Un Petite Réve

Oû est le printemps??

From my Boss: Giving a Good Literary Reading

It may be a cheapshot brown-nose move, but my boss Dan Gutstein has some very "malevolent" remarks on the art of standing and reading in front of people. Note in particular the conversion chart referring to duration.

 BLOOD AND GUTSTEIN: BE A PROFESSIONAL & COME OUT SWINGING: SOME TIPS O...: Be prepared to read wherever your travels may take you, even from a smartphone, if necessary. Blurriness optional.  I reckon th...

1. BE A PROFESSIONAL. I just love a reader who slinks to the microphone without having selected what he intends to read. He thumbs through a couple books, mutters like a bum, and holds the audience responsible for his predicament. Never mind the reader who arrives an hour late, and must be fed the Big Boy Platter, first, before he can step to the microphone and thumb dumbly through his material. Can you prepare in advance? Yes, you can, Hot Pants, you can apply stickies, if necessary, to your pages, you can be on time, and you can be truly Dependable.

2. COME OUT SWINGING. That’s a double entendre meant to channel the spirit of a boxer, for one, but mostly the spirit of a jazz musician. Be loud. Chase the nerves. If you let the nerves chase you, then your voice will shrink and shrink until it cracks, a sound not unlike a person falling through thin, thin ice into a cold, cold lake. Need to warm up first? Why not sing? I endorse a song, so long as it’s unpretentious, so long as you’re not pretending to be Mr. Five By Five, since, you know, there was only one Mr. Five By Five, and his name was Jimmy Rushing.

 

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8. QUIT ALL THE SELF-DEPRECATING COMMENTARY WHILST ONSTAGE. I just love a writer who interrupts his readings to apologize for the inadequacies of his presentation. He hardly means it, of course. To the contrary, he’s trying to win sympathy from those assembled, and he’s shameless in pursuing such a tack. When he offers—“That giant sucking sound going south isn’t NAFTA, nope, it’s the sound of this reading”—he’s issuing a declaration which compels the audience, in his estimation, to reply, “Come one, man, no, you’re great!” Cut it out!

9. YOU CAN BE TIGHT BUT NOT BLIND. It doesn’t make you tough to empty a fifth of Jack Daniels at the podium, but prepares you, instead, for a series of slurred syllables and awkward stumbles, as your body attempts to reconcile your inebriation with the centripetal forces of the Earth. A drink before the reading can help steady the nerves, of course, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but to be “blind” is to invite embarrassment, Hot Pants, not only upon you, but upon the people who invited you to read. Hey: moderation ain’t just a role in a dispute.

 

O What a Wonderful Booty

 

 

W. Shanx

My dear friend William has a great deal of ideas about creativity, and will tell you all about it if you ask him. I recommend it. For now, you can look at these things:

His Tumblr

I really like this one he did of Gabriela-so stormy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd like to go to here.

"Hi," Wordsalad

Hi,

I'm a muted brown with sexual overtones. 

I have crevices where my knees connect. 

There are little tiny things where nothing should go. 

There are sepia stains when I yawn too long and dashes of crinkling when I go to bed. 

All of this would be tolerable were it not for the flashes of insight I experience on a daily basis.

Correct not the sins of others lest they too come to the warpath.


In the daytimes I enjoy twisting words and ravishing stew.

I seek good news. 

If one of you would be so kind as to finish my sentences...

I've gone down that road before, be sure, be sure.


Still, if I may have one more for commode, let it be in the place we least expect

And follow it will from night to day, you can't be a fool unless proven otherwise.

And now, this.

I'm so lucky to have such a resourceful older sis to expose me to the infinite possibilities of the web:

+

these cat gifs

=

universe in harmony.

NEW TRAK

I done it again! This is about blitzkrieg.