Some things that you did not know that you now know:

– Contributor David Peak wrote a novel.

– The novel is called The Rocket’s Red Glare

– It is for sale here.

– You want to buy it. Why? Because David is a good writer. But you already knew that.

I had to run laps in gym class pretty frequently. I’d get bored and not really care about finishing the number of laps coach had assigned and I’d just kind of turky-trot around the gym, just to see if I could wait coach out, see if he’d tell me to quit before I’d fulfilled my commitment. It never worked, he’d always call me out.

“You’re doggin’ it, Heavener! Quit doggin’ it!” His term for doing something half-assed.

I’m kinda doggin’ it on the site today. My mind is elsewhere. We’re putting together the print issue and my wheels took a shit so it’s been a mad dash to get anything done in a timely manner.

I promise to use my whole ass next week.

My brother, avid Mac disciple that he is, sent the above video this morning. He told me Annalemma should think about developing an application (cannot bring myself to say “app,” the word feels soft and wimpy on my tongue) for the iPad. Making one for the iPhone makes sense, I guess. Something like 65% of all content on the web is viewed with a mobile device nowadays (and I’m willing to bet that 90% of that content is Facebook related). But the iPad feels like such a colossal waste of money. What does this thing do that the iPhone does not? The e-book/reading feature is kinda cool, I guess, but it feels more like an afterthought than a primary function. The publishing world was asking for a savior and they got tossed table scraps.

What it boils down to for the magazine is whether or not what we do is accessible to people. I’ve always desired this magazine to be inviting to the savvy reader and first-timer alike, but with a $700 price tag I can’t see anyone buying this thing just for reading purposes.  It’s going to be owned by the tech elite initially and then, months or a couple years later, it’s primary function is going to sift through, or it will be a total flop.

I’m not really interested in being the first lit mag on the iPad. It would probably garner some initial press and a few people would find their way to the site and even fewer might actually subscribe. But if we created a revolutionary use for the iPad, beyond its original intent, then it would be a signal flair to the audience, to people like you and me.

Who can say with this type of shit, though. I’m the worst tech forecaster ever. What say you, Internet? Do you plan on buying an iPad? Are you excited about this thing at all? Or is Wired simply playing their role? Developing an application because they are expected to, not because it serves any purpose? There for the sake of being there?

(p.s. Someone neglected to mention that Wired’s creative director is a cyborg. Makes perfect sense though.)

We’re fortunate enough to have the meticulous and beautiful line work of Xenia Fink in our roster for Issue Six. Xenia’s humans are inviting at first but seem to become more warped the longer you look at them. Enough with that arts talk. Go check out her site.

I found out late last minute that Sam Lipsyte was reading at Housing Works so I dropped everything and trekked through 91 inches of slush to see one of my favorite authors because events like these are the reason you move to New York. Heidi Julavits and Colson Whitehead were there too, along with some big wheels from Harper’s. Like I said, this is the reason.

The man himself, who doesn’t have a website, which kind of pisses me off. Why are authors so slow to adopt technology? Is it because updating real-time information is so antithetical to polishing and crafting sentences and stories? The complete opposite of what they strive to do in the first place? Or do they just think it’s a waste of time? Whatever. All I know is his reading made me want to buy The Ask even more than I already do. And that I got no business writing if it’s not going to come out as good as his.

Colson Whitehead has good stage presence and delivery but his set-up veered dangerously close to being overly complicated. Heidi Julavits read a story that I feel like I would have loved had I read it my room, but didn’t translate all that great to a reading.

Pop quiz:

You are at a reading with some of the most well-known and influential people in the New York literary scene and you only have one copy of your magazine to give away. Do you give it to…

a) Sam Lipsyte

b) Colson Whitehead

c) Heidi Julavits

d) one of the big wheels at Harper’s

e) Justin Taylor

The answer is…

Trick question. You put on your coat and you leave immediately to go eat Thai food and catch up on Lost, because you have been holed up in your apartment for days and lack of human contact has devolved your social skills into that of a pubescent PC gamer and speaking to other humans at this point would only be an exercise in making the both parties uncomfortable. And first impressions are important.

Fucking February. You may make it through the holidays with some positivity still in tact, you may even coast through January with a little hitch in your step, but fucking February is always waiting to choke it right out of you. And if you make it through Valentines then you are simply not human.

On a positive note: How about the Housing Works Bookstore? Pretty amazing, right? Every dollar from book sales to food and beverage go to homeless men and women living with aids. All the merchandise is donated, all employees are volunteers. New favorite book store.

Some deliciously painful rejections were offered up yesterday in competition for the newest issue of PANK. Some highlights included Leilani, who got dumped by a dude because he was scared he might fall “too much in love,” Reynard, who got an entire boot of beer poured on him, and David, whose camp counselor called him the ugliest fucking kid he’d ever seen.

But there can be only one winner and that person is Peter Richter:

5th grade I ask a girl if we could “go steady.”

At lunch I sat with her and she told me, nicely, that we wouldn’t make a good couple. And then she goes “But you’re pretty.”

I thought it odd to be called pretty but I remembering thinking it was still nice of her to say so I replied. “Thank…”

and she interrupted, “Pretty pathetic.” And the entire lunch table erupted in laughter.

I took my lunch and embarrassment to another table.

Ouch. Hopefully the wounds of the past can be healed with the gift of literature, Peter. Congrats on winning the new issue of PANK, a publication that would never insult you publicly. Their new slogan perhaps?

Roxane Gay sent me an extra copy of the new PANK cause she’s cool like that and I’ve decided to give it away to the person who posts the worst rejection they ever got in the comments below. Doesn’t have to be a rejection from a lit mag either. Girls, boys, colleges, artificial hearts. Whatever rejection hit you hardest, share it below and get a free copy of the latest issue of PANK. Contest ends at midnight tonight!

The Desk Set is having a book drive for a New Orleans elementary class. If you’ve got some extra scratch and are feeling generous go here and buy some books for the youngn’s. Also, there’s the above event for all the NYers. Let’s spread some literacy, people!

Our intrepid intern comes at us with a report from the burgeoning art capital of the world, Orlando, FL. Take it away, Janelle!

Good friend and Annalemma contributor Gianelle Gelpi held an art opening at Stardust on Saturday night.

Fans and friends came together to celebrate Gianelle’s first solo show.

I donned my newly dubbed “Montana” jacket in honor of the furry family.

Gianelle’s choice of medium ranged from rich, seductive oils to bright and yummy acrylics. The most beloved though were her drawings.

By the end of the night they were all $OLD! Cha-ching is a good thing indeed.

Gianelle’s style, influenced by World Mythology, has evolved into a kind of mystical optimism. Through the creatures of the Grand Family, she conveys a belief in the connectedness of all things alive and imagined. Their serenity may be ours as well.

I especially loved the lion. Just look at his eyes! Gorgeous. Someone else snatched it up before I got there. Boohoooo.

We are just bursting with pride. Gianelle owned Stardust. (And the dance floor a little later that night.) Expect to see more of her.

We are just bursting with pride. Gianelle owned Stardust. (And the dance floor a little later that night.) Expect to see more of her.

Today’s Holiday in Cambodia day here at Annalemma and we’re hoping to get you more psyched on this zine of ours that you have ever been on any other zine in your life. Thus, excerpts:

From Greyhound Christmas by Al Burian

I had been curious to see what sort of person takes an overnight Greyhound ride on Christmas eve. Would there be exciting, sinister motivations for needing to leave town at such an odd time? But the answer, depressingly and obviously, is that it’s mostly born again Christians. This became clear within a few minutes of departure from downtown Chicago, when the first person, an elderly gentleman in a crinkled suit, whipped out a bulky, well-thumbed and thoroughly hi-lighted jumbo print Bible and began shouting praises across the aisles. I looked around for someone to receive my exasperated eye roll, but found no one. The entire bus was enraptured. Soon, Bible quotations and hallelujahs were flying back and forth between the aisles.

My instinctual reaction to loud displays of fervent proselytizing, of course, is to want to jump up and begin yelling counter-arguments in a louder voice. Fuck religion, as the song says, but in this case I immediately recognized that as an inhumane, culturally insensitive attitude, and also that I was hopelessly outnumbered. So, rather than yelling out Crass-style lyrics, I restrained myself and listened.

From Jumping Rope with Satan by Cassandra Lewis

My mother is mentally ill but refuses to undergo treatment.  The first time she was hospitalized she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  However, another psychologist who met with her and later became my therapist said she believed my mother was misdiagnosed and should have been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia since my mother fails to return to reality, entrenched in delusions.  She’s been hospitalized, arrested, and incarcerated, blaming everyone but herself, refusing to accept responsibility.  It’s all a big conspiracy, of course.  She believes everyone is against her and either works for the mafia, the CIA, or Satan.

From A Christmas Fax from Dad’s Lawyer by Ryan W. Bradley

The clearest Christmas memory I have is waking up, my sister and I beginning to sift through our stockings while our stepdad prepared breakfast in the kitchen. We’d only started celebrating Christmas since our parents had both remarried.

We heard the fax machine downstairs whirr to life. It was from our dad’s lawyer, passing on a court order that my sister and I were to spend Christmas day with our father. We got dressed, hurried through opening our presents, and fumed by the window waiting for our dad’s Isuzu Rodeo to arrive on our street.

From Survival Recipe by Liz Grover

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I went to Cambodia. I only knew that it was going to be difficult. My goal was to document what local activists were doing to protect street children from child sex tourists, indigenous tribes fighting to protect their dwindling rainforests, and women landmine survivors learning how to make a proud living through weaving, a tradition that was nearly erased during the dark days of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s totalitarian ruling Communist Party of Kampuchia. Oh, and by the way, it was my first time visiting a country where massive genocide took place.

From My Justice for All by Todd Dills

“I’ve seen the frayed ends of sanity,” Edwin said, finally, pretentiously, as he marched off to the Silver Dollar’s bathroom.

“Me too,” I called after him. “Wasn’t that a Metallica song?” though I knew it was, from the classic …And Justice for All. Metallica was about insanity, after all, and more explicitly death. In their 1980s heyday they sought, however confusedly, to encapsulate living organisms’, man’s, inexorable and punishing route toward death in their hectic, unyieldingly pounding riffs. Death via war, via insanity and bad choices, via addiction, via chance in the chaos of human experience: the unfinished business of the bell, which on their second album they left up in the air, incomplete, but if you got the reference to Donne — and you’d have to be a Neanderthal not to — the implied finale was clear. Luck be damned. Time marches on. The shortest straw is pulled. That bell tolls for thee.

Remember: Limited press of only 100. Supplies will not last. Click here to order!