Aug 28
Free Books, Literature, Review, books, poetry, promotion No Comments
If anyone would be willing to review my book of poetry DROUGHT RESISTANT STRAIN I would gladly send them a copy. Negative reviews are absolutely acceptable.
Aug 20
Art, Combat Words, Craft, Literature, TWAK, evolution, guns, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, politics, promotion, random, richard dawkins, science, web, writing combatwords 27 Comments
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.
Aug 15
Art, Combat Words, Craft, Literature, Publishing, books, humor, memes, poetry, promotion, random, web, writing 8 Comments
CombatWords! August 15, 2010: Lightning Round
You have one hour to weave the below keywords into a composition. I’ll be really impressed if you can find more than one theme to unify the keywords/concepts.
Keywords/Concepts: tropic, sound, insanity, strategy
Combat Expiration: August 15, 9PM PST
Critique Expiration: August 16, 6PM PST
Time Bonus: +1/5 minutes ahead of deadline, max +5
The Official Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
Jul 30
Art, Craft, Literature, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, writing combatwords 91 Comments
CombatWords! for July 30, 2010: Good
The Good: Shall we say ‘The Good’ maximizes human happiness, as Aristotle would have us define it? Good is of Anglo-Saxon origin, so I think it’s safe to say it predates a Latin—and therefore Mediterranean—definition. GE Moore sez ‘The Good’ is for suckers. Or let’s make it more simple—what if you could go back in time and shoot your French machine-gun a little more accurately at Hitler in WWI? Is that good if you prevent WWII? Is that bad if that means WWII is fought in the 50s with nuclear weapons? See? This shit gets tricky. What does it mean to be good? Is it an act constrained to time? Our experience? Or forget all that; be opposite-kid and write about Evil, because ooh, you’re so rebellious. As long as you riff off the theme, you can rack up the bonus points.
Combat Expiration: August 1, 6pm PST
Critique Expiration: August 3, 12am PST
Bonus Increment: +1 per 3 hours ahead of deadline with a maximum time bonus of +15. Yes, time bonuses are going to be huge in this CombatWords, but quality matters. The limit is +15 to give PST people some time to write after work. Don’t want to give the East Coast an unfair advantage. If you don’t want to wake up with the Saturday penalty, you’d better get writing NOW.
Rules are here: http://trickwithaknife.com/?p=861 and here http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
Jul 30
Art, Craft, Uncategorized, memes, poetry, writing combatwords 3 Comments
Rules for CombatWords! Updated for July 30, 2010:
Critique & Scoring:
Scoring is based off critique. Each critique item is worth one point. Positive critiques are +1, and negative critiques are -1. One critique per reviewer, per composition—so get it right the first time. Simple “I liked it” (ILI for short) and “I didn’t like it” (IDLI) critiques are only worth +/-1. Critiques may be as general or as specific as the critic would like. However, anyone may critique a critique to adjust the score: this includes the author of the subject composition. However, only one critique per post per poster, to prevent vendettas from mucking up the game. Critiques may go into overtime, but only in the case of thread consensus.
More
Jul 23
Craft, Literature, TWAK, Uncategorized, evolution, humor, memes, philosophy, poetry, writing combatwords 113 Comments
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 12
Literature, TWAK, Uncategorized, poetry, random 28 Comments
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 10
FLANK STEAK MY ASS
A middle aged couple gets in my cab
at the cheapo hotel.
They want me to take them to a restaurant.
“Make it someplace good,” the man says.
I take them to El Corral.
Later they call for a ride back
to the hotel.
Let me ask you something, the man
says to me.
What is the signature steak in
Arizona?
I might have to think about that one
I say.
I’m from South Carolina, he says,
and the rib-eye is
our signature steak.
His woman nods in agreement.
We had a rib-eye back at that restaurant
he says
and it was not near
as good as the rib-eyes back home.
I’m not sure we have
a signature steak, I say,
we just like all kinds around here, I guess.
That’s weird, he says,
every place has a signature steak, I hope
it’s not rib-eye
because that was not a very
good rib-eye back there.
Maybe flank steak? I say,
the Mexicans use a lot of flank steak for
carne asada and that’s
a local popular dish.
Flank steak? he says,
Flank steak for your signature steak?
Well, I say, I’m not an
expert.
Hear that Hon? he says.
Flank steak!
Flank steak my ass!
At the hotel I drop them
at the door
with 101 branded on it
and he follows his wife’s
chuckling haunches inside, shaking
his head at my stupidity.
Jul 06
TWAK, poetry, random Hipsters, HTMLGiant, mather schneider, poetry, tao lin, TWAK 3 Comments
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.
Jun 22
Craft, Literature, Review, Uncategorized, philosophy, poetry, writing Shitbots on the web 50 Comments
http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-no-writer-knows-what-hes-doing.html
I wrote a comment on there, but wanted to copypasta what I wrote on Twitter as I was still in the throes of outraged nausea.
“@KMWeiland the whole argument is predicated on the fallacy that mastery is a set of immutable traits. You measure literature by the metrics of other disciplines, rather than as the thing in itself. There are so many errors in that essay, the only thing that shone through was a willingness to subordinate coherent thought & method to the essay format. I don’t care if I alienate a bunch of ppl for saying this, because that essay is literary poison & the position it represents is my mortal enemy. Learn some basic logic!”
There’s more on the comment page; but I wanted to take a moment here to remind you cats that form is the platform, but the content has all the components. You can build a jet out of balsa wood, you can paint it so it looks real, but the motherfucker will not fly. If you do not have anything to say, it doesn’t matter how you say it. If your writing lacks engines, machine guns, an ejection seat and the like, buy some fucking books and quit breathin’ my ink!
