A Note To Potential Employers // Exploratory Remarks RE: “Internet Culture”

January 30, 2010 – 4:24 pm

To Whom It May Concern,

If you are a hiring manager or human resources person who received a resume from José Díaz, you may also have been directed to this site. I have linked you to Rub Paw Press because I feel that it is the best example of what I have to offer as a writer/blogger. Rub Paw Press is intended to be a Unique Generator of Culture through Engagement with Internet Media (UGCEIM)—this engagement tends towards a discussion of popular music/mp3s as well as literature. Rub Paw Press is also intended to be a Unique Generator of Cuture through Engagement with People, Places, and Things In Real Life (UGCEPPTIRL). Please remember these acronyms. There will be a short quiz at the end of this post.

Rub Paw Press is in part meant to show you my abilities to create content for an internet audience. The site is furthermore intended to demonstrate my ability to construct sentences and paragraphs of flawless written English—this ability makes me an ideal candidate copywriting and editing work.

The following is my Online Writing Sample, wherein I answer the question, “Define Internet Culture”, as presented to me in an application for employment with a popular meme-generating website. My answer was originally submitted in plain text, and as such I felt sort of bad, having been denied my compulsive link/embed habits. Links or no links, I acknowledge the following comments are by no means complete; a proper discussion of Internet Culture could very well fill several blogs, maybe even a book. I am not ready to write a book.

Though I would like for all rubpawpress-authored content to be regarded as constituting a writing sample, I understand if you are looking for something specific and can furnish a traditional writing sample at your request. Please direct inquiries to my personal email.

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I would define Internet Culture as referring to a society whose forms of cultural and economic production are being fundamentally reformed by the Internet, which offers new ways to create and disseminate public culture (e.g. media products; audiovisual representations of the world; memes).

Bands become famous on the merit of a few mp3s.

Photo via gorillavsbear

A 3-minute YouTube short results in a multi-million dollar Hollywood deal.

An author gains an audience for his books by annoying a New York gossip blog.

photo via Anne J Regan

Real-life events are repackaged into visual one-liners, becoming something like a “meme creation kit”. Juxtapose one image of Kanye West, one background image (preferably another meme), one caption saying, “I’mma let you finish…” in reference to the background image: hilarity!

Photo via I’ma Let You Finish

An Internet Culture is a society where individuals conduct their social business (e.g. meeting; flirting; flaming; organizing) on the Internet as much as they do In Real Life, where social networking becomes a norm for social inclusion. Social interactions are given a new stage and new problems as Facebook users subject themselves to hypervisibility and awkward wall posts from parents. Whether “authentic” personal interactions are enhanced or supplanted by online interaction, it is clear that the ways we speak to and get to know each other have changed.

I experience Internet Culture as writing this response while switching back and forth between Word and Firefox. I go to my Tumblr feed and see that somebody customized her credit card with an image of Ceiling Cat (Ceiling Cat is watching your interest rate).

via Neatorama

I consider reblogging it, but instead I go to my running Gchat conversation and watch a YouTube video sent by my friend. In the video, a news anchor gets Rickrolled live on TV.

I reply, “lol”.

I Google “iPad meme”. I check Google Reader. I see that the Justice mp3 that I downloaded from Stereogum and posted on Tumblr is a fake.

[(not really)Justice - Beginning Of The End]

I post a retraction, which Tumblr then broadcasts to my Twitter and Facebook. One of my Facebook friends comments on my status update, saying, “that song was boring anyway”. I think about checking my Facebook messages, but then I remember that all 19 of my unread messages probably relate to events that I don’t want to attend.

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QUIZ (no looking!)

Short Answer:

1) What is Public Culture?

2) What is Ceiling Cat watching you do?

3) What is the purpose of this post?

Definitions:

UGCEIM:

UGCEPPTIRL

Fill In The Blank:

An Internet Culture is a society where individuals conduct their __________ (e.g. meeting; flirting; flaming; organizing) on the Internet as much as they do In Real Life…)

a) Risky Business

b ) Social Business

c) None of Your Business

d) Takin’ Care of Business

BONUS QUESTION:

What is the real life referent of the Kanye West “I’ma let you finish…” meme?

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Sincerely,

José Díaz

view related samples here

By rubpawpress | Posted in BTW | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

An Interview with Brandon Scott Gorrell, Creative Writer

February 8, 2010 – 11:01 am

Brandon Scott Gorrell is a writer of poems and stories. His last book, during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present, was published by Muumuu House. I think I’ve seen it on sale at the Anne Bonny. I also saw it in the ‘zine rack at Healthy Times Fun Club. The book gets around. Currently, Gorrell is working on a novel to be published in Europe by 3:AM PRESS, and currently talking to a US publisher. He is considering another project, tentatively titled ‘ASIA’. We Gchatted sitting next to each other at Online Coffee.

during my nervous breakdown i want to have a blogger present

I bought and read during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present and liked it, deeply identifying with Gorrell’s depression / anxiety / alienation. I was initially struck by the speaker’s strange world. Relationships are distant, frustrated; thoughts dash from the super personal of “i continued avoiding eye contact / because when I looked at your eyes, i couldn’t resist smiling” to fantasies of mutual space travel and suicide, and later to global apocalypse (mostly at the hands of the speaker but in one case thanks to clone aliens). The poems are often strange but more often than not they are grounded in the real, in a person thinking strange things. I imagine the speaker in ‘reality’ saying, “with a calm facial expression i will expand / into a giant flesh thing / the size of a volcano / and roll over seattle and head south” rather than it actually happening. The speaker is imagining. “Halloween Party” engages that sense of imagination but in a slightly different way, with the speaker stating, “Casey is a bird, Timothy is a Karate Kid, and John is a giant / floating emoticon…”. This is plausible; it’s a Halloween party. However, this poem is the one place for me where the book takes a turn for the really unreal:

Casey crouches on the carpet in the middle of people and

flies around the room making bird noises and hits some

curtains and hits a lamp and lands on a window sill with her

body pressed against the glass and flaps her wings a little.

I’m really interested in this passage because I first read it as Casey acting like a bird; I interpreted “flies around the room making bird noises…” as “[a drunk Casey] runs around the room quickly making bird noises”. I think this made the most sense given my impression of the book’s world. I further interpreted the party goers’ collective reaction (“Everyone stares at Casey”) as referring to her having done something disruptive but not totally unreal. But then Casey is asked, “how did you do that” and responds with bird noises. I am wondering what the intention was of this flight into the really unreal.

I should have asked this. I guess I could Gmail him about it but this seems better somehow. I’m not sure if this analytic excursion is warranted or if it is even grounded in any way. But this is how I want to describe what makes me excited about the possibilities of Gorrell’s poetry besides my initial emotional response to the work.

why are you a bird?

I was interested in interviewing Gorrell

I knew that Gorrell lived in Seattle, and furthermore surmised from his blog that he lived in a neighborhood that sort of adjoins mine. This suspicion was confirmed when my copy of dmnbiwabp showed up at my house bearing an address from a neighborhood adjoining mine.Because of this I felt irrationally connected to him. Though I had originally envisioned us chatting each other from different locations, I came to think that it would be more interesting if we Gchatted each other in the same place. Maybe even from across the same table. (We weren’t far apart, after all.) He agreed to this plan so we did it. I’m glad we did it this way because he’s already done a more interesting Gchat interview with Bostonist. I honestly had thought that this Gchat interview thing was a genuine innovation / extension of things that have inspired me.

Though we spoke words to each other before and after the interview we did not speak during the interview. Rather, we communicated via Gchat.

RPP: I guess this is how we are doing this

Brandon Scott Gorrell: it’s okay, i’ve done this type of thing before, kind of. it’s a little strange

I know. This is my way of getting out of transcription. What are you working on right now?

literature?

Yeah.

i am editing a final version of my novel. i’m trying to change the ending, kind of, for a publisher in the states that might take if it i do that. i am also working on getting all the stuff written down for another novel i recently started working on, tentatively titled ASIA.

Neat. I saw your posts on your travels. I identified with the toilet scene. Maybe that was in that short story on Muumuu’s site.

[The toilet seemed very clean but was irregularly shaped and low to the ground. It did not have a seat. I remembered that Asia had toilets where you had to squat to shit instead of sitting down. A feeling of foreboding briefly overcame me. I pulled down my pants and squatted over the toilet. I was afraid of shit somehow going into my pants. I shit a little and looked into the toilet to see if I had aimed correctly. I saw no shit. I moved my hand around in my pants and didn't feel any shit. I shit more, this time watching my ass to see the shit come out. It came out and landed in the bowl correctly and then quickly slipped into the hole out of view. I shit more and did a very loud, sustained fart. I laughed. I looked at the toilet paper holder and saw that there was no toilet paper. There was a hose next to the toilet that had a spray nozzle attached to the end of it. I felt very bad.]

Yes, it was.

Damn. Feel unprepared right now. Are from Seattle originally?

i moved here three years ago, from salt lake city, for a job writing for a reality television show, which ‘went under’ 3 months after i got here. in salt lake, i went to high school. before i was in salt lake, i was in harrisburg, PA.

Oh yay. PA. Great place…what are your impressions of Seattle?

I feel different about seattle at different times. after i got back from asia i felt that seattle was bleak. my good friend had left and i had just broken up with a girl, who i live 2 blocks away from. other times i have liked it. when i feel that i have a lot of options for distracting myself, or not being alone, i feel better about seattle. i don’t feel impressed by the city or something. i feel indifferent to seattle ‘as a city,’ i think. i feel more concerned with if i have…friend options.

I hear that it’s hard to ‘break through socially’ here or something.

people say that, but i don’t know how seattle would be any different than any other city, in terms of making friends when you’re completely alone. seems really hard in any city. you can’t just walk up to people, if you don’t have a job you have to like, go to embarrassing social functions, like readings, or something, to meet bitches. and bros..

I haven’t gone to a reading in Seattle. How’s the scene here?

i can’t really tell. yesterday i went to ‘cheap beer and prose’ at the hugo house and it was ‘completely packed.’ it was really hot, and there were a lot of girls in american apparel gear, and a lot of alternatively dressed guys….and older, wine drinking people. they were serving 16 oz. pabsts for $1. at other readings that i’ve been to in the past, it hasn’t been ‘near as crowded,’ and only local ’staples’ have shown up, like matt briggs, or matthew simmons, or people more well-known. it seems to be getting bigger and more alternative, lately.

Oh. Sounds sweet. How often do you read in the city?

i haven’t often read since the summer, when my poetry book came out. i think i had like 4 readings over the course of 2 weeks, or something. since then i think i haven’t had any readings. i might have had one but i’m unsure. i don’t read often now.

I guess that’ll happen when you finish the novel?

yeah, that’s likely.

Who is publishing that?

3:AM PRESS is publishing it in france and the UK, and it’s being considered by another publisher here. it will come out in the spring or summer of this year, in europe.

So Europe gets to read it before we do? Damn. Is the novel ‘about you’?

yeah, they will. the novel was based on events that took place in my life from january 2008 to april 2008, i think. it was also based on how i interpreted those events. editing it now, i have tried to preserve the feelings i had during the time which the novel is based on.

Is it difficult to preserve those feelings? Are you ever tempted to radically change the work, given that you see things differently than you did then?

i think i feel as if i’ve defined those feelings, retrospectively, and have been editing on the basis of that definition. like when i was writing it originally, i didn’t really know what the main character’s issues were, or what made him feel the way he felt. after completing perhaps the 10th draft, or something, i think i felt different about things and was able to understand why the character felt certain ways. then i acted on that understanding, and have been since then. i used to kind of ‘radically’ change the work a lot, before that change occurred, that i just described, because i didn’t know what i was doing. now i feel like i know what is happening and that i just need to do certain things to make it more believable, or more readable, or something. brb.

So instead of starting again you can make it better…or something.

yes, i think so.

When did you have the sense that you knew what you were doing?

i’m not sure. awhile ago. there was one point when, over the course of a week, i think, i edited the novel from 30k words, to 15k words, based on something i had understood about what the finished novel should look like. then there was another point where i added, i think 6k words over the course of a week, that have mostly remained ‘to this day,’ and that was another event that i think represented that i understood more clearly what i should be doing.

You’ll know when it’s done?

it’s basically done. i might modify it for a publisher, but that already has like a clear goal, for me, so it will be easy to know when it’s done.

Ah. You still have a day job?

i get most of my money from a company that sells academic papers to ’students in need.’ mostly undergraduate, masters and doctorate level papers. i write them. i get an amount of money for other freelance ‘gigs,’ such as writing for the matador travel website, and more professional ‘copy’ for some other websites. i get an amount of money from blog gimmicks and book sales and literature-related things. i don’t have a typical ‘day job’.

Does that mean you get to work from home? Or Online Coffee?

yes, it’s like 100% ‘telecommute.’

Sweet. That’s like me right now except I make zero money.

damn…

I know.

friday night…

What are you doing Friday night? PARTY.

tonight’s friday night….i’m not sure, either my ex-gf is sleeping over, or i’m chilling with clancy, probably drinking. waiting for the verdict on the ex-gf thing…

Sounds fun. Who is Clancy?

my friend. he is 25. he’s an ‘enabler.’ i need him in social situations sometimes. if i hope to meet people, i need him. his ’superpower’ is his ability to do seemingly-retarded things that attract women toward our table and eventually make contact with them.

I feel like those are necessary. I had two of those in Philly but now I’m the closest thing to that. Which means that I talking about doing seemingly-retarded things that attract women…I think this is the bro/wingman relationship…

i like it.

I miss it. Before we wrap up. Do you have anything you want the internet to know via this interview?

you want to know my thoughts on any question, please ask me them on my formspring account: http://www.formspring.me/lydiadavis

Cool.

sweet.

I’m going to start talking……………………….

previous interviews

By rubpawpress | Posted in Interview, Literature, Poetry | Tags: , , , | Leave a Comment

February 8, 2010 – 1:42 am

AAron and I like to go to bars and ‘meet girls’, which means that we like to go to bars and not talk to girls and instead talk about this blog. When we talk about this blog we often talk about what will make people want to read this blog or what would be worth writing in a blog. There are many blogs out there that do specific things better than we ever will. The world does not need another gorillavsbear; another Hipsterrunoff; another Gawker. Nor does the need another ‘mediocre personal blogger blog’. I think that as a blog we should respond in some way to events that have been agreed upon as important by the mainstream. (That being said, I do not think I will ever blog about a TV show or any televised awards ceremony.) To that end  I proposed that we cover the Super Bowl. I thought it would be funny if I were to sit alone in my room while he went to Super Bowl party and tweeted about it. I would learn about what happened at this year’s Superbowl via his tweets and then blog about it.

Superb Owl

I woke up at noon and made a tofu scramble with mushroom gravy that Christine was making. I wasn’t sure when the game would start; half remembered hearing that it started at three. This was very strange for me, for I had always experienced the Super Bowl in the dark. I called AAron to confirm that he was ready and able and didn’t get an answer. I made and drank coffee and called him again. AAron has a ‘clever’ voice mail message, one of those that makes you think that your party has indeed answered the phone. I sent two text messages asking what was up. I called Danny to make sure he wasn’t at work or something. I called AAron. He answered and told me to ‘chill the fuck out’, that everything was going as planned.

The tweets started coming in – in fact I think he had started tweeting while I was freaking out about his non-response to my calls. I read the tweets and took screenshots. I got an email from the man who said he had found my lost thumbdrive that, as it turned out,  had been floating in Lake Union since September. The man gave me his address and number and said that he’d be home all day. I went to Eastlake to recover the thumbdrive. It was very calm and quiet – it made me feel like I should go out more often. I thought about the sounds of the water and remembered that these were my favorite kinds of places, the ones close to water. There was some very nice modern housing next to quirky traditional housing. The units had large modern windows.

Though a window I saw a telescope or camera.

I met the man who found my flash drive. He lived a little more than a block south of the modern apartment complex. I greeted him and asked how he had found it. He told me that he had been on the  shore of lake Union with his wife when he saw it floating on the water. It was heavily corroded so he applied a contact cleaner – it worked. He asked me why I wasn’t watching the game and I said I had a lot of work to do. I asked him if he was watching the game and he said he was not. He was a graduate student and had a lot of work to do. I said good bye to him and passed by the modern house, biking and then walking up Roanoke to Eastlake, which I took to Boren where I turned left and up to Pine where I turned left. No shadows because of the overcast sky. I heard that the weather makes one get into one’s head. I felt like that, like going uphill the clouds were only twenty or thirty feet up.

Meanwhile

I arrived home and began to upload photos, drinking that last tall can I found in the fridge. I went to the bathroom to sit and read the issue of Wire situated in the bathroom reading rack. I reread an article about Broadcast’s most recent album. Having heard the album since last reading, the article made more sense.

[Broadcast and the Focus Group - A Seancing Song]

Apparently the Grizzly Bear song “Two Weeks” appeared in a Volkswagen commercial. Here are two reactions:

Note the use of ‘net language’ in both tweets. Hipster Runoff has also weighed in on this matter.

I began to wonder who was winning the game. I began to wonder why AAron hadn’t invited me to the party, outside of that fact that I was planning on spending the day alone.

I went to the kitchen to make a grilled cheese sandwich. I made two grilled cheese sandwiches with nutritional yeast, sriracha, and onions from an onion soup that Christine made. While making the sandwiches I talked to Christine, who was also alone, about how we were both alone when there were people with their friends eating food and watching the game. It sounded like fun – we could have gone to a bar. People know me at the bars I go to.  She told me that she heard people yelling from two houses on the way back from the Value Village. I was eating the second sandwich when Jack walked into the kitchen and told us that the Saints won.

Fuck punk.

Here is a picture of thumbdrive that floated in Lake Union from September 2009 to February 2010.

Here is AAron’s final tweet of the night.

By rubpawpress | Posted in Sport | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

I Gave Birth (Twice) and All I Got Was This Lame Blog Post a Day After My Birthday (Happy Birthday Mami)

February 5, 2010 – 5:18 pm

Elba Ivette Rohena, Chair of the Special Education Department at Millersville University and proud (I think) mother and iPhone owner turned, ahem, 30 yesterday. Here is another picture of Elba Rohena.

I hope it is OK that I am not on the road to becoming a lawyer or doctor. I think blogger should be enough, as it ends with ‘er’. I wonder if she reads this. Mami, if you are reading this you should know that I am currently in a coffee shop being very productive and looking for an excellent job / girlfriend / quitting smoking / taking the LSAT / taking the MCAT / finding religion / just chilling. You should also know that the more I engage the Real World as an independent actor the more I realize and appreciate what you have done and continue to do for Raf and me. Especially as a ’single parent’. I try understand what it means, having responsibility like that, and all I can come up with is, “Damn, seems hard”. You should know that for this and other reasons I am intensely concerned with doing well by you, to do good work. To try and become, in general, a responsible and self sustaining human being.

If someone who is not my mother is reading this please join me in saying the following:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WE LOVE YOU VERY VERY MUCH

By rubpawpress | Posted in BTW | Tags: , , | Leave a Comment

I Wrote a Travel Essay That Won an Award

February 3, 2010 – 3:07 pm

I lived in India for ten and a half months. I came back for six weeks as a student of Anthropology. The second experience led me to write an essay that later won a writing contest sponsored by Temple University’s International Studies Program. I have decided to reproduce it here as part of my ongoing search for employment, thus granting it the status of “traditional writing sample”.

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It’s a rickshaw ride down Dhangadra’s main road. Two or three turnabouts, no sidewalks, and a left into a calmer but tiny road. Open sewers here, but they don’t smell like you think they should. They do make squeezing through oncoming traffic more tense. If it smells of anything, it’s of something being cooked in a home or sold at a stall. People are on their front steps—shoemakers, neighbors, working in open storefronts. Dogs and cows, and cow shit. The cows eat trash that accumulates in the corners. Once Adam pointed out a baby being carried in a cot on the underside of a cart.

We are in front of Mehul’s home. We tell the rickshawwalla when we want to be picked up. We want to be picked up at six but know that he’ll most likely arrive anywhere from quarter to half past six. Mehul tells us not to pay more than fifteen rupees; we settle for twenty.

We run into Mehul’s mother, who is sitting on the kitchen floor. She’s very sweet. She learned some Hindi during in school. This makes communication a little easier for the unwary Indianist who ignored Gujarati. She watches us while we take our tea. I’m the only one with even a little bit of Hindi, so I attempt conversation. We talk about the rain. I ask her, my hands pointed at the clouded sky and then dropping, how to say ‘rain’ in Gujarati.

We take off our shoes and head left up the stairs. The stairs have a turn in them. After four or five steps we’re facing opposite of where we started. On this landing, to the left is the door to Mehul’s studio. Straight ahead is a view of the street below. In the far corner, opposite of the window is a cooler where Mehul’s regular students get drinks of water. Hanging down from the ceiling, just outside the threshold was a bell. It was engraved with a picture of Buddha. His students would ring the bell as they entered the studio.

Mehul explains the bell, saying that the room is a temple.

Later, I ask what happened to the bell. He explains that it is broken.

Mehul’s room is a studio. It is also a bedroom. We never see it that way, however. I imagine that he spreads a thick blanket on the floor. He lies down with a book.

Mehul was married once, in his early twenties. He admits that despite his reservations regarding the Indian adoption of ‘modern’ habits, he was very modern with his wife. They didn’t get along, so they divorced. There is a picture of her in one of the many photo albums he shows us.

The photo albums are tucked away in a cabinet, behind Mehul’s seat and off to the right.  Stored in this cabinet are books, notebooks, music books, pens, odds and ends, and an electronic tabla machine. Later he shows us how it works. There is a rug spread over the center of the room. There is a pale blue floor. Small mats, some with harmoniums in front of them, line the perimeter of the room. His students sit here. Since the three of us usually have our lesson at a time different from his regular class time, most of the mats are unoccupied. Sometimes we have lessons in the afternoon, and we interact with the students. They are predominantly young, maybe around ten. Some are older and obviously talented. Adam is floored by the tabla student six years his junior.

I had an interesting experience one day. Rachel and I had left Mehul’s home to visit a nearby phone booth. Though the booth was literally around the corner, Mehul sent one of his young students as a guide. Rachel went first into the booth. While the boy and I were waiting, an older man came up to me. He stood about a head shorter than me and had a habit of removing and replacing his glasses while he casually interrogated me about who I was and why I was here.  He said something in English about air, but all I understood was the word, ‘air’.

A crowd of children that had been playing cricket or whatever formed around us. Trying to help, they began to spell the words, slowly.

A-I-R.

He scribbled ideograms on the palm of his hand. Pointing up for rain, he drew a pot for ‘pot’, a star (David’s) for ‘star’ (tara); symbols for sun (surya) and moon (chandra).

Air is life for us.

He asked why I smoke. No one understood my answer (‘addiction’). He said something about seeing. Shopkeepers paused to gaze at us.

Your eye sees the boy.

He said this in Gujarati, which my guide translated.

It seemed like the man was giving me a Gujarati lesson, so I tried repeating what he had said. Eventually, I got it, and was rewarded by a chorus of approval and repetition. The man pointed to his head.

B-R-A-I-N

The crowd of boys repeated this.

He knew I was taking music lessons. I pointed to the boy and said, “Mehul sir”, indicating the way with a left pointing motion. The man said something about music, something about the harmonium. I raised my hands eye-level, the left working an imaginary bellows—under my right, the keyboard. He told me about the harmonium taking in air from the world, and making sound, music, which spreads. Arm gesture.

W-O-R-L-D. S-O-U-N-D. M-U-S-I-C.

The man worked his own invisible harmonium, singing a raga I did not know. Having seen Rachel finish, the boy motioned for me to wrap up my communication, to enter the booth before someone could take my place. I said goodbye to the man and asked his name.

By rubpawpress | Posted in Employment, Music | Tags: , | Leave a Comment

This Sunday: SUPERB OWL

February 3, 2010 – 2:33 pm

Hi all. I had some meetings on the internet with AAron (omnibox) and while we did not discuss the matter I thought to myself that Rub Paw Press ought to engage some Mainstream Popular Events in culture or whatever. In this spirit, we will be blogging the Superbowl, AAron from his friend’s house in West Seattle and me alone in my room.

I was originally going to be TOO COOL and say something like, “I don’t even know who is playing this year I’m so over this”, but instead I decided to do a search. I found out many things:

Facts About the Superbowl

1. This year’s contenders are the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts. They are playing on Sunday, February 7, 2010 – 6:25pm ET on CBS.

2. The Superbowl is known for expensive / groundbreaking / transcendent commercials.

3. The Louisiana Superdome has hosted the lion’s share of Superbowls.

4. Punk/Powerpop group Home Blitz have a vaguely Football Related Sounding name.

Photo via

[Home Blitz - Is Anybody There?]

5. I recall developing a deep emotional investment over the course of Superbowl XLII (New York Giants vs New England Patriots). I think this is because everyone expected the Giants to get ‘pwnd’. I think it’s also because the Patriots got caught cheating that season or something.

via

6. Superbowl-related wing consumption accounts for 5% of yearly wing consumption, um, somewhere.

6.1. There is an iPhone app designed to help you find the nearest wing place. It’s called KLUCKR.

7. The Superbowl is a useful node for the aggregation of useless facts / stats (via ‘by the  numbers’ articles). Glad we can be part of it.

By rubpawpress | Posted in Sport | Tags: , | Leave a Comment

February 1, 2010 – 3:37 pm

By rubpawpress | Posted in Photos | Comments (1)

An Interview With A Girl I Had Three Workshops With And Writes Better Poems than I

February 1, 2010 – 12:11 pm

Jacyln Sadicario is  Psych Major and poet. I know her through our mutual attendance of poetry workshops in school, mostly administered by either Pattie McCarthy or Kevin Varrone. We also had one with Jena Osman. I hope they see this. When I moved to Seattle I got into contact with her again to attempt some kind of cross-country digital press enterprise. It would have been something like Publishing Genius or HTMLGiant, which is funny to think about now. Jackee is responsible for the name of this site. While brainstorming RE: site names, she suggested that we call it “Red Wheel Barrow PA”  in reference to the William Carlos Williams poem. She wrote it as an acronym: RWB PA Press. I thought about how it would be pronounced,  finding that “RWB” sounded sort of like “Rub” and “Pa”, “Paw”. And so on. We decided to spell it phonetically: Rub Paw Press.

The last time I saw Jackee in person, I think, was when we presented our final projects in Osman’s Advanced Poetry Workshop. Her project was letterpressed on fine paper by her sister. I was jealous.

I’ve bothered Jackee about contributing or doing an interview on several occasions. One night she Gchatted me, saying she was ready for an interview.

RPP: ON THE RECORD NOW

Jaclyn: When you say things like that, I picture you video recording the conversation, a camera pointed at your screen. But I know that’s not what you mean at all.

It just means I’m going to delete “ON THE RECORD NOW” along with everything said before it.

But it’s out there. You and I both know what came before. But it’s not like we’re depriving anyone of context. I just feel like picking a fight.

Ok. What do you feel like picking a fight about?

Something horribly poignant, you know, that people tend to ascribe meaning to, showmanship in a way. Like the beat generation (don’t get me wrong, I draw and draw from them but come on people) or the slap chop guy getting arrested. Something stupid maybe? I don’t think it would improve my mood though.

Someone’s dramatic today. How is your project going?

Wordy. I can’t write a fucking thing. I’m trying to bait myself by giving myself concrete something to latch on to. I’ve been trying to pull a whole “BEAUTY IN THE EVERYDAY” but I’m too preoccupied.

In the poems or in life?

The poems are my life. I’m an asshole for doing that. I’m barely fictionalizing my character. It’s almost embarrassing. And I feel guilty for writing things that don’t happen, so I don’t write.

Who is the sailor?

In theory, the sailor is a hodgepodge of everything good from anyone who ever was consistent in my life but in practice, the sailor is someone who is not prepared to know that they are the sailor.

Someone real?

As real as anyone can be when you decontextualize them. But yeah, real. Flesh and blood. Landlocked. The poems shift, the relationship shifts. It’s tidal

Meaning that there is a person on this planet to whom the sailor refers. (Not like that matters).

Simply speaking, yes there is. The sailor is a person. I hate to ask you the questions, but do you get to know the sailor when you read what I write? Does he come off as a metaphorical representation of reality?

I haven’t visited those poems in a bit. From what I remember I didn’t really get to know a specific person in terms of “you are this because you __________” but more of a person in relation to the speaker. So yes to your second question. You should send me drafts or something.

I’d like to. But at the same time I’m writing the earth poems, I’m writing the us poems which I only have 2 of, which are completely hypothetical, but not metaphorical.

Wait I don’t see how that precludes the sending of the sea poems.

They’re all the same manuscript; the same…subject.

How would you explain this project to someone who has no prior knowledge?

Oh okay so. 45 poems. 15 poems about the sea, (the speaker is the sea, I guess I am the sea) and her sailor. 15 poems about the earth (not the planet but the physical crust, plates, etc) (the sailor becomes the earth) in relation to the ocean, water. 15 poems about misconceivings and miscommunications found in the prior poems but placed in the context of a man and woman. They kind of hurt to write, but they are simple prose blocks. I’m doing some museum visiting in order to improve my content.

Which museums? Why museums? Why this project?

Well, museums are the most passive place for getting information, you know? You pick and choose what you want to learn. It’s easy to ignore (i.e. edit) what you take in. The people aren’t there to learn with you, but on their own, and you see what they notice, and I think that’s what my poetic process is. Picking, choosing, repetition. And I think nautical museums, and natural science museums mostly. I skipped earth science in high school. I only know what I nerd out on whilst watching Nat. Geo. And this project. To be honest, I haven’t had an effective muse in a while that wasn’t some kind of social structure or false societal notion? And I had a muse that allowed me to learn something about myself.

I’m not sure if I understand (re: muse).

Oh the muse, like I have a tangible muse; not just a THING out there like my previous work latched on to. I mean, I used my family.

And now you don’t have [a muse].

But it was sort of passionless for me, because those stories were hung out to dry. I don’t know if I still have said muse. I mean, this new muse, keeps me inspired, but I’m often distracted by my inability to describe it without metaphor, just adjectivally. I don’t know. A muse is all about context. These poems are all about the fact that I control the context, up until the last 15 poems.

Describe this muse. Are you comfortable with the idea of a Muse?

I used to love Petrarch. The name Laura has haunted many an artist, you know. I think there is something really telling of humanity when someone’s mere existence can drive someone to creative revelation. I mean, in a way it’s objectification. Commodification of a theme or person in your life. But I’m not sure it’s exploitative.

I hope not…

I’ll be honest and say that my first real romantic relationship was milked for all it’s worth with my second band.

Can you unpack that for me? You mean in terms of lyrical content?

Oh definitely. The EP was stealth named after him—the [his name here] chronicles. I’m sure he doesn’t pay attention to anything I do now, but I respect him too much to mention this directly.

I have also done this.

It kind of followed suit with these poems: peaks and valleys of a very close friendship.

I just found some very very bad recordings of mine.

Those are always the best. Mine are still on the internet, but people will have to be utterly crafty to find them. I can’t write a good song unless I’ve had my heart broken, and it has been a long, long time. It doesn’t even matter subject matter wise, you know? I’m not Patsy Cline-ing it.

What’s the Patsy Cline approach?

I just can’t be as honest as I want to unless I feel like I have nothing to loose. She just puts everything out there all the time. Every song is a broken heart.

If you aren’t honest then you still have things to “loose”. GET IT?

I’m effectively learning my lesson with that currently in my “real life”.

Which lesson?

When you aren’t honest, you lose.

Ah.

I have a severe problem saying whatever needs to be said when its imperative. I often blame my obsession with poetics, you know. Like FUCK THIS DOESN’T LOOK RIGHT ON THE PAGE. I make it all too pretty. I piss myself off. I eat mashed potatoes to calm down. I don’t know. I’m a phrasing person. I just hate the irretractability of everything.

Hrm.

God that was a typo. Do you like taking risks?

I guess. Depends on the risk.

If something threatens my understanding of myself, I flip out. Well I don’t flip out, but the dissonance can be too much. So if I inherently think something isn’t like me, or the person I want to be, I can’t perform that action. Did you see Bright Star?

No I did not. What was that about?

John Keats and Fanny Brawne’s relationship, as dictated by their letters in some capacity.

And?

I don’t know. It connects to risk in my mind. It was beautiful, I can’t believe you didn’t see it. She was actually fairly represented.

Was this a recent movie?

I saw it this past fall.

Hm. The last movie I saw was Avatar. It was good.

3d?

Yes.

I heard it resembled Pocahontas.

Yes it did. Severely. Did you watch Avatar?

I didn’t. I saw Nine. I thought it was good actually.

I did not see Nine. So let’s come back to Sailor.

Okay.

When am I getting drafts? Can you copy paste a section into this interview?

I suppose in the next few weeks. Sure.

Sweet.

Should I do one sailor, one earth, and one us?

Do one of each.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sailor IX

Sailor, I’m afraid someday I won’t be able but to overtake you, and swallow you whole. I can’t kill the character, but I cannot let you be, just drifting, so let’s admit to the fact that you’ve waded. And I’m waiting for you to acknowledge those times that you want to come in past your knees, or those times you dip your face underneath— or those times that you let your toes dangle like loose leaves, to be swept up in my wind waves only to cling to the whole from which it won’t part.

Earth II
your crust crack and push. a moment magnitude under me. i wish it wasn’t just a shove away and a shove inward but you, toss up your plated pressure. an angry house guest making a rouse for the rest of the dessert course. i remember two s’s because you’d love to have it twice. i miss your arms around me stateside, but now we push on creating currents without the wind. long swept tides into lands, carrying the people into me. i never wanted to be a grave. you with your rupturing faults. you with your need to change, shift the wrong way, rock, larger than smaller. perpetuating seismic waves. you ignore the tossed ocean floor. i sit and wait for my tide to regulate.

Us I
we plan paper-mache. i plan paper-mache while you read the paper in bed, matching the ink to your pajama shirt perfectly, i jump. the paper laid down, on top, as if a dog training, but we are doing no wrongs. you are covered in the weather, while i seem to be sporting the baseball scores. this is what the sheets are for. i imagine this as you sit distantly. it isn’t about that, it’s about the smile on your face. i want to be the one that does that the most, but i clutch my heart for fear it will fall out. it doesn’t hold anything but what it grasps at when you dangle the straws in front of my face and i miss and bite your hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you have anything to say about these pieces?

The first piece I sent you, the sailor one, is when I first knew I had to kill him and make him into something different. I wasn’t giving him enough autonomy. The second piece is just an example of an argument. The third piece is a hypothetical, nostalgic statement.

Do you feel fucked?

Yes, and not in the good way.

How do you feel fucked?

I feel like I have painted myself in a corner.

I mean, on what level—your existence? Your love life? Your career?

I feel okay generally. But I feel really unsure of my path. I feel like I fuck my love life until it doesn’t ever want to see me again.

That was sort of funny.

Without humor I don’t think I’d be able to survive. I should sleep though

Ok. This was good. I feel good about this. There is a cat in my lap.


Nurture said cat. Send him my love. Take pictures and show me soon.

Ok. Will do.

other interviews.

By rubpawpress | Posted in Interview, Poetry | Tags: , , , , | Leave a Comment

That’s the RWB

January 30, 2010 – 6:07 pm

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

(William Carlos Williams via UPenn)

By rubpawpress | Posted in Poetry | Tags: , | Leave a Comment

The Blog That I Contribute To Is Back With A New Interface

January 28, 2010 – 11:57 pm

McJawn has revamped their splash page with a sweet pic of Philly. It’s pretty! The tall one on the left has since been completed. It features a blog, a video blog, and two issues of a digital magazine. The front page of the blog is still entirely populated by my posts. Anyway, if you live in or around Philadelphia or like Philadelphia you may like McJawn.

By rubpawpress | Posted in BTW | Leave a Comment