I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Straight person stuff.

"The Poet as Outlaw"

Is this a sad attempt by poets to convince themselves that poetry is badass?

No, it's a reference to the oulipian restraint "beautiful outlaw", a sort of anti-acrostic inverse lipogram: the poem has as many lines as the name of the dedicatee, and in the nth line of the poem, all letters of the alphabet except the nth letter of the dedicatee's name. (Other letters can be omitted, but they must be omitted from all lines.)

In this case the word is "honor".

The epithalamium, by way of contrast, is a kind of beautiful in-law: the letters of each line come only from the names of the dedicatees. (In the epithalamian variation, alternations between bride and groom at various decreasing levels—stanza, line, word, none at all—is employed; eg, in the one linked, only letters in "Judith Kazantzis" are in the first stanza, only "Irving Weinman"-letters in the second, but in the fifth letters from each name are drawn upon freely, hence its first line: Twining wreaths with their mere names,.)

Thank god I never had students like you, Ben. The last thing I'd fucking need would be someone pointing out that I know jack shit about poetic form in front of a class.

Also, McSweeney's does generally suck, but I've bought a thing or two of theirs myself.

In fairness, the oulipian sense of "epithalamium" is rather different from the one with more general currency.

Good to see McSweeney's trying out a different direction. And that Harry Matthews link is great.

(As Oulipian procedures go I've always found the the prisoner's constraint pretty neat.)

SNORE

I have this book that is pretty fun:

http://www.amazon.com/Oulipo-Compendium-Atlas-Archive-Mathews/dp/0947757961

"Just when you thought it was safe"

I would never have imagined.

On the other hand, McSweeney's published my cousin, so they can all be twee little introspective San Francisco dipshits.

I read the Thrilling Tales compilation. Shut up, okay? Also they did this DVD periodical that was pretty boss (Wholphin?).

On the pirate store and unicorns tip(s) I'll punch them in the mouth(s).

Also Holy 4-5: a velvet glove cast in theory.

Ben, that's a pretty ugly ligature.

Oulipo lights up an artist's psychology, though its products confound.

(A lazy lipogram).

I am no fan of Eggers' latter productions (what little, that is, that I've actually let pass before my gaze), nor, to the best of my little knowledge, what is produced under Timothy's ægis

Oh, wank wank. Hating on McSweeney's is so three years ago. And the Dr. and Mr. Haggis-On-Whey children's books are wonderful.

Also, haggis is now potentially 15% tastier.

Straight person stuff.

So Oulipo is a bridal magazine?

This thread seems as good a place as any to mention that, in one of the dreams I had last night, I saw a work of collage art by Standpipe Bridgeplate. Interestingly, the work contained an indiscretion error--in one corner were the words "copyright 2007 by [Standpipe's real name*]." The name featured a middle initial, the inclusion of which, I learned upon Googling the name this morning, was necessary to prevent people from confusing Standpipe with a professional wrestler of the same name, minus the middle initial.

In the other dream, I landed the Space Shuttle Endeavour in a narrow alleyway in some city in Delaware. All in all, it was a good night for dreams.

* which I don't really know, of course

I'm always intrigued by dreams where people operate vehicles, or accompany close relations who do, since I never have those dreams despite, or perhaps because of having driven/operated many different kinds. Are these really common?

McSweeney's, in honor of Oulipo, put out a book which doesn't include any sweeney?

Yoko Ono will be in town this weekend (!) and if I understand the invitation correctly will be reading some Oulipian poetry.

I really liked the epithalamium.

22 -- In Smasherville you mean? "In town" is universally understood to mean in NYC. Are you going to go?

universally

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Am I a margrave in Riga?
Am I a mavin in gaming?
Am I an engineer in Weimar?
Am I a G-man in a warren?

Is beautiful and reminds me strongly of Kenneth Koch.

"In town" is universally understood to mean in NYC.

Gorblimey, this is the most arrogant thing I've ever seen on this blog.

Awesome.

Well actually, just on this comment thread, not the entire blog.

Doh!

Sadly, I find the entire McSw..aargh..muuh..nargs..gaah. phenomenon so annoying that even the bloody silly name they gave their crappy little mag makes me want to forget how to read.

31: that's and interesting, er, perspective.

16: I had never heard of those. Awesome. I did buy some friends "Baby, Fix Me a Drink" and "Baby, Make Me Breakfast" when they had their third kid, though.