culture December 14, 2011

Attempts at Exhausting Cabinet Magazine's 24-Hour Book Series

Cabinet asks a writer to write a book in 24 hours, in public. The book is produced in another 24 hours, and then critics have 24 hours to respond to it. Our reporter recounts the whirlwind publishing stunt.

DAY 1

Date: December 10, 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 3:09 pm

Location: Cabinet Event Space, Gowanus, Brooklyn

Weather: Cold, white sky

“We have a picture—” says Brian Dillon, UK editor of Cabinet Magazine. “Here we are—of Shaw turning his shed.” Dillon pulls out a photograph of Bernard Shaw in a military suit pulling a shed. Writerly sheds is one of the subjects Dillon will be—no, is—writing about in his forthcoming book, I Am Sitting in a Room, about writers and their workspaces. Thus far, he has written precisely 1079 words—in public, at Brooklyn’s Cabinet Event Space. He has on a white shirt,

fiction Dec/Jan 2012

Divorcer

In 2008, I attended a lecture Gary Lutz delivered to a packed room at Columbia University. We were there to hear the consummate wordsmith and student of Gordon Lish say something memorable about the primacy of sentences. And he did. He spoke of words “behaving” as if they were destined to be together. He spoke of combinations of words that were so worked over by the author that they could not be improved on and were preparing themselves for “infinity.” But when it came to stories overall, Lutz had only this to say: “I almost never start with even a glimmer of a situation or a plot.”

Lutz is

culture June 10, 2011

A Simple Plan: Jon Cotner's Spontaneous Society

“They say that carrying bags is good exercise,” said the poet Jon Cotner to a young woman on the subway, a large shopping bag slung over her shoulder. She looked back at him curiously, then smiled. “Oh yeah?” she said. Five others, including this reporter, had joined Cotner on his expedition, pretending not to watch but taking mental notes on his vocalization, demeanor, bodily gestures, delivery, and success at creating “good vibes.”

“They say that carrying bags is good exercise,” said the poet Jon Cotner to a young woman on the subway, a large shopping bag slung over her shoulder. She looked back at him curiously, then smiled. “Oh yeah?” she said. Five others, including this reporter, had joined Cotner on his expedition, pretending not to watch but taking mental notes on his vocalization, demeanor, bodily gestures, delivery, and success at creating “good vibes.”

This was no New Age happening. It was a Spontaneous Society walking tour—the first of four that Cotner will lead within the aegis of Elastic City, an organization

Rozalia Jovanovic