Friday, June 12, 2009

Lamination Colony This is not not a Contest Winner

The winner of the Lamination Colony This is not not a Contest contest is

'A cardiovasc' by Bobby Alter

Bobby is a 19 yr old from Portland. Congratulations to him.

Ultimately, though I could make arguments for each of the other finalists as a winner (and even several of the nonfinalists), Bobby's piece hit me on many different levels, in the way it uses language in a way I honestly don't think I've ever heard, and then continues to hybridize it and bring in further and further forms within that first form, twisting, all while maintaining a (often buried, but often very clear) narrative.

The piece kind of reminds me of if Joyce tried to rewrite Alice in Wonderland with the grandmother from David Lynch's 'The Grandmother' standing over his shoulder eating cookies while old James smokes pieces of cherry wood and scratches the welts on his legs that he got from rubbing too hard in his sleeptime and trying to wish his saliva into a hallucinogenic drug he could then sell for $ to children in the neighborhood for money to buy a camera with no lens that contains old film with pictures of true death and the inside of a child.

Seriously. And that's not even really close at all, if you can imagine. I'm sure you can.

I'd like to also denote

1st runner up as Darby Larson's '‘Digestable Moose Kidney Sculpture Garden’
&
2nd runner up as Drew Kalbach's ‘Scraps from My Bathroom Stall’


Anyhow, arrangement of prizes and publication schedules pending, as I am about to go eat and do a drinky, but likely things will be up and abroad by next week, I will detail them here.

I'd like to reiterate what a hard decision this was, and how truly thrilled and excited I am to have gotten so much really high quality writing to read and think about.

Thanks a lot everybody. We'll have to do this again.

14 comments:

Drew Kalbach said...

i wrote 'scraps from my bathroom stall', uh oh.

Darby said...

Awesome! Congrats Bobby! I can't wait to read it.

james chapman said...

thanks blakebutler for this fun thing

and congratulations to bobby & darby & ben

i really really want to read those now

sasha fletcher said...

dear everyone
good job
i am excited

exadore said...

Bobby's story sounds like it would be scary to meet in real life, in the back of a party, say, or maybe following you home at night after said party.

Reynard said...

i wanna meet that story

Mark Doten said...

big congrats to the winners! this was a cool not not a contest and am highly psyched to read you guys' stuff.

-- Mark D

Mel Bosworth said...

Congrats to young Bobby. These damn kids grow up so fast nowadays. Well done, sir.

And congrats to Darby and Ben, worthy adversaries to be sure.

Lastly, big thanks to Blake for putting the show together and taking the time. This was good fun. "Stump Grinder" had fun too. It now lives at my blog with fond memories of once being in a contest that was not not a contest.

Congrats again to all. Have a great weekend.

John Madera said...

Congratulations to all the finalists and to the winners!

Hey Blake,

Please send me the addresses of all ten finalists so I can send out CDs to each of them.

Thanks.

John Madera said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BLAKE BUTLER said...

shit, sorry for the confusion, i wrote the post in a 5 min mad dash: Drew Kalbach is indeed the author the 2nd runner up, 'Scraps from My Bathroom Stall'

really sorry for the mess up

thanks again to everyone for everything

Michael Hessel-Mial said...

where can we read them?

BLAKE BUTLER said...

planning on publishing the winners and other finalists and entrants, more info coming soon.

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