Lady Tyrant

While I was in NYC, I got a copy of the fourth issue of New York Tyrant, which if you haven't heard consists entirely of female writers, a kind of shout out in my mind to the recent slew of calls from other journals saying there aren't enough women submitting. Among them included are Sheila Heti, Kim Chinquee, Rachel B. Glaser, Rachel Sherman, Deb Olin Unferth, Dawn Raffel, Eva Talmadge, Leigh Newman, and many others, with a stark black cover with large white writing that continues onto the back, a quote from one of the included writers Cezarija Abartis: "I can smile like a woman, smile at their jokes, make my eyes mild and bring dimples to my cheeks, but inside I am bears and panthers."

I read the whole magazine pretty much cover to cover on the Amtrak from NYC to Philly.

Like the other Tyrants before it, Tyrant 4 destroys. There's no filler here, it's all sentence-driven, at least slight innovative stories that keep you reading just to see what they will do next. I was constantly excited from line to line as I read through, I felt an energy, I was ready.

In particular Rachel B. Glaser's story 'PEE ON WATER' ripped me open. Easily in the top ten new stories I've read in the past several years, both for its scope (it's kind of a history of the world but in elbows, if you will, weird catalogued tidbits and rams of destruction, all in a weird cutup language that still manages to read pristine), for its innovative imagery (it is overflowing, the title alone makes you know this person is not speaking in expectation), and its birth of want in me to create also. There's nothing quite as great as a story that inspires you to work more, and this definitely did that. Even if all the rest of the pages in Tyrant 4 were blank, this magazine would be worth buying for Glaser alone.

Fortunately they are not blank, and there is a ton of brilliance to go around (Kim's story juts and looms, as she is wont to, and Elizabeth Koch's 'ANGER GENE' really got me, as did most of this. Tyrant is the future.

Unfortunately they are already sold out this issue once again for mail orders, but you can find it still in stores, which are listed here. It is worth tracking down.

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I am beginning to put together the next Lamination Colony, and I still need pictures of people's heads close up looking into the camera, you should be wearing no clothing though this won't be evident in the photo except for your shoulders, the background does not matter, you will be used in the issue, please make the photo large enough res so I can make it stretch over a background or thereabouts, the standard size of digital photography will suffice. Please email me some photos, it will be *FUN*

I ate the baby with the wettest neck you've ever sniffed I'm going to tell you this one more time some other time from now ok

Help defeat the fucking tornado by buying BRIAN FOLEY's The Tornado is not a Surrealist. It's true, they really aren't.

In related news, my loft is supposedly going to be ready for me to move back into finally on July 4th. It's been 4 months now. We'll see if that date holds true.

KIM CHINQUEE gave props to Publishing Genius and my chapbook. Thank you Kim!

Recently, JEREMY JAMES THOMPSON asked me to annotate a poem by CHARLES BERNSTEIN for a broadside of his poem 'Every True Religion is Bound to Fail,' which was then presented at a reading by Bernstein for the Center for Book Arts Broadside Reading Series. It was also annotated by William Moor, Walter K. Lew, Dillon Westbrook & J.D. Mitchell-Lumsden, and Jeremy hand created a series of 150 numbered, autographed and absolutely beautiful broadsides, in which I appear printed in hot pink.

LOOK:



In the annotations I managed to discuss Orel Hershiser's productive pregnancy-making, Three Six Mafia pancake breakfasts, jacking off in the Georgia Tech library bathroom and other ridiculousness. Thank you Jeremy for inviting me in to such an awesome project.

I want to learn to hand-print things now but I imagine I feel lazy.

Right now reading ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES by Rivka Galchen and I think enjoying it and also reading IT WAS LIKE MY TRYING TO HAVE A TENDER-HEARTED NATURE by Diane Williams and feeling in a melting room or something, which is awesome.

I am going to continue creating this thing to entertain my hard drive now.

This 'novella' or maybe 'novel' thing I am working on, maybe titled HOW MANY FLOORS DOES THE NIGHTMARE HAVE?, it is becoming maybe ridiculous.

Here is a part of a random graph:

The woman had a long black metal chain that ran out from her vulva. The chain led somewhere beyond the bathroom door. The woman continued with her fingers curling hair until her whole head was encased--her cheek skin slumped and slathered with bright white oil that clung to light underneath. Her tits had been removed. In the tub the father burped and nattered, trying to stand up. The nude woman’s neck was stacked with hickeys. Her spinal column seemed disrupted. Her ass, though--her ass had been on sticky paper, replicated through the years. The father nodded. He felt his back arch, his fat toes cracking as they cricked.

5 Star Literary Stories + OH BABY

LAMINATION COLONY is featured today on Five Star Literary Stories, with a review of Ron Burch's UNFINISHED, one of my favorite stories from back in the archives. Thanks to T.J. Forrester and Jai Clare for the nice write up.

Also, on HOTBOOKS today a brief review of Kim Chinquee's OH BABY.