I’m working on a post I hope to
get up in the next day or two. In the meantime, here are some links
that caught my attention, with some personal explication:
I love the blogosphere busy-ness,
self-publication as the glorious act of splashing around in one’s
own pool, inviting neighbors and passers-by to hop in or ignore, as
they see fit. But I also, on occasion, succumb to Pro Writer’s
Envy. Every once in a while I’ll pick up a stray issue of something
prestige — a New Yorker, say, or a BOMB magazine —
and I’ll read it, and enjoy it, and I’ll think, “Wow. I
really wish I was in that tree-house.” And, for my tastes,
no tree-house has a more coveted vista than n+1.
Currently, club-members have started
a ruckus outside the tree-house by framing a polar debate: “MFA
vs NYC.” If, like me, you reflexively consider this a false
dichotomy, be assured: there are flying elbows in this melee that
will strike a vulnerable spot for just about any reader. Leslie
Jamison attends the fracas and considers, among other issues,
writerly authority. Michael Bourne focuses on the most pragmatic concern: how does either side make a living?
“Screw NYC: Buenos Aires is the place to be.” Tangential to n+1 matters:
New York magazine (another tree-house — with an open
bar!) profiles n+1 founder, certified hep-cat and
unabashed Marxist Benjamin Kunkel over here. Take-away quote:
“Is the growth of the radical left a cause for hope or just a mark
of accumulating despair?”
And, finally, just because: over
at the VICE tree-house (um,
what's that smell?)
Danny McDonald
prompts some Chuck
Bukowski recollections
from one-time muse (and several-times girlfriend) Linda
King.
I like that McDonald throws in Roger
Ebert's
assessment of Buk. “Statistical aberration,” could sum up just
about any writer who grabs and holds the spotlight, really —
regardless of MFA or chosen city locale.
"You know what 'MFA' really stands for, don't you?" |
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