The 10 West Prize Acquisition Finalists for 2008:

Rob Carter, "Theatre of Bergama"

Nathan Vincent, "Gun"

Georg Parthen, "Village"

James Johnson, "First Mirror Picture"

Deborah Hamon, "Wonderland"

Dufala Brothers, "Ice Cream Truck Tank"

Thomas Doyle, "Null Cipher"

Jonas Criscoe, "2 Marks #2"

Brian Cooper, "Art in Public (Blue Boxes)"

And also Amy Toebbe, whose work I posted recently.

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Verso has just published The Essential Žižek: The Complete Set (The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Ticklish Subject, The Fragile Absolute, The Plague of Fantasies.

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Check out David Clark's project 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein

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"A plan for the improvement of spelling in the English language"

By

Mark Twain

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THE ART INSTINCT: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
By Denis Dutton

reviewed by

Jonah Lehrer

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Peter Ganick's website hosts some interesting experimental writing.

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Here's a great site for prog rock.

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The next time some reactionary blockhead trots out the whole Sokal affair...

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Rap represented in mathematical charts and graphs:

[many more here]

My new essay:

"The Annoying Lacuna: One Unofficial History of the Oulipo"

is now up at AGNI online.

Here is avant-garde filmmaker Guy Maddin talking about his editing style, which might be interesting for experiential writers to consider:

And here are three of his short films:

A Trip To The Orphanage (2004)





Hospital Fragment (1999)





The Heart of the World (2000)

New work from Lincoln, Nebraska artist Jake Gillespie:

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Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB
by Jamie Lowe

reviewed by

Michael Louie

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Norwegian artist Ida Ekblad:

I just read Clarice Lispector's novella The Hour of the Star (1977). I picked it up because Amy King mentioned it a while ago, and Lispector was an author who sounded cool but was unfamiliar to me.

I am pleased to have engaged with this text.

Here is the opening paragraph:

“Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. I do not know why, but I do know that the universe never began.”

And here are some choice quotes I culled from just the first twenty pages:

“Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?” (pg. 15)

“I swear that this book is composed without words: like a mute photograph. This book is a silence: an interrogation.” (pg. 17)

“Eternity is the state of things at this very moment.” (pg. 18)

“I write because I have nothing better to do in this world: I am superfluous and last in the world of men. I write because I am desperate and weary. I can no longer bear the routine of my existence and, were it not for the constant novelty of writing, I should die symbolically each day.” (pg. 21)

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New Issue!

Sous Rature

Volume Two

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There are many pleasing things in the new issue of Robot Melon, but my two favorites are:

"Machine God"
by
Susana Mai

&

"Opera Singer"
by
Matthew Savoca

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Joe Kral's Atari Game Manuals:

Kristine Moran earned her MFA at Hunter College:

No Other Conceivable Options

Collapse of Will

Steam Bath

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Keith Brown tagged me for this meme in which you are to reveal seven things about yourself and then tag seven other people. Typically, I don't go in for these things; but it's a new year and I like Keith so....

1) I grew up in Wyoming.

2) I went to film school at UNLV.

3) I was briefly in the Peace Corps, stationed in Mauritania, West Africa.

4) My first novel, which wasn't really my "first novel" given that I'd written others before it, but which was inspired by that Peace Corps experience, was rejected by 20+ publishers before my agent (who is no longer my agent) stopped sending it out.

5) My new novel, for which I have no agent, is complete and currently being revised.

6) I am engaged to be married in my 31st year.

7) Our cat's name is Beatrice Portinari Newcomer-Higgs.


The seven people whose seven answers I would enjoy reading would be:

Adam Peterson
Kanye West
Ricky Gervais
My Brother
Dita Von Teese
Tim Jensen
Raymond Federman

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Thanks to Crispin for pointing out this link to the full feature documentary Žižek! online for free.

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"Revered minimalist composer Steve Reich speaks about the legacy of his music with Pitchfork.tv and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore at SXSW, where a series of younger ensembles-- including So Percussion-- performed his works."

In two parts:

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Sophia, a former student of David Foster Wallace has scanned and posted a syllabus he created.

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Betty Freeman in conversation with Frank J. Oteri

Žižek goes to Google
(09/12/08)

Austrian experimental writer Gert Jonke has died at age 62.

The House of the Blacksmith

The house of the blacksmith is of white limestone; the house of the blacksmith is round; the layout of the house of the blacksmith is a circle with a radius of seven meters.

- from Geometric Regional Novel

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Word sculpture by Tony Green:

Double Spiral III [A]

Accumulation 51

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Danish experimental writer Inger Christensen has died at age 73.

2.

bracken exists; and blackberries, blackberries;
bromine exists; and hydrogen, hydrogen

- from Alphabet

Do you know about this website called The Selby?

Here is a description from the site: "the selby features photographs, paintings and videos by todd selby of interesting people and their creative spaces."

Here are examples:

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Darby Larson posted a superb performance of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.

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[Thanks to CSP for sending] 2008 Patterns par Steven Meisel:

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Mashed in Plastic: The David Lynch Mash-Up Album

by

British mashup artist Reborn Identity

[like most mashups, it's free to download]


BONUS!

Here's a video of one of the tracks:

Twin Hearts (Angelo Badalamenti vs. Kylie Minogue)

Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto:

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"An Experiment"

short film directed by Danny Ledonne

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You can download mashup artist John Oswald's Plunderphonics album for free here.


What is "Plunderphonics" you ask? Click here to read the manifesto.

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Speaking of mashup artists, here is a snippet from Negativland's Our Favorite Things:

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The Sentence is a Lonely Place


A lecture delivered by the current grandmaster of sentences, Gary Lutz, to the MFA students at Columbia University on September 25, 2008.

Because I got a turntable for x-mas, tonight I'm listening to:











Side Two of the Velvet Underground is the crazy side.
Side Two of the Fripp/Eno is totally mesmerizing.
Richard Strauss's tone poems are rad.

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Argentinian illustrator Paola Zakimi:

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"9"

a short film directed by Shane Acker

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London-based artist Sophie Henson :

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Thanks to Johanna Nitta for the link to a list of all the tracks Girl Talk mashes up in Feed the Animals. It's wikipedia, so it's inherently flawed (to make sure I matched it up while listening), but whoever went to the trouble did a fair job.

Do you know about this mashup DJ called Girl Talk?

His work is seriously delightful - by which I mean that while listening you are likely to be filled with delight.

Lucky for you, he is giving his newest album away for whatever price you want to pay (even if the price you want to pay is zero) here.

I highly, highly recommend it.

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"Observations on film art and Film Art"

by

Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell



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Check out Elizabeth O'Brien Berg's Retro Swimsuit line:

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Clay Banes drops a heap of cool hiphop links.

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Ann Toebbe was born in Ohio and studies art in Germany:

St. Dominic
(2007)

Red Plastic Plates
(2008)

The following video is pretty clever, but probably NSFW:

"Star Trek + Nine Inch Nails"

Directed by Alexander adb

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Stereogum posts "The 20 Albums We're Most Excited To Hear In 2009"

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Check out ZineLibrary, where you will find hundreds of radical zines ready to print.

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If you have ever dreamed of smelling like a library, here is your chance.

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"What is irrealism?"

by

G.S. Evans

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Check out these two fantastic pieces in the newest issue of NOÖ Journal:

"Three Flashers" by Adam Peterson

&

"A Little About Us" by Michael Jauchen

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Steven Fama posts a good-looking list of his top 20 poetry books published in 2008.

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New Issue of Context includes:

Ben Marcus Reading Stanley Crawford’s Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine

John Ashbery on The Making of John Ashbery and James Schuyler’s A Nest of Ninnies

Brian Evenson Reading Rikki Ducornet

& much, much more

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ps - thanks to my HTML Giant Secret Santa, Michael Harrison. I tried to google you but came up empty-handed.