Alternative Values in Small Press Culture from AD Jameson
Wonderfully lucid and idea-rich post by AD Jameson at Big Other: Alternative Values in Small Press Culture. This is one for bookmarking. Jameson looks at three values that small press culture inherits somewhat lazily, Jameson claims, from culture-at-large: celebrity, youth, and money. Then he says: “What values might replace these? What else could writers and presses be prioritizing, and pursuing? And what would that look like?” In answering these questions, Jameson throws out a ton of practical and exciting suggestions. Cool stuff.
Where the Words Come From: A Gmail Fuckoff about Getting Work Done
Ryan: wat else you doing rightnow?
like this instant what ar eyou doing!
i am always curious what you doSent at 1:45 PM on Thursdayme: hahai was laying on the bedthen i got back up and saw your msgi got up cuz i thought of a sentence for this collab thing i am trying to finish a draft ofRyan: hahai seeyou just think sentences?i dont think sentencesi dunnoi cantmy braini dunnome: well i have a set of images the thing is ending withand i had a sentence that resolves one of them occuryeah i think entirely in sentences mostlybut often based out of an initial image or situation of imagesso the sentence kind of falls out of the image in specific wordsbut i dont really think about the wordsor the image
The Whole Thing About Poetry
At the Juniper Festival a few weeks ago there was a panel about The Future of Poetry. The panelists were Evie Shockley, Cathy Park Hong, Heather Christle and Rebecca Wolfe. It was good, cutting edge, perhaps too polite but definitely the sort of thing that is supposed to happen at panels.
Rebecca Wolff said poetry doesn’t matter and it sucks that poets, who are smart and engaged people, are wasting their lives on something cloistered and anonymous (my words) when they should become civil servants, business people, people who can make a difference. Essentially, the world is missing the poet’s perspective in areas where they are needed.
I could be paraphrasing this in an unacceptable way, just so you know. But that was the gist. READ MORE >
Old boys
It’s recently come to my attention that HTML Giant is an “old boys club,” or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. So here’s my problem: if commenters are right and HTML Giant is an old boys club, then what role do the women have on this site? I mean, I read HTML Giant pretty faithfully, and I have since long before I was contributor, and I’ve always thought the women play a very significant role. Their posts are thoughtful, funny, often profound. So wtf? If anything, calling HTML Giant an old boys club denigrates the women who post here and the women who read here. And that’s what I think.
The Romantic or The Playful: a conversation about art and happiness
In response to this excellent post, Sean Lovelace said this:
I detest the write-or-I will-die-school.
Why can’t people write an intellectually stimulating activity, as intellectual play?
It has to always be ink-as-blood thing?
I don’t get it.
I’m going to suture in my (slightly edited) response here, as well. I would love input from all.
Nick Antosca—
Alison Brie, one of my favorite actors on Mad Men (she plays Trudy, Pete’s wife) has a graphic and hilariously cheerful sex essay on Nerve. Wow, she’s… nothing like her character on the show.
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But What About the Nipples? A Nice Conversation (Pt. 3)
Blake Butler, Kate Zambreno, Amy King and I recently had a nice, interesting, and lengthy conversation about gender, publishing and so much more, prompted by lots of things including the recent, and largely excellent discussion in Blake’s “Language Over Body” post about the second issue of We Are Champion. We thank you all so much for engaging with us on these issues. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here.
Amy: I want to try to connect such modes of discussion and modes of writing with why we might have an inequitable publishing history by citing excerpts from Joan Retallack’s essay, “:RE:THINKING:LITERARY:FEMINISM.” Blake, when you say we’re “just people” or we’re “just bodies,” I think you’re resisting the notion that biology is essentialist and destiny (it’s not) that determines how and what we write. You are, in fact, by default arguing against the primary thread of feminist literary tradition that says women’s experiences have traditionally been ignored and must be heard via the writing and, I suspect, you imagine that writers could empathize their way into such positions and write those realities. Just a guess.
But this notion falls short of what types of writing have been deemed masculine and feminine. I hope Kate jumps in soon because she most likely has more to say on this matter than I.