i like the books POSTMODERNISM: THE LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM and also THE POSTMODERN CONDITION: A REPORT ON KNOWLEDGE. i think that after reading those two books i actually knew what postmodernism meant, not just like: “oh there’s a giraffe eating fritos and watching himself on television” type of postmodernism. frederick jameson wrote the first book and jean francois lyotard wrote the other. they both explain the idea in terms that apply to production and technology and to me that makes them applicable. i think before, when someone said “postmodernism,” i thought, “oh there must be a giraffe eating fritos and watching himself on television in that story.” READ MORE >
Tao Lin’s “All Purpose Promotional Video”: Reviewing the wrong one
Tao Lin offered me $2 to review an ‘all purpose promotional’ video which would be uploaded in 1-3 days, then said ‘just kidding.’ I was moved by the initial spirit behind the request and have done so (though I am reviewing the ‘wrong’ one. I will try to review the correct one too.) Please read this before viewing the movie. It will make you more excited for the movie, I hope. [I just spent five minutes trying to embed the source-code but it didn’t work, so what follows this review is a mere link.]
REVIEW: This review will not have a point, because I don’t think the ‘all purpose promotional’ video had a point, other than being an ‘all purpose promotional’ video. I will simply describe what I saw in the order of when I saw it, with light commentary. Also, I only watched the video once, taking quick notes, so I may be wrong at points. The ‘narrative’ might not make sense due to choppy avante garde editing. READ MORE >
MASSIVE PEOPLE (8): Cast of Apostrophe Cast
I exhausted myself with end of the semester stuff and did not have a chance to take care of an interview for this week’s MASSIVE PEOPLE post, so I instead would like to direct you to Apostrophe Cast.
From the website:
The concept is simple. Apostrophe Cast is a bi-weekly online reading series, delivered as a podcast. Every other Wednesday evening we post a new reading from a different writer. One author, one reading. Come back often to listen, or, better yet, subscribe to the podcast and have MP3’s of our readings delivered to you automatically.
Recent contributors include Michael Kimball, Ben Tanzer, our very own Josh Maday, Celeste Ng, and so on.
Rather than read an interview today at HTMLGIANT, you are encouraged to take ten or fifteen minutes out of the time you’d usually spend reading blogs and looking at DOS and DONTS at Vice in order to listen to one of the many readings over at Apostrophe Cast.
And in the near future, we’ll hear from our next MASSIVE PERSON, Reb Livingston of No Tell Motel and No Tell Books.
Blog Awards
I am giving out awards for blogs because that’s the power that comes with being a contributor here, and I’m bored at work. The following awards are only for blogs, not websites. There have been complaints that we are too self-referential — and I guess this isn’t helping. Fortunately, I have a 50 dollar bottle of scotch at home waiting for me and I’m not that concerned with stuff.
…and the whiners are
Andrew W.K. reads Ann Beattie
Go here to listen to Andrew W.K. reading an Ann Beattie story.
Take THAT, Tao Lin!
Take that and, you know, really enjoy it. If you want.
HTMLGRINCH: the internet literature __________ of the future
There are so many cool gifts coming through. I sort of wish now that I had somehow rigged this to make everyone send the gifts to me so I could pretend to send the gifts to everyone else.
Oh, Mean Monday…
Anyhow, last minute reminder: you have a few more days to send out your Secret Santa gifts (I am also late on this; I am not setting a good example here).
Another participant, Bernadette Geyer, posted a thank you at her blog.
Literature Map: Fun for 5 minutes
I don’t know how scientific this is, but the results keep on moving and makes me feel it’s alive. Put in an author’s name and poof!
I put in Rick Moody (that Moody guy), Gore Vidal (that old guy), and Mishima (that guy who stabbed himself the Japanese way) and I was like, “Yah, seems about right.”
Then I put in “your mom,” and was like, “what the fuck.”
Mean Mondays: A play about how writers have big egos and think they are special and will never get along with each other
EXT. DAY – A VERDANT PASTURE
A group of three men squat naked on a hill, each quietly contemplating life while shitting. A spring cloud approaches from the east.
MAN 1
(jumps up excitedly)
I have created something beautiful! Look at my shit turd! Gaze upon its fullness! Take note of its deep color! Oh how special my turd is!
MAN 2
(pointing at his excrement)
Yes, I have created also! My beautiful jagged turd how I appreciate you! You are unique and different! A turd not of this world.
MAN 3
(acting disinterested)
I too have created. My turd is small and compact.
FREE HTMLGIANT MANIFESTO TEMPLATE
here is a free template to use for a literary journal manifesto. i feel that this will help other people alienate and discourage other people. i was going to write a post about the democratization of literature (after reading blake’s blog) but i can’t handle a steaming 85 comment thread. here is the template:
we at “(name of river or city or college) Review” like (random emotion). we like subversive (or transgressive, you choose!) work that (verb relating to exploration, perhaps “uncovers” or “unearths” (oh shit i like that “unearths”)) and (re-somethings, maybe re-interprets) the lens of fiction in an increasingly (vague literary theory) world. tempt us. hurt us. it’s like (author) said, “blah blah snow is pretty blah.” we like (vague descriptor, maybe “edgy” or “experimental”) but not (equally vague word like “profane” or “pornographic”). we want work that (verb meant to suggest intellectual stimulation) the reader. we want to change the world with our journal. we want mother teresa to leap from her grave (or condo if she’s still alive) and do a jig in her own ejaculate. in the words of (just go with ts eliot).
Winner of Diana George’s DISCPLINES
Earlier this week there was a giveaway for Diana George’s DISCIPLINES offered to readers and commenters on the new issue of Lamination Colony.
From among them (though there were quite a few that were really smart and interesting), Chris Higgs’s response to Peter Davis’s 4 Poems, as it caught something I think very subtle in the work and drew it out in a way that to me seemed right on:
I would like to coin a neologism for what Peter Davis is doing in his contribution, 4 Poems. The neologism is: NextGen MetaPoetry.
It’s sorta like metafiction, except that it’s poetry. And it’s next generation because instead of the old generation of metatextual self-referencing, he uses the meta device as the entire content of the piece.
This is a brilliant example of what Gertrude Stein meant when she noted, “There is no There there.” You see, there is no poem in Peter Davis’s poems. There is only the metatextual self-referencing. They are “poems” about writing poems, but they aren’t poems themselves. That’s what makes it NexGen (and in my opinion badass): the act of noticing the act of writing is old hat if that act is in service of something greater – but in Davis’s “poems” the act is the end, not the means to anything.
It is the ultimate form of communication because it cuts through all fakeness, all language trickery, all costuming, all putting on makeup and trying to impress everybody at the party with witty metaphors and unlikely similes. These “poems” are like the most pure phone conversation you’ve ever had with anyone. You know what I’m talking about, when you cut the crap and say what’s really on your mind without hiding behind anything.
That’s how Peter Davis’s NextGen MetaPoetry strikes me. & to be honest, I find it delightful and refreshing. There, I said it.
Chris will get a copy of the aforementioned DISCIPLINES from Noemi Press. (Chris please drop me a line with your address so I can mail it out.)
Thanks to all who commented and took time to read, and those who continue to do so. :)