Brain Cookies 22

An art centric Brain Cookies 22. 

Here is a fantastic post on the WFMU blog about the failed Dune collaboration between recently deceased artist Moebius and Alejandro Jodorowsky.


It's the book within a book t-shirt!


Two scary stories of solitary confinement here and here. 


If you remove the last panel from a Peanuts cartoon ...


Do you like Vincent Gallo? 

Here's one for fiction editor Robert Glick: artist Nina Katchadourian making Flemish portraits using airline provided accouterments. 

More Thoughts on Editing

Next time it's number ten. It’s a big year for our little independent journal.

As it stands, the fiction crew has completed two phone conferences this reading period as part of the selection process for Versal.

To repeat the caveat I’ve specified ad nauseam to every blog post I’ve written on this dear blog, this is my first go as an editor for the journal. Knowing the quality of the fiction selected for inclusion in previous issues, I figured rightly that the curating process would be a vigorous exercise.

What I couldn’t anticipate was the dynamics of the fiction team.

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First, let me explain how we choose the pieces that are debated at the roundtable.

Each editor is given a batch of ten stories to read. Editors usually do one of two things: reject the piece outright or send the piece to another editor if they like it, but want another opinion. If the second reader likes the piece they send it back to the original reader suggesting that everyone gets a chance to read the work. The third option, if a story completely blows the wool socks off the first reader, is to escalate the story to the entire fiction team for consideration.

Like the first reads, we work in batches of ten stories for the escalation roundtable. Since we are spread across the United States and Europe, we meet via phone conference on Skype.

The first phone conference for issue ten, and the first I ever participated in, was intimidating. I felt a certain amount of pressure to perform grandly. I wanted to be confident, stick to my guns, and sound intelligent; and all my fears were at odds with the need to be confident.

What I learned quickly was that there is no room at the Versal editing table for a solitary ego.

••••••••••••••••

During the Skype conversation the fiction team carefully combed over each piece discussing meaning, intentions of the author, characters and setting (if necessary). Etc. I was surprised to find that no one was dominating the conversation, nor was anyone particularly harsh about glaring errors in a piece. Weaknesses were even weighed against a piece's strengths, although, every editor desired a certain amount of perfection. There were times where a piece that was put to the roundtable wasn't suitable, even for the editor who sent it to the escalation in the first place. These pieces had merits that we discussed–it wouldn’t have made it to the roundtable if there wasn’t something that worked–but were ultimately dismissed. After three hours of discussing we had chosen, if I remember correctly, one piece for inclusion in the journal and several others we would read again at the next roundtable.

This wasn’t a mark of an indecisive team. We had strong pieces up for consideration and this made the selection process strenuous. The quality of the pieces we are receiving are extremely high. We feel extremely proud to be able to read such compelling work.

••••••••••••••••

In regards to the selections I was for or against, I usually had a rather strong opinion that I brought to the table, but on occasion, I was swayed during the discussion. If the piece was well argued, I sometimes found myself agreeing with the opposite camp, no matter how much it hurt my pride.

Again, pride and ego have no place in Versal.

Robert mentioned during our meeting something that I found incredibly compelling; no editor's opinion was completely ignored. At least one story that an editor chose for inclusion in the magazine was selected. So, whether or not the story I really wanted was selected for the journal (one in particular, which I felt I was defending alone, did not) at least one story I said yes to would be fit to see print.

The democratic selection process creates a sort of tension within the team which prevents us from getting comfortable. We have to be on our toes, ready to defend our position, and be equally ready to let some of the fights go if. If we were to all get along and become comfortable, we might also find ourselves getting lazy. This would most likely result in us producing a boring, unpalatable journal.


Knowing that I could influence the position by being myself was a satisfying and welcoming release.

Faking it.

I expressed last week during a dinner party that -although excited about editing for the first time- I was extremely nervous I would be faking it all the way through. 


Megan, Versal head honcho, smiled at me and said that 'we all did' at some point. She assured me that I would feel better once I got a chance to speak with Robert, the head fiction editor. 


I had spoken to Robert once before through Skype about the editing process. During that chat we set a date to talk about 'literature' (quotes my own) some weeks ahead. That was meant to be about a month ago. The follow up meeting was postponed several times, Robert being in the midst of PhD exams and my needing to postpone our chat due to work overload. 


Although I knew we'd get to it at some point, this did little to change the overwhelming feeling that I felt stuck in some strange limbo: I knew I was to be an editor, but I did not know what was expected of me or how I would accomplish the job. So, this anxiety led me to mention my potential fake-ness to Megan. 


Robert got in touch on Monday, once his exams were complete. Since Robert did not know my experience or analytical 'skills' (again, those quotes are my own) he chose two pieces from Versal 9 to look over: A Year and Demonstrum.


I have to admit, I was a bit nervous. 


We chatted a bit about my current travels in the states before moving on to business. 


Robert asked several provacative and open ended questions to determine how I approached a piece. If you haven't read A Year or Demonstrum, the pieces do a good job of negating anything that is put forward. They leave the reader unhinged, caught in the grips of vertigo. Some times I felt I knew the answer, or a good enough interpretation and answered quickly. Sometimes I was left without an answer. Either way I felt excited, like I might be doing OK.


Then Robert asked me whether I would choose the two pieces for a second read. With confidence I said yes. He asked why. I said meekly, I don't know. 


I was caught. There it was. A fake. A FAKE! 


But Robert smiled (we had video chat on). He went on to explain that –sometimes–a certain amount of ambiguity exists in the choosing process. And that's OK. Sometimes the fiction we appreciate most around here at Versal are the ambiguous fictions, the ones that tranverse borders. The mysterious ones that use tropes as tools, that negate our notions of what fiction should be, that shoots all we know about writing out of a cannon into a million different pieces and puts it together with a TA-DA. The ones that you get a gut feeling about. 


At the moment I'm reading a book called complications by Atul Gawande, given to me by a friend. You might know it: one of those New York Times Bestseller works that end up on the coffee table as a talking point. But this one is different. It is a short book about the trials and tribulations of being a modern surgean; essentially about the complications arising from being a human performing duties in a profession where robot like precision and miracles are expected. 


A large portion of the book talks about learning on the job. That surgeons who go through years and years of training are eventually untethered and have to learn a great deal about cutting into live human beings. A scary thought. 


Surgeons faking on the job. Learning as they go. Cutting up things that were never meant to be cut.