ToBS R2: Facebook-based political ‘activism’ vs. litblogging at age 35
[The tournament is back on! It will be decided before the 1 year anniversary of the tournament!– ed.]
[matchup #48 in Tournament of Bookshit]
i’m not on facebook, cause i guess i’m like THAT GUY or whatever, so what happened is that my gf gave me her login info so that i could browse it and be able to accurately judge this battle but all i did was look at her emails and private messages, and, like, pictures of dudes who comment on her pictures and also i looked at pictures of attractive women who seemed to show up a lot in general. but right now i can’t think of a single thing worse than facebook-based political ‘activism’ such as the bunch of posts i couldn’t help seeing that attempted to ‘deal with the problem’ of animal suffering and eating meat re thanksgiving and veganism. i maybe half respected the lady on the street who yelled “make the leap, go vegan!” at me as i passed but what i did on thanksgiving was sneak downstairs late after dinner and eat cold turkey by the light of the refrigerator, thinking of her. do i even have to mention ows here or can i just ignore it the same way everyone ignored the local elections last month? READ MORE >
Only Five Days Left to Enter THE CUPBOARD Contest!!!
The Cupboard is a quarterly prose chapbook series that has published volumes by Jesse Ball, Mathias Svalina, Caia Hagel, Andrew Borgstrom, and Joshua Cohen—among other great writers.
The Cupboard is pleased to announce its second annual pamphlet contest. One winning manuscript will be published as an upcoming volume of The Cupboard in 2012. In addition, the winning author will receive $500 and contributor copies.
The Cupboard is also very excited to announce that Maud Casey will judge the contest. (See bio.)
The contest entry period will be open February 1 and will close April 30. Entry fee: $10. Word limit: 4,000 to 10,000 words. All entries will be considered for general publication as a volume of The Cupboard.
Click here to enter or find more information. Please feel free to email cupboard [at] thecupboardpamphlet [dot] org with any questions.
Contests / Comments Off on Only Five Days Left to Enter THE CUPBOARD Contest!!!
April 25th, 2012 / 11:31 am
April 25th, 2012 / 11:31 am
Giveaway of Daniel Bailey’s Hallelujah, Giant Space Wolf
I have an extra copy or two of Daniel Bailey’s brand new and very excellent Hallelujah, Giant Space Wolf, now out from Mammoth Editions. Leave a comment and I’ll randomly select a winner to receive.
“I don’t know how many poets could write a book bringing together meth, Barney, racecars, black metal, God, and the Lakers in one massive feral hymn, but Daniel Bailey is the only one I’d trust. Water into wine is fine but this man can do it to dogshit. Hallelujah Giant Space Wolf is hilarious and true and beautiful. Hail holy spazzlord Bailey.” —Blake Butler
“If Daniel Bailey’s poems were people, they would be the kind of people that you love to get drunk with but you’re always a little afraid that they might try to slit your throat. When you tell them about Emily Dickinson feeling the top of her head come off, they reach for a saw. Still, you can’t help but love them. They’re a blast! They’re always a step away from going to jail or running into your parents or causing you to rearrange the furniture in your loneliest apartment. Daniel Bailey’s poem-people are in a gang called The Space Wolves and they are really, really excited about learning something from this terrible, amazing, gigantic world, even if that means that we’ll need a mop for all of the blood.” —Peter Davis, author of Poetry! Poetry! Poetry!
at halfway point 14
So I was fudging juggling judging a poetry contest yesterday
And
Stumbled upon many Centered Poems. Why do I retch them so? Where
Did they come from? Origins? Why am I biased since one
Was about a glass basketball and I like that general idea
And this was for cash $$$ (Wait, I thought poetry
Couldn’t make money.)
Sorry. They seem like cover letters on purple paper to me. Or I
mean like people who ask about copyright. Who knows?
Who writes Centered Poems?
I am drinking beer now so wanted to
Bring this question in front of the quart
Of public opinion. When you see a
Centered Poem, what do you think?
Is it arbitrary for me to hate them?
I don’t know.
(moon, gossamer, wings, love, tendrils)
What u think?
THE SKY WENT RED giveaway x2 for why
I’m giving away two copies of THE SKY WENT RED WHILE HE WAS INSIDE, a small book produced by Kiddiepunk. The man behind Kiddiepunk and the cover artist/brilliant artist in general is Michael Salerno. This book is made of edited sections from CALL OUT, a novel I wrote. To enter: comment! I’ll randomly pick two people and hunt their e/meat addresses down. Thank you.
ToBS R2: ‘lyric essays’ vs. middle age white male self published sci fi novel pt 1 of 4
[matchup #47 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Thompa peered into the tinted windows of Captain Mnooble’s hovercraft, which hummed in the hovercraft hovering-lot, just outside the Sunfleet Academy. His heart raced and he could feel his green blood pulse quicker through his four aortas. Was the Captain still inside, staring back at Thompa, wondering if he was good and blinka enough to succeed him as leader of The Walkers?
*
In more shallow waters, sea cucumbers can form dense populations. The strawberry sea cucumber (Squamocnus brevidentis) of New Zealand lives on rocky walls around the southern coast of the South Island where populations sometimes reach densities of 1,000 animals per square metre. For this reason, one such area in Fiordland is simply called the strawberry fields. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: trolling for spelling errors in blog posts vs Sewage Treatment Technologies
[matchup #46 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Coming off their tedious win over those posting constant facebook photos, those Trolling for spelling errors in blog posts were feeling self-important & in the zone going into their game against Sewage Treatment Technologies. Little did Trolling for spelling errors in blog posts know, Sewage Treatment Technologies had a secret weapon they had not revealed in their win against The Pulitzer Prize, in the form of the lanky Roman center, Chiara Barzini. She quoted a passage from her forthcoming book:«If you attack, make sure you say things that really creep under the skin. A threat that always scares Romans off is: “Your sewage goes into pipes laid in 735 B.C. You are shitting into the past.”» And then she preceded to divulge the intricate inner-workings of Rome’s sewage system. Trolling for spelling errors in blog posts were thrown into confusion—not only was this sequence of words unseen previously in any blog post, but by self-revealing such vulnerabilities in the Roman sewage system, Sewage Treatment Technologies took away the sense of discovery from Trolling for spelling errors in blog posts, rendering them mute. Taking a cue from the movie Brazil, the all-purpose guard-forward Harry Tuttle (played by Robert Deniro) rerouted the online sewage pipes to flood all blog posts, leaving Trolling for spelling errors in blog posts to drown in their own shit. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: calling anything you write a manuscript vs. Gmail chat people who are always visible
[matchup #45 in Tournament of Bookshit]
There’s nothing wrong with always being visible on Gmail chat, except that it comes off as pathetic. Talk to me, talk to me, won’t you please talk to me? Yes, I am the asshole who will talk to you, because you’re available, because I’m available too, not available like single but available like I’ve got nothing else happening in my life, or maybe I am available like single and you’re available like single and then it’s triply pathetic because we’re talking on the screen and maybe we’re flirting, maybe you say something clever about writing and I say something clever about writing and we’re both smug with our cleverness, because we both know when we meet face to face at some shitshow like AWP that we’ll both be too awkward to squeeze out a two minute conversation, much less a two minute romp in anyone’s hotel room. READ MORE >