Nudge: 1st issue

So the first issue of Nudge came out last week.

I'm very pleased. Even the cover is great. This cover has blasted by presupposed hatred of the yellow/red combination. Bravo cover artist. Also, this picture is shamelessly stolen from Tim Willis, so thanks Tim.

Claire Fox's introduction to the journal was excellent. I applaud her efforts to make Nudge a reality, but I also applaud her underlying principles in forming it in the first place. She says,

"Nudge is for the people who are willing to push themselves beyond their limits and attempt work in forms, genres, ideas, and methods that hold the possibility of incredible success (however that may be defined), but also miserable failure. We look to reject art's obnoxious tendency to be untouchable. The only thing at Nudge that is untouchable is our dedication to risking elitism and irrelevance for the sake of our art."

Although I admit to having a definite bias, I thought the poetry was particularly strong in this publication. Owen Curtsinger had a great poem called, "God as Baron Greenback."

Who is God to act the cartoon villain?
What does he think as he looks down at humanity,
From his villain tower on his villain cloud?
Does he spy our feats of charity and say,
Ah yes, everything is going just as planned.

Ben Drum also had two really good poems in Nudge. I thought his name sounded familiar. Turns out, we work in the same place, and I see him all the time. I was astounded by this fact. This is some of "The Apology" by that Ben Drum.

"The Apology
sauntered into my doorway--
confess boldly and to a fault.
pity the kid and play the adult.
I forget, but not forget
        and never forget (for a while)"

Honestly, excellent work all around. We shall blow Bricolage out of the water!

I encourage all to submit to Nudge. Although next round will be much more difficult: only 5 entries per medium/genre will be accepted.

"High Latency" by Brian Christian

"Discussed: funk drumming, audio engineering, kelp, object-oriented programming, epistemology, The Matrix, middle school orchestras, photography, saccades, the Chicago Bulls, Arthur Sze, etymology, orgasms, Dharma & Greg, Roland Barthes, drunk dialing, James Gleick, Heather McHugh, Albert Camus, Bertolt Brecht, World of Warcraft, subjective idealism, limericks, God, Necker cubes"

Is a top notch essay recently published in Conjunctions. Read it online here.

One of my favorite parts:

"Lag—from the Middle English lagmon, the man falling behind.
      Latency—from the Latin latēns, lying hidden.
      Though they're near-synonymous in the jargon of science, the etymological connotations are nearly opposite: one suggests a falling away, the other a coming toward. There's a pathos to something lagging—a weakness, a failing—whereas the latent suggests instead a kind of saturation of potential which is almost…sexy. "

I am interesting, and notes on "The end."

I think I'm going to start posting non-poems,

because I am very young and need an outlet for my overflowing angst,

but not right now because I am wearing warm wool socks that belong to a good person

and I really must investigate the sublime.



THE END

Also, today I wrote notes on why I hate "The end." Saying "The end," seems so amateur. It's distasteful. Literally. It tastes bad. The tongue pushes it out the "the," only to immediately recoil at the nastiness of the phrase by softly sliding "end" out on the bottom lip. "The end" sticks out in the mind. An ending should have a lingering ringing. "The end" is more like a door slamming. It hurts, really hurts. All one sees is the back of the door instead of focusing on the room inside. A good ending is like closing a window. What a horrible metaphor.

Obviously it is appropriate here because I am amateur, and this makes me upset, thus the cause for door slamming.