Postcards from the Imagination

Period. Anyone else feel like they live in a communist state sans the social benefits these days? A college student arrested for asking the wrong questions during a campus political forum? Republicans forcing Democrats to denounce their antiwar constituents on the Senate floor (via an amendment to the defense authorization bill no less)? Allegedly liberal Democrats introducing their own amendment "condemning attacks on the “honor, integrity and patriotism” of any individual who is serving or has served in the Armed Forces"? In what fucked up, bizzaro version of democracy is it okay for politicians to wield legislative authority as a weapon against citizens who criticize their government's warmongering in the "free press"? Oh, that's right. AMERICA.

Posted by Ginger at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Litlab is a highly informal online compendium of literary experiment and investigation, including limiting exercises, textual manipulations, historical curiosities, unusual poetic forms, comedic mimesis, metafiction, egrotic literature, neo-absurdism, lettristic hypergraphics, or whatever other nonsense its contributors happen to invent. The Litlab is intended less as an online literary journal or blog than a haphazardly curated digital museum. (Run by J. Robert Lennon, Cornell faculty)

Posted by Ginger at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lost my debit card three weeks ago, and it has taken this long for the replacement to arrive. In the meantime, my hosting provider suspended my account for non-payment. Without that little plastic vehicle, my cash was worthless. Back soon with a real post...hopefully.

Posted by Ginger at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

No time this evening for more than bullet points to remind myself later what the past couple weeks have been like:

• Was able to arrange my courses in such a way that I'll be doing 100% creative work this term: Workshop, obviously. Close Reading for Writers. The Art of the Historical Avant-Garde.
• Have never seen so much free food & drink in my life.
  
• Encouraged to first & foremost be my own writer. What better welcome could one ask for?
  
• Real PEERS. Finally!
• Willie Perdomo reading + reception afterward + breakfast next morning. All exceeding expectations.
  
• Startling sensation of having arrived in a place that feels like home.
  
• Lack, so far, of any hint of competitive bullshit.
  
• Workshop: 7in7 MFA boot camp.
• Touch of blankpageitis.
• Gary Sullivan's "To the People Who 'Had' and 'Ate' Their Own Cake" as nearly perfect DIY manifesto. (See Abraham Lincoln)
  
• CA Conrad's selections from "FRANK" as genuinely disturbing (in a good way).
• Realizing I haven't sent work out to magazines in about a year. Thinking I might like to, if time permits.
  
• "the mysterious connection that must be established between the generic and the particular to produce human beauty..." (Thomas Mann, Death in Venice). Dear god, yes. So simple & yet almost revolutionary in relation to the world out there.
  
• Amazing conversations with Adam about mixed media poetics.

If anyone has suggestions for potentially fruitful writing exercises, I'm all ears. I won't always have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike, and I could use a few constraints to lean on when the air is thin. The only condition is that I will not, will not, will not write lyric epiphanies. They just don't comport with the way I experience the world anymore.

I warned you this post was going to be messy. 

Posted by Ginger at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)