Vigorously Lazy

I just bought The Passage. I still haven’t bought Witz yet, but I bought The Passage. It’s the most heavily marketed book in recent memory. It’s the publishing industry’s next great white hope. I had to see what all the hubbub was about. Usually I hate the idea of reading popular fiction. I’ve go no desire to read a Stieg Larsson book, and that’s for no particular reason other than it’s in the hand of every person on the train, on the shelf at every bookstore, on the front page of every bookstore’s website. I hear Stieg Larsson’s a good read, a storyteller guaranteed not to bore. I’ve got no other reason to dislike it other than everyone is reading it. If I was forced to read the Twilight books right now I think I’d seriously consider jumping out the nearest window.

My girlfriend wants me to read Harry Potter. I really don’t want to. I’ve got nothing against Harry Potter. I like the movies. I just feel like it would be a gigantic waste of time for me to jump into Harry Potter as I’ve got “more important” books on my to-read list. We’re doing an exchange. I’ll read Harry Potter if she reads something I choose for her. I haven’t decided what yet. Maybe Witz.

So what this impulse boils down to is that I think my taste is better than everyone else’s in terms of popular fiction. Either that or it stems from a fear of being perceived as one of the unwashed masses consuming the candy of the literary world. In either case, it’s a stupid impulse. You should just like what you like and not give a shit what anybody else thinks.

Do you hate books just because they’re popular? Where does the impulse come from? Is it jealousy that people are reading things that you haven’t written?

June 16th is the day we hoist a glass to the most linguistically crazy Irishman that ever lived, James Joyce. To celebrate, Annalemma alumn, William Walsh, has graced a handful of lit blogs with excerpts from his new collection based on the work of Joyce. William explains:

The book collecting all of these Joycean derivations is called Unknown Arts, and it will be released by Keyhole Press in February 2011. The title is inspired by Joyce’s epigraph from The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: “And he sets his mind to unknown arts.” It includes texts and poems cut from all of Joyce’s works, including the verse and his play Exiles.

Kick your heels up with a glass of Jameson’s, adjust your eyepatch, put that erotic love letter on hold for a second and enjoy your Bloomsday courtesy of Mr. Walsh. Take it away, Bill…

BLOOMING!
William Walsh
A text derived from Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)

It was too blooming dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs. Stoer and Mrs. Quigley and Mrs. MacDowell and the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping sups of the superior tawny sherry Uncle Barney brought from Tunney’s. The blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. M Bloom you’re looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him well its better than Breen or Briggs. So lonely blooming.

Looking for more of a Bloomsday fix? William is getting a few other lit blogs in on the fun. Head on over to Big Other, Artiface, Keyhole, Letters With Character and The Kenyon Review for more.

Buy it here from Word Riot.

Nick Antosca’s second novel, a southern gothic ghost story with heavy echoes of Ray Bradbury, begins with the main character, Bram, driving into the gravel parking lot of a bar late at night and accidentally running over a dog. The dog is badly injured, its legs mangled, and Bram is put in the position of killing the dog to end its misery. But the dog crawls away before Bram is able to find a gun to dispatch it. Shortly after, he happens upon a set of a child’s bones and is soon visited by the ghost of that child, Adam Dovey, who begs Bram to help find the man who killed him so they can “get him.”

He introduces characters like Jacob Bunny, a reluctant child murderer, and uses an effective device to flashback to his past, to show the audience that while a man may do evil things, he may not be evil. He links Adam and Bram in a metaphysical way, and forces Bram to follow Adam out on his dubious mission to seek revenge on the man that murdered him.

Antosca quickly sets a metronomic rhythm for the book. He puts his characters in uncompromising positions, sets them on paths and watches as they try to negotiate their way through them. It’s a refreshing thing to see an author of his generation using these tools of storytelling with such a deft hand. It feels like most authors his age are content to delve deep into a character, to let the voice propel the story, or to get drunk on language in the hopes that it will lead somewhere. While his voice and language are strong and metered, the characters fully drawn, Antosca seems unsatisfied in letting these elements carry the weight of the story. He straps these storytelling elements into a fixed track towards conflict, unable to escape until they reach the end. The result is a novel that is immensely enjoyable to read and impossible to put down.

If there’s an area where the book leaves you wanting, it’s in the realm of cultural relevance. The world of Midnight Picnic is somewhat timeless, capable of taking place at any point in the last 50 years. There are no pop culture references, no mention of brands or companies, nothing to place the story specifically in one time or another. In doing so, Antosca makes the story accessible to an audience of all ages, but he robs himself of the opportunity to make any sort of statements or comments on the world in which he lives.

However, Antosca’s aim with Midnight Picnic is not to create a zeitgeist, but rather to tell a good ghost story, and in that regard the book is an incredible success. But something about reading a young author with this much talent, it begs the question as to why a ghost story grips his attention as severely as it does. For a generation that struggles so painfully to define itself, it’s unexpected to see a writer refuse to broach the topic in novel form. If anything, it leaves the reader poised with excitement to see what Antosca do next.

Buy it here from Word Riot.

(this was the first thing that come up when I Google-imaged “online writing community”)

Last week Darby Larson and I had a brief discussion over at HTMLG regarding Annalemma and its submissions policy, but that’s not what this post is about. Without recounting the entire conversation (it’s at the bottom of the thread, you can read it here), we got on the topic of community, to which Darby said:

“i come at it a little differently maybe as an editor, not so community-driven. i dont think of submissions as potential forgings of relationships or trying to help writers get better. just words for me. ones i like stay, ones i dont go away, not much else.”

This comment cocked my head a bit. Wouldn’t it be in your best interest to be community driven? Wouldn’t it benefit you in the long-run to forge relationships? That’s why communities are formed. So a group of like-minded individuals can work together towards a common goal. I was going to bring this up in the thread but it was Friday and the weekend loomed and I had steam to blow off. So I bring it up here now.

There is a very good chance that if you’re reading this you are a member of the online writing community. Let me ask you this: Are they just words to you? Are you simply interested in publishing wherever you can, regardless of the format? Are you working towards a goal that benefits your own interests of becoming a famous writer? Or are you publishing and writing with the community in mind? Do you wish the success of the places you publish? Wouldn’t that ultimately mean the success of your own writing?

The bad news: Sometimes when I read a novel or a work published in a journal, I ask myself if I’d publish it or not. Being somewhat lazy and mostly unmotivated to try unfamiliar things, I tend to read stuff that I’m pretty sure I know I’ll like, so most of the time that answer is yes. But sometimes, there’s a disturbing thing that happens when I pick up that familiar book, the one I’m 89% sure I’m going to like. I find myself saying no, I don’t think I would publish that.  This happened to me in the bulk of the Padgett Powell’s last story collection.

All Along the Watchtower is a three-part cacophony, two parts the ranting of a stroke victim, one part surreal morality tale. The premise is bizarre, spare and feels inconsequential: The narrator, enlisting the help of a nurse administering a constant stream of narcotics, is in search of a 50-pound Chihuahua. The language loops in and around itself, often going off on obsessive-compulsive tangents. It all makes for some tasty reading to the language aficionado, but at major cost to the story. Great writing is a balance of ample language dexterity and storytelling skills. When a piece tips too far in either direction I tend to question the purpose, and great writing should never leave you with that question. Great writing should state its intent. Whether or not it fulfills that is another thing altogether.

The good news: The first three stories in this collection are the embodiment of great writing.

The title character in the story Wayne is a study in what it means to be a modern southern man. Powell creates a compassionate animal in Wayne. Neither or gentleman nor complete shithead, he falls somewhere down the middle, living his life without expectation or fear, a concept that’s ugly on its surface, but so goddamn desirable at its heart.

Trick or Treat, is a small cross section of sexuality: A 12-year-old boy falling in lust with a 36-year-old housewife who may just oblige him. Two humans in probably the most sexually hormonal imbalanced ages a male and female, respectively, can find themselves in. It’s surprising this is the first time I’ve seen is as the stage for a story.

Scarlotti and the Sinkhole, another character study of a rural teen fuck-up with delusions of grandeur and the power that delusions have to change himself and those around him.

One indisputable fact is that Powell is a national (more specifically, a southern) treasure. I love language artists. They are people not only dissatisfied with repeating the same colloquialisms and stock phrases, but downright repelled by the idea. They make it their mission in life to test the limits of coherency, while trying to maintain a steady stream of connectivity with the reader. It takes a wild brain too, a thing Powell has in spades. A brain that fires through rapid cycles of potential and kinetic energy at all times, delighting you nine times out of ten, and one time making you question the mental stability of the brain’s owner. It’s something that’s so goddamn rare and such a hard thing to do that it blows my mind they aren’t given weighty government positions. If the sanest among us can’t handle the job, why not let the crazies have a go of it?

Announcing the theme for the next print issue of Annalemma and the call to submit.

Every day the world tests our will, our ability to keep moving forward. With this in mind we chose the theme for Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance.

The word has a connotation of athletic ability and physical stamina. But the mind is more willful than the body. This is not a call for sports stories. This is a call for stories about the power to persist in the face of obstacles. Suggested questions to consider (but are in no way required to address):

– Why do you persist? What keeps you from throwing your hands up to the world and going to live in a cabin in the woods?

– What is it that fuels the pursuit of your dreams or goals?

– Who would you give up those pursuits for if they asked you to? Who has that power over you?

– What happens when someone/something can’t be stopped?

– How do you deal with an immovable object in your way?

– When is it okay to quit? Is it ever?

– Where do you go when there’s nowhere left?

The specs:

We are accepting fiction and creative nonfiction submisions. No submissions over 5000 words will be accepted. Deadline is Friday, August 6th, 2010. Any submissions not pertaining to the theme will be considered for online publication only.

One submission at a time please. No previously published pieces will be considered.

All rejections are final.

Submit to our Submishmash page here. If you’ve submitted to the old email address within the last month, your submission will still be read, but will be considered for online publication only. You are welcome to withdraw your current submission and re-submit a new piece through Submishmash if you want to be considered for print publication.

Holy crap there was about a bajillion readings this weekend. Fair warning: most of the photos in this post are people standing in front of a microphone and staring at paper. Nothing terribly interesting in the visual sense other than you get to see writers in an uncomfortable position, which is kind of interesting, I guess. But for the most part the photos are an excuse to talk about the events. And to prove that I was actually there and I’m not totally bullshitting you.

David Peak reading at the Dogzplot “East Coast Doggystyle Street Campaign.” Best reading series title ever.

John Madera. I don’t know if you guys know this but John has the biggest brain I think I’ve ever encountered. His ability to retain knowledge astounds me.

Sahsa Fletcher brought it. I just found out about Sasha recently and damn if he isn’t one of the more exciting writers I’ve encountered in a long time. I just bought his book from MLP. You might want to do yourself a favor and do the same. Someone who also brought it was Barry Graham. Another book that is probably worth your time and money is The National Virginity Pledge.

And then shit got a little weird.

And then it got real weird.

OMG, I went to a poetry reading. And it was damn good. This is Jason Koo.

It was the Polestar Poetry Series put on by Melissa Broder, a woman who very much seems to have her shit together. Man, these photos really suck a lot of ass. I might as well have been taking photos from the bathroom stall. I get self-concious about taking photos at these things. Everyone’s very quiet and do you really want to be the dude up front with the wide angle lens and remote flash sprawling out on the floor to nail the shot? At a poetry reading?

Ladies and gentlemen, Adam Robinson.

Have you read his book yet? Why not? It’s probably the best poetry book I’ve ever read.

This is Matvei Yankelevich. He made up bar poems off the top of his head. I believe this is called “Freestyling.”

This is the standard pose poets assume when two or more of them are having their photo taken. There’s a photo of Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath in the same pose.

Order you copy of Annalemma Issue Six: Sacrifice today and it will come shipped to you in this fancy biodegradable mailing envelope. No more more contributing to the North Pacific Gyre for us, no sirree. Man, I’m parched. Anyone seen my bottle of Evian?

Haven’t done one of these in a while. 120 in 2010 kinda bumped them out of ranking as of late, but since I’m sloughing through a short story collection right now I’m happy to return to reviewing book covers.

Apologies for not finding a bigger image for Paul Blooms’s How Pleasure Works, an exploration into the inner-workings of our desires. It’s really hard to use embellishments like the ones flanking the subtitle without it looking like you’re trying to cultivate a look of high falootin’-ness. The stark, empty space background is nothing new but the oyster with the pearl inside is provocative and the most interesting thing about this cover. There isn’t cover design in recent memory as overtly vaginal as this one, the designer pulling a double whammy of desirable imagery, albiet in a not-terribly-subtle fashion. If neither of these images is desirable to you then here’s the boring, cheesy SFW cover:

It’s on 44th street in between 5th and 6th. Wear a sport coat (they won’t let you in without one) and slacks, preferably a dark color, with a button down shirt. You don’t have to wear a tie, in fact it’s probably better if you don’t. You don’t want to appear like you’re overcompensating by dressing too fancy.

The Harvard Club is also a hotel. There’s a front desk which you can’t avoid and the people working behind it are going to ask you if there’s anything they can help you with. Tell them you’re meeting someone at the bar. They will direct you to it. After you’ve breached the first line of security you’re free to roam the premises.

It’s important to walk around like you’ve got somewhere important to be. Or at least like you belong there. If you double-take or second guess your steps, they’ll get suspicious. There’s always someone watching.

There are secluded areas like this one. It is hard to imagine what these spaces, if anything, get used for anymore. It seems like anyone who’d be attending the Harvard Club would either confine themselves to the business room, a small bank of desktop PCs, or the bar.

If you wanted to you could probably sit here for hours, reading. Though that would probably spark suspicion since it’s unlikely anyone ever does this.

Take a picture of the debate fliers that your friend, Bob, would get a kick out of. Lift back one of these frames, find that it is a safe cover, find that the safe is unlocked, find that there is a key in the safe, find that there is a corresponding lock across the hallway in a secret wooden panel, find that the door leads you down into a secret fraternity spanking dungeon.

The Algonquin Hotel is two doors down. Stop in and take a picture. Try to feel a connection, to be moved or wowed by the legacy of New York writers bred by this place. Feel nothing.