April 15th, 2011 / 7:20 pm
Technology

“The Writer”

Carson Mell has a story in the new Electric Literature, which I bought because he and Lynne Tillman were published in it. I bought a copy of that and all the Supermachines (which are at least as great as everyone says they are because it’s true) and so I felt really indie lit and hip and stuff for about a week on the bus with people wondering “oh that must be the contemporary literature I hear so much about never” and then I fucked around and started re-reading a book that was written ninety years ago and which made me feel I could climb a building if I only wanted to.

Anyway I don’t much care for Mell’s fiction and I thought the publication quality of Electric Literature was quite poor considering how cool their website is, but then they do manage to pay their contributors and obviously care much more about the web with their apps and all, so maybe that makes up for it. I dunno nothing. Lynne Tillman’s thing was great of course. All in all though, I was underwhelmed. But I still think Carson Mell is a genius at making these videos, so who gives a shit I guess.

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7 Comments

  1. Anonymous
  2. Susanamai

      I think their print quality is allowed to be poor because, frankly, they’re ELECTRIC lit. They’re not a print journal venturing into the web but a web journal conceding to print. I subscribe to the PDF of the journal, and I’ve never been happier.

  3. Scott mcclanahan

      Thanks for posting the video. Mell is amazing. And I love, love, love Electric Lit.

  4. reynard

      yeah i get that they’re essentially making a concession, ‘oh you’re still reading words on paper, okay we can do that too’ – it’s literally very cut and dry

      i think the reason i felt underwhelmed is that the focus was very much on realism, it seems like you’ve read more than me, do you find that to be true?

  5. HWM

      Soooo…what was the book you read that was written about 90 years ago?

  6. reynard

      ulysses

  7. Gabe Durham

      I love Carson Mell. “Chonto” is a great movie. And the tattoo one.