Chateau Wichman: Part 1 of ???
Chateau Wichman is a book-length poem focused on a would be-hero as ambitious as he is aimless. Luckily, a mysterious group known as the Sage Editors uses everything from Rilke to The Terminator to turn The Wichman into a mythological celebrity. The Wichman doesn’t mind the transition until he begins to notice how little of himself others see in him. Epic visions, rushed romance, harebrained escapes, and the most sublime chicken cordon bleu recipe—all within one epic saga: Chateau Wichman: Blockbuster in Verse.
(poet/video artist Ben Pease talks about the process of making this video poem):
Janice Lee—
Check out The L.A. Telephone Book, the amazing anthology of new work by Los Angeles & other Southern California writers, compiled by Brian Kim Stefans.
You can download the volume for free here.
Contributors include Harold Abramowitz, Amanda Ackerman, Will Alexander, Rae Armantrout, Ben Doller, Johanna Drucker, Kate Durbin, Sesshu Foster, Jen Hofer, Mathew Timmons, David L. Ulin & many many more. More info here.
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Pitchfork’s Les Misérables List
Have you seen that Pitchfork Media finally wants input from their readers, asking folks to vote for their favorite albums 1996–2012? (That’s years 1–16 Anno Pitchfork.) Between this and The Dark Knight Rises, 2012 sure has been good for the proletariat: rise up, ye 99%, and go watch a movie, and vote online! When you’re finished, you can share your list with friends via Facebook and Twitter. If you like, you can even write a little something about your #1 pick for possible inclusion in the final feature!
You can also check a box to enter a Sweepstakes to win a Trip to the Pitchfork Paris Music Festival, but make sure you READ CAREFULLY the Official Contest Rules…
Me, I can’t wait to share my commoner’s thoughts, little though they are. Off the top of my head:
1. Sonic Youth: A Thousand Leaves
2. They Might Be Giants: Mink Car
3. R.E.M.: Up
4. The Strokes: First Impressions of Earth
5. Smashing Pumpkins: Zeitgeist
Minor Astronomy
Since the beginning of the internet, I estimate having waited for said internet, in some way, be it a massive .pdf within a browser, a youtube clip during peak hours, or porn clip off some shoddy site during night’s black skin — the euphemism “loading” an affront to our wants, desires, impatience, and ultimate sadness, staring at a loading wheel, mockingly clockwise as if time even mattered — cumulatively for about a week; meaning, if I didn’t get up for a sandwich, I’d be dead. The staunch lateral progress of the loading bar always felt more western-y, whereas the wheel has a kind of reincarnate cyclical Buddhist-y flow to it, to cease desire, or at least wait. On Monday August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will occur, said totality (as opposed to the more common, and broader, partial ones) being when the moon’s apparent circumference is not only larger than the sun, but directly in front of it, turning the day into a kind of movable night. This will only be experienced on a narrow path across the earth, auspiciously this time around in the United States. The “greatest” total eclipse on earth that day, i.e. the most darkness at the longest duration, will occur in Christian County, Kentucky, whose 73,000 +/- estimated residents will likely tailgate the damn thing, sucking on corn dogs in darkness.
Interview: Reader who recently finished Echo Burning
1. So how long did it take you to read the book?
I started it on Monday afternoon and read it for a couple hours a day, until 7:30am today.
2. Did you ever read the book in public places or leave the book out purposefully when visitors were over?
I’m on a camping trip with my family (two parents, two brothers, two sisters-in-law, two nieces, two nephews, two dogs), and I kept leaving it on the picnic table but no one touched it. It’s my dad’s book.
3. How did you deal with the uh not reading a better book?
The parts with the guns were my favorite.
4. Have you read other Lee Child? How did this book compare?
I thought I’d read all of them but my dad keeps surprising me with more. This one wasn’t as good. The odds don’t seem to be as stacked against Reacher. Plus it’s more of a detective story than the others. The women aren’t described as “slim” quite so often, and Reacher doesn’t have sex with any of them. The main lady he partners with is a lesbian.
5. Did you read the book while on drugs or alcohol?
Nope, just fresh Adirondack air.
6. What other “large books” have you undertaken?
I just finished the third book in The Game of Thrones. READ MORE >
Erik Stinson—
Chill little New Yorker blog post about Justin Taylor’s new story in the New Yorker. Story is for paid subscribers only, but according to the adorable little pop-up ad, they are offering a free “WEEKENDER” bag (wine bottle pocket? fold-out cheese plate? 401k 101 booklet?) for new recruits, so get the urge.
Interview: Reader Who Yesterday Finished The Recognitions
HTMLGiant: So how long did it take you to read the book?
David Fishkind: Three weeks I think. It took me about three minutes per page, so… forty-eight hours. I spent two days reading the book.
HG: Did you ever read the book in public places or leave the book out purposefully when visitors were over?
DF: It was a library copy, so really, it didn’t matter. But yes, I read it on the subway and kept it on my bedroom desk and in my backpack.
HG: How did you deal with it? Do you think you’re a big man or something?
DF: I don’t know. I thought I’d feel proud of myself. I ate seven or eight handfuls of blueberries when I finished. I didn’t cry or anything. Sometimes I looked words up in the dictionary.
HG: Have you read other Gaddis? How did this book compare?
DF: No. I guess maybe I’ll read JR in a year or a few months or so. I guess I’ll read them all if I don’t first die.
HG: Did you ever read the book while on drugs or alcohol?
DF: Once or twice I’d had a some alcohol to drink, but it didn’t really do anything. I didn’t feel drunk, though I was… I didn’t tell anyone I was drunk… so…
Magic & Writing & Me
I started playing Magic in the fall of 1994, when I arrived at college, and when the game was only a year old. My then girlfriend got me into it, in a reverse of a common geek stereotype. (I knew several female Magic players in college.) I quit playing four years later, right before graduation, selling off all of my cards (including a Timetwister!), but I’ve continued to vicariously follow the game since. I rarely play, but I did draft some of Ravnica Block (so awesome), and just last week I played in a M13 draft while visiting friends in Philadelphia. I lost in the first round, 0–2—I’m a terrible player, very out of practice—although later I did win a thee-person game of Commander, over dinner at a diner, where I played this deck. (In the M13 draft, I went Blue-Green, and had a decent deck, but very few ways to interact with my opponents’ creatures, and was done in by a Vampire Nighthawk—such a sick card! Although, in my defense, in the second game, I was forced to mull to 5, then never got a third land—and I think I still could have actually won, had my play been tighter….)
Back to vicariousness. I read Mark Rosewater’s “Making Magic” column every Monday (or Sunday night), and watch every video that Luis Scott-Vargas posts online. (He’s hands down my favorite player of all time, and I can’t wait until he gets elected into the Pro Tour Hall of Fame next year. Speaking of which: congratulations to Pat Chapin for making it in this year!) What can I say? Magic is fun and insanely complex; I like games and I like obsessive analysis. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s fantasy-based, one of my lifelong loves. And I’ve learned a tremendous amount about design and aesthetics by talking and reading about the game. (Rosewater’s weekly column is responsible for at least half of that.)