reading Zadie’s essay, Lincoln Michel’s really smart review on The Rumpus and Sam Anderson’s funny but annoyed review in New York Magazine, I feel like I need to say something in Reality Hunger’s defense. READ MORE >
Uncategorized / 9 Comments
March 18th, 2010 / 5:35 am
March 18th, 2010 / 5:35 am
The One Where I Talk About AWP, Star Trek, Revolutionary Road, and Publishing
At Bark, I read a post about magazines who try new things and how most lit mags all say the same thing about their mission. At the AWP Bookfair last year, a woman came to our table and asked what we’re looking for. I said, quite perkily, “We’re looking for great writing,” which was, clearly, the wrong answer but I had already answered that question approx. 1,311 times and wanted to be polite but also had nothing left to say on the matter. She pursed her lips and dropped the issue of our magazine like it was tainted. She said, “That’s what everyone says,” and then she flounced away.
Alec Niedenthal—
In light of yesterday’s “shittalking”: has Tao Lin been cannibalized by “Tao Lin”? Has he fictionalized the commonplace–in the shape of both blog and book–to such an extent that “Tao Lin” the artist has appropriated and swallowed Tao Lin the person? that “Tao Lin” has substituted art with life, or has blended the two? Will his fictions from now on only take place as extensions of the fiction, the theater piece, which he has signed “Tao”? Which Tao Lin is realer: the one who blogs, or the one “out there”? Or does any difference between the two Taos remain?
Or are these simply the demands, more or less, of writing what we might call “a singular vision” in 2010? Are there alternate paths with different demands–is such a path desirable?
Is “Tao Lin” the most quiet transgressor? Or is his style just another wave of the “meta” bullshit that’s been around forever? (I don’t think that’s true, but…)
I’m not “shittalking.” Just talking.
56
I needed to laugh, I laughed
Chat Roulette Piano Improv Man [via Clusterflock]
Be cool.
Blake Butler—
Harp & Altar #7 is now available — with fantastic poetry and fiction by Cynthia Arrieu-King, Ana Božičević, Matthew Klane, Michael O’Brien, Alejandra Pizarnik translated by Jason Stumpf, Brett Price, Jared White, Edmond Caldwell, Susan Daitch, Luca Dipierro, Craig Foltz, A.D. Jameson, Matthew Kirkpatrick, and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi. Also: Farrah Field on Julia Cohen; Patrick Morrissey on Joshua Harmon and Rob Schlegel; Michael Newton’s gallery reviews; and art by Brandon Downing. | | | See also: the Harp & Altar anthology, featuring the first few years of the journal, in print, coming in June.
Comments Off on Harp & Altar 7
I love this woman.
UPDATE: Didn’t really do any research on this, and probably should have. Middle finger is photoshopped. The real image is this:
Let’s call the first image, then, an expression of collective desire.