Today is the day we start binding the anthology for Monstrous Possibility, my literary arts and theory program. Using InDesign, we worked as groups to put our individual books together, with each group member getting twenty pages (five 8.5 x 11 folded sheets) to display their writing projects. Merging all our pieces into one giant book, my group decided to call our compilation "Acephale", which means "headless" in Greek.
Here's an excerpt from latest machination of my monstrous manuscript (tentatively titled "A Conglomeration and Revision of Parts"
savage relatives though they are at the
edge of the object of expectance in
explosions of other times on
television, surely an
influence on
photographers took no
pictures of vulgar critiques on
Stein's sweets of Susie's flux and
insignificance of where any of those
places are authors that die not unto births of
readers as functions as members of a belief, in fact,
in many ways, in those paintings, of course, attending to,
suggesting in between otherwise texts as yet of oxymoronic tests
here of less wholes...of fodder of absence in Terminus, victorious in his
place ¬- aphoristic sets of these talented aesthetics of others reading
placeness of unfully being in memory of limited guardians of
sleep in dialogue don't exist in shadows at the origin of
the Book of the Dead languages shape prayers to the
philosophical novel, generally transgressive as
such, whether he posits the back of the
pleasure at all what I want in a way
of the present time, especially on
planes of edges of books, looks
adjusted to bodily, not
broken, movements
in equal
measurement,
even when necessarily fogging
the self-loathing virus without
tearing out conversations on
how alive now
as silent as
most of the
lateral promotions
poetic
as gestures and quotidians
of being done,
slowly, depending
on our bodies of becoming the shift of where both
we spent what tells us the text is moving
to Athens activating the driving for bliss in
stasis, pleasures in confrontation
of form is not an object but not it because it
doesn't advocate Heraclitus did not step the same
to stay the same however
of mold growing from Hades
where Beckett
killed stigmatized
Greeks of disagreed with the maroon elsewhere
or friendship
arriving in putting out fires ¬-
all at once fabricating densities in the threshold.
The word 'manuscript' is little bit intimidating, especially when it stands alone, as in: "You'll all be writing manuscripts this quarter."
Manuscripts about what? Manuscripts following what guidelines? Fulfilling what ends?
None of these questions were raised, let alone answered, during the first week of my spring quarter program, Monstrous Possibility. The only thing we were told about our manuscripts-to-be was that they would be included in an anthology at the end of the quarter. There are no requirements about length, content, form, structure, or copy standards. The possibilities were monstrous.
So reads the title of the Phrontisterion's upcoming event. The Phrontisterion, Evergreen's Classical Studies Club, has traditionally organized events solo, but for our next project we're getting some awesome – and much needed – help from the Writers' Guild.
Continue reading "MUSE: Encounters with the Classical Canon" »
This spring I'm taking a literary arts and theory program called Monstrous Possibility. A hybrid of creative and analytic writing, we're garnering inspiration for our work from an eclectic range of authors: Samuel Beckett, Gertrude Stein, Friedrich Neitschze, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, and others. Our assignment this week is to write with constraints; that is, to establish a set of 13 rules and rituals by which to govern, not necessarily the content, but the direction of our work. (The assignment is dubbed "Toward the Zero Point", by the way, with our teachers encouraging us to "write toward meaninglessness").
This spring break, I spent the week on my uncle's houseboat in Seattle. Docked on Lake Union, it has a great view of downtown Seattle and Queen Anne, with the Space Needle seeming only a stone's throw away. Even though I lived in Seattle for a summer when I was 18, I spent most of my break doing the tourist thing. I went to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Roman art exhibit, which was great, but after seeing 30 or so marble statues of emperors and their wives, I sort of got the picture and was ready to move on...the best part was the Gates of Paradise exhibit. The Gates are made up of 9 bronze panels, each depicting a scene from Genesis. It begins with Adam and Eve, moving through the stories of Noah, Cain and Abel, Abraham, and other major biblical figures. Only three of the panels are on display, but the incredible detail of the carvings makes the trip worth it.
Last week I got a position copy editing for Evergreen's student newspaper, the Cooper Point Journal. I've been an avid, well, browser, of the CPJ since my freshman year, but I've never gotten particularly excited about it. I'm not sure how it measures up as far as student papers go, but its content (oh, letters to the editor!) and style (if I had a dollar for each copy error...) have long been points of contention around these parts. Finally, I decided to stop being a passive observer and get involved.