Ephemera Newsletter Iss Dec.2
(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)
Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, Druz'ya (Russian for “friends”)
Another thank you to all who submitted for our December issues and especially to our finalist, Rachel Beachy! You can review her poems altogether once they publish as well as artist statement and bio on this dedicated post on our Substack page.
And here are some reminders:
Ephemera December is sponsored by: Volume 0
From Volume 0’s website:
“We like stories offbeat and fun in a slightly naughty way. So expect bad behavior, adult themes and a bit of menace. You might not like all of these stories. But we certainly don’t think you’ll be bored.”
This is an interesting approach to promoting fiction. Maybe they can revive the public’s interest with some edgy work packaged in shorter formats. We’ve read several stories from their latest issue and were intrigued! Check out Volume 0 from Book of the Month!
In Brief…this week’s features:
Thoughts on Jan Vormann’s blocky public Lego “patchwork” masonry art.
Listening to Ariel Pink’s chillwave, ballady track “Baby.”
September’s poet, Rachel Beachy’s second of four poems, “Object Impermanence.”
Our weekly lists:
3 magazines with open calls
3 awards/prizes
3 recent job listings for editors and writers.
Interesante: An article from Psyche on chronotype, how to think about and manage your circadian clock.
Book Recs, bonus content, and our mini-essays to start!
Last Week’s Issue.
Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.
Ephemera
Dear Readers,
The light dimmed, stayed low as long as it can given the numerous physics at play as far as we know, Newtonian and quantum, which we marked well in a type of recognition on the 21st, and hey! Despite the promise of a bunch of cold these next few months, we’re assuredly marching toward more and more light, many of us holding our frozen breath until the next equinox. Equality! We play. Which is sort of the vibe we want to mark given the gloam. And, too, sometimes the holidays as we refer to these days can be a drag for some. Both enriching familially but also…something else, possibly caught in the rasp and lament of this week’s music selection, Ariel Pink’s “Baby.” Both Pink and this week’s artist, Jan Vormann, talk about play as an essential component of being the artist such as they are. Play. We must maintain a youth of sorts, maybe expressed as a willingness to try, to muck about on the page, put things together that teacher would scoff at, let’s say, maybe in order to make something dissonant, gross, or gloriously, accidentally cool. But foolishness…
“In a sense I'm just the town fool that gets to do whatever he wants…”
—Ariel Pink in The Guardian
Maybe we play too much at being erudite and upright and knowing of things as writers. There’s quite a bit expected of us if you tap into that ethereal authorness before just being at the desk. Pink talks about staying relevant, which is a pressure very much connected to musicianship, not that writers aren’t affected by trends and pressures of the market and demands of readership—there’s infinity billion coming of age novels and poetry collections (maybe that’s a rite (right) of passage, right?). Allowing ourselves to be too beholden means we can’t be the fool. We can’t muck about. We can’t even play around alone if we’re caught up with expectation. We’ll delete and deny. But these serious times, let’s play. Let’s be creatives that allow ourselves to joke and kid with peers and gadabout. Bring that to the page. Probe and stretch. Knock some things over. We tend to easily find the skill of construction. Not too easily can we crush and topple and resort and lay artful waste to. Play the creator. Play the destroyer.
Blagodarnost'
(Gratitude)
Poetry by Rachel Beachy
Object Impermanence I could not remember where I left my phone or my coffee or the rest of my sentence there were burp cloths everywhere but always out of reach the swaddle that fit her the night before was too small by the next morning which is when I found a wine glass on the bathroom counter and my toothbrush by the kitchen sink next to the bottles and pump parts and pacifiers which would need to be washed again that evening and the next, and the next, and
Music: Ariel Pink
Born Ariel Rosenberg, Ariel Pink presents a deeply eclectic taste for music. His influences are myriad, ranging from phases of Metal and Goth, to 80’s Rock and Soul, Michael Jackson in particular, The Cure, and the so called “godfather of home recording,” Stevie Moore. You can here a vast inspiration when you listen to whole albums…they’re almost “all over” and yet his lo-fi aesthetic—resulting from a penchant for recording on 8-track—tones in his voice, and maybe an unnameable sound-flavor tie pieces together in a way. You might have to listen carefully. He’s also a rather bizarre character outside of his recording life, eccentricity that started when he was young, probably fueled in his teens and adulthood by prolific drug use. Maybe because of his oddity, certainly because the music is appealing, he has garnered a cult following, of which we just learned despite finding this track, “Baby” some decade ago and liking it.
“If you don't appeal to kids, to the zeitgeist, you get thrown on the scrapheap”
—Ariel Pink in The Guardian
But we’re here to talk about what we hear. We love hearing classic-sounding tunes that put a unique spin on something old. Pink does this with nearly everything, and it’s the timbre of his voice in “Baby” that envelopes us and brings us into the core of the song, which is a tad ironic if we’re to believe that he records for the sound and instruments first, throwing in lyrics as an afterthought, which has been reported. But maybe he considers the sounds of voice over the actual words. And, to be honest, even when we listen to music with lyrics, we barely consider the meaning at all; we go straight to sound and emotion and hear that even ten times, maybe one hundred times over before accessing the potential meaning of the literal words. Words can be a distraction from your own experience—which is not unlike getting into a good fleshy character fully rendered and you start skipping dialogue tags and other peripheral description paying attention exclusively to the them of the page-being, eschewing the author’s stage directing.
Pink records with an “old” sound, which he achieves with low end tech or high-end tech aimed to sound low end as might be the case with this track and recordings after 2010 when he had more institutional resources t his disposal. Hopefully your thinking voice. Voice. A killer voice can make any piece work. Maybe deploy a little rasp, or find your way to naturally expressing lived-ness…go out and live and be and experiment and experience and be good but try and try in various ways, all the ways that your upbringing allows such that your ink bleeds a mien. Anyway, we get fired up to Be when listening to Pink’s heartfelt, authentic oddness.
Writers Submit: 3 Magazines
Online and print published each year in all genres from the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University. The online and print magazine has featured some now prominent editors and writers. DEADLINE FEBRUARY 3
An online magazine in continuous publication since 2009 that publishes in all genres. Part of the University of Illinois at Chicago Phd English program, the magazine has a straightforward streamline design and also has a podcast. DEADLINE ROLLING
The online magazine publishes poetry, fiction, and cnf. The independent journal is interested in writing from all types of people, with an emphasis on new voices writing about important cultural and political issues. ROLLING DEADLINE
Weekly Artist: Jan Vormann
Jan Vormann is a Lego mason of sorts. The Bamberg-born artist now lives and works in Berlin, though he travels the world looking for historically important architecture to repair with Lego blocks, bringing color and attention to sometimes overlooked buildings, always with an eye toward public interaction, toward playfulness. Yet, many of the buildings he calls attention to have mixed, even sordid histories linked to war and its excesses. Much like previous street artists we’ve looked at who make use of public installations, the idea is the new perspective, to remind us of human frailty and expressions of evil, for sure, but to connect those past (sometimes present) events to the contexts of now. Symbolically, this link is made from stonework or even brick and mortar to plastic, the material of now. In interviews, Vormann comes across as pithy and magnanimous. He respects all forms of street artists from amateurs to professionals. He believes in public interaction in, essentially, co-creating; the artist lays the ground work and the viewer participates in the meaning making. In a way, he’s a weaver of narrative. A patchwork poet
“I like that it sometimes gets all kinds of people play together in the streets. If not, at least it touches the playful spots in the minds of passers-by.”
Vormann’s work, while not complicated, speaks to us in complex ways. First, there’s the layer of Lego, a German-based company come to symbolize play for much of the world, with bright colors and easily stacked mini-blocks. There’s an ease here. And the colors excite our inner child. When you spot his work on the street, it must be easily accessible, and you might think oh, wow, that’s neat. And you might then wonder about the importantance of the wall or facade. And then you might play with the idea of history and decay and the propping up of cultural heritage—in some ways Vormann’s actions are akin to the repairs done to the Sphinx over the millennia, the small bricks layered about the tail and hindquarters serving to assist and fill in the big picture but clearly not part of the ancient original. The past is important, and sometimes we can’t access the original methods of construction. So we invent new, easy ways. Easy is the name of now.
Legos may be easy, but take in the patchworks created. These spots are like found poems. Crevices are created and then found and filled in, their space borrowed. In another way, we’re reminded of what we do as writers with narratives. We borrow spaces, cracks, crumbling, the attributes around us and piece together a type of whole that relies on a bit of magic, the illusion of realism whereby the reader fills in the rest. We borrow bits and pieces and construct something anew and ask readers to see “wall” when it’s only several bricks. A little bit of synecdoche, a dash of metonymy. We omit and make reference to wholes and leave it up to the reader to fill in. Vormann’s art reminds us of what we do, can do. Wall by wall, brick by brick, mortar vein by vein we’re reinvigorated to play.
Short 3 question Interview
Interesante: Chronotypes and Being
From: Psyche.com
— (8 min read / 12 study)
The best way to avoid the downsides of social jetlag is to try to wake up around the same time each day and to go to bed roughly around the same time each night.
This is a great summary article on Chronotypes—how your circadian rhythm is oriented (e.g., night owl vs early bird)—and how to best make use of your type. We’ve found writers suffer when they do not understand their internal clocks and their needs sufficiently. Being “jet lagged” by social interaction, for instance, can really upset routines. We love the term Social Jetlag. It’s perfect to think about interactions that force us up too early or to stay out to late as a type of jetlag. In any case, it’s a great read with some science that moves quickly. —Read the Full Piece
Prizes/Awards/Stipends Winter ‘24
U. of Wisconsin Poetry/Fiction Fellowship provides $40,000, healthcare, & a 1-course teaching assignment per semester to candidates that have completed an MFA or PHD in CW & one or fewer full-length books. $40k. $50 fee. DEADLINE MARCH 1
Hazel Rowley Prize awards $5,000 to a first-time biographer working on a non-commissioned unpublished biography. Hosted by Biographers International Organization. $5k. $25 Fee. DEADLINE MARCH 1
The Moth Poetry Prize awards 3 prizes, and publication in The Irish Times, to eight poems by eight writers. International writers have won the prestigious award.
1st €6k, €1k x 3 + Pub. €15 Fee. DEADLINE DECEMBER 31
Bookstore: Guides, Gifts & Classics
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This Week — James by Percival Everett:
Last Week: Alice Munro (Controversially) — Too Much Happiness Booker Winner:
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~~~Do svidaniya~~~
(Goodbye)
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