Tuesday
Jul312007
One more...
Tuesday 31 July, 2007 Ceri Buckmaster will be reading at the Openned anthology night tomorrow. See the nights page for the full line-up and details of how to get there.
Tuesday 31 July, 2007 Tuesday
Jul312007
Monday
Jul302007
How Swearing Works
Monday 30 July, 2007 'Many studies suggest that the brain processes swearing in the lower regions, along with emotion and instinct. Scientists theorize that instead of processing a swearword as a series of phonemes, or units of sound that must be combined to form a word, the brain stores swear words as whole units. So, the brain doesn't need the left hemisphere's help to process them. Swearing specifically involves: - The limbic system, which also houses memory, emotion and basic behavior. The limbic system also seems to govern vocalizations in primates and other animals, and some researchers have interpreted some primate vocalizations as swearing. - The basal ganglia, which play a large role in impulse control and motor functions. So, you can think of swearing as a motor activity with an emotional component.' Link
Friday
Jul272007
253
Friday 27 July, 2007 'a novel for the Internet about London Underground in seven cars and a crash' 'There are seven carriages on a Bakerloo Line train, each with 36 seats. A train in which every passenger has a seat will carry 252 people. With the driver, that makes 253. This novel describes an epic journey from Embankment station, to the Elephant and Castle, named after the Infanta de Castile who stayed there, once. This is an example of the verbal imprecision that costs British industry millions of pounds a year. Numbers, however, are reliable. So that the illusion of an orderly universe can be maintained, all text in this novel, less headings, will number 253 words. Each passenger is described in three ways: Outward appearance : does this seem to be someone you would like to read about? Inside information : sadly, people are not always what they seem. What they are doing or thinking : many passengers are doing or thinking interesting things. Many are not.' Link
Thursday
Jul262007
New issue
Thursday 26 July, 2007 We're taking the Poetics of the Foundry issue down from the site today. It's been an excellent opening issue, and will reappear in a different format sometime in the future. Thanks to all the authors who contributed their work. The next issue launches in conjunction with the Openned anthology on Wednesday 1st August. Tie in, you say? Why, why yes.
Wednesday
Jul252007
ly
Wednesday 25 July, 2007 The first page of Ulysses has a lot of adverbs on it. I hope this is intentional otherwise I might not be able to continue. Keep you posted. - Alex
Wednesday
Jul252007
Metafiltered: Sean Bonney's Baudelaire translations
Wednesday 25 July, 2007 'Am I the only person who read this as Sean Connery? After I clicked I was almost immediately disappointed.' Link
Tuesday
Jul242007
Essentialist Explanations
Tuesday 24 July, 2007 'This page comprises a list of 901 "essentialist explanations" of the form "Language X is essentially language Y under conditions Z".' 'Broken English is the language of international trade.' Link
Monday
Jul232007
Friday
Jul202007
How2: a reading
Friday 20 July, 2007 KATE FAGAN & REDELL OLSEN Thursday 26th July, 7pm Royal Holloway, 2 Gower Street, London (Nearest tubes: Goodge Street or Russel Square) Kate Fagan is a writer, editor and musician based in Sydney. Her first collection of poems The Long Moment (Salt, Cambridge UK) was published to international critical acclaim in 2002 and she has several chapbooks including return to a new physics (Vagabond, Sydney 2002) and Thoughtʼs Kilometre (Tolling Elves, London 2003). A full-length CD of readings entitled Cellular Time is due for release by Stem Recordings in London later this year. Her poems have appeared in a range of national and overseas journals including Jacket, Salt, Meanjin, Southerly, The Melbourne Age, Cordite, Prague Literary Revue, Overland, The Kenyon Review and The Literary Review and in the anthology Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets (eds. Brennan & Minter). Redell Olsen was educated at university in Cambridge and London. Her publications include Book of The Fur (Cambridge: Rem Press, 2000), Secure Portable Space (Hastings: Reality Street, 2004), Here Are My Instructions (London: Gefn Press, 2004) and Punk Faun: a baroque pastel (London: Parataxis Editions, 2006). She is the editor of the internet journal How(2 and course director for the MA in Poetic Practice at Royal Holloway, University of London.