Monday, December 28, 2009

Proust/Fitterman

The Corresponding Society will be starting off the new year with a monolithic reading featuring some of today’s most incredible poets, assembled by Master of Ceremonies Lonely Christopher. The event shall be staged 7 January at 7pm at Chelsea’s P.P.O.W. Gallery under the rubric of the Hostess Project. The readers shall be Rachel Zolf, Rob Fitterman, Christian Hawkey, Rachel Levitsky, and, fuck yes, Richard Loranger. While you anxiously await this happening, please accept the following blog content to hold you over. Rob Fitterman (aka Rob the plagiarist) has generously filled out a loosely interpreted version of the Proust Questionnaire, which you’ll find below. There will be more Proust Questionnaire answers, perhaps from other featured readers and definitely from some members of The Corresponding Society, to follow in the new year.

An Introduction to Robert Fitterman

Robert Fitterman is the author of 10 books of poetry including: The Sun Also Also Rises, war the musical, Metropolis XXX: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edge Books), Metropolis 16-29 (Coach House Press), Metropolis 1-15 (Sun & Moon Press), This Window Makes Me Feel (www.ubu.com). Metropolis 1-15 was awarded the Sun & Moon “New American Poetry Award (2000)” and Metropolis 16-29 was awarded the Small Press Traffic “Book of the Year Award (2003)”. With novelist Rodrigo Rey Rosa, he co-authored the film What Sebastian Dreamt which was selected for the Sundance Film Festival (2004) and the Lincoln Center LatinBeat Festival (2004). He has been a full-time faculty member in NYU’s Liberal Studies Program since 1993. He also teaches poetry at the Milton Avery School of Graduate Studies at Bard College.
(from the NYU website)


Robert Fitterman Answers the Proust Questionnaire

Your favorite virtue.
Generosity.

Your favorite qualities in a man.
Femininity.

Your favorite qualities in a woman.
Masculinity.

Your chief characteristic.
Loyalty.

What you appreciate the most in your friends.
Loyalty.

Your main fault.
Bad with money.

Your favorite occupation.
Poet.

Your idea of happiness.
Lunch in the Italian countryside with friends and Kim and Coco.

Your idea of misery.
Not being able to do the former.

If not yourself, who would you be?
Myself.

Where would you like to live?
In NYC.

Your favorite prose authors.
My favorite authors blur this genre distinction.

Your favorite poets.
What day is it today?

Your favorite heroes in fiction.
Not much, thanks.

Your favorite heroines in fiction.
These are the pants I was telling you about.

Your favorite painters and composers.
OK, great to see you too.

Your heroes in “real life.”
Call me when you get in, OK?

What characters in history do you most dislike?
Sure, but please don't worry.

Your favorite names.
Hector & Tula.

What do you hate the most?
Badly prepared or presented or cared for or corrupted food.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Poetry Project

Lonely Christopher and Rebecca Nagle will be reading this Friday at the Poetry Project. Here's more information:

The Poetry Project
131 E. 10th Street, Manhattan
LC & RN 11 Dec @ 10pm!

LONELY CHRISTOPHER writes across forms; he is a poet, playwright, director, editor, and unpublished novelist. His poetry has been collected in the chapbooks Satan (Small Anchor) and Wow, Where Do You Come from, Upside-Down Land? (No Know) and the first two installments of his Gay Plays, a trilogy of dramatic explorations into the queer situation, have been released together by Small Anchor. Withal, the Gay Plays have been staged internationally and published in China in a Mandarin translation. He is a founding member of the Corresponding Society, the manager of its blog, and an editor of its biannual literary journal Correspondence; he is the curator of the press’ second series of poetry chapbooks What Where (forthcoming in winter). He lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

REBECCA NAGLE is a performance, new media and community artist. She grew up in Kansas. After attending Interlochen Arts Academy, she studied at Maryland Institute College of Art. She is an internationally exhibited and collected artist with works in the New Museum, NY and Ssamzie Art Warehouse, South Korea. Nagle has shown at Current Gallery, Art in General, Site Santa Fe, Artscape, and Conflux Festival. She was hailed by Baltimore City’s Paper’s senior arts editor Bret McCabe as “Baltimore’s very own life-is-art-is-life performance maven…mingling the internet and performance into a fresh and vital new thing”. Rebecca’s performative, interative and community art projects challenge people around issues of intimacy, the body, power, boundaries and efficacy. She is currently trying to make the world a more open, equitable and creative place through community organizing and radical performance art.

THE FRIDAY NIGHT SERIES was born in 1991 & raised by poet/author Gillian McCain (Tilt, Religion, & co-author of Please Kill Me with Leggs McNeil); it been a bi-monthly forum for multi-media events & other “untraditional” literary going-ons. The Friday Night Series varies its programming with a combination of readings, presentations, performances, screenings & installations – theatrical, visual, textual, musical or otherwise. All events start at 10PM & end at/around MIDNIGHT, unless otherwise noted. The Fall 2009 - Spring 2010 season will be co-curated by Edward Hopely and Nicole Wallace.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Brother Lover



The new installment of Robert Smith's queer reading series featuring Damien Luxe, Devon Gallegos, Ryan May, Daniel McKernan, and Lonely Christopher! This Thursday at Envoy Enterprises! Read an interview with Robert Smith here.