From my Mad Hatter friend Paul Toth at his new blog, droptheblom:
Drop F Bombs on the Publishing Industry
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
VIDEO COLLAB - Video by Orin Buck, Poetry by Yours Truly, Music by LV Beethoven
Jane Austen fan submits her work anonymously to publishers... and receives a dozen rejections | the Daily Mail
Jane Austen fan submits her work anonymously to publishers... and receives a dozen rejections | the Daily Mail
See also: this clever video created by Mad Hatter Paul Toth:
THE FALL OF THE PUBLISHING EMPIRE
or --- if that link doesn't work:
THE FALL OF THE PUBLISHING EMPIRE
See also: this clever video created by Mad Hatter Paul Toth:
THE FALL OF THE PUBLISHING EMPIRE
or --- if that link doesn't work:
THE FALL OF THE PUBLISHING EMPIRE
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Bush Seeks to Ban Marriage Between Fictitious Gay Characters
Bush Seeks to Ban Marriage Between Fictitious Gay Characters
Harry Potter Revelation Prompts President’s Move
By Andy Borowitz
Just days after “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling revealed that the popular professor character Albus Dumbledore was gay, President George W. Bush told the nation that he would seek a ban on fictitious gay weddings.
In a nationally televised address last night, Mr. Bush said that he devote the rest of his term in office to obtaining a constitutional amendment banning marriage between fictitious gay characters.
“In order to protect the sanctity of marriage in the real world, we must first protect the sanctity of marriage in fiction,” Mr. Bush said. “This is the most pressing goal of my Administration – even more important than bombing Iran.”
While the president’s address was for the most part consistent with his earlier statements on gay marriage, it was uncharacteristic in that it demonstrated an awareness of books.
And in attacking the Mr. Dumbledore’s right to wed, Mr. Bush may have raised the ire of one of the most militant constituencies in the U.S.: Harry Potter fans.
Jude Ralston, 34, one of over 5,000 Potter devotees who dressed as Dumbledore to protest the president’s speech outside the White House last night, said that Mr. Bush could be playing with fire: “Harry Potter fans take these things very seriously, and we don’t have anything else going on in our lives.”
As for Dumbledore’s gayness, Mr. Ralston said that he had overlooked obvious clues the first time he read the books: “I, like, totally missed that scene in the airport bathroom.”
Elsewhere, a national survey of slutty nurses shows that they are undecided about what to go as for Halloween.
Harry Potter Revelation Prompts President’s Move
By Andy Borowitz
Just days after “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling revealed that the popular professor character Albus Dumbledore was gay, President George W. Bush told the nation that he would seek a ban on fictitious gay weddings.
In a nationally televised address last night, Mr. Bush said that he devote the rest of his term in office to obtaining a constitutional amendment banning marriage between fictitious gay characters.
“In order to protect the sanctity of marriage in the real world, we must first protect the sanctity of marriage in fiction,” Mr. Bush said. “This is the most pressing goal of my Administration – even more important than bombing Iran.”
While the president’s address was for the most part consistent with his earlier statements on gay marriage, it was uncharacteristic in that it demonstrated an awareness of books.
And in attacking the Mr. Dumbledore’s right to wed, Mr. Bush may have raised the ire of one of the most militant constituencies in the U.S.: Harry Potter fans.
Jude Ralston, 34, one of over 5,000 Potter devotees who dressed as Dumbledore to protest the president’s speech outside the White House last night, said that Mr. Bush could be playing with fire: “Harry Potter fans take these things very seriously, and we don’t have anything else going on in our lives.”
As for Dumbledore’s gayness, Mr. Ralston said that he had overlooked obvious clues the first time he read the books: “I, like, totally missed that scene in the airport bathroom.”
Elsewhere, a national survey of slutty nurses shows that they are undecided about what to go as for Halloween.
Monday, October 22, 2007
What I'm writing
I've been working on a prose poemy series called "Gated Communities," and collaborating with the wondrous poet Sheila Murphy on a piece called "Room."
Here are bits of "Gated Communities." I've submitted Part I to a journal of prose poetics.
GATED COMMUNITIES
(a series in progress)
Part I: Outside Looking In side
Mapquest
Where leaves of the sequoias fall and winds lift them beyond the edges of roads.
No, not edges not roads. A circle of time.
Mapquest
Where there are no sequoias, no winds to move the minutes.
Where horses lose their gait and disintegrate.
Where no one remembers the ways, means, or mothers.
He says: a rhombus. She says: a trapazoid.
Opera
I bought a vintage velvet dream and hemmed it to rub against my ankles like cats. Dead mother's emerald earrings clung to my ears like leaves.
On a road with no moon I shivered under shadows of trees I could not see. He said he'd be waiting by the gate. There would be no other opening.
There was no gate.
Mapquest
If you proceed from A to B on your horse, you may not notice a slight deviation, a size of time as imperceptible as the beginning of an embryo.
You must have circular vision like the sequoia know where beginnings never end and endings begin.
You must recognize the invisible point of conception -- open your self to conceive it. Then let it go – (that's the point. (beside the point.
Ball
One must have a mask to enter, said the keeper of the gate. His head was swathed in black sackcloth with holes for his eyes, too dark to see under a half-hearted winter moon.
Are you a hangman or a gatekeeper? I asked, I in my red cloak, with my head in the winds and rain, my feet in red rubber slippers.
He said nothing as the road became a river and he a ferryman steering a boat of cloaked shadows cascading over the gate into a promised land of violins, ice wine, and chandeliers.
Part II: Inside Looking Out side or
Vacancy
There I was, finally or so assumed by me, presumed I. Evidence: A: There was no keeper. B. The gate looked different, cast in a light I didn’t recognize. There was graffiti on the gate: an outline of a heart intersected by an arrow at the precise midpoint of nine circles, apparently. The graffiti was a scrawl in Latin, translated: DANTE LOVES BEATRICE.
Someone poked me, but not yet the man with the umbrella. Someone questioned my assumptions. Was this my dead mother? Is that what she’d said, in the manner of the crow, opening and shutting its beak, did she ever squawk at me, utter: caw caw? Are you sure that’s what you saw . . . dear . . . you with your extravagant imagination, your solitary perspective? Have you located yourself in correct time and season? Are you walking tall and straight forward? Beware of walls!
One must be vigilant. I had learned that much, perhaps not that much. The gate keeper gone, I could only keep watch for and on my self. Was there truly graffiti on the gate? Was there love or at least a story of love? I could not respond, to anyone’s satisfaction, as I imagined, without any fore or hindsight. Where had I left my sight? How could I find it? Where were the chandeliers?
I raised the volume of my voice to an atonal # A, a vulgar arrow to pierce the bland white noise of the context, nothing but fog and a sense of walls. Then, abruptly, the man with the umbrella but without it, all in white: jacket, shirt, pants, and hat. He looked fatigued, red eyed and back bowed, as though in wait for the arrival of an arrow, consulted a watch with a large face he wasn’t wearing on his wrist. It’s time, the man said repeatedly, nostrils quivering.
The man cleared his throat to achieve a tone of certainty: there is not . . . is not any, any longer . . . no longer is time but not vacant. There it is, VOICI and VOILA: the vacancy! For you, if you wish. Then he scurried past, disappearing at the end of the roads, it seemed, though I could see no roads.
The planet on this side of the gate felt flat and far like an outdoor concert hall without speakers. The man must have fallen off its ledge, either the planet or fog, I couldn’t tell. I only knew that he was not to be beloved; the distances were much too obvious. There was nothing to do but seek the plot allotted to me, my space to design. I started to walk short and crooked in a random direction.
Mapquest
If you walk swiftly to meet deadlines, you may miss the turn.
If you walk slowly to arrive at specific places, you may miss the turn.
Walk without point past the playgrounds and cemeteries, the wedding rotundas and taverns. Walk only toward possibility without thought and reflection without light.
Here are bits of "Gated Communities." I've submitted Part I to a journal of prose poetics.
GATED COMMUNITIES
(a series in progress)
Part I: Outside Looking In side
Mapquest
Where leaves of the sequoias fall and winds lift them beyond the edges of roads.
No, not edges not roads. A circle of time.
Mapquest
Where there are no sequoias, no winds to move the minutes.
Where horses lose their gait and disintegrate.
Where no one remembers the ways, means, or mothers.
He says: a rhombus. She says: a trapazoid.
Opera
I bought a vintage velvet dream and hemmed it to rub against my ankles like cats. Dead mother's emerald earrings clung to my ears like leaves.
On a road with no moon I shivered under shadows of trees I could not see. He said he'd be waiting by the gate. There would be no other opening.
There was no gate.
Mapquest
If you proceed from A to B on your horse, you may not notice a slight deviation, a size of time as imperceptible as the beginning of an embryo.
You must have circular vision like the sequoia know where beginnings never end and endings begin.
You must recognize the invisible point of conception -- open your self to conceive it. Then let it go – (that's the point. (beside the point.
Ball
One must have a mask to enter, said the keeper of the gate. His head was swathed in black sackcloth with holes for his eyes, too dark to see under a half-hearted winter moon.
Are you a hangman or a gatekeeper? I asked, I in my red cloak, with my head in the winds and rain, my feet in red rubber slippers.
He said nothing as the road became a river and he a ferryman steering a boat of cloaked shadows cascading over the gate into a promised land of violins, ice wine, and chandeliers.
Part II: Inside Looking Out side or
Vacancy
There I was, finally or so assumed by me, presumed I. Evidence: A: There was no keeper. B. The gate looked different, cast in a light I didn’t recognize. There was graffiti on the gate: an outline of a heart intersected by an arrow at the precise midpoint of nine circles, apparently. The graffiti was a scrawl in Latin, translated: DANTE LOVES BEATRICE.
Someone poked me, but not yet the man with the umbrella. Someone questioned my assumptions. Was this my dead mother? Is that what she’d said, in the manner of the crow, opening and shutting its beak, did she ever squawk at me, utter: caw caw? Are you sure that’s what you saw . . . dear . . . you with your extravagant imagination, your solitary perspective? Have you located yourself in correct time and season? Are you walking tall and straight forward? Beware of walls!
One must be vigilant. I had learned that much, perhaps not that much. The gate keeper gone, I could only keep watch for and on my self. Was there truly graffiti on the gate? Was there love or at least a story of love? I could not respond, to anyone’s satisfaction, as I imagined, without any fore or hindsight. Where had I left my sight? How could I find it? Where were the chandeliers?
I raised the volume of my voice to an atonal # A, a vulgar arrow to pierce the bland white noise of the context, nothing but fog and a sense of walls. Then, abruptly, the man with the umbrella but without it, all in white: jacket, shirt, pants, and hat. He looked fatigued, red eyed and back bowed, as though in wait for the arrival of an arrow, consulted a watch with a large face he wasn’t wearing on his wrist. It’s time, the man said repeatedly, nostrils quivering.
The man cleared his throat to achieve a tone of certainty: there is not . . . is not any, any longer . . . no longer is time but not vacant. There it is, VOICI and VOILA: the vacancy! For you, if you wish. Then he scurried past, disappearing at the end of the roads, it seemed, though I could see no roads.
The planet on this side of the gate felt flat and far like an outdoor concert hall without speakers. The man must have fallen off its ledge, either the planet or fog, I couldn’t tell. I only knew that he was not to be beloved; the distances were much too obvious. There was nothing to do but seek the plot allotted to me, my space to design. I started to walk short and crooked in a random direction.
Mapquest
If you walk swiftly to meet deadlines, you may miss the turn.
If you walk slowly to arrive at specific places, you may miss the turn.
Walk without point past the playgrounds and cemeteries, the wedding rotundas and taverns. Walk only toward possibility without thought and reflection without light.
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