Sunday, I had the opportunity to sit in the WPVM studios during a broadcast of WordPlay. Katherine Min read from Secondhand World
Month: January 2008
Letting go
Two things happen when you let go of something; you feel the pain of its absence more acutely or you feel the freedom from the weight it once possessed in your life.
What editors do
From The New Yorker:
Editing takes a variety of forms. It includes the discovery of talent…. It can be a matter of financial and emotional support in difficult times…. an editor ordinarily tries to facilitate a writer’s vision, to recommend changes… that best serve the work…. editorial work is relatively subtle, but there are famous instances of heroic assistance: Ezra Pound cutting T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in half when the poem was still called “He Do the Police in Different Voices”; Maxwell Perkins finding a structure in Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel” and cutting it by sixty-five thousand words.
Link.
The secret lives and desires of poets and writers
From The New Yorker:
Part of the reason there were no real biographies is that little was known about Gibran’s life, and the reason for that is that he didn’t want it known.
Link.
And from Slate:
…one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture…. the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed–as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died.
Link.
From 1000 Black Lines:
- Jessica Smith, Burn it. Poetry burns well. And it is a fitting end for poetry, esp. anything from that angsty juvenile period…
- 1000 Black Lines, Thanks for the advice. I’ll burn it along with all the friendship bracelets, florescent T-shirts…. Who needs to worry about the high cost of heating fuel when burning poetry is such an affordable alternative?
Link.
Your community gathering spot
Writing tips from published authors
Books that… Take Your Breath Away
It is all about packaging, whether one likes it or not. The British design/publishing company knew that when they released their catalog of books produced in cigarette packaging.
When browsing bookstore shelves the standard trade paperback size becomes overwhelmingly boring. Packaging matters. Cover design matters. Page layout matters.
Anyone who has ever been in a bookstore knows that you’re not browsing books; you’re browsing covers. To have a chance in a sea of covers, you’ve got to have a compelling visual that grabs people.
(via Andre Brocatus) Link.
If a designer can make a book’s packaging and cover attract a reader, the page layout and text should create a literary (and art) experience with an archaic technological device–a book.
“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.”
From 43 Folders:
[Chuck] Close talks about evolving his method of working to overcome his own personality.
“I’m a nervous wreck. I’m a slob. I have no patience. And I’m rather lazy. All those things would seem to guarantee that I would not make work like I make. But I didn’t want to just go with my nature.”
So instead of painting overwrought, expressive things when the mood struck, he committed to making his epic, close-up portraits by breaking the work into tiny pieces and hewing to a grid. Not only did the grid make technical sense, it forced a lifehack on Close that would help him deal with his own tendencies. It helped get the work done…
Link.
Remember grammar class?
Of course you don’t. Based on the blogosphere, it must not be taught in schools anymore.
If you are one who remembers grammar class, this is great: Diagramming the Preamble to the US Constitution. (via Boing Boing)
If not, visit Grammar Girl: Link.
When the coffee runs out (or, where did all the books go?)
There’s a difference between greatest or best and most beneficial books. But if no one is going to visit the library to discover them, will they truly be great, best or beneficial? Some people must be reading those odd artifacts called books. Otherwise a self-published novelist with a great book deal would have remained in the shadows of the literary landscape.
Oh, bother… maybe I need to switch from coffee to chai.
Coffee, gotstahavit
From Unclutterer:
Coffee beans you aren’t going to grind and brew within two weeks can be kept in the freezer, but they should not be stored in the refrigerator. Moisture isn’t good for coffee, well, unless you’re actually in the process of brewing. Don’t believe me? Here are a few insights from people much more informed than I…
Link.
And loosely related, from The Point:
…it’s not surprising that studies have shown caffeine is an effective aid…. For caffeine to be most effective, however, regular users need to minimize their caffeine use so that when they need it, caffeine will give them a boost.
Link.
How to write a marketing poem
Step One:
Read anything and everything Seth Godin writes.
Read anything and everything Seth Godin writes.
From Seth Godin:
used bookstores hate Amazon
And so do independent bookstores
Link.
Who vs. how many.
Link.
More marketing links than you can read…
Link.
Step Two:
Write a 31-syllable waka.
Write a 31-syllable waka.
Step Three:
Publish the waka on your own blog, because no prestigious literary journal would waste the time to print it.
Publish the waka on your own blog, because no prestigious literary journal would waste the time to print it.
Used bookstore owners
hate Amazon. But why? The
staff and owners of
used bookstores know the hands and
faces of bibliophiles.
Are you part of the Facebook-hating mob?
Read this from AdPulp:
Hugh Macleod is not part of the Facebook-hating mob… but he does like this critical Guardian piece on the politics behind the company.
Investigative journalist, Tom Hodgkinson, says he hates Facebook in his lead. He then delves into a deep background check on the money men behind the soc net.
Link.
An interesting report regarding Facebook. But the journalism is questionable. When a journalist expresses bias before “objectively” reporting the story two things occur. One, the integrity of the investigation is compromised due to the predetermined objective of the journalist. Two, by framing the story as an anti-Facebook article, the journalist sets the reader up for biased propaganda that is supposed to convince the reader to hate Facebook. And that is not journalism. It is a well researched essay at best or simply an op-ed piece.
The naming of books
From Seth Godin:
I was talking to someone yesterday about naming books, and I realized that there are three useful schools of thought here.
Link.
Don’t marry your mistress
From Gapingvoid:
Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.It sounds great, but there is a downside.
The late billionaire, James Goldsmith once quipped, “When a man marries his mistress, he immediately creates a vacancy.”
What’s true in philanderers, is also true in life.
Link.
Sounds advice for practicing poets and writers and artists and gardeners, but not sound advice for managers, art directors, publishers, marketeers, and business owners.
Graphic novels and reader literacy
Will increased interest and consumption of graphic novels increasing reading among America’s youths? From The Kansas City Star:
The school’s Graphic Novels Club more than doubled its members in less than four years.
Link.
I remember when comic books were considered adolescent porn. For all I know they may still be perceived that way. I wonder if the increased interest in graphic novels includes the old Illustrated Classics?
When I was in grade school, my father occasionally bought copies of of the Illustrated Classics. My favorite books were Sherlock Holmes and the case of the hound Of the Baskervilles
Wanna be a groupie?
This fits/agrees with the post about audio quality of MP3 files.
From Seth Godin:
The thing is, when you dumb stuff down, you know what you get?
Dumb customers.
And (I’m generalizing here) dumb customers don’t spend as much, don’t talk as much, don’t blog as much, don’t vote as much and don’t evangelize as much. In other words, they’re the worst ones to end up with.
Link.
You want quality customers/fans/groupies, give them quality schtuff. For example, the books I design are carefully crafted. A book is a book is a book, you may say. But in this info age, a book needs to be packaged as a souvenir in much the same way an album is packaged as a CD. Why is this important? Regarding the books I design, they are lifestyle objects. When people buy a copy of one of the books I design I want them to emotionally and intellectually connect with the book as one might connect with a new friend. My desire is that these book buyers invite/introduce other people to the experience. This translates to quality customers/fans/groupies.
How do you write?
Instead of the romanticized “how do you write?” maybe the question should be what do you write? Or, maybe, how well do you write?
I suspect, that a publisher doesn’t give a flying flip how one writes as long as it is well written and it moves (i.e. sells) magazines, books, or what ever tool is used provide literary content of merit.
Hi-fi, lo-fi, and the death of good vibes
I’ve been dubious for years at the proliferation of iPod/MP3 music. I find this article, “The Death of High Fidelity,” delicious. Maybe it’s the former radio guy or just plain audiophile geek in me that screams, “Rawk on!.”
It’s not just new music that’s too loud. Many remastered recordings suffer the same problem as engineers apply compression to bring them into line with modern tastes…. MP3 and other digital-music formats are quickly replacing CDs as the most popular way to listen to music. That means more convenience but worse sound…. MP3s don’t reproduce reverb well, and the lack of high-end detail makes them sound brittle. Without enough low end… “you don’t get the punch anymore. It decreases the punch of the kick drum and how the speaker gets pushed when the guitarist plays a power chord.”
Link.
And further (this is great):
Still, “it’s like going to the Louvre and instead of the Mona Lisa there’s a 10-megapixel image of it… I wouldn’t look at a Kandinsky painting with sunglasses on.”
Now, I am not advocating abandoning iPods and other MP3 players.
It is just the fact that art, literature and music have been so diminished in the last couple decades that most people in our culture couldn’t tell quality art, literature or music if it was served them on a silver platter with a cue card reading “applause.”
For my generation, Gen-X, the touchstone song is Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Suddenly I feel old.
Lost in translation
From The Times:
The Prince of Wales has watercolours, it’s true, but it’s hard to imagine him getting to grips with the waka, with its 31 syllables, strictly arranged into five lines in the 5-7-5-7-7 structure. Akihito and Empress Michiko knock out four waka apiece for New Year’s Eve as well, reflecting on the year just gone by, and this year’s offerings were helpfully put out in English by the Imperial Household Agency last week. Translating poetry is notoriously difficult and the waka usually come out sounding as poetic as the instruction manual for a vacuum cleaner. Link.
Maybe if I translate my grocery list into Japanese it will sound poetic.
Dull-prose hell
So, it looks like I’ll miss tonights Warren Wilson College MFA faculty reading… child care canceled at the last minute. But after reading the following article, maybe MFA’s are horribly overrated. From the Toronto Star:
…when it comes to teaching creative writing, good intentions are nothing but paving material for the route to dull-prose hell. Link.
Warren Wilson College reading — review
Brief review of last night’s Warren Wilson College MFA faculty reading.
Marianne Boruch
Charles D’Ambrosio read a lengthy, intriguing piece that I assume is the opening to a novel. When he finished, I wanted to shout, “What happens next?”
Van Jordan
Michael Martone
Maurice Manning’s poetry lecture summary and thoughts
As promised, some highlights from yesterday’s Maurice Manning
The lecture centered on “Some Thoughts on Sympathy.” Maurice began by defining sympathy. First, it is not the “I feel your pain” emotion that is manipulative, fake and inaccessible — a show of feeling rather than creation of feeling (i.e. the desire that you feel me feeling your pain). Sympathy defined as honest feeling, common understanding — as in “two beasts bound together” like oxen — of suffering.
Maurice cited the Romantic period as the historical place where sympathy in literature is born — where the outward reaching heart surveys the humanity of the world and returns to the mind where it is changed, sympathetic, and reaches outward again. “Isn’t that what we seek in poetry, to be changed?” Maurice asked. From there he presented the two-step machinery of Romanticism — heart and mind cycle — using the physics examples of sympathetic motion in plucked strings and pendulum motion.
This is the part of the lecture where I was deeply engaged. He went deep into physics and linguistics to make the point that sympathy occurs naturally — it is part of our nature. It is the transfer of energy from one property to another, one person to another, from the page to the spirit. This is the kind of lecture that challenges me, resonates with me, makes me want to go deep. I’m starved for it.
Maurice used Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” as examples of sympathy in poetry. After an in depth analysis of the linguistic patterns of “To a Mouse,” he concluded his lecture by stating that the poets he referenced found the self in these poems. “We’re always yoked to something…” he said. “The mysterious force of the poem stays with us even after we have closed the book.”
The applause was loud and seemed not to affect him as he paper clipped his lecture notes. As the applause subsided he quietly stated, “I guess it’s lunch now.”
Warren Wilson College reading — free to the public
The Maurice Manning
Marianne Boruch
The event is free to the public and begins at 8:15pm in the Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel.
Coffeehouse Junkie 