Two Modest Proposals
PURITY BALL.
I think these new rules should be enstated, on HTMLGiant if nowhere else. They both have to do with terms we use and how we use them.
THE FIRST.
From this day forward, if you want to use the term SELLING OUT, you must needs be able to identify
(a) what is being sold out,
(b) to whom it is being sold, and
(c) what you believe the sale garners the seller.
If you don’t know all three of those things, or aren’t prepared to defend your choices, then you should stop talking/typing right now.
FATHERS HOLD THEIR DAUGHTERS' SMOOTH BARE TEENAGE SHOULDERS. STILL PURE. STILL A BALL.
THE SECOND.
I think the terms “innovative” and “avant-garde” and “experimental” writing are often just code for one of two things. The first is “non/anti-narrative”–which are both fine, if that’s what you’re into, but why not just say so? The other thing those words are often code for is “this bullshit I cranked out in 20 minutes and am going to start submitting as-is, and I guess one of these fourth-rate online lit journals is bound to pick it up.” (I think a lot of writers today go through a phase where they do shit like this—it’s a function of the age we live in, when submitting is usually one-click free, and every third person with a blog claims to be a “review” of some kind or other. The question is whether you grow out of it. And just to prove that this is the voice of bitter experience speaking, rather than a claim for my own intrinsic betterness or intelligence, I invite you to go search for the stuff I published a few years ago in Mad Hatters Review. Just don’t tell me about it after.)
THIS IS WHAT GOOGLE SAYS SILENCE LOOKS LIKE (WITH SAFE SEARCH ON).
Anyway, from now on, if you want to describe writing as:
“innovative” – I want you to be able to tell me in plain English what exactly is being innovated. It doesn’t need to be an exhaustive critical essay. A simple, “I think this opens up the possibility of ____ and/or shows a new innovation in the field of _______ literature” will do fine. In college I took a literature course which examined Marilynne Robinson’s innovative use of spaces–especially the domestic space–in her novel Housekeeping. My teacher also mentioned that the book actually includes a neologism- the word “lucifactions,” used to describe light on water, in the scene where the girls are out on the lake.
THIS IS AN INNOVATIVE WRITER.
“experimental” – you should be able to describe the experiment. “I wrote this to see if I could fabricate the feeling of a Burroughs cut-up without writing a text and cutting it up, so I made up three storylines and forced myself to switch off between them mid-sentence, twice a paragraph.” It also works when you’re talking about somebody else’s writing. “Dennis Cooper said that one of the ‘rules’ for his novel, Try was that there had to be action in every single moment of the book.”
THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL WRITER.
“avant-garde” – is a military term, which literally means “advance guard.” As Donald Barthelme once pointed out, the function of an advance guard is to protect the middle. It would probably be useful, when thinking of things that are avant-garde, to think of them in this way. What body are they advancing out of? What middle is it that they (or you) are protecting?
MADE THE WORLD SAFE FOR RAYMOND CARVER, WHO DID NOT RETURN THE FAVOR.
I’m not saying every use of these terms has to come with an attached explanation. I’m just saying these are things you should think about when deciding whether—and how—to deploy them. If you were also capable of discussing your thought process in conversation, well that would just be jimmies on the sundae, wouldn’t it?
I USUALLY CALL THEM SPRINKLES, JUST LIKE YOU DO.
Tags: angry lecture, experimental writing, modesty, purtity balls, selling out
justin wins
justin wins
all this babble just to get people to read your stuff on mad hatters. extremely innovative justin. nice job.
all this babble just to get people to read your stuff on mad hatters. extremely innovative justin. nice job.
barry- lol. cant get anything past you, buddy.
barry- lol. cant get anything past you, buddy.
nice work. I’m gonna go check out your mad hatter stuff now.
nice work. I’m gonna go check out your mad hatter stuff now.
i wrote this in second like 40 seconds i think:
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Williams/Springs.html
maybe 20-40 minutes:
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Lin/Fun.html
i knew that was all anyone would get out of this goddamn post. well, the good news is that i made good on my promise to ryan, and am drinking now. goodbye ‘giving a shit about anything.’ see you in the morning.
i wrote this in second like 40 seconds i think:
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Williams/Springs.html
maybe 20-40 minutes:
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Lin/Fun.html
i knew that was all anyone would get out of this goddamn post. well, the good news is that i made good on my promise to ryan, and am drinking now. goodbye ‘giving a shit about anything.’ see you in the morning.
i like this post, but i thought there was going to be something about this blog and indie lit suspizing ‘success.’
i like this post, but i thought there was going to be something about this blog and indie lit suspizing ‘success.’
i really liked this post, justin, don’t be grumpy. good job, man,
i really liked this post, justin, don’t be grumpy. good job, man,
i feel that aspect of my criticism is implicit in my use of images from purity balls.
i feel that aspect of my criticism is implicit in my use of images from purity balls.
haha i see
haha i see
i was just telling blake on gchat- i’m not grumpy. this is the most fun i’ve had all day!
i was just telling blake on gchat- i’m not grumpy. this is the most fun i’ve had all day!
i liked first church.
i liked first church.
justin is the capital M man
justin is the capital M man
11:38 PM me: the browser i’m on isn’t letting me comment on the post
11:39 PM can you comment this for me using my name and reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com
i wrote this in something like 20-40 seconds
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Williams/Springs.html
using ‘tao’
11:40 PM Justin: sure, i can do that, but what is the exact comment you want me to leave?
got it
me: thanks
11:41 PM Justin: did you really write that?
me: yeah
i think now is a funny time to reveal that
not taht anyone will care, just feels funny
Justin: i think it is funny
11:45 PM The name of this energy drink
is Terms of Service.
gold
pure gold
11:46 PM me: i remember having a ‘block’ in the like 30 second time limit i gave myself, and looked around the comptuer screen for something to type and found that
11:38 PM me: the browser i’m on isn’t letting me comment on the post
11:39 PM can you comment this for me using my name and reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com
i wrote this in something like 20-40 seconds
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Williams/Springs.html
using ‘tao’
11:40 PM Justin: sure, i can do that, but what is the exact comment you want me to leave?
got it
me: thanks
11:41 PM Justin: did you really write that?
me: yeah
i think now is a funny time to reveal that
not taht anyone will care, just feels funny
Justin: i think it is funny
11:45 PM The name of this energy drink
is Terms of Service.
gold
pure gold
11:46 PM me: i remember having a ‘block’ in the like 30 second time limit i gave myself, and looked around the comptuer screen for something to type and found that
i love writing fast
i love writing fast
here is the comment i was trying to make:
“i wrote this in something like 20-40 seconds
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Williams/Springs.html“
here is the comment i was trying to make:
“i wrote this in something like 20-40 seconds
http://www.elimae.com/poetry/Williams/Springs.html“
I think Tao is in that same issue of Mad Hatters as I am.
i would like to say that i don’t think the 20-40 second poem discounts anything else on elimae, anything else written in 20-40 seconds, anything else published unedited, anything people spend a lot of time on, or anything, to me it is not a commentary on anything else
i just think it’s funny that i would do something like that under a pen name or something like that
I think Tao is in that same issue of Mad Hatters as I am.
i would like to say that i don’t think the 20-40 second poem discounts anything else on elimae, anything else written in 20-40 seconds, anything else published unedited, anything people spend a lot of time on, or anything, to me it is not a commentary on anything else
i just think it’s funny that i would do something like that under a pen name or something like that
justin you bring the fire.
i sometimes refer to them as “jimmys”
justin you bring the fire.
i sometimes refer to them as “jimmys”
yes, in this rare instance, “ys” would have been better than “ies.” everything i stand for is unraveling before my eyes.
hi, ken.
yes, in this rare instance, “ys” would have been better than “ies.” everything i stand for is unraveling before my eyes.
hi, ken.
you all are fags
you all are fags
I like this post a lot because I think about these words, and Justin has put a lot of thought into this. All of these terms are problematic, and I do think Justin is right that maybe there is a bit of laziness in trying to label particular writers. I also think innovative has become a way to elevate a text in that for some innovative automatically makes a text +1 over a traditional text, even though there are plenty of shitty innovative texts out there and lots of good stuff being perhaps stigmatized as traditional. There are also lots of innovative, narrative texts, too. Etc.
Part of the problem for me is that there seems to be a need to separate a perceived type of text from another perceived type of text. I don’t see that the problem is lack of precision, but a desire (for whatever reason) to have a term that encompasses a really broad range of writing that is somehow not another type of writing. The terms experimental/innovative/avante garde are not really the right words in that we can think about them literally and poke holes in them. But I don’t think they should to be taken literally, in the way we might expect certain conventions in a book labeled as ‘crime solving cat mystery’.
I don’t think it’s right to say that an ‘experimental’ text needs to justify itself by having been an enactment of a particular experiment. I don’t see writing as always being so deliberate. I would say most texts are experiments, in that most writers do not know what words they are going to write before they start writing them. So, you could argue that all texts are experiments. Maybe that term is not a useful one. I also think it’s worth pointing out that the idea of an experiment is that it might fail, so I think something you dash off in 40 seconds or whatever is not necessarily any better or worse than something you took many, many minutes to put together. That could be a shit storm, too, or good – that’s the point, it’s an experiment. Anyway, it seems legitimate to experiment, send out your experiment, and see what people think of your experimenting without having to describe the formula you used, when its impossible to always know. That’s the nature of experimenting?
The same for ‘innovative’ – this term, I think, came into use as a way to be able to broadly describe a kind of writing that may fall out of what we perceive to be the mainstream in an attempt to do something new. I’m not even sure if mainstream is right here, because I think there have been a number of mainstream texts, meaning money making texts that the masses read and enjoyed, that did things that were interesting and newish. People seem to like ‘innovative’ over ‘experimental’ for whatever reason, maybe because the word experimental has been around for so long, and seems to conjure negative connotations in some people. I don’t know. I don’t think ‘innovative’ is the perfect word, but I also don’t think the choice of ‘innovative’ should be restrictive, in that one must be able to prove that there is an actual innovation in the text. What does that mean, exactly?
We can all see the innovation in books like Don Quixote, Tom Jones, Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick (etc etc etc) – so I think Justin’s on to something, but I would say it’s totally fair to describe a non-narrative text as innovative, even though non-narrative texts have been around for a long time and are not really innovations in terms of doing something truly new. So have most things that I think many of us would consider innovative. I’m not saying that’s bad at all. So innovative probably isn’t the best word, but I think it’s come to mean something more than being able to describe a text only in terms of its literal innovations.
Does this make any sense? I’m tired and think I’m rambling… anyway, my two cents, and not trying to say I disagree with Justin at all, but maybe trying to complicate the discussion, because I think it’s interesting.
I like this post a lot because I think about these words, and Justin has put a lot of thought into this. All of these terms are problematic, and I do think Justin is right that maybe there is a bit of laziness in trying to label particular writers. I also think innovative has become a way to elevate a text in that for some innovative automatically makes a text +1 over a traditional text, even though there are plenty of shitty innovative texts out there and lots of good stuff being perhaps stigmatized as traditional. There are also lots of innovative, narrative texts, too. Etc.
Part of the problem for me is that there seems to be a need to separate a perceived type of text from another perceived type of text. I don’t see that the problem is lack of precision, but a desire (for whatever reason) to have a term that encompasses a really broad range of writing that is somehow not another type of writing. The terms experimental/innovative/avante garde are not really the right words in that we can think about them literally and poke holes in them. But I don’t think they should to be taken literally, in the way we might expect certain conventions in a book labeled as ‘crime solving cat mystery’.
I don’t think it’s right to say that an ‘experimental’ text needs to justify itself by having been an enactment of a particular experiment. I don’t see writing as always being so deliberate. I would say most texts are experiments, in that most writers do not know what words they are going to write before they start writing them. So, you could argue that all texts are experiments. Maybe that term is not a useful one. I also think it’s worth pointing out that the idea of an experiment is that it might fail, so I think something you dash off in 40 seconds or whatever is not necessarily any better or worse than something you took many, many minutes to put together. That could be a shit storm, too, or good – that’s the point, it’s an experiment. Anyway, it seems legitimate to experiment, send out your experiment, and see what people think of your experimenting without having to describe the formula you used, when its impossible to always know. That’s the nature of experimenting?
The same for ‘innovative’ – this term, I think, came into use as a way to be able to broadly describe a kind of writing that may fall out of what we perceive to be the mainstream in an attempt to do something new. I’m not even sure if mainstream is right here, because I think there have been a number of mainstream texts, meaning money making texts that the masses read and enjoyed, that did things that were interesting and newish. People seem to like ‘innovative’ over ‘experimental’ for whatever reason, maybe because the word experimental has been around for so long, and seems to conjure negative connotations in some people. I don’t know. I don’t think ‘innovative’ is the perfect word, but I also don’t think the choice of ‘innovative’ should be restrictive, in that one must be able to prove that there is an actual innovation in the text. What does that mean, exactly?
We can all see the innovation in books like Don Quixote, Tom Jones, Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick (etc etc etc) – so I think Justin’s on to something, but I would say it’s totally fair to describe a non-narrative text as innovative, even though non-narrative texts have been around for a long time and are not really innovations in terms of doing something truly new. So have most things that I think many of us would consider innovative. I’m not saying that’s bad at all. So innovative probably isn’t the best word, but I think it’s come to mean something more than being able to describe a text only in terms of its literal innovations.
Does this make any sense? I’m tired and think I’m rambling… anyway, my two cents, and not trying to say I disagree with Justin at all, but maybe trying to complicate the discussion, because I think it’s interesting.
I think this was a great post, Justin. I’m with you on both proposals.
I think this was a great post, Justin. I’m with you on both proposals.
im gonna get to work on my crime solving cat mystery….
(40 seconds has passed)
im finished…. where should i send it?
im gonna get to work on my crime solving cat mystery….
(40 seconds has passed)
im finished…. where should i send it?
send it to Innovative Review. I’m the editor.
send it to Innovative Review. I’m the editor.
I am not an innovative writer. I am just a cute girl.
I am not an innovative writer. I am just a cute girl.
Justin, this was good, but the panel is over… you can talk about other stuff now.
Justin, this was good, but the panel is over… you can talk about other stuff now.
I agree with the spirit of Justin’s post; there should probably be more open conversation about these terms, especially among advocates/writers of non-mainstream text. But I also agree with Matt K; the terms Justin is speaking about are not often used literally. They are rather a kind of shorthand for signaling to the reader/interlocutor about a certain set of values the author has or does not have.
Unfortunately, the issue is probably moot. The last thing I’d expect from writers of non-mainstream texts is for them to agree to standard definitions of categorical terminology, and standard rules of usage for those terms.
I agree with the spirit of Justin’s post; there should probably be more open conversation about these terms, especially among advocates/writers of non-mainstream text. But I also agree with Matt K; the terms Justin is speaking about are not often used literally. They are rather a kind of shorthand for signaling to the reader/interlocutor about a certain set of values the author has or does not have.
Unfortunately, the issue is probably moot. The last thing I’d expect from writers of non-mainstream texts is for them to agree to standard definitions of categorical terminology, and standard rules of usage for those terms.
Oh, and I also agree with Tao (though he wasn’t making a broad point, just clarifying his own intentions); not all texts created in 40 seconds and published unedited are unworthy of that publication. Tao’s pseudonymous poem is a good example. It’s a fine poem. “Automatic writing” can be a truly revelatory way of breaking not only convention, but one’s own bias and subconscious barriers. The resulting “artifacts” are often therefor both useful and beautiful.
Oh, and I also agree with Tao (though he wasn’t making a broad point, just clarifying his own intentions); not all texts created in 40 seconds and published unedited are unworthy of that publication. Tao’s pseudonymous poem is a good example. It’s a fine poem. “Automatic writing” can be a truly revelatory way of breaking not only convention, but one’s own bias and subconscious barriers. The resulting “artifacts” are often therefor both useful and beautiful.
i think what shy and mattk said sort of makes sense. whenever i type innovative or experiment or whatever i always have this urge in my head to put those words in quotation marks because i feel really weird using them and also unsure of them as having some universal meaning and other weird selfconfidence issues. i want the quotation marks to show everyone that i feel this weirdness about using those weirds seriously.
something something something
i think what shy and mattk said sort of makes sense. whenever i type innovative or experiment or whatever i always have this urge in my head to put those words in quotation marks because i feel really weird using them and also unsure of them as having some universal meaning and other weird selfconfidence issues. i want the quotation marks to show everyone that i feel this weirdness about using those weirds seriously.
something something something
what is most funny to me is how this post indirectly almost exactly describes why i did not go to the polls for obama this year
what is most funny to me is how this post indirectly almost exactly describes why i did not go to the polls for obama this year
very postmodern
very postmodern
matt k says a lot of good stuff and shya and ryan. i’d have to say that probably mostly people are just doing the stuff they do but then when they have to talk about it they have to call it something, mainstream or experimental or whatever. not that when you are then writing about it in some sorta formal way you can’t be careful and thoughtful–that’s good!!! but if you’re going to have to ‘defend’ experimental, shouldn’t you have to defend mainstream? i never got the idea that goes, breaking the rules is fine as long as you know why you are breaking them. how come? i don;t get that.
matt k says a lot of good stuff and shya and ryan. i’d have to say that probably mostly people are just doing the stuff they do but then when they have to talk about it they have to call it something, mainstream or experimental or whatever. not that when you are then writing about it in some sorta formal way you can’t be careful and thoughtful–that’s good!!! but if you’re going to have to ‘defend’ experimental, shouldn’t you have to defend mainstream? i never got the idea that goes, breaking the rules is fine as long as you know why you are breaking them. how come? i don;t get that.
i don’t understand why catherine lacey made fun of me. i’m always so nice to her.
i don’t understand why catherine lacey made fun of me. i’m always so nice to her.
Blake- no O vote? back of the Hope Line for you buddy.
‘purtity balls’
i just saw that tag and laughed. i like typos.
i think part of my confusion about the rome review came from some disconnect i have with understanding those terms and with what alhariri understands those terms to mean. everyone has some of their own idea about ‘innovative’ or something. things are clicking a little sometimes.
i feel like knowing the ‘rules’ has helped me somewhat though? like i dont think in my head, ‘oh now i am breaking the rule that there should be a climax at the top of rising action,’ but i think knowing that rhythm and what it looked like in stories helped me develop my own sense of rhythm. if that makes sense.
Blake- no O vote? back of the Hope Line for you buddy.
‘purtity balls’
i just saw that tag and laughed. i like typos.
i think part of my confusion about the rome review came from some disconnect i have with understanding those terms and with what alhariri understands those terms to mean. everyone has some of their own idea about ‘innovative’ or something. things are clicking a little sometimes.
i feel like knowing the ‘rules’ has helped me somewhat though? like i dont think in my head, ‘oh now i am breaking the rule that there should be a climax at the top of rising action,’ but i think knowing that rhythm and what it looked like in stories helped me develop my own sense of rhythm. if that makes sense.
Shya- I’m not saying all work must be bled and cried over for X number of hours before it becomes any good. I’m just saying that the sheer volume of places to submit work, and the ease with which you can do it, makes people lazy. if it still cost a postage stamp to send your work out, there’s a lot of stuff that would never get subbed anywhere. this is why i argued on behalf of submission fees in a previous post- i don’t like paying them, i’m not so rich that they don’t hurt me, but they have one important function: they force me to put my money where my mouth is. Do I really believe–in the sense of “will you take this bet”–that my story/poem/whatever has a shot at the Blah Blah Review?
Some of your best writing comes effortlessly. I don’t doubt that for a second. It pops out fast, and is right the first time. Some of it needs working over, and eventually gets there. The question is, What do you do with the fizzles, failures, and mistakes?
I have a file on my computer called “deep freeze,” and that’s where those things go for me. But a lot of what I see online seems to me like it might should have gone to that author’s equivalent file (or, down the Recycle Bin memory hole) but it didn’t. I think a lot of writers–especially young ones, hot to ‘get published’–look for D-list journals they can send their C-list work to, in order to recover “something” for the time they spent on what was essentially a miscarriage.
I think there’s a lot to be learned from missteps, failures, etc. Instead of learning that, what we’re seeing is a glut of compromised integrity and extremely sub-par writing. Nobody wants to read it, because the author barely wanted to write it.
Shya- I’m not saying all work must be bled and cried over for X number of hours before it becomes any good. I’m just saying that the sheer volume of places to submit work, and the ease with which you can do it, makes people lazy. if it still cost a postage stamp to send your work out, there’s a lot of stuff that would never get subbed anywhere. this is why i argued on behalf of submission fees in a previous post- i don’t like paying them, i’m not so rich that they don’t hurt me, but they have one important function: they force me to put my money where my mouth is. Do I really believe–in the sense of “will you take this bet”–that my story/poem/whatever has a shot at the Blah Blah Review?
Some of your best writing comes effortlessly. I don’t doubt that for a second. It pops out fast, and is right the first time. Some of it needs working over, and eventually gets there. The question is, What do you do with the fizzles, failures, and mistakes?
I have a file on my computer called “deep freeze,” and that’s where those things go for me. But a lot of what I see online seems to me like it might should have gone to that author’s equivalent file (or, down the Recycle Bin memory hole) but it didn’t. I think a lot of writers–especially young ones, hot to ‘get published’–look for D-list journals they can send their C-list work to, in order to recover “something” for the time they spent on what was essentially a miscarriage.
I think there’s a lot to be learned from missteps, failures, etc. Instead of learning that, what we’re seeing is a glut of compromised integrity and extremely sub-par writing. Nobody wants to read it, because the author barely wanted to write it.
yeah, knowing the rules is great. but that’s not the same as always knowing why you break them? i mean, don’t you break them because it might be neat? see what happens? well, i don’t have a clue myself. perhaps to my discredit.
yeah, knowing the rules is great. but that’s not the same as always knowing why you break them? i mean, don’t you break them because it might be neat? see what happens? well, i don’t have a clue myself. perhaps to my discredit.
yeah oje, i agree, its not something i am consciously worrying about at all.
yeah oje, i agree, its not something i am consciously worrying about at all.
Just being facetious.
Seriously, this was a good post. I think everyone with a blog or a penchant for online lit blogs should read it.
It is almost a manifesto of the online lit journal world.
Just being facetious.
Seriously, this was a good post. I think everyone with a blog or a penchant for online lit blogs should read it.
It is almost a manifesto of the online lit journal world.
shya:
“Unfortunately, the issue is probably moot. The last thing I’d expect from writers of non-mainstream texts is for them to agree to standard definitions of categorical terminology, and standard rules of usage for those terms.”
i like that a lot
shya:
“Unfortunately, the issue is probably moot. The last thing I’d expect from writers of non-mainstream texts is for them to agree to standard definitions of categorical terminology, and standard rules of usage for those terms.”
i like that a lot
i liked this post too. It is all meaningless bullshit but it is was a fun read.
Sometimes, when I am bored and feeling sad, i sit here and think ‘people are dying and struggling and decaying while other people are fretting over egotistical goals and worrying about minimalism and narrative and the universe is so vast and inexplicable and these people deny this concept and they think their existence is special and distract themselves with writing and acting and singing but the universe will destroy us all and these people should just be happy and create and not worry about these silly concepts’
it makes the sadness slow a little.
i like how tao promoted himself several times in this post and no one chastised him for it.
people should take notes from tao.
i liked this post too. It is all meaningless bullshit but it is was a fun read.
Sometimes, when I am bored and feeling sad, i sit here and think ‘people are dying and struggling and decaying while other people are fretting over egotistical goals and worrying about minimalism and narrative and the universe is so vast and inexplicable and these people deny this concept and they think their existence is special and distract themselves with writing and acting and singing but the universe will destroy us all and these people should just be happy and create and not worry about these silly concepts’
it makes the sadness slow a little.
i like how tao promoted himself several times in this post and no one chastised him for it.
people should take notes from tao.
hipster/postmodern-off! could there be a simple point system?
no but seriously i have to talk about what i write? and time myself?
hipster/postmodern-off! could there be a simple point system?
no but seriously i have to talk about what i write? and time myself?
as usual, i’m late to the party. great post, justin. this is a conversation that should be kind of constantly on going. it keeps sloppiness in check. also, mike young is very cute girl.
as usual, i’m late to the party. great post, justin. this is a conversation that should be kind of constantly on going. it keeps sloppiness in check. also, mike young is very cute girl.
I will gladly oblige you, justin, by removing all traces of your shitty faux innovative writing which you flung at us after we’d met at a reading. I apologize for my bad taste in having published you and even invited you to read. Mad Hatters’ Review describes its preference for “edgy and enlightened” writings, artworks, and music. We don’t use the terms “innovative,” “avant-garde,” or “experimental.” Maybe you never bothered to read our About page. I don’t refer to my own writings that way and I eschew such terminology as meaningless and pretentious. Just as I have no tolerance for the word “best.” And another thing, I’ve never been a cocky boy, which means that I’ve never submitted anything to an online or print mag that I haven’t revised, usually many times. Publication of a raw piece would be an insult to me as well as the editor/publisher. I will not comment on some of the mags lauded here, a few of which publish the same authors time and time again. They resemble country clubs. There’s a hell of a lot of pretension going on. Yeah, that word again. I prefer serious writing that doesn’t have to categorize itself. It’s easy to put people down. It’s harder to write brilliantly.
I will gladly oblige you, justin, by removing all traces of your shitty faux innovative writing which you flung at us after we’d met at a reading. I apologize for my bad taste in having published you and even invited you to read. Mad Hatters’ Review describes its preference for “edgy and enlightened” writings, artworks, and music. We don’t use the terms “innovative,” “avant-garde,” or “experimental.” Maybe you never bothered to read our About page. I don’t refer to my own writings that way and I eschew such terminology as meaningless and pretentious. Just as I have no tolerance for the word “best.” And another thing, I’ve never been a cocky boy, which means that I’ve never submitted anything to an online or print mag that I haven’t revised, usually many times. Publication of a raw piece would be an insult to me as well as the editor/publisher. I will not comment on some of the mags lauded here, a few of which publish the same authors time and time again. They resemble country clubs. There’s a hell of a lot of pretension going on. Yeah, that word again. I prefer serious writing that doesn’t have to categorize itself. It’s easy to put people down. It’s harder to write brilliantly.
i liked this post because of the donald barthelme picture.
that’s it.
also the first and third girls in the second purity ball picture.
also really the captions. but mainly the barthelme one. i laughed out loud. it was maybe more of a like a chuckle maybe, but that seems like a weak way to put it?
i liked this post because of the donald barthelme picture.
that’s it.
also the first and third girls in the second purity ball picture.
also really the captions. but mainly the barthelme one. i laughed out loud. it was maybe more of a like a chuckle maybe, but that seems like a weak way to put it?
I tend to agree, but discourage anyone from promoting the idea that mad hatter’s review is worth reading. Just call it a mistake and carry on…
No but seriously, though. I think the only way to really innovate stuff is to set rules and see what you get from the experiment. But most experimental writers don’t start with a question in mind, like what would happen if, they’re just bullshitting, like you said. Good post.
I tend to agree, but discourage anyone from promoting the idea that mad hatter’s review is worth reading. Just call it a mistake and carry on…
No but seriously, though. I think the only way to really innovate stuff is to set rules and see what you get from the experiment. But most experimental writers don’t start with a question in mind, like what would happen if, they’re just bullshitting, like you said. Good post.
Also, Tao: elimae tends to reject my refined work, and I don’t mind them publishing things that I put less time into, because they’re usually a lot shorter, and anyway, they have really good taste. Many times they’ve asked to use certain sentences. You don’t find a lot of resourceful editors like that.
And Novack is a cunt. Don’t nobody worry about her.
Also, Tao: elimae tends to reject my refined work, and I don’t mind them publishing things that I put less time into, because they’re usually a lot shorter, and anyway, they have really good taste. Many times they’ve asked to use certain sentences. You don’t find a lot of resourceful editors like that.
And Novack is a cunt. Don’t nobody worry about her.