pop serial 2, theatrical trailer
my friends, i have created a theatrical trailer for issue 2 of POP SERIAL
print copies of the magazine are now being distributed to contributors and kickstarter donors
a free online version is also coming soon (contact editor dierks for info, stephen.dierks [at] gmail.com)
if you like the trailer, please share it on your blogs and social networking sites
thank you everybody
two image macros ___________________
i have expanded out from poetry into image macros. the ones here are from a series of rap song titles paired with pictures of my family. these two portray me on a scooter (~2008) and me holding a michael jordan baseball card (~1995)
unrelated note: recent requests for printed chapbooks have been delayed... i've printed but still have to assemble and package the next 200 copies. they should be in the mail the first week of january. sorry about the wait my friends
related posts /
+ three poems
+ visual poem: "express / the / birds / if you can"
+ three text messages by brett gallagher
related posts /
+ three poems
+ visual poem: "express / the / birds / if you can"
+ three text messages by brett gallagher
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
"three albums in sixteen months, homie... i know all about chasin paper" - plies
comedy / stand-up by marshall mallicoat
design / minimalist posters by emil ruder
music / "dance the way i feel" by ou est le swimming pool
music / "yippeekayay mother******" by the tony danza tapdance extravaganza
poetry / excerpts by johannes göransson
poetry / reading by me at the book cellar in chicago
poetry / "your semen is the data that your penis compresses" by ana c.
social media / inspiring quote by stephen tully dierks
social media / tweet by marshall mallicoat
social media / tweet by poncho peligroso
social media / tweet by carlos rowles
social media / tao lin retweet marathon
veganism / 30-day animal experimentation protest at tulane university
hello everyone, the first semester of my mfa program is almost over. i am happy about winter break and visiting michigan. i have a tentative title and release date for my collection of helvetica poems, and i will announce that stuff soon. i'm very excited about it
demand for my printed chapbook has decreased a little, which is ok because i am kind of exhausted printing them; i may stop at 1,000. thanks so much to everyone who has helped with that online promotion or spreading print versions
friends, please help me out: what should i definitely keep on my blog in 2011? i might start doing different things. i could post more of my poems, more long posts about literature or social issues, more posts like this with links and personal things.. what is your fave? thanks
etsy / tumblr / twitter / facebook / veganism / follow my blog
notes on 'orange juice' by timothy willis sanders
orange juice by timothy willis sanders is out on awesome machine press this year. it is around 45 pages of short stories, and the stories are between 2 and 8 pages longtopics include a lot of relationships, wwe smackdown (the game), listening to pimp c. in a car, dogs, and seeing titanic in theaters
the tone is minimalist and concrete including a lot of brand names. the verb tense and point of view change between stories. the tone reminds me most of zachary german in eat when you feel sad
my favorite story is “driver’s license.” in the story, there are descriptions of carl checking his email
It’s Monday. Carl checks his email. There’s an offer of discounted hotel rates in Cancun. There’s an evite to a robot theme party. The party requires attendees to dress up “like your favorite robot.”
Carl’s mother forwarded a chain email. It’s a series of quotes from Andy Rooney. “I think if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it’s not a phobia, it’s an opinion.” The quotes are followed by pictures of kittens and the Pledge of Allegiance.
and
Carl gets home from work. He checks his email. Heath Miller sent Carl a Facebook invite to a housewarming party. Carl thinks, “Haven’t talked to Heath Miller in 10 years.” The housewarming party is in Nebraska. Carl clicks Maybe Attending. Carl’s mother forwarded a chain email. It’s in Comic Sans. There’s a picture of a cross over a schoolhouse. “When they took prayer out of school, students started shooting.” A spam email says “Party with the horse team she takes for a long walk!”
the end of the same story felt very powerful to me. in the scene, jill had left her id at carl’s house
Carl looks at her ID. He thinks the photo is pretty. Jill is 5’9”. She is 122 pounds. She lives three blocks from him. Carl types Jill’s address into Google Maps. He goes into “Street View” and zooms in. The house is white and the mailbox is stuffed with envelopes.
the book has a creative commons license, and it is $8 in the u.s.a.
the first thing i knew about orange juice was from an email from timothy: “the cover features a kitten and the title is comic sans because THAZZWUZZUP”
here is timothy willis sanders’ blog and twitter; here is a story from the book; here are reviews of orange juice by stephen tully dierks and zachary german; here is the orange juice page on awesome machine press’ website
more reviews by me / follow my blog (rss, email)
related posts /
+ notes on 'eat when you feel sad' by zachary german
+ notes on 'richard yates' by tao lin
minimalist blog design using blogger
other than submitting to literary magazines, the most common thing people ask me about is how i designed my blog. it is a blogger blog, but the design is simple and clean. i have also designed this and this on blogger. i created my blog design by experimenting for a long time, so my understanding is not really complete. but here are some practical tips
minimalist blog design
minimalist blog design forces you to decide what is important. almost nothing on a blogger template is completely useless. for example, i removed the “followers” widget because i think it is ugly and huge. however, i may get fewer followers now. minimalist design allows you to emphasize one thing at a time, but you must leave out other things
removing things from blogger templates
the main thing i did with my blog is remove things from the template i had. some things are easy to remove. to learn how to remove more confusing things, i usually search “how to remove ________ in blogger” in a search engine, and someone has written about it. usually you just have to add or delete a couple lines of html (see below for the “edit html” tool)
here are links for basic things to remove
+ remove navigation bar
+ remove “subscribe to posts (atom)”
+ remove “home” and "newer" "older posts" links
directing traffic within the blog
other than appearance, one of the main ideas in web design is to encourage people to visit the pages you want them to visit
i used to have a link on my sidebar for book reviews, but in the past two months i decided i didn’t care if a lot of people check out my old reviews, so i removed the link. my review archive is still linked from my “about” page, but it doesn’t get nearly as many views from there. i am thinking of re-adding some links to the sidebar, but it’s hard to choose what is most important
also, i recommend making it quick to access things you want people to access. i had a “poetry” page that was just links to my poems around the internet, and i noticed a lot of people clicked on my “poetry” page and never followed any of the links. now i have poems right on my “poetry” page
making helvetica look good in blogger
helvetica is the only font i use on my blog, with arial as the second choice if the computer doesn’t have helvetica. (the order of font choices can be changed in your html: wherever there is a list of fonts in the html, you can add fonts or rearrange the order)
whenever i use large sizes of helvetica, i tighten the letter spacing and leading (line spacing, line height). this is an important part of making helvetica look good in my opinion
the letter spacing and line height are counted in “em,” a unit that is relative to font size. you don’t have to change it much to get tight spacing; the letter spacing for my date and post title is set around -0.05em
changing the blog “icon” to something else
the “icon” is the small square that shows next to the blog address in most browsers and next to the website name on browser tabs. most blogger blogs have a white “B” on an orange shape. i changed mine to a white square, and other people have pictures of themselves or a logo
this was another thing i searched in a search engine, but it was a little more confusing than other things. i think i had to convert a file to “.ico” format
using the “edit html” tool in general
most of this stuff is on the “edit html” page under the “design” tab. most people recommend that you back up your html (save in a text document) before you edit it
at the top of the html, there is a bunch of information you won’t probably change. then there are a lot of lines about fonts and colors, which you can change in the template designer as well
a lot of the html is broken into sections titled with “/* ________” and within those sections, smaller sections like “# _________.” most of the changes i’ve done manually are in these sections
other tips about this:
+ “#outer-wrapper” includes sidebars and the “#main-wrapper,” which is where posts are.
+ i use “text-transform:uppercase” for my date and post titles. but if you want to bold, underline, or italicize, the code is “text-decoration:____”
+ for me, the section for the date is labeled “h2.date-header”; the section for the post title is “.post h3”
+ usually if you need to move something up, down, or across, you can use margins, like adding “margin-top:50px;”
at the bottom of the html, there is a section with a lot of “div” lines. i don’t usually change these except when i’m following a how-to that says to change them
ok, if you have more specific questions, i can try to help. my main suggestion is to search in a search engine for how to remove things
note: my goal with this post is to help people design their own blogs, but if you want to hire me to design a blog instead, email me: steveroggenbuck[at]gmail.com
thank you everybody
share on facebook / share on twitter / follow my blog (rss, email)
minimalist blog design
minimalist blog design forces you to decide what is important. almost nothing on a blogger template is completely useless. for example, i removed the “followers” widget because i think it is ugly and huge. however, i may get fewer followers now. minimalist design allows you to emphasize one thing at a time, but you must leave out other things
removing things from blogger templates
the main thing i did with my blog is remove things from the template i had. some things are easy to remove. to learn how to remove more confusing things, i usually search “how to remove ________ in blogger” in a search engine, and someone has written about it. usually you just have to add or delete a couple lines of html (see below for the “edit html” tool)
here are links for basic things to remove
+ remove navigation bar
+ remove “subscribe to posts (atom)”
+ remove “home” and "newer" "older posts" links
directing traffic within the blog
other than appearance, one of the main ideas in web design is to encourage people to visit the pages you want them to visit
i used to have a link on my sidebar for book reviews, but in the past two months i decided i didn’t care if a lot of people check out my old reviews, so i removed the link. my review archive is still linked from my “about” page, but it doesn’t get nearly as many views from there. i am thinking of re-adding some links to the sidebar, but it’s hard to choose what is most important
also, i recommend making it quick to access things you want people to access. i had a “poetry” page that was just links to my poems around the internet, and i noticed a lot of people clicked on my “poetry” page and never followed any of the links. now i have poems right on my “poetry” page
making helvetica look good in blogger
helvetica is the only font i use on my blog, with arial as the second choice if the computer doesn’t have helvetica. (the order of font choices can be changed in your html: wherever there is a list of fonts in the html, you can add fonts or rearrange the order)whenever i use large sizes of helvetica, i tighten the letter spacing and leading (line spacing, line height). this is an important part of making helvetica look good in my opinion
the letter spacing and line height are counted in “em,” a unit that is relative to font size. you don’t have to change it much to get tight spacing; the letter spacing for my date and post title is set around -0.05em
changing the blog “icon” to something else
this was another thing i searched in a search engine, but it was a little more confusing than other things. i think i had to convert a file to “.ico” format
using the “edit html” tool in general
most of this stuff is on the “edit html” page under the “design” tab. most people recommend that you back up your html (save in a text document) before you edit it
at the top of the html, there is a bunch of information you won’t probably change. then there are a lot of lines about fonts and colors, which you can change in the template designer as well
a lot of the html is broken into sections titled with “/* ________” and within those sections, smaller sections like “# _________.” most of the changes i’ve done manually are in these sections
other tips about this:
+ “#outer-wrapper” includes sidebars and the “#main-wrapper,” which is where posts are.
+ i use “text-transform:uppercase” for my date and post titles. but if you want to bold, underline, or italicize, the code is “text-decoration:____”
+ for me, the section for the date is labeled “h2.date-header”; the section for the post title is “.post h3”
+ usually if you need to move something up, down, or across, you can use margins, like adding “margin-top:50px;”
at the bottom of the html, there is a section with a lot of “div” lines. i don’t usually change these except when i’m following a how-to that says to change them
ok, if you have more specific questions, i can try to help. my main suggestion is to search in a search engine for how to remove things
note: my goal with this post is to help people design their own blogs, but if you want to hire me to design a blog instead, email me: steveroggenbuck[at]gmail.com
thank you everybody
share on facebook / share on twitter / follow my blog (rss, email)
notes on three chapbooks
hello friends, usually when i do chapbook reviews, they are really small posts. now i am doing 3 chapbook reviews in the same post. it is actually pretty long. was it a good idea, or bad?
william shatner by c. mcallister williams
william shatner by c. mcallister williams is out from alice blue in 2010. it is 10 pages of poetry. it is sewn together with handmade paper on its outside
subject matter in william shatner includes william shatner, blood, scented candles, country-western, anointing your clothing with sequins, and whalebone
the tone is epic, but there is some subject matter that is comically non-epic
it is all lowercase, and ampersands (&) are used instead of "and." most of the poems have a pattern of 2-, 3-, or 4-line stanzas but they break from their pattern once or twice
there are five exclamation points!
i have been friends with c. mcallister williams for around 4 years. he was one of the first "serious" poets i became friends with and he has influenced my reading and writing a quite a bit
here is the page for william shatner on alice blue’s website, and here is a limited edition version including a mirror
snowing fireflies by eric beeny
snowing fireflies by eric beeny came out in 2010 from folded word. it is 22 pages of short fiction. copies are numbered up to #75
topics include shoveling a driveway, bird island, drilling into a museum exhibit, and growing umbrellas in your garden
most of the paragraphs are one sentence long. the word “big” is used as an adverb a few times (“smiling big”)
there is a story where a kid gets repeatedly dominated and injured
i have talked to eric in email and comments since june. he was one of my first regular readers after i started writing reviews, and he recommended aram saroyan’s minimalist poems to me
here is eric beeny’s blog, links to a lot of eric beeny’s fiction and poetry, and the snowing fireflies page on folded word’s website. here is an online chapbook by eric beeny. here is a video of eric beeny solving a rubix cube
make-believe love-making by ana c.
make-believe love-making by ana c. came out in 2010. it is 24 pages of poetry. copies are numbered up to #69
topics include penises, semen, bad tasting pasta, sexism, and water beds
the poems are all lowercase except for the abbreviations “PETA” and “FML”
there is a poem called “hung: the vulgar slang definition”
instead of quoting various lines, here is a full poem i like
i recently went to a reading (audio here) where ana c. read over skype. a lot of people laughed at the reading
here is an online chapbook by ana c., and here is ana c.’s blog (she posts poems on her blog pretty often)
you can read more of my reviews here; thanks everybody
william shatner by c. mcallister williams
william shatner told us there would be a reckoning.
we tell ourselves the waves are meant to devide.
william shatner by c. mcallister williams is out from alice blue in 2010. it is 10 pages of poetry. it is sewn together with handmade paper on its outside
subject matter in william shatner includes william shatner, blood, scented candles, country-western, anointing your clothing with sequins, and whalebone
the tone is epic, but there is some subject matter that is comically non-epic
william shatner is the uncommitted. he is wearing a combination.
earlier, with immortal science, he fondled his lollipop in my
backseat.
it is all lowercase, and ampersands (&) are used instead of "and." most of the poems have a pattern of 2-, 3-, or 4-line stanzas but they break from their pattern once or twice
there are five exclamation points!
& now: tribulation! our petty
vessels are all naught for william shatner
is shamed!
i have been friends with c. mcallister williams for around 4 years. he was one of the first "serious" poets i became friends with and he has influenced my reading and writing a quite a bit
here is the page for william shatner on alice blue’s website, and here is a limited edition version including a mirror
snowing fireflies by eric beeny
topics include shoveling a driveway, bird island, drilling into a museum exhibit, and growing umbrellas in your garden
stuffing my mouth with a rainbow of children’s refridgerator magnets
most of the paragraphs are one sentence long. the word “big” is used as an adverb a few times (“smiling big”)
there is a story where a kid gets repeatedly dominated and injured
When I was a kid, I went down the hot metal slide on my tummy and skinned my knee.
At the bottom I flew off the slide, scraping my elbow on some broken glass in the sand.
Staggering from the playground, I accidentally knocked over a bigger kid’s bicycle and the bigger kid punched me in the face.
A girl smaller than him, than me, scratched my neck, my chest.
The bigger kid pushed me and I fell to the ground, knocking my head against the pavement.
i have talked to eric in email and comments since june. he was one of my first regular readers after i started writing reviews, and he recommended aram saroyan’s minimalist poems to me
here is eric beeny’s blog, links to a lot of eric beeny’s fiction and poetry, and the snowing fireflies page on folded word’s website. here is an online chapbook by eric beeny. here is a video of eric beeny solving a rubix cube
make-believe love-making by ana c.
make-believe love-making by ana c. came out in 2010. it is 24 pages of poetry. copies are numbered up to #69topics include penises, semen, bad tasting pasta, sexism, and water beds
the poems are all lowercase except for the abbreviations “PETA” and “FML”
there is a poem called “hung: the vulgar slang definition”
instead of quoting various lines, here is a full poem i like
i hate your saliva
and you probably left me
because of my haircut
it’s generic
unworthy of description
and you think i look like a boy
i recently went to a reading (audio here) where ana c. read over skype. a lot of people laughed at the reading
here is an online chapbook by ana c., and here is ana c.’s blog (she posts poems on her blog pretty often)
you can read more of my reviews here; thanks everybody
