ToBS R1: horny middle aged balding poetry professor on campus vs. horny college age dude-bro poet on facebook
[Matchup #26 in Tournament of Bookshit]
internet vs. intellect
i’ll probably never get a facebook friend request from a dude or an email from a male professor again, but:
horny middle aged balding poetry professor on campus vs.
horny college aged dude-bro poet on facebook
starts talking to you about gender and offers you an independent study on Judith Butler
starts talking to you about gender and offers to publish you in his online journal
winner: if the journal is well put together with other impressive contributors, bro READ MORE >
ToBS R1: declaring ‘__ is dead’ vs. nationwide facebook invite to local reading
[Matchup #25 in Tournament of Bookshit]
DECLARING ___ IS DEAD VS. NATIONWIDE FACEBOOK INVITE TO LOCAL READING
-OR-
HOW I SPENT MEAN WEEK MAKING A POST SO STUPID THAT AFTER YOU READ THIS POST THE POST WILL HAVE A CHILD NAMED “GOOBER T.L.D.R” BECAUSE THE POST ISN’T EVEN GOOD AT COMING UP WITH NAMES FOR ITS CHILDREN
On the one hand, nothing really dies. Like I have this receipt from a movie I saw right here in my pocket. What good is it doing anybody? The movie was about the financial industry. We were made to feel sorry for people because they buried their dogs just like everybody else. In one scene, Snapple showed off its brand of bottled water. The best scene was when a guy who used to make bridges explained that money wasn’t a bridge, e.g. it didn’t save anybody in traffic. Adam and I saw the movie in NYC. Driving home, Adam and Joe and I got stuck in traffic. The reasons were mysterious. Adam’s chips were locked in the trunk. I wasn’t really hungry because I’d eaten two breakfasts and Adam’s tiramisu, which he gave me to shut me up after we argued about the relevance of the bridge scene. The tiramisu was delicious and sort of ridiculously conceptualized, just like NYC. -+-+-+-+-+- Listen: READ MORE >
ToBS R1: Chapbook blurbs vs Facebook-based political ‘activism’
[Matchup #24 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Facebook-Based Political ‘Activism’
Active is a funny word. Also the word, Like. You know Flannery O’Connor never asked a damn person to be a Christian, she just wrote these badass stories where all the phonies got their fucking heads blown off and their families slaughtered and then maybe some “Agent of Grace” would go and seduce a fat ass and steal their fake leg. That’s the way to do it. Seems to me you got a mirror problem. Or you spent sixth grade with an eye-blinking tic. (They called you Blinky.) Or photos of your own head or your severe-or-doughy offspring’s head all J.C. Penny glossy on the beige-ass walls. I bet your palms smell hot and funky. You’re white. Tuck in your shirt and have one of those little cases on your belt for the cellphone and a little ripple, a little soft, soft, soft fish-belly over the top of the waist of the jeans. Keep four pill bottles in a neat, black case stuffed in a Nike shoe, in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator. But what do I know? Nothing, except that to ask if I’m happy every day is a goddamn insult to the other 98% wondering why the light bulb keeps flickering off…Hey Slaw-Cheeks, Facebook groups, Pages and Events are as helpful for your enemies as they are for you. Only James Bond villains tell everyone their plans, and see what happens? Sharks, de-railed trains, suffocated by octopi, shot by Bond/shot by Bond/shot by Bond, oh my. Or: I keep getting this vision of sweaty you in the Toys “R” Us parking lot masturbating to a conjured image of a yellow cats, smiling yellow cats running circles along a Go-Cart track in Rhode Island…You don’t tip bartenders for shit, do you? That nagging feeling, it’s your head rolling about a black cart rumbling and clanking iron-wheeled down a dark road, to the dump, all of this an honest image of the shadowworld, your soul, a knobby goat (most likely pulled the cart—that’s called honest work, you Enormous Fuck) gnawing at your eye socket, then to the elbow, the pale, calloused index finger of your Liking. You hose. You greasy hose. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: lit blogging at age 35 vs. tweeting at age 45
[Matchup #22 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Using two specific examples I will discuss lit blogging at age 35 versus tweeting at age 45 and declare a winner. I’d like to note that this entry is merely in the spirit of Mean Week. I respect both Matt and Deb. The idea alone that I thought of their names when considering this topic should only be aligned with admiration. And neither is a true winner. If you’re involved in any way – writer, reader, twitter user, lit blogger – in the “lit scene,” you’re a loser by default. Happy Mean Week, nerds.
Example One: Lit blogging at age 35 READ MORE >
ToBS R1: calling anything you write a manuscript vs. author photos
[Matchup #22 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Calling Anything You Write A Manuscript
I just copypasted my blogger into google docs for a 45,000 word count. My nanowrimo just feels right. The manuscript I drafted and polished in February is complete. A novel in tweets. Everything I write is gold. This is like _______ meets ________. It’s _________ with a twist. I think people want to read about my breakup. It’s 50,000 on my daily bathroom experiences. I oulipo’d this baby without the first half of the alphabet. It’s called ‘beastial fiction’. I just wrote down everything my mother said. I’m a method writer. Why do you think the title is “Cock In Hand”? I used a typewriter for authenticity. The blank spaces represent epic minimalism. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: Gmail chat people who are always visible vs. People who leave really long comments
[Matchup #21 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Gmail chat people who are always visible
We get it. You are always online and you want the world to know it. You are connected and plugged in and able to immediately respond to every electronic message appearing in your Inbox. You are there, waiting beneath the pale glow of your monitor, to chat and abuse emoticons and the English language typing phrases like i want 2 c u cum. You are the Motel 6 of Gmail—your light is always on, always green. When you’re busy, you do not hesitate to turn on the red light but still, you are there. Never, though, is your light yellow. Never does that light fade to gray. You do not idle. You do not step away from the computer. You do not stop typing. Your fingers are always tap tap tapping away, letting the world know you will not abandon your virtual post. You are the Internet presence. You are the bright e-mail light in the dark, dark night. We see the messages you leave, floating in the screen ether just below your name. You’re writing or you’re reading or you’re promoting the last thing you wrote. More often than not, you are passive aggressively communicating your displeasure about the state of the world or, as is usually the case, the state of your world. You are pithy or bitter or bitterly pithy but at least you are there. You will always be there. The rest of us, lurking silently behind the gray dot of feigned absence, we watch and we wait. Sooner or later, your time will come. Your light too, will go gray. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: ‘curating’ a reading series vs. crossing off typed name & signing your name below it in yr book
[Matchup #20 in Tournament of Bookshit]
‘curating’ a reading series
pros: you will have something to do, you will have a legitimate reason to talk to and meet writers you like, you will be able to promote writers you like which may distract you from shit-talking writers you dislike
cons: ~90% of readings i’ve been to have ‘seemed bleak,’ you will quickly ‘run out of’ readers to ask to read, you might feel pressure to promote the readings so it won’t be awkward when the audience is small, you might feel pressure to introduce every reader with enthusiasm and to appear happy/excited that they’re reading for your series, you will be in positions where you might have to either ignore or reject certain people who want to read for your series READ MORE >
ToBS R1: shortshort referring to whiskey consumption vs. asking facebook friends to review yr book on amazon
[Matchup #19 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Whiskey as cultural flashpoint implies a kind of toughness, a kind of rambunctious, possibly-troubled badassness of attitude (due to overuse it’s shifting into a symbol of extended upper-middleclass adolescence aspiring to evoke the above) exactly counteracted by the poncey formal envelope of ‘short-short.’ These two clichés epitomize the literary trinket cranked out by our culture. A frilly package whose contents purport to be “broken,” like Hugh Laurie blues album.
The whiskey person travels to writers’ conferences where people like Denis Johnson and Tim O’Brien tell them to characterize with vivid detail. This is advice they need to hear (since their ‘short-short’ is, other than cultural flashpoint, an orgy of exposition) but will never heed. When they return form the conference, they only talk about who they met, never about what they learned. They mention the drink they had with Denis Johnson, and how cool and normal he seemed, yet also weird in a couple of ways! Then they ask you how your weekend was, and they actually care. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: talking shit about New Yorker while submitting frqntly to NYer vs. dream sequence w talking animals
[Matchup #18 in Tournament of Bookshit]
Let’s tie these together.
1. Don’t worry about it: your story/novel excerpt with the talking animal dream sequences is not going to get published in The New Yorker.
2. This might be why you have to talk shit about The New Yorker. You know you will never be published there.
3. This might be why you talk shit about God. You know he doesn’t exist.
4. But still, you submit.
5. But still, you pray.
6. Don’t worry about it: it’s okay not to know who you are. Every rejection will move you closer to some knowing. READ MORE >
ToBS R1: characters that ‘just have to have their stories told’ vs. celebrity fiction
[Matchup #17 in Tournament of Bookshit]
I don’t how many people who hate this novel, or just want to make fun of it (here, here, here, and here for a random smattering of the shit-talking) cite the following passage as an example of bad writing: “Gia danced around a little, shaking her peaches for show. She shook it hard. Too hard. In the middle of a shimmy, her stomach cramped. A fart slipped out. A loud one. And stinky.” Snooki’s “novel” might be bad (I wouldn’t know; I’ve only read one excerpt enough to write this), but shall I compare this to a summer’s day–I mean to Ayn fucking Rand, in particular from Atlas Shrugged (a book I read when I was 19 and won’t bother with again because it’s Ayn fucking Rand)?: “Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.” READ MORE >