Gigantic Things Poppin'

Believe it or not, the second issue of Gigantic magazine is completed. It is a long time coming, but the result was worth it. The magazine looks completely fantastic (thanks to Erin West!) and contains work or interviews with the likes of Sam Lipsyte, Robert Coover, Clancy Martin, Lydia Millet, Stephen O'Connor, Deb Olin Unferth, Adrian Tomine and many other awesome artists and writers.

We are also having a launch party next Saturday at PPOW gallery in Chelsea. Clink on the link for all the details, but Stephen O'Connor, Deb Olin Unferth, Sasha Fletcher and Brian Beatty's surrogate will be reading and there will be booze so you know you want to come.

momma was a bildungsroman, papa was a whammy bar...

Tomorrow night Vol 1 Brooklyn and Gigantic are presenting Greatest Three-Minute Rock ‘n’ Roll Story Ever, a rocking reading with 20 readers, some bands and good times. The readings will only be three minutes each, so not as intimidating as it sounds. I'll be reading a short piece as will James Yeh, Justin Taylor and many other rad writers. 7pm at Bar Matchless. More info here.

Retired astronauts plant American flags into their own chests

I was cleaning up my old files and came across a very old poem I'd written in 2005 after a Robert Bly poem called The Great Society (1967). I haven't touched the poem or read Bly's in five years. I still like some of the lines, but as you can tell it is very much a poem about the Bush era and doesn't seem salvageable. I figured I'd post it here for fun. (Note: the only edits I've made are losing some semi-colons, which I was using to mirror Bly, but probably incorrectly.)

Here goes:

The New Society

after Robert Bly’s “The Great Society”

Dentists will drill holes in fences to monitor their neighbors.
At night, evangelists drain the motel pools
As apes appear hauling barrels of oil to refill them.
On city ledges, pigeon courts dole out painful sentences to captured doves:

New buildings designed with the terrible architecture of ants.

The legs of senators are trapped in gofer holes.
Dogs sniff at dark clouds brewing to the east.
The President daydreams of invading everything
Except his own skull.
The pregnant cement of city streets has split open with weeds.

Talking heads cough up balls of static on TV: The suburbs brood.
The traveling salesmen returns home covered in blood, again.
Wet children in their lawns stare troubled at each other
Before vanishing to their dinners while
Retired astronauts plant American flags into their own chests.

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In other poetry news...

A few of you have met my friend Taras Castle. He is an, uh, interesting man. He has been working on a collection of poems called The Red Cosmonaut Cycle for a while and one of those poems just appeared in Greatest Uncommon Denominator. If you click on the link you can see a preview and purchase the poem for a mere 50 cents (or for a bit more the entire issue). Here is the first paragraph:

The old lady tells me that inside

the belly of every songbird

there is a purse of gold coins.

the web: now in real life

The Rumpus and htmlgiant party last week was a rocking good time. Thanks to everyone who came out (and it was a packed house). I had fun DJing and listening to the rad musicians and readers, especially Deb Olin Unferth and her forthcoming Noon story and Jeffrey Lewis and his Mosquito Murderer rap. There is a write-up with some short interviews and pictures at Scallywag and Vagabond.

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In other web slash non-web news, Gigantic magazine just put some new content online including a rad story by Saša Stanišić and some Little Big Planet levels inspired by Matthew Barney's Cremaster films. We also are having a call for submissions for 300 biographies of famous Americans in anticipation of Gigantic #2, which will be available in physical bookstores near you in a few short weeks.

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In just web news, a short article of mine at The Faster Times (Is David Foster Wallace So 1990s?) got linked at The New Yorker blog and other places, which is pretty neat.

scratch master

This Thursday I will be DJing The Rumpus One Year Anniversary Party (co-sponsored by htmlgiant). The Rumpus is a great website that I've written for a few times. The party features lots of great readers and musicians (Deb Olin Unferth, Tao Lin, Justin Taylor, Jeffrey Lewis, etc.) and is hosted by my good friend and Gigantic co-editor Rozalia Jovanovic.

Check out this nifty animated invite:

Come on out, you know you want to.

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A week and a half ago I wrote a long (and mostly negative) review of James Cameron's Avatar for The Millions. Yesterday Avatar won a Golden Globe for best picture, but we live in a world where Juno of all awfully-written films won a script Oscar and Crash was named best picture...so what can you do?

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The second (and super-awesome) issue of Gigantic should come out in the next few weeks. I know we've been saying that for a while, but this time we are super-serious.

tune in

I made a guest appearance on WNYC's Soundcheck yesterday to talk about my essay in the current Oxford American Southern Music Issue and southern music in general. I didn't talk for too long (the editor of Oxford American, Marc Smirnoff, was the main guest) but it was a lot of fun and interesting to see the inside of radio. Anyway, you can listen to the episode online or download it if you'd like.

And if you haven't checked out the OA's music issue, you should get on it. It is really great this year. I've been rocking the CDs constantly for the past few weeks.

Boring personal readings habits 2k9 summary edition

Continuing my annual tradition that is of no interest to anyone but myself, here is the chronological list of every book I finished in 2009. Finished means I finished reading the entire thing front to back, but not necessarily that I started reading it in 2009 (likewise books I started this year yet didn't finish are absent).

My goal was at least 50 books. I completed the 50th late in the afternoon on December 31st.

1. The Tormented Mirror – Russell Edson
2. The True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey
3. The Men Who Stare at Goats – Jon Ronson
4. Flying to America – Donald Barthelme
5. How to Sell – Clancy Martin
6. Retreat Retreat Chapbook – Wells Tower
7. The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven – Rick Moody
8. Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee – James Tate
9. Farewell Navigator – Leni Zumas
10. Like You’d Understand Anyway – Jim Shepard
11. Funny Misshapen Body – Jeffery Brown
12. NOON 2009
13. Days Between Stations – Steve Erickson
14. Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson
15. Hey Jack! – Barry Hannah
16. Personal Days – Ed Park
17. Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World – Donald Antrim
18. Varieties of Disturbance – Lydia Davis
19. Trout Fishing in America – Richard Brautigan
20. Last Days – Brian Evenson
21. The Pill Versus the Springhill... – Richard Brautigan
22. Roads – Larry McMurtry
23. The King – Donald Barthelme
24. High Lonesome – Barry Hannah
25. Platform – Michel Houellebecq
26. The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake – Breece D’J Pancake
27. I Love and Understand You and Would Be... - James Yeh
28. The Spectacle of the Body – Noy Holland
29. The Collected Works of Tony Millionare's Sock Monkey*
30. The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House
31. Fugue State – Brian Evenson
32. Prison Pit Vol. 1 – Johnny Ryan
33. Skin Deep – Charles Burns
34. The Squirrel Machine – Hans Rickheit
35. Tours of the Black Clock – Steve Erickson
36. Child of God – Cormac McCarthy
37. Light Boxes – Shane Jones
38. Che: A Graphic Biography – Sid Jacobson
39. The Ask – Sam Lipsyte
40. The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
41. In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
42. Born Standing Up – Steve Martin
43. Twilight of the Superheroes – Deborah Eisenberg
44. The Book of Evidence – John Banville
45. The Anthologist – Nicholson Baker
46. New York Tyrant V. III Issue I
47. All-Star Superman Volume 1 – Morrison and Quitely
48. All-Star Superman Volume 2 – Morrison and Quitely
49. Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine – Stanley Crawford
50. Numbers in the Dark – Italo Calvino

* indicates books I'd read before previously...although this year that was only one book.

20.5 novels/novellas

15 story collections/lit mags

8 comics/graphic novels

5 books of non-fiction (one of which was also a graphic novel)

2.5 poetry collections

This year I was working full time and also finishing up my fiction thesis for Columbia University, which I think cut down on my reading time substantially (14 fewer than 2008). I'm a little ashamed of the gender imbalance in the above list, something to fix in 2k10. The amount of poetry I read fell dramatically and I'm not sure what explains that. Non-fiction is always low since I read a lot of magazines for that (primarily The Believer, New Yorker, Harper's and The Oxford American).

I read two books each by Steve Erickson, Barry Hannah, Grant Morrison and Donald Barthelme. Three books each by Brian Evenson (all 2009 releases no less) and Richard Brautigan.

Top 10 favorites (no order):

Days Between Stations – Steve Erickson

Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson

The True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey

The Ask – Sam Lipsyte

Child of God – Cormac McCarthy

Last Days – Brian Evenson

Like You’d Understand Anyway – Jim Shepard

NOON 2009

Personal Days – Ed Park

In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan

6 honorable mentions:

The Anthologist – Nicholson Baker

How to Sell – Clancy Martin

All-Star Superman Volume 1 – Morrison and Quitely

Hey Jack! – Barry Hannah

Trout Fishing in America – Richard Brautigan

Fugue State – Brian Evenson

hollaback blog

I wanted to give a shout out (back?) to Jay Diamond at Vol 1. Brooklyn (a great culture blog based in, well, Brooklyn). He recently made a nice post titled Scott Esposito vs. Lincoln Michel in a Cage Match to Determine who my Favorite Lit. Blogger is about my book blogging at The Faster Times and then some guy named Scott Esposito who I must now destroy.

The fight will take place in February in a cage suspended above the Gowanus. I'm told I'm allowed to bring either one folding chair or one copy of Infinite Jest into the ring. Is anyone available to help me train?

Farked, Metafiltered, Digged

Yesterday my account of The Velvet Underground's "reunion" at the New York Library went up on The Rumpus. The piece got picked up at a few places around the internet, including Metafilter, Fark and Digg. I feel like Paul Wall here!

“The building has hit fire code,” the security guard told me. “500 people.” Some of the people outside were holding tickets. I asked the guard if I could use the bathroom out in the hall. He sighed, shrugged and said, “I’ll remember you.” I decided not to risk it.

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Also, two days ago I had a (very short) story go up at Opium magazine. It is called Consequences:

I once knew a girl who’d been smothered with a pillow by her lover. It was the same old story, jealousy of this or another. He didn’t get far and she lived, but she became afraid of anything soft.

ctrl + f "Lincoln Michel"

The Oxford American's 11th annual music issue is out now and this week they put up Q&As with all of the contributors online. If you click here and do a ctrl + f for "Lincoln Michel" you can read me discussing Iggy Pop, Bernhard's The Loser, why U2 is boring and other music-related things. Or you can just scroll way down. Or not click. Hey, I give up. Do what you wanna do.

Oxford American Southern Music Issue

Oh yes, it is that time of year!

For those not in the loop, every year The Oxford American compiles a few CDs of amazing tunes from across the spectrum of Southern music. Soul, country, bluegrass, rap, pop...it is all here, likely by artists you have never heard of before. Each track gets an essay (or two or three) to accompany it in the magazine and this year I'm lucky enough to have a piece of mine included. I'm pretty excited to be a part of this because an OA Southern Music issue is always some seriously massive stuff. This year features two CDs, one devoted entirely to Arkansas musicians.

The Oxford American also published a short story of mine earlier this year.

It's like Santa came early this year and he had a flask of bourbon in his hand and a twang in his voice.

Big Bling

New York City (and surrounding area) friends, three magazines that I am involved with—Gigantic (co-editor), The Faster Times (books editor) and The Rumpus (sometime contributor)—are joining forces to throw a near-year-end holiday party on Monday, December 14th.

Should be a pretend-fancy good time.

Read more about it here.

Three Jokes the Homeless Man Told on My Morning Commute

Q: What did the breakfast say to the lunch?

A: Eat me.

Q: What did the SWAT team say to the young man?

A: Get a haircut!

Q: What do you call the stars in Hollywood?

A: The Big Dipper.

Recent things at The Faster Times

Sorry for the lack of updates. Lots of projects in the works. Some fiction coming out, some non-fiction coming out, some reading series being worked on, some issue 2 of Gigantic (featuring Robert Coover, Sam Lipsyte, Lydia Millet, Adrian Tomine, Clancy Martin and many more...it will be massive, titanic, giant, even gigantic) being finished up, and so on. In the meantime, here are some recent posts of mine at The Faster Times:

The 100 Best Books of the 2000s (At Least According to The Times)

Philip Roth’s Bad Sex Writing Gives Him Hope for a 2009 Literary Prize

A Novelty Deckchair of One’s Own

Balls-Out Badassery: TFT Review of Prison Pit Book One by Johnny Ryan

Will the Real Roberto Bolaño Please Stand Up?

Reading at NYPL next week

I'll be reading at the NYPL next Tuesday for CLMP's Periodically Speaking series (the same series where Adam Wilson read for Gigantic earlier this year). Three magazines pick three emerging writers to read for a short amount of time each. Here is the line-up:

Lincoln Michel reading fiction on behalf of Vestal Review
Leigh Stein reading poetry on behalf of Low Rent
Montana Wojczuk reading non-fiction on behalf of Tin House

I'm very excited to be picked by Vestal Review and to share the room with the fine journals and writers above. Stop by if you'd like, I will try not to be boring.

Tuesday, October 13th, 6 – 7:30 pm
DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, The New York Public Library,
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
(Please use Fifth Avenue entrance; admittance is free)

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My piece on hamburger restaurants is out in The Believer. I just saw it for the first time yesterday and it looks fantastic (thanks to the layout genius of Alvaro Villanueva). It is a schema, so you can only see it in print, but I have a Lincoln Michel bio online I can link to.

All for now.

Hamburgers in The Believer

The October Believer is out and, as always, has lots of interesting stuff (Agnès Varda interviewed, Vlad the Impaler's impact on tourism examined, Louis C.K. doing sedaratives, a poem by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, etc.). The issue also has my piece on the habitats of regional hamburger restaurants. It is not online, so you'll have to read the issue to see what that means. I'm extremely excited to be in a magazine as consistently rad as The Believer!

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In The Faster Times news, we recently partnered with The Onion AV club and in the books section I wrote a perhaps funny piece on classic lit / monster mash-ups and learned that Dan Brown and David Foster Wallace were in a workshop together. Zak Smith was interviewed by Justin Taylor and Gary Lutz was interviewed by Michael Kimball. Clancy Martin, who I interviewed for Gigantic, has been discussing loving and lying. Many other cool things, but I think I already overloaded this paragraph with links.

Gigantic interview with Clancy Martin

Over at the newly designed Gigantic magazine website, I have an interview up with philosopher and novelist Clancy Martin whose novel How to Sell I reviewed for Bookforum earlier this year. We we talk about talk about philosophy versus fiction, Apollo versus Dionysus, Thomas Pynchon versus Denis Johnson, minimalism versus lyricism, and one or two other things. Read it here: TALKING ABOUT THINKING: a fairly long interview with Clancy Martin by Lincoln Michel.

CM: I think if you are a writer and you want to immediately grab hold of your reader's repressed consciousness, of her or his own terror and despair of suffering and the meaninglessness of life and the consciousness of their own failure and the inevitability of death, all you have to do: Yellow. Just bring in yellow and you've got it just like that.

It's a live (website)!

The official Gigantic site is now live! Infinite thanks to the crazy talented Joanna Neborsky for designing it and making it happen and also to Daniel Carvalho for programming it.

Check out our art feature by Thomas Doyle, the new Forecast chapter from Shya Scanlon and a new story by J.A. Tyler.

We are excited and hope you are too.

one or two things about one or two things

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Gigantic /Opium /BOMB end of summer bash. We had a great time, so we hope you did as well! If you missed it, read a recap at The New York Observer.

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The Faster Times is still young but going very strong. Some recent highlights from the book section (that I edit) in case you missed:

• Rozalia Jovanovic debates "selling out" and indie books with PGP's Adam Robinson.
• Darin Strauss has a minor bone to pick with Jonathan Franzen.
• James Yeh reviews the new Bolano.
• And I compile some of my favorite literary pieces from The Onion.

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I've have a few other rad things in the works that I will tell you about at some future point. Wow, this is a boring way to end a post isn't it?

You Don't Know Me

but... you could if you come to this party:


Gigantic magazine, BOMB magazine and Opium magazine are co-throwing an end of the summer bash. A Gigantic Opium Bomb, if you will. Boozing, schmoozing, DJs, special guests, short plays directed by novelists. What more could you want? You can buy tickets online here.
Bowery Electric, August 26th.