January 2009
“May Queens are crowned in provincial towns; bears harass the village sheep.”
– Félix Fénéon, Novels in Three Lines.
Diversity Then! By Paul La Farge →
Great article about the poetics of short, diverse facts (or faits divers). He touches on Ezra Pound, Félix Fénéon, and Victor Segalen.
“The Marmaduke strip has never been just a gag. I refuse to just go for the joke...”
– Brad Anderson, 2002.
a made up word
Darvee [dar•vee]
Noun.
A feeling of distress and vexation arising from the inability to dress one’s self:
1. “”What’ll I do with myself?” Cried Daisy, a great darvee in her voice. “And the day after that, and the next thirty years?” The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, April 10th 1925. 2. “Here we are beginning to catch a faint glimpse of the...
today's marmaduke, explained.
Brad Anderson is almost always working with three distinct gimmicks. These are the gimmicks:
Marmaduke is a large dog.
Marmaduke is hungry.
Marmaduke, on occasion, thinks he’s people.
There is a guest-starring fourth gimmick. It is Marmaduke likes/buries bones. Usually this is just to show how large he is, as his bone collection is vast beyond measure.
In today’s strip,...
itinerary
read today’s marmaduke
google each track of a playlist given to me with zero meta-data
pick up groceries
grapefruits, bagged
bagels, bagged
fancy bagel spread
potatoes?
count current potato stock first
some kind of hot sauce
give bakery girl her note
courage, simon
workshop at least 3 poems, and start the fiction brainstorm
finish watching braveheart
“The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and...”
–
Rob Gordon.
today's marmaduke, explained.
Marmaduke wakes his neighbours by breaking into their yard and howling at the night sky.
Man neighbour attempts to engage his wife in a philosophical discussion.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's Curious Case of Benjamin... →
If you haven’t read the 8000-word short story and liked the film, you should probably read this. If you didn’t like the film, there’s all the more reason to read it. Hipster cred in just thirty minutes!
“Holy damn, Simon, tell us more!”
Elizabeth Alexander's terrible inaugural poem →
“Millions will feel so glum they will decide to stay in bed and up to a quarter...”
–
Work is overrated. It’s a beautiful day out there. Enjoy your blue monday.
timeline of animals
It’s been important to me to keep a favourite animal in mind. That animal has changed, for one reason or another, over time. The list is as follows:
1989. I am three. I watch The Fox and the Hound. The fox becomes my favourite animal.
1992. I see a red-tailed hawk in the sky. It’s large for a bird, but like the fox it’s a secondary hunter, when you think about...
I read 56 seconds of a short story I wrote.
Audio...