Aug 20
Khakjaan WessingtonArt, Combat Words, Craft, Literature, TWAK, evolution, guns, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, politics, promotion, random, richard dawkins, science, web, writing combatwords
CombatWords! August 20, 2010: Evolution
This cycle of cells is vicious, isn’t it? Predator and prey all germinated from the same batch(es) of cells and filled every exploitable niche on this planet: an endless cycle of growth and consumption. Parasites, symbiotes; eater and eaten all draw energy from the sun and its legacy. When I think of the chain of life, I sometimes think I am a skin cell that has forgotten it is part of a bigger organism. Of course, most of the time, I just think my cluster of cells is precious and the rest have little to do with me. Evolution can be metaphorical as well; I find it hilarious for example when I hear about technology ‘evolving.’ Do creationist engineers hide in secret covens and call their manifold works the products of intelligent design? Do they grit their teeth when their colleagues discuss the ‘evolution of the business process’? There’s more than one angle to this one.
Combat Expiration: Sunday, August 22, 2010; 12am PST
Critique Expiration: Sunday, August 22, 2010; 6pm PST
Bonuses: Flat bonus of +1 for compositions posted before Friday, August 20, 2010 9pm PST. +2 for compositions posted before Friday, August 20, 2010 6pm PST.
Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
ps: Okay, this is posting >1min early. Those who got here early have some extra initiative.
Jul 23
Khakjaan WessingtonCraft, Literature, TWAK, Uncategorized, evolution, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, writing combatwords
Combatwords for July 23, 2010: Pleasure Versus Pain
Pleasure and pain; comedy & tragedy; happiness and despair—these are the moods and feelings we chase or flee. They are also the foundations of behavioralist worldviews. Han Fei Tzu and BF Skinner have plenty in common, despite their 2000+ year gap. Take this topic however you’d like: humans as animals; the two flavors in life; whatever.
Combat Deadline: July 25, 6pm PST.
Critique Expires: July 27, Midnight PST.
Time Bonuses: +1 per 5 hours ahead of deadline.
ARE YOU A JERSUSALEM CRICKET OR A CAMEL SPIDER???!!!
FIGHT!!!!!!(?)
Jul 22
KafkaLiterature, TWAK, humor, random
If you had burned those papers per my instruction, I wouldn’t have to write this and those geriatrics wouldn’t be getting rich off my toilet paper. Really, twenty-first century? Toilet paper? What do you do with erroneous manuscripts, throw them in the trash?
Also, stop fucking using the term “kafkaesque.” All of you.
Look at me, I reference everything slightly esoteric as “kafkaesque,” I’m so literary-chic because I made a Kafka reference.
You aren’t.
God damn you, Max Brod.
Jul 20
ValerieLiterature, TWAK, Web Goodies, books, guns, promotion, web, writing
ok, no not really our sponsor but an awesome contributor to trick with a knife and blogger of the intranettings- he, yeah that guy, has a new chapbook – there are only thirteen and this figure is inflated cause i know i bought one already and there are many cooler peoples who come to be in the know about hot happening things much quicker than me so there may only be like, one or two left and oh holy hell what will you do with yourself if you don’t have this awesome to turn between your sticky fingers and touch with your thirsty eyeballs? BUY IT NOW BEFORE YOU REGRET YOUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE
Jul 12
Mather SchneiderLiterature, TWAK, Uncategorized, poetry, random
The only genuine excuse for anonymity, in my opinion, is fear for your life. The anonymouses that are sprouting up around here, what are they afraid of? I believe poetry and all writing should be grounded in real life, and if you are not even willing to put your own name up against your words, what kind of reality are you writing from? Fantasy, game playing, tidly winks. People like this stand against individuality, identity and personal style, though they would all claim not to, simply out of pc, and the truth is they don’t know who they are or what they are doing. They are anonymous to the world because they are anonymous to themselves. They say their words should be enough, but their words sound anonymous too, edgeless, academically objective and dull, adhering to too many rules, the kinds of words that could be written by pretty much anybody who was born without a spine or any will toward personal identity. And when your anonymous comments and poems are loved and lauded by other anonymous commentors and poets, well then, anonymity wins, lowest common denomitor wins, banality wins.
Jul 06
Mather SchneiderTWAK, poetry, random Hipsters, HTMLGiant, mather schneider, poetry, tao lin, TWAK
HTML GIANT
They got it figured
out yo
they got it all
figured out:
anything that doesn’t make
sense is profound, and nothing
juxtaposed
with more nothing
is suddenly something.
More
Jun 30
Khakjaan WessingtonPublishing, TWAK, evolution, promotion, web
So I admit it’s not so fun to wade through old threads on TWAK looking for answers to questions I don’t care much about. For example, my spies have told me that TWAK was born out of a feud w/ HTML GIANT. Who the fuck are they? So I went there and found a vanity page filled with a bunch of soft, douchey people clearly proud of the way life never afflicted them. The main page has the typical shit-blog fare, but alexa sez they have pretty good traffic. Now that I’m familiar w/ the basics, I’m not really sure why TWAK would want to react in any way against such a mediocre site. Don’t tell me the reactive personalities all congregate here & everybody capable of putting petty grievances aside stay over at HTML GIANT and reprint the litnews from Poets and Writers. That would be sad. Mediocrity knows it has to work together to affect an outcome. Well, if you cats can’t get it together enough to even emulate mediocrity, what does that make you? Below mediocre. Criticism is not my sole agenda here. I would like to be your Doctor Henry Killinger.
Instead of thinking about what HTML GIANT does, think about what TWAK can do that HTMLGIANT doesn’t do already. Well, for starters, they don’t have any writing on there. Nothing I’d call real writing… just some scribbles. Secondly, they are utterly reactionary. Art-media echo-chamber. Is that what you want? Seems like some stupid shit to me. They draw writers & readers w/ the standard 2ndary & tertiary articles. Instead of pointing to the interesting things other people are doing, the trick is to actually DO those interesting things–right here. Writers want companionship, inspiration and audience. This is why so many stop writing & look at a webpage once in a while. TWAK needs to offer some of that.
Offering anything necessitates a commitment. I tried running a site called combatwords (literary deathmatch w/ rules) by myself & can’t be bothered to maintain it. Too much work to come up with the topics & then egg on the contributors. So if TWAK is going to have something to offer, it must first have reliable contributors–not ‘at will’ as it stands now. I’m glad to host combatwords (I’ll explain the rules later) on here to start with–it will serve as a nice vent for the pent up animus some contributors have for the new guy & also contain the petty bullshit to a single thread. I think of combatwords like Facebook Scrabble: it’s a reason to return, but not the reason to return. You need to build up several features like this; one person hosting one feature once a week–for every day of the week. Or at least a couple a week. Only in that way will you be able to create the daily media experience that websurfers want. Reacting to shit will simply create reactive shit, or regurgitated shit (your choice). No, it is better to be the content than just another site pointing to the content.
May 22
Nathan TyreeTWAK a readership of writers
I just now, just this minute, updated the accounts of all of our subscribers. They now all have the ability to post as contributors. It is my plan to do this for everyone who registers as a subscriber to TWaK. We want everyone. We are not exclusive. Now, don’t be dim. If you start posting racist screeds or something, I’ll pull the plug on you. But otherwise, feel free to post about literature, art, music, politics, philosophy, the world.
To make a post, you’ll want to visit frsh.in/twakpub.
May 11
P. H. MadoreTWAK
For now, I won’t say we’ve really developed a theme or any such thing, so we’re open to suggestion. Something simple and awesome. Send whatever you’ve got to Nate or myself; we’ll send it around the group and see what’s what. It’d be nice if we could make up some t-shirts and sell them for a few bucks. I think it would improve our outlook on things.
Anyways, stay tuned for more engaging and firebrand commentary. If you think you’ve got something to throw into the mix, don’t be afraid to send it to twak@disproductions.org
May 10
nate InnomiCraft, TWAK, guns, writing assault rifle, fucking trigger, literary magazine, pseudo-intellectual, writing
This generation of social media and electronic over-stimuli isn’t do you any favors, twenty-first century writer. All this technology is at your fingertips and you’re caught up with writing on your friends walls. Spending your time punching links and “liking” bullshit isn’t getting your writing career anywhere fast – or anywhere at all. It’s time to drop the status updates and write something substantial.
This isn’t basic anymore; this is a war zone.
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