Justin Taylor is the author of the story collection Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever, and the novel The Gospel of Anarchy. He is the editor of The Apocalypse Reader, Come Back Donald Barthelme, and co-editor (with Eva Talmadge) of The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide. With Jeremy Schmall he makes The Agriculture Reader, a limited-edition arts annual. He lives in Brooklyn.
I was reading Alexis Orgera’s blog last night, and she had posted something about something Tony Hoagland wrote about “the cult of Dean Young” in American Poetry Review, and some subsequent vituperative blogging induced thereby. But what caught my attention was something Alexis mentioned in passing, while talking about something John Gallaher said about Hoagland’s piece. “I do like that Gallaher calls Hoagland out for defining the new American poetry by young, white men. I think two of the most interesting and fearless young poets right now are women: Darcie Dennigan and Dorothea Lasky.” This, to me, is infinitely more interesting than whether Tony Hoagland thinks Dean Young is being trampled to death by geese or not. What’s especially infinitely interesting is the fact that I’ve never even heard of Darcie Dennigan. (Pretty sure I’m on-record as a fan of Dottie L’s, but if not, let this be that record.) Or I thought I’d never heard of her. It actually turns out that DD is the author of Corinna A-Maying the Apocalypse, a book I most definitely remember hearing about. It came out from Fordham University Press last year, after winning their Poets Out Loud prize. So let’s all get to know Darcie Dennigan.
– Matt Hart reviews Corinna at Coldfront
– “Orienteering in the Land of New Pirates” is a poem by DD in H_NGM_N #6.
– “The Canon Come Again: Same Themes, Different Centuries” is an essay by DD at the Poetry Foundation.
– Raymond McDaniel at Boston Review also digs Corinna.
– Paul Vermeersch had the same idea as I did about DD, and already did more legwork than I’m going to. So for more, go over to his blog and see what he’s rounded up.
If you’re on the Daily Rumpus mailing list, then you already know that Stephen Elliott wasn’t kidding when he promised to send a letter every single day. He writes about whatever’s new on the Rumpus, or on his mind lately, or if he maybe needs a place to crash in the UK. They’re all fine and good, as daily mass emails go, but his most recent missive really stood out to me. He seems like he’s really firing on all cylinders right now, and so his letter is reproduced in full after the jump. After you read it, you’ll probably want to go to the site and sign up for the mailing list, so you too can get nifty notes like this every day. READ MORE >
As part of the myriad activities planned to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, the normally staid National Bureau of Statistics is letting its hair down a bit.
I often forget that The Believer publishes some original content online, mostly because pieces don’t appear there very often, or on any particular schedule (at least, not one that’s apparent to me). But today is a glad day, for I have been to Believermag.com and I have found there Judy Berman’s online exclusive “Concerning the Spiritual in Indie Rock.” It’s a great, smart article, and does double duty as the blueprint for a pretty kickass playlist. Berman starts with Kandinsky’s essay “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” (published in 1911, which was the year after, according to Virginia Woolf, “human character changed”) and then takes a hard jump forward to Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Onward then to Arcade Fire, Gowns, Dan Deacon, the new Animal Collective single “My Girls,” the idea of worship and praise as unfixed experiences, and the idea of drone music as a successor/re-incarnation of certain kinds of meditation. But my favorite part of the piece is about the band Ponytail (pictured above), because I saw these guys open for Mission of Burma right before I went out of the country in July, and let me tell you, everything Berman says about them is right-on.
The title of Ponytail’s most recent album, Ice Cream Spiritual (2008), perfectly captures the band’s sugar-high, wonder-stricken noise-punk. Singer Molly Siegel’s high-pitched shrieks and her bandmates’ wild, experimental take on the classic guitar-bass-drum combination recall nothing more than childhood playtime. For Siegel, childhood and spirituality are about both exploding boundaries between ourselves and the universe and the “ecstasy in losing yourself” that creates.
Be sure to check out the rest of the Believer online exclusives, which includes Stephen Elliott interviewing Matt Bai, two music pieces by Matt Derby, and Chloe Veltman’s classic “The Passion of the Morrissey.”
PS- I’ll be in Tokyo till Tuesday so I won’t be around. Don’t have too much fun without me.
If anybody is wondering why I religiously re-blog the Brights’ Jezebel posts, it’s simple: I think they’re really fun geniuses and I want them to be friends with me a lot. In this installment of their mother/daughter sex advice column, a couple looking to open their relationship up asks where to find positive role-models for conscientious and fulfilling non-monogamy.
Aretha: Well! This cracked me up because all I could think was, “My mom could tell you A LOT more about this than I can!”- lol.
Susie: Yeah, har-de-har-har.
Aretha: Thinking about what happened with you and Dad made me want to caution this girl that picking who you open your relationship with is super-duper important. Stay away from needy stalker people who want more than you can give them.
Susie: In my defense… in all the years I’ve been with your dad (21)- all non-monogamous- I can only think of two (and in retrospect, mercifully brief) times that we went through some real grief. I don’t blame it on being “open” – it’s just the hard things relationships go through at times, be they social, platonic, or battles with your own relatives.
You never knew about all the times everything worked out copacetic or drama-free, because part of our “open relationship” ethos was protecting our family life: Kids come first, privacy is a big deal, and discretion is definitely the better part of valor.
God, the sanity! The well-adjustedness! It’s breathtaking, really.
There’s a new issue of Bookslut up. As usual, it’s action-packed with features and interviews, but I’d like to draw your attention to three non-fiction reviews of books I didn’t know existed and am very pleased to have been made aware of. Interestingly, all three books are written by women, all three are reviewed by women, and all three have subtitles. Here they are: (1) Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture by Kaya Oakes, reviewed by Gina Meyers. (2) I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing by Kyria Abrahams, reviewed by Kate Munning. (3) The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art by Eileen Myles, reviewed by Elizabeth Bachner.
Over at Best American Poetry Blog, they’ve apparently been running a thing where poets choose some of their favorite poetry book-covers. I’m a little late to the party, as there are already entries from Major Jackson, Jesse Ball, David Lehman, and several others. But I’m a big fan of Mary Jo’s, and so it was exciting to enter the series via her entry, which by the way, includes the cover of Mark Bibbins’s forthcoming The Dance of No Hard Feelings (Copper Canyon), perhaps the most eagerly-anticipated follow-up collection of 2009. So why don’t you head over to the blog, read Mary Jo’s piece, then check out some of the others.
Wow, this might actually be the absolute nexus of things I don’t care about. Who among you dares gaze into the Borgesian Aleph of nobody-gives-a-shit?
#140, "Rods from God"
Slate offers up their top 144 US-centric Armageddon scenarios. (I assume that’s one scenario for every thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses admitted to Heaven.) I am especially fond of #69, “Vermont Independence,” because I’ve actually read Thomas H. Naylor‘s bat-shit crazy book, Secession. I also dig #87, “Opt-in Government,” a scenario wherein “government becomes divorced from geography. People who live in the United States can choose to be governed by the laws of Sweden and vice-versa.” And honorable mention to #107, “Climate Wars,” wherein certain countries conduct experiments to try and stop global warming, some of which trigger (or we suspect they trigger) bizarre and possibly disastrous weather, which causes all the nations of the earth to start attacking each other because everyone thinks everyone else made the weather. Please vote for your favorite or suggest your own in the comments section. Also, a big hat tip to my friend Alice Townes, who by the time she sees this post will have forgotten she ever sent me the link.
More Slate-pocalypse:
Josh Levin introduces Apocalypse Week at Slate
The world’s leading futurologists have four main theories about the demise of the US.
“Choose Your Own Apocalypse” interactive feature
PS- some of you might recall that I edited a little book about the apocalypse. Just throwin’ that out there.