Awesome
Nov0
Discovery of the day:
Layer Tennis
We’ll be playing matches using lots of different applications, from Adobe® Photoshop® to Adobe® Flash®, but the basic idea is the same no matter what tools are in use. Two artists (or two small teams of artists) will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post that to the site. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens. The matches last for ten volleys and when it’s complete, everyone with an opinion sounds off in the Forums and we declare a winner.
Am I gonna get Dooced for writing (on the clock) about participating in this (on the clock)? The real question is… do I care?
Another day and I might’ve gone mad
Nov0
A couple of weeks ago I had the great pleasure of seeing Mark Z. Danielewski at Olssons Bookstore in Dupont Circle (I know I know… I need to post somewhat closer to the actual event). He read from both House of Leaves and Only Revolutions, and as I sat on the floor at the foot of the stairs he asked if anyone had their own copy of House of Leaves, for he had forgotten his and needed to read from it. I jumped up and handed mine over, and he asked if it was okay for him to mark it up. I said “of course”, so now I have a personalized book from Mark Danielewski. Of course then there was the embarrassment of having my phone ring (loudly) only moments later.
House of Leaves is the only book that ever actually scared me. And there was nothing I could do to comfort myself. On night I found myself crouched on my bed in the corner of my dorm room and was struck with the intense fear that the walls of the room could simply expand behind me… forever.
I haven’t started Only Revolutions yet. I have so many books on my list, and I must say that I find the prospect of it incredibly daunting.
I am deeply infatuated with Danielewski’s non-linear approach to fiction, and for all that House of Leaves frightened me (and I am very glad that I did not listen to Haunted until after finishing the book or I expect I would have been much more frightened), I loved not only the story, but the process of reading it. I loved that I had to be engaged with the very book, I sometimes I had to turn it around and around in circles in my hands, sometimes I looked at a page, and with no idea where to start I just had to pick a point and go with it. I loved deciding which narrator to trust, which storyline to believe. And of course, as an adherent to science, I loved the sheer terror of being presented with a space that defied the laws of physics, matter, time and space.
[tags][dels]Mark Z. Danielewski, Poe, House of Leaves, Only Revolutions, book review[/dels][/tags]