An Open Response re: HTMLGIANT
The following are answers to questions posited by Brandon Scott Gorrell about HTMLGIANT. I don’t think he was being sarcastic, and I will honor these questions with sincere answers. I am not trying to put him on the spot. I think BSG is one of our best writers around, and I respect him. These answers are respectful. [*Disclaimer: this is not a solicited interview. BSG asked these questions on his blog, and I merely answered them. He and I had no direct discourse.]
what happened to htmlgiant
I think you mean, maybe, like it’s ‘different,’ or worse, ‘not as good.’
was it something inside me or inside htmlgiant
I feel like you’ve been more alienated lately, like you fake-deleted your blog, and came back from NY depressed, and you are questioning your existence more and more. So 60% of it is you, but 40% of it is HTMLGIANT.
i used to read htmlgiant feeling excited
I think when it first started, there was a rush of excitement that has since diminished. Posts used to get 200+ comments, now it’s 20+ on a good day. I think, if a journal or website is to last, it needs a) devoted contributors and b) a consistent ethos. I think we have both.
now i feel a little bored and alienated
That’s probably 88% you, sorry. I will admit we are 12% boring and alienating.
The Lives of Others: Selections from the Giant family photo album
If you’ve ever seen a copy of Mike Young’s uber-rare chapbook Peter Pan Mocha French Toast, there’s a picture on the back cover of a dude humping a couch–well that’s our own Blake Butler. And that’s MY couch. Here are some photographs from that same evening.
Lin - Malone - Butler
AWP 2008 4EVR.
Ryan tries his luck.
4EVR EVR?
Tao Lin videotapes Mike Young's attempt to negotiate some hummus.
*************BONUS******************
This is the famous picture. Those might be my feet/legs.
Against HTML, Giants, and HTMLGiant
The following essay was written last Friday in preperation for Mean Week. Had its author known Blake Butthair would have employed similar rhetoric, he would have posted this earlier.
1. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, which is a euphemism for ‘gay ass effects for little bitches.’ Most common examples of ‘text markup’ are bold and italics. Whoever wrote it had some major issues, this thing for reciprocity. Every ‘tag’ needs to be closed by an ‘end-tag,’ for example:
<head>
<title>I’m a little geek bitch</title>
</head>
HTML is also homosexual, for example:
<head>
<title>I swallow cum</title>
</head>
2. GIANTS are severely retarded people with gross birth defects. Popular culture tries to render giants who are either likable (Sun Ming Ming) or martyrs (Gulliver, relative scale). Anthropologically speaking, Giants represent the first stages of human devolution. Darwinian theory is as follows (paraphrased for you goddamn plebeians): the more you can survive this hell on earth, the more you can fuck as many people you can, the more kids you’ll have who share your genetic disposition, and the more they can continue suffering and fucking. My point is: don’t fuck giants.
3. HTMLGIANT is the brain (however dense) child of Blake Butler and Gene Morgan, who are both addicted to the internet and their daily attempts to excavate the hard white bumps found on the underside of their penile shafts (which, incidentally, implicates quite well that their conditions were exchanged mutually). All of the contributing writers suffer from some sort of Excavation Fetish:
–Kendra Malone’s nightly refrigerator ‘dairy’ raids (I can’t believe it’s butter).
–Shane Jones’ public library poetry section “ejaculatory duct exodus” (to quote the librarian).
–Matthew Simmons’ nearly fatal nose picks, in which he searches for a clue.
–Justin Taylor’s quarterly Zoetrope rejection letter tear-duct hemorrhaging.
–Josh Maday’s silent-yet-strong (cough, gay) soul, spurted onto his mirror like some over ripe human-sized zit.
–Ryan Call’s eyelash plucking bonanza, in his attempt to render his face even more difficult to look at.
–Mike Young’s ‘dry yet emotional acoustic song’ plopping out of his guitar hole and mouth.
–Last and least, Sam Pink’s annual anal-outcome, in which all the shit that’s been crammed up there by his teenage blogger friends finally leaks out, surely the year’s most translucent and anti-climactic creampie.
And as for you, dear reader. Holy. Fuck.