V.V. BOOKS AT WINTER FLEA

V.V. Books will be tabling at the Winter Flea February 2nd and at The Summit on February 8th.

Other News:

* Video of Adam Rose's November performance at ROY. 

* Short North Gazette published my poem "Environmentalists;" it's in the January/February issue.

* I have three pieces in ImageOhio 13, which opens January 18th at 6:00 p.m. Articles in the Columbus Alive, Donewaiting, and The Lantern.

* I spoke with Tom Wagner and Darryl Mendelson at the opening of OSU Urban Arts Space's Mark Beyer: With/Without Text. It's great. See it.

* Temporary Art Review's profiles of Skylab Gallery and ROY G BIV Gallery.

* I have photos of price tags  in a show at Columbus Metropolitan Library's Carnegie Gallery; it opens February 7th at 6:00 p.m.

Booze and Books: The Remains of the Day

I was a special guest star on Tatyana Kagamas's Booze and Books, the show that aims to improve your brain as you destroy your liver. This episode takes on the ethically complicated butlers 'n Nazis book The Remains of the Day, written by Kazuo Ishiguro. Remains won the Booker Prize in 1989, at which point it seems clear that - smug as he is - Ishiguro must have boozed in celebration. So you see, there is a connection. 

2011's Reading & Viewing

Yikes, this year was the worst. After the jump is what I read and watched during it.

Other News: 

* On Beautiful/Decay I profiled Elijah Funk and Mei Yan Jane Lee's artwork.

* You can pre-order Delay's Rushing Ceremony here.

* Watch Heat Space TV's Late Lunch Live with Slave Labia; and video of their 15th House show.

Books I Read in the First Half of 2011

After the jump is a list of books I read in the first six months of 2011.

Books I Read In 2010

After 'the jump' is the list of the books I read in 2010.

Journal Of Radical Shimming On The Monster House

Former Monster House inmate Cassandra Troyan has published an article in The Journal of Radical Shimming on the political potentialities and realities of The Punk House as iterated by The Monster House in Columbus, Ohio. It starts with an evocative retelling of "The Cinnamon Life" night, moves on to our statement of purpose, details the going-ons inside the house, and ends with a "but what does it all mean, really?" sentiment cut with a "but it's pretty good anyway if you think about it" feeling. The article is after "the jump."

The article was based on this conversation Cassandra had with me last winter.

Free copies of The Journal of Radical Shimming #9 can be found in CCAD's Canzani Center.

How I Made Money From April 30th, 2010 to June 30th, 2010

I have been unemployed since January. This is the only period in my life that I haven’t been employed since I moved out of my mother’s home. I left my last job, a work-study position at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Research Library, in January to move to Chicago, Illinois, from Columbus, Ohio. I moved for an unpaid internship that was the last requirement of my undergraduate degrees.

While in Chicago I lived off of excess scholarship money from The Ohio State University - that is, until that money unexpectedly ran out during my last month there. I was lucky enough that my partner at the time, the comics-maker Sara Drake, generously allowed me to borrow the funds I needed until I made my way home. Since coming back to Columbus in April I have been engaged in an assortment of odd remunerative pursuits, none of which could exactly be called a job.

It wasn't supposed to be this way; I applied to a number of positions for the summer only to be roundly/resoundingly denied. When none of my applications were accepted, I decided to go to Europe for the summer because that makes total sense and I am smart. To be able to go to Europe, I had to have a lot of money. The following is a chronicle of my attempt to have a lot of money while unemployed. Each time I earned, took, found, or was given an amount of money over one dollar I recorded the event and day. Summary statistics are provided at the end. 

First Half of 2010 Reading List

Books I have read in the first six months of 2010 presented chronologically.

PARTY PICS

PHARMACY / JAM DIVISION / DUDE JAMS: 15TH HOUSE 5/23

Stream of the 5/23/10 show at The 15th House.
First Jam Division then The Pharmacy.

Download an MP3 of Jam Division's set.

Download an MP3 Pharmacy's set.

We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut

This book, We Never Learn, is out and about for your purchasing whim. It was written by Eric Davidson, the lead singer/provocateur of Columbus's own New Bomb Turks, and it features a foreword by Byron Coley who writes a column with Thurston Moore at Arthur and Wire.

(Coley is also a poet who wrote a biography of Chuck Norris.)

I transcribed a couple of interviews on behalf of Eric for this book - one with Rocket From The Crypt's John Reis and another that I can't recall. I learned more about San Diego from listening to John Reis than from any other experience in my life, including being in San Diego. Outside of San Diego-centric concerns, I think that if you like punk, garage, punky-garage or garagey-punk and somehow also enjoy reading that you will be pacified and pleased by We Never Learn. 

You should buy it (it's on sale!) from another New Bomb Turker at the Wexner Center Store.

Eric Davidson will be reading from We Never Learn in the Film/Video space at the Wexner Center July 9th at 9PM.

Then, on July 10th, New Bomb Turks play with Scrawl (<3) at the Parking Lot Blowout. For Free.

After "The Jump" is an actual description of the book. Because I really get how blurbs work.

MONSTER HOUSE YARD SALE 6/5/2010

Entrepreneurship is the rumored heart and soul of the capitalist enterprise and therefore the ostensible lifeblood of our nation.

The "yard sale," as it is popularly known, is a reenactment and metaphor, based in nostalgia, for an utopian (as in no place) American entrepreneurship/citizenship.

We can think of the yard sale as saying, "Yes, I am American - I have a yard, my own piece of America. And I have objects, objects which I am free to include in the free-market."

It is in the hollow and temporary union of these two drives - economic and political, free-market and "free personhood," that we can understand what Americans think it means to be "American" - even as the true foundation of the American economy in the 21st century belies the notion that the individual has any agency in its machinations.

What we are selling and where after "The Jump."

Party Pics

I Am Someone

On the Megabus today I was reading Tao Lin's novella "Shoplifting From American Apparel." The last fourth of it happens during 2008's FEST in Gainesville and features Chris's backyard. And so I thought that was ha-ha as Pat's tents are repeatedly mentioned. And then:

I am someone. And I needed to be reminded of that today. I was extending an invite to read at the Wexner Store. Since this book is supposed to be, like, "voice of a generation," this is a little like being in The Great Gatsby or White Noise or Less Than Zero or Generation X or The Sun Also Rises or On The Road. Except it's about our generation which is markedly less interesting to read about. So instead it's a little like being in a Tao Lin book as "someone."

PARTY PICS

Party Pics

Party Pics

200fine

2009 In premature media remembrance.

Before the perfunctory lists - I don't know what I was doing in 2009 but apparently reading, watching and listening wasn't part of it. My film watching in particular dropped off compared to 2006-2008 while my reading migrated to blogs (not working at a bookstore anymore didn't help). Music, on the other hand, "left me." It has become a black hole. We live in the most slashed-and-burnt musical landscape of the last 50 years (excising the late 90s). If you do not agree, if you think the Democratic Party that is indie music is captivating, please write an argument about what you think vital, intriguing music is and compare that to the forthcoming end of year lists. I think the discrepancy will be apparent. Perhaps I am just bitter about the impotent husk my generation is leaving - one split down the middle between soundtracks for camera parties of the self absorbed and soundtracks for romantic comedies aimed at high school art students. Any idea that any of the indie bands on any type of "national" stage are anything other than the Stone Temple Pilots / Franz Ferdinand ethos updated for 2009-10 is misguided at best.  Also, DIY is stale and is in need of a paradigm shift - most, if not all, of the political planks in DIY during the Bush era have been mainstreamed and both the content and presentation lack real oppositional meaning. There is an absent center in music. I'm rather annoyed at my place in time. How else can I say this - music is boring.

The five books I most enjoyed reading in 2009.

1. John Porcellino - Thoreau at Walden
Found a copy of this in Shakespeare's on a particularly self-hating day of wandering and anonymity - made me happy.

Ohio State University Press

                                   Two new books out on the Ohio State University Press.

I recently wrote a profile of the Ohio State university press for the Lantern. It's located somewhere out in the Siberia of west campus and diligently and unassumedly goes about its business of publishing fine fare for the literary critics of the world. The books above are departures for the lit-based press: "The Freshwater Mussels of Ohio" and a book of William S. Burroughs' unpublished papers straight out of OSU's special collections. My sister used to work at the press about a decade ago and from all accounts enjoyed it. I found the staff to be insightful, gregarious, hilarious, etc. The MP3 of our conversation is here. I speak with Malcolm Litchfield - the Director, Jennifer Forsythe - the Production Manager, Jason Gray - the Journals Manager, and Laurie Avery the Marketing Director.

The story is after "the jump." It begins with a "Hey, doesn't reading suck?" lead to properly connect with the OSU community.

Dave Filipi's Essay for This Is A Comic Book

On the Wall
By David Filipi

Why hang cartoon art on a gallery wall?

For some, the gesture might be rather presumptuous if they have not been moved from a rather narrow definition of “art” by the work of Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, the Hernandez brothers, Alison Bechdel, Hergé and thousands of others around the world and over the past century. But if you’re reading this, I assume we at least share the common ground that cartoons-comic books-graphic narratives are art, and one can find examples of dreadful and sublime artists and work in abundance equal to any of the more traditional disciplines.