Vigorously Lazy

{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.

{image via}

Only the most proficient of techies among us would be able to fix their mobile phone if it broke, or their computer screen if it blinked out. If your car was built in the last fifteen years then you wouldn’t be able to fix the steering system by looking it up at your local library. The age of the professional is over and has given way to the age of the specialist. And every day we sacrifice knowledge of how things work in exchange for comfort of living. In the future, our ability to survive will hinge upon our ability to provide for ourselves, to build our own homes, to craft our own tools, to grow our own food, to reclaim our abandoned sense of imagination and creativity, instead of relying on companies and institutions to provide them for us.

With this in mind, Annalemma is dedicating an entire issue to making things. Annalemma Issue Eight: Creation will celebrate humankind’s capacity to think its way out of problems and conflict. It will focus on people who have been relying on their own ingenuity for some time and people who are trying to rediscover what it means to be a creator.

We’re looking for mostly nonfiction for this issue. Go interview an artisan. Write an essay about how your newfound granola lifestyle has clashed with your loved ones. Profile a medicine man living in a 10×10 shack in North Carolina.

There will be a two to three spaces open for fiction, so the competition will be very stiff. If you’re looking to get published in the print issue the odds are in your favor if you submit nonfiction.

Deadline is March 8^th. No pieces over 5000 words will be accepted without first submitting a query letter. No unsolicited poetry will be accepted for this issue. Click here to submit.

{image via}

Just got back from AWP last night and feel like the above image. Many books bought, traded for, given unsolicited and accepted under pressure. Left the camera in the cupboard of the friends apartment we stayed at, so wait for a full report next week. For now, time to get to work!

Crack your fingers. The theme for Annalemma Issue Eight is going to be announced tomorrow.

Also, the computer died for the final time. It is in the process of being banished from the kingdom forever and steps have been taken so that this never happens again. If you’ve sent art submissions in the past month and a half then I probably lost those emails. Please send them again. All the prose submitters need not worry, we keep that stuff on the cloud.

Feel like reading the slush pile? We’re going to be inundated with submissions soon and we’re behind as it is, so contact me at chris {at} annalemma {dot} net if you want to get your hands filthy on some raw words. We could use your help and it could help you learn a bit about what your peers are churning out these days. You will be paid in eternal gratitude and a free copy of the new issue when it comes out.

We’re all ready for NerdFest 2011.

You know you’re a nerd when you’re very excited about a book stand you made. Thinking about making more/selling them. Not sure if there’s a big demand for these though. Want one? Hit me up in the comments.

Very excited to be sharing a table with the fine folks at Avery. Come hang out with us! We will be at the following places on Thursday and Friday nights, respectively:

Want to read the story Amber Sparks originally published in Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance? It’s now live at The Reprint, a cool project from the folks at Zine Scene, wherein they post stories previously appearing exclusively in print and pair them up with the work of one visual artist. This issue features Pamela Wilson. Go check it out now.

Like Amber’s stuff? Check out an interview with her here.

Over the weekend, a previous contributor to our print issue wrote a post on their blog about the current feature story. In it, the contributor said they wrote and published a story a year ago that they felt T.L. Crum had lifted heavily from while writing “Head.” The contributor has removed the post and they have since rescinded their statements. I’m not writing this in the interest of fanning the flames so I’m not going to mention who it was. But the whole thing did make me think about the conclusions we reach in terms of what to write about.

In Marc Maron’s interviews with Robin Williams, Dane Cook and (you’ve got to listen to this) Carlos Mencia, the subject of joke theft is brought up a lot. All of these comedians had been accused of stealing jokes in the past. In the case of Cook and Williams, they admitted every comedian was drawing from the same reality pool, their jokes were similar to other comedians because they were all writing observational humor and when a subject strikes you as interesting you’re going to dig into it to find whatever is funny. Sometimes comedians pick the same subject and sometimes they reach the same conclusions. When that happens, it’s not stealing, but merely coincidence.

In this case, they agreed that the proper thing to do is take the comedian aside and say, “We’re telling the same joke, what do we do about this?” rather than start throwing out the accusation of theft.

However, in Mencia’s case (really, you have to listen to this, one of the most interesting radio interviews you’ll ever hear), it became clear that he’d listened to bits from other comedians, lolled them around his head a while, blending them with his day-to-day thoughts, and when he sat down to write, the bits he’d heard had lost their owners and he assumed they were his own. It would be hard to call this anything other than stealing, even if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Anyone beyond the 8^th grade level of writing would be an idiot to think they could get very far writing a story about a white whale called Doby Mick, or a lovable scamp named Fuckleberry Hinn. Most creative folks don’t consciously steal ideas. They either reach the same conclusions or they don’t know what they’re doing. Only sociopaths think they can steal ideas and get away with it.

The contributor jumped the gun in assuming T.L. Crum had read and been heavily influenced by their story. It was a case of coincidence, two writers interested in similar ideas and reaching similar conclusions. Funny thing is, when I first read T.L.’s piece it reminded me of a Joe Meno short story in which people who experience human emotions turn into clouds. The human-emotion-leads-to-magical-effect idea is a great seed for a story and tons of writers have taken it to interesting places. That doesn’t mean anyone owns it. It’s a form, that’s all.

The important thing to take away is this: Dane Cook was accused of stealing jokes from Louis C.K. Instead of throwing out the allegation of theft, he chose to acknowledge that yes, the jokes were similar, maybe Cook stole them, maybe he didn’t, but those jokes were done now. They were out in the world and they had been spent. Now it was time to move on and write more jokes and let the talent of the each respective comedian be the final word.

{image: Ted Hollins}

Hey Orlando: The Zora! Fest kicked off last night and is churning up to full speed this week. Two events you should not miss…

And…

You should go to both of these. What else do you have to do this weekend? Go do something that you’ve never done before. Go meet people you might not have otherwise met. Go experience something outside of your little Winter Park, Downtown, Thornton Park bubble. Do it. Not taking ‘no’ for an answer on this one. You will enjoy yourself, I promise. Take pics. Send them to me. I will post them on this blog. Experience something outside of your day-to-day existence. Build a damn bridge for once in your life. Forge a friendship. Talk to strangers. Eat some good food. It’s nice outside.

You surface from the Lorimer L stop onto Lorimer and Metropolitan. You walk west towards the droning BQE. Nestled between the hardware stores, cuban restaurants and noodle joints, embedded in the wood siding facades of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is a weathered white and yellow storefront sign announcing SPARACINO’S BAKERY: ITALIAN FRENCH SICILIAN BREAD. Underneath the subtitle is a less-weathered yellow sign with red lettering reading AND COMIC BOOKLETS. In the storefront window is an art installation lifted from a Roald Dahl fever dream: bright colors and angular shapes, fantastical creatures made of paper, three dimensional sci-fi landscapes and the strange and beautiful creatures that inhabit them. Welcome to Desert Island Comics, an independent bookstore specializing in comics and prints, owned and operated by indie comic guru and Mad Magazine enthusiast, Gabe Fowler. Gabe was kind enough to speak via email concerning the lonliness of the internet and how it’s good to have impossible standards.

1. What’s the Desert Island’s origin story?

I grew up loving Mad Magazine, punk rock, and skateboarding, eventually studied fine art, and spent years working at art galleries. I decided it was time to put all of these interests together in a visual book store. I’ve always loved comics, graphic art, and artists’ books, and thought they would be served well by coexisting in the same environment. I’ve also always loved book stores. After years of obsessing over particular shops, it was fun to design my own and try to address the positives and negatives of other places. I started with little money and looked for a full year for a decent affordable place to rent. And I ended up with the third place I saw!

2. What’s the curatorial process when choosing books to stock?

In keeping with the “desert island” concept, ideally every item in the store should hold interest for a lifetime. Obviously this is impossible, but I think about it when I’m selecting books. If you had to live the rest of your life with this book, would it still pull it’s weight? It’s good to have impossible standards.

3. What helps a book sell? What are some of the more successful books at DI?

If I knew the answer to this one I’d one step ahead of everybody else. There’s a million intangible factors in the hard reality of selling something, especially a poetic product like an illustrated book. Why does anybody buy anything? Long-awaited work from particular artists always sell well. So does nicely handmade work, like sewn binding or screen printed covers. I also do well with limited edition items from known artists, including prints or signed books.

4. Williamsburg has a storied history in the last decade of being both the epicenter of the art/creative world as well as a neighborhood that’s become synonymous with drastic gentrification. What’s it like running a comic book shop there?

Yeah, it still hurts when rich people ruin a creative community by pricing out the artists. It has happened a million times in this town, and it will probably happen to me. Anyway, it’s great to have a comic store in Williamsburg as long creative people still live nearby. Every scene on Earth has originators, participants and spectators, and it’s always the spectators that kill it.

5. How does a brick-and-mortar shop maintain relevance in the age of online commerce? How do you compete with Amazon?

The internet is lonely. My shop is a social place full of surprising stuff, a lot of which you can’t find on Amazon. I host tons of artist signings and provide a place for people to sell their self-published books and prints. There’s tons of reasons why a physical store is not just relevant but crucial.

6. Please describe the store mascot.

Do I have a mascot? Maybe you’re referring to the pirate drawing by Matti Hagelberg which has been on my website for a few years. I don’t think I have a mascot, but I’ve been lucky to work with tons of amazing artists over the years on prints and other projects. Hagelberg is from Finland, and I approached him blindly to design a poster for the store when I first opened. With no further instructions, he created a killer geometric scratchboard piece of a pirate holding a hockey stick with a parrot on his nose. This image has been closely associated with the shop ever since.

Desert Island is a now stocking Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance.

How many things do you make for yourself? How much do you depend on others to make things for you? When people make things for you does it make you feel important or impotent?

Here’s some powerful quotes from Junot Diaz (via Rumpus) to infest the brain on a Monday morning. Are you making things (stories, drawings, compost, business deals, love)  to feel accepted, important? Or are you making them out of necessity?