Mike Sonksen takes a look at both Tinfish and Bamboo Ridge Press, as well as a handful of influential Hawaiian writers, as he investigates “Maui, Pacific Literature, and the Aloha Spirit.”
The Epicenter of Pacific Literature
The Movie That Ate Itself
Have some free time today? Might I suggest reading Michael Idov's GQ article "The Movie That Ate Itself." Not convinced? I'll let the story's description speak for itself: "Five years ago, a relatively unknown (and unhinged) director began one of the wildest experiments in film history. Armed with total creative control, he invaded a Ukrainian city, marshaled a cast of thousands and thousands, and constructed a totalitarian society in which the cameras are always rolling and the actors never go home."
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“That city in the backseat.”
Recommended Reading: Isle of Youth author Laura van den Berg’s story, “Where Will All the Buildings Go?”
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Print Culture
"At its core, the New York newspaper strike was a battle over technology. The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of computerized typesetting systems that would revolutionize the newspaper composing room...Today, new technology is again shaking American newspapers as the Internet drains away more and more advertising revenue. Cities with dailies may soon face a newspaper blackout much darker than what New York experienced a half-century ago. For a brief period, New York was a laboratory that demonstrated what can happen when newspapers vanish," writes Scott Sherman at Vanity Fair.
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“Signs and Symbols” For Teh Internets
"If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but, alas, it is not!... Still farther away, great mountains of data mining sum up, in zeroes and ones, the ultimate truth of his being." KA Semënova updates Nabokov's short story "Signs and Sumbols" (and works by other famous Russian authors) for McSweeney's, "teh internets" and the digital world.
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Silver Press Launches
Silver Press is a new feminist publisher based in London. Forthcoming titles include Leonora Carrington's The Debutante and Other Stories, which you can read about here, as well as the first U.K. edition of Audre Lorde's essays and poetry.