Teh Internetz: social booking networks

Hello writers and other assorted lovers of the written word,

You may look at the heading of my humble blog post and say, "Internet! P'towie!" ("P'towie" being the sound cartoon characters make when they spit; if you can actually spit while making this noise, please record it and e-mail it to me. I would be most delighted.)

Anyway. I understand your spitting anger.

The internet represents to many of us the fast-paced tide of time, a death march whose tempo is meted out by that annoying hamster song, a flurry of hyperlinks and hyperactivity. This new future we find ourselves in appears to be devoid of art, love, beauty, and most distressingly, well-written novels published to deserving nationwide acclaim. Children don't read anymore, you might cry. No one cares about books, you might groan. They only care about cats with captions and the myriad ways failure can be captured on camera and then blogged about.

To you I say: don't despair, Negative Nancy. The internet is content, and content is your product! Writers and teh series of tubes go together like lions and the circus (minus the cruel abuse in most cases).

I may be biased because I'm an online/interactive book marketer (which is a fancy way of saying: a synapse between the nerves of publishers, authors, and bloggers) but I truly believe that books and the internet are the greatest technological advances of their respective ages, and they can help each other in ways that we haven't quite gotten around to dreaming up yet.

But we're already on the right track! So my tiny contribution to this blog will be regular updates on the online world and how it can help inform your writing, your career, your understanding of the publishing industry, and your life's general betterment.

No need to thank me. It's my job.

So as a gentle way of guiding you into the online book world, please feel free to dip your cautious toes into the following pools. These are social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, but for books and book lovers. Many of these sites allow authors to create special profiles and connect to their readers. Check them out.

Good Reads

LibraryThing

Shelfari (Owned by Amazon)

Book Jetty

Anobii

Beer Steins and Frauleins: THIS Sunday, Sept 21

Just thinking about the reading this Sunday is getting my dirndl in a twist! If you've somehow missed the buzz, consider yourself invited. Fringe is teaming up with other local presses as The Dirty Water Reading Series, to present "Beer Steins and Frauleins: A Dirty Water Readingtoberfest", an Octoberfest-themed reading at the Grub Street Headquarters on Sunday, September 21. The reading will feature authors Rauan Klassnik, Amy L. Clark, Aimee Pokwatka, and Fringe contributor Francine Rubin, whose work appears in the current issue of Fringe.

For this particular reading, Fringe is in charge of decorations. How fun is that? Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas of how we can decorate the Grub Street space? Anyone have a dirndl or some lederhosen, maybe a few beer steins lying around, waiting for a chance to shine?

EVENT DETAILS
Beer Steins and Frauleins: A Dirty Water Readingtoberfest
FREE ADMISSION (free beer and free food too!)
Sunday, September 21
7:00 p.m.
Grub Street, 160 Boylston, Boston

Mark DeCarteret's Feasts/Week 17

The seven poems of Mark DeCarteret's recent Beard of Bees chapbook, Feasts/Week 17, take saints' names so that each represents a different feast day, as if the short collection were a week out of church calendar with brief, 3-line explications of each day's saint. Strict adherence to a 5-7-5 haiku structure leads to a degree of condensation that, together with sparsity of punctuation, makes these verses function less as explanations than as objects for consideration and meditation. Uncovering the meanings of the lines and their relationships to the saints of their titles (whether legitimate Catholic saints or otherwise) requires conscious acts of interpretation by readers. They must consider these poems as the devout consider the mysteries of the rosary.

Take the first poem, for instance: "st george". The majority of educated anglophone readers have likely heard of this dragonslayer and so, assuming they can make the leap from dragon to serpent, should feel some sense of connection between the first line and the title. The serpent, however, is not killed. In fact, an act of interpretation is required to determine whether anything at all is done to the serpent. Is "sound" a verb (as parallelism suggests) or a noun (the more common usage)? Are the three lines a series of instructions or a description of actions accomplished (or being accomplished) being told via an atypical verb tense?

In creating these objects for contemplation, DeCarteret repeats certain themes. Medical imagery--"lip's herpes", "aspirin-white", "anesthetized type"--appears in the first three poems. Then there are the twists on cliches: "this world’s last gasp", "unsigned dotted line", "...or else". Unfortunately, in the italicized lines of "st peter mary chanel" there's a little too much cliche and not enough twist. Despite the cleverness of the title, the verse itself seems dull.

One of the greatest dangers of writing in such a short form is that, no matter how dense the writing, the reader may reach the end and feel as if they have read nothing substantial. Challenges to interpretation such as this chapbook presents are one way to overcome this, one way to slow the reader down. Such a technique also requires that the poems raise the desire in the reader to linger over the poems. The aforementioned "st peter mary chanel" fails for me in this regard; the other poems succeed to varying degrees with a smattering of onomatopoeic lines being the most powerful in this regard. Such judgments, of course, are necessarily subjective. Do these poems draw you in?

Young? Adult? Literature?

My favorite comedian, the late Mitch Hedberg, once cracked: “Every book is a children’s book as long as the kid can read!”

Clearly, this statement is little more than an uninformed generalization with the singular goal of eliciting a chuckle. But, I must admit, as a card-carrying member of the “Make ‘em laugh any way you can” brigade, the silly one-liner actually gave me pause. Because, more and more, Young Adult Literature that I see as a middle school teacher is taking on content and themes that, often, is more “adult” than “young.” The ensuing internal debate has become a sort of “Chicken or The Egg” conundrum that I’ve yet to resolve.

Then, upon being invited to write for Fringe, I was referred to another column in a popular blog on YAL. And, I totally dug the snarky, “I love the 80’s”-style reviews of books from our collective childhood, having consequently been inspired to unearth lots of dusty paperbacks in my basement. And, while it’s most certainly been quite a trip to revisit these characters and stories through grown up eyes, as I read, something strikes me. Though I feel very close to these books out of nostalgia, I can’t remember ever being to relate to them as a moody, lower-middle class kid, coming of age in the neon nineties.

And so, it is in the same spirit with which I immediately removed the archaic Where The Red Fern Grows, and A Wrinkle In Time from my sixth-graders’ required reading curriculum, that I have decided--for the purposes of this column--to stick to YAL. and authors from the last two decades. But I promise—no annoying little wizards. Ever.

Be back in two weeks, with Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever, 1793.

Danny Treacy's 'Them'

The Photographer’s Gallery

until 20 September (make haste!)

Danny Treacy’s fantastic life-sized portraits display the artist in an array of bizarre outfits cleverly assembled from clothing and materials found abandoned on the streets, ranging from a soiled sleeping bag to an indefinable animal costume – occasionally embellished with something sparkly; a sequined glove, a tattered veil. The glorious detail in these shots brings out the contrasting textures of these various pieces, mixing faded glitz with pure grime.

Treacy’s stance is bold, poised, aggressive. His face remains hidden, which adds to the underlying threat. Yet at the same time, these masks also make the figure appear vulnerable and sightless, constrained and bound.

Mythical creatures; grubby superheroes; urban warriors – however you decide to label them, the overall effect is unsettling, eerie and deeply intriguing.

If you don’t happen to live in or be stopping by London this week I insist you stop by to gaze at Treacy’s array striking creations (they’re taking them away after Saturday so be swift and speedy). And if you happen not to be in suitable proximity, worry not, for the artist has arranged a rather nice online space to display all sorts of fascinating photo joy, just for you. Oh yes.

And in case you’re itching to read more about Treacy’s intentions and my delightful musings, the full review can be found on my humble blog (shameful, I know, but had to be said...)

Consider the Writer

It's another rainy weekend in Boston, but the gray sky and pervasive damp are only part of the reason for the grim pall--late last night, news broke of David Foster Wallace's untimely death at the age of 46. DFW is best-known as a writer of satire, absurdism, and the eccentricities of contemporary American life. He made a splash in the literary scene from his very first post-modernist novel, "The Broom of the System" (1987) and continued to build up steam, and a cult following, with story collections, journalistic articles, and books of essays, before publishing what is largely considered his masterpiece, the novel "Infinite Jest" in 1996.

As I can't speak to the influence or genius of these novels, I will defer to those who know. What I can say is that Wallace was the kind of writer who challenged the restraints of popular literature and consistently produced the kind of writing that made people question what they thought they knew; the kind of writer who took a Gourmet magazine assignment to cover the 2003 Maine Lobster Festival and turned it into a sprawling rumination on not only the lobster's place in the "pop food industry" and American tourism, but also how the way we eat is emblematic of the way we think about mortality, killing, and the difference between humans and all other living creatures. He told things like they were, in a voice that was gentle in its harsh honesty, as though he understood the reluctance of mainstream culture to accept truth.

Wallace's death shook me, not because I am a devoted fan (admittedly, I've only read a couple of his essays), but because his death is only the latest in a long and storied line of visionary writers who've seen life as--well, as unlivable. Woolf, Hemingway, Plath, Sexton, Thompson, Spalding Gray, Hart Crane--the list goes on. What is it about writing, and about art as a whole, that causes such desperate melancholy, abject loneliness, and absolute faithlessness? Of course, it's not a problem associated solely with writers, but it's no coincidence that some of the greatest writers of modern times have ended their lives while in the prime of their writing careers. What does this say about writing as an art form, and writers as artists? Is writing truly an exercise in solitude--a solitude so vast for some that it cannot be bridged by success, critical acclaim, or fame?

I don't know. I'm no creative genius, and sometimes I can barely cobble together a sentence that makes any sense. But I do know that the world seems a little more sad, a little less full, with every literary (or musical or visionary or theatrical) talent that we lose, just for knowing that we won't learn anything else from them.

Fringe 16 Rocks It.

We tried something new in Fringe 16. Now that we’re only publishing four times a year, we’re giving you more of that Fringey stuff you love. This issue features doubles – two poets, two short nonfiction writers and two short shorts, along with our first-ever audio pieces and some brilliant paintings.

This issue is all about small moments, from the moment a fish hits the sizzling oil to a fever dream to the decision whether to use that last vein (in the penis) to shoot a little heroin.

Watch for the theme of food, which appears in several of the pieces. We’ve got telling footnotes, bright colors and the strange taste of fake cheese in our mouths, so come experience the joys of Fringe 16!

• In An Ocean View, Brent van Staalduinen gives a lyrical account of the way Sri Lankan tourist culture changed after the tsunami in a piece of short nonfiction.
• Michael K Meyers uses audio collage to tell two strange tales in the (de)Classified section.
• Joe Clifford, a former heroin addict writes about the moment that the TV show Cops became about him in the short nonfiction piece Fear and Reality.
• In her four poems, Francine Rubin shows the reader sparkling moments – fish in oil, a pirouette and her life as a celebutante.
• Christopher A. Williams uses curvilinear bursts of color to create Rube-Goldberg machines.
• Siel Ju describes four people and one slice of veggie cheese in five poems.
• The short short Out by Munson Creek by Chuck Taylor explores man’s timeless desire to shoot things.

Joel Wright’s short short Fever chronicles the illusions and realities of a fever that came on the heels of a snowstorm.

Art: Dog Eat Dog City by Christopher A. Williams