Hey Orlando! Anna is sponsoring this year’s Florida Film Festival and as a result, we’ve got four free tickets to go see the Tuesday, April 12th screening of LOUDER THAN A BOMB, a documentary film telling the story of four teams of Chicago high school poetry teams as they prepare to compete in the world’s largest youth poetry slam. Check out the trailer:
Wanna go see it for free? Post a line from your favorite poem to our facebook page. The four most interesting choices will be chosen this Friday at midnight EST.
Yesterday I talked about my friend Jason and the inspiration for the Issue Eight: Creation, but he’s not the only piece of the puzzle. Meet Lloyd Kahn, also a role model for this issue. We’re trying hook up an interview with him. Until then, watch this short doc on him and what he does and be excited.
I was in Orlando for a thing that ended up not happening so I went to see my friend Jason Gregory who runs a wildly successful leather goods company called MAKR.
He’s been doing well, so he had to bust down the wall of the space next to him and expand into this tasty realm.
Jason was actually the inspiration for the creation issue. He sent me a text that said, “You should do an issue of Annalemma that’s all about making things.” I texted him back, “That’s a great idea.” And here we are.
I’m jealous of Jason’s wild success with his brand and his beautiful space with his antique mid-century furniture.
But whenever I get jealous I remember a scene from Seven Years in Tibet where Lhakpa Tsamchoe’s character says to Brad Pitt’s character, “A friend’s good fortune is a blessing. I’m sorry you resent ours.”
The workshop.
The bookshelf. Well, well, well. What do we have on the bottom shelf…
Jason will need something, like a coat hook, and make a design, get it a limited run manufactured and then sell them all. Once they’re sold, they’re gone, never to be made again.
Enough gushing, you get the idea. The dude makes rad stuff. We had an editorial meeting and it went well, gave us a lot of focus and I’m very excited about the direction of all this. It’s making me feel real good inside.
The man and his big ass desk.
Unrealted: new Brice at Stardust. Thanks, Orlando, for being rad.
Apart from the most obvious and convenient point of purchase (at your door in 4 or 5 days!) Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance can be found in your local indipendent book and curio stores. Don’t see a store near you? Shout it out in the comments and we’ll make it happen.
Manhattan Beach, CA
Denver, CO
Miami, FL
Orlando, FL
Atlanta, GA
Dubuque, IA
Iowa City, IA
Chicago, IL
Louisville, KT
Carmichael’s Bookstore (bonus)
Amherst, MA
Cambridge, MA
Boston, MA
Fitchburg, MA
Baltimore, MD
Portland, ME
St. Louis, MO
Missoula, MT
Chapel Hill, NC
Internationalist Books & Community Center
Metuchen, NJ
Brooklyn, NY
Buffalo, NY
Ithica, NY
New York, NY
Portland, OR
Delaware, OH
Pittsburg, PA
Providence, RI
Austin, TX
Richmond, VA
Bellingham, WA
Seattle, WA
CANADA
Ottawa, ON
NOVA SCOTIA
Halifax
Last month an old friend from the Florida days came into town and stayed with us for a weekend. To say thanks, he bought us tickets to see Bright Eyes at Radio City. This was a totally unnecessary move on his part, but nonetheless very much appreciated.
My buddy is the biggest Bright Eyes fan I’ve ever met. He’s seen them probably a hundred times. It was a shame that he wasn’t there with us this night. Radio City is an incredible building and it would have freaked him out.
I couldn’t get over this mural in the lobby. It’s called the Fountain of Youth. Here’s something interesting.
Ezra Winter painted it in 1932. It’s one he’s most known for. He was an incredibly talented muralist who demanded high prices for his work. His story took a tragic turn when he fell off a high scaffolding while working and broke his back. He never recovered his ability to keep his hand steady enough to paint with and eventually committed suicide in 1949 at the age of 63. I bring this up because Bright Eyes songs mention death and dying quite a bit. But their songs have the tendency to be somewhat hopeful too. I’m sure what’s hopeful about Winter’s story. Maybe what’s hopeful is “The Fountain of Youth” still exists and still has the power to move people like myself to think and write about it.
The place was sold out. I don’t know why that’s always surprising to me to imagine that so many people are into this band.
Man, I love art deco. The 30’s and 40’s may be my favorite period in American architecture. I like the idea that “bathroom” or “restroom” or “water closet” sounded too crass or rudimentary, that it didn’t cultivate a feeling of rest at all. You know what word does help you relax enough to have a urinary or bowel movement? The word “lounge.”
Never a fish-eye around when you need it. Notice the glow of the smart phones in the crowd. When I first heard this band I only knew a couple people who’s phones had color screens, much less unadulterated internet access. That was, what, maybe six years ago?
Rad set pieces. I couldn’t stop thinking of Conor Oberst’s appearance in Freedom.
And that made me realize I was wearing flannel and tortoise shell glasses. And at that moment I became aware of how I was very much a white man participating in a very white person activity.
I don’t know what that means, it’s just been on my mind lately. But no one really cares about that.
Was it a good show? You bet your ass. Thank you, Thomas, for the amazing experience.
{image via}
The deal: I’ve been working on another project that’s been stealing time away from Anna. I’ve got more time for Anna now so we’re going to be putting more work into the Creation issue, starting with pushing back the deadline. Submissions have been a bit sluggish, probably because we haven’t promoted it all that great. I should have sent out a press release announcing the new theme but I didn’t get around to doing that until today.
So I’m pushing back the deadline to April 5th in the hopes you’re working on something bad ass that you need more time on or maybe give you the opportunity to spark some ideas for something bad ass.
Like I said before, we’re looking for mainly nonfiction for this issue. Something we are very interested in reading about: people making things. I love watching it, I love learning the process. Doesn’t matter what it is, motorbikes to Motorola’s, compost to complex algorithms, if you can explain how something is made in an interesting way then you’ve got my attention. If you can weave it into a narrative, even better. If you can weave it into context that defines who we are as human beings and where we’re headed as a species then you’ve probably got an award winning piece of writing on your hands.
There will be a one or two slots open for fiction submissions so competition will be very tight.
So… what you got?
After almost a year (a fucking year? really?) I finally got around to posting bios from the print issue contributors. Apologies if you were in the print issue and were at a party and told someone you were in the print issue of this bad ass journal and the person you were talking to went home and got on the internet to google-proofed your story and thought that you were a goddamned liar and then started telling people you were a goddamned liar and next thing you know everyone hates you and you’re living in a box. Sorry about that.
Also, contributor Paul Kwiatkowski got a shout out at the Paris Review blog for his essay Lions that first appeared in Issue Seven.
Also, we need artists. If you are an artist or know an artist and would like to illustrate a story we’re running on the web then email me at chris {at} annalemma {dot} net and I will probably like what you do.
{pics courtesy Tim Schreier}
A lot of people think AWP is a fun and good spirited chance to commune with writers and find out about new places to publish. Nothing could be further from the truth. AWP a ritualistic bloodsport activity, a kill-or-be-killed, knock-down-drag-out, fighting-by-tooth-and-nail, backstabbing, betrayal-riddled hell mouth. This is the gaping maw that consumes the hopes and dreams of all who dare to attend. Abandon all hope ye who enter.
Gaze upon the chaotic bloodlust that consumes the eyes of the attendees: writers, professors and students all looking for the slightest hint of your weakness. Once the weakness has been exposed, it is doomed to be exploited.
Feast your eyes on the hellacious blood orgy of organizational networking.
There in the distance, among the rabble and static, shines a dark beacon of demonic power known as the Hobart table.
The horror… the horror!
Tucked in the blackest corner of this hoary underworld resides these perverted minds peddling seeds of evil to corrupt the minds of innocents.
Beware this twisted carnival of soulless ghouls. Beware.
Peace out, New York. We took the Bolt Bus. I will gladly shill for the Bolt Bus if they want to advertise with us. $25 or less and you get a comfortable, swift ride from NY to DC. Free Wifi, free electronic outlets, free beautiful scenery. There were other AWP’ers on this particular Bolt Bus. They will back me up on this.
DC’s public trans is ominous and monolithic. The escalators are poorly oiled and they groan like wounded animals. Inspiring and unsettling at the same time.
Here is the floor of the book fair. We were next to Salt Hill which was real cool fortune. The floor is very quiet on Thursday. Sometimes you get the feeling that there is more people sitting at tables than there is people walking around and visiting the tables…
Here is Matt Siegle. He is nine feet tall and must adjust the microphone to accommodate this fact. We threw a reading with PANK and Mud Luscious and called it Divination in DC. About 50 writers descended on an Irish pub with about four families trying to have a nice dinner on a Thursday night. They were unprepared for what was about to happen to them.
Steve Himmer riffs on the Chuck Norris jokes that were oh-so-popular at the end of the aughts and ramps up the pathos on them.
Mathias Svalina read a poem about the end of the world and its relation to the television show Cheers.
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz smoked everyone with this poem about a drunk boyfriend at a poetry reading. The first second got cut off. The piece starts with the words “The drunk boyfriend at the bar, he groans…” I really love this one a lot.
And then she read some transcripts from porno movies. She is my new favorite poet. Thanks Cristin.
If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your …
“What if you are part of the problem? What do you do when you realize that your history is …
Rumpus: Is this interview being monitored right now? Potter: Maybe. The more important question: Is that going to stop …
“(C)ourage is vital piece of any well-lived life.” – Sugar on body image at The Rumpus.…
Copyright Annalemma 2009
