The Quest announced by LitKicks marries sudden fiction (and poetry, and nonfiction) workshop dynamics to a survivor-like competitive format, starting October 1, with six winners to be published in a book featuring the best work from the Quest. It's open to all, costs $20 to enter, and requires a free membership in the LitKicks site, which is a thriving online literary community as it is. More info in the FAQ. I think this may work better for me than NaNoWriMo would.
posted to MetaFilter by xian at 5:41 PM on September 16, 2003 (4 comments)

Before there was McSweeney's... Phyllis Johnson published 10 issues of Aspen, a multimedia magazine in a box to which the USPS denied second-class mail rates. After a few issues that stayed close to the ski resort in terms of theme, the magazine began bringing in guest editors and addressing cutting edge art and media, in New York, Britain, Asia, and the minds of cultural critics and psychedlic drug users. Andy Warhol participated in Issue 3 and the Fluxus movement dominated Issue 8. There were 10 issues in all, the first 9 of which are featured in this new web adaptation at Ubuweb. At the risk of only posting whenever Andrew Stafford unveils another cool web-native multimedia art project, I thought a lot of Metafiltrates would appreciate this interpretation of Aspen Magazine
posted to MetaFilter by xian at 4:56 PM on November 15, 2002 (11 comments)

The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even is usually referred to as The Large Glass but whatever the name, what is it? Also, did Marcel Duchamp hide the stitches in plain site? For that matter, when did he find the time to make music? Would hearing him in his own words help us make sense of him? What do his Francophone fans think? Does it require a lifetime of devotion to get a handle on his work? How about dragging his readymades into the lab and putting them under the microscope? If not answers then more questions can surely be found in the Duchamp world community or perhaps on its bulletin board. But, really, I suppose it doesn't matter how you encounter Duchamp just so long as you do.
posted to MetaFilter by xian at 5:09 PM on August 16, 2002 (13 comments)

Regime change required for a rogue nation? In a soundbite disseminated by the White House and duly picked up by the media, Bush the younger asserted that "the world's worst leaders" will not be permitted to "harbor and develop the world's worst weapons." With the U.S. hinting at a new, unilateral war effort abroad and suspending constitutional rights at home, Adrian Hamilton writes in the Independent (U.K.), "The government which is spending by far the most on weapons of mass destruction, and is now planning to raise its budget by an increase greater than the total defence spending of Europe, is, of course, based in Washington."
posted to MetaFilter by xian at 2:31 PM on August 10, 2002 (27 comments)