1st trip 2 the pub
Ok, George Saunders first published in that little Conde Naste magazine out of New York City. But this was (I think) my first publication. They claim to be “Reviews from Rural America.” The last two pages are poems, and this is where I appear, with a little ditty about squirrel hunting. Mimeographed, 10 pages, 3 staples, out of Healdsburg, CA, a Misty Hill Press production. This was 1996. I can find nothing about the publication now, though I did locate a Misty Hill Press, in another California town.
I was/am happy to begin with a stapled together newsletter. There is a sort of ladder (naturally subjective) to these things, and the process of climbing makes one a more serious/less serious (not a contradiction) and humble writer. Possibly. I certainly look back now at the title and have to give a chuckle. I teach a lot of beginning writers, and many, many of them need to understand it’s a hard row to hoe. Not impossible, just hard. Some of them seem to think the writer’s life is a water slide–just chuck yourself down. Wheeeeeeee. I prefer the image of the dirt field. Here’s your seeds and your gardening tool. Start hoeing and pray for rain.
Where were you first published?
Rule of Threes
1. Now you can screw around with magnetic poetry wherever you are.
2. Matt Hart’s new chapbook, The Hours, from Cinematheque Press is sure to be fucking fantastic. No, I haven’t read it yet, but if his other books are any indication…. And look at all their other good stuff.
3. I know Justin posted about Sommer Browning recently. But I want to reiterate: her tweets have been making me laugh for months. Her comic has been killing me since AWP.
Roxane Gay—
The Nepotist is a new magazine with an anonymous editor who simply wants to publish his or her friends, loosely construed. Maybe you will be invited into the inner circle!
4
Evidence of why there hasn’t been a good American film in 20 years
This is a half-scale, all CG simulation of the ‘elevator of blood’ from The Shining that I did just for amusement in spare hours. I never expected it to look exactly like the real thing. The RealFlow fluid sim uses only about 1.6 million particles and therefore appears thicker and ‘blobbyer’ than an actual water-like liquid at this scale. I think at least ten million particles would begin to look convincing, but since this took about a month to calculate and render on on I-7, 3.2gh quad core, it isnt practical to attempt more particles without a far more powerful and prohibitively expensive computer.
Sixth Mess Section
1. Alone, for one moment. –directions to performers from Erik Satie
2. Lutgardis, mystic. Born at Tongeren in 1182, died at Aywieres in 1246. Lutgardis’s family fobbed her off on a Benedictine nunnery when she was still a girl. In her mid-twenties she decided that she needed a more austere existence and so joined a group of Cistercian nuns near Brussels. There she levitated and dripped blood from her forehead and hair. –Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present” In Another Context
3. “Try going a day without it you’ll miss it Charlie–” –Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule is live
4. The Pharmako trilogy by Dale Pendell is a massive accomplishment, and great to read. You will want them. Look inside.
ADDITION: 5. The hallway of blood scene in The Shining, recreated with CGI. Look up.
SMIZE: Tyra Banks is Going to Write The Best Book Ever
Did you hear? The news broke late last week. Tyra Banks is going to become a YA author. For those of us who (used to) watch America’s Next Top Model, this is excellent news because now she will bring her signature flair to the written word. If you go to the website of her imprint, BANKABLE BOOKS, she helpfully explains how to pronounce the title of her first novel, Modelland. If you’re curious, that is Model Land. She also says, “I think Modelland is going to really touch the dreamer in all of us, whether you’re aged anywhere from 8 to 80.” This is good news for all of us.
Since the announcement, I’ve seen a lot of snark and garment rending and the sort of reaction that arises any time a celebrity or other literary untouchable (blogger) dares to dip their unanointed toes in the holy waters of literature. How dare they sully the serious work of the serious writer! Yes, I recognize that this is a fairly ridiculous situation–Tyra Banks with a three-book deal while we toil in obscurity is certainly frustrating but do any of us write anything remotely similar to Modelland? Does her book deal mean we won’t get one? Why do we so often begrudge certain writers their book deals? Is anyone else as excited as I am?
Vice’s “DOs & DON’Ts,” revised by someone who is not high or cool
via Vice [original]
Sorry, sorta annoyed by Vice‘s “Do and Don’t” series, in which urban fashion is qualified under so many layers of kitsch and irony that the DOs often seem provocative for its own sake, and somewhat unbelievable. I try to appreciate this, as some social commentary, far more than the Dos and Don’ts of corporate fashion glossies like Us and People, yet it feels like Vice here is the emperor chasing our image with mirrors, telling us of special fabrics only they can see, until we too see it. Be careful: punk sounds a lot like drunk, and only one can be dissent. Dear people, there’s always a sale at Ross. It’s okay to be invisible.
Matthew Simmons—
Vermin on the Mount host and Jean-Philippe Toussaint interviewer Jim Ruland is going to write for nine straight hours for the benefit of San Diego Writers. A great writer and a good cause. Also, free t-shirt!
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Mike Young—
Tonight in Brooklyn: Dawn Raffel, David Peak, Ana Božičević, and Edward Mullany—HTMLGIANT crushes one and all—at the Soda Series. Check it out if you’re in NYC: 7PM at the Soda Bar in Prospect Heights.
Examples which might explain James Joyce’s love-hate relationship with Dublin
Finnegans Wake is super tiring, and for some, so is James Joyce. But come on people, North Earl Street doesn’t look so bad. History is made to be forgotten, and for folks to sit on. For birds, to shit on. Short of a rhyme for immortal rigamortis, just give us reason.