Black Clock blog launch party on Sunday. | Image: Eliza Frye
The Black Clock literary journal hosts a reading and reception in Los Angeles on Sunday night (May 16) to celebrate the recent launch of its blog. The online companion to the printed magazine, which is published by CalArts semiannually, keeps a beat on established and emerging writers; trends in literature, publishing and media; and the literary landscape of LA and beyond.
Led by editor and CalArts’ Critical Studies faculty member Steve Erickson, the Black Clock editorial staff produces the magazine by day, and blogs by night to deliver intelligent writing and artwork that the journal has nurtured throughout the years via an electronic format. Recent blog posts include an Internet found poem and its construction; an e-roundtable discussion on how Twitter is changing literature (aka Twitterature); and an imaginary interview with Herman Melville by Emily Kiernan (Critical Studies MFA 11).
From Herman Melville Tells All!
A New Englander by extraction and temperament, Melville seems to have made himself at home in Southern California—even becoming so much a local as to decry the changing face of the beach towns.
“But look!” he exclaims, gesturing to a group of sarong-and-flip-flop-clad young women strutting out of the Starbuck’s next door and past the restaurant’s front window. “Here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite.”
All bitterness is expelled, however, by a mention of the legendary New England winter, which Melville, for all his tough-as-nails old-sailor’s demeanor, seems not to much miss.
“Such dreary streets!” he laughs, remembering Massachusetts. “Blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb.”
Writers including Kiernan, Katie Manderfield (Critical Studies MFA 11), Doug Matus (Critical Studies MFA 11) and Critical Studies faculty and alumnus Douglas Kearney will read and perform original work; a reception follows with music by Wounded Dinosaur. The event is free and open to the public.
The 13th Hour: Black Clock Blog Launch Party
the wulf
1026 S. Santa Fe Ave. #203
Los Angeles
5-8 pm