Manual for a Productive Everyday Life

May 24-28 2010


Joanna Neborsky, Questionable Content

Today, my week at Everyday Genius begins. I asked 24 artists/editors/musicians/writers to do simple tasks, write about the execution of the tasks and send me their accounts through the mails. Each day, 4-5 products of the contributors will be exhibited grouped by the task they were asked to do. I'm honored to be asked to curate this week for Everyday Genius, a site that supports great independent writers and strives to present things in new and exciting ways.

The contributors are: Andrew Bulger, Kara Lee Corthron, Jason Diamond, Luca Dipierro, Giancarlo Ditrapano, Thomas Doyle, Monica Ferrell, Simen Johan, Shane Jones, Andrea Kleine, Franziska Lamprecht, Jeff Lewis, Tao Lin, Andre da Loba, Khaela Maricich, Zibuokle Martinaityte, David McLendon, Hajoe Moderegger, Joanna Neborsky, Sasa Stanisic, Justin Taylor, Deb Olin Unferth, Joel Whitney, Leni Zumas

Flavorpill Fix Episode One

R.I.P. New York Noise

Flavorpill Fix Episode One: Screaming Females, Double Dagger, Future Islands from FlavorpillVimeo. on

This week, Flavorpill debuts its online video series Flavorpill Fix, a collection of new music videos, live concert footage and exclusive interviews meant to be consumed like a TV episode or mixtape. The first installment includes Screaming Females, Double Dagger, Future Islands, MiniBoone, Hammock and Sabrina Chap. Viewers are encouraged to submit their band's videos for the next episode.

Parasol Lady with Gargoyle

Moby Awards

The finalists for the 2010 Moby Awards for Book Trailers have been announced. This one for Gail Carriger's Blameless is great though it makes me want to see the movie that doesn't exist. This is maybe a problem with book trailers you think are great though you'll never get around to reading the book on which they're inspired, eg. Blameless, since you've already got a backlog of books to read and it kind of falls out of the ambit of your interest anyway. I don't know, I'm kind of interested in this parasol lady with gargoyle. (I just read, she gets attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs). Maybe I will read this book.

Gigantic Online May 2010

For Your Monthly Amusement

The May Issue of Gigantic online went up this morning. Included in the issue is a titillating talk between Gibby Haynes of The Butthole Surfers and Joe Wenderoth, the Seizure State editor. We have fiction from Mike Young, Erik Morsink and M. Callen, and a new installment of Until I Find It, the serialized illustrated book by Leni Zumas and Luca Dipierro. You can see an article on Dipierro here, which shows him at work in his studio. Enjoy!

New York Gallery Week

OPEN SUNDAY
Of the exhibitions I went to for New York Gallery Week--actually just a weekend--here are some that I enjoyed in particular. This weekend galleries are open on Sundays and offer talks, guided tours and free buffet lunch with an auction preview with artwork by David Byrne and Elizabeth Peyton.

CHELSEA GALLERIES
AT DAVID ZWIRNER


(Mamma Andersson, About a Girl, 2005)


(Jockum Nordstrom, Meaningless Strength, 2009)

AT SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO.


(Amy Sillman, The Plumbing, 2006)

AT MATTHEW MARKS


(Darren Almond, From Sometimes Still, a six-channel high definition video projection)

AT PACE GALLERY


Joel Shapiro

While Pace Gallery isn't part of NYGW, the Kiki Smith exhibition, LODESTAR, is definitely worth a visit. In her first major New York gallery exhibition in eight years, she presents stained-glass panels of mouth-blown glass, depicting a woman’s life in cycles. I could not find pictures of this exhibit. More incentive to go to the exhibit!

Also, while you're in Chelsea why not walk over to the High Line for a stroll, and check out Richard Galpin's installation Viewing Station, and the installment by Spencer Finch that will close in June after its yearlong run.


(Galpin's rendering of Viewing Station.

SOHO GALLERIES
In Soho, here are a couple of interesting exhibitions to check out. And the galleries are right across the street from each other.

AT DEITCH PROJECTS


Shepard Fairey

AT THE DRAWING CENTER


(Leon Golub, Hell's Fire Awaits You, 2003)

Gigantic Online April 2010

Girls, Caskets and Fish Fights

Gigantic online posted its latest offerings today, April 1--no joke. The online April "Issue" presents an interview with Sam Lipsyte, the first installment of a serialized illustrated book written by Leni Zumas and illustrated by Luca Dipierro (both have fiction in the current print issue of Gigantic), and a collection of biographies of famous Americans which develops an idea initiated in the print issue and which are illustrated online by John Dermot Woods.

The Rumpus Jump-Off Contest

In honor of one of the featured writers at the Rumpus's NYC event on April 6 (see below), The Rumpus is holding a short fiction contest that will give winners a chance to read on stage along with Sam Lipsyte.

The one hitch is that writers need to use a sentence from Lipsyte's latest novel, The Ask, as a jump off point for their pieces and keep their verbal acrobatics to 300 words or less. No fee and no limit to the amount of entries you can submit.

The deadline is April 5 at 12:00 noon.

For more details, go here.

A Night Together - April 6

The Rumpus, Tinhouse and Flavorpill Present

Featuring Authors: Sam Lipsyte, Colson Whitehead, and Lorelei Lee

This American Life's Starlee Kine

Comedians Michael Showalter and Dave Hill

and music by Jeffrey Lewis and Alina Simone

Doors 6pm, Show at 8pm

April 6 at the Highline Ballroom
$10 advance, $12 at the door
Tickets:
http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=1298515

Resident Bohemians

Life at the Hotel Chelsea


This week at the Rumpus, in celebration of Armory week and the various art fairs and exhibits going on around New York City, we're featuring a series on the storied artists, writers and filmmakers who lived there for a time. Edie Sedgwick, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen were up this week. Next week will be a new line-up including current resident bohemians.

Ceci n'est pas une fete

Gigantic Launch Party


2/27/2010
Full album
Nice write-up at Scallywag & Vagabond

Photo by Annabel Braithwaite

GIGANTIC ISSUE 2

Gigantic America


This week marks the release of Gigantic Issue 2: Gigantic America. We're already in bookstores like McNally Jackson, Spoonbill and St. Mark's (New York), Prairie Lights (Iowa City), Shakespeare & Co. (Paris), Domy (Austin, Houston), Brookline Booksmith (Mass.), Powell's Burnside (Portland), Quimby's (Chicago) and many more.

We'll be celebrating this weekend with a launch party at PPOW Gallery with readings, performance art, cool hard-to-find merch from our contributors and cheap drinks.

Where: PPOW Gallery 511 W. 25th St. (bet. 10th & 11th Aves.), #301
When: 6:30 - 11:00pm
FREE

Flyer designed by Skyler Balbus

Literary Fashionables

On Style and Letters


In homage to Fashion Week in New York, this week at the Rumpus, we're devoting a post each day on the blog to celebrating two beloved writers who also demonstrated exquisite personal style and decorum. Thus far, we've got Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein, Susan Sontag and George Plimpton, William Burroughs and Joan Didion.

New Work from Gigantic Online

Stanisic, Willerton and Hurley

Gigantic has just published some great new work online: short fiction by Saša (Sasha) Stanišić and Brian Hurley, and new installments of Paul Willerton's Little Big Planet series based on Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, including an exclusive preview of his latest interpretation of Cremaster 3 replete with freemasons, car smash-ups, and the Chrysler building.

We're thrilled to have new short fiction from Stanišić, whose novel How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (Grove/Atlantic May 2009)--about a boy who endures the war in Bosnia through the solace of language and stories--was the first debut novel to be short-listed for Germany's top literary prize when it was published there.

Listen to Stanišić discuss his novel.

The Rumpus and GIANT

At Broadway East

ONE YEAR LATER, the Rumpus Anniversary Party co-presented by the Rumpus and HTMLGIANT was a success. Caitlin Colford of Scallywag and Vagabond did a fantastic write-up of the event with some great photos by Shoko Takayasu.

TONIGHT, JANUARY 21

THE RUMPUS and HTMLGIANT present

ONE YEAR LATER

A celebration of the first anniversary of The Rumpus

A MULTI-MEDIA PRESENTATION

Readings by RIVKA GALCHEN, author of Atmospheric Disturbances, TAO LIN, author of Shoplifting from American Apparel, DEB OLIN UNFERTH, author of Vacation, JUSTIN TAYLOR, author of Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever, STEPHEN ELLIOTT, The Rumpus’s own editor and author of The Adderall Diaries.

Music by ALINA SIMONE, JEFFREY LEWIS and DIANE LOUVEL, DJ: LINCOLN MICHEL, Special Guest DJ: KHAELA MARICICH of THE BLOW, And video art installation by MONOFONUS PRESS curated by JILL PANGALLO

JANUARY 21, 2010

171 East Broadway BROADWAY EAST (nr. Rutgers)

View Map. Kitchen will be open with a light menu of snacks.

7:00pm – 10:00pm, show starts promptly at 7:30

$5

Advance tickets available here.

***

Original animation for event invite © André da Loba.

Favorite Things

Photographer Matthu Placek

Photograph by Matthu Placek.

The Whitney Biennial

A Preview

The Whitney Biennial will be coming to New York on 2/25/10. Here's a sneak peak of some of the artwork that will be on view, including the photographs by Tam Tram, who is--at 23--the youngest artist in the show.

Photograph: "Battle Cry" by Tam Tran

Some Recent News

I'm fortunate to have had a couple of new pieces published in the December issue of Everyday Genius, the web journal presented by Publishing Genius Press, alongside some great writers Amelia Gray, Mike Young, Jac Jemc, J.A. Tyler, Mathias Svalina and others. For more on PGP, see the interview I did with PGP's Adam Robinson about Shane Jones for The Faster Times.

Wall Street

The Rumpus, Faster Times and Gigantic Holiday Party

Bonuses are Back

The Faster Times, The Rumpus and Gigantic Holiday Party

As creative types, we tend to miss out on big corporate holiday blowouts complete with drunken co-workers embarrassingly making out beneath mistletoe. Those of us who work from home rarely even see other people, or wear "clothing."

So this year, let's don our Wall St.-inspired Holiday Best and get down like Bernie Madoff has yet to steal everyone's money.

Join us in celebrating another fun, if fiscally irresponsible year!

The Faster Times, The Rumpus, and Gigantic Present:

The 2009 Wall Street Holiday Party

Monday, December 14, 2009

7:00pm - 10:00pm

Glasslands, 289 Kent Ave (between 1st and Grand) Brooklyn