Candidates Waging Battle of Quotes, Sources Say
New York, NY — It’s never been more difficult to separate whining from substance. America’s 2008 presidential race is fully engaged, but truth and credibility are not.
The road to the White House is littered with the corpses of shattered reality and common decency — casualties of one of the ugliest, nastiest major U.S. elections since 2004.
Hmm
Is it just me, or does the New Yorker’s fiction really suck lately?
An Act of God
In the mailbox today was a magazine addressed to one of our neighbors over on the ridge. Ordinarily I’d leave it for the mailman with a note about redelivery, but Insiders Betting Digest insisted on following me home.
The instant I handed it to Jon, he cried out, “Jesus! Thank you, Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus has entered my life! He wants me to be a gambler! Jesus has . . . touched me . . . and put his hand on my wallet!
“This is an act of God!”
We’d been talking for a good long while about how we were ever going to achieve our goal of amassing wealth without working (”making money in the kitchen in our underwear,” as a friend puts it), and online sportsbooks figured prominently in a vision that shimmered before us as a kind of Promised Land.
Truly this postal misdelivery was providential.
The Woman Down the Hall–a review of an ebook by Lily Hoang
Here’s what I know about Lily Hoang: that her book Parabola won the Chiasmus Press First Book Prize in 2007, and that her book Changing is forthcoming from Fairy Tale Review Press. Now, over at Blake Butler’s Lamination Colony (Blake is becoming conspicuously ubiquitous, not only writing great fiction himself but managing to publish seemingly everywhere while at the same time putting up other people’s work as well), Hoang’s The Woman Down the Hall is available to read for free. It’s short, edgy, and I’ve read it three times tonight.
Lily Hoang’s narrator says this about the old woman who is asleep down the hall: “I wanted to be the first to propose murder, but I restrained myself. It isn’t proper for a lady to speak first, even if she is the designated killer.”
This is the way of good prose. This story, like much of Hoang’s other work, is a modern fairy tale, but she isn’t interested in being didactic. We don’t get a feel that there will be some moral lesson gained by the end; how could we with such a charming yet brutally honest narrator whose deepest desire is to commit murder? “I have never killed a woman,” the narrator admits, “but I have often wondered how I would do it. Now, I wonder if her neck, which is not slender or thick, would be easy to grasp or if my large hands would simply slip from smooth skin.”
Hoang’s imaginative leaps are mysterious and inevitable. She changes points of view, tells the story of the man and the dying bird and the old woman as a youthful princess whose beauty brought people to death simply from looking at her. She’s able to tie things together in such a small place. In fact, The Woman Down the Hall offers a whole lot in a small space, with surreal images to accompany the text. It’s like being at a great all-night party in a strange city. Really. This is a haunting and delightful story, and I highly recommend you go over to Lamination Colony and read it.
Unsaid
Let me point you toward David McLendon’s Unsaid. Cooper Esteban’s From the Akkadian. Norman Lock’s Two Pieces from Pieces for Small Orchestra. M Sarki’s My Sister’s Undies.
The Quarterly; Gordon Lish; Tables of Contents for issues 1–25
When I searched for this information recently I couldn’t find it, but I did encounter a number of people who expressed a desire for it. Perhaps it is out there somewhere and I just missed it. I decided to type these tables instead of scanning them (hence the slight differences in format) because I want to gradually add information. The original tables include the titles of individual works of fiction, but when two or more works by an author are presented the number of works is all that is given. I want to add those specific titles in brackets. Also, poets are represented by their names only, and I want to add the titles of their poems in brackets. After that is done–and it may take a while–I might try to provide a simple index comprised of authors’ names followed by the issue numbers in which their work appeared. If any of you see that this has been done elsewhere, please let me know and I’ll spend the time on something else. Also, if you see any errors at any point in this process, please let me know and I’ll make repairs.
No Colony — first issue
Blake Butler and Ken Bauman’s No Colony is about to release its first issue, including work from Kim Chinquee, Tao Lin, Brian Evenson, Robert Lopez, our fellow flocker Derek White, and more. Go buy a copy. They’re also reading for issue two, which will include a short piece by yours truly.
Obama: New Yorker Cover Real After All
“The Senator’s outrage was entirely understandable,” said Mr. Obama’s communications director Bill Burton. “He simply didn’t expect anything like that to come from such a normally left-leaning source. Then he talked to Mrs. Obama and they agreed The New Yorker pretty much nailed it.”
“However,” Mr. Burton continued, “at no time or under any circumstance has Senator Obama ever consumed a human infant. He is not a baby-eater.”
Lish’s The Quarterly
We talked about this a few months ago, but can someone scan the table of contents of some of the issues? Or, rather, which are the best issues to purchase? I’d love to read the issues with Cooper and Daryl. And of course Diane Williams, etc. Thanks.
New State Abbreviations, according to Wired Mag
Well… they did it… they changed the abbreviations for Pennsylvania and Virginia.
They are now PE and VI, respectively. I wonder if they notified the Virgin Islands about this.
(link to original article)
Opium 6 Go Green! (But Save Me First)
The Go Green! issue of Opium Magazine (Spring 2008) is now available. Sample spreads at davidbarringer.blogspot.com. (You can also see sample spreads of issues 3, 4 and 5 on my site). Meanwhile, buy the issue or subscribe here.
Contents: stories by Aimee Bender, Benjamin Percy, and many others. Winners of the Opium Bookmark Story Contest. Each issue comes with a bookmark on which is printed the winning 250-word story. Interview with Amanda Lear. 100-word stories from Tuesday Shorts, including one by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Select stories from the wit-lit ezine Sweet Fancy Moses. Beautifully wrought satire from the “Go Green! Guidebook of Restraint & Responsibility,” by yours truly. Art from Tymek Jezierski. Cartoons from CM Evans and John Callahan. Editor Todd Zuniga.
June elimae
The June issue of elimae is now posted.
May elimae
The May issue of elimae is now posted.
A bit of notice for elimae
A new literary blog, devoted to highlighting good writing on the Internet, has selected elimae.
April elimae
The April issue of elimae is now posted.
March elimae
The March issue of elimae is now posted.
Read more
Public Illumination Magazine
Public Illumination Magazine was the first magazine to publish my writing in New York City back in 1982. I remember standing in front of the Gotham Book Mart and seeing that issue in the store window and thinking what a thrill it was. Writers were required to use “an obligatory pseudonym”; I chose “Mike Topp.” I’m still a frequent contributor (though the magazine has since forced me to use various pseudonyms, including “Fitty Sense”) and PIM remains my favorite magazine. PIM’s website: http://www.mondorondo.com/pim/.
Below is from the LA Times:
Public Illumination Magazine (a.k.a. PIM) is entering its 28th year of publication. PIM is a little magazine (2 3/4 by 4 1/4 inches on slick paper) devoted to art and writing (never more than 250 words per contribution). Each issue has a theme. The first issue in December 1979 was devoted to telephones, followed by others on virulence, mass transit, little girls and on to hair, climate, and miracles.
Contributors are being sought for the forthcoming issue on space.
The Quarterly Conversation
A new issue of The Quarterly Conversation is up. (And if you don’t know the QC, take a look at Over and Under, wherein each contributor to the current issue offers a take on one overrated and one underrated book.)
Lapham’s Quarterly — recommended
We just today received the first issue of Lapham’s Quarterly (Lapham, the long-time editor of Harper’s Magazine), and it’s wonderful. The man is brilliant, and reading his sentences is an instant delight. Look at his introduction to this issue here, and you will see why I am so excited. And then subscribe. We need more publications like this.
January elimae 2008
The new issue of elimae is now posted: the beginning of my fourth year as editor. Yikes.
Have a look at Grievous Jones
Grievous Jones is a new magazine designed to get contributors out of ego-promotion. All work must be published pseudonymously.
Snowvigate, issue 2
Doug Martin and Brian Beatty’s interview with yours truly is now posted in Snowvigate’s second issue.
December elimae
The December issue of elimae is now posted for your reading pleasure. So, by all means, do be pleased.
A Curious Practice
I do not know exactly when I adopted this curious practice, but a couple of years ago I noticed that I leaf through magazines from back to front. When I hit upon something of interest, of course I read it in the proper order.
I do know that I’ve not done this all my life, but now it feels positively wrong to flip through a magazine from front to back, like trying to drive on the other side of the road than that to which one is accustomed.
Standards
An editorial message. London Review of Books Personals (29 November 2007):
Every month, Whisky Magazine’s Retailer of the Year, Royal Mile Whiskies, use their world-respected knowledge to select a fine whisky to award to the sender of the most notable advert. This month’s selection is AnCnoc . . . .
After reading through this month’s personal ads, the classified manager boarded a plane for Canada without another word. The prize is therefore being rolled over to the next edition of the LRB, where it will become either a bottle of rum or a Moulinex carving knife. The Thunderball was 7.