ron silliman responds to kenny goldsmith’s flarfatory gushings and kenny’s own work.
calls kg “kenny g”.*
maybe that’s why goldsmith responded by laying silliman’s theory to waste.
M
And you fail to mention the impact of technology which creates a completely new linguistic environment and pace in which these displacements occur, making them completely different from Mac Low or Andrews or Zukofsky, etc. … As I’ve said before on the Poetry Foundation, with the rise of the web, writing has met its photography. By that I mean, writing has encountered a situation similar to what happened to painting upon the invention of photography, a technology so much better at doing what the art form had been trying to do, that in order to survive, the field had to alter its course radically.
M
* ron silliman has provided a correction to this post which we gladly add here. ’cause we believe in the truth. and the ron. and also because sometimes things get out of hand on the internet and we don’t want to start any fights….mmmmmmkay? silliman notes:
Kenny’s own show on WFMU — whose website I linked to — calls him Kenny G. This is a longstanding joke of his, not a putdown on my part.
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interns…so hot right now…
every intern needs a gimick. for ross the intern it was adorable and undeniable gayness. LC had a reality show and a hot sidekick while working at Teen Vogue. that perrin intern-chick at the Paris Review modeled for american apparel. james frey got bitched up by oprah on national tv before offering his services to gawker.
and the annonymous intern over at internspills? well, she gossips a little bit and offers advice and services. and some not so helpful but funny insight into the editorial process:
What really goes on in editorial meetings is a lot like what goes on when a bunch of girlfriends go out shopping for clothes. Many acquisitions can be boiled down to one fundamental question: Does This Make My Boobs Look Good?
M
reach out and make that contact ya’ll. your query letter begs you!
AA model meets Paris Review intern
The new LEVI’S campaign, “Go Forth”seems to think that spots using the poem “America” and the “spirit” of Walt Whitman will sell jeans.
Don’t make me tell you about the time I scrawled an entire Alan Dugan poem with puffy paint on the Gap 1969 jeans of a former crush….
Walt Whitman was intoxicated with America and with its unlimited possibilities. Like the Levi’s® brand, Walt Whitman stands for the democratic power of real people – the self-reliant young men and women who make this country a better place.
via flood editions
in case you were wondering about the difference between flarf and conceptual writing, kenny goldsmith breaks it down: flarf is dionysus. conceptual writing is apollo.
or…
Flarf is the Land O’Lakes butter squaw; Conceptual Writing is the government’s nutritional label on the box.
and vowel movers is the poetry that makes boobies out of the land o’ lakes lady’s knees.
M
two freshman at the University of Chicago totally shut down your dream of pioneering the field of twitterature.
AND they suckered Penguin into making a book out of their “humorous” retelling of classic works of literature.
The book is the brainchild of two 19-year-old first-year students at the University of Chicago who claim to be starting a cultural revolution from their college dormitory. Bashing their heads together one evening in their university digs, Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman asked themselves what defined the grandest ventures of their generation, and best expressed the souls of 21st century Americans?
on the one hand this is sorta fun. on the other hand it feels like Penguin has officially given up on literature. oh, and also, these kids want to make money which makes us want them to not make money.
They say they are aiming for a book that has the literary merit to wow the blogosphere, as well as the “pure-money genius to take the market by storm”.
M
riiiiggghhhhtt. because literature has been really storming the ole fucking market and ripping dolla dolla billz from the market’s double breasted silk blazers.
M
we can almost hear the committees at the UC shitting their pants with embarassment and canceling next year’s funding.
M
i am sure everyone in Point Pleasant will be toting Carol Ann Duffy’s picks to the shore:
Poetry, of course. The first is Alice Oswald’s gorgeous collection Weeds and Wild Flowers, with stunningly beautiful etchings by Jessica Greenman. These new poems seem to exist in a space between nature poetry and fairytale. Then there is Seamus Heaney’s translations of Robert Henryson, the greatest of the late-medieval Scots makars. The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables is typically both masterful and accessible. As he says, “unless this poetry is brought out of the university syllabus and onto the shelves ‘a great prince in prison lies’“. Travel far in the mind with these two great poets.
thinking is the biggest mistake a dancer can make, you have to feel
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the Wall Street Journal has just announced the new rock star of poetry: Bob Hass. cuz srsly, who’s more dangerous and bad ass than this dude?
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bob shares this honor with New Yorker choice Jorie Graham, who has clearly mastered the joni mitchell/stevie nicks vibe.
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photo credit: joriegraham.com
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but it’s Hass who takes it to the limit and, well, workshops his dinner:
“That’s a really pretty presentation, don’t you think?” says Mr. Hass, admiring the dish that’s just arrived. “Can we stop?” He then turns to my wife, who’s a potter and chef, and asks, “What do you think about this presentation? And about saying this is carpaccio rather than sashimi?”
