Silliman's Blog

We (meaning online publishers) need to acknowledge blogs as publications. The only way I know how to do this is by confirming in my guidelines that poems, etc. posted in blogs are considered published.

Let me repeat myself.

We (online publishers) need to acknowledge blogs as publications. Just as print publishers are finally starting to accept online journals/magazines as publications. It only took about 10 years or so for print publications to confirm that an online poetry journal/magazine is a publication.

Of course, there are guidelines in place as to what is considered a valid publication for example: a masthead, copyright notices, subsmission guidelines, ISSN #, etc.

These are all factors I look into when reviewing a possible online publication to submit my own work to or reviewing online for that matter too. Some people actually think that I am checking to see if it looks pwetty.....(insert evil laugh here).....

This comment is in reply to one of the links you posted above and not a tangent.

Thanks -
Didi Menendez
 

"1,000 films to see before you die." The list asserts it's the "1,000 . . . that best sum up the dazzling achievement and variety of the movies"

But no Bruce Conner. No Stan Brakhage. No Maya Deren. Etc.

Get the "picture"?
 

It makes me very happy to see JT Leroy being sued. If there's a Hell I hope JT Leroy burns there, and burns burns burns to a crisp there.

The quaint comparisons the journalist made about other writers of the past using pseudonyms is ridiculous because JT Leroy wasn't just using a pseudonym. JT Leroy ALSO falsely claimed to have AIDS, and used up a lot of Dennis Cooper's time pretending to be sick and asking his advice about taking care of his imaginary sores, etc. Shit like this makes me so angry! Shit like this makes me want SPIT in her face!

There is no sympathy from me for this grotesque asshole posing as JT Leroy.

As someone WHO REALLY DID GROW UP POOR, VERY POOR IN FACT, I'm outraged! As someone WHO REALLY DID GROW UP QUEER, I'm outraged! As someone WHO REALLY DID HAVE FRIENDS AND A BOYFRIEND WHO DIED OF AIDS, I'm outraged!

The tourist known as JT Leroy needs to go the fuck back home. Poverty, AIDS, being queer, these are not things to have a cute little picnic with, not things to play tea party with, not things act out from a spoiled upper middle class household. The woman behind JT Leroy proves once again how bored and boring people of her class and her world in general really totally fucking are.

And in the end it's no one's fault but her own that she's so boring.

And I really do hope she rots in Hell.

CAConrad
The PhillySound
 

Go to the link captioned "Literary Bloggers Seen As Threat," and note the advertisement to receive Ann Coulter's column via e-mail beside the article. If that doesn't undercut the absurdity of the literary blogger "threat" theme which is becoming more insistent and petty sounding, I must, indeed, have a tin ear. The problem with the discussions I have seen is that the blogger "threat" argument is based on the failings of the blogger medium to provide a proper forum for literary discussion, which is totally false. The issue is that the increasing prevalence of literature blogs (and very good and very bad on-line literature sites and journals etc.), has provided big print publishers with a further rationale and excuse to get rid of book reviewers on their staff -- as they have been doing with arts writers for decades. But, if one has a job or publishing relationship with such a print media outlet, it is difficult to attack one's employer or industry, so the attack gets leveled, instead and unfairly, at bloggers.
 

Oh, and about Adam Kirsch. He's making things up. For instance saying that blogs can only offer bite-sized reviews. What does that mean? He's making that up.

The TRUTH IS that a blogger can write as much as he or she wants to write.

What nonsense is this argument? It's not even an argument.

Kirsch is irritating in the same way the whole NEW flogging of blogging is starting to irritate me. This idea that blogging dumbs-down the culture. OH NO LET'S NOT BLAME THE fact that we're at war and making this young generation focus on the basest possible animal drive to kill and protect from some fucked-up imaginary stance on freedom and liberty.

Blogging is a revolution the fancy pants will have to learn to live with. Blogging can hardly be more of a threat than the stupidity of the so-called mainstream news world in America.

Blogging can hardly be more of a threat than the lying scum running for president. For instance Hillary Clinton who is THE LARGEST recipient of funding from the medical industry (all aspects of the medical industry by the way), with Obama a close second.

Blogging book reviews can or cannot be done well. How many times have I hated the book reviews in the New York Times? No more than I've hated book reviews on blogs.

To me this defensive language being used is nothing more than the mountain tops feeling their avalanches increase in scope and numbers, bringing them to every other place in the world with opinions.

The fear of EVERYONE having a say is really a fear that the "experts" are not so special anymore. AND HOORAY HOO-FUCKING-RAY TO THAT!

CAConrad
The PhillySound
 

Ric Royer's an old friend from Buffalo, quite influential in our little group (all undergrads at the same time-- the House Press folk, Kevin Thurston, Chris Fritton, Matt Chambers, etc.). I wanted to point out his Performance Thanatology Research Society page, since the article you link to is interesting and biographical but the work is even *more* interesting. Various recordings, writings and video can be found here.
 

"there's no chance that literary culture will thrive on the Internet until we recognize that the ethical and intellectual crotchets of the bloggers represent a dead end." --Adam Kirsch

I don't know who Mr. Kirsch is, or what possesses him to make this arrogant statement, but I can only assume that he has an inherent distrust and distaste for online interaction.

I think sites like Silliman's are an obvious proof of the wrongness of his assertion. The one point he makes, which is probably true, is that one's attention span (or visual span, or whatever it is) is limited, whereas reading a physical paper page is not. On the other hand, my tolerance for longer stretches of online reading has expanded as I've grown more used to it.

The great thing about online blogs is that they can accommodate such a broad spectrum of types of posting and response. And you can post in different moods, and to different purposes. I think Mr. Shepherd was quite upset here a couple of weeks ago because he felt Ron (and his responders) weren't showing the proper probity and respect for civilized discourse he deems necessary for healthy and responsible literary activity. Well, balls to that. And balls to Mr. Kirsch. He wants an exclusive corner on the critical forum, where power hierarchies and true elites vie for influence and esteem; and the "audience" is mute.

Robert Archambeau's response to the Kirsch article is very well made. "But the rash of recent print articles about the perils of blogging seem to indicate that this resentment runs in both directions. Perhaps this reverse-resentment is inevitable. As any student of history knows, a declining class always resents the vulgarity of those on the rise."