ZYZZYVASPEAKS

Little Willow

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Who knows what Sausalito means?

The lady at the Public Library (over the phone) does: "little willow," from the Spanish sauce, willow.

It also means the Northpoint Coffee Company's pretty view
and poetry
Bill hawking pens
matchbooks from classic San Francisco dives [click on image to enlarge]
and cushions on street benches.

Fred's Falls Short

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:00:00 +0000

I was explaining my summer travel plans to an art-world friend—going to the NUMMI factory in Fremont, for example—and he recommended Fred's Coffee Shop in Sausalito, a world heritage site, he said.

So, the other morning, Rozanne and I headed over. I began with the worst cup of hot chocolate ever made.
Fred's renowned French toast, deep fried, was good—a nicely crisped exterior—
and I was sitting next to a window with some good references,
but real syrup on my toast was out of reach.
The folks at the next table were regulars at the stammtisch, the regulars' table. [click on image to enlarge: note the NY Times globetrotting headline, "Australia in Sonoma"]

F

US, we salute u

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Snapping Guthmann

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday morning, we went to a press screening at the Embarcadero for Chris & Don: A love story,
a well-intentioned, often touching account of the relationship between the writer Christopher Isherwood and the artist Don Bachardy.

One of Don's portraits of Chris appeared in ZYZZYVA Winter '85; his portrait of the beautiful young Ariel Dill, now an artist living in Brooklyn, appeared in Summer '88.

Various members of the Fourth Estate
were there, oblivious to the paparazzi,
but the Chronicle's own Edward Guthmann (below, on the right) lashed out after his picture was snapped, "You should have asked permission before...."

You may recall Guthmann's run-in with plagiarism a few years ago .

Short Story Inaccessability

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:00:00 +0000

In San Francisco the magazine, Pamela Feinsilber notes the pressure placed on fiction writers to produce novels, not short stories.

It is sad, she continues, that a master of the story like Ethan Canin (once a local boy) feels compelled to abandon his metier and instead perpetrate novels—he himself has suggested his latest novel may be his last.

Good stories are all too hard to obtain, she goes on: "Not only can't we find short fiction in most general-interest magazines, but we can't even track down the literary magazines."

She mentions a few local ones, including ZYZZYVA, "but just try to find them."

May I suggest she try any bookstore that carries magazines or any newsstand that carries litmags.

She might even go online: our website offers lots of stories. For free.

God forbid she should subscribe.

If you want a free copy of Fall, just e-mail me your address.

Dummy

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:00:00 +0000

We've done the dummy for Fall.

On paper, filling in a grid of boxes, which is klutzy, but somehow still seems easier than on the screen.

It's the only time I ever use a pencil anymore—it's so much fun to erase and so difficult to decipher what I've scribbled.

Clearly, Fall is the best issue ever.

I don't think anyone else cares about the sequencing of art & text, but I need to feel that the parts all fit, that one thing leads to another. Purpose. Coherence.

Most litmags strike me as random.

I know nobody ever reads a magazine from front to back, straight through, altho I read The New Yorker that way, while I'm brushing my teeth or taking a bath. [Sometimes I just read the cartoons, of course.]

I read The Economist back to front. Every other magazine I jump into, back and forth.

I used to read the contributors' bios in litmags first—to see if there were any writers from my hood; there often weren't; now, it seems, there are a lot more.

In Fall, seven writers appear in print for the first time. Amazing. Had no idea until the contracts came back.

Two first-timers wanted to use a pen name, but I urged them to commit to who they are: writers, who must be fearless. They agreed.

Giving Up Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

"I wasn't aware of the phenomenon [graduates from elite colleges 'giving up' more quickly than others]," writes William Deresiewicz in the Summer American Scholar,

"until I heard about it from a couple of graduate students in my department, one from Yale, one from Harvard. They were talking about trying to write poetry, how friends of theirs from college called it quits within a year or two while people they know from less prestigious colleges are still at it. Why should this be? Because students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now."

Well, yes. Success as a poet is seldom quick, and if Harvard prepares you for anything, you should be worth six-figures at Goldman.

Anyway, what does it mean to "call it quits" as a poet?

Cancel your subscription to APR?
Donate your silk-lined cape to Goodwill?
Refuse to drop $50k for an M.F.A.?
Sell your ratty first edition of Howl on eBay?
De-bookmark Silliman's blog?

Sop Art

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Olafur Eliasson's NYC waterfalls remind me of how fond I am of Sop Art.

In France they call it O Art.

Like Bruce Nauman's fish fountain (be sure to click the video) and heads fountains and Paul Marinis's Light Rain.

Triple Base Dinner/Lecture

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Last night, I went to a dinner/lecture organized by Triple Base Gallery at a loft on Mission.
Kris Shapiro & Noah Lang of Electric Works Gallery formed a sociometric cluster (?) based on whom you've known the longest,
as instructed by Futurefarmers lecturer Amy Franceschini (on the right).
The ghost of Andy Warhol presided. [click on image to enlarge]
Guest chef Leif Hedendal prepared veggies from Mariquita Farms near Watsonville: 1) little gems, arugula, french breakfast radish, fennel, almond, and sungolds; 2) chantenay
carrot and tokyo turnip soup with fennel and tarragon; 3) braised greens and roasted things: royal trumpets, corn, pesto fingerlings.... It was delish. (Susan O'Malley, assistant curator of the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, on the left.)

Presencing (Non)Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Depending on how old you are, you've probably felt, at one time or another, that your life was like an epic poem, a novel, a movie, a song...

Or like a videogame...a social network...or...like presencing.

Some of the links, esp. in the second and third graphs, are cool.

Excused

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday morning, my third day of jury duty, I brought Treasure Island to read. Another prospective juror wore her Frida Kahlo socks.
There was an hour and a half for lunch, so I cruised the hood. [click on image to enlarge]
This being San Francisco, you would expect a cow in the sky with an udder ring.
And a Coors LIGHT billboard behind a PBR mural.
And the perfect outfit for Sunday's parade emblazoned with practical advice.
After lunch, after the first round of voir dire, I was excused...

PS: The attorney for the defense's named Borges. I did not get to ask him if he's related.

Top Ten American Whites

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

The May Smithsonian magazine—O.K., I'm a bit slow—reports a survey of 11th and 12th graders (and folks over 45) asked to name the ten most famous Americans (excluding presidents and their wives).

The top three turned out to be African Americans—MLK, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman; Oprah was No. 7.

With all due respect to these worthies, I offer an all-White list:

Reggie White
Vanna White
Whizzer White
E.B. White
Edmund White
Stanford White
Walt Whit[e]man
Mel Blanc
Margaret Bourke-White
Katarina Witt
Matt LeBlanc
Tony Gwynn

iJury

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, I was called to jury duty. The view from the assembly room was grim and unremittingly gray.
The dude sitting next to me read Paul Bowles's The Spider's House. I dipped into Anyplace But Here, A Year in Van Nuys, and Tremolo.

I was glad to have a chance to gaze upon one of our advertisers, Barrish Bail Bonds, which I have not yet had the opportunity to patronize.
Released—until this afternoon—I half expected Fagan to peer down on me.
There was desperation at street level, as big as a billboard.
I regard the quail as innocent until proven guilty.

Resolved: DB8 Sucs

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

I did schoolboy debate because it was what smart kids did, altho I was too shy and tongue-tied to be any good—or to enjoy it.

Still, I believed that debate was a noble exercise in eloquence in the great tradition of Cicero, rhetoric, Darrow for the defense...

I was therefore shocked by the HBO doc "Resolved," which explores today's paradigm.

Here's a summary. Here's the thing in action—it starts slowly, but gets shocking after 22 seconds.

Jeremiah O'Brien

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

The SS Jeremiah O'Brien is the last Liberty Ship afloat that took part in the Invasion of Normandy.

Yesterday, we took a cruise to celebrate its 65th birthday and the 233rd anniversary of the first naval battle of the Revolutionary War—Jeremiah O'Brien led the his fellow countrymen to take over the HMS Margaretta.

We sailed around Alcatraz, into the ocean, over to Alameda, and back home. (click on image to enlarge)
They handle cargo more efficiently these days.
But in their day the Liberty Ships were a powerful weapon.
There was an author on board.
And the Natural Gas Jazz Band.

90 in the shade

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

After lunch yesterday, it was 90 in the shade.
The animals were suffering.
The three bears had gone into hibernation.
None of us could wait for the chance to buy the Hardy Boys Complete.

Si se puede

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday was Spare The Air Day, so I hopped the 33 for free toward the Watchword Press Benefit at Intersection.
The art establishment turned its back to my work. [click on image to enlarge]
Watchword Press Marketing Director Lauren Trestler, in real life a tech editor, mentioned that she had studied at Mills with Ginu Kamani (ZYZZYVA Spring '97).
Mattie Bamman, ZYZZYVA Winter '07, wondered if he should have gotten a Bottomless ($30) Martini.
Meanwhile, Lorenzo, who plays on weekends with Los Canarios de la Barranca, was holding forth at the (ongoing) Grand Opening of the refurbished El Toro Taqueria, Valencia @ 17th..

The Wages of Sin

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Here's an interesting post-wannabe's account of money and the young writer—by Keith Gessen, co-founder and editor of n + 1, a languorous biannual, and author of this spring's much heralded (languorous) novel All the Sad Young Literary Men—the title says it all; Gessen was born in Russia (in 1975) and is therefore, presumably, entitled to bathos.

Here's an interesting film about Kenneth Goldsmith, the king of "uncreative writing." It does go on, but...

Here's the trailer for a doc about indie bookstores (Cody's and Kepler's) that will air this fall on PBS. Only a true cynic would not puke...

Watchword Press

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Watchword Press has a benefit at Intersection tomorrow, organized by Liz Lisle and Tavia Stewart, managing editor of National Novel Writing Month,
which centers on an exhibition—artists responding to a text by Britta J. Austin—including my piece, Cover Story, in which I pasted the text inside book covers,
and, on the left, 600-lb. Parachute, a painting by George Pfau, who, last night, was hanging a work by his friend Alexandra Pratt,
while Tavia Stewart and Bret Hotchkiss installed a piece by Youmna Chlala.
Meanwhile, directly across Valencia, Steve Lopez was getting his new gallery, ArtZone 461, ready for its grand opening on Sunday, a benefit for Visual Aid.

Top 50 Most Viewed Poems

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

As I read Alex Ross's wonderful survey of 20th-century music, The Rest is Noise, I was constantly checking YouTube to hear (and see) what he was describing.

I had, for example, never seen a performance of Rite of Spring: what a revelation.

YouTube was an excellent source for almost everything, from Arturo Michelangeli's interpretations of Ravel and Debussy to Nixon in China.

I assume that the textbooks of the future will have every reference linked—what the CD revolution of hypertext promised but could never quite deliver.

Meanwhile, a list of the Top 50 Most Viewed Poems justs offers the texts. (Nice to see Bob Browning hanging tough at Number 4.)

Whereas it should be a mashup of the poets reading, their bios, their poetics, critical comment....

Facebookfriends

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

I was pleased to have added my 200th Facebookfriend last week. That's not many, of course, but after all I am an editor.

And I refuse to be friends with Facebooksluts like Nick Carbo, who apparently Friends anyone who is able to breathe.

Also, I don't add Friends who are Friends with a certain party I'd like to meet in a dark alley some time...

I like being Friends with those who are selective, like Julie Madsen, who has only a close-knit group of 37 Friends, including Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, Leonard Cohen, Etienne Decroux, Bob Dylan, Michel Foucault, F.J. Hayden, Victor Hugo, Camille Paglia, and Arthur Rimbaud.

[I am a Friend of Antonin Artaud myself, but a different one; mine's from Chicago, hers from Leeds.]

Fisherman's Wharf

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Fisherman's Wharf is a lot of laughs.
But in the far right corner of the boardwalk, well hidden from the casual tourist's gaze, beneath Alioto's, is a plaque
describing what happened in WWII [click on image to enlarge]:

Here's an additional account.

At Home

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

It was already hot at 8 Thursday morning when I entered the Park at the Arguello Gate. I noticed the residents of this cubbyhole packing up. I wanted to ask if I could take their picture, but I was too shy. When I came back, they had tidied up and gone.

Click on the image and you can see the newspaper they stuffed in the slot in the corner beneath the urn—to block the oncoming headlights. Their garbage was neatly bagged and hidden at the end of the wall.
Beside the tennis courts was the bus/home of Shade and Hawk
and their kids, Chad, Ocean, and...
Hawk sells his weavings, Shade (in the back) her crocheting.
Later, Janice told me she wasn't polishing her car, she was rubbing off the dust.

West Coast Delights

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

The Review Review reviewed our Spring issue.

Along the way, TRR's editor Becky Tuch admits that, while revving up her own literary career, she realized:

...there was something unsettling about my process. I was not reading any literary magazines. Not only did I not subscribe to any, I hardly cared what was in them. There were even the magazines in which I'd had stories appear, magazines in which I'd won contests. Even those I didn't read.

I was not the only writer like this. What I found when I talked to my peers was that everyone wanted to be published in these magazines, but no one knew who published what, who edited which magazines, which ones were printed from universities and which were independent, or at the very least which magazines they liked and which they didn't.

Wanting to get published in lit mags had started to feel like doing community service so that it would look good on your college application. That is to say, lit mags did not represent pleasure, engagement or intellectual growth, but merely a stepping stone toward recognition from book editors and maybe agents.

The Classmates

noreply@blogger.com (Howard Junker) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

St. Paul's School was founded in 1856 in Concord, NH.

Among its alumni are writers Tim Ferris, Rosemary Mahoney, and Rick Moody.

And New Yorker staffers Dana Goodyear and Nick Paumgarten.

And Eliza Griswold, Ben Kunkel, and Katy Lederer, whose father, the author of more than 30 books, mostly about "words," taught English at SPS for 27 years; see also Katy's book, Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers—her brother & sister were stars in the glory days of poker on ESPN.

(A more extensive list of SPS authors, kindly supplied by the Alumnni Office, can be found at the end of this post.)

The Class of '62, shown below when they first arrived, in 1958—before the school admitted girls and minorities—included John Kerry and FBI director Robert Mueller.

Click on the image: Kerry is in the next-to-top row, just under the T.

The author of the book, just published by Hyperion, was a troubled boy whose family had run through a Phelps Dodge fortune and was beset by drink and suicide. He is in the front row, his light sport coat emblazoned "Privilege."

He, of course, did not fit in (and was let go).

Looking back (at this picture), he sees "the Regs—for regular guys—dressed in Brooks Brothers suits, French cuffs, and gold collar pins, spoke their own private language, and carried their derision the way a beat cop might carry a nightstick. Their cruelties were ingenious, and extended to every corner of the class. There seemed no social or public dimension—how you dressed, walked, talked, ate, played, and studied; who your friends were; which way you blew your nose—for which the standard wasn't unassailable, and hadn't been set by the Regs."

Orwell said he drew inspiration for 1984 from his days at Eton.

SPS Alumni Authors—a selected list (form year after their name)

John Wilmerding, 1956 (art books)
Charles Scribner, III, 1969 (art books,memoir)
Lorene Cary, 1974 (Black Ice)
Henry Garfield, 1965 (novelist)
Christopher Tilghman, 1964 (fiction writer)
John Kerry, 1962 (“A Call to Service”)
Kelley Eskridge, 1978 (fiction writer)
A.R. Gurney, 1948 (playwright)
G.B. Trudeau, 1966 (Doonesbury)
Col. Archibald Gracie, 1875 (Titanic: a survivor’s story)
Alex Shoumatoff, 1964 (Vanity Fair)
August Heckscher, 1932 (“Woodrow Wilson”)
Clement Hurd, 1926 (illustrator of Goodnight Moon)
T. S. Matthews, 1918 (poet)
Marshall Dodge, 1953 (“Bert and I”)
Michael J. Arlen, 1948 (“Passage to Arrarat”)
Bishop Paul Moore, 1937
Samuel Eliot Morison, 1903 (historian)
John V. Lindsay, 1940 (mayor of NYC, wrote a novel)
John Hay, 1934 (nature writer)
Arthur Stanwood Pier, 1891 (wrote novels of “St. Timothy’s)
John Gilbert Winant, 1908 (“Letter from Grosvenor Square”)
F. Marion Crawford, 1870 (travel books)
Owen Wister, 1878 (wrote “The Virginian”)