Around And Around And Around And Around And Around And Around

The voice in my head is now speaking in a Cockney accent, saying "qu'est-ce que c'est" and "evening sun" over and over again.

But more importantly:

The Lit Pub, founded by the wonderful Molly Gaudry, is accepting submissions.

Blake Butler's Nothing is insanely awesome.

Roxane Gay's updates are always a pleasure.

Really liking the Research Notes column over at Necessary Fiction.

Recently read Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles by Kira Henehan--it's a great read.

James Greer and Guylaine Vivarat are rocking out in a new band called Detective.

Cataclysm Baby by Matt Bell is coming out April 15, 2012--a neat trailer can be viewed here.

Always fun to see what Sandra Beasley is up to.

Ravi Mangla's Visiting Writers over at Uncanny Valley Press is very engaging.

Re-read Caty Sporleder's Flay, a Book of Mu and it was just amazing as the first four times I had read it.

Choke On These Words.

Emily Rapp rules.

And locally:

It's Spring, and Greenscape is blossoming.

Artist Terry Grow is in the middle of setting up his new website--here's what it looks like as of now.

Always fun to relax at The Saint Street Inn--great food and drinks.

Enjoying the Leather Candle from Kiki.

Historian Rien Fertel and Photographer Denny Culbert have a Barbecue Bus.

Mais La à la Hollie Gargano.

Art art art over at Freetown Studios.

Love this painting called "Le Lapin" by Catherine Fontenot.

Looking forward to checking out more documentaries over at The Passion Series.

Caught up with Diwang Valdez and the Motion Family Crew not too long ago at Walk On's.

Just ordered this for yonder C. Parker.

More later.

Back to the Cockney voice in my head. Fancy that, I fancy.

Joe Dunthorne, On Reading

"Growing up with two academic parents and a bibliophilic sister in a house seemingly propped up by bookshelves, one way in which I rebelled was by not reading or, at least, by not reading anything printed on paper. Many of my early reading experiences were through text-adventure computer games. My favourite was a brilliant spin-off of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. You can play it here. After that, I started writing my own games. Much later, I called them stories."

{Joe Dunthorne is the author of Submarine and Wild Abandon. Visit his website here for more information.}

Freetown Studios

From the website:

Freetown Studios believes that Lafayette Artists need to have a space to work with other artists and art enthusiasts. Since there are few established venues or artist studio/production spaces in Lafayette Parish, we have established a public forum/community center for artists and the general public in an up-and-coming neighborhood. The community will be encouraged to take advantage of the space while being introduced to various artists’ work processes and creative influences. The artists, on the other hand, will not only have the opportunity to see their work in the space, but will be able to present their work to the public – a chance many young artists have not had so far. There is also the lack of production space to consider — a problem that Freetown Studios hopes to solve.

Emerging artists often work from home, in small kitchens or living rooms hardly conducive to creative exchange. Having a place to work gives artists the drive to keep going. In addition to workspace, Freetown Studios will further the organization’s mission statement by providing quality services and programming which gives artists a public forum to discuss a variety of artistic mediums, emerging and cutting-edge work, and the importance of local access to cultural resources. Freetown Studios understands this drive and hopes to provide a perfect space to work, teach, and learn, a space that will inspire both struggling and established artists and members of the community to exchange ideas, work in different genres, and understand the extraordinary role art plays in everyday life. The goals of our programming and services scheduled are to provide space and support for multi-disciplinary, interactive workshops which will allow for work to be made and experienced by novices, professionals and spectators alike.

Freetown Studios Inc., is a nonprofit organization located in a 4,000 sq. ft. warehouse and dedicated to promoting emerging contemporary artists who work in Printmaking, Painting, Drawing, Installation, Theater, and other Multi-Media disciplines. We provide the artists with workspace and artistic support.

Freetown Studios
421 E. Convent St.
Lafayette, La, 70501

Freetown Studios 2012 Event Listing:

January

1.9.2012 – Intro Silkscreen begins – runs for 6 classes Mondays from 6-8 ($160 for course + few supplies)

1.21.2012 – Bonnie Camos Live Encaustic Demo 6-8p

February

2.13.2012 – Intro Silkscreen ends

2.25.2012 – Reggie Rodrigue presents Present Tense an open discussion on contemporary arts 6-8p

March

3.10.2012 – UL Writer in residence Kate Bernheimer and playwright Dayana Stetco will read from their writings & theatre productions 6-8p

3.16-18.2012 – Liz Hill figurative painting workshop (weekend workshop)

3.19.2012 – Intro to Relief begins – runs for 7 classes Tuesdays from 6-8p ($160 for course + few supplies)

3.20.2012 – Reggie Rodrigue presents Painting and Drawings 6-8p

April

4.7.2012 – Marie Hendry presents Paintings and Drawings (show opens 4.2.12-ends 4.7.12) 6-8p

4.21.2012 – Slava Broussard presents Paintings, Drawing, and Prints 6-8p

4.23.2012 – Intro Silkscreen begins – runs for 7 classes Mondays from 6-8p ($160 for course + few supplies)

May

5.1.2012 – Intro Relief ends

5.19.2012 – Giorgio Russo Multimedia Performance 8-10p; Doors open at 7:30p

5.26.2012 – Chris Deshazo Music Performance 8-10p; Doors open at 7:30p

June

6.11.2012 – Susan David Live Silkscreen Demo 6-8p

6.11.2012 – Intro Silkscreen ends; Classes will continue to be announced on Facebook and our website

6.23.2012 – Patterson Willis presents the Iconographer: The Publics Theatre 8-10p; Doors open at 7:30p

July

7.21.2012 – Stephanie Patton presents a Multimedia Installation 7-9p

August

8.18.2012 – Catherine Siracusa Live Encaustic Painting on Fabric/Canvas Demo 7-9p

September

9.15.2012 – Reggie Rodrigue Part 3 of Present Tense an open discussion of Louisiana contemporary arts 7-9p

October

10.13.2012 – Freetown Studios “Trunk Show” 3-6p (a live demo workshop including a variety of artists)

10.31.2012 – Printzero Studios travelling Printmaking Portfolio Exchange 2012.

November

11.1.2012- 11.11.2012 – Milena Theatre Group Closed Rehearsals

11.12.2012 -11.16.2012 – Milena Theatre Group OPEN Rehearsals – Open to the General Public; Time TBA

11.17.2012 Freetown Studios presents Sleeping with Vagabonds a Milena Theatre Group Production
Doors open at 7:30p. Show starts at 8p. SHARP. Limited Seating.

December

12.1.2012 – Printzero Studios show ends.

12.1.2012 – Sleeping with Vagabonds a Post Production Art-Space Dialogue
Doors open at 5:30p. Show starts at 6-8p. Show Ends 12.31.2012.

3 x J.A. Tyler

"J.A. Tyler doesn’t write mythsof creation and destruction. He makes language-shards that refract your consciousness, that draw blood and make you wonder if it’s real. If you exist. At the end of the book, you won’t know.”
--Joanna Ruocco

Comatose
Patasola Press




"Read this for the sake of beauty that exists but is not yet inside of you."
--j/j hastain, author of new forms and meditations

In Love With A Ghost
Lit Pub



"In Tyler’s hands, static concepts become Möbius strips of subversion. This incredible text is a kalidoscopic set of bifocals: look up and you’re in a far-away war, down and you’re in a suburban treehouse. Up and you’re the victim, down and you’re the aggressor. What is so important throughout – what Tyler so remarkably and irrefutably convinces the reader of – is all the ways these binaries are indeed, are inescapably, fused together on the same lens."
--Alissa Nutting, author of Unclean Jobs for Women & Girls

Variations of a Brother War
Small Doggies Press

fuckscapes | Sean Kilpatrick

“The violent, sexual zone of television and entertainment is made to saturate that safe-haven, the American Family. The result is a zone of violent ambience, a ‘fuckscape’: where every object or word can be made to do horrific acts. As when torturers use banal objects on its victims, it is the most banal objects that become the most horrific (and hilarious) in Sean Kilpatrick’s brilliant first book.”
– Johannes Göransson

“Pregnancy dream of poetry has this Sean Kilpatrick book by the fist. You learn to signal to others from the woken state, here, line-by-line. Do you have any extra money? Buy this book! If you have to skip lunch, buy THIS BOOK! “I held my breath so hard I ended up in the country.” Some poetry you read is forgotten, and never remembered. Some poetry, this poetry, Sean Kilpatrick’s poetry, is a manual for exciting the engine to throw you out of the vanquished pleasures. Here is your I.V. drip of sphinx’s blood.”
– CAConrad

fuckscapes
by Sean Kilpatrick
Mud Luscious Press/ Blue Square Press
100 pages
December 2011
$12

Take Care Fake Bear Torque Cake, by Heidi Lynn Staples

“Heidi Staples is one of the most sparkling, indelibly unique writers in English there is. Smart readers should follow her every move, including this quirky offering. She’s a beauty.”
--Mary Karr, author of Lit

“Like Magritte’s The Son of Man, Take Care Fake Bear Torque Cake is a work that unabashedly walks a line between ‘the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.’ It is a work full of a curious and exhilarating obfuscation that, when a reader is willing to look behind it, reveals an unexpectedly touching and delightful memoir.”
--Darby Larson, author of The Iguana Complex

For more information, and an excerpt:

Take Care Fake Bear Torque Cake
A Memoir By Heidi Lynn Staples
Caketrain Press