Saturday, June 21, 2008

Plug, Interview, Birthday


Jefferson Hansen has recently started an online journal/blog called Experimental Fiction & Poetry: Reviews, Interviews, Commentary. Recent posts by himself and others (Larissa Shmailo, Elizabeth Kate Switaj) have concerned Women in Jazz and writers such as Philip Nikolayev and Josh Wallaert. Here’s his call for submissions:

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: I am looking for reviews, books to be reviewed, and interviews for a new blog, Experimental Fiction & Poetry: Reviews, Interviews, Commentary at experimentalfictionpoetry.blogspot.com. Send books for review to 4055 Yosemite Ave. S., St. Louis Park, MN 55416

I hope you’ll send him something.

Latest up is an interview Jeff conducted with me, which you can find here. It has enough words about my own life and writing that I don’t need to burden people with any more this week. Take a look and feel free to leave a message either here or there about what you think.

A friend who was over at dinner last night mentioned his concern from an earlier moment that blogs were fundamentally narcissistic, and if this post doesn’t confirm that, I don’t know what will. Other than that, it’s my birthday today and we’re having a heat wave, which means high 100s inland but low eighties here at the beach. I’m headed out now for some sun and fun, or in this case maybe shade and fun. But it’s funny. I’m old enough now that I don’t feel shocked anymore about how old I am whenever a birthday rolls around, and I’m not so old that I feel surprised that I’ve made it to another one. That feeling's coming soon enough, I guess. In the meantime I might as well enjoy myself, and I hope you do too.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday, Mark! Your blog may be a reflection, but those who look at it see far more than Narcissus ever did.

Anonymous said...

Hi Mark. A highly enjoyable interview -- you're a very sensible man. I admire that. Saying you are a "deeply impure proceduralist" is wonderfully sensible. I'll take the paragraph that phrase appears in over all the Flarf vs. conceptual poetry stuff I've been reading lately in the blogosphere any day. What's the fun in coming up with rules if you can't break them?

So my birthday wish for you is that you be summarily tossed out of all the clubs to which you don't belong.

Cheers,

Paul Naylor

mark wallace said...

Thanks for the birthday wish, Paul. I think for it to happen I've got to finagle my way back into a few groups. But no one seems to want to help me with that.

As for the sensible part, what can I say except that appearances can be deceiving?

Seriously though, I think some of the people associated with flarf have also taken up the idea of the impure procedure. Stan Apps talked about that possibility on his blog some time back. And Kasey Mohammad's recent "Non-Conceputualst Manifesto," in its half joking, half serious deranged theory head way is raising the issue also. In fact I think one of the points being debated right now is the degree of importance one should assign to the inviolability of the procedures one uses. It's a point maybe worth thinking again about in more detail at a later time.

rodney k said...

Hi Mark,

Happy birthday! You and Lorraine must share stars. Enjoy your new year.

Anonymous said...

Prof. Wallace -
happy birthday to you! This is Doug the near-applicant to CSUSM. Glad to speak with you this week. Stay cool!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the successful launch of your new year.

This warm and sunny spot belongs to Pooh,
And here he wonders what
He is going to do.
Oh, bother, I forgot
It's piglet's too.

Cheers :D

Nick Piombino said...

Happy Birthday, Mark!

This topic of blogging and narcissism keeps coming up. I posted something about this in 2003, here:

Blogging and Narcissism

mark wallace said...

Thanks for the wishes, everyone.

And Nick, thanks for the link. As is probably clear, I was more or less joking about the narcissism of blogs. I don't think they automatically work that way at all. In fact I started this blog because life in the San Diego area didn't allow me as much interaction with writers as I was used to on a daily basis in the past. For me, checking in on other people's blogs and writing my own has been a nice way to get to know people and what they're doing.

Gary said...

Happy birthday, Mark!

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

Ain't the S.S. Narcissus a boat in a bathtub? No no no, it's a bird in Greece. Blogging? I mean, what, like any of us ever use the first person. I use the first person I can find, shoot. It's cold out there!!! Happy birthday to you and Lorraine. Maybe we should have a post birthday phone call if you know what I mean. One week before. The day of. And one week later. Just to be sure. Cheers, DG (p.s. Did you ever think of Pelecanos for crime or detective fiction?)