Incendiary Lit

Woot! It’s a simple concept. Every day they have a certain number of a single item for sale. They purchase massive quantities of that one item and that is all they sell until midnight or they run out. Every day there’s a new item, and in the comments there are always helpful comparative links to places like the manufacturer, Froogle, Buy… Though every day won’t be for you, they sell everything from vacuum cleaners to mp3 players, blenders to desktop computers. Today it is a two-pack of coffee makers (they do that a lot, but usually with something pretty cool, and for cheap. We got 2 mp3 players for $25 including shipping) and yesterday was a 12.1 megapixel point and shoot camera. There’s also a shirt.woot.com and wine.woot.com for the wine and t-shirt connoisseurs. Everyday there is some sort of a good deal. Have fun spending your hard-earned money even more easily now.

One of them is the sweet ass kick-back music of A Tribe Called Quest, Biz Markie, KRS-ONE, and my all-time favorite Wu-Tang song “Tearz”; and freakin Ben Kingsley. Slow down, Ghandi, you’re killin’ ‘em. Check out this trailer, looks like a young summer American (slightly) romantic comedrama done by Brits. Check out the trailer and decide for yourselves. If you want to learn more, click the big old promo picture.

Enjoy the fail. We sure do.

see more pwn and owned pictures



We love FAILBlog.org!

Some of these quotes are really entertaining, and the stupidity of the general populace, at least, is often, and terribly frustrating. You know, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think David Kirby’s to blame for my long, confusing, meandering blogging style. I keep it somewhat at bay when writing poems, though sometimes you just yearn for a sentence with three adjectives and five nouns, you know? But yeah, Kirby and my rereading of his amazing and flowing poems has either affected my train of thought process, or it has tapped me into it, or maybe he writes poems like a blogger. What the hell is a blogger anyway? This is stupid. Which brings us back to the link of quotations about human stupidity. Here’s the page, and here are a couple of my favorites:

“Unless one pretends to be stupid and deaf, it is difficult to be a mother-in-law or father-in-law.” - Chinese Proverb (though in my case it’s not true, still, very funny that the stereotype has been around so long)

“Stupid mistakes are made by others. We only make unavoidable errors.”

“Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.”

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” - Thomas Szasz

Amazing awaits. It is not only a double assonant pair, but it has used amazing as a noun and dropped the article. How poetic is that? The amazing awaits, or something amazing awaits might be the more common sighting of these words together, but even then it begs the question, who does it await? And a subject will usually come into play. Something amazing awaits us. But no, it’s condensed, it sounds good, and is an interesting way that makes you pause for a moment and think about the words and how they work together. Good job US Olympic planning committee. It’s better than the official Games slogan”One World, One Dream” which sounds like a Nas song (I only got one world, one dream to make this gold medal bling!) And it’s definitely better than their original slogan: Mediocrity Awarded.

He was 71 when he died yesterday from heart failure. If you don’t know who George Carlin was, I don’t know how that’s even possible, actually. If you don’t know who George Carlin was I hope you’re under the age of 18 and/or were raised in a strict religious cult because the man was brilliant. There’re a ton of clips of him on Youtube if you wanna reminisce. Click here for a bunch. He was the author of some of the dirtiest jokes to not be the Aristocrats, and scathing political and religious satire. There. I told you, just in case you only landed on Earth today. Go watch some of his bits. Here’s one about death that may help those mourners through. Don’t mourn for long though, he was always a celebrant, so instead celebrate his work and move on to more acts of creation like writing or singing or making babies (unless you’re a big dummy, in which case, please don’t procreate).

There’s a couple ways to do it, but the easiest is this: before each paragraph you want indented type<p style=”text-indent: 2em;”> before it, and </p> after it in the html, or code editor tab (as opposed to ‘visual’). Simple as that. I suggest typing everything up without it, then copy/pasting the longer string, and typing the </p> at the end of each paragraph.

So they’ll be indented. Huzzah!

OK, Day 1 is all about being prepared for this intricate sequence, so to prepare for that, let’s remember the fun of rhyming, rhythm and repetition. Let’s assume you’re writing Shakespearean Sonnets, with a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG, though there are other forms, here’s a few options with some info about the forms. But I’m going to be leading you through the English Sonnet Crown, or Shakespearean or whatever you want to call it. Let’s start out with standard sonnet rules:

1) Iambic pentameter. “The cow will jump again, the next mid-day.” It’s like a heartbeat- ba-Duh, ba-Duh, ba-Duh, ba-Duh, ba-Duh. Five poetic feet (metric units) of two syllables, the first un-stressed, the second stressed. As in: when in doubt, sound it out. Say the words aloud and find out where the stresses are. Many recent sonneteers have included lots of alternate metric plans, or a lack of plan, substituted for a syllabic line organization. What that means, if you don’t follow, is that instead of worrying about what syllable is stressed, they stress about making sure the line has ten total syllables, stresses be damned.

2) Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG- that simple. (A) rhymes with (A) , each letter represents a line’s ending word.

3) Turn: This isn’t an absolute necessity, but many sonnets have a turn around lines 8-9… just past what would be the first octave in the Italian sonnet. What is a turn? It’s when the poem takes what it’d done in the beginning of the poem and changes its direction slightly, it turns the poem so that it isn’t completely predictable. It’s the turning over of the leaf, the brilliant orange is brown underneath. If you want your sonnets to have a non-traditional approach to the turn, though, go for it!

Now, a Heroic Crown of sonnets is 15 related sonnets, usually dealing with slightly different aspects of the same subject. For the sake of this experiment, we’ll base our crown around an event. First, though, we have to consider the amount of rhyming we’ll need to do. Each poem’s ending line must have two other rhyming words within the surrounding poems (the final couplet’s pair, and the opening ABAB of the next poem) as well as having to rhyme in poem 15, which means that there needs to be 2 sets of that rhyme, with 3 separate combinations for that rhyme. We’ll do the actual crunching of numbers tomorrow.

As the rules of the crown say that there’s a repetition of last/first lines that links the poems to each other. This means that the last line of poem one is the same as the first line of poem two. then the last line of poem two is the first line of poem three and so on, poem 14 begins with the last line of poem 13, then ends with the first line from page 1. Poem 15 is a combination of all first lines. So it only makes sense to work backwards. To facilitate this repetition without seeming, well, repetitive, there is a lot of forethought required. Today’s task is research. Find 20 of the following: Homonyms (search Alan Cooper’s Homonym list free online here) Groups of 3 interesting rhyming words (my favorite rhyming dictionary is RhymeZone) which, if at all possible, have some sort of link between them besides rhyming; and also come up with 25 different possible perspectives for one event. Think the opinion of animals and inanimate objects as well as people, and don’t feel stifled by time or space or living or dead or anything. You’ll only need at most 15 of these for the final product, but having a surplus is nice when you’re narrowing down the larger implications and suggestions of the piece. You’ll find patterns in the rhymes, perspectives and homonyms that will hopefully drive a few of those earlier poems to their home. Work on that for now. We’ll begin working on forming Poem 15 tomorrow.

Why not, right? Go to Poetry Blog Rankings and start up an account, then go here and vote for Incendiary Lit as the greatest, of allllllll time. Word to your mother. We’ve finally gotten relocated, so the posts should be picking up soon.

It’s Billy Collins’s poem “Workshop” and it’s so accurate, and the poem so absurd I wish I got to read the poem critiqued. It would have to be better than much of what I’ve read in workshops. There’s audio and the poem at this link. Billy Collins introduces the poem and reads it. He kind of sounds like Kevin Spacey, doesn’t he? Poets.org is just awesome. Thank you Poets.org for providing such an enormous well of information. Here’s the poem.

Workshop
by Billy Collins
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Since it’s on their website, I’d rather link to it than post it, but “How me breaking up with you is like Jon Lester pitching a no-hitter against the Royals” is a hilarious story in the form of an email. Here’s a short selection from the analogous piece:

Yes, I know we were together two years. Did you know the Royals hadn’t been no-hit for 35 years? Yes, I know how much you’ve committed to the relationship. Do you have any idea how much my collection of George Brett jerseys cost? Yes, it will be awkward for you to see me at work. You know what will be really awkward? The Royals finishing a four-game series against a team that just no-hit them. Can you step outside your own selfish world and imagine that for a second?

So check it out, it’s pretty short and really funny. Also browse around McSweeney’s while you’re there, they host copious amounts of great stuff. And you can even make a donation to help Sudan’s Lost Boys.

We’ll be trying to change the songs on incendiarylit.muxtape.com which is the new Incendiary Lit Muxtape, to translate that crazy html internets language for the non tech savvy. Haha. Right now there’s a wide mix. Joe Hisiashi next to Jason Castro next to Sage Francis next to Lily Allen. But it’ll change in a few days. If we ever remove something you liked let us know and we’ll put it back up for you. Word is barn. Moo.

And then watch the last minute for sure comic goodness, especially considering Nigel Lythgoe is richer than Scrooge McDuck. He has two silo-vaults. Anyway, Robert Muraine, aka Mr Fantastic, an LA streetdancer, and I gotta say that if I saw him performing I might empty my pockets in sheer confusion. 1/2 Mime, half liquid, this guy certainly is Mr. Fantastic.

The Arrested Development Pilot. That’s right, for those of you who have never seen the show– Meet the Bluths. For fans, remember way back in the beginning? So much changed over the course of three seasons, but the pilot’s still damned funny.

After reading a great deal of literary magazines I’ve come to hope that if I enter enough of the Indiana Review contests that I’ll eventually accrue a lifetime subscription. Every issue there are amazing poems, fiction, and even art. Also, ever since Sydney Brown’s creative nonfiction workshop I’ve had a soft-spot for the flash-fiction. The short short. Not sure who to blame for my prose poem affinity. Maybe Campbell McGrath. Yeah, I could probably safely blame my love for prose poems on his first book Capitalism.
The bastard.
Anyway, the Indiana Review 1/2K Prize is another one of those self-explanatory contest title names like “First Book of Poetry” or “Who can fart the bonfire started with a lighter?” though I’ve been told first prize for that last one isn’t quite as much as the hospital bills the second place winner receives, so it’s a gamble. The prize is for prose poems or short-shorts that are 500 words or less. 1/2 of 1K, 1,000. Yeah. 1000×0.5, even.
Entry Fee: $15 ($27 overseas)- which includes a year’s subscription to IR. Definitely well worth it. Consider it a bonus gift for subscribing, you’re entered into a sweepstakes where you could win $1000 and critical acclaim! HOORRAYYYY! But really, you never know who’s going to like your style, your flair for story structure, your unique image sets, so why not spend the $15 and ensure yourself two 200 page collections of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and reviews that I personally guarantee you’ll enjoy at least 1/3 of. If you don’t I’ll personally apologize in a form-email that I’ve already composed.
Deadline: June 9th! That’s right, very soon. That’s the postmark deadline. You can also submit online for the Indiana Review 1/2k Prize here.
Final Judge: You know the deal, the regular readers for the Indiana Review sort through the hundreds or thousands of pieces submitted, and narrow them down substantially. Then they move onto the senior editors who narrow it down to a reasonable number for the guest judge. Or it goes from readers to judge, depends on the contest, but if you make it past the early screening your prose poem/short short will be judged by none other than Russell Edson. I think Webdelsol summed up his biography best so I’ll shamelessly copy-paste that here for convenience: Russell Edson was born in Connecticut in 1935 and currently resides there with his wife Frances. Edson, who jokingly has called himself “Little Mr. Prose Poem,” is inarguably the foremost writer of prose poetry in America, having written exclusively in that form before it became fashionable. In a forthcoming study of the American prose poem, Michel Delville suggests that one of Edson’s typical “recipes” for his prose poems involves a modern everyman who suddenly tumbles into an alternative reality in which he loses control over himself, sometimes to the point of being irremediably absorbed–both figuratively and literally–by his immediate and, most often, domestic everyday environment. . . . Constantly fusing and confusing the banal and the bizarre, Edson delights in having a seemingly innocuous situation undergo the most unlikely and uncanny metamorphoses. . . .
I mean, it’s not a biography, but the pertinent information for someone who’s judging a writing contest. I first read Edson in Stand Up Poetry, Charles Harper Webb’s kick ass anthology. So send in to the 1/2k prize. What were you going to do with that $15 anyway? Buy two drinks at dinner? A frappuccino for yourself and two friends? 1/2 of a shirt? Get some good literature and an extra reason to be excited to see the mailman.

Just here to make you feel a little smaller. Check out these awesome astronomy ytmnd’s

This is the Size of Our World in respect to other celestial bodies.

This is A Tiny Glimpse into an area of the night sky that is pitch black to a normal telescope, via the Hubble Telescope over the course of months to show, well, watch and see.

They’re kind of hard to find, in my past searching, but here someone has RAM, As in Real Video, or audio, or whatever. But it’s permanent. So everyone with a harddrive worth its weight in… I don’t know, flax, should be able to hold a fair amount of media, and these classic SNL clips are always great for the dwindling hours of a small gathering, or a late night of ‘editing’ which has consisted more of finding ways not to edit than to edit, despite its ‘fun’. Anyone with ready access to the internet knows what I’m talking about. Anyway, MrT300 has a bunch of these classic clips, of Nick Burns, Celebrity Jeopardy, The Ladies Man, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, SNL commercials and more. So have fun, watch Turd Ferguson, or consider “Below Me” and laugh and laugh without worrying about searching for the clips. Go here.

Yeah, we’re a) poor, b) college students with an overload of classes c) food servers (which adds to the poor factor, and subtracts from time to go to movies) so we haven’t been able to go out to the movies much recently. But we did finally go to see Ironman, which was actually really good. Robert Downey Jr.’s a damn good actor, I gotta say. For more proof of this, anyone who hasn’t seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang should immediately put it on their Netflix/Blockbuster queue. (Val Kilmer as Gay Perry, the badass gay PI who always has a comeback, is just amazing) But yeah, one thing I really appreciated about Ironman was that it made you laugh without dumbing itself down, or cutting in on the big explosions and near-death experiences. But remember, this IS a comic book movie, so suspension of disbelief in some aspects is necessary. But unless you’re a tool, that shouldn’t be a problem, since movies are really only distractions from your own life, so loosen up and don’t overthink everything. Laugh when something tickles the back of your throat a little bit and you can feel the air in your lungs just begging to chuckle out. Hold your breath when he’s freefalling without power. Spend a couple hours outside of the world you’re familiar with. I understand that would much better apply to a movie like Pan’s Labyrinth or Mirrormask, but this is a un movie that everyone should be able to just loosen up and enjoy. Based on the 93% fresh rating the movie’s got over at RottenTomatoes.com, I assume most people are.

I hope so. I’ve get a lot on my plate, including Campbell McGrath’s narrative prose poem book Seven Notebooks, Jim Krusoe’s Iceland, and Jose Saramago’s Blindness. I read his book The Cave a little while back and it was really really good, the formatting was a little difficult at first (no quotations or line breaks for exchanges of dialog) but you get used to it fairly quickly. Everyone else has their lists right? How else are you planning on spending your long, lackadaisical summers? You know, besides work, enjoying the sun and eating and breathing and whatnot. You should definitely have a back up plan. Go to Amazon now and poke around. They actually can get you pretty good suggestions. I also recommend Denise Duhamel’s Star Spangled Banner, an accessible, and very entertaining/good book of poetry. You won’t regret it.

This is one of my favorite MST3K episodes, Season 3, Episode 3: Pod People. The movie may not be as bad as Manos: Hands of Fate, but it’s pretty awful, and was originally filmed in French I believe, which is why the lips don’t sync up at times. You know how most tv shows catch you up for the first five minutes of the show? The theme song catches you up like a good 80’s theme song, and you’re ready to go. Check out the whole episode in these further videos. Isn’t it cool how many shows and movies you can watch online? I think so, at least.
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