Sturgeon's Law

Haven't been posting much and have been quite happy about it, but I'm in a bit of a truculent mood, so here's a little calling-out.

Of course, for me to consider sending work to a journal, it has to publish work that I like. Duh. But that doesn't really narrow things down a whole lot for me, since I find work to enjoy in The Hudson Review and in New American Writing, or if you prefer, places that [Dana Gioia/Ron Silliman] would like and places that would give him an infarction. Blah blah blah, false dichotomy, blah. Beyond that, here are some screen-out factors I use to decide where I won't send work.

1. Doesn't accept simultaneous submissions, doesn't respond fast. This is my biggest "fuck you" factor, an incredibly pompous and dickish position to hold. If you won't "let" me send work elsewhere while you consider it, you can respond within 60 days on average. Venues this eliminates: The Hudson Review, American Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, etc. Way, way too many.
2. Lower tier journals that don't accept simultaneous submissions. Uh, seriously, do you think you're Poetry or The Threepenny Review or something? Especially egregious when they combine it with slow response time, but regardless, no-sim is a relic (witness how few e-zines have this requirement). Venues this eliminates: Pacific Review, Cider Press Review, etc.
3. Take an average of over 200 days to respond. This one contains several journals that make me really sad because I so like their content, including at least one co-edited by a fellow blogger/online friend (Jeffery, anything you guys can do to get your submission responses together?). Venues this eliminates: Many Mountains Moving, CutBank, Blackbird, etc.
4. Journals with no/paltry Web presence. This is 2008 (okay, almost 2008 as I write this). You can get an acceptable informational website for zero money and minimal expertise/time investment. Put your guidelines, general issue info, and contact information on there. Include an e-mail address for queries. You can put more, of course, but that will certainly do as a minimum. Venues this eliminates: The Canary (Is it still alive? I'd like to send work if it is), Terminus (they had a website when I sent work there, but it's vanished in the last month or so), Pinyon (lots of little university reviews fall in here because they have a "website" that totals one page with no valuable information).
5. Journals with asinine jump-through-these-hoops requirements. Places that make you send multiple copies of your poems or say you can't query even after a year without automatically withdrawing your poems. Venues this eliminates: Swink (honestly, their terrible response time and ridiculous guidelines were a primary impetus for this post), Forklift, Ohio, Hunger Mountain, etc.
6. Journals that copyright your poems in their own names. Oh HELL no. Do I really have to explain why this is garbage? Venues this eliminates: Free Lunch, I know there are other places that do this, maybe Prairie Schooner?
7. Reading fee. Hello, Cafe Review.

Honestly, this whole post should have been "Places I really want to submit, but that actively seem to be avoiding it." I know there are other screen-out factors that will come to me. What about you?

I posted (I think) a little while back about how December has traditionally been a good acceptance month for me. I had just about given up on that this year, but then I received a letter today informing me that Beloit Poetry Journal has accepted two of my poems, "All the Better to Eat You With, My Dear" and "If It Bleeds, It Leads," for publication in their Fall 2008 issue. This makes Christmas for me.

...of the new Futurama DVD movie, Bender's Big Score.

Well, I wasn't as disappointed by this as Jeannine evidently was. It wasn't great, but it came across to me like a lesser episode with extended running time, which isn't a terrible thing.

The two main flaws to me were (A) it spent so much time on the convoluted plot (where did the Bender tattoo with the time travel code actually come from?) that the attention to humor lapsed at points, and (B) they were obviously trying to cater to hardcore fans, but gratuitously throwing in 90% of all the bit players from 4 seasons without bothering to make any jokes connected to them was not a good idea ("Look, it's Hedonism Bot! Hey, Fry just said Slurms McKenzie's catchphrase!"), and I'm sure the whole thing would be utterly inexplicable to a newcomer.

Still, there were plenty of funny moments (lots of smiles and several laughs for me), and the main storyline did a good job with the potentially overused Fry/Leela storyline (whose ending I figured out midway, but no big deal).

Big-picture good things:

• It felt completely genuine to Futurama, which gives me hope for the other movies getting the humor content back up to par.
  
• The glee with which Bender took to obeying his evil masters.
• The Al Gore parts.
• The digs at Fox, including Torgo's Executive Powder.
• The character time traveling to do totally trivial things like go to the bathroom and eat pizza before it got cold.
• Very little Amy.
  

Little good touches:

• Fry saying that his expertise was (slight paraphrase) "showing animals how to eat things."
• The "Screaming Skull Garden" as a relaxing date destination for Lars and Leela.
• Everybody Loves Hypnotoad.
  
• The fleet of solid gold Death Stars.
• Zoidberg reattaching Hermes' body backwards (even if Spaceballs did it first).
• Zoidberg flipping up his angry fin because Leela slept in his dumpster.
  

The bad:

• The scammer aliens were not really worthy enemies, and their humor was hit-or-miss.
  
• The Hermes subplot by-and-large was completely tacked on.
  
• Having a narwhal version of Leela and naming it Leelu was just creepy.

Anyway, on my arbitrary scale of 13 slices of pizza, I give Futurama: Bender's Big Score 7 1/2 slices of pepperoni and onion, plus an order of garlic cheese bread. I am eating pizza tonight.

This could be my last post over the long weekend, but regardless, happy holidays to everyone!

My idea notebook has lots of random crap written in it that will never be used in a poem or anything else, but I always feel bad about getting rid of it, just in case. Therefore, I'm going to post some of the interesting but unusable stuff here symbolically, so I can say I used it and not have it clutter up my notebook anymore.

• "Birds May Be Behind Exploding German Toads": This was the headline of a "weird news" sort of story that I found really funny out of context. But c'mon, if the situation is ever right to use it in a poem, I bet I can remember it without the notebook.
• "See Eucharist": This phrase concludes the entry on cannibalism in Diderot's Encyclopedia. I picked this up from a New Yorker article whose topic I forget (quick research tells me it was Wikipedia), and it amuses me, but it really doesn't fit my poetic style on a lot of fronts and isn't me-genuine.
• "Buffalonian": I told AJPL I'd write a poem with that word in it, and I actually wrote it (the word, not the poem) down, but I gots nothing.
• "Mind Eraser": This is actually the name of a roller coaster at Elitch Gardens in Denver, but for some reason I wrote this down. Actually, I think I had it connected to a prose idea, so maybe it can switch notebooks once I get back into prose after New Year.
• "Truly I go away, but tarry thou until I come again": I think this is a line from Jesus to the Wandering Jew. See note on the Diderot quotation.
• "The Water Goblin": From a Slavic story Dvorak made into an interesting if overlong tone poem. I actually tried to write this as a story once, and there's nothing I want to do with it as a poem.
  

"If that's what they take out, what they leave in must be pure gold!" - Troy McClure, The Simpsons (that's not in my notebook--it's just a commentary on this stuff)

"What kind of music do you like?" is one of those ultimate bits of awkward small talk, after all.

1. My two favorite bands are Tool and System of a Down. Frankly, those are probably the only two bands left I'd bother to buy a CD from. I like music that's visceral and that I can run to.

2. There are almost no musical genres I reject wholesale (I even have a few emo songs). My favorite country artists are Johnny Cash, Steve Earle, and Dwight Yoakam. My favorite rap artists are Public Enemy, Eminem, Dr. Dre, and Busta Rhymes.

3. I thought recently about writing a "13 Songs I Hate" list. If I do, you can rest assured that "Never Again" by Nickelback and "She Hates Me" by the horrendously named Puddle of Mudd will appear on the list.

4. Just as in poetry, I wish more artists/bands would intelligently engage with social and political issues, and I tend to adore the ones that are: System, Public Enemy, Bad Religion, Rage Against the Machine, etc.

5. When I was 9 years old, my favorite song was "The Final Countdown" by Europe. The first tape I bought (or remember buying) was Poison's Look What the Cat Dragged In. The lesson: don't be embarrassed by the dumb crap you liked when you were 9.

6. I also like orchestral music. My favorite composer is Antonin Dvorak, and my favorite piece is Symphony from the New World. Overall I like the Russian/Slavic composers most.

7. The first concert I ever went to was Queensryche, when I was 14. The funniest thing I can remember from a concert is the Nine Inch Nails concert where Trent Reznor thanked us for being "a polite audience" because it was in Memorial Gym and university authorities had bolted the benches down so no one could mosh.

8. Off the top of my head, an assortment of notable musicians I've just never really gotten into (regrettably or not): David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, The Minutemen, Tori Amos, and (contemporary division) The Arcade Fire. Many many more, I'm sure.

9. The best musical thing that I got from my freshman-year roommate in college before he dropped out at semester break to transfer to Notre Dame was his love of Neil Young's Decade. The worst was his insistence on using "So What'cha Want" by the Beastie Boys for our answering machine message. I don't hate the song, but imagine hearing this all the time (in whiny Beastie voice): "So what'cha, what'cha, what'cha want, what'cha want? (repeat a couple times) BEEP."

10. Best musicians I've been turned onto almost entirely by one source: Hawksley Workman (thanks, James), Ted Leo & the Pharmacists (thanks, Aaron), and House of Freaks (thanks, Kristin).

11. I'm noticing women tend toward very under-represented on this list, so here are a few favorites: Poe, PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, Emmylou Harris, and Garbage. Women are probably under-represented in my overall song collection, though.

12. Favorite mix CD I ever made: slightly different versions of the same CD I made for James and my brother (in my brother's case, I called it "Driving Music") that consisted of the swearingest songs I could find. If anyone's interested, I can post as much of the track listing as I can remember in the comments.

13. Band I think you should learn about: Philosophy (my brother's band).

--

Edited to add: it has been brought to my attention that, for #10, Hawksley may have originally been brought to my attention by Kristin also. This may be true, I'm afraid. However, I do tend to get most of my Hawksley news from James now. O Canada!

As I mentioned here in passing some time back, I'm traveling to AWP for the first time this year (it'll also be my first time in New York City). So I have to ask, in order not to be so overwhelmed:

Who all is going?
What panels look interesting this year?
What offsite events are scheduled?
What general recommendations would AWP veterans make about how to go about things?
What questions should I be asking here that I can't think of to ask?

Looking forward to seeing/meeting people there...

I mentioned my Internet connection and computer issues a couple posts ago, and I didn't get the problems resolved until yesterday. My Internet connection was nearly dead while the connection for the computer upstairs (which should be the exact same connection) was fine, so I assumed (possibly incorrectly) that something on my computer was the problem. I'd also found my antivirus software (McAfee) to be very slow and to integrate poorly with other programs, so I uninstalled that and then did a couple system restores trying to fix things. Bad move. I got myself to a point where the computer thought I still had McAfee installed even though it wasn't, and lots of programs (nothing critical, but stuff that was of potential use to me) would just pop up a blank dialog box instead of actually running. I ended up having to do the easy Windows reinstall (not formatting and starting completely over) to fix everything, and even that made me sweat because it said some files were missing from the CD. Personally, I'm limping almost as much as my computer was. Today at basketball I jammed another finger, rebruised my hip, and opened another toe blister. It was still a lot of fun...

..it's a common joke when someone says a funny word or phrase to suggest that it would make a good name for a band? Well, apparently these bands took it to heart.

It was a long day spent mostly battling with my Internet connection. Still fixing up the damage we both did.

I've been doing a lot of bullet point updates, so I'm going to discontinue those for a while. Very lazy. At least this feature requires me to read and promotes other poets and journals.

"Safe From Trains" by Ada Limon (Blackbird)
"Equality" by Adrian Matejka (Sou'wester) (PDF file)

• I don't actually celebrate Christmas, but I like being around friends and family (and giving nice things to friends and family), so I show up and celebrate Happy Winter Day with people who do celebrate Christmas. I try to mix my presents among the utilitarian (hello, gift card to someplace family/friends like to shop), purchases that have some personal relevance, and things that don't cost much money but take some time and thought to put together. This year I'm almost done with my shopping and preparing. I just have to do the personal purchase gift for my brother and my dad/stepmom, and half the preparation gift for a few people. Oh, and get Dad an Amazon gift certificate. Shit, that's more left to do than I thought.
• When you have a dream wherein you and two other poets are discussing the ins and outs of electronic submission to journals, it might be time to take a little break.
• Actually, after the poem and review I'm working on right now, there's going to be something of a shifting of gears for a little while at least. The current manuscript can percolate for a bit, and a new project will start. And Anti-, of course.
• I think I'm going to make a poetry comic strip. There's so much potential. Sure, it'll be ripping off Behrle, but there's room for two.
  
• Watching on DVD: The last half-season of The Sopranos. Actually looking forward to on DVD: the new Futurama movie.

As always, skip this post if you don't like fantasy sports.

So the regular season is over, and I'm 9-5 and in the playoffs as the 4th place team among 12 (top 6 made the playoffs). Sadly, while I have a decent chance to win in the first round of the playoffs, the top 3 teams are in a class of their own versus everyone else.

Opening week starters:
QB: Marc Bulger
WR: Roy Williams
WR: Laveranues Coles
RB: Brian Westbrook
RB: Maurice Jones-Drew
TE: Jeremy Shockey
RB/WR: Ahman Green
K: Neil Rackers
DEF: Minnesota

Last week's starters:
QB: Jay Cutler
WR: Brandon Marshall
WR: Lee Evans
RB: Brian Westbrook
RB: Ryan Grant
TE: Jeremy Shockey
RB/WR: Justin Fargas
K: Rob Bironas
DEF: Minnesota

A few awards:

• Best draft pick: Brandon Marshall in the 13th round. Turned out to be a borderline top 10 WR in production. (Honorable mention: Brian Westbrook, Round 1)
• Worst draft pick: Marc Bulger in the 4th round. Terrible, injury-plagued year, and quarterback was my weak spot all year long. (Honorable mention: Ahman Green in the 5th round)
  
• Best free agent pickup: Ryan Grant. Ridiculous numbers once he broke into Green Bay's starting lineup. (Honorable mention: Rob Bironas)
• Thing that tripped me up the most: This was the first time I played in a league that had a limit on the number of roster moves you could make (25), so I ran out of moves a couple weeks ago.
  

My journals, like my poems, are my babies. The journals I edit, though, have another dimension in that so many other people (editors and designers and poets) put good work into them. Editing is something I'm good at (imperfect and always learning, but good)--however, I wouldn't have any product without those other people.

I lucked into The Eleventh Muse because Lois Hayna resurrected it but didn't want to continue editing it, and no one else stepped up at that point. I had to turn the 2005 issue around in about 3 months (6 months from when I learned I was editor, 3 months from when we were actually done with the 2004 issue), without prior journal editing experience. One of the few things I regret about my time as editor was that I didn't feel I quite did justice that first year to the excellent work I received from friends, solicited poets, and the slush pile, because I was learning from scratch on the job. I threw a dozen different features in just to see what would work. I wrote a horrid editor's note. I raised several hundred dollars but we were still short. I didn't understand the ramifications of the person who handled the printing not getting me proofs (that person was not in charge of printing after that issue).

For the 2006 and 2007 issues, I continued to find what I considered high quality work, worked on design enhancements, and kept the couple new features I had tried that actually seemed interesting. I raised over $1,000 each year (from sponsorships, contests, purchasing, and my own pocket). Three years before I started, the journal was saddle-stapled with a black-and-white cover, about 40 pages. My last issue was perfect bound, color cover, 80 pages, and the work was strong and eclectic. I love the poetry I received all three years I edited the journal: I asked for and got good poems from "name" poets, I asked my friends from Colorado and online, and I met new outstanding writers who found out about the journal one place or another (advertising, the blog, word of mouth, etc.), some of whom have since become real-life or online friends. There are so many people to thank that I simply can't do it all by name--thank you to everyone.

You may or may not agree about the quality of the poetry, taste being what it is, but if you read the issues (2005, 2006, 2007), I'm pretty sure you'll find that I have a pretty good idea what I'm doing now and that I put my stamp on the journal without making it any kind of vanity project. I also think you'll find the same with with Anti-.

• Went to the Observable Reading by Adrian Matejka and Francisco Aragon last night. Adrian is a cool guy and great reader, and it was nice to meet Francisco for the first time and hear him read in both English and Spanish. The audience turnout was very low because of the bad weather, but honestly the roads I was on weren't that bad. "Freezing rain" my ass!
• As they kicked us out of the bar at closing time (not as bad as it sounds--the restaurant closed at about 10:30), they turned up the lights and music to get the message across. The song was my favorite in the world, "Forty Six & 2" by Tool. A nice ending to the evening.
• I was looking at my stats, and December has historically been a very good month for me in terms of poetry acceptances. My acceptances at The Laurel Review, The American Poetry Journal, Bat City Review, Terminus, and 32 Poems have all come during December over the last several years. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that at least one good journal will keep the streak alive this year.
  
• Speaking of Terminus, anyone know if they're defunct? They've had that last issue as their "current issue" for over a year now, and I never heard back the last time I e-mailed them.
• Right after I do this, I'm going to add three new presses to the Open Reading Periods list. Say hello to Etruscan, BkMk, and Mayapple. And please, if you know of open reading periods or first book contests I'm missing, let me know either via comment or e-mail.
  

Here's me and some people you don't know from my company. This was at Hotel Victor, a very expensive restaurant we went to on Saturday.



Here's the Ritz Carlton South Beach, where we stayed, from said beach. Sunbathers and then ocean are right behind me in this picture.



Here's Kilah (not my dog) lying on my floor.



This is a personal thing.

Tomorrow I'll post a couple pictures from Miami.

Stephan Pastis has a pretty jaded view of bloggers. I like it.

"Even by conservative estimates, the War on Drugs now costs the United States $50 billion each year and has overcrowded prisons to the breaking point - all with little discernible impact on the drug trade."

If you have some time, read this. (via Slate)

I'm back. It was a whirlwind weekend. Here are some highlights (and a couple lowlights):

• Got to meet my boss in person for the first time. She's like she is online, but more so. She also picked up the tab at a hotel the likes of which I rarely get to stay in.
  
• Added RJ to the list of poetry bloggers I've met in real life. Thanks for buying the beer, RJ. I wish I'd had more time.
• South Beach looks like the cliche idea of Miami. I like the Art Deco look.
• Had a minor poem breakthrough in the plane on the way down.
  
• American Airlines has moved past United on my shitlist by having both flights sit on the tarmac for an extra 45+ minutes for "brief" maintenance issues. Also, I could do without flying through the Miami airport for a long time.
  
• Beautiful brunettes in bikinis. Just sayin'.