Pimpin’
I stumbled upon the St. John’s College Reading List and I find it fascinating. Readings cover the Greeks, the Bible, and much much more. A few universities do this sort of thing–a comprehensive reading program to serve as the foundation of a student’s education. I think it’s a wonderful approach but I agonize over how you decide which books to include. What would be on your reading list?
Mud Luscious Press is having a bookmark contest. Details here.
Another year, another Orange Prize fracas.
Frequent, lively commenter Amber Sparks has assumed the position of Fiction Editor for Emprise Review. Send her some great writing, won’t you?
Come April, Letter Machine Editions is reading manuscripts.
Offered without commentary: Robert Swartwood vs. Narrative, Part II.
I read a couple of great books this weekend and you may want to check them out—Congratulations! There’s No Last Place If Everyone is Dead by Matthew DeBenedictis (sold out, sadly) and Non/Fiction by Dan Gutstein. The former came with an odd packet of instant coffee and Yo! MTV Raps trading cards. I now know that there are trading cards for everything.
Submishmash is a great alternative to the CLMP submission manager (which is a fine product albeit a bit pricey) and its run by fine people who are very responsive to their customers. If you’re looking for a submission management option, you should check them out.
5 Glots of Snoo
1.) We would rather watch art made than the art itself.
Doesn’t work for books.
“Hey, wanna come over and watch me write?”
“I would rather shoe a snail.”
2.) mud luscious press has a nifty submissions process and a sale. Why not use both?
3.) Aimee Bender interview.
4.) There is a better word than the one you have down. That’s a problem but a koan type of problem. Eventually, you will stop and settle on one word (not the best word). Why? Why then? Is it maddening or gladdening to go through this process? Define the term strike. I thank you.
5.) Just got Ander Monson’s Vanishing Point in the mail! Holy shit. This book bleeds over into the web and then the web bleeds back. More on this later. Monson’s not only ahead of the curve, he’s troweling the curve for us, cut, tamp, curl.
Three Mini-Chapbooks from Mud Luscious Press Arrive Today
Three mini-chapbooks from Mud Luscious Press arrived today (link here to JA Tyler’s ml press), consisting of “Isn’t This What You Were Looking For?” by Ken Sparling, “Molting” by Aaron Burch and “Those Bones” by David Ohle. Excerpts after the jump:
MLP: 3 Reviews
I got the second batch of Mud Luscious Press chapbooks today, and read them excitedly. J.A. Tyler (editor) chose bright neon colors which, for me, reflected a certain kind of synthetic violence I found to be a unifying factor.
Rat Beast by Nick Antosca
[Spoil alert] This piece starts off fairly ‘normal,’ a first person narrative about a dour kid turned teenager having trouble at school. A Huxleyian counselor enters with treatment alternatives, the final of which takes a rather grotesque Kafkian turn (two name-drops, sorry), towards the eponymous animal. The ending is even more evocative due to the well-handled restraint in the writing.
Patience by Brandi Wells
A man carves the female reproductive system in the rind of an orange, creating a fetus in place of the fruit. At one point he “carves a fist beside the labia,” an allusion (in my sick mind at least) to fisting, or at least the manual ways women’s bodies are altered by patriarchal ideals (I’m so gay). Wells describes fallopian tubes wrapping around blades of glass and ants eating them; a kind of abortion detritus. J.A. Tyler plays well with the physical page break, embracing the most precious (bad word!) moment of the story.
In the Rape Year of the Ghetto Toddler the Houses Will Awaken by Blake Butler
To try to understand the title is to try to understand Butler’s writing, and I mean that in a good way. Butler is concerned with ideas, themes, and language–and how those three things cook down into meaning. He doesn’t explain it; but describes it, and he trusts the reader and himself enough to know that, through the thick confusion and minor nausea, his writing will be intuitively understood, and more importantly, viscerally manifested. Herein, rabbits live in bacon-greased arm sockets, wallpaper patterns dent cheeks, and a man is on vacation his whole life. Unabashed controlled chaos. Through the surrealism, I always get the feeling that Butler is talking about something less metaphysical, and more actual: an America today that might cause one to dry heave.
On a formal note, J.A. Tyler is marking MLP chapbooks with a signature ampersand in place of all ‘and.’
& it rocks.