Thomas Jefferson, make up your mind
“We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
— Thomas Jefferson
Let’s All Go Through the Wide Open Gate of Mount Holyoke College to Our Wednesday Roundup
Joshua Cohen on Paper Cuts! This is very exciting. Weirdly, his book wasn’t reviewed on Sunday–I’m holding out for this coming weekend, though.
This is really interesting. Thanks to Rachel Fershleiser for passing it along.
from Jeremy Schmall- the Crimethinc. guide to what to do when you are stopped by a cop.
Zizek Zizeks on the Iceland volcano.
Nathaniel Rich on Ray Bradbury at Slate.
Tao Lin interviewed on Chuck Palahniuk’s The Cult, a website I did not know existed and now am kind of wigged out by. They’ve got their own whole universe over there, apparently, with a writing workshop and tee shirts. Live and let live, I guess. Oh also, if you’re in the city, homeboy’s in an art show on Friday.
Last thing: this month’s Harper’s is fantastic. Readings opens with a commencement speech Barry Hannah gave at Bennington in 2002. Also includes an excerpt from Padgett Powell’s “Manifesto,” the long wild piece that was published in Little Star #1, and a collection of slang terms for methamphetamine. Why not? I don’t know if people realize this, but a subscription to Harper’s costs $16.97. Seriously. That’s it. Newsstand price per issue is $6.95. So basically, if there are decent odds that you might buy an issue of Harper’s three times over the course of a calendar year, you might as well just sign up and have it all the time.
20 Lines from 20 Lines a Day by Harry Mathews
In 1983-1984, while writing Cigarettes, Harry Mathews followed Stendhal’s dictum of writing “twenty lines a day, genius or not.” In 1988, Dalkey Archive published the notebook of all of Mathew’s daily 20 lines. Lots is genius. Here are 20 bits (though I will note that the real pleasure is in the accrual of the bits in daily sections and in the whole project, so if you like the bits then just think!):
No matter how much one loves sunshine, its assault here on the eyes and skin makes shade delectable. One knows one’s tan will have more fuel than it can use.
…even if the air was cluttered with social smells and substances.
Or should one aim at portraying objects that are perpetually in flux or, better, that are transformed by our very description of them, like this page?
…but even if the basis of simile is continuity, to compare wobbly daffodils to invisibly moving stars is like comparing white bunny tails to snowy mountain peaks. So let’s do that.
…how to manage disagreeable emotions by scheduling them…
‘Nothing will ever be the same,’ except oneself, and who wants to rely on that pathetic little monster?
Do I now run errands to make the outdoors safe? Why does buying things, especially ones that are relatively expensive, calm me so extraordinarily?
But watch out: ‘fragmented, exciting’ mustn’t become an excuse for getting less done.
Every morning–early every morning–I’ll set aside ten minutes and concentrate exclusively on feeling anxious about sitting down to write. The most rudimentary sense of absurdity should get me going by minute number three.
Matt Bell—
This one’s for Blake: David Lynch wrote and directed a sixteen-minute Dior commercial titled “Lady Blue Shanghai,” that “sets Marion Cotillard (who makes an eerily perfect Lynch heroine) in a Shanghai mystery involving a glowing — and seriously covetable — quilted handbag. There’s strange music, Lynch’s trademark rich colors, poetry and more maguffins than you could stuff in a satchel.” Via Salon, who called it “the director’s best work since ‘Mulholland Dr.'”
Bad Entertainment
I read good books, listen to good music, but when it comes to TV, the trashier the better. I watch bad reality shows, like MTV/VH1 shit. Well, I used to back when I had a TV. Now, I just have the internet and I don’t care enough to watch that shit online, much less find the Canadian sites (show aren’t quite as easily accessible here as in the States). So come on people, fess up: What are your embarrassing indulgences?
Friends Lovers Family
From Lapham’s Quarterly, via Chris DeWeese
Uncategorized / 43 Comments
May 18th, 2010 / 1:39 pm
May 18th, 2010 / 1:39 pm
Ben Mirov’s Ghost Machine
This book is freaky, incredible, and one of my favorite sublime objects in a long while.
You can buy it from Caketrain for $8.
An Open, Earnest Letter to People Who Like Gruesomeness in Books & Film
This is your brain on fear. As it turns out, Hippocampus isn't fat camp for Latin nerds.
Dear People,
I’m the pain in the ass who makes deciding on a movie en masse impossible. But is it violent? How violent is it, if it is? Do animals get murdered? Do children get murdered? Eventually we’ll decide on a bonehead comedy or a beautifully shot Icelandic film about rafts in the gloaming.
Let’s Get That City Good and Opened
Three pieces of news from our friends at the other O.C (above, not left).
First, from the Department of How Time Flies- has it really been a year since the last Open City benefit? Well, judging by the fact that the linked-to post is from exactly a year ago tomorrow, I would say “yes.” Last year’s event, at the National Arts Club, featured (among other things) an open bar and a reading by Billy Collins–the two went very well together. This year the benefit is being held in a private residence (wanna bet it’s a nice one?), and will feature a reading by Walter Kirn, author most recently of Up in the Air, which you might remember that Hollywood liked so much they Clooneyed it. (Aside: anyone other than me remember (read= “love”) Kirn’s first book, My Hard Bargain, a taut, brutal little collection of stories edited by some guy named Gordon Lish?) Anyway, it ought to be clear to you by this point that whether it is publishing books and the magazine, or whether it’s fund-raising, the one thing Open City does not do is screw around. These guys define what it means to be indie without being small-time, by which I mean to simply say that I think they are great, but the casual reader may wish to steel her reserve before clicking through to check out all the details and price tickets. If it’s a bit out of your range (dollars-wise or distance-wise), no shame in treating yourself to a shiny new subscription, and/or a couple of books, and calling it a day.
Second, from the Department of Education. The First Annual Open City Summer Writing Workshop will be held at the NYU Writers House over a long weekend in high July. The core faculty is Thomas Beller, Jason Brown, Martha McPhee and Said Sayrafiezadeh. Visiting writers include Mary Gaitskill, Sam Lipsyte, Edmund White, David Goodwillie, and the great David Berman–plus a whole lot more; interested parties should avail themselves of the full details, which live here. Good times!
Last but not least, the 2010 RRofihe Trophy is currently accepting submissions, and will be through October 15. At first I thought (read=”hoped”) that this somehow had something to do with Katie Roiphe, but it turns out to really about short fiction, which is pretty good, too. It’s a contest, to be judged by Rick Rofihe of anderbo.com, and the winner gets $500, an actual trophy, and publication in Open City.
And that’s pretty much everything I can possibly tell you about Open City, short of the colors of their underwears. Reader–would that I could.
Will the Open City benefit look like the above? Mischa Barton wonders, but is sad because she knows that she will probably never find out.