Absolute LAST Call for Submissions to “The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide”
Alyssa Carver, "fragment from Faulkner" - Brooklyn, New York
From the very first day that Eva Talmadge and I announced that we were putting together a photo-anthology of literary tattoos–in a post I made from Hong Kong to this blog, on 7/24/09–we have been overwhelmed and elated by the response. Photos have come in from all over the world, from all different kinds of people, each with their own reason for having chosen their line or lines or illustrations that pay homage to everything from Twain to Twilight, from Shakespeare to King’s Dark Tower, Plath, Dickinson to Salinger, Shel Silverstein, Dostoevsky, John Berryman, J.K. Rowling, T.S. Eliot, Mark Z. Danielewski, David Foster Wallace, Moby-Dick–I could go on (which reminds me: several fine Becketts already, including at least two versions of the line alluded to here). And yet, despite the sheer volume of amazing work we’ve received–and the fact that we had declared 12/31/09 the submission deadline–we are still looking for more. We’d love to hear from you anytime between now and, say, Valentine’s Day. But don’t delay, because after that it really will be over. We will turn the book in to our editor at Harper Perennial very soon after that date, and it will be on shelves this coming fall. Detailed guidelines are posted on the original call for submissions, but here is the most important thing: Please send clear digital images of the highest print quality possible as an attached file in jpeg format to tattoolit@gmail.com. Pixel resolutions should be at least 1500 x 2000, or a minimum 300 dpi at 5 inches wide. I can’t tell you how many people have sent us excellent ink in unusable formats or at too-low-for-print quality levels–this close to the deadline, there simply may not be time to wait for re-sends, even if we love the work. A million thanks to everyone who has shared their work with us thus far, and to everyone else–hope to hear from you soon.
Alec Bryan, "Dore's Ezekiel with Melville Banner" - Ogden, Uta
Dan Slessor, "text from Neuromancer" - Brighton, England
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
New UK TV show pilot starring Will Arnett and David Cross [pt 1 of 3]
Harold Bloom Viceland Interview
Read a report today in the Yale Daily News that Harold Bloom has had to cancel his classes this semester due to illness. He’s had a brutal last several years, but had seemed to be doing well lately–up until today’s announcement, anyhow. Here’s hoping that this is just a blip on the screen for him. Anyway, the above is from a great, and weirdly sweet, interview that I just uncovered that he gave to Vice Magazine last year. It’s worth reading in full.
Lastly, since HB tends to be a lightning-rod for controversy and/or ignorant invective, you are hereby reminded that a man is ill, perhaps gravely so, and you are forewarned to say something kind/useful, or else keep your bullshit to yourself for once.
Mike Young—
Poeteevee is a new online poetry video series curated by A. Lee Abelson. First two readers are the magnificent CAConrad and the legendary Eileen Myles. Check it out.
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Justin Taylor—
Employee: See, the thing is — and I don’t know how much you know about it — it’s all stored in a database on the backend. Literally everything. Your messages are stored in a database, whether deleted or not. So we can just query the database, and easily look at it without every logging into your account. That’s what most people don’t understand.
The Rumpus has scored an interview with an anonymous Facebook employee for Conversations About the Internet #5.
Live Giants, a live online monthly reading series
Excited to announce today a new monthly feature we’ve been drumming around for a while now, and finally ready to kick it off for 2010, HTML Giant Live Giants, a monthly reading series hosted right here on the site.
On the last non-Friday weekday of each month we’ll have a writer we love reading from their home, or perhaps surprise locations, via live streaming, 20 minutes or so followed by a chatbox-prompted q/a. With so many excellent people all over the place, and all the invites we get to readings that we wish we had a time/space portal for, we hope this will help fill some of that gap, and without necessarily putting on any pants.
The inaugural reading will be that fabulous Heather Christle. Mark your calendar to show up around here on Thursday January 28 at 9 PM Eastern and witness her incantations and brainspeaks. BYOB. No RSVP.
Friday Afternoon Mindfuck: Hot Chicks Smiling at Ground Zero
A little browsing on this site suggests that the proprietor seems to think “hot” means either “any” or else “high school.” Or possibly “any [chick in] high school.” So that’s a little whatever, but dude still gets points for being an absolute genius and an absolute asshat at once. I want to throw this guy an awards dinner and crown him with an ass-shaped hat that has the word GENIUS scrawled in glitter across the cheeks. And be sure to check out the (markedly less interesting) sister sites, the best of which seem to be “Hot Chicks with Fists in Their Mouths,” “Hot Chicks Plunging Their Toilets,” and “Hot Chicks with Stubbed Toes Making Sex Faces.”
Oh, the minor but very real discomfort! Oh, oh, oh!
Idol worship
There’s something about Samuel Beckett that makes photo- and/or bio-graphers want to take black and white photos of him. Things are more serious in black and white, a kind of pre-industrial grimness overlaid with existential severity. (Metallica’s Unforgiven video also capitalizes on this aesthetic, or “old dude in dark room.”) His predecessors (Kafka, Joyce, etc.), having lived during the time of black and white photography, are remembered that way for good reason — but it’s interesting when others promote irrelevant aesthetics which seek to implicate some underlining value of an author.
I often experience idolatry when looking at author photos. In this business, they are the gods. Readers need a “way inside,” and as evocative as words are, pictures of the buggers don’t hurt. I love it when a moderately famous and respected author is clearly depressed and struggling to hold a reasonable face, for it somehow makes me feel better. When the author is content, or worse, self-satisfied and (god) attractive, I feel passive yet distinct anger towards the author. This, of course, is stupid, but I am human, and humans are good at stupid.
Jan 21st: 1 Year Later with The Rumpus
In giddy pleasure for our sisters, we are pleased to announce and celebrate the one year anniversary of The Rumpus, who for that whole full year has been feeding the nonstop glow of daily good. Now it’s time to enjoy that in the flesh (if you’re a NYer anyway). Those of us elsewhere can hang out in the spirit. But for those around, the digs are juicy. Looksee:
The evening will feature readings by a line-up of literary stars:
RIVKA GALCHEN, author of Atmospheric Disturbances
TAO LIN, author of Shoplifting from American Apparel
DEB OLIN UNFERTH, author of Vacation
JUSTIN TAYLOR, author of Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever
STEPHEN ELLIOTT, The Rumpus’s own editor and author of The Adderall Diaries.
With music by ALINA SIMONE and DIANE LOUVEL
WHERE: Broadway East, where Chinatown meets the Lower East Side. 171 East Broadway (nr. Rutgers). View Map. Kitchen will be open with a light menu of snacks.
WHEN: January 21, 2010
7:00pm – 10:00pm
$5
Hope to see you all there! Big love.
Massumi and Malbec: A Virtual Reading Group
A few weeks ago, in the comments section of my post on affect, Roxane brought up the idea of having a reading group for Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation by Brian Massumi. She also said her teacher advised reading Massumi alongside wine; her suggestion was a complex red. Thus Massumi and Malbec.
My copy is now in hand, so I’m ready. But to give others a bit more time, let’s say we’ll discuss the intro and chapter one (“The Autonomy of Affect”) in roughly two weeks. So if you’d like to participate, order the book and read those sections by Saturday, January 16.
My other thought is that a different person might profitably lead the discussion for each chapter, on a chapter per week schedule. So if you would be interested in committing to lead a chapter discussion, either by posting about it if you are an HTMLGiant contributor or guest-posting under my auspices if you aren’t, please email me at my first and last name at gmail. There are nine chapters, so in case not enough people want to do this, please let me know if you’d be willing to host two chapter discussions. However you’d like to go about leading the discussion is totally up to you.
If you aren’t willing to lead a discussion (that’s cool!), but you plan to follow along/guzzle vino/discuss, do say so in the Comments so that I have a sense of whether this is something people really want to do after all.