Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Atlantic is Smart
Today I learned (via Kottke) that The Atlantic has dropped its paywall. All of its goodness is now available for us to frolic amongst, squish between our toes, or spread on toast.
Hurray for doing something intelligent.
I have a copy of their 150th anniversary issue and thought it was extremely cool. I spent a lot of time with the short essays and illustrations in the “The Future of the American Idea” feature.
I’m charmed that the editor uses the word “trenchancy” in his announcement. Reminds me of the Geico commercial with James Lipton that always makes me giggle. “I’ve heard they are also quite beneficent and magnanimous.”
Last night I regretfully decided I would not re-subscribe to New York magazine and The New Yorker. I like both of them so much but have too much else to read and can’t keep up. It breaks my heart, print publishing having such a hard time and now I’m part of the problem.
But you! you should subscribe to all of these magazines.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
When Nerds Find Each Other
I love people, especially nerd people who link to nerdy things I write.
Here is an older post by Eric Baković, a phonology professor exploring “miffled” as spoken by Tony Soprano.
More recently, I got a super nice email from Nicholas Whyte, who linked to my old post in a review he wrote about the lovely Kelly Link story The Faery Handbag.
thanks guys! xo
Holiday Blog Tag, Revisted
Before winter break, I was tagged by my friend Rebecca at Writopia Lab, when there was still all sorts of warm holiday spirit in the air. I was asked to do a post answering, “Who are the teachers who have most personally influenced you and how?”
At the time I was finishing a big paper and getting ready for Christmas and New Year travels. Down in Naples, Florida, a lamp post, some rain, and a bundle of cable got in an argument about race, so there was no internet for an eternity. On 01/03/08 I came home to properly celebrate the self-invented Misfits Day (138) and since then, have randomly declared myself to be On Vacation when I wasn’t working on wonderful things.
A few days ago I twittered thinking about an old teacher, snuggled back down into my delicious vacation, and knew that soon I’d get back to posting more than 140 characters at a time.
I have always wanted to thank my fifth grade teacher Ms. Criste for teaching my class grammar up through the eighth grade level. Not at all pushy or competitive, she made everything interesting, and was supportive and generous when it came to whatever interested us. I used to love writing these awful clause and preposition-laden sentences that I would then ask her to diagram on the chalkboard like this. Ms. Criste is undoubtedly the reason I was in advanced classes later, why I felt comfortable learning other “languages” (programming too) and probably the first person who pushed me beyond what would have been acceptable performance.
Before my MFA program there was lots of DIY workshopping, and it was lead by Rebecca Wallace-Segall, who is an amazing critic, teacher, advice-giver, truth-teller and friend. I met her with a few others every week for two years in her Upper West Side apartment. She helped edit some of my grad-school application manuscript, wrote me recommendations, and is currently inspiring me to teach. She also loves bunnies on the for real.
I’m not going to tag anyone, because it could feel like homework, but if anyone wants to keep this going I encourage it. Let me know if you do. xo
Monday, January 14, 2008
Seventeen Free Graphic Novels
It’s been ages, filled with wonderfully exciting and lovely events, and yet I don’t post except to link to Wil Wheaton’s blog (I follow his Tweets).
Yes, a list of 17 free downloadable graphic novels compiled by Daily Bits, including one from Neil Gaiman, one about a girl and her salamander spirit friend, and one that’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure book except cooler, and other comic and graphic type stories more akin to what you’d expect.
Hi!
I know.
and today I fell in love with MegaTokyo again, for reasons I finally understand. Falling in love again is phenomenal.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Writer's Life Colloquium Fall 07
As part of my official “course of study” people hear me babbling about lectures and readings all the time. The blurbs below are just notes, for the sake of memory, from what I went to, maybe more interesting in a voyeuristic way than in gleaning any helpful information (sans links you might just have to know who these people are).
These are the lectures I attended in Fall 07:
September 18. Catherine Stine. Q&A galvanized me for
doing graphic novels. Even made a contact with a publisher!
September 25. David Thompson. Exploration of the
nazi-propaganda film-making went well with my War and Politics lit
class. Other amazing films shown and discussed.
October 2. Carrie Brownstein. Big fan of Sleater-Kinney and
excited by Rock N Roll Camp for Girls. Excellent example of nonfiction
writing in a community environment.
October 4. The Apocalypse Reader. Totally obsessed with
the Apocalypse (and our human/cultural obsession with it). Impressed
and inspired to learn the anthology was created by a new graduate of our program.
November 5. Sasha-Frere Jones. Interested in his writing about pop culture.
November 7. Nina Khrushcheva. Loved the creative, surreal (nonfiction!) way
she wrote about Nabokov. (Proper pronunciation is indeed na-BO-kov.)
November 14. Carolyn Forche. just plain amazing. She was a
really nice speaker. Greater appreciation of poetry due to my War and
Politics class (the russian and polish poets), and how poetry has more
in common with creative nonfiction than I’d realized.
December 10. Yona Zeldis McDonough. Confidence built for one
of my other pet-project ideas, and I found value in
everything she had to say EXCEPT that nonfiction is a red-headed step
child. Out of nowhere, she said that she thought fiction was a “higher
calling” than nonfiction (which is weird, she seems to write a LOT of
nonfiction for kids) which distracted me from her lecture. Deborah
Brodie did a respectable job of smoothing this over in a nice way. I believe transcendence is possible in nonfiction just as in fiction. Maybe Ms McDonough was thinking about cookbooks. Can’t we all just get along? Oh well, I don’t hold it against her. It was rather funny.
I went to all the student readings, and read a piece in one of them.
They are one of my favorite things. Also volunteered in order to attend the LWC
which was great. Yay Colloquium!
[nope, don’t sound like an intellectual yet. but hey, those were just notes. i’m allowed to write “yay” to myself]
Two Classes Left
Hi.
My brain’s rather mush.
If you asked me any sort of question lately I’d probably answer with something like “grapefruit,” as that’s about all I can muster.
Tonight is my second-to-last class before the end of the semester, and a month long winter break. Last night, after a long day, there was apple pie and tv, and it was wonderful, but today I woke up in a panic and needed to be soothed again. I think I might be more upset that school is 25% over, than about getting a last big piece of writing done. But that’s not the way I should look at it, the people I’m in school with now will be readers for life, and that’s a big reason why we do this program in the first place.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned how good it is to be with people like me. All my friends were awesome programmers and visual artists, with precious few exceptions. It’s new and exciting to feel myself brought so warmly into the fold of my compatriots. Sometimes I still feel like a person who speaks their native tongue with a foreign accent, but I think that will go away.
I’m excited for the break, as a time to work on half-started projects, get a jump on next semester’s reading and writing some entirely new pieces. Next semester will be different because the second year students are working full time on their theses (thee-seez, that word just looks wrong) and we won’t have them in workshops or literature classes with us. We first years will have to take on the role of well-read smartypantses. pantseseez. pansies.
Good thing I’ll have a month to prepare.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Cherry on Top
I’m not sure exactly why, but all of my favorite sweaters have holes in the elbows. Suede patches on those professor-type blazers suddenly made a lot of sense. I’ve just started to try out ideas. If you’ve got suggestions or tips, let me know, kthx.
So far I like the cherries:
My ideas came from the “available materials” themselves (as they say). It’s more relaxing for me to decide “what can i do with this stuff right here” than to have an idea and search for the elements to create it (like how i normally make Halloween costumes). Both are fun, I just don’t have time to breath, let alone hunt.
More to come!
p.s. my camera has been rather cranky, which is why there ain’t mo’ betta pics.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
w00t!!1
Woot is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2007.
Now if I could only take the word “awesome” from my vocabulary. It’s embarrassing.
I like Wikipedia‘s entry on the word.
