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A Failed Entertainment

Guess I gotta start making plans again to go back to NY:

The Gallery at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies Presents:

A FAILED ENTERTAINMENT
Selections from the filmography of James O. Incandenza
Exhibition Dates: Jan 29 – Feb 19th
Opening Reception: Friday, Jan 29th, 6-8 pm
Film Screening to take place during opening reception.

Included as a footnote in Wallace’s novel is the Complete filmography of James O. Incandenza, a detailed list of over 70 industrial, documentary, conceptual, advertorial, technical, parodic, dramatic non-commercial, and non-dramatic commercial works. The LeRoy Neiman Gallery has commissioned artists and filmmakers to re-create seminal works from Incandenza’s filmography.

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Film / 31 Comments
January 11th, 2010 / 5:44 pm

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.

Lily Hoang

Boooring

I’ve been to a lot of readings. Most of them are incredibly boring.

I’ve also been to some shows. Whereas the bands aren’t always good, I’d rarely categorize them as “boring.”

I’ve also been to some art openings. Sure, there are usually obnoxiously pretentious people there, but again, not “boring.”

So what makes going to readings boring? The way I see it, almost anything can make a reading be a complete failure: you could be a bad reader (read too fast, too slow, too soft, too loud, etc.); you could be reading a bad reading piece (because let’s be honest: not everything written sounds good out loud); the room could be unamenable (too loud, too quiet, too bright, etc. etc.); the list could go on.

But what makes a good reading? What makes a reading NOT boring?

I’ve got some readings coming up over the next few months, and I’d prefer not to be a boring reader.

Also, when you go to readings, what is it that you want to hear? Would you rather hear something published, something forthcoming, or something brand spanking new?

Random / 73 Comments
January 11th, 2010 / 5:00 pm

Roxane Gay

Inside Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory: McSweeney’s 33—Panorama

I’ve always likened McSweeney’s to Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Behind their magical doors are editors (OOMPA LOOMPA) who get to publish a quarterly literary magazine with a different, wildly imaginative concept each and every time and they have the means and reach to do almost anything they want. An issue as a direct mail concern? If you please. An issue as a box of cards? No problem. A hard cover book? Easy. A ridiculously large 8.5 lb. broadside? Why yes. Of course.

Leading up to its publication, there was a great deal of hype about McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama—a- literary magazine cum newspaper printed in full color, that would offer a new perspective on the potential and possibilities afforded by the beleaguered newspaper. I ordered my copy of Panorama (a whopping $16 so not at all like a newspaper) and it arrived recently.

Last Rally

The last issue (?) of The Raleigh Quarterly curated by Chris Tonelli and Chris Salerno has been updated today. RQ has has featured some great poets in their short tenure like Mark Yakich, Matt Henriksen, Emily Kendal Frey, Mathias Svalina, Sarah Bartlett, Joe Massey, Tony Tost, Kate Greenstreet, & Laura Sims, who authored the poem below.

Holiday In Cambodia: Call for Submissions/Donations

From Christopher Heavener of Annalemma comes this call for submissions (deadline: Jan 15th) and donations to a project that seeks to support the work of Anne Elizabeth Moore, who works with Cambodian women, teaching them how to make zines. Here’s word of the anthology/donation drive direct from Chris:

In the winter of 2007 editor, author, and activist Anne Elizabeth Moore was invited to live to Phnom Penh to teach Cambodian young women how to make zines. She plans to return December 24th to continue her ongoing project. We think this is awesome. We want to help her out and hope you do too.

READ MORE >

Uncategorized / 1 Comment
January 11th, 2010 / 2:00 pm

Author Spotlight & Reviews

Catherine Lacey

3rd Grade Book Report

I like this book.

This book is called Bluets. Maggie Nelson wrote it. I read Bluets. I liked Bluets. It is about a woman who loves the color blue. The woman who loves the color blue is Maggie Nelson. She also loves a man but not really. She is also sad but not really. The word fucking is in this book a few time. Also the word fuck is in this book. One time Maggie Nelson said this in an interview: “The words feel like irritants in the soft lap of an oyster, as Henry James had it. Then the pearl — if one could call it that with a straight face — starts to congeal around the irritant. A snowball in the muck.

This is Maggie Nelson

Maggie Nelson writes memoirs and poems. She has published six books since 2001. That seems crazy. The End.

16 Comments
January 11th, 2010 / 12:07 pm

Sean Lovelace

Workshop of Horrors

Crazy is OK. Who hasn’t awoken on the kitchen floor, naked? And hanging out with/knowing/dating Crazy can be fun, or funny. Loud-Talker, Close-Talker, Person-Who-Eats-Only-Boiled Potatoes, every mélange and mishmash of personality—it’s cool.

But English departments have small rooms. And they seem to stuff workshops in the tiniest, the concrete walls, flickering fluorescent hum, chalkboard with that awful stuff, chalk. Like a bonfire, Crazy is Ok with a bit of open space, but in a small, closed room, the romance of the cracking heat tends to burn.

Did I mention the semester begins today?

What is your workshop horror story? I’ll flavor the pot with my top 3.

1.) Student of mine who brought a coffee mug of vodka and OJ to class every meeting (no big problem [maybe–he did get a bit sloppy/vociferous at times, and I had to tell him more than once that the phrase “words-of-ass” is never appropriate or helpful feedback] except for when the woman next to him narked).

2.) Student of mine who wrote intricate, detailed, very specific story about killing every member of the class in intricate, detailed, very specific ways. In a recent post-911 environ of paranoia, this incident ended up involving the ABI (Alabama state FBI) and two undercover cops who pretended they were college students.

3.) Fellow student (this in grad school) who leaped up and screamed into all our faces (causing crying and/or additional screaming) because the instructor insulted Richard Nixon. Was I frightened? Indeed.

You?

Random / 106 Comments
January 11th, 2010 / 9:43 am

Nathaniel Otting

Happy New York (Part II)

Whether you are in NY or not, tomorrow is the last chance to see Herbert Pfostl‘s ALL SORTS OF REMEDIES. (Sad NY update: I was too late–for too long–with this post. More on Pfostl in the future. One week left to see Jerk.)

Justin’s book-buying success story made me happy for so many reasons that only some will surface in this roundabout (not to say failure) fable. Here’s to making Book-Buying: A _____ Story, a regular column. Until that category’s been added, I’ll continue with two of the many poets from my last post (on the Poetry Project New Year’s Reading, featuring a cast so deep I could draw on it all year and not touch bottom): namely, John Coletti and Arlo Quint.

I’ve only read one of Coletti’s three(?) chapbooks and haven’t read a word by Quint, but I’m as excited about the former’s new book as CAConrad is (“Few things make me as happy as a new John Coletti book!” via Rust Buckle’s facebook page) and about the latter’s new chapbook(s?) as I am by just having discovered that CAConrad was born on January 1. It’s final: Poet of the Year. I say this, aware of all the reasons not to say such a thing, let alone in caps, partly in homage to New Directions’ Poet of the Month (1941-1943; the envelope pictured came with the 1942 boxed set I found at Grey Matter Books), READ MORE >

Author Spotlight / 11 Comments
January 10th, 2010 / 8:34 pm