The Rumpus, The Believer, Sonoma State Editing and Publishing Roundtable, Flatmancrooked

"August Slough Moonrise" by Cynthia Charters

for Videos:

The Rumpus
Believer
Sonoma State University Editing + Publishing Roundtable
Flatmancrooked Spring Reading Thingy

Here we are. I went to The Rumpus almost 2 weeks ago and I haven’t written about it. I’m discouraged. Why? Because I’ve come to realize that whatever coverage I provide of these events can never do them justice. You can watch the videos. And I think it’s valuable to archive series like InsideStoryTime and Why There Are Words and Literary Death Match and Porchlight Storytelling and Portugese Artists Colony and Writers With Drinks and Bang Out and tomorrow’s reading series, whatever they might be.

I was standing in line for The Rumpus—actually, I was the first person in line. That’s never happened but it did last Monday; I was there early because I’d been reading Matt Stewart’s The French Revolution and it is so good that I wanted to be where I was going so I could just read it. And I saw ML Heath because he had just played a show there the night before and was coming to retrieve his amp. And he asked me who was reading at the show, who was performing, and while I was able to tell him Mac McClelland because I had just seen her judge the Literary Death Match on Friday and I was excited to see The Yellow Dress again, I paused. I didn’t know who was going to be there. It doesn’t matter, I said. I just go to The Rumpus, you know? It’s part of my calendar.

And isn’t it amazing, to come to feel this way about so many things that happen every single month. You change, you are living your life, there are subconscious things that click and turn over and before you even know it, no matter how closely you stick to yourself, you’ve become a different person. But these series continue, they do, and the people who put them together change, and the series continue, and the readers come and read what they’re reading in other places because it’s what matters right now, what’s going around, and everybody listens—it is part of us—we all have agendas but we all pause, and sometimes someone says something when we least expect it and we are open, suddenly we remember all the right feelings, synchronicity, humanity, purpose are reborn with an intimation which can in turn propel us into other states of being, click. Turn over.

Managing Ed. of The Rump, Isaac Fitzgerald

We make connections as penetrating and valuable as we could ever hope to have; it happens at a reading one night, when the show is over and actual lives collide; maybe it happens over time: you go to the San Francisco Writers Workshop together and then you start to see each other everywhere, acknowledgement grows into a sense of shared culture that you are mutually creating, in the same place and time and largely with the same aim: to secure this for yourselves forever and to foster it for others and to always improve it.

We follow our paths and get lost even though we know exactly what we’re doing. We do. We are doing what feels right. We have visions and make them real. We ask for your ears and invite you to participate right now or whenever you’re ready. We would like to express ourselves even more than we currently do. What will you believe with us? You could help all of us right now by simply baring your soul. It is all you want to do.

1 of the winners of the monthly porn raffle

Friends who once gave us gravity have other things to balance now. We are all, even in the best case, only doing what we feel needs to be done. It’s OK to take it easy sometimes. There’s a large part of me that used to disagree with that. I don’t feel that I will ever, that I could ever, do what needs to be done. It is just too much for me alone. So in order not to feel defeated I must look to the future, I must find redemption in the fact I tried my hardest and that others will follow. I believe what matters is not success but the ache of desire. There is no eternal cause but the need for abandon. Call it liberty. Embrace it. It is possible to embrace this. But how many times can you leave yourself and still honestly be there?

Yes, we have found souls we cherished instantly and who are not as large a part of our lives as we want them to be and it’s OK, things change as you try to stay true, and the people around you will change or they are not staying true, and the way you schedule your calendar will change or you are not staying true, the way you talk, the way you ascribe meaning will change, will change, will change! And it’s OK.

McClelland: For Us Surrender is Out of the ?

I went to The Believer event co-hosted by Litquake (have you seen their new website?) @ the JCCSF on Thursday and while I thoroughly enjoyed the funnymen and god just love Litquake so much because everyone even remotely associated with operation festival is not only likable but passionate and interesting and always good to see, I spent a considerable amount of the show just thinking of the difference between the only 2 events I attended last week—The Rumpus and The Believer—I thought, What are these magazines? What is the difference? And the similarities! What is going on around us that there is room for all these things? Culture and comment on culture—what is the difference? It’s disappearing.

We value both now, so long as they’re offered with verve and skill. They both reflect us. Contain us. Each segment of The Believer function contains culture as seen through five men, their various attitudes toward it and thus also the five men seen through their culture, and, as significantly, the audience’s response to the flux and sweep of these things.

The Yellow Dress

Sure, they came ready to laugh. We all did. The book is funny—it came out of the monthly column The Believer started for Amy Sedaris and when she got too busy The Believer began to have guest comedians and eventually it became a new comedian every month … You're a Horrible Person, But I like You: The Believer Book of Advice is the collection of this column. But The Believer is generally filled with an amalgam of diverse ruminations, essays, and (self-) righteous stories; the corresponding events reflect this, as you can see through footage of their December event: The Art Issue.

And in this it has much in common with The Rumpus, which this month gave us excerpts from Broke-Ass Stuart’s smack-talking, information-packed guides to San Francisco and New York; the passion of Dan Weiss and The Yellow Dress, who couldn’t play instruments and certainly wasn’t in a band until, like, recently but has certainly figured something out. Watch this interview by our good friend Ian Tuttle; Joanna Smith Rakoff, who began by saying she’s been reading The Rumpus since day 1, read about a pianist who wanted to make authentic music—something between classical and pop—“he didn’t want to be part of the absurd, archaic institution that classical music had become—he wanted to make real music, music that possessed some sort of relevance to the dominant culture. Music that meant something. But the truth is, more than 4 unhappy years of grad school, he’d come to the sad realization that he was not a genius, or a prodigy as he’d been told throughout his life, and that he would not have a career as a soloist, but would be lucky to get a seat with some second- or third-tier orchestra in a provincial city, or a teaching post at a bible college, also in some unappealing place like Kansas, or Missouri, teaching talented undergrads.”

Jack Boulware (L) and Jane Ganahl (R)

Look around: we’ve got the second part of this vision figured out already. We’re pretty much where we want to be, in terms of location. Now all that’s left to do is gather around and put our hearts into something, right, and listen when other people do.

Mac McClelland told us: “I used to live with a group of refugees in Burma, in Thailand, and it’s actually a really horrible, depressing story about genocide, but. There was also a lot of drinking, and fun to be had, and cultural misunderstandings! So that’s what we’re gonna talk about … right now.” Yes, we are privileged! What it means to be privileged is we get to create and participate in culture and not simply abide by higher powers and live out our lives like characters in ancient dramas: fated and out of control. McClelland endears herself to the crowd with that graceful entry and does give us quirk and laughter but she does it to present professional journalism; it’s one thing to have something to say, right, but another thing to get people’s attention and make that matter. So when Randall Mann stood in front of the mic he stalled to prepare the room for his gay poetry, which, turns out, is really, really good, but which needed new atmosphere to reverberate. I spoke with him after and was pleased to hear that he’s an ardent admirer of D.A. Powell, of whom I am fond and of whom he reminded. He had the room.

Handler, Mirman, Maron, Doyle, Leland

Susan Steinberg started by asking the audience to pretend it was her birthday and we obliged her because she said she saw someone else do it and realized it didn’t matter what she read after that because they already loved her. It worked, but what’s interesting is Steinberg’s tone and voice are so dispassionate: “There was a time I hung out with a $hit group of kids, and they were just such $hit. This to say I made some mistakes. Like breaking into this one guy’s car. Like stealing the stereo out of that car. I was young and I didn’t steal the stereo because I wanted the stereo, but stole it rather because I wanted the guy. This to say I just wanted something the guy owned. This more to say that nothing else mattered in that moment except this thing the guy owned. This thing which I now know was not the guy.” The contrast of her character’s attitude—a sort of zest in happenstance—and the level delivery of her voice is fascinating and quite different from the straightforward DIY folk of Peter Squires, who shared some comical angst from his break-up album. “You might notice that going to a Peter Squires show is kind of like going to nursery school, or you go to a baseball game where it’s like ‘now say this’ or ‘clap this’ and you do it and it’s more fun. So the hootenanny stomp-clap goes like this… ”

It was something I said

My point is that I could take the time to try to do justice to half the functions on my calendar and still fail. Especially something like The Rumpus. You don’t know what’s going to happen but the room is usually full of people who, in one way or another, are going for it. Whether it is the ultimate mastery of the yo-yo (there is nothing else I can say about Doctor Popular: you have to watch him) or an influential series of graphic novels; whether it is has something to do with profession or books or love, or all three; here now, there tomorrow, we are getting around until we learn how to get around better and crossing paths as we do so, destined by our efforts and desire yet determined to increase the glory of man even greater than we alone can, we gather and share our attentions.

The next event I went to may or may not be of interest. It was definitely exceptional for me. I took part in a panel with Howard Junker, as moderated by Sherril Jaffe, for Sonoma State University’s annual Editing and Publishing Roundtable. My (o-so) fascinating and rather uncanny history with Howard can be read here. It is significant, I assure you. It was very strange for me to be a part of this panel because of my history with Howard but even more so because the panel was aimed to inform the students what they can do with their English degrees, and I don’t have one. I don’t have any degrees. And 10 months ago I had never done anything related to the editing and publishing world—and certainly nothing for pay—except for reading and writing, and here I am inspiring a roomful of kids (to hear them tell it) the age I was when I dropped out … Howard had some great things to say, and I think the panel was a pretty good mixture of experience and blind belief (that was my part).

Sherril talks about my love and broken jaw

Sonoma State University is gorgeous. From what I could see, the students were all very happy. They seemed enthusiastic about literature and uncertain about what they could do with it. They produce a literary magazine there called Zaum, which I have 2 copies of and which will find their way to the free books table at Quiet Lightning. It’s exceptional. The question is not whether they can do it—write poetry and fiction or even compile it professionally—the question is can they get paid for it, are they brave enough to do it long enough to get paid for it, to stick it out and make sure they get paid for it? So I told them. I’m not worried.

I feel like this was a light week. Compared to last week, it was. After the panel I took the day off to catch up with my friends Ransom Stephens and Peg Alford Pursell. I stayed in Petaluma and kicked around Sausalito. My life is changing and I’m still doing my thing. It’s a bit different, but it feels right.

I got a ride up to Davis with Andy O. Dugas and Shideh Etaat, both of whom were reading for Flatmancrooked’s Spring Reading Thingie, which took place in the John Natsoulas Gallery, also home to the weekly Poetry in Davis open mic, run by Andy Jones and Brad Henderson, that seems to be a pretty solid series. I’m on the mailing list now, so maybe we can go up there together some time. Not that we’re hurting for action here, but Davis is another little nexus you might want to check out. It’s beautiful and bursting with youth—creative youth.

Davis is home to Flatmancrooked, a fairly new press (May 08, I think) that is doing big things in terms of how they think of books—they have an entire line devoted to novellas, bi-annual anthologies, and a novel-length series. Their vision, with its innovative marketing and packaging programs, is exciting and infectious. Who wouldn’t want to be published by this press? They print high-quality texts in small batches with care and attention to detail. Accordingly, they have an abundance of really good writers lining up with manuscripts. I spoke with Deena Drewis, Senior Editor of Fmc, and she was sharing my pain of the week: too many good submissions, not enough spots. If only every good book could be printed!

Also reading were Julia Halprin Jackson and N.A. Jong, both San Franciscans, Kevin Walsh, who won the Aimee Bender-judged fiction prize for Fall’s Not About Vampires: An Anthology of New Fiction Concerning Everything Else, and Whitey Erickson, a local favorite performance poet. Check these out when you get a chance: they’re all really excellent.

The John Natsoulas Gallery

James Kaelan, author of We’re Getting On, made a surprise appearance and we convinced him to read “The Surrogate,” one of 4 connecting stories in the book. This link will take you to my thorough and logically impassioned review of the book published by The Rumpus, and includes links to how you can help launch James, join him on his bike tour anywhere from here to Vancouver (and maybe New York, if you help him get onto The Colbert Report). I thought this reading was especially poignant, as it was Earth Day, and we were celebrating the first Zero Emissions Book I know about. Spruce seeds in the cover. Book tour on bike. Carbon credits. The hoopla is great but the text is better. Watch this story and if you’re interested, read the review. I recommend it as highly as anything else I’ve read since moving to the Bay Area 10 months ago. And you know I be readin’.

Last, let’s end with a tribute to my hometown via Fmc Founding Executive Editor Elijah M Jenkins. He knows somethin’ bout Outcast with a k. Yeah.

So purty.

Stay tuned for footage from the remarkable PoemDome fundraiser I went to @ Kaleidoscope Friday night and from today, of course. Check out the remainder of the calendar. There’s a great event tomorrow, D.A. Powell and Justin Chin in San Jose on Tuesday, along with a host of other events in the city. There’s some fabulous poetry in Marin on Thursday, a chance to read your own poems or the poems you love in City Hall on Friday, and, well, the following Monday I’m predicting lightning in a gallery. You might want to bring a pillow and a bottle of wine (for the bar): it’s going to be pretty.

For more info: keep checking back!

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