Congratulations to Savannah College of Art and Design senior Bang-yao Liu.
You are one ’09 grad who has nothing to worry about.
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What Does “Timely” Mean?
12 MayLast December, as you may recall, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi threw a shoe at former President George H. W. Bush.
I happened to be online when it happened, and I remember thinking, “Goody. This is just the kind of freaky, bite-sized news story that revealingly wends its way through the culture.”
The story broke on December 14, 2008. This was a Sunday. By Monday, what you think would happen had happened: late-night talk show jokes, op-eds about the significance (or insignificance) of the moment, reactions and counter-reactions in the blogosphere.
Then, on Tuesday afternoon, I found these:
(GIFs are courtesy Top Ten Awesome Bush Shoe-Toss Animated GIFs from the Riff blog over at Mother Jones.)
I was floored. It’s one thing when people dash off a blog post or Photoshop gag, or put up a quickie video response on YouTube, but these GIFs are so slick and so good and so artful. And even if this is an admittedly minor phenomenon, it all happened—collectively and unconsciously—in less than 48 hours. Most important of all, even though these GIFs were made by amateurs, they are funnier and more pointed than anything I saw done by professionals. Seeing them made me wonder if I can still be competitive in this culture.
I have since calmed down, even if lingering questions remain:
If I’m going to try to be “up to the minute” then what skills/resources/attitudes will it take to keep up?
If I’m not going to try to be “up on things” then what is my relationship to the cultural timestream? Am I a week behind? A month? What are the risks/rewards of being outside of conventional time?
Regardless of my relationship to time, how can I make sure that my ideas are as transformational as they need to be in order to make an impact? What is too far? What is not far enough?
The Book Trailer Goes Pro
30 MarEarlier this month I received an e-mail from writer/producer Ian Daffern of Vepo Studios in Toronto. He wanted to know if the following was awesome:
I replied that it is, indeed, awesome. After all, who can resist a book trailer that has
- self-deprecating humor;
- a soda-can pipe;
- Canadians?
I’m looking forward to reading Stripmalling. I will also be keeping an eye on Vepo Studios, a new outfit that’s specializing in Web video for the arts community and for publishing in particular.
My hope is that they find more clients who are willing to take risks. In the wake of the fallout from the “New Think for Old Publishers” panel at this year’s South by Southwest, I’ve been thinking that, when it comes to technology, it might be too late for book publishing to play catch-up.
We need the book business to start leading. I’d love to see publishing develop a Silicon Valley mentality, with start-ups like Vepo Studios taking big risks and pushing the bigger companies to innovate.
So nice job on The Way of the Smock, Vepo. Keep it up and keep pushing the form even further.
What We Can All Learn from Book Beast
11 FebI’m generally not one for sudden outbursts of digital enthusiasm, but I’ll say this:
Hooray for Tina Brown!
With newspapers cutting back, she is cutting up? with Book Beast, the new Daily Beast book site. If you haven’t checked it out, I encourage you to give it a look.
Here’s what I took away:
“Long tail” mentality
The “Rediscovery” tag says it all. Thanks to the persistence of the web, there is hope even for obscure, dead Norwegian novelists. That thing you wrote only dies the day you give up on it.
Video saved the literary star
The conventional wisdom says that books and TV are an awkward match. But books and Web video work surprisingly well. Maybe it’s the size of the image. Maybe it’s the fact that you can showcase Chuck Klosterman, John Grisham, David Denby and James Baldwin all in one clickable party strip. Either way, if you’re an author you need to get on board.
Art + Commerce + Whatever = fine by most
There is no reason why serious criticism, service-oriented reviews, profiles, features, gossip, scandal and publishing news all can’t inhabit the same page. While you always want to stay focused, you’re also freer than you ever have been. So go mix that sh*t up, yeah?
Make the Moon
21 NovI am currently reading David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.
Cloud Atlas is one of those rare novels that I not only enjoy, but that also reminds me why I wanted to become a writer.
Cloud Atlas makes me feel like this:
Sublime is Us
26 OctI am not a dance guy. I am not against dance. I am not indifferent to dance. I am simply dance blind.
Then I saw this dance review in the Times [subscription required]. The show is called “Sublime is Us” and the picture alone was enough to get me all worked up:
Admittedly, I haven’t seen the show, but the core ideas behind the piece are nevertheless inspiring.
I love how simple the idea is (in short: you + dancers + mirrors), but also how suggestive it is. One look at that picture and you can immediately imagine what it’s like to be there.
I love how Luciana Achugar, the show’s creator, has radically rethought the performance space.
I love how the audience is at once an active and a passive participant.
I love how the show invites you into an aspect of the dance world (i.e. the practice space) that is traditionally kept off limits.
Tack this one up on your wall, people. If you can even approach this one in terms of conceptual awesomeness, you’ll be doing very, very well.
Awesome Writing Prompt #1
22 Oct
I’m on deadline this week, crashing out a book review/essay for my friends at Mother Jones. Posting will be irregular, if at all, but this does not stop our work from going forward.
The above image (clicks it to makes it largers) is courtesy of artist Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung. I have more to say about his awesomeness later, but for now I thought it would be fun to use this super-charged image as a writing prompt.
I’m interested in openings, endings, scenes, snatches of dialogue, description, whatever. Embrace the image or reject it. Be literal. Be figurative. And if you’re feeling shy about the awesome fruits of your awesome labors, feel free to post anonymously. You cannot fail.
ManBabies and Taking it “Furthur”
15 Oct
GET MORE AT ManBabies.com!
Thanks to Tom Wolfe’s THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST, when I was in high school I thought Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters were pretty out there, man. I mean, “tootling the multitudes” in a psychedelic bus named Furthur? How did they come up with that stuff?
Today, if that iconic bus rolled through my neighborhood with its waving hippies and blaring tape loops, I doubt I would give it a second look. I’d think, “Yeah, that’s far out. But it’s no ManBabies.”
Perhaps I’m jaded and numb. Or maybe I live in a world of pastiche and collage and mashup, where every culture is a subculture, and where cognitive dissonance isn’t the problem, but what makes the game worth playing.
So if you’re working on something right now and you feel it’s middling, let ManBabies give you permission to blow it out.
And if you’re working on something right now that feels too weird, fleeting or inconsequential, relax. You’re in good company.
