Who is more important?

So I just read this article in Art Nouveau Magazine, right, and by 'read', I mean 'stared at the photograph of Andy Warhol because I actually am him'.

God I HATE the header of this blog but am contrary & keep making nice ones in picmonkey (my new friend) and then change the website template constantly (as I'm sure you've noticed with your eagle eyes of sharpness) and messing stuff up.

Here's the photo:

whatsherface and me

Anyways, so the article seems to be only half an article in that I think I might be missing something because beyond the photograph and the headline, there's no mention of Warhol. Which, understandably, was disappointing.

But it made me think - in the end, who's more important, the muse or the artist? 

Because like, if the muse didn't exist or if their hair was messed up that day or if they said the wrong thing at the wrong time....the 'a-ha' moment would never have happened, the artist would never have had a sudden visionary strike or whatever, and the work of art wouldn't have been created.

HOWEVER, obviously, the muse is usually just some randomer and the artist is, well, the artist. David wouldn't exist without his sculptor (there's so many statues of David by so many different sculptors through the ages that I'm in no way linking to any of them). Atlas Shrugged wouldn't exist without Ayn Rand (I'm not saying it's a work of art, it's just the first and only book that's popped into my head).

So, thoughts?




EDIT:


I just did this:

Antics

Oh my fabulous friends. Peadar, Cristina, Alex. And another date for the little book has been announced by Salmon at last! And is pretty soon. See the link down there. Is anyone going to be around? If so, feel free to bump into me beside the table full of free wine.

Better polish the spats!

Couldn't decide what to wear to the launch, then inspiration struck!

Converse for quick get-away (if needed) camouflage to blend in, and top hat for bit of sophistication. Perfect!!

http://bit.ly/KRbGda

Peadar poses

I'm sure he mentioned he has a book coming out. He did, right? He did? I think? Oh, I can't remember now? What could it be called. Let me have a think. Something to do with James Bond. O no wait, diamonds. That's it. Bond's Diamonds?

O no wait!

JEWEL!

And here is the lovely Cristina, with whom I did my MA in Writing in NUI Galway all those years ago (er....graduated 2009), having won the Powers Short Story Competition with her story Après Match (read it here). Isn't she only gorgeous? Wouldn't you want to eat her all up with a spoon? Ah yeah you totally would. 

And finally! But not in any way least, the amazing Alex, of whom I've spoken before in the course of this blog (here with the Cincinnati Review, and here with Hobart), has a story in Clarkesworld (again! here's his other story) entitled

All the Things The Moon Is Not

Now and seeing as I'm fairly absolutely wrecked, I'm gonna go to bed. I've been twisting up some poems - one with the help of a Mr J Bradley, no less - and generally swimming in the loveliness that is issue 7 of Bare Hands Poetry, the Spring 2012 issue of A Capella Zoo, and, of course, my lovely one, Granta (apart from the latest issue which I dislike because it's stupid).

Oh and I've been completely stuck into Inside the Outside by Martin Lastrapes which I have on my kindle app(lication). It's seriously deadly, so tis! I wonder who did the cover. I can't stress this enough though: GO. BUY. IT.

Faerytaleish

And so, I take part in another competition. What can I say; I respond well to visual stimuli and fairy tales.

[note: this post took FOR.E.VER to do]

We're commanded to write a 300 word story based on a board on Pinterest. Nice cross-platform self-promo there. Kudos. My Pinterest page is here *cough*.

The Pinterest board is called Faerytaleish and belongs to Anna Meade, who is running the competition.

Choosing an image was hard. There were so many. I was going to embed all of the ones that I was snatching little ideas from, but there were loads.
I've included a few down the bottom.

The image I chose in the end is this one:

It's part of what I can make out to be a series called Zero Gravity, by Nikolay Tikhomirov. 

Note on the type:


Le Grand Salut was made by Jellyka Nerevan at CuttyFruty. I typed the titles out, as I had downloaded the font, and then screenshotted them because I felt they fit in here. 

The only account we can trust is Kaji's own scrawled confession, discovered by a geocacher in a moneybox shaped like Christ, a foot below the surface of the earth, in field in Cavan.   

The treasure-hunter, a 19-year-old boy just two weeks' shy of his Leaving Cert., scrabbled with his hands when the GPS hit the magic numbers, fleece zipped up to his Adam's apple against the knifing breeze. 

The earth came away first in grains of dirt and then sods, and then - a rectangular moneybox like ticket-takers would have in amateur theatres, purple, the coins older than his vague memories, the geochacher with his shivering fingers pulling out a faded copybook with the name creeping there on the front cover - KAJI. 

 I gripped Lauren's hand and woke up the next morning on the floor, still holding it. I'm glad I didn't trip into some other worldspace alone, that somewhere I was tethered to her, to this reality. 

It happened slowly, the tilt - the tilt - the room spiralling, with time like numbers flaking off the walls, the colours seeping into each other. I drifted to the window, and gazed out on a world of wonder. 

I wouldn't say it was like swimming. 

It wasn't like swimming. It was like dying, like waking up, like falling, slowly falling forever in a new skin with a new brain and new fingers and feet. 

 

 Handling the school copybook with a tweezers in the Smithsonian archives, I found the writing hard to decipher, and the only words that I could make out were 

2 New Book Arrivals

da da da daaaaaaaaaaaaa Peadar's book arrived :) 

He's the driver of the Poetry Bus dontcha know? Ah yeah. Lovely man.

"I'm amazed by [this] book. Stark nihilism, bittersweet, interspersed with incandescent lyricism."  John Wakeman

"The voice is sweet and strong. Where has he been all our lives?"  Richard W Halperin

It's called Jewel, and is fresh out of the pot from Salmon Poetry. Buy it here. Go go!

a little celebrating

Mother! America!

Nuala's book arrived too! It's from New Island, and entitled Mother America:

and other stories

Set in Ireland and America, as well as Paris, Rome and Mexico, these stories map the lives of parents and the boundaries they cross. Ní Chonchúir’s sinewy prose dazzles as she exposes the follies of motherhood as well as its triumphs. Once again she spotlights the contradictions and fierce loves that shake up the life of the family.

Launching June 7th, 6.30 - 8, in the Winding Stair Bookshop, 40 Ormond Quay. Are you going? I'm going.

location

Like what apparently happens when one's friends have babies...I want one! 
I think it's time I started submitting my manuscripts, don't you? :D

the winding stair bookshop

Supermodel Summmmerrrrrrrr [open for submissions]

Woop woop!

Finally people have shut up about zombies & are on to something INTERESTING.

Check this out. xTx (who has a BOOK now called Normally Special) is looking for submissions about supermodels so's she can post them up all summer.

I mean, why the hell wouldn't you do it? Supermodels are an endless subject of fascination for me. And by extension, perfume ads.

Perfume ads are the real fantasy of our times.

Do forth & submit. Stories, poems, artwork.

sophie dahl

andrej pejic

Waking up to Oneself

I jolted awake today. Not even today. This evening. An hour ago. Have you ever done that? Suddenly realise that you've been sleeping through life for a period of time?

My hands are stiff, like clinker-built ships. I talk about writing stories and don't write them. I resent my peers. I worry about things that, really, will be resolved in time.

So a few days ago, I promised Miranda Kate that I'd write a story without sexual violence or murder in it. I also said to SJI Holliday that one of my little goals for the year was to write a story that wasn't flash. A proper short story. Do other people make goals?

And what happened was this:

It's only about 3 pages long, and really, I just started writing and now I have blocks in place for a further few pages. It's about creation, the act of being, existential awareness - all the things I turn over and over in my mind.

I'm not sure how I'll show it to people because I don't really like posting my writing up on my blog. I feel like I can't do anything with it then...but I want to show this to people in the OH MY GOD, IT'S A BOY! kind of way. 

So I guess in the end, I'll have to try to get it out there somewhere. I just feel stagnant, like. Like I've lost my way a bit. Writing something like this, as in just writing for the sake of writing and seeing where it goes, reminded me of being a teenager or younger, writing just because I loved it and not for any other reason. Note to self.

Anyway, I was already eyeing up A cappella Zoo and the Dr J Eckleburg Review as possibilities. Does anyone know anything about them?

Is that wrong/mercenary? 

Probably. 

Also, with the Dublin Writers Festival coming up, there's a good few things to be getting to. Needless to say, I'll be skulking around the free ones. But I do have two friends who will be launching, that being: 

Kevin Higgins is launching Don't Mention the War in the Irish Writers Centre at 7pm on June 6th (a Wednesday). I know him from Galway and found him to have a very dry wit which was quite enjoyable. The Over the Edge writers' series is held in the Galway City Library, which at the time was underneath my flat. Has anyone been to Over the Edge?

Nuala Ní Chonchúir is launching Mother America, at 6pm on the 7th of June (the Thursday), in the Winding Stair (which is a spectacular space for a launch! Also, they stock ESC). She's a lovely lady, and I was a fan of hers before I met her, due to the bilingual poetry collection Tattoo: Tatú.