If you haven’t clicked on over to the website of this week‘s illustrator, Walter Green, then do yourself a favor. Walt’s images have been showing up everywhere lately and his watercolor/handscript style seems appropriate almost every situation. He’s got knack for knowing what kind of image looks good for a literary object, as displayed in these fake book covers:
Well done, Walter. Looking forward to your further ubiquity.
Thanks to Tanya Angell Allen for writing up an extensive and glowing review of Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance over at Newpages.
“There is aesthetic beauty in this hip, young-feeling magazine, and beauty is one of the main things that helps people endure…(t)his particular magazine, founded in 2007, will hopefully endure for a very long while.”
Thanks Tanya! We hope you’re around for a good long while too!
It’s unlikely I’ll finish another book before the year’s out so I’m calling it a bit early. I didn’t come close to hitting the goal. I don’t even think I hit the halfway mark. I think it was something closer to 55 books. It’s hard as shit to read 120 books in a year. Who’s got the time for that? I read an interview with Sherman Alexie where he said he’s got a personal library of something like 5000 books. That’s roughly ten books a week for ten years. I guess it’s doable if you’re Sherman Alexie. Otherwise, I can’t recommend forcing yourself to read 120 books in a year for recreational purposes. It’s more than likely you’re going to burn yourself out.
Does it count for yearly reading that I cycled through roughly 1000 short stories this year? Even if they didn’t get published? Just because a work isn’t published does that mean you can’t learn something from it? And ultimately does that mean that you the piece is somehow validated if someone learns something from it or impacts them in some small way? That’s what you want with publishing, right? Validation? That sweet crack-like drug that makes you feel like you matter, that there’s a purpose for you here? That in the event fire were to rush across the sky and singe all life from the surface of the earth in a brutal cleansing, you’d be someone they’d make sure had a place in the bunker? That would feel good, wouldn’t it?
Once I unlocked the possibility that I could read two books in a week then I got faster, so that was cool. But the books I was reading didn’t have a natural progression, I was just picking up whatever was on the shelf, mainly whatever small press stuff I’d got in the mail. But since I had a goal to hit, since I knew I could read faster than I had months before starting, it made it a lot harder to finish a book I didn’t care about, or even start one that didn’t sound exciting. When you force yourself to do something you quickly learn what’s a priority and what’s not. If I learned anything it’s that I’m only reading stuff that interests and excites me from now on. Anything else feels like a waste of time.
I’d wished there was a natural arc to the books I’d read this year. Like I said, I was mainly picking up all the stuff on my shelf I’d been meaning to get to, or stuff put out by my small press cronies. It was a year of mainly digging into that world and seeing what it’s all about. Now that I’m familiar with it, I’m kind of done with it for a while. I want to start reading the stuff that everyone else is reading, Colum McCann, Aleksander Hemon, Deb Olin Unferth, that sort of thing. Good books make you want to talk about them with other folks. Small press books are hard because not a lot of people know about them, which makes conversation scarce at best. The very cool thing about small press books, though, is that the writers are very grateful to have their stuff read. And they’ll be happy to talk to you about their books if no one else will. Also cool: they, unlike big name authors, will return your emails and sometimes you end up meeting new friends. Which, in the end, is what reading and writing is all about: connecting.
I liked writing the reviews. I imagine I’ll keep on doing it, especially if I think it’s a good small press book that deserves more exposure. But I’m done with counting how many books I’ve read. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read. There’s no magic number that, once achieved, grants you enlightenment status. It’s a journey that only ends when your mind falls apart. What matters is that you read a lot and get a lot out of what you read.
Noteworthy books read (in chronological order):
Shoplifting from American Apparel
How to Take Yourself Apart, How to Make Yourself Anew
Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever
Adam Robison and Other Poems by Adam Robinson
Hobart #11: The Great Outdoors
Issue Seven contributor Nick Ripatrazone has taken it upon himself, God bless him, to blog a little something about each piece in Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance over the course of the next few weeks. And he’s starting from the very beginning with Sasha Fletcher’s “Coming For to Carry Me Home,” the first and only poem we’ve ever published. Thanks Nick, looking forward to seeing what you think of all the pieces.
If you live in Orlando then you know about the Enzian and its legendary status as the best damn place to see a good/weird/enlightening/confusing/interesting/mind-blowing movie and have a beer and maybe a veggie burger at the same time. If you don’t live in Orlando, now you know.
This weekend they’re hosting the Orlando premiere of the Allen Ginsberg movie Howl, starring everyone’s favorite mind-freak actor, James Franco. Go check it out this Saturday to get a sneak peek at Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance. I’m not going to say what it is other than it’s going to be the only place you will be able to see this particular preview. Enjoy!
The FL release party for Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance was held in Eatonville, FL. Why?
Because of this man: Ted Hollins.
I first heard about Ted at a photo show curated by our very own print designer, Jen O’Malley. Jen consulted N.Y. Nathiri (director of the The Hurson Museum and founding board member of The Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, pictured left) to determine who was the best photographer in Eatonville. She didn’t hesitate to name Ted. When Jen and I started talking about featured artists for the Endurance issue, Ted’s name kept coming up. He’s been documenting the ZORA! festival for the last 21 years. To us, nothing said endurance like the life and work of Zora.
So we put together Ted’s photo essay, we got N.Y. to write a really beautiful foreward for it and we decided to donate a portion of the proceeds from the issue to the Hurston Museum.
To get a sense of closure to the project, it only seemed right to throw the release party in Eatonville at the Hurston Museum. So that’s what we did.
And a lot of people came out and had a damn good time, as was our intention. Alberta, Moms, Karina and Alberto.
I stood up and said basically everything you just read. People looked at me funny while I spoke.
My heart was warmed with the old and new friends that came out to support. Metha and Kris.
The Black Bean Deli catering crew unleashed an avalanche of empanadas that Eatonville was not prepared for. They were not wearing sock garters so their socks got blown clean off. Andy, Janelle, Gabi and Jessi.
Magazines were perused and enjoyed. It was, far and away, the best Anna party ever thrown.
Thanks to Ted, Jen, N.Y. Nathiri, The Hurston Musuem, and, most of all, the Eatonville community for welcoming a bunch of strangely dressed outsiders with open arms. Don’t miss ZORA! fest happening at the end of January!
It may not always be the greatest timing to make a drastic life change while trying to promote a new issue of a magazine, but sometimes that’s just the way things work out. Good to see you again, reader of blogs.
In the interim, Issue Seven contributor Matthew Simmons recorded this video of himself reading an excerpt of the story “The Difference Between” by Andrea Kneeland from (you guessed it) Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance.
Were you aware that it’s on sale now?
There will be empanadas. There will be red and white wine. There will be books. This will all be free. It will last for two hours. It will happen right after work. Come loosen the tie and/or ascot with us.
Looking forward to seeing you.
This just in — virile and well learned people from all around continue to enjoy Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance…
J.A. Tyler @ Big Other
Jason Diamond @ Vol. 1 Brooklyn
Ravi Mangla @ Ravi Mangla
Paul Kwiatkowski @ Street Carnage
Nick @ Nick Ripatrazone
The simple ideas are best ones. San Francisco artist Maria Forde was feeling lost and directionless. She decided to turn to perpetual founts of information and perspective: old folks. Forde interviewed and drew the portraits of 0ver a dozen elderly people living at her grandmother’s retirement village.
Forde’s style has a meticulous attention to detail but an innate sense of playfulness. She captures the spirit of people who’ve experienced good, bad, dark, light, up, down, everything in between and lived to tell the tale.
The most rewarding thing to take away from Long View is the message of happiness that permeates the portraits and interviews. A positive outlook on life is interconnected with longevity. Most zines are dripping with molten madness and youth played at full volume. Very rarely will a zine will warm your heart and give you fortitude. Like all great ideas, the simplicity of Long View effortlessly accomplishes this.
[images via]
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
