A kind shout out to ESC zine, who listed both Kristine Ong Muslim & me as “Writers You Should Be Reading.” My man Swoon & the always excellent Connotation-Press are also recipients of the love.
Fun fact: Meg Tuite tells me that my work will once again find itself on Connotation Press pages soon. Happy, yes.
SEE: WRITERS YOU SHOULD BE READING at ESC
Meg Tuite recently invited me to take a part in her new column at Used Furniture Review, Exquisite Duet. Come & see how Mary Stone Dockery & I build two kinds of fire using a single tiny match.
[originally published here]
My man in Glasgow (and fiction editor over there at A-Minor), Kenny Mooney, invited me to take part in a thing called The Next Big Thing, which is kind of a chain letter in the form of a blog post, except it’s more of a self-interview/self-promo/opportunity to promote the work of others sort of thing. So, win/win/win, right? Probably, yes, at least in theory
What is your working title of your book (or story)? PIXEL REVOLT | remixed {+ekphrastic poems based on the John Vanderslice companion album}. This title may very well change.
Where did the idea come from for the book? I am always interested in the way art forms can inspire and/or cannibalize one another; how they can live independent of one another, and still remain intrinsically connected. Being familiar with Vanderslice’s original PIXEL REVOLT album, I was taken with how the instrumental deconstructive remixes had effectively shed their own voices. I felt inspired to imagine new, equally fragmented voices for the music.
NOTE (a):
JV’s Pixel Revolt remix album can be downloaded for free here.
NOTE (b):
An outtake version of one of the poems, PLYMOUTH ROCK (alt. remix), has been recently published by Truck. See it here.
What genre does your book fall under? Poetry. Ekphrastic. Alternative Black Robot Metal [slash] Sentient Data Rock [slash] Down-Core Noise-Wave meets Bruise-Wave in an alley where the former bodies of analog synthesizers once planned the eventual rise of New Conspiracy Theory Post-Content-Core.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I would like for there to be a robot character called Caramel, who would ideally be played by an actual robot named Caramel. Caramel would be portrayed as a wall of ancient sci-fi military computers projecting audio-video montages, soundtracked by the album & played by a revolving cast of known and unknown actors and actresses. Spoiler alert: You will wonder how you are seeing these images. Four years after the premier of the film, another will be released as a prequel, revealing that Caramel is God and that the concept is God is an illusion created in a 1950s laboratory and placed into the machine-fed collective conscience stream. In short, it will be revealed that we are all of us nothing more than an accumulation of data; we are our stories made of digital fog, and every food we have ever known is nothing more than oyster crackers reconstituted into some other imagined form.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? This is not light; these are not vast breathing oceans.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I hope to count on the independent small press world to offer a tiny place for it when the time comes, whether in print or online. Failing that, who knows? That the work is read is what matters most.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? It’s a short manuscript—14 short poems based on 14 songs, each with a separate footnote poem (so, 28 poems). Most of the original draft of 14 poems was done in a single album sitting, which was part of the point of the project. A second listen patched up some holes that I’d missed. The footnote poems took another couple of weeks. Some are still in progress. It doesn’t sound like much, I know, but sometimes the real effort is spent finding the right avenue, particularly with ekphrastic work.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? As the work contained within the work is of an ekphrastic nature, I think it could hang out casually at parties with WE BURY THE LANDSCAPE by Kristine Ong Muslim and THE MOON & OTHER INVENTIONS: POEMS AFTER JOSEPH CORNELL by Kristina Marie Darling, though both are full-length books, and in no way am I making direct comparisons to those fine authors or their work.
Who or what inspired you to write this book? Mastodons, mostly. That and the disembodied voices of the doomed crewmen on the spaceship in the 1979 videogame,Asteroids. So, the same stuff as everyone, probably.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? I’m sorry if this wasn’t made clear; this is a poetry chapbook—I know not of these “interested readers” of whom you speak.
+++
Next week, look for The Next Big Thing blog posts from CODE FOR FAILURE author Ryan W. Bradley, the ubiquitous Howie Good, and publishing mogul/textual gangster, Chad Redden. Word is that the fabulous Meg Tuite will be participating as well. That, you will surely want to read.
IN THOSE DAYS WE has just been released (free as a download, printed version forthcoming). The anthology features two of my own pieces along with work by some of the most brilliant word bangers around, all written around obscure vintage family photos.
Works by: Len Kuntz, Robert Kloss, Norman Lock, Molly Gaudry, J. A. Tyler, Kathryn Rantala, Ben Tanzer, Ryan W. Bradley, Andrew Borgstrom, Meg Tuite, Kyle Hemmings, Parker Tettleton, Marcus Speh, Chad Redden, Robert Vaughan, J. Bradley.
SEE: IN THOSE DAYS WE
“You Are Jaguar is two hands shaking in the woods, two voices wandering in our heads stretching the territory we didn’t know we spanned…” —Meg Tuite, in a fantastic piece about YOU ARE JAGUAR for the Lit Pub.
Short, Fast & Deadly’s [Floor Plan] issue features two pieces of visual art I did (“Straytaking” and “The Elephant in the Room”), as well as work from a gang of brilliant folks like Meg Tuite, Eryk Wenziak, Michael Andrew O’Brien, Howie Good, Bill Yarrow, and many more.
“How My Family Tree Became an Exotic Forest” by Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet (AWP Version)
I’m part of this along with some 32 other great writers.
Guess which sentence is mine.
In fact, the first person to correctly guess which sentence is mine wins a free copy of my chapbook, A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF.
Connotation Press was kind enough to publish 3 stories and an interview with me. Meg Tuite and I talked about process, electricity, Keith Richards, and the subversive nature of the prose poem. Also this month, you’ll find other great writers like Paul Scot August and Ryan W. Bradley, so check it out! Thanks, Meg and Ken! see: CONNOTATION PRESS
Short, Fast & Deadly has released another fantastic issue as well, which happens to include my poem, #14. Thanks for including me, Joseph! see: SHORT, FAST & DEADLY
Last but not least, Red Ceilings Press has posted 3 poems inspired by a call from Mark Cobley for work regarding “the edge of a sneeze.” Thanks, Mark! see: RED CEILINGS PRESS
Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet is always just that, and it can be found regularly published at Used Furniture Review. Meg kindly asked me to be part of the latest quartet, where I was fortunate to participate in a collaboration which also included Barry Graham and Allison Miller. Four very different writers working only off the cues of the writer(s) that came before them on a single story is bound to be full of explosions and twists; this story is packed with them.
My gratitude to Meg Tuite for including me; Meg, Barry Graham, and Allison Miller for being the literary monsters they are; and, of course, Used Furniture Review for bringing this work to the public. Thanks all!
Go where the good poems are! Amanda Deo was kind enough to feature a short poem of mine in Thunderclap’s tip of the hat to National Poetry Month. Tune in and find excellent work by the likes of Meg Tuite, Parker Tettleton, Shawn Misener, xTx, Howie Good, Robert Vaughan, and more. Amanda is spoiling you; take advantage of it, people!
© 2010 david tomaloff. all rights reserved.
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2 months ago