Ken Baumann—
Crowdsource an indie bookstore: yes. And this yespraise of ornament/excess/fat from Johannes at Montevidayo.
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Possible Paths to Freedom
Two competing suppositions:
1. The path to maximum freedom is maximum knowledge, maximum mastery, so that the largest possible range of options and possibilities is on the table, and so that improvisations and inventions and productive acts of play might rise from the foundation laid by the broadest possible exposure to everything.
2. The path to maximum freedom is a rejection of preexisting things. The way to invention, improvisation, and productive acts of play begins with a willful resistance to the idea that the making of art coincides with an engagement with the world of ideas, information, or the discourse of others. It is better not to think too much about these things. Good things rise from organic processes divorced from the analytic.
Approaching an Ideology of Art
In order to sit down and establish any sort of ideology1 that guides my life, I really have only a single point to consider: art2 is, without a doubt, what is most important to me. Out of everything. I say this without a hint of irony, with a complete presence of sincerity: everything that has ever been important to me has been mediated by art, to some degree.
Perhaps this is easy for me to say because I equate art with pleasure. Or the idea that art is beauty (as a definition from dictionary.com would like to suggest). If this were true then I wouldn’t have anything to say here. But, the unfortunate thing is that there is a lot of bad art that makes me furrow my brow and launch into hyperbolic rhetoric or a complete insincerity (read: irony). The other negation to the aforementioned declarations heeds itself to my own ideas in an appreciation of affect over visual aesthetic: i.e., something ugly, terrifying, and evil can bring pleasure.
I am not an overly-depressed person. I am (fairly) high functioning in a pretty normal way. I have no desire to be constantly escaping from reality. Kneeling at the temple of Art is not about escapism for me, and I think that’s why I inherently hate the idea of mediating an experience of art (exclusively) through empathy (this is why I will always champion modes of art that lie outside of representation3).
I occasionally feel like when I make this declaration, I am widening a divide between myself & the general public. I say this without elitism. The problem is making a statement like this seems to establish binary opposition: if I don’t like representation, I must like crazy non-narrative abstract shit. Right? I mean, that binary presupposes the person who is contrasting her or his own approach to art with mine is able to conceive of an approach to art that is outside of representation (and this is part of why my mother has no idea in regards to what I am interested in and what I am doing when it comes to “art”).
But here’s the thing: I love narrative. I have no desire to escape narrative. Of course, throughout my experiences with art I have grown mostly tired of archetypal narrative arcs, neatly wrapped up stories, etc etc. But that’s not the point. What I look for in art, what I aim for in art, ultimately, as I’ve said many noted many times in comment threads, is affect.
137 horses of the Elton John
Last week fucked around and got a triple double
1. Ice Cube rapped this. It is a way to make good art. “Fuck around” and you might stumble into a triple double. The lack of intent opens up the writer to odd directions. I think Perec “fucked around” into triple doubles. A triple double helps yourself and a larger idea. This is an admirable goal for words. I would like my writing to be like pick-up basketball, not a day at the office. Also I would like to dunk on Joyce Carol Oates.
2. Dude is a doctor and a writer and just won a $100,000 prize. That’s a good day.
2. The belief that the short story is a poor relation of the novel persists.
2. Nox versus Next in the quarterfinals.
2. Burnside Review chapbook contest is now open.
137. What book (s) are in the floorboards of you car right now? (I have Big World, Hitler’s Mustache, and an anthology of re-told fairy tales)
Analogous to what?
Via Adam Wilson‘s Facebook feed: a list of the “worst” analogies written by high school students, as selected by their teachers. As this blog post notes, the predicate of “worst” is an oversight, or at worst a condescending and misguided error–many of these analogies are sharp if not artful in what Adam, I think perceptively, called a “Lishian” way.
The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
Davis Schneiderman interviews John Waters @ TNB
John: Well, no matter what, the sign of an amateur is to answer your critics. Don’t ever write a letter to a bad review because then, first of all, people didn’t even know about it the first time, maybe, and then the critic gets to answer you and put you down again. I learned a long time ago, only an amateur answers his critics. Read the bad reviews once, the good one’s twice, and put them all away and never look at them again. The only time a bad review works is when you think “that could be true a little bit,” and then you learn, and then you debate it next time. I do read reviews. I don’t believe people who say they don’t.
On Beauty
In 2004 Zadie Smith published On Beauty, a book I haven’t read because tv is too compelling. That is less of a criticism of her than me, but I appreciate the semi-open mouth. This is a companion piece to “On Booty,” about similar concerns, probably. Zadie Smith has freckles, and while I got in trouble in the past for mentioning the physical attributes of a female writer, I’ll brace myself and say — by the way I’m drunk right now — that when I think of her, I think of the man who makes love to her, and how her freckles must seem so lovely, those tiny landmines of love’s fleeting expression, while he comes inside her. Life is a condom, it just doesn’t feel right. I also didn’t read the article about some new camera that makes people look more beautiful, because, again, tuberculosis is too compelling.
Kristen Iskandrian—
Do you have nostalgia? Do you have nostalgia for “life before the internet”? What makes you nostalgic? Does what makes you nostalgic actually exist, or did it ever?
Matthew Simmons—
A head’s up: writers who have enjoyed the On Earth As It Is project, and would like to try to write something for it, will soon have that chance. My co-editor and I will have open submissions through the month of April. (I’ll make note of it here and on our Facebook page.) Also, the work we choose will become the last round of updates for the site. The site will remain up and the stories available to be read, but we will no longer add to it.