DaveContent

Italian restaurants in Queens serve a proper three-bean...

Sun, 26 May 2013 02:17:52 +0000

Italian restaurants in Queens serve a proper three-bean Sambuca…

Daily affirmation…

Sat, 25 May 2013 02:56:35 +0000

Daily affirmation…

Jazz at Birdland…

Sat, 25 May 2013 00:33:23 +0000

Jazz at Birdland…

Wet Smoke Been a soggy few days in NYC. My dad’s here so...

Fri, 24 May 2013 20:25:14 +0000

Wet Smoke

Been a soggy few days in NYC.

My dad’s here so I’ve been a tourist with him.

After I took this one, I stood up and nearly ran into the bearded dude with the smoke.

“as sweet and stupid as life itself.” …...

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:25:55 +0000

“as sweet and stupid as life itself.” … Oldenburg exhibit at MoMA.

Rabbit Speed You’re still doing groundhog speed. You need...

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:05:39 +0000

Rabbit Speed

You’re still doing groundhog speed.

You need to kick it up to rabbit speed.

Found four in the driveway this morning while doing yard...

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:14:01 +0000

Found four in the driveway this morning while doing yard work…

Was supposed to be in NYC drinking with Diana, but PATH...

Wed, 22 May 2013 01:23:57 +0000

Was supposed to be in NYC drinking with Diana, but PATH suspended service and so I wound up in a Short Hills dress store. Doncha know.

Short Order Cook He’s taking orders. Make up your mind....

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:52:23 +0000

Short Order Cook

He’s taking orders. Make up your mind. You wanna go in on a half-dozen squirrel with me?

"When I entered the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I wouldn’t have called..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:52:00 +0000

“When I entered the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I wouldn’t have called my work experimental. After ten years of painting, that is to say ten years of using an abstract, invented language, writing stories was the closest I had come to working in the realm of “realism.” It was the most direct I had ever been in my art. Perhaps the most direct I had ever been. But, as I learned from the comments of my peers in workshop (“this isn’t a story,” “this is poetry,” “what is this”), my writing was something other than what we referred to as literary realism. By which I mean, the writing many have come to believe most accurately represents life.”

- Susan Steinberg - What Happened to Experimental Writing?

This article makes me remember what I like about writing.

"And then there’s the literal echo — Saunders’s language, the tricky rhythm of modern colloquialisms..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:49:12 +0000

“And then there’s the literal echo — Saunders’s language, the tricky rhythm of modern colloquialisms that’s often so beautifully awkward — in the words of that Times piece, it’s frequently “a kind of heightened bureaucratese” — can feel gimmicky in story after story, the sheen wearing off a bit. These criticisms — the pace, the shtick — are ones I and many, many others have leveled before all sorts of short story collections — and it’s there that we loop back around to the silly question of whether a writer who only produces short stories can really be considered the pinnacle of the profession. The question makes me cringe, for reasons I can’t quite articulate — maybe it’s because it does feel like a weird, insular, overly prescriptive bout of literary navel-gazing. Or maybe it’s because I’m beginning to suspect that it’s true.”

-
Elizabeth Minkel, “George Saunders and the Question of Greatness.”

Here’s what makes me bananas about essays like this:

One of the reasons I walked away from fiction writing after I finished my MFA was because while I still cared about writing the best fiction that I could, I was SO fucking sick and tired of worrying about achievements, about pinnacles, about the Best American Whatever.

And I’m not going to lie: It felt really, really good to not care about all of that anymore.

Then, like many aspiring fictioneers of the early 21st, like the author of this piece, I read “Sea Oak.” I took note of voice, that aspect of craft that’s basically the Force, right?

And I thought: “Holy shit, this guy is having a GOOD TIME.”

Then I thought: “I WANT TO HAVE FUN, TOO.”

And I was back, for good. Thanks, George Saunders, the other writers you led me to, massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, and thousands of other little dumb things that conspired to pull it all back together.

So even though it’s not really fair, like, AT ALL? Even though I know that critical discussion of literary work and its context is important? Pieces like this, like that Gawker one, they just make me want to shout gibberish at my monitor…and then head down to Rite Aid to see if any of the cashiers look like Bernie. (I already know there’s one at CVS that does.)

YES I WANT TO HAVE FUN TOO!!

mostevilsmary: The paint continues. They’re cooler in...

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:42:14 +0000

mostevilsmary:

The paint continues.

They’re cooler in person.

Mary’s making paintings for “Red,” playing in NoVA. I want to see it!

I also want to buy one of those paintings from her!

Symbology H 6-26 Nom ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ Hydrant: Ely, UK

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:13:43 +0000

Symbology

H 6-26 Nom ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

Hydrant: Ely, UK

I went out of town this weekend and Rothko took up reading and...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:05:00 +0000

I went out of town this weekend and Rothko took up reading and photography.

Protective Unit JESUS ARE YOU SURE THAT’S SAFE?!

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:40:07 +0000

Protective Unit

JESUS ARE YOU SURE THAT’S SAFE?!

Was barefoot-driving with all windows open when J. Geils Band...

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:21:00 +0000

Was barefoot-driving with all windows open when J. Geils Band came on and that’s when things got embarrassing (for Honey).

From Heathrow’s “World of Whisky” duty-free....

Fri, 17 May 2013 01:14:03 +0000

From Heathrow’s “World of Whisky” duty-free. Scottish makeover regimen.

Brain Hots hot season at the park, it started. i have dat boil...

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:12:36 +0000

Brain Hots

hot season at the park,

it started.

i have dat boil brain.

toddy hot bake.

duck shit.

slappy.

smell somma it.

bocci ball disco and the

bald man. dig

pond scummy scum.

i have dem brain hots.

"I love the smart, imaginative editors I’m writing for right now. They make me sound like..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 03:30:27 +0000

“I love the smart, imaginative editors I’m writing for right now. They make me sound like I’m smarter than I am (and that’s pretty goddamn smart, too, huh huh!). But let’s be honest. The world is filled with smart people who will quite cheerfully turn your original weird ideas into horse shit. They won’t do this because they’re evil or because they’re crass capitalist slobs or because they’re fucking morons, either. They’ll do it because you’re standing there saying, “Well? What should this be? What should I be? Who the fuck am I anyway? Do you even love me anymore?” They will show you how to turn what you have, which is strange-ish and not fully formed and maybe a little sloppy, into the average of everything that came before you. They will inadvertently point you straight at the Least Common Denominator, either because you haven’t indicated that you’re capable of more than that, or because they haven’t had a second cup of coffee yet, or because they just heard that someone got a big advance for something a little bit like what you’re doing, only way stupider.”

- Ask Polly: Jesus, My Struggling Writer Friends Never Shut Up! | The Awl

Emblazon this everywhere.

Pullulate There was a lot to worry over today. Not the least of...

Wed, 15 May 2013 23:14:06 +0000

Pullulate

There was a lot to worry over today. Not the least of which concerned the remarkable growth rate of the peonies. If the stalks do not stop this absurd upward charge, we will have to build more sky into which they can ascend and pullulate. And the worry, as worries go, is that they will loom heavy and darkly beautiful over the house, and cast a shadow and a powerful murk until the apocalypse, or at the very least mid-summer.