Theories on Religion & Writing Proficiency
From OkCupid blog
OkCupid, a stupid dating website that has yielded no results (my summary being “disappointed narcissist seeks unconditional love and ride to parents’ house”), has a blog that at least is not stupid. They matched up profile religious affiliation with writing proficiency. Without being politically correct and sparing any feelings, here are my theories about the results:
Dolor
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
Alexis Orgera—
Does anyone have suggestions for good fictional, alternative narratives of Jesus’s life? I’ve read and liked Jim Crace’s Quarantine and Jose Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.
31
ESSENTIAL VIEWING: ENTER THE VOID
the naked city
Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void, which opened Friday in New York and Los Angeles (and will soon be available on demand, I think), is spectacular, maddening, technically brilliant, sophomoric, unsubtle, mature… what am I forgetting? I don’t know. You could make stew out of the adjectives that would work in that list. It’s a movie that, if you love movies, you have to see. (By no means do I mean to suggest that you’ll definitely love it. You very well may loathe it.) It is truly, and I honestly feel I’m saying this without hyperbole, not like any movie you’ve seen before.
Noe is an infamous and incorrigible provocateur. There’s no one moment in Enter the Void as confrontationally horrific as Irreversible’s fire extinguisher or tunnel rape scene, but it does contain many instances of hardcore sex and gynecological grotesquery. That aspect of the movie, though, is an afterthought to me. I saw it foremost as an attempt to expand the language of film.
ARob AGin Catfish Word
1. Our own Adam Robinson has just been announced as Guest Editor for the next edition of Dzanc’s Best of the Web. If anyone can up the game they set with the latest edition, Adam is it. Editor nominations are now open.
2. @ Jacket Copy, they compare the voice of Allen Ginsberg reading “Howl” to the voice of James Franco reading “Howl.” I was too ehh to listen, but you can if you want.
3. Saw Catfish, or “the other Facebook movie that is a documentary instead of a stupid drama by a washed up director,” the other night, it was refreshing.
4. If you are in NYC, I am reading Tuesday night at 7:30 at the excellent Word Bookstore in Greenpoint for Indie Press Night with Jon Cotner & Andy Fitch (for Ugly Duckling), Rachel B. Glaser (for Publishing Genius), and Timothy Donnelly (for Wave Books). Should be real awesome, would be real awesome to see you out.
Melissa Broder Poem
Supper
Everyboy comes to me at a church potluck
perfumed with frankincense and lasagna.
He believes I am a gentle bird girl
in my tulip sweater and raincoat.
I am not so gentle, but I act as if
and what I act as if I might become.
He says: Let’s be still and know refreshments.
Tater tot casserole is wholesome fare.
Let’s get soft, let’s get really, really soft.
I do not say: I am frightened of growing plump;
something about the eye of a needle
and sidling right up close to godliness.
Instead I dig in,
stuff myself on homemade rolls,
tamale pie and creamed chipped beef with noodles.
I eat until my bird bones evanesce.
I eat until I bust from my garments.
I become the burping circus lady
with meaty ham hocks and a sow’s neck.
Everyboy says: Let’s get soft, even softer.
We vibrate at the frequency of angel cake.
Our throats fill with ice cream glossolalia.
The eye of the needle grows wider.
There is room at the organ bench.
I play.
Melissa Broder is the author of the poetry collection WHEN YOU SAY ONE THING BUT MEAN YOUR MOTHER (Ampersand Books).
PEN Literary Awards Winners
A few of the big winners: DeLillo takes the Saul Bellow award for Achievement in American Fiction. Anne Carson wins for Poetry in Translation for An Oresteia from the Greek, and, in a separate translation prize, Michael Henry Heim wins for Wonder by Hugo Claus, from the Dutch. This caught my eye because Heim’s translation of Mann’s Death in Venice pretty much made my summer. I feel like I’ll read anything that guy turns English. Anyway, full list below the fold.
Le Scrap
I’m feeling scrapbook-y this fine Sunday morning.
1. Insanity 101:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW3Roqmfr94&feature=related
2. There’s a new issue of SpringGun out that includes an e-book and digital writing. I think this is one of the better new online lit mags.
6 sculpture drinks of FM-three
14. Who gives a damn about Lady Gaga’s meat dress? People have been wearing meat dresses for years. It’s called leather.
6. A list of supernatural collective nouns (a caucus of shamans, a flurry of yeti, an indulgence of leprechauns). Thank you Paul Symons, and also anyone who lives the Darkon way.
23. As a flash writer, I want to thank Vestal Review for their submission manager. While I enjoyed reading the mag, submitting was once crumpling cot. The prior guidelines Byzantine, bizarre, off-putting (rich text, curly quotes, something). But now it’s all OK. Thanks.
99. So-so Jim Harrison interview here.
Have you ever noticed the painters tend to be more sensual, and better cooks than writers?
5. Book borrowing: Look, here’s the law. You loan the book, consider it flown. If it returns, feel great, like you just dug a musty $20 out your winter jacket pocket. But consider the book gone, and be happy. Customarily you spread skin cells and STDs. Today, you just spread literature! Glow.
24. There is no # 24.