ToBS R2: Calling yourself the editor-in-chief of an online journal vs. bowties
[Matchup #36 in Tournament of Bookshit]
I know what you’re thinking: clearly the answer is “Having an opinion about MFA rankings.”
But we have to work with what’s given us which means other possible solutions (“Garamond,” and “Fetishizing experimentation while hating on those who fetishize narrative” among them) are left unavailable as is information seemingly vital to out trial. Do these online literary journals actually have sub-editors? Are these bowties pre-tied? Is this a wedding? If the editor-and-chief marries a sub-editor does the sub-editor move up in rank? Does the rank require a uniform? Does the uniform require a bowtie?
Clearly the answer is “Writing a Story That Uses the Word Pus.” READ MORE >
ToBS R2: [yourauthorname].com vs. working at Best Buy
[Matchup #35 in Tournament of Bookshit]
adamrobinson.com redirects to some Sarasota Real Estate company. That’s stupid. adamrobinson.org is “The Truth,” a Christian dude’s fervent website. He was married in November. Congratulations to you both! adamrobinson.blogspot.combelongs to a bass player who hasn’t updated since 2004. So basically [yourauthorname.com] sucks for my fellow Adam Robinsons. Except for maybe the preacher and his Dreamweaving and his wife/husband and his devotional books which are available at bulk pricing in case you’re interested. But enough about myauthorname.com — how’re things for yours? I do appreciate being able to go to one site and seeing all of your publications listed, for when I’m bored and hiding out in the bathroom at my job working at Best Buy, crying and scrolling through your mobile site on my Samsung Vibrant S2, reading your sweet poems on the toilet with my pants up. Plus that blue shirt matches my eyes and I happen to know a lot about RAM anyway, and sound cards (SOUND CARDS!!! People upgrade your SOUND CARDS!!!), and how Dell’s GX270 desktop form factor has a known issue with the nodes leaking on the motherboard so, sorry mister, you’ll probably need to buy a whole new machine if you’re going to finish that manuscript which I hope you saved to one of our external harddrives. But in this challonge I need to hearken to the best authorname.com case study, which was aboutjatyler.com, made famous by those early Stamp Stories. I mean, damn, that’s how you get your name out there, on the backs of little slips of paper.
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ToBS R2: the guy who goes 20 minutes over the suggested reading time vs. AWP
[Matchup #34 in Tournament of Bookshit]
To locate the source of a power that’s true and absolute, a power that comes from the center of the integrity of the essence of each contestant, one must not go through hate, but love. So hear you this, Guy Who Goes 20 Minutes Over the Suggested Reading Time—GWG20MOTSRT, if I may be so bold—you have made me love you. You’re right, for the first 50 minutes, I wasn’t really even paying attention to you or the carefully coiffured bedhead you clutched as if in pain in between poems, though I did come up with some handy new ways to discreetly check my email on my phone, and looking back now, it’s safe to say I was taking you for granted, GWG20MOTSRT, or GWG20MO, can I call you GWG20MO? But G-MO, a few moments before it’s been suggested by who knows what power (probably that guy sitting in the front row who introduced you not 57 minutes earlier) or what authority (God’s) that you step down or at least cede the floor to a Q&A, I begin, at last, to notice you. I notice your breath, the speed and cadence of your voice, the way you shift from foot to foot, with an increasing and increasingly wild alertness, as if there is some kind of pattern to be discerned there, a pattern that might gesture towards a greater, future happiness. Perhaps two swipes through that hair, now drooping despite its coif, means two more poems; perhaps when you’ve leaned on your right elbow’s jacket patch for the length of three gossamer moons and a grackle, the task of supporting of your own admirably well-kept head will become too much and you’ll be forced to shut the book—GWG20MO, I can’t take my eyes off you. It’s as if we’re the only two people in the room. You’re sweating now and I can see it and it’s so intimate. Do you give even one good God damn for me? Can you hear me shift and sigh and slouch towards you? Is this punishment for those times I very suavely deleted messages from Groupon about 25% off tanning with the heel of my boot while American starlings combed pensively those vast and lyric skies? I am rapt. I have failed to resist you. I have, so very badly, to pee. READ MORE >
ToBS R2: ‘magic realism’ vs. Alcoholism
[Matchup #33 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Gabriel Garcia Marquez dropped his iPhone on the sidewalk. A crack shot through the street sending fire hydrants blasting into the sky, splitting the 9/11 Memorial in two, setting the Wall Street Bull a-bucking after a bunch of shrieking schoolgirls in preppy outfits. No, wait. As Gabriel Garcia Marquez took an upskirt of himself on the base of the Statue of Liberty, Alcoholism stumbled over and sent his iPhone tracing a slow arc to the sea. When Marquez looked up Alcoholism held one of those Zack Morris phones to his face and said, “I’m at your house.” Gabriel paled as he reached for the phone. Alcoholism punched him in the nose with it. “Just kidding, jackass. I went to your house but you weren’t there. So I burned it down.” Gabriel held his bloody nose in both hands peering through a pair of watery almonds. “By the by, saw those penis enlargement pills in your medicine cabinet. Are those for your clit?” Before Marquez could stutter, Alcoholism reared a fist and hooked a hole through his face, which contorted into hyperbole. “L-O-L,” slurred Alcoholism. “Who do you think you are, Franz-fucking-Kafka? I think no.” READ MORE >
ToBS R1: ‘lyric essays’ vs. Daily facebook updates on what you’re doing with your students
[Matchup #32 in Tournament of Bookshit]
‘Lyric Essays’
Before he got married, my friend Michael couldn’t really be bothered to spend a lot of time cooking for himself. Or, well, he wasn’t really motivated to invest a lot of his precious time in the act of preparing food in a kitchen for his consumption. (I’m sure Michael would appreciate me telling you that once he began his long-term, now state/church sanctioned relationship, this changed.) Also, Michael didn’t really have a lot of money. So, not having the finances to go out to eat every night, and not having the inclination to spend a lot of time cooking—because he was instead inclined to read and learn banjo—Michael ate a lot of Banquet Turkey Pot Pies. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: middle age white male sex scene vs. middle age white male self published sci fi novel pt 1 of 4
[Matchup #31 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Holy receding hairlines! This is quite the week for middle-aged men, with no less than two new texts targeting the graying templed-set: Middle Aged White Male Heterosexual Sex Scene AND Middle Age White Male Self-Published Sci Fi Novel Pt 1! TJY and the Actionettes have made no secret of our fetish for hot, pot-bellied daddies – so this is the kind of news that has us sweating off our makeup, creaming our sequins and quaking in our stilettos! READ MORE >
ToBS R1: the Georgia Review vs dinner at Chili’s
[Matchup #30 in Tournament of Bookshit]
I’ve never read the Georgia Review. I have eaten dinner at Chili’s probably 50 times throughout my life. My favorite dish to get at Chili’s, the dish that has remained my favorite transitioning through all of the various eating habits I’ve had (being no-restriction to vegetarian to pesceterian to vegan), is the fajitas. The fajitas at Chili’s are exciting because they are a spectacle. Looking at the website for the Georgia Review, I see a complete lack of spectacle. Chili’s was my favorite restaurant growing up because it took me a while to develop any sort of palate for foods that are not ultimately mediocre. While it would seem that both the Georgia Review and Chili’s are ostensibly mediocre, Chili’s maintains a specific midwestern magic. Chili’s is, I guess, supposed to be “Tex-Mex” food, though that term really has no meaning whatsoever. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: Sewage Treatment Technologies vs. The Pulitzer Prize
[Matchup #28 in Tournament of Bookshit]
A corpus containing all Pulitzer Prize-winning books in the Fiction category from 1948-present and the Novel category from 1917-1947
vs.
A list of sewage treatment technologies, included below: READ MORE >
ToBS R1: trolling for spelling errors in blog posts vs. changing your facebook picture daily
[Matchup #27 in Tournament of Bookshit]
I don’t know.
I’ve never had a blog.
I haven’t been on Facebook in almost a year.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this, what the fuck “Trolling for spelling errors in your blog vs. changing your Facebook profile pic daily” means.
This would be so much easier if I’d been given something easy, like:
Jimmy Chen vs. every woman on HTMLGIANT.
Or HTMLGIANT 2009 vs. HTMLGIANT 2011.
Or being Matt Bell vs. not being Matt Bell.
Or telling Blake no vs. telling him yes.
(Is it possible for the gender with the vagina to tell Blake Butler no?)
Fuck Blake Butler. Fuck HTMLGIANT. Fuck “mean week.” READ MORE >