Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Castalia
A week from tonight, I'll be reading at the Castalia reading series, at Hugo House. The readings feature UW MFA faculty, students, and alumni. Fun!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Middle of Nowhere
A very short story of mine appears in The Middle of Nowhere: Horror in Rural America, an anthology out from Pill Hill Press this month.
In other news, M. and I have explored and fallen in love with Georgetown, an artsy former industrial area south of downtown, chock full of studios in rickety old brick buildings (former bottling plants, iron and brass works). It felt like a combination of the Wild West and Red Hook. Their Art Attack (when studios are open to the wandering public) is every second Saturday of the month.
In other news, M. and I have explored and fallen in love with Georgetown, an artsy former industrial area south of downtown, chock full of studios in rickety old brick buildings (former bottling plants, iron and brass works). It felt like a combination of the Wild West and Red Hook. Their Art Attack (when studios are open to the wandering public) is every second Saturday of the month.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Helga and Nectarines
I see people walking down Bellevue, dressed for work. On sunnier, warmer days, back in August, I saw them bounding down the avenue to catch their bus. Today, cool and gray, mist hiding the mountains and the water, they walk rather grimly, knowing that their idyllic blackberry summer is coming to an end. No more sea kayaking. No more hiking in the Olympic peninsula or on Mt. Rainier (yesterday, Labor Day: saw Imogen Cunningham's nude husband wandering in the milky sunshine atop the latter at the Seattle Art Museum). We're getting used to venturing to the farmers' market with plastic hoods against plops of rain. M. found a vendor with the most real-tasting nectarines we've ever had: more than flavorful, juicy, aromatic. Never have I eaten such a joyous fruit. The vendor, too, is a wonder. Tell her you want some fruit to eat today and some fruit to eat in a couple of days, and she dandles her fingers over the rows of nectarines, sniffs each fruit at the stem and tells you (to the minute!) when the fruit will be most delicious.
But I mentioned SAM. What else did we see? Cunningham was great: innards of flowers with enormous precision; a self-portrait reflected in a Danish lingerie shop; a fun house portrait of loopyily stretched grand kids; gap-toothed smiling children staring voraciously into her lens, eager to be captured on film.
And Wyeth. Only seven paintings, but by far the most crowded exhibit. Like Cunningham's nudes, there's a sort of milky luminance to his Helga, but less dreamy than Cunningham, sort of hyper real. As if he sees her more clearly than one can ever see anything. If that makes sense. He wrote that a really good painting will be mostly memory. I like that idea.
The most heavily advertised temporary exhibit was Target Practice: Art Under Attack, 1949-1978, an international survey of post World War II art trying to subvert, to do something else. A 1960s French artist shot paint at her canvas with a rifle; an Italian artist and a Japanese artist began stabbing their canvases around the same time period without knowing about each other; canvases were taken off their stretchers and crumpled into forms; canvases were gouged, drawn and quartered; latex paints were poured on the floor; paintings without paint or a canvas were contemplated, concocted. My favorite piece (though I'll admit this was my least favorite exhibit) was Andy Warhol's oxidized squares, at the end of the exhibit. He and his assistants urinated onto copper-based paint, allowing an oxidization process to create a rather lovely dappled patina. For all the violence and aggression of the show, it was a rather pretty piece.
But I mentioned SAM. What else did we see? Cunningham was great: innards of flowers with enormous precision; a self-portrait reflected in a Danish lingerie shop; a fun house portrait of loopyily stretched grand kids; gap-toothed smiling children staring voraciously into her lens, eager to be captured on film.
And Wyeth. Only seven paintings, but by far the most crowded exhibit. Like Cunningham's nudes, there's a sort of milky luminance to his Helga, but less dreamy than Cunningham, sort of hyper real. As if he sees her more clearly than one can ever see anything. If that makes sense. He wrote that a really good painting will be mostly memory. I like that idea.
The most heavily advertised temporary exhibit was Target Practice: Art Under Attack, 1949-1978, an international survey of post World War II art trying to subvert, to do something else. A 1960s French artist shot paint at her canvas with a rifle; an Italian artist and a Japanese artist began stabbing their canvases around the same time period without knowing about each other; canvases were taken off their stretchers and crumpled into forms; canvases were gouged, drawn and quartered; latex paints were poured on the floor; paintings without paint or a canvas were contemplated, concocted. My favorite piece (though I'll admit this was my least favorite exhibit) was Andy Warhol's oxidized squares, at the end of the exhibit. He and his assistants urinated onto copper-based paint, allowing an oxidization process to create a rather lovely dappled patina. For all the violence and aggression of the show, it was a rather pretty piece.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Cross-Country Drive
Eschewing sentences, paragraphs, and chronology, I’ve assembled a discombobulated list of lists. Like Gertrude Stein. But not.
Mileage: Approximately 3200
Days: 7 (5 driving)
Start Point: Brooklyn, NY
End Point: Seattle, WA
Parting Image of New York City: A fish-netted rump, bent over the entrance to the Holland Tunnel (a Jumbotron advertisement for Chicago)
A propos song accompaniment to parting image: Sir Mix A Lot’s “Baby Got Back” (nice coincidence: Sir Mix A Lot hails from Seattle)
Cities Stopped in to eat and/or sleep: Clarion, PA; Chicago, IL; Madison, WI; Twin Cities, MN; Sioux Falls, SD; Rapid City, SD; Gillette, WY; Sheridan, WY; Billings, MT; Bozeman, MT; Missoula, MT; Coeur D’Alene, ID
Detours: Corn Palace; Badlands National Park; Mount Rushmore; the Berkeley Pit of Butte, MT
Planned Detour, Skipped: Milwaukee, WI
Parting Image of Pennsylvania: An Amish man rifling through the woods behind a diesel station.
Parting Image of Ohio: a rest stop’s large rack of Amish and Mennonite-themed romance fiction
Most Displaced-Seeming Image: A tumble weed rolling down the street in Madison, Wisconsin.
Weird Recurrent Theme: Scarred Arms. Slashes on the man who picked up our old bed in Brooklyn; accidents and operations (including bolts) on a waitress in Gillette; purposeful horizontal lines on a waitress in our new favorite neighborhood bar.
Best Contemporary Art: Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. See esp. Tomás Saraceno’s bucky balls of moss, black webbing, and PVC pillows.
Best Architecture: Renzo Piano’s Modern Wing for the Art Institute of Chicago. The main hall is light, airy, soaring, and with a vista winking at Gehry’s bandshell in Millennium Park.
Wildlife spotted: Hawks, buzzards, robin redbreasts, eagles, grasshoppers, one rabbit, one fox, and multiple “Beware of Rattlesnakes” signs. One little brown dot in a Badlands canyon purporting to be bison (sadly, no binoculars).
Most Surprising, Spectacular and Varied Landscape: South Dakota, especially catching sunset in the Badlands.
Colors of the Rocks in the Badlands: Stripes of yellow, gray, and rust.
Most Pervasive Sound in the Badlands: Rattling (M: “Those are insects, not snakes.” Me: “Then why all the warning signs for snakes? Why all the rattling?” Debate on the difference between rattling sounds and buzzing sounds ensues.)
Number of Hitchhikers Seen: 2
Number of Religious Billboards: 6, 3 of which were anti-abortion, mostly in South Dakota (perhaps refer back to religious-experience sunset over the Badlands for partial explanation)
Most Jarring Billboard (non-religious): [Picture of a filthy public toilet] “No one imagines losing their virginity here. Meth can change that.” (in Montana)
Most Public Service Announcements Regarding Meth: Montana
Most Bleak, Monotonous and Post-Apocalyptical Landscape: northeastern Wyoming (brown hills, black shrubs, mining pits, oil derricks). Closely followed by eastern Washington (a vast desert of dull blue shrubs and dry fields, mini-tornados of dust on either side of the interstate; placards for peach and cherry orchards seemed like perverse lies)
Most Welcome Body of Water: Moses Lake, Washington, after which the desert of eastern Washington gradually turns into Cascade National Forest and we fear not opening the car window again.
Most Acidic Body of Water: Gathering ground water inside the Berkeley Pit of Butte, Montana. Popular myth has it that water fowl landing on the water die instantly. The newsletter given with admission to view the pit tries to debunk that myth. Also discussed in the newsletter: the curious iron-feeding algae thriving in the vinegar-like water.
Most Disappointed Tourists: The Corn Palace (South Dakota)
Most Frightening Industrial Complexes: The Exxon-Mobil and Philips Conoco plants (refineries?) of Billings, Montana
Most Disdainful & Smug Starbucks Employee: Inside the Crowne Plaza of Billings, Montana
My best driving: southern Minnesota (straight, flat, empty)
My worst driving: forgetting to take my foot off the gas entering a gas station in Bozeman, Montana (not to worry, nothing happened)
Worst Smelling City: Gary, Indiana (Gowanus Canal is beaten by Wolf Lake, which can be sniffed from 10 miles away)
Best Smelling City: Bozeman, Montana
Felt Most Out of Place In: Lulabell’s Café, beside the freight trains hauling coal out of Gillette, Wyoming.
Overheard Conversation at Lulabell’s: How to win a lawsuit in which defendant broke plaintiff’s ribs after plaintiff insisted on hitting on defendant’s 15- year-old niece in a bar (defendant himself brought niece into said bar). Speakers (both in cowboy hats and both with booming voices) were on side of defendant. Strategy: demand a jury trial and get at least two jurors with teenage daughters.
Most flavorful (and most expensive) burger: Ted’s (e.g. Turner) Montana Grill in Bozeman
Biggest Attempt at Appearing Green: Ted’s (recycled paper mats, 80% paper straws, claim that their cow and bison live happy lives)
Overheard Conversation at Ted’s: Favorite American sculptor, living or dead
Most Well-Travelled Orange: Bought in Sheridan, Wyoming, apparently shipped from Australia, and eaten in Seattle.
First Memorable Experience in Seattle: After arriving in town on an uncharacteristically hot day and schlepping boxes and luggage up three flights of stairs, falling victim to a drive-by water gunning on the corner of Harvard and Harrison.
Strange bookends to our journey: Watching the first half of There Will Be Blood in Brooklyn surrounded by our packed up boxes and finishing it in Seattle in the chaos of unpacking. Simplified take-away from the film: greed and religion go hand-in-hand until greed bludgeons religion to death with a bowling pin. Mm. Welcome home!
Mileage: Approximately 3200
Days: 7 (5 driving)
Start Point: Brooklyn, NY
End Point: Seattle, WA
Parting Image of New York City: A fish-netted rump, bent over the entrance to the Holland Tunnel (a Jumbotron advertisement for Chicago)
A propos song accompaniment to parting image: Sir Mix A Lot’s “Baby Got Back” (nice coincidence: Sir Mix A Lot hails from Seattle)
Cities Stopped in to eat and/or sleep: Clarion, PA; Chicago, IL; Madison, WI; Twin Cities, MN; Sioux Falls, SD; Rapid City, SD; Gillette, WY; Sheridan, WY; Billings, MT; Bozeman, MT; Missoula, MT; Coeur D’Alene, ID
Detours: Corn Palace; Badlands National Park; Mount Rushmore; the Berkeley Pit of Butte, MT
Planned Detour, Skipped: Milwaukee, WI
Parting Image of Pennsylvania: An Amish man rifling through the woods behind a diesel station.
Parting Image of Ohio: a rest stop’s large rack of Amish and Mennonite-themed romance fiction
Most Displaced-Seeming Image: A tumble weed rolling down the street in Madison, Wisconsin.
Weird Recurrent Theme: Scarred Arms. Slashes on the man who picked up our old bed in Brooklyn; accidents and operations (including bolts) on a waitress in Gillette; purposeful horizontal lines on a waitress in our new favorite neighborhood bar.
Best Contemporary Art: Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. See esp. Tomás Saraceno’s bucky balls of moss, black webbing, and PVC pillows.
Best Architecture: Renzo Piano’s Modern Wing for the Art Institute of Chicago. The main hall is light, airy, soaring, and with a vista winking at Gehry’s bandshell in Millennium Park.
Wildlife spotted: Hawks, buzzards, robin redbreasts, eagles, grasshoppers, one rabbit, one fox, and multiple “Beware of Rattlesnakes” signs. One little brown dot in a Badlands canyon purporting to be bison (sadly, no binoculars).
Most Surprising, Spectacular and Varied Landscape: South Dakota, especially catching sunset in the Badlands.
Colors of the Rocks in the Badlands: Stripes of yellow, gray, and rust.
Most Pervasive Sound in the Badlands: Rattling (M: “Those are insects, not snakes.” Me: “Then why all the warning signs for snakes? Why all the rattling?” Debate on the difference between rattling sounds and buzzing sounds ensues.)
Number of Hitchhikers Seen: 2
Number of Religious Billboards: 6, 3 of which were anti-abortion, mostly in South Dakota (perhaps refer back to religious-experience sunset over the Badlands for partial explanation)
Most Jarring Billboard (non-religious): [Picture of a filthy public toilet] “No one imagines losing their virginity here. Meth can change that.” (in Montana)
Most Public Service Announcements Regarding Meth: Montana
Most Bleak, Monotonous and Post-Apocalyptical Landscape: northeastern Wyoming (brown hills, black shrubs, mining pits, oil derricks). Closely followed by eastern Washington (a vast desert of dull blue shrubs and dry fields, mini-tornados of dust on either side of the interstate; placards for peach and cherry orchards seemed like perverse lies)
Most Welcome Body of Water: Moses Lake, Washington, after which the desert of eastern Washington gradually turns into Cascade National Forest and we fear not opening the car window again.
Most Acidic Body of Water: Gathering ground water inside the Berkeley Pit of Butte, Montana. Popular myth has it that water fowl landing on the water die instantly. The newsletter given with admission to view the pit tries to debunk that myth. Also discussed in the newsletter: the curious iron-feeding algae thriving in the vinegar-like water.
Most Disappointed Tourists: The Corn Palace (South Dakota)
Most Frightening Industrial Complexes: The Exxon-Mobil and Philips Conoco plants (refineries?) of Billings, Montana
Most Disdainful & Smug Starbucks Employee: Inside the Crowne Plaza of Billings, Montana
My best driving: southern Minnesota (straight, flat, empty)
My worst driving: forgetting to take my foot off the gas entering a gas station in Bozeman, Montana (not to worry, nothing happened)
Worst Smelling City: Gary, Indiana (Gowanus Canal is beaten by Wolf Lake, which can be sniffed from 10 miles away)
Best Smelling City: Bozeman, Montana
Felt Most Out of Place In: Lulabell’s Café, beside the freight trains hauling coal out of Gillette, Wyoming.
Overheard Conversation at Lulabell’s: How to win a lawsuit in which defendant broke plaintiff’s ribs after plaintiff insisted on hitting on defendant’s 15- year-old niece in a bar (defendant himself brought niece into said bar). Speakers (both in cowboy hats and both with booming voices) were on side of defendant. Strategy: demand a jury trial and get at least two jurors with teenage daughters.
Most flavorful (and most expensive) burger: Ted’s (e.g. Turner) Montana Grill in Bozeman
Biggest Attempt at Appearing Green: Ted’s (recycled paper mats, 80% paper straws, claim that their cow and bison live happy lives)
Overheard Conversation at Ted’s: Favorite American sculptor, living or dead
Most Well-Travelled Orange: Bought in Sheridan, Wyoming, apparently shipped from Australia, and eaten in Seattle.
First Memorable Experience in Seattle: After arriving in town on an uncharacteristically hot day and schlepping boxes and luggage up three flights of stairs, falling victim to a drive-by water gunning on the corner of Harvard and Harrison.
Strange bookends to our journey: Watching the first half of There Will Be Blood in Brooklyn surrounded by our packed up boxes and finishing it in Seattle in the chaos of unpacking. Simplified take-away from the film: greed and religion go hand-in-hand until greed bludgeons religion to death with a bowling pin. Mm. Welcome home!
Monday, August 03, 2009
Yellow Medicine Review
My short story "Ebb and Flow" has been accepted for the Fall 2009 issue of Yellow Medicine Review. This issue, guest edited by Andrei Guruianu, will focus on Eastern Europe twenty years after the fall of communism. Very much looking forward to seeing the issue!
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Rifling
We have an old metal filing cabinet that I think my father had picked up on a sidewalk once and that's been sitting in our coat closet for the past few years. The clunker's too big for our cross-country move, and I've started sifting through my files of drafts and copious rejection notes (ha ha...ugh). And at the very bottom of the bottom drawer, beneath my spare teaching supplies (do people still use overhead transparencies?) I found a large, yellowed index card, folded in half.
The outside was addressed "To Mother & Dad". The inside says this:
"I want you both to sit down and relax-- take a moment's respite from the tedious effort of gift unwrapping-- and turn on the KLH radio, listen for a few moments-- perhaps munch on a little Figi's cheese in the interim-- and pretend the KLH tuner is a gift, again this year, from a most frugal daughter- and try to be grateful!!! Love, L___"
Hm.
The outside was addressed "To Mother & Dad". The inside says this:
"I want you both to sit down and relax-- take a moment's respite from the tedious effort of gift unwrapping-- and turn on the KLH radio, listen for a few moments-- perhaps munch on a little Figi's cheese in the interim-- and pretend the KLH tuner is a gift, again this year, from a most frugal daughter- and try to be grateful!!! Love, L___"
Hm.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
New Toy
While I've been relying heavily on Duotrope to find literary magazines to submit to, I just found this new website that organizes information about litmags in a different, more visual way. While it currently lists only 450 magazines (compared to Duotrope's 1145), it color codes listings with bold borders indicating whether a magazine is more traditional or open to more experimental work, and there is also tag cloud showing the kinds of writing accepted by the various magazines listed. The site also allows for comments on particular publications, with the hope of one day posting "unbiased reviews" of mags on the front page of the site. Other neat tidbits of information include circulation data, which I've always found unwieldy to dig up, and acceptance rates as reported by editors rather than submitters. So that could be a nice counterbalance to Duotrope's writer-reported acceptances. If you're into that sort of thing.
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