image from trudydoyle.wordpress.com
Bad Writing – The Documentary: In college, Vernon Lott was an aspiring writer, idolizing the likes of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Ernest Hemingway, smoking and drinking his way through pages of angst-ridden missives. The thing was, Lott’s writing was kind of terrible, as he realized years later when he revisited his work. However, the cringe-worthy pieces led to a larger question – how does one identify bad writing? What is it, exactly? Lott decided to make a film to figure out the answer, and interviews indie booksellers and writers like Margaret Atwood, George Saunders and David Sedaris to get at the truth. It’s an interesting look at one aspect of the creative process, and I found it funny and encouraging. The best moments are when the writers revisit their own early work, and when Lott asks them to read snippets of his own poetry and offer criticism. You can watch the doc below:
Matt Is Poor: Like many of us, musician Matt Schellenberg is broke. He has put together an inventive and funny website that showcases his skills and offers services and many, many items for money. For $100, he’ll write you a song about anything you want. For $5, you can email him a question and he’ll send back his thoughts and advice. He is also selling household items, clothes and other miscellaneous items – a Yamaha keyboard is up for grabs, as is an unopened bottle of Orbitz, a bunch of life jackets, a Toronto Raptors pillow and various books that seem to be left over from an undergrad English class. Truly, there is something here for everyone, whether you’re looking for a “European Pink Shirt” (“I bought this in Europe trying to be cool,” he explains) or a Superman video disc (“This shit is for real!”) H/T to BP editor Lindsay Gibb for tipping us off to this!
Zines for Teens: Autostraddle has posted an article featuring four incredibly cool and interesting zines geared towards the pre-teens and teens in your life. The zines are made BY kids too, either on their own or with their parents. I really like Biff, which is a collaboration between a dad and his daughter, featuring fiction and other curiosities from Microcosm.