Last call: BOY CRAZY!

A dispatch from Cherry Bomb Comics that needs spreading round:

Behold!

The final email notifying you of the final exciting deadline (and other Q&As) regarding your opportunity to have work published in the new all-girl comic anthology BOY CRAZY!


*Q: What is BOY CRAZY! again? I remember knowing before Xmas but the deadline evaporated and I like flaked out.*

A: BOY CRAZY! is the all-girl, fully published book that will be released mid-2007; immortalising female comic, zine and art culture in this country.
Conceived, compiled and edited by Coco (co-creator of 'This is not a Comic') and Mitch (an editor currently working in the legal publishing field) - we're both comics-crazy and determined to make this book the first of many completely incredible publications showcasing NZ underground artists and comix culture.In the tradition of great female comic collections like 'Twisted Sister' (US) and 'Daughters of Slaughter' (NZ) you have been invited to submit your work and you'd be the crazy one not to feature – so time to be onto it 'dude'.


*Q: When is the deadline?*

A: The new final and revised deadline is Monday March 12, 2007. We have attached our postal address, email and contact phone numbers at the bottom of this email, along with the technical specs and creative requirements of your submission. Despite our xmas-time flexibility we will be holding all artists to this deadline. If you are worried about this at all just get in touch as soon as possible and we can probably sort something out.
TIP: Don’t leave it til the last minute, basically you've got five weeks from today to do something insanely creative that reflects what a choice lady you are.


*Q: Why should I submit something again?*

A: This is a professionally published book on the coffee table tip, exciting sponsors are onboard and this project is a huge chance to showcase work for all artists and females in NZ. This could potentially generate more interest and income into the realms of independent art and comics (not to mention the talented ladies who've crafted them). Wanted to 'make something' for a while? Wanted to have a motivation to do this? Needed to feel pressure slash inspired? Or a workaholic looking for her next project? A comic geek who wants to be included? Don't make me get Tony Robbins.

*Q: Does my comic have to be BOY CRAZY?*

A: No. Its a counteractive shout out to the Hernandez Brothers' comic 'Girl Crazy' as well as a pisstake/acknowledgment of the phenenomen that some girls are boy crazy. If you are, go nuts. If you aren't, all good. It'll be a mean collection either way.


NOW YOU KNOW THE DEAL, GO HARD. BOY CRAZY! will showcase the diverse female talent in the NZ art/comic/zine and independent press realms. The anthology will feature a mix of comic legends, alt artists and electric newcomers. We look forward to your submission and hope to finally celebrate the awesome tomboy talents of Aotearoa. Read on for all the details AND dont forget to pass the BOY CRAZY! info onto all the other clever female artists you know.

x Coco & Mitch


BOY CRAZY: The lowdown
-------------------------------

2007 will mark the release of 'BOY CRAZY!' - an all-girl anthology of comic art from New Zealand.

We would like to invite you to contribute to this fully published book.

BOY CRAZY!

* All contributors are asked to submit a small blurb/bio for themselves and self-portrait (this will introduce you and your section).

* All contributors will receive a complimentary copy of BOY CRAZY!

* A minimum of 2 pages is required for a submission with a maximum of 8 suggested. This is flexible and excludes your bio and self portrait.

* The final deadline for submissions is Friday 1 December 2006 Monday 12 March 2007.

* Please send this on to any other ladies who might also be interested in submitting work

Send submissions to:

BOY CRAZY!
PO Box 78367
Grey Lynn
Auckland

Or:

boycrazycomics (at) gmail.com

choosing between a kiss or a punch, and a punch or nothing

I actually quite like Ryan Adams, however there's nothing like a scathing rundown of someone's character. Especially where the writer is equally willing to put themselves on the line, therefore, I quite enjoyed this: Ryan Adams Massive Douche or Real American Hero?.

In other rockin news, courtesy of Triple J, the boys from Shaky Hands have a free download of their track You And I right here which you should check out IMMEDIATELY because it is so so awesome and will improve your day.

Here is the video for it, which I LOVE:


And to finish, the same guy, Erik Henriksen, who wrote the Ryan Adams piece also has this amazing podcast interview with Jonathan Safran Foer.

He's the author Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a truly favourite book of mine. One of those that I thrust upon people, insisting that they read, just open the first page and throw themselves into without questioning. (And then in some cases have extreme difficultly wrangling the damn thing back out of their wrongful possession, but we won't get into that right now).

The interview explores concepts of fame, the emotional aftermath of 9/11, the mix of visuals with his text and touches on his first book, Everything is Illuminated which is now a film starring Elijah Wood. Giggidy giggidy!!

Hass Blew My Mind

I realise the headline looks like a typo (speshly after the overexcited, rather tipsy post of early this evening), however I can assure you its not. The US-based Poetry Foundation website has a feature on Robert Hass, with five poets each introducing their favourite of his poems.

The name Robert Hass might be familiar, as he got a bit of press when visiting here for the Readers & Writers Week during the Intl Arts Festival earlier this year. He has some amazing books of poetry out and was the US Poet Laureate in the mid 1990s, I believe.

This link is a great intro to his writing - and I can tell you from attending some of his readings that he is just the loveliest guy too, so adorable and a soothing SoCal accent. My favourite poem of his is probably actually is a long, strange prose-y piece from Sun Under Wood - you'll have to get the book out, as it needs re-reading and absorbing, its called 'My Mother's Nipples'.

To finish with, I'm gonna include this little snippet i found while googling to try see if there were any stanzas of 'My Mother's Nipples' online [note to self: be careful with googling the words: 'my' 'mothers' 'nipples']. Its come from some kind of interview where members of the public have been allowed to interrogate Hass on whatever they wanted.

I love it because it makes me think of those Q&As you get (I've seen them happen in both film and poetry related events) when some wanker in the crowd just wants to make themselves seem cool and the distinguished guest has almost nothing to do with it.
Also, his answers are even funnier if you know a bit about the kind of poems he writes, or just poetry in general. So yeah, I'm geeking out a little. This whole post is about an Poet Laureate fer goodness sake, what did you expect!?

Susan M. Williams, Nashville, TN:
First, thanks for your poetry. I'm probably taking advantage of the offer to ask "a question" by my request, but having fallen in love with the way you use words, especially your poem, "Meditation at Lagunitas," I'm curious to learn your responses to the Bernard Pivot quiz, made famous by James Lipton of the "Inside The Actor's Studio" show on the Bravo TV channel. So here goes.

Robert Haas, what is your favorite word?
your least favorite word?
What turns you on?
What turns you off?
What sound or noise do you love?
What sound or noise do you hate?
What profession, other than yours, would you like to attempt?
What profession, other than yours, would you not like to participate in?
Finally, if heaven exists, what do you expect to hear God say when you arrive?



Robert Hass:

What is the necessary word?
What are the least sufficient words?
What turns you in?
What turns you out?
What species of New England bog berry do you love, regret in the pulp and the sky ashy?
What animal insolence, what bell of what round in the contest between anguish and delight provokes you?
What feather of the winter cardinal would you like to attempt?
What taxi cab meter, measuring the fare uptown toward coffee con leche or the hurt dance of recalcitrant marionettes would you not like to participate in?
Finally, if poetry exists, what do you expect the grass to say, Susan?

Special Guest Post! Rebecca Trelease in her own words:

First of all, lets get a few things straight. Why 'Trelease'? There were two Rebecca's in the last year of uni so by default it went to the surname. However, the other Rebecca hasn't been around for more than a couple of years now so lets get it back to the original status, huh? I'm mostly annoyed by the fact I didn't even get a The prefix, as in The Bartlett. I'm so jealous of that I'm totally going back to Rebecca (although it did cause some confusion as I was introduced around Wellington. Eddie met Trelease but was told he would be hanging out with Rebecca so he had NO idea who I was when I climbed into the car).

Bel and I both did the BCS so I knew of her from first year. I always thought she was really cool right from the start but alas she hated me. Although, I remember before we actually started hanging out or knowing too many people in common (i.e. only Shane and Gareth) she saw me walking around mega stressed at Uni one day and she walked over and gave me a big hug. Which I thought was lovely. Over the years we met at random parties, but the one she mentioned at my house - why did you come if you hated me so much! Although she did encourage me to have the vodka and orange juice that ended the night for me, so maybe it was all planned... *

Right. Wellington.

I managed to make it all alone into the city, except I got off at the wrong stop and totally ruined my grand entrance outside the St James. Was there for about 5 minutes before I was sat down with a stapler, stickers and pamphlets. Spent a couple of hours in the most gorgous but very uncomfortable costume from 'My Fair Lady', my hat made me 10ft tall but it squished my brains and the elastic cut into my chin. But no biggy. *

Explored every floor in Te Papa. This visit was a lot more educational than the last one where Bel just pointed to it and said 'well thats Te Papa'. *

That night, drinks at the Hawthorne (which I thought was the Matterhorne) and roasted marshmallows with Ebony, Sam and Sarah-Kay. Now Bel had talked this place up, how they have 'Connect 4' and lots of board games. They had cards for poker. That's it. We considered a round of Snap but instead ate more marshmallows. Went to the Matterhorne where I met Melissa but they didn't have any confectionary so we left.

We explored the Art Gallery which featured Sam Taylor-Wood * and while it showed random pieces of her other works, the main 'attraction' were her photos of actors crying (www.city-gallery.org.nz/mainsite/). We had both heard about it and had our criticisms before seeing it and I'm happy to report that it did absolutely nothing to sway our opinions of getting hired emoters to emote on cue and then call it an 'intimate portrayal of grief'. At one extreme was Philip Seymour Hoffman who actually looked like it could be an honest portrait, to Robert Downey Junior who seems to have a very elaborate way of lying himself out on a bed to cry. Although he did keep it modest. And don't get me started on the David Beckham video of him 'sleeping'. He wasn't. It was probably very difficult getting comfortable wearing massive diamond earrings and bracelets and flexing the pecs but it was by no means 'sleeping'. It was totally worth paying to see just so we could spend the whole time criticising the 'drawcard' of the exhibition. (note: The first part of her exhibition is quite good, especially 'strings'. Just not the crying thing).

Bel's brother Eddie took us on a tour of Parliament. As a security guard he would be in charge of Lost and Found so we handed over a soggy and dejected pink teddy bear found on the path. He also didn't need to go through (or explain) the security checkpoints, so as he kept walking we were stopped and I said 'but we're with him' (meaning he needs to stop or we'll lose him and don't know what we're doing) but being told 'that doesn't mean anything to us' in a very snotty manner as if I was trying to smuggle in stuff. However, that was when Bel was caught with (heaven forbid) her mobile to which he was quite horrified. * The question session in Parliament was a bit boring, when they start yelling you can't work out what they're saying. And no-one asked the tough hard-hitting question: Who lost their pink teddy bear?

Bel tells me we're going to 'Pao Pao Pao'. I had no idea what it was about but it starts and everyone is talking Te Reo. With no translations. However I'm sitting next to Cam and he was laughing away and agreeing with what's being. What I learnt: Pakipake means clap! Canicani means dance! We most enjoyed the performance by Hinemoana Baker (www.hinemoana.co.nz), and ended up seeing a second performance by her at The Marae in Te Papa. I've since heard her version of 'Secret Love'; the only other person I've heard sing this is Mandy Moore and I must say both versions are excellent.

Bridgit's wedding was beautiful and I was very honoured to be Bel's 'date' for this event. We did have to run off to Turnbull House for the Anthology Launch * in the middle (where Bel presented another glorious poem of hers) and I did have a moment out the window of 'That building looks like that main Parliament building. Oh, it is Parliament.' The night continued with our appearances at Mighty Mighty, The Hawthorne, Salsa night at the Jimmy and concluded with a Rosebud cocktail at Motel.

Random thoughts:

• Never seen Malasian restaurants before but they are GREAT.


• Whats up with only having fancy lemonade in glass bottles all the time, can't a girl get a decent watered down, overly carbonated Sprite? If I'm paying $8 for vodka do you think I give a hoot about the lemonade?!!


• The 'walk' signals are incredibly loud.No one waits for a 'walk' signal. The entire group would start crossing so I would too instead of being a scared loner because the man was still red! It took me one day to start running across whenever like a Wellingtonian.


• Yes, California Sushi must always be spoken with a reverent tone.


• Bel's friends in Wellington are all very lovely and I enjoyed meeting them all.

* Bel here, chipping in because I'm the editor and that's my perogative. I would've been in attendance at the at-the-time dreaded Trelease's party because Shane or Gareth or BOTH was so in love with her back then. Another contributing factor to my depising - ya know how possessive I was of those boys. About the same level as I am of Trelease now.
No comment on the drink thing tho. Heh heh hee...

* This is referring to the photo shoot I intended to involuntarily recruit Trelease for, mentioned in this post, which it turned out she hadn't read and therefore was oblivious to our broadcast weekend itinerary!

* We were in a hurry, people!! I thought our time would be better spent eating gelati at Oriental Bay... good call, right?

* Yes, I went along. Yes, this was partially because Trelease offered to shout me. Yes I folded over the sticker pass they make you wear at the door so I didn't have to wander around the building with that pink-shirted sap Hayden Christiansen attached to my body. However, I wholehearted agree with Rebecca's comments about the REST of the photographs/films included, and I think I felt even more strongly about them. Her images The Leap and Self Portrait As A Tree has such impact on me, much more so than some fucken actor working up crocodile tears in front of another lens.

* The 'he' being the snooty security guard that this, not my brother - who is just a regular security guard, feeling cool wearing his radio ear piece n all. The guy had a freakin MARE at me, as it was just before entering the actual, um, chamber? is that what they call it? ...am trying to think back to Social Studies... Anyway - pulled out my phone to put it on silent and they acted like I busted out a glock or something, honestly. What, am I going take scandalous photos of them flipping the bird to each other?! whoo!!

* You can read more about the launch of the NZPS 2006 Anthology here. As well as being Assistant Editor for the collection, and doing the typesetting and cover design, I had a poem included, called 'Long Letters'. Some of you may know it from my zine 'The Knife Thrower's Apprentice' - I'll probably post it up here some time soon anyhow... it went down pretty well on Saturday :)



Ok, better hop to it and get this posted. Trelease - I mean, Rebecca sent this through before COB as request but I somehow got busy and then had to head home from the office and THEN had all kinds of distractions, like ohhh I don't know sussinganewflatmate and stuff like that!!

Could someone please acknowledge two things? 1) my awesome anchor tags doing the whole footnote thang and 2) how I let the whole Mandy Moore thing slide. 'Cause you know she ain't trying to be funny at all there. K, sweet.

it says 'best' people ohh yeah

My dear friend (I pinched her from my mum, so you know that's good value) and long term writing mentor, Suse Wylie, was the winner of last year's BNZ Katherine Mansfield Premier Award. This was by no means the first notch in her belt, but still a fairly prestigious acknowledgement of her talent.

Not to mention the whopping great cash prize. Also much deserved.

The short story which won her the long-running nationwide competition has just been published in the above collection, conveniently released just in time for your Christmas shopping and jam-packed some of the rest of the best of NZ's creative writers. Here's a wee sample of some the line up: Geoff Cochrane, Charlotte Grimshaw, Lloyd Jones, Owen Marshall, Carl Nixon, Vincent O'Sullivan, Jo Randerson, Fay Weldon, Peter Wells... Plus more.

In fact, I do believe its an extended edition of 'Lolly' at Fiona's request, so I am most looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into it!

Subject: bubble wrap yourself

I sent my mum this link and got this letter back:

crazy girl pop pop pop bang. How's the poetry anthology coming on? What little sprog did your associate have? Daveman tells me you've been very busy.
Finished AHWOSG, ended up forgiving the guy for swearing so much and loving him because he raised Toph the best way he could. Damnit, I'm one of those people that would ask at a book signing how Toph is faring!
Love you xxxxxxx
Mum

The book she mentions is Dave Eggers' memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. If I haven't recommended that you read this book, then I don't actually like you.

entertain me

Sean let me take him to the opera last night. Its a good sign for a budding friendship when you curse at the dimming lights for interrupting your flow of conversation! We had just got stuck into discussing his latest photography project and I was tentatively sharing for the first time my ideas for....well, a kind of art project-thing. And then APPARENTLY it got all important for the show to start.

Ok well this was going to be a much longer, more rambling post, covering how i got to catch some of the Polyfest rehearsals in the afternoon and how I scrambled in to Happy and just caught the "um we've played our whole set but if you really want another song we could play one of them again?!" of my flatmate Simon's gig, but just had a lovely early morning catch up with Cam so no time!

Cam is enthralled by a novel that sounds dreadful. I love hearing his enthusiasm tho. He said "oh yes you'd hate it" and compared it to Franzen's The Corrections which I'll admit is well written but still a total suckfest. I'm currently back in the midst of Girlfriend In A Coma by Douglas Coupland. This book has such a impact on me when i first read it and I'm finding it just as rewarding now. It's so different to his other stuff, nothing of that Bret Easton Ellisish stuff going on - its very much in the world of the characters - and then that world just spins out of control. If you didn't dig where the narrative of The Lovely Bones wound up journeying too, I don't know if I'd recommend it, as this book requires an open mind, or at least appeals to those with a tinge of sci-fi. It's so beautifully written, great imagery. I read a section to Cam the other night and as I said it aloud there was even more richness than I'd noticed the first (second) time round:

"Karen lit a Number 7 cigarette, her bony cheeks inflamed with blood, pink in the Bic lighter's heat, like a doll in a burning doll house"

Just a snippet - I'll add more later when I'm in a less precarious position to be arrving late for work. Am currently still in bed, unwashed and unfed. Quelle horreur!

...

Ok here it is ...enjoy:

...we rose up again, up the mountain on a bobbing chairlift that stalled halfway up the slope. And it was there that the arc lights also blinked, then skittered, then blackened. In the pitch dark, Karen and I sat bouncing, stuck, suspended above raw nature, our faces blue jeans-blue from the Moon. Karen lit a Number 7 cigarette, her bony cheeks inflamed with blood, burning pink in the Bic lighter's heat, like a doll in a burning doll house. My arm draped over her shoulder; we both felt safe, as if we were a complete solar system unto ourselves, dangling in the sky, warm heated planets inside a universe of stars.

That's from chapter two 'Every idea in the world is wrong'.
Have just finished chapter 10 'One day you will speak with yourself' and am forcing myself to slow down and not plough through it!!