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Brandi Homan is editor-in-chief of Switchback Books, a feminist press that publishes poetry by women. She earned her MFA from Columbia College, Chicago, and her MA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work has appeared in Barn Owl Review, Born Magazine, DIAGRAM, MiPOesias, Natural Bridge, North American Review, and Salt Hill. Hard Reds was her first full-length collection of poetry (Shearsman, 2009). Her second collection is Bobcat Country (Shearsman, 2010).

MOBILE HOMECOMING

My professor said I was "aiming for mediocrity." I was thirty years old. My mother's into money recently, talks about some book that associates class with worldviews of material goods. In the book, low class means "quantity," middle class means "quality," and high class means "presentation." Working on my master's degree, I knew for certain I wasn't middle class, going again for quantity. I saw that others, hello Professor, viewed me as not middle class. That I was low-middle class, or low-class, even, depending on how much cash the one doing the viewing had. Or really that I was culturally bankrupt from growing up in a vacuum cleaner.




Dave_Song.jpg And the basement lives here




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As Rich Johnston writes, "Earlier this week, writer Clifford Meth revisited his rather-abandoned-of-late column at Comic Bulletin, Meth Addict.In which he told how a project he was associated with, Dave Cockrum's The Futurians almost made it to the screen a couple of times.And how he was also hired to write a screenplay treatment for his IDW series Snaked, before being moved aside for another writer - and then discovering he was suddenly not getting paid his kill fee...

"We have a contract," I said. "Of course he's going to pay me." "No he isn't. He's pretty sure you won't sue him. The fee is too small and you'd have to fly to Los Angeles to file for damages. Apparently this is how he does things." "Tell me this is a bad joke." "Sorry Cliff," said my agent. "Welcome to Hollywood."


So Cliff describes how he offered to "talk" with the producer's parents. Whose address Meth happened to have. Which suddenly has the desired effect.The column has been pulled, after someone got a bit scared it seems. But I understand the specific column in question has been bought out by a bigger site who will be running it tomorrow.

Not Bleeding Cool, we weren't even in the bidding. But if you'd like to read the whole column now, go to Daniel Best's Blog, where it is re-posted here.

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Peter Otto @ Devening Projects

Peter Otto @ Devening Projects
Above: Hand of History (Ode to John Heartfield)
oil on canvas, 21.5 x 43 inches

Below: Artist Peter Otto

Artist Peter Otto @ Devening Projects

Exhibition: The Lodger
March 7 - April 9, 2010
3039 West Carroll Avenue
Chicago, IL 60612
(312) 420-4720
www.deveningprojects.com
Exhibition facilitated by Cultural Services in the USA / Consulate General of the Netherlands and Materiaalfonds, Amsterdam




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Proximity continues its Arts Theory Column, edited by Mark Staff Brandl, with an essay by Noah Berlatsky: "The Last Shall Be First."

Most traditional economic theory is built around the concept of scarcity -- the idea that there's not enough stuff to go around. In The Accursed Share (1946), famed theorist Georges Bataille inverts this; life, he says, is characterized, not by too little, but by too much. Life is excess -- it pushes onto every bleak rock, every cranny; it spends itself in profligate sexual activity and in the ultimate profligacy of death. And it throws out unneeded economic activity; too much fat, too many children, too much grain in the stores, too many bodies in the street, too much creative energy shaking its collective tuchas on the YouTube videos.

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Mathias Svalina was born in Chicago, where his parents were both chemists. He is the author of five chapbooks as well as five collaboratively written chapbooks. His work has been published widely in journals such as American Letters & Commentary, Boston Review, Diagram, Jubilat, and Typo. He has won fellowships and awards from The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Iowa Review and New Michigan Press, among others. With Zachary Schomburg, he co-edits Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books. He currently teaches writing and literature in Denver, Colorado. Destruction Myth (Cleveland State University Press, 2010) is his first book.

CREATION MYTH

There was a bunny with a broken leg
& a mink with an empty stomach,

Somehow they coexisted peacefully
& were able to create the world.

When Hollywood heard about this
they sent a team of idea people out to meet them.





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The Collapsible Kunsthalle (of which I am curator): documentation of the latest exhibition, paintings by Lamis El Farra.

Link here.



I saw a man, he danced with his wife in Chicago


Weight of the city



Everything terrible


This might hurt



Interview with Hadara Bar-Nadav

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This interview with Hadara Bar-Nadav about her book A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight was conducted during the month of February, 2010 by seven poets: Aaron Delee, Dane Hamann, Sarah Jenkins, Joshua Lobb, Christine Pacyk, Lana Rakhman and Virginia Smith.

Q: A number of your poems seem to be inspired by works of art. How does a poem like this evolve? Do you sit down thinking, "I like this piece of art, I think I'll write a poem in response to it," or does such a poem come to fruition in a more organic way--is it only later that you realize the poem was inspired by or in response to the art?

Hadara Bar-Nadav: My collaborations with art are generally pretty organic. There is a Rothko I visit at the Nelson Museum of Art in Kansas City. And as I look at it, words will float up. There are artists I turn to, much like I do certain authors, whose work seems to trigger poems. I worked on a long prose poem about Louise Nevelson's work, and when writing it I immersed myself in her art and writings. I was never sure what would come up--a line, two pages of prose ramblings--but something always did. When I was working on A Glass of Milk, I remember buying a book of Eugene Atget's photographs and one of Cartier-Bresson's that smelled like it had been in a fire; the edges of the pages were charred. The art work teaches me about seeing, about ways of seeing. And often I string together several images to form a narrative of sorts. Visual art reminds me to keep my imagery sharp, to look and look again. I painted for many years, but these days my creative energy is mostly in my poems.




Featured Media: Post-Hysterical: Timeline, Comics and a Plurogenic View of Art History
By The Editors
Featured Media: "Idle Tears," after "The Princess," Alfred Lord Tennyson
By Ray Pride