Jacob Lawrence, The Studio (1977)

This writing is a daily workbook for fiction emphasizing formal experimentation. "Blogging as Cubism" explains.

Several of these pieces have appeared in online literary 'zines, including Comrades. Physik Garden, The SoMa Literary Review, Big Bridge, Inkburns, Word Riot, Epiphany, and others. During the month of November 2002, The Blue Moon Review linked to them as their first-ever "Guest Blog." These are among the best lit pubs on the 'net. Totally rad.

Here's the publication history.

Here's a grouping of strong pieces.

Here's some more experimental fiction, often based on the same techniques.

"My skewed vision was that of a man looking at himself by looking at what he looks at."
--William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways

Mark's Pages

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July 19, 2009:

Kathy the landlady.

Childhood abuse left her morbidly selfish, trapped in a narrow skin of want and gimme, so small and so afraid that her strangled little voice croaks like the seagulls in Finding Nemo: "Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!"

July 18, 2009:

Free clue for the landlady. People who are as selfish as you have no real friends. Those who are willing to tolerate being around you do so from an agenda. There's something you have which they want.

She dives into the house like the seagulls in Finding Nemo: "Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!"

July 17, 2009:

"He's a thirty-five-year-old pervert who likes twenty-year-old girls."

"Women's pain is more intense than men's."

Conversation at a neighboring table.

July 16, 2009: X-Ray, EKG, independent bloodwork for two separate specialists.
July 15, 2009: "Remember that I'm allergic to lasiks."
July 14, 2009: "Everything's cheaper than it looks."
July 13, 2009: They seem nice.
July 12, 2009: Are they fucking done yet?
July 11, 2009: Neurotic.
July 10, 2009: Strangers in the house.
July 9, 2009: Green rolling hills.
July 8, 2009: I don't do coffee, cigarettes or alcohol.
July 7, 2009: At the end she was so hungry she would eat the litter from her box.
July 6, 2009: How do you catch up...
July 5, 2009: Mr. Haircut.
July 4, 2009: No word. Worry.
July 3, 2009: Mike Davis' City of Quartz...
July 2, 2009: Watching the stock market fade...
July 1, 2009: Unproductive time...

June 30, 2009: It's like walking under water.
June 29, 2009: Booted.
June 28, 2009: She thinks it's possible for a country to "go Marxist".
June 27, 2009: I felt so much better after he left.
June 26, 2009: Afraid of each other.
June 25, 2009: Fortune cookie: "Whatever you do, make it fun."
June 24, 2009: When proponents of so-called Intelligent Design argue that the world is so marvelously adapted to human beings, their logic is upside down.
June 23, 2009: When proponents of so-called Intelligent Design argue that complexity indicates design, their logic is upside down.
June 22, 2009: From the point of view of the individual socialist who wants to 'do something', we would summarize our suggestion as follows:
June 21, 2009: "Debate" over global warming as displaced discussion of Capitalism.
June 20, 2009: Chair, cigarettes, television, cat.
June 19, 2009: Jigsaw puzzles.
June 18, 2009: Working group of junior technologists.
June 17, 2009: Junior technologist, uncomfortable with the "junior" designation.
June 16, 2009: Mafia culture.
June 15, 2009: The most feeble vision of job security.
June 14, 2009: Patronage culture.
June 13, 2009: The Bolsheviks failed to smash the state. Instead, they fused with it.
June 12, 2009: The Third International mythologized the history and practice of the Bolshevik group.
June 11, 2009: Draper and Althusser.
June 10, 2009: Lenin's strategy driving the creation of Third International parties went more or less like this.
June 9, 2009: Exodus.
June 8, 2009: The techies are sad.
June 7, 2009: But note the teleology implied by the definition of vanguard.
June 6, 2009: While time is the central category in Marx's thought, unevenness is the core of Lenin's.
June 5, 2009: Althusser makes possible for the first time a non-subjective history of ideas.
June 4, 2009: Karl Marx is the great philosopher of Time and Freedom.
June 3, 2009: Mr. Counselor.
June 2, 2009: Feet on the desk.
June 1, 2009: You were a long, cool glass of water.