Best of the Web 2009 Invades HTMLGIANT: Guest Post by Jeff Parker
Please welcome guest poster Jeff Parker, author of Ovenman, to HTMLGIANT. The following is a short short essay of his (part of a Dzanc Books internet invasion to support the forthcoming Best of the Web 2009) that talks about the origins of his story “The Boy and the Colgante,” recently published in Waccamaw and now anthologized in BotW 2009.
When Jonathan Messinger slotted me for the Dollar Store Reading series, I was torqued. The premise is as follows: Jonathan goes to a dollar store. Jonathan spends a dollar on something there. Jonathan sends that something to you (me, in this case). You write a story about it. You come to Chicago and read that story. I did lots of time in dollar stores and was well prepared for some good no-name household cleaning product or maybe a crappy toy. What I received sank my heart. It appeared to be a CD with an American flag printed on one side, but on further inspection it was a CD not to be played but to be hung from the rear view mirror of one’s car. It was called a colgante. This thing flummoxed me. It was like it came from another world. I had no reference point for it whatsoever. A colgante could not simply be there, an incidental detail. It commanded a more focal point. I put off writing the story until about two days before my trip to Chicago. I had just met some draft dodgers at Grossman’s tavern in Toronto. I figured the alienation I felt having this colgante thing in my life must be at least mildly resonant with the alienation they feel every day. I went for it. The result is here. I don’t really know if the thing played or not, but then I think that it must have.
You can read more posts by BotW authors at several other sites. Check out EWN for details. Thanks to Jeff Parker for the post and to Dan Wickett for asking HTMLGIANT to host.
By Myself by DA Powell and David Trinidad
I had a chance to read By Myself (Turtle Point Press) by DA Powell and David Trinidad a week or two ago and wanted to give it a quick treatment here. It’s a three hundred sentence chapbook cobbled together from three hundred memoirs/autobiographies (one sentence per memoir/autobiography – in the back of the chapbook, they’ve noted which sentence comes from what book). So basically, Powell and Trinidad selected one hundred and fifty memoirs each, read/skimmed them, and then traded sentences back and forth one after another to eventually create a patchwork story of someone rising from poverty, becoming successful, dealing with various struggles (such as an unhealthy addiction to birthday cakes), and so on. It’s an arc we might expect to see in an autobiography, right? Here’s how my life is a meaningful story, with a beginning, middle, and end. However, due to the breadth of memoirs/autobiographies from which Powell and Trinidad select the sentences (Tennessee Williams, Kathie Lee Gifford, Gertrude Stein, William Shatner, Gore Vidal, etc.), the narrator’s trajectory is a bit erratic, but in a hilariously good way. Powell and Trinidad cleverly take advantage of this to create some funny moments and some sad moments as well.
Uncategorized / 16 Comments
July 19th, 2009 / 2:40 pm
July 19th, 2009 / 2:40 pm
Help Amanda Nazario Take Her Radio Show Across The Country
Things You Should Know About Nazario Scenario On WHFR That Are Crucial To Your Understanding Of It by Amanda Nazario
Friend of HTMLGIANT Amanda Nazario needs your help. She’d like to take her radio show, the Nazario Scenario, currently broadcast via Washington Heights Free Radio, across the country in a van outfitted with mobile wifi, a turntable, a cd player, mics, and other cool stuff, but she needs cash.
You can read about her project over at her Kickstarter donations page. The basics are as follows:
-Donations of $10,000 by October 15th, 2009.
-Purchase of a van
-Installation of necessary equipment
-Learn to drive!
-Travel the country broadcasting for WHFR
Pledge your support through the Kickstarter page (watch her video). Comment on her blog. Look at her drawings. Read her stories. Follow her on Twitter. Do nice things for her and maybe she’ll visit your home and make you an honorary DJ or something.
Good luck, Amanda.
Ryan Call—
Interview with John O’Brien of Dalkey Archive Press over at Jacket Copy.
(via Josh Maday)
Comments Off on John O’Brien Interview
Plotting with 419Eater.com
I somehow spent an hour or so this weekend reading various ‘baits’ in the PublishYourWork forum over at 419Eater.com, a site devoted to the art of scambaiting (if you’re not familiar with scambaiting, read this post by Tom Whitwell at The Times Online).
As I read through the threads, I was surprised at how scambaiters talk about their work. Scambaiters use specific terms to describe what they do: a ‘lad’ is a targeted scammer, a ‘trophy’ is something the scambaiter receives from the lad, a ‘mark’ is a victim of a scammer (known as a ‘mugu’ in scammer circles apparently), and so on.
I was also impressed with how involved some of these ‘baits’ are. A few of the better scambaiters put a lot of effort into working the scammers: they play multiple characters, from clergymen to hackers to other scammers; they do their best to send the exchange into odd twists; and they often wait until the right moment, just when the scammer has done all he thought he needed to do in order to get the money, before revealing the hopelessness of the situation/play their trick/etc.
Your favorite bitter literary characters on Omegle
Whoever said Omegle is the Internet-chat version of truckstop-bathroom sex didn’t think to throw ‘great literature’ at it to, you know, maybe class it up a bit. Well, I thought it, and I threw it, and I somehow still feel dirty, ashamed, and full of regret. I feel like I’ve ruined something.
I give you the underground man chatting on Omegle, followed by Molloy chatting on Omegle.
snd me ur txt msgs, plz?
Everyone, I thought it might be fun to get your help on this. For the Dollar Store Super Summer Tour, I’m scheduled to read for 5mins in Houston this Monday with Gene Morgan and others. The dollar store item that I received is in the above picture. It is an elephant cellular phone holster that attaches to my belt or hangs around my neck. This holster gave me the idea to ask you to email me favorite text messages you have sent or received. I would like to combine these text messages into poems/stories/texts/things to read at the Dollar Store Show Tour at Domy Books on Monday night. I promise to post the things at HTMLGIANT after the event so that everyone can read them.
I think this could be fun? Please email the exact text message, with text message language intact, to htmlgiant [at] gmail [dot] com – use subject $ STORE SHOW or DOLLAR STORE SHOW or something like that. I will take whatever I can get through like 10pm CST tonight. I will try to use every line I receive. I hope this works.
Oh, new idea: or you can also post them in the comments section. That might be fun also. Then other people can play with them too, maybe? The point is this should be really messy.
Uncategorized / 25 Comments
July 5th, 2009 / 12:45 pm
July 5th, 2009 / 12:45 pm
Writing Spaces at Fictionaut Blog
Fictionaut has announced a new blog feature, Writing Spaces, “dedicated to the desks, cafes, libraries and retreats where Fictionaut writers work, providing a window to the physical places where some of the stories on the site originated.” The first featured writer is Stephen Stark, whose writing space appears to be a tiny barn.
Those of you interested in writing spaces might want to check back every now and then to see what goes up. Should be a cool time over there.
(via Monkeybicycle)
A New Twitter Feed Journal
Twitter666 is a journal of twitter feeds from the normally seen and not heard. It is edited by Sam Pink and Martin Wall. Contributors so far are Bradley Sands, Chris East, and Nathan Tyree.
I like the feed from ‘a big sandwich.’
Poor big sandwich.
You can pick whatever feeds you want to read from Twitter666 and just follow them. Other feeds include those of a press-on nail, Mike Tyson’s face tattoo, a three year old, and a creepy old guy at the park. Or you can email Sam Pink and Martin Wall if you want to take part, add a feed, etc. They might let you. They are nice people.
Uncategorized / 18 Comments
June 30th, 2009 / 3:03 pm
June 30th, 2009 / 3:03 pm
