If you're in Oakland (California: non-California Oaklanders need not apply) next Tuesday, October 19, there is a reading celebrating issue 5 of Swill and issue 9 of Monday Night. The reading will be at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph, Oakland, near 19th Street BART, at 7 p.m.
I will be there. I will read. The other Swill readers will be Allison Landa and Warren Lutz. The Monday Night readers will be Marissa Bell Toffoli (nothing against marriage, but I think her name was shorter the last time I had to type it. Although that explanation is a helluva longer than her additional name.), Amber DiPietra, and Della Watson.
I hate to be the one to break the news, but this so-called "cafe" actually has a full liquor license, and while attending the reading, listeners and ignorers alike may imbibe as much alcohol as their server allows. To add further to this sadness, I think it was unanimous among the editors of both magazines that the reading should take place somewhere that serves alcohol. Because, you know, otherwise I'll drink at home.
Another note: I will represent both magazines at the reading. I started Swill because I wanted specific things from a magazine, but I was one of the editors of Monday Night for nine years. I left Monday Night during the editing of the latest issue because I don't have time to read the number of submissions we receive at the two magazines combined. I didn't leave until after we'd decided what to accept for the current issue. I've been a part of Monday Night for nine years and I'm proud of what we've accomplished. I'm also damned glad to be friends with Jessie, who has been one of the editors from the start, and Nana, who joined more recently but feels like she could have been there all along.
So, if you are able to join us, we have a half dozen readers and a full bar. What more could you want? I mean, considering that you could conceivably meet your what more at a full bar.
Showing posts with label monday night. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monday night. Show all posts
Friday, October 15, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
I'm Not Here
Well, not enough anyway. I stop in periodically and see numerous posts I'm interested in, then try to read the ones I'm most interested in based on the subject. Because...
I'm rewriting the ending of the novel I've been working on, and I'm editing for two magazines (Swill and Monday Night), the former of which is reading submissions right now (www.swillmagazine.com for guidelines, etc.), the latter having moved on to the editors talking about which submissions we're going to accept.
So far, none of those things are financially profitable. As I have a wife and two kids, there is a whole lot of other time going to a job that generates income and to spending time with family.
Oh, and I'm beginning to suspect my next car repair may involve a shotgun.
I know this doesn't matter to that many people, but to the people who read this blog: hey, that's why I may not have commented on a post that would have interested me had I read it. If you've posted something and want my opinion, let me know. If you're someone who doesn't have my email address, send something to editors@swillmagazine.com and I guarantee I'll look at it. However spammy you may appear.
This thing where life is finite just fucks with my schedule. Off to work on novel, ignoring several recent blog posts that interest me. Cheers all.
I'm rewriting the ending of the novel I've been working on, and I'm editing for two magazines (Swill and Monday Night), the former of which is reading submissions right now (www.swillmagazine.com for guidelines, etc.), the latter having moved on to the editors talking about which submissions we're going to accept.
So far, none of those things are financially profitable. As I have a wife and two kids, there is a whole lot of other time going to a job that generates income and to spending time with family.
Oh, and I'm beginning to suspect my next car repair may involve a shotgun.
I know this doesn't matter to that many people, but to the people who read this blog: hey, that's why I may not have commented on a post that would have interested me had I read it. If you've posted something and want my opinion, let me know. If you're someone who doesn't have my email address, send something to editors@swillmagazine.com and I guarantee I'll look at it. However spammy you may appear.
This thing where life is finite just fucks with my schedule. Off to work on novel, ignoring several recent blog posts that interest me. Cheers all.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Music Review
Michael has a post up about the Art Pepper album, Smack Up. I mentioned a song from this album in a piece published in the first issue of Monday Night; the prose poem or whatever you want to call it is reprinted here.
MUSIC REVIEW
During the Coltrane I fantasized wild out of control glorious spasms. During Art Pepper it was something thinner; a quiver, a shiver, a sitting alone. It was a blues song, Las Cuevas De Mario; I didn’t know it was a blues until it blew into me. I’d heard it before but the time hadn’t been right.
The trumpet is rounder than the sax; it makes one’s head revolve. Saxophone, a straighter sound: when it curves, the turns are tighter, the head moves vertically, within itself.
Shaken by everything; reading Burroughs, listening to Coltrane and Pepper, drinking: I’m just frail, and that’s how I’m supposed to be, and that’s how these artists make me. I realize I don’t associate Burroughs with music, his writing seems more to do with painting and film: it lacks the fluidity of most music. But there is music, good music, that lacks fluidity; the world often lacks fluidity, is as fluid as chaos. And there is music that reflects that, and some of it is what I’ve been listening to while reading Burroughs tonight.
Making love to a stranger/the possibility of sudden death/the chance to see what has not been seen.
There is in Burroughs a bizarre, sinister hope, a wish for love that cannot be possible, and that when imminent is sure to be destroyed, interrupted, or corrupted. Yet the hope remains.
A man whose life is centered on one great tragedy—in this case, the shooting death of his wife—must, of course, be veiled. That Burroughs has in his writing unveiled an imagination of vast horror is certainly no more amazing than that some critics have somehow seen these horrors as impersonal.
In his work Burroughs has succeeded in creating a world solely his own, replete with fantasies clearly personal—homosexual fantasies far from polite revealed to a world that to a large degree thought such acts subhuman, fantasies that often combined orgasm and death, as written by a man who shot to death his wife and afterward openly loved men, fantasies that blatantly preferred the outcasts to the society.
And the hedonistic pleasures, well yes, they are there to see us through; and the visions of madness and terror, we know versions of these to be true; and the travels through time, and dreams, these test our pallid visions of reality, our insufficient and inaccurate definitions of what is.
Burroughs, of course, also does not know. But he is willing to fill the page with possibility, to intelligently, emotionally and physically challenge life: those who see his work as distant are missing the sadness that rains down from its clouds. Fold up those umbrellas and be soaked.
MUSIC REVIEW
During the Coltrane I fantasized wild out of control glorious spasms. During Art Pepper it was something thinner; a quiver, a shiver, a sitting alone. It was a blues song, Las Cuevas De Mario; I didn’t know it was a blues until it blew into me. I’d heard it before but the time hadn’t been right.
The trumpet is rounder than the sax; it makes one’s head revolve. Saxophone, a straighter sound: when it curves, the turns are tighter, the head moves vertically, within itself.
Shaken by everything; reading Burroughs, listening to Coltrane and Pepper, drinking: I’m just frail, and that’s how I’m supposed to be, and that’s how these artists make me. I realize I don’t associate Burroughs with music, his writing seems more to do with painting and film: it lacks the fluidity of most music. But there is music, good music, that lacks fluidity; the world often lacks fluidity, is as fluid as chaos. And there is music that reflects that, and some of it is what I’ve been listening to while reading Burroughs tonight.
Making love to a stranger/the possibility of sudden death/the chance to see what has not been seen.
There is in Burroughs a bizarre, sinister hope, a wish for love that cannot be possible, and that when imminent is sure to be destroyed, interrupted, or corrupted. Yet the hope remains.
A man whose life is centered on one great tragedy—in this case, the shooting death of his wife—must, of course, be veiled. That Burroughs has in his writing unveiled an imagination of vast horror is certainly no more amazing than that some critics have somehow seen these horrors as impersonal.
In his work Burroughs has succeeded in creating a world solely his own, replete with fantasies clearly personal—homosexual fantasies far from polite revealed to a world that to a large degree thought such acts subhuman, fantasies that often combined orgasm and death, as written by a man who shot to death his wife and afterward openly loved men, fantasies that blatantly preferred the outcasts to the society.
And the hedonistic pleasures, well yes, they are there to see us through; and the visions of madness and terror, we know versions of these to be true; and the travels through time, and dreams, these test our pallid visions of reality, our insufficient and inaccurate definitions of what is.
Burroughs, of course, also does not know. But he is willing to fill the page with possibility, to intelligently, emotionally and physically challenge life: those who see his work as distant are missing the sadness that rains down from its clouds. Fold up those umbrellas and be soaked.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
I Want To Be Famous Because I'm Great
That is, I have more ego than those who just want to be famous. I want to be famous because I deserve it. Which isn't to say I believe I deserve it yet. Deserving it is what I'm working toward, and yes please I'd like the fame that comes with it. Of course, I'm talking about the amount of fame that a well-known writer would get, which is not the hounded by paparazzi invading my privacy to the point where I should be allowed to shoot them variety. No, I aspire to be known as a writer (and I don't walk around claiming to be one just because I have a few novels in the works. Hell, everyone's grandmother has a few novels in the works. "I could be the next Agatha Christie." No thanks and no I couldn't, Ms. Christie was phenomenally good at what she did and I do something else.)
I can legitimately claim to be an editor on the small press level; we are working on the fourth issue of Swill and the eighth issue of Monday Night, both scheduled for summer publication, and I am proud of what both publications have achieved. Monday Night is more of a shared credit, as it was started several years ago as an off-shoot of the writers group I was in at the time. The number of editors has gradually dwindled to two, with Jessica's focus primarily on poetry and mine primarily on fiction; Sharon, who used to be one of the editors, does all the artwork and layout. And although a version of that writers group still exists, none of us who work on the magazine are in it.
Swill is more specifically mine. To a large degree it was my wife's idea, as she told me I should stop grousing if Monday Night wasn't doing everything I wanted it to do. Also it was her idea that I involve Sean. Swill owes a lot to the writing of Delphine LeCompte. Delphine has a lot of stories on line and I'm a big fan. She submitted stories to Monday Night and I was the only editor who liked them, and I loved them. There was a story of hers that was being considered for Monday Night and it got published elsewhere. Delphine and I exchanged numerous emails; I really wanted to publish her. And I wanted to publish fiction that didn't fit in the so-called "literary" magazines. I had fiction of my own that didn't seem to be marketable at all; I thought it was literary fiction but the literary fiction markets dismissed it as "genre." After a few years of this I came to the realization that what these markets considered literary I considered boring. They were rejecting me not because I wasn't good enough but because I wasn't part of the program. Whereas I'd been thinking they should publish me because my stories were so obviously superior to what they were receiving.
I guess Swill publishes the work of writers who don't do what they're supposed to. I like stories and I hate epiphanies because in real life there's action and there aren't epiphanies. In real life of course there's tons of boredom too, but that doesn't justify the stories that replicate those scenes. I really hate writers. Not all, but maybe all the ones who call themselves writers. I mean, unless that's what you do for a living, but so much writing is self-absorbed and why should I care about another person when I'm self-absorbed myself?
So Swill has gotten one terrible review from a zine press, one decent review from a litzine review magazine (I disagreed with their criticisms but it was fairly written, ran excerpts from a few stories, and clearly expressed the reviewer's prejudices, which I actually found impressive) and have had nice things said about us by Harlan Ellison. Let me rephrase that:
HARLAN ELLISON LIKES US! FUCK EVERYONE ELSE!
Because Harlan Ellison was one of three writers specifically mentioned on the back cover of the first issue of Swill. It was a note about literary fiction, which I said we like, but we think literary fiction includes Harlan Ellison and James Ellroy. (The third author I mentioned was Shakespeare - he included a lot of violence and humor in his work, yet some of the critics put up with him anyway.)
As I don't expect James Ellroy to ever say anything nice about anyone but himself (although maybe he'd like us, since he's one of my favorite writers), and Shakespeare is even less likely to give us a shout, we may have already achieved a chunk of the fame we're seeking.
We want more, of course. We make absolutely no money doing this and we think it's worth something. Issue 4 will be our best yet, and I was quite excited today when I found out that I know someone who knows one of the leading science fiction editors in the world, and he'd be happy to help me contact him. Not that Swill is all sf by any means; out of the 7 stories in the next issue, I think two would fit in that category, four would probably be best classified as crime, and one is a bizarre comic literary fantasy that has nothing in common with the rest of the issue except that it's damned good.
God, like authors aren't obscure enough. What if it turns out I get most famous for editing?
I can legitimately claim to be an editor on the small press level; we are working on the fourth issue of Swill and the eighth issue of Monday Night, both scheduled for summer publication, and I am proud of what both publications have achieved. Monday Night is more of a shared credit, as it was started several years ago as an off-shoot of the writers group I was in at the time. The number of editors has gradually dwindled to two, with Jessica's focus primarily on poetry and mine primarily on fiction; Sharon, who used to be one of the editors, does all the artwork and layout. And although a version of that writers group still exists, none of us who work on the magazine are in it.
Swill is more specifically mine. To a large degree it was my wife's idea, as she told me I should stop grousing if Monday Night wasn't doing everything I wanted it to do. Also it was her idea that I involve Sean. Swill owes a lot to the writing of Delphine LeCompte. Delphine has a lot of stories on line and I'm a big fan. She submitted stories to Monday Night and I was the only editor who liked them, and I loved them. There was a story of hers that was being considered for Monday Night and it got published elsewhere. Delphine and I exchanged numerous emails; I really wanted to publish her. And I wanted to publish fiction that didn't fit in the so-called "literary" magazines. I had fiction of my own that didn't seem to be marketable at all; I thought it was literary fiction but the literary fiction markets dismissed it as "genre." After a few years of this I came to the realization that what these markets considered literary I considered boring. They were rejecting me not because I wasn't good enough but because I wasn't part of the program. Whereas I'd been thinking they should publish me because my stories were so obviously superior to what they were receiving.
I guess Swill publishes the work of writers who don't do what they're supposed to. I like stories and I hate epiphanies because in real life there's action and there aren't epiphanies. In real life of course there's tons of boredom too, but that doesn't justify the stories that replicate those scenes. I really hate writers. Not all, but maybe all the ones who call themselves writers. I mean, unless that's what you do for a living, but so much writing is self-absorbed and why should I care about another person when I'm self-absorbed myself?
So Swill has gotten one terrible review from a zine press, one decent review from a litzine review magazine (I disagreed with their criticisms but it was fairly written, ran excerpts from a few stories, and clearly expressed the reviewer's prejudices, which I actually found impressive) and have had nice things said about us by Harlan Ellison. Let me rephrase that:
HARLAN ELLISON LIKES US! FUCK EVERYONE ELSE!
Because Harlan Ellison was one of three writers specifically mentioned on the back cover of the first issue of Swill. It was a note about literary fiction, which I said we like, but we think literary fiction includes Harlan Ellison and James Ellroy. (The third author I mentioned was Shakespeare - he included a lot of violence and humor in his work, yet some of the critics put up with him anyway.)
As I don't expect James Ellroy to ever say anything nice about anyone but himself (although maybe he'd like us, since he's one of my favorite writers), and Shakespeare is even less likely to give us a shout, we may have already achieved a chunk of the fame we're seeking.
We want more, of course. We make absolutely no money doing this and we think it's worth something. Issue 4 will be our best yet, and I was quite excited today when I found out that I know someone who knows one of the leading science fiction editors in the world, and he'd be happy to help me contact him. Not that Swill is all sf by any means; out of the 7 stories in the next issue, I think two would fit in that category, four would probably be best classified as crime, and one is a bizarre comic literary fantasy that has nothing in common with the rest of the issue except that it's damned good.
God, like authors aren't obscure enough. What if it turns out I get most famous for editing?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Ode To Captain B
The last post reminded me of this, which appeared in Monday Night # 2, and is probably more a rant than a poem but what the hell.
ODE TO CAPTAIN B
But I like writing that’s difficult. I like music that’s difficult. Cuz it isn’t difficult for me. Captain Beefheart is my Britney Spears, one catchy dance tune after another. But better dressed, and more attractive. And intelligent, something to aspire to. Songs about Merc Montclairs and human being totem poles, hallucinogenic knowledge of reality. Life as a desert, life as seen by life, not by some visitor. To be the world and hate those who defile it, an ecological religious zeal. It makes so much sense it’s incredible how rare these beliefs are. How selfish other beliefs are, and how self-destructive most of that selfishness is. Destroying where you live to live better, a stunningly grisly illogic. It does need a tune, the truth hurts in just words, Dachau blues those poor Jews. Yeah, and it stuns, pain we can’t fathom but it’s been subjected intentionally from human to human, and I think I will drink now, I think I will drink far too much. Because I’m a part of this planet and don’t know how to stop what it does to itself, if there is a God we are a failed experiment, why didn’t the motherfucker give us some heart. Yay, Mary, where is your boy. Now when we need him, always we need him. If we can’t spare each other we should at least spare the planet but we seem incapable even of that. Those with heart have no strength, those with strength have no heart. Of course everyone wants to kill everyone, with every country run by cocksucking bastards. Who wouldn’t want to kill that, what sort of heathen wouldn’t be a terrorist. Where imperialism is considered relatively peaceful, where political necessity requires immorality. To get what we want we must support torture. How important is what we want. What the fuck do we want. Jesus I just want a beer and a place to stay and occasional sex, a washed body and an unwashed brain. And a place where my children can stand to live. Not just an isolated street but a world. So forgive me if I just don’t get your popular tunes with their lilting little simple melodies. And I understand shrieks and whispers and jokes that aren’t funny. And I am confused all the time, and need words that don’t mock that. And need songs that can be sung by people who don’t look good.
ODE TO CAPTAIN B
But I like writing that’s difficult. I like music that’s difficult. Cuz it isn’t difficult for me. Captain Beefheart is my Britney Spears, one catchy dance tune after another. But better dressed, and more attractive. And intelligent, something to aspire to. Songs about Merc Montclairs and human being totem poles, hallucinogenic knowledge of reality. Life as a desert, life as seen by life, not by some visitor. To be the world and hate those who defile it, an ecological religious zeal. It makes so much sense it’s incredible how rare these beliefs are. How selfish other beliefs are, and how self-destructive most of that selfishness is. Destroying where you live to live better, a stunningly grisly illogic. It does need a tune, the truth hurts in just words, Dachau blues those poor Jews. Yeah, and it stuns, pain we can’t fathom but it’s been subjected intentionally from human to human, and I think I will drink now, I think I will drink far too much. Because I’m a part of this planet and don’t know how to stop what it does to itself, if there is a God we are a failed experiment, why didn’t the motherfucker give us some heart. Yay, Mary, where is your boy. Now when we need him, always we need him. If we can’t spare each other we should at least spare the planet but we seem incapable even of that. Those with heart have no strength, those with strength have no heart. Of course everyone wants to kill everyone, with every country run by cocksucking bastards. Who wouldn’t want to kill that, what sort of heathen wouldn’t be a terrorist. Where imperialism is considered relatively peaceful, where political necessity requires immorality. To get what we want we must support torture. How important is what we want. What the fuck do we want. Jesus I just want a beer and a place to stay and occasional sex, a washed body and an unwashed brain. And a place where my children can stand to live. Not just an isolated street but a world. So forgive me if I just don’t get your popular tunes with their lilting little simple melodies. And I understand shrieks and whispers and jokes that aren’t funny. And I am confused all the time, and need words that don’t mock that. And need songs that can be sung by people who don’t look good.
Ghosts (for Albert Ayler)
I've been stumbling across Albert Ayler's name a lot lately. Here's a poem I wrote about him (sort of) a few years back; it was in the first issue of Monday Night.
Ghosts (for Albert Ayler)
They found Albert Ayler
dead in the East River
his feet tied together
So, who the fuck
puts a hit on a saxman?
He must’ve had bad habits,
because genius is not
a thing men get killed for,
or we’d have heard by now
how Einstein ducked assassins’ bullets.
Then again
maybe he was a threat
only to other scientists
And maybe they killed him
Secretly, slowly,
Taking so long that no one suspected;
And maybe Ayler was murdered
by another saxophonist
jealous of the honking squawks
the anguished wails
the misery embodied in solos
that cried out
for an afterlife now
Or maybe it was suicide
and he wove the ropes around himself
with the same dark magic that forced
taut yowls from the depths
where his breath searched for a soul
Maybe Ayler couldn’t stand
to play another haunted
note.
Ghosts (for Albert Ayler)
They found Albert Ayler
dead in the East River
his feet tied together
So, who the fuck
puts a hit on a saxman?
He must’ve had bad habits,
because genius is not
a thing men get killed for,
or we’d have heard by now
how Einstein ducked assassins’ bullets.
Then again
maybe he was a threat
only to other scientists
And maybe they killed him
Secretly, slowly,
Taking so long that no one suspected;
And maybe Ayler was murdered
by another saxophonist
jealous of the honking squawks
the anguished wails
the misery embodied in solos
that cried out
for an afterlife now
Or maybe it was suicide
and he wove the ropes around himself
with the same dark magic that forced
taut yowls from the depths
where his breath searched for a soul
Maybe Ayler couldn’t stand
to play another haunted
note.
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