fetishes yo

hey peeps. i know i promised the book tour bloggy post but mama's been sidetracked by the Occupy & wishing she were there & fantasizing about running from the law with a balaclavaed anarchist & then he & mama lose the nightstick waving nypd & then we're in an alley & the alley has a chainlink fence & mama doesn't have to tell you what'll be going on up against that chainlink fence...

mama thinks one of her fetishes might be balaclavaed anarchists. they pop up in all her stories & even her novel. she has balaclavaed babies running & smashing & laughing in her dreams & up at Abjective (rip dear litmag) & soon to be in barge.

another might be garage doors. or chainlink fences.

mama's not gonna go all deep on her fetishes tho, like remittance girl's deep & insightful post. remittance girl is a writer of the erotic & she thinks hard & long about this stuff. she writes about the fuckings while mama writes about the fucked-up.

if you know mama or if you've read Homegirl!, you know that's not completely true, either...

mama's friends w remittance girl on the tweets & mama really admires rg's post, yo. mama's also friends w other writers & one of them twitted about how if you're a writer you shouldn't front about the alcohols, that drinking does not make you cool...

mama's afraid she fetishizes the alcohols. she's always telling you to get her a highball. she's drinking a manhattan right now. she loved bukowski when she was twenty. she loved mickey rourke for barfly. & she still loves barfly. sometimes for fun she runs through cornfields & steals the green corns. sometimes for fun she reads highball recipes on the interwebs. she's codenamed every one of her exes for some kind of highball.

the last one was the salty dog & the one before the dark & stormy.

now mama's getting all racisty.

boo.

but the one she'll always love is buck's fizz.

mama has no idea what that means & mama can also get behind others' fetishes sometimes. even when she doesn't get them. glitter, for instance.

or glitter jesus.

mama was gonna inventory the reoccurring tropey fetish things from her writings but this manhattan's her second & now all mama can think about is the anarchist & the chainlink fence & mama's got his balaclava off & he's doing things to mama that are better without the balaclava...

unless you gots a wool fetish.

& mama'll leave you with this, yo.

yours,
ryder

Book tour stop numero one

yo.

mama just had her first book tour stop.

mama'll get back to you tomorrow with highlights & pix cos she is still reveling in the weird awesomenesses of it.

yours,
ryder

Call me on my bullshit

cos mama knows she gots it. everybody gots the bullshit. so if you think mama needs to be called on it, then go for it.

& then mama'll say, heard.

& then mama might change.

& that's what the US needs to do now. & that's what all the complacent peoples who think, yes, I understand why the 99% are insecure or upset but I've gots a job & I'm healthy & I gots no worries & I'm a productive member of society, unlike those other peoples...

you could lose your job, just like that

you could get sick

you could

mama's thinking about leaving her sunny porch in the bamaz. mama's thinking.

& those of you who are saying America's too stupid to get it. Well, if they only get fed one perspective then they're not stupid, yo...

this is a picture of some of the 700+ peoples trapped on the Brooklyn Bridge today:

this is a pic of a young girl arrested on the bridge today:

which one might scare grandpa & grandma, & which pic do you think yahoo ran today?

yours,
mama

finally someone at the giants gets real

about  the Wall Street Protest & what's going down in the US today

thank you, Mike Young.

yours,
mama

a book is not a baby rehash

i was talking to my eds (via email cos my eds live in the UK & mama lives in the South) & i ♥ my eds cos they care about art & artists & the state of the world but they're not all pedantic & shit, yo, plus they published mama's novel, which means they rock on top of that. anyway... they suggested an alteration to the book is not a baby contest

recap:
in the original, mama wanted you to like her book more than you liked other people's babies. maybe mama shouldn't have called attention to the fact that peeps never like your babies as much as you do... my bad, yo. mama also stated she'd give away a free copy of Homegirl! to the 100th person who liked her book on FB.

now:
mama's eds have suggested that mama do a random drawing of all the likers of Homegirl! once the likes = 100.

so:
baby = book = Homegirl! likers < 101, but > 99, = free book giveaway to any of the book-likers, yo!

here is the link in case you didn't get it:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homegirl/201060176620513

lovs from the bottom of my baby♥,
ryder

Hashtag: Occupy Writing

So, I have been following the Occupation of Wall Street from the safety of my home office. As I graded student essays this weekend, I clicked between essays and websites, looking for information about the protests; I wanted to see who was covering it and what they were saying. I clicked on HTMLGIANT and We Who Are About to Die as well, because I like to read their posts on what's going on in the independent literary world and in art and their takes on the intersection of literature and art with US society today... & I have been thinking about the reactions to these protests and protesters, and what most disturbs me is the non-reactions...

I thought the Giant might do something like this, at least:

I'm not trying to pick on the Giant or WWAATD, but their silence on these protests left me questioning, why? Why do the writers and commenters of the Giant bemoan a society where the bottom line is money, where art is not valued for art's sake (whatever that is), but for how much money it makes, yet do not even acknowledge a social event that has the potential to disrupt this corporatization bottom-lining of the US? That has the potential to disrupt the value systems that says only this (take your pick: bestsellers, new shoes, Lexus, mcmansions, American Apparel, etc.) is important because it reflects how much you are worth. That equates the number of books sold to the worth of the art. That says there is no place for cutting-edge, avant-garde, or experimental writing (or art) outside the academy (or even in, sometimes...)? That says there is no place for poetry?

Forgive me, if my thoughts are jumbled or if I come across as too earnest and not ironic enough... I'm not trying to attack the online independent literary community. I consider myself a member; I write and I publish online and I enjoy very much the discussions on the big lit blogs. I am just wondering, like Lily Hoang did during the Egyptian uprisings (& yes, I know this occupation is much smaller, but it is spreading...), why a lot of the writers seem to be saying nothing about Occupy Wall Street. There have been a few: The Rumpus has been keeping an "Occupy Wall Street Round-up" and Tao Lin tweeted this:

Why does the online presence of the independent literary community seem so complacent? Is it because we're all jaded? Too cynical? Too worried about legitimacy and authority so we don't want to be linked to "hippies" and "gutter punks" and "optimists" and those pilots(!) because then no one will take our art seriously? 

Mama's thinking we all need to re-examine our roles as writers. I'm not saying we have to write political works or anything... I'm just saying when we live in a society that devalues art, we should definitely consider supporting people who want to change the things that perpetuate this devaluation. I'm not trying to create a manifesto here. I am trying to say, as writers, we need to observe and we need to think and we need to interact and we need to make art and we need to acknowledge, in our communities, the possibilities of change.

To quote the last line of a  blog post by Christopher Newgent (about the BlazeVox "controversy") that was linked through the Giant: "You have to stop believing that this is 'the reality of poetry publishing.' Because it’s not. Because even if it is, it doesn’t have to be. Stand up."

As part of the writing community, I suggest we widen this sentiment to: You have to stop believing that this is “the reality of the US.” Because it’s not. Because even if it is, it doesn’t have to be. Stand up.

Internet Poetry do not be hating or feuding me

cos mama just wants to share this tweetered poem tout suite & mama doesn't know how to share the jing links cos mama's lucky she hasn't lost fingers or blown up entire acres making her mash moonshines, yo