Jun 30
Khakjaan WessingtonUncategorized
Rules to combatwords: I announce groundrules in the beginning of each thread (iambs, freestyle, no punctuation, specific topic, etc). Scoring is based off responses: each negative response is -1 and each positive response is +1. Anyone can respond to a response to either negate the scores or to confirm them. Majority rules & uncontested points win by default. Duels have one time limit, while the response period has another. Clock scoring is measured by +1/-1 depending on how many increments of 5 min one is over or under clock time. Responses posted after the time limit are invalid. This is the only objective metric for combatwords.
The purpose of scoring is to both validate the subjective way literature impacts the reader, while also maintaining standards of craft and topicality.
So for example, say I call for a sonnet and a 1 hr composition time and 2 hr critique time.
3 people write sonnets.
- Writes a sonnet with 36 minutes to spare for a +7.
- Writes a sonnet with 15 minutes to spare, for a +3.
- Writes a sonnet 3 minutes late, for a -1
So if I wanted to critique them, I’d do something like this:
- 4 out of 14 lines didn’t scan, so -4. I still liked it, so +1. There was a turn on line 9, so +1. Two out of the quatrains carried an effective argument so +2. The final couplet was especially good for reason ‘a,’ so +1. Final score +1
If someone wanted to criticize my criticism, they could do something like this:
- 2 of the lines I identified really did scan. Here’s the proof _____. Adjusted score +2. The final couplet failed to resolve a poetic argument and failed. Adjusted score, -1. Total adjusted score +1. Final score: +2.
For something like scanning, I might step in and use a dictionary to adjudicate, but there are few objective circumstances where that would be necessary.
Rudimentary taxonomy of responses:
Negative:
Didn’t like any one thing(line, sentence, paragraph).
Failed the assignment for any one reason (per instance).
Failure to complete idea/metaphor/composition’s intention
Etc.
Positive:
Liked any one thing (line, sentence, paragraph).
Succeeded for any one reason (per instance).
Success in completing idea/metaphor/composition’s intention
Etc.
And it’s a game, not a literary IQ test. The idea is to play, but to also compete & push one’s limits as a writer. I’ll post a new thread announcing a duel later today or tomorrow.
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.
Jun 29
jmeshornLiterature, philosophy, random philosophy, questions, time travel, writing
I watched this bad time travel movie (I forget the title). It did pose what turns out to be an interesting question. In the film the characters have come up with an idea and written it down. This idea will make them rich, famous and culturally significant. There are time travelers who kill culturally significant people just after they make their greatest creation (you know, so we wouldn’t have to put up with the last fifteen years of Billy Joel).
Anyway, our heroes are faced with a choice: they can destroy their creation (forgoing fame, fortune and a sort of immortality) and live or they can refuse and die at that moment, knowing that their work will live on for centuries.
As writers how would we deal with that. What if you just wrote THE novel. The thing that would live on for generations after you, but the only way to avoid immediate death was to destroy it? What would you do?
Jun 29
Nathan TyreeReview, books, philosophy, science
The Selfish Gene By Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is a Zoologist, and one of the greatest voices for evolutionary theory. In his books The Blind Watch Maker, River out of Eden, and Climbing Mount Improbable he argues beautifully, and eloquently for the truth of evolution. He (along with the late Stephen Jay Gould) has helped to bring understanding of evolution, and natural selection, to the common man.
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Jun 26
P. H. MadoreUncategorized
Well, I think things are going well enough for most of us. I think we’ve all rather survived the recession, and now they’re trying to say that shit is over anyway. So we’re all breathing. Point is: how can things get better at TWAK?
Jun 22
Khakjaan WessingtonCraft, Literature, Review, Uncategorized, philosophy, poetry, writing Shitbots on the web
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!
Jun 22
P. H. MadoreUncategorized
wtf pwm, the anonymously edited magazine launched last year, is registered with the periodical office by Thomas Patrick Levy. Just in case anyone was curious.
Jun 21
P. H. MadorePublishing blake butler, HTMLGiant, jereme dean, jimmy chen, P. Edward Cunningham, p. h. madore, reynard seifert
I think anyone who’s familiar with me will know where I stand on this before reading another word. However, for the rest of you: I believe that once you have published something by someone, you’re stuck with it. I think this attitude, or common though unwritten law, encourages all publishers to take as much care and consideration in deciding what they publish. It’s known, of course, that I publish Mather Schneider’s sometimes outrageous rantings over at Girls with Insurance. I’ve published other disliked individuals.
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Jun 18
Nathan TyreeFilm Film, movies
Recently I read a list of “movies you must see before you die”. It was idiotic. The person who compiled the list obviously had a stunning lack of taste and sense. So I want to offer my own list of movies that you must see.
1. Fellini Satyricon
2. The Third Man
3. Blue Velvet
4. Brazil
5. Dawn of the Dead
6. Audition
7. 2001 A Space Odyssey
8. Once Upon a Time in the West
9. Blade Runner
10. Network
11. La Haine
12. Antichrist
13. Duck Soup
14. Breathless
15. Blood Simple
16. Manhattan
17. Dr. Strangelove
18. The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie
19. Visitor Q
20. Citizen Kane
21. Lady from Shanghai
22. The Hustler
23. Alien
24. Apocalypse Now
25. The 400 Blows
26. City of Lost Children
I limited myself to 26 but this list could run into the hundreds. So, tell me what I’ve missed and what I’ve included that you think should be omitted. Argue with me.
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