another NO COLONY promotional post

Lots of people have done promotional posts for NO COLONY.

I will add my own promotion to this promotional orgy.

If you can somehow prove to me that you have preordered a copy of NO COLONY, I will send you this tattered copy of Robert Coover's Pricksongs & Descants as soon as possible. Proof of your having pre-ordered a copy of NO COLONY can come in many forms: an email from Blake Butler or Ken Bauman, which you then forward to me; a picture of your computer screen showing the confirmation order page; or, if you'd like to wait, a picture of you holding NO COLONY next to your head.

Any of this will work.

Email me or comment here that you have proof and I will send you this tattered copy of Pricksongs & Descants.

For fairness, you must not have won any other promotional orgies.

*UPDATE* 

Amanda Nazario has won the Robert Coover Pricksongs & Descants NO COLONY giveaway promotional orgy. She has promised in a gchat to purchase NO COLONY today as soon as she gets her paycheck. Because I play favorites, and because I recently met Amanda and she is awesome and wrote this really funny story on Pindeldyboz that she read aloud to us and made us laugh, I am giving her the prize.

Here is our gchat as proof:

Amanda: Ah yes.
we have Boone's also
have you given away the Coover book yet?
me: no
do you want it? 
Amanda: Yeah, I really do! But I also want to order No Colony.
I should be able to do so when I get paid tomorrow.
me: so if you order no colony, i give you coover book
ahkay
that is good

old books

I am going through a bunch of my books in my old room at my parents' house right now and I found this, an old copy of Come Back, Dr. Caligari. I originally got this book at a used bookstore I worked at in Northern Virginia. I thought I lost it somehow, and now I am really happy that it's been at my parent' house all this time.

My throat and eyes hurt because of all the dust I've stirred up by going through my books. I am trying to get rid of lots of these books before Laura and I move down to Houston. I am trying to get rid of books that I can easily find wherever I go. I am keeping the books that I'm attached to or that I will have a hard time finding if I ever get rid of them.

Tomorrow I drive back to Fairfax (after having spent two weeks at 'writing camp'). The drive will take 9+ hours. I have to work tomorrow in the Writing Center for the closing shift, so I am basically just driving to work tomorrow.

NO COLONY preview

Blake Butler just posted the tracklist for the first issue of NO COLONY, a 'collaborative' journal that he and Ken Bauman have put together.

Preorder the journal for $11 including shipping. If you do that, Blake Butler and Ken Bauman will ship it to you as soon as they get it from the printer in September sometime.

This list of people is good. I am excited.

You can read an excerpt from "The Shuffler" by Miranda Mellis here.

SWC: Last Day

I'll have to revisit the past two days (the ones I did not say anything about), but for now here's what happened today:

We had a 10am workshop. We workshopped three novel excerpts, including Jim's. Due to some weird page handouts, participants in the workshopped received two different groups of exceprts from Jim's novel. This difference in readings created some nice discussion about the novel. During the workshop, I felt very tired (I had gone to sleep 'early' the night before, but slept poorly). I was not hungover - I have been hungover only once or twice. Instead I was tired.

Then we went swimming at The Res, did the runandjump a few times, and came back to hear the fellows read: Darrin Doyle and Don Waters read from their work along with two other poets. Darrin and Don are very nice and gave very good readings.

'Banquet' time after that.

John Casey read a series of excerpts from his newest novel that he's still working on. The room was packed, as it was the last reading. Because of the packed room, it got very hot. I sweated as I listened to John Casey read. 

Then everyone got 'crazy.' There was a 'dance' at the 'pub' on 'campus.' I played foosball(?). In that picture is Mike Rosovsky, Dave 'Barry' Mullins, David McGlynn, and a poet named Eric Something. Eric Something was very good at foosball. He destroyed me. In that photo, 'Barry' (red hat) is hiding me from the camera.

I did not get crazy. Foosball is not something that is crazy, really. Crazy is, like, dancing and grinding all up on someone or drinking heavily. Other people were drinking a lot and outside of the pub, they were dropping bottles on the patio. Greg Williamson helped clean up the mess.

Then some of us drove down to the cross/overlook to look over things in the valley and see the big cross. The cops came by and made us leave after a while. That was 'exciting,' I guess. This was around 2:30am that they finally made us leave.

Now it is bedtime.

SWC: 11

Things happened. But I am tired.

I want to talk about the following at some point:

Grove/Atlantic and Knopf editor panel

Margot Livesey's lecture about 'fiction' and 'extrafiction'

My latest workshop experience with John and Christine

The Scholars Reading and being really nervous when reading my work and people laughing - it went well this morning

'Elitism' at conferences like this

Blogging

Being mean to people.

I am bored of blogging about the conference for now, but here are other people who are not: Cliff Garstang, Sandrea Beasly (here and here), Donna Trussell, and Leslie Harrison.

Today I felt sad.

More soon.

SWC: 10

I am tired and it's time for bed - I have things to say, but...

SWC: 9B

The rest of the day was not very exciting. I spent the afternoon reading workshop stories and then Dave, Jim, and I went over each other's stories one final time. After this, we drove down to dinner at the local bar and had a cheeseburger. It was big. I ate it and felt sick.

The rest of the night was just drinking, pingpong, and talking. Not very exciting, but relaxing in a nice way. Hooray. I have one more story to read for tomorrow.

SWC: 9A

Today I slept through breakfast and then woke up in time to hear agent Gale Hochman talk about the 'publishing world.' I am trying to think of what she said. I remember she talked about how publishers send 95% of a print run to the major booksellers (Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc). She talked about how they send 30,000 copies to those places, expecting to get 50%, 60%, or 70% back. This is what they have to do to sell 15,000 copies of a book. 

Then she talked about Amazon's new electronic reader and she 'crunched' some numbers. She compared the hardcover price of a printed book to the price of an electronic book. There was some math in there, but I zoned out a little. Her point was that with the Kindle - something. I got really confused, actually. Oh, right, she was talking about how the readership has changed over the past few decades, how everyone is 'plugged in' or whatever, and how she's not sure what this means for selling books, whether electronically or in print. 

Then she went on to discuss agents, how to contact them, how busy they are, what to expect, etc. She said that she reads manuscripts from 9am until 10pm on the weekends, unless she's out to dinner or something. That is a lot of reading, I think. A part of my brain, though, said, 'really?' when she said that thing about the weekends. I was a little skeptical.

She talked about other things too, but I forgot some of them. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that she seemed so 'doom and gloom' or whatever. She didn't mention anything about small press/independent publishing (understandable, I think, since she doesn't seem to be involved in that), but it would have been nice to hear the alternative to publishing at the bigger houses.

I had other thoughts about this during the presentation, but I forgot to write them down.

After Gale spoke, Jill McCorkle gave a lecture on Self-Censorship/Freedom. It was a good lecture. She talked about how censorship occurs externally and internally, how one affects the other, etc. It seemed like the trick was learning how to turn that censoring instinct into a creative impulse? Like, to fight against that censor, to do the opposite of what it suggests, and to learn how to tell the difference between censoring your writing and editing your writing.

Then I went to lunch, mailed some things at the post office, and printed off some things. There is a Scholars reading in the morning tomorrow and on Friday for those of us who do not have books coming out. I am reading sometime on Friday. Hooray. Now I am happy but scared and nervous.

Now to do some reading.

SWC: 8B

So things happened today, but not until I woke up from my long sleep. I have been feeling very tired since the beginning of the conference; I have been staying up late and waking up early since I got here, so today I decided to sleep in past lunch. It was the best decision I have made since I got here. Only problem: things woke me up all morning: the towel people, the bedsheets people, the man with the walkie-talkie, the television in the social room beneath my room. I slept in past lunch, but felt harried.

What I missed during my sleepfest: another fellows reading and a craft lecture by Wyatt Prunty.

I skipped lunch also.

Schutt and Casey sort of changed up the workshop today, for which I was somewhat thankful. Until today, we had been following Casey's workshop structure: go around the table and tell what you think about the story and then let the workshop leaders tell what they think about the story. This has led to quite a lot of various comments but no real good discussion of what is most important for the story. Today, Schutt led the class with a lecture on stories' first lines and how that language should create 'story.' She used this as a way into the first workshop story, which we did not discuss. I think this is okay. I think that Schutt's lecture was more important for the author to hear than our lame discussion of what we thought her story was about (it was about nothing that I could tell, but the langauge was wonderful).

Schutt said: The first line of a story often establishes setting/point of view/characters/conflict/ and the language of the story. This first line often functions to orient the reader in the story. When writing first drafts, the author might consider looking at what he's written so far, selecting the sentence that contains the most elements of the above list and use that as a temporary first line. Secondly, authors might avoid adding additional elements to a story (more elements than first mention in the opening paragraph) and instead try to subtract from what they have so far. Look at what you've got, see the dents, the trends, what's being said, and figure out how you can turn away from that so as to create more tension. Schutt likes this idea of looking at the sentence you've just written and discovering a way to turn slightly away from what you've just written. So that eventually all of those turns will lead to a conclusion to the story in the same sort of area as the opening line. Thirdly, she talked about Ozicks' The Shawl and how the shawl was a sort of object in that story, but its meaning/function shifted with each character. She said that minimizing the amount of objects/characters in a story will allow you the most opportunities to expand upon those things. I like all of these ideas. I don't know if I follow them in my own writing, but I think they are similar to what I've seen in the work of Gary Lutz, Gordon Lish, Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Diane Williams, etc. I think this kind of writing, the turning away from the sentence, or, as Lutz says in that New York Tyrant interview, the placing between two words other words, is most attractive to me because it allows for extreme sorts of surprises to rise up in the langauge.

After workshop, Jim and I went to the Sewanee library to print of shit, and then we went to the gym to lift. This is the same gym in which I ran a record breaking 960m race in highschool - I miscounted laps around the 160m track during the 800m race, and when everyone finished, I accidentally ran a 6th lap; everyone laughed at me.

It rained also.

Then Tony Earley read from new work. Hooray.

Then drinks, then drinks at the French House. Then sleep.

Oh, thank you Mike for doing a bit of my laundry. Hooray.

Also, last night, I had a dream that I was in Tao Lin's apartment and he was making me a smoothie. I drank the smoothie and Kendra Grant Malone said something to me about lime yogurt. Blake Butler was there and he said something to me, but I don't know what. Maybe about spaceships? Tao Lin had put on a lot of weight in his face and did not look healthy. I tried to act cool, but I kept knocking over chairs, so Tao Lin kicked me out of his apartment. Sorry Tao Lin for doing that in my dream.

SWC: 8A

I need to do some laundry.

SWC: 7

Today was pretty lazy. I did not go to the readings, the editors' panel, the Mark Strand lecture. Instead, we ran 4 again before it got too hot and spent the morning reading stories for workshop, writing comments on them, etc. After lunch, Jim, Dave, and I visited the rope-swing-lake again and came back in time to hear Tim O'Brien read the final story ("The Lives of the Dead") in The Things They Carried. I did not expect him to read this story. I was surprised that he read this story. I expected one of the funnier stories, or one of the war stories, I guess. I did not expect him to select such a 'heavy' story? I heard many people in the room sniffling. I felt very sad as he read the story. It was sad.

Then we went to the Vice Chancellor's house. It was big.

Dinner.

Nap time.

Then we listened to a few of the scholars who have books forthcoming read their work. I enjoyed these readings. I liked listening to what the other scholars were 'doing.' Josh Weil read from his collection of novellas, some other people read (mostly poets, I have not looked up their names, I am sorry), and Frank Giampietro read from his book of poetry. His poems were really funny. 

I think it would be both fun and unnerving to read here. I would get very nervous.

French House for drinks. Then another swim at the lake.

I have an ear infection.

SWC: 6

Slept in today. Slept through the alarm clock, so didn't run until after breakfast. It was hot.

Listened to a lecture by John Casey on mentorship and writers, what mentors are, what does that mean, etc. He used a little doll to explain his points?

Lunch.

Went to the bookstore to buy a few books. It rained a bit.

Listened to the Fellows reading - Margo Rabb read from her latest. Later she came swimming with us.

Bausch read a new story for the second reading. Later on that night, he sang songs on the porch of the French House and played guitar and everyone had fun.

Then we had a 'book-signing' party in the bookstore. John Casey signed a copy of Spartina for me and Christine Schutt signed a copy of Nightwork for me. I also bought her second story collection. I talked to Jason Ockert about his book Rabbit Punches. I want to buy it. I think I will buy it tomorrow.

Then dinner.

Then I chatted with my dad on the phone; today was his birthday.

Then we went and played lots of pingpong and I defeated everyone.

Josh Weil wanted to go swimming in the swimming lake at night, so we went to the French House for a drink and then went swimming at night. We went swimming in a tiny little swimming lake on campus. It was shallow and warm. Frogs made frog sounds nearby. Then we came back and sat around then we went to bed.

Today was a slow day. I felt relaxed today. I felt good about things. After dinner I went back to my room by myself and just sat in my room and felt a little sad and alone. I then felt more relaxed, and I think I just needed to stop doing things for like thirty minutes, stop doing conference things to take a break from all this activity. I felt a little overwhelmed and then decided to do some proofreading and after that I decided to interact with people again after I had had a little break.

Also, here is a picture of my room. I have been really messy this trip.

SWC: 5

Things happened today. I will type them very quickly, because I am very tired. This will be the laziest, least helpful post of ever.

Talked with Laura in the morning, say, about 9:30? Then Jim and I went for a 4mile run about.

Lunch. I ate two plates of chicken something for lunch? Also, I ate some chick peas on my salad. I was really hungry.

During workshop, we discussed three stories. Things that came up for discussion (in no particular order): genre fiction versus literary fiction, especially w/r/t stories of international espionage; cliches and how even in genre fiction, weak writing is weak writing; narratives that span many years in a character's life; distance from the narrative; language as a tool for showing the reader that distance, etc; multiple climaxes (thank you John Casey for that, um, bit of terminology); narrative/plot structure in a story; characters that do bad because they think they're doing good; etc.

Christine Schutt said this during workshop and I felt really happy that she said it: "It seems very dangerous to tell a story when you know where your going with it or already know the story because then you seem to rush to the end...I get really frustrated when it seems that people haven't labored over the language enough." This is not an exact quotation, but it is very close to what she said. She said that she often writes very slowly and has to reread the sentences that she just wrote in order to start the next sentence.

Then we went to the lake again for more swimming: me, Jim, Dave Madden, Dave Mullin (i need to check that spelling, but i am feeling lazy and tired right now). I met a man who just recently started a local press called Plateau Press. I cannot find a website, but it is a small press interested in nonfiction. I chatted with this man about writing, etc, and then went swimming. I jumped off the rope swing. I did the 'run-and-jump' and did not hurt myself really, until the time I did not let go of the rope and came crashing back into the udnerbrush, scratghin up my legs. Jim did the 'run-and-jump' and got a sideways bellyflop that left a red bruise on his side for a while. Jim also lost his key in the lake by the dock, and after diving for maybe three minutes, found it again. We celebrated.

Dinner was BBQ.

Claudia Emerson read some really sad poems about past relationships, some funny, 'wicked' poems about an all girls school, and some new stuff as well that made me laugh as I listened.

Then the dance. Awkward, etc. I did not repeat my Tin House conference activities, which was smart of me. Instead, other people danced.

Now bed.

SWC:4

I am again going to type things without revising/thinking, and try to just state facts, though we'll see:

This morning Kathy Pories and Jane Rosenman gave quick talks about the 'publishing business' and then took questions from the audience. Pories is an editor at Algonquin. Rosenman is an editor at a big New York house (I cannot remember which one). The talk was standard. I did not hear anything new. This was not good or bad. I do not remember much of it.

Jim and I went for a run. Probably about 4 miles. We went to two different overlooks. Look at this poet's blog for pictures of the overlook. This poet is also 'blogging' Sewanee. Just like Cliff.

After the run I met with Christine for lunch. She is very nice. We went over the rest of my MS. She read to me parts she liked, and then, for all but one of the stories, went line by line with suggested cuts. Her suggestions were very good; the cuts are very smart. I want to try to describe the cuts. In my head, I was thinking how the cuts she suggested involve sections in the story in which I lapse into some attempt at a basic judgment or overaching concern of the story: basically, places of too much explanation. I think these sections are like little notes to myself about the story. They are probably not necessary. Christine then gave me a few suggestions for submitting. It was a good meeting.

Then Jim and I took reading stuff out to a lake here on the mountain. The lake has a swimming hole, and a rope ladder, and a dock to sit on. I felt like I was twelve. I have not used a rope swing to jump into a lake for a long time. Also, I was reminded of how bad at swimming I really am. When we first got to the lake, there were a bunch of high schoolers there. They were talking about their favorite animals. One girl said hers was the polar bear. Another girl said she liked squirrels. Later, a mother showed up with her two sons. The youngest son asked his older brother, "How's the water?" and the older brother said, "Wet." I laughed at that. Also overheard from the youngest son: "I'm going to stick an almond between my toes and see what happens."

I have no idea.

Greg Williamson read poetry afterwards. He was really funny. He read this thing he said was 'creative nonpoetry' and it was really funny. My back hurt from laughing. It is forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review.

I met Michelle Brower, an agent, today and talked with her about submitting story collections, etc, how that works. She seemed to suggest that backing up the collection with part of a novel in progress was a good idea. She was very nice. I need to figure out how to write a novel.

Dinner.

For the evening reading, we listened to Margot Livesey read from her new book.

Today I officially met someone from my workshop - Thomas Young - who coincidentally flew C-130s in the MD Air Gaurd at Martin State Airbase at the same time my dad flew A-10s at the same airbase. Young is still in the Gaurd, still flying, and he is also writing. He has a great personal narrative in Operation Homecoming, an anthology of writing by soldiers and their families. Go here for a few excerpts from the book, and buy it if you'd like to read his essay. I listened to him read the essay during the open-mic tonight.

Drinks again at the French House. Much talking. Chatter. Etc. Then some pingpong, etc.

Etc. Up too late, etc.

Today I felt less skeptical of people and my feelings of meanness went away a little and I felt a little guilty today. Today I felt relaxed and really hungry. Today I felt ecstatic and antsy. I also felt tired of talking to people, but I also felt happy to keep talking to people. I tried to calm myself down a lot today at certain points by thinking that I should just stop thinking too many things and stop saying stupid things to people.

People I know here now know I am 'blogging' about Sewanee. Dear people I know: I won't say anything personal. You are cool people. I will only say stupid things about me.

Also, last post I said that the other stories from that particular day's workshop were 'ok.' I do not mean that in a offensive way, though it is a vague word, I suppose. The stories were written well, I think. They seemed crafted well. I think my saying 'ok' there was more to describe how my taste affected my reading of them.

SWC: 3

Today I woke up at 7am and chatted with Laura on the phone. Afterwards, I went for a run (about two miles). The Achilles felt fine, no soreness, no nothing, so I am feeling optimistic.

Afterwards, we had breakfast then the staff reading. Carrie Jerrell, Caki Wilkinson, Kevin Wilson read their work. All very good readers. I was impressed with Jerrell. She had memorized two of her poems. Caki read some hilarious poems with a very sing song sarcastic voice, which I liked. Kevin Wilson read two stories, one of which told the story of a man who gets smacked in the head by a robber prostitute. He is funny in a deadpan sort of way. We published him in our latest issue of Phoebe, so it was very cool to hear him read finally.

Then came some free time, during which I finished reading the stories for my workshop today.

Lunch.

After lunch, I started to get really nervous. Jim and I walked to workshop and then we sat there in the workshop. Christine Schutt sat there too and everyone else sat there. Christine was very calm and quiet. John Casey came in and was very loud. He demanded that everyone tell him their name. Then he posted his rules for workshop. Whenever he talked, Christine seemed stunned, but happy. Relieved. I dont' know. I am adding worthless things. We talked about my story first. Christine opened up the discussion and asked what people thought. During the workshop, I could not stop shaking. I wanted to throwup. I felt very nervous. People said that they liked the story. People said really awesome and nice things. Then people brought up some questions/concerns. I felt like I wanted to stop sweating, but couldn't. Christine picked several parts in the story to read aloud. One part she read aloud and said 'damn, that's good.' I felt happy. I felt happy with what she said about my story. I felt like I learned things. Several people in workshop said really smart things that I wanted to talk about more. We talked about these comments later. They were still smart later. I cannot believe I went first. I feel happy and sad. I felt really nervous. Afterwards, Christine said she was happy that I was working with her; I meet with her tomorrow to talk about the rest of the MS. That should be very good.

The rest of the workshop went well, I think, although I did worry about our inability to discuss the deeper issues. Because we were such a big class, and because John sort of took over with his tangents and his going around the classroom questions, it took us quite a while to cover the other stories. The other stories were okay, I think. I dunno. We talked about them for a while, and then we left for the reading.

Schutt read from her new novel. She read awesome stuff. I could not believe how awesome it was. I was really happy with her reading. She read from the sadder parts of her novel and from some happy, funny parts. I liked this.

Dinner (pasta - I got seconds, hooray)

We skipped the poetry reading tonight and instead drank outside for a bit, played pingpong, then went to the French House. Much talking with others ensued. After that, we went back to the dorm. More drunk pingpong happened. Then sitting around happened. Then sleep.

Goodnight. Tomorrow I meet with Christine to talk about my MS.

More soon.

mike scalise in Post Road

Mike Rosovsky just handed me the newest issue of Post Road. The issue is nice looking - Mark Mothersbaugh did the cover. My friend Mike Scalise has an essay in this issue about someone peeing in a kitchen sink and other craziness. There is more to the essay than that, obviously, but yeah. Buy the journal.

Okay, back to reading before lunch/workshop.

SWC: 2

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SWC: 1

So I am at Sewanee. After staying up late last night, I woke up at 6:30am to drive the 10hrs down to TN and check in with the conference people. The drive went well. I watched some joker get pulled over by a state trooper in VA. That was exciting.

I haven't been back to Sewanee since my senior year of college, since I ran in an XC meet at the golf course. The campus is how I remember it: nice and woody.

Once I got here, I moved all of my shit into my room, met my suitemate Jim Scott, and then worked on that review for Scott. After that, I took a quick walk around campus to see how my Achilles felt (much better, though it is still a little sore), and then a group of us wandered off to dinner. So far I have met cool people, for example Mike Rosovsky and John Rubins and many others, and they have been cool to me, so I am happy. 

After dinner, we went to a reading: Jill McCorkle (sp?). She read a new story. I cannot remember the title. It was long. I fidgeted a little with my hands.

I am having trouble getting cell reception, which makes it hard to call my wife. This makes me a little sad.

After the reading, I met more people face to face, including Cliff, with whom I chatted about the conference, the drive down here, Christine Schutt's book Florida, and other things. It has been nice to meet people with whom I am vaguely familiar online, but have never met in person. I have enjoyed this part of the conference so far.

There is a place called the French House for Scholars and Fellows and their guests and faculty. We went there tonight and had drinks. That was fun. I met more people.

My workshop isn't until the day after tomorrow, so I've got some free time to do things: read, work on the book review, go to craft lectures, workout, etc. We'll see what happens.

This is a slow post. Maybe faster posts in the future?

cabin, reviewing, my achilles, and off to sewanee

I just returned from spending the weekend with a few friends up at my grandparents' cabin north of Gettysburg. I finished revising two stories up there, read the first few sections of my sister's novel and suggested edits, avoided the internet for a few days, and freaked myself out (the cabin is kind of remote and the woods seemed teeming with murderers). I think my friends also got things done, so congrats all around.

I'm scrambling to finish a review of this book. I am having trouble writing this review.  I read most of the book this weekend, liked it, was confused in a good way, and struggled to reread it today and write the review. I am halfway done with the review, but am late on it. I will have to email Scott to tell him the situation. I am enjoying writing the review though, even though I am having trouble, so that is good.

I have not run since Friday. I am having trouble with my left Achilles tendon. I messed up my calf on Wednesday as I walked down some stairs in the morning, then I ran on it that evening, and on Thursday the pain had descended below my calf. I stupidly ran on it Thursday evening. I am annoyed at myself and at my Achilles. I am icing 2-3 times a day, stretching, and taking ibuprofen. It still hurts today, so my training schedule is messed up for now. This is annoying because I was supposed to hit 40 miles last week and 46 this week.

I am leaving tomorrow morning (today, I guess) at, like, 7am, to drive to Sewanee for the conference there. I am all packed, except for a few things. The drive is 10 hours, I think. I am going to be tired.

Since this post over at the Guardian blog first appeared, people have had a few things to say about the subject it addresses: indie publishing. I have read many of these posts and liked what was said:

Blake Butler

Scott Esposito

Matt Bell

Josh Maday

Shane Jones (I) and (II)

Adam Robinson
(also read what Joe Young wrote in the comments section of Adam's post)

Have I missed any?

Somewhat related to this - check out the latest issue(pdf) of the Mississippi Review. It's a special issue that focuses on the 'literary magazine' after 100 years. What I've read so far has been interesting: they have a section of quotations by various literary people who have been involved with literary magazines over the years; an interview with Robert Fogarty of the Antioch Review; a discussion among various editors about the future of literary magazines. I haven't read everything (yet), and I also believe most of the articles/interviews have been shortened for the online version - the print issue will have more stuff.

Here is a quotation from 'The Future is a Magazine: A Roundtable...':

"The one thing that makes me unhappy about literary magazines is that I don’t know thatthey’re really trying to find an audience, to really be unique, and to live in a world where things are so brand-oriented and people are so busy. In the modern era I think we really have to sort of compete with [these] other things, and I think literary magazines tend towards just hanging low. I think that’s a very high risk position. I still love what’s happening in literary magazines, but I also grew up on them, so I’m curious what’s going to happen. I want them to change and evolve, and I’m not certain that they are evolving."
~Todd Zuniga

I like that Todd said this, I think. It makes sense, sort of? Hold up any print issue of Opium and compare it against, say, another standard print journal and it's not hard to guess which magazine is 'evolving' easily and which is still trying to figure stuff out. This is not to say that many of the standards haven't initiated some sort of interactive features (podcasts, featured print content, exclusive web content, whatever), but that these additions don't feel as strongly integrated as they could be. Later in that roundtable, Aaron Burch talks a little bit about how web content at Hobart both supplements some of the print issues (the 'travel issue' is a good example of this) and also goes in its own direction (the yearly online baseball issue).

I meant to add more things here, but I forgot what I was going to say.

london eye

So in London, they have this huge extravagant ferris wheel kind of thing that Laura and I took a ride on (they called it a 'flight'). Anyhow, it was really tall and scary. I felt scared in it a little. It had good views, but I also felt scared. I could look down at the people below me, and they were tiny. There were kids in our 'flight' and that made me feel scared too because they were talking loudly. And a man put his hand on the door, right near where a big sign says DO NOT LEAN AGAINST DOORS or something, and that scared me too.

But it was fun.

Also, it rained.

Nothing exciting happens in this video:

For those interested, I have updated this with more links and have commented on this conversation.