What If…FOX hosted the debate?
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l63SRpGXBHE] It's like a mash-up of so many of my favorite things! PS: I'll be back on a regular posting schedule, here and on Spindle, very soon. Seriously.
Spindle Update: Scheduling Delays
If you’re one of Spindle‘s obsessive readers who’s figured out our update schedule and checks in every second Tuesday for new content, you’ve probably noticed our schedule has been slipping a bit the past couple of months. Thankfully, it’s not for lack of content, as the submissions continue to come in at a steady pace and many of them are pretty good!*
Truth is, I started a new job about two months ago and it has completely swallowed up the little bit of free time I used to have to keep Spindle on its intended monthly schedule. Plus, I’m coaching my son’s Little League team AND Salomé just wrapped up her Master’s Degree AND we just bought our first house, so Spindle-time has been virtually non-existent since the beginning of March.
No worries about the fun coming to a premature end, though, as I expect to be back on a regular schedule shortly, and will post mini-updates sporadically whenever I’m able to until I do get back on schedule. I’m particularly excited about the upcoming debut of our newest column, “GSNY”, by Gabrielle Sierra, who has a great voice and some very interesting stories to tell.
Spindle: Play Ball!
While the weather hasn’t really acknowledged it yet, Spring is officially here, and there’s no better sign of the hopefulness it brings with it than the start of baseball season, as the Mets and Yankees vie for a shot at another subway series to send their old stadiums out with a bang.
Over at Spindle, we’re getting into the spirit of the season with the release of our Play Ball issue and the announcement of the winner of our first ever writing contest:
CONGRATULATIONS TO LIZ DOLAN FOR HER WINNING SUBMISSION:
The House That Ruth BuiltHer poem is featured in this month’s Play Ball issue, and she will receive a $50 honorarium, $25 of which she is graciously donating back to the magazine.
The issue also features Honorable Mentions from Caroline DePalma, Robert Ross, Wayne Scheer, Janet A. Shainheit and Skip Shea; plus new and archived work from Roger Bonair-Agard, J.T. Clark, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez and Larry Jaffe.
If baseball isn’t your thing, we also have new columns from Stephanie R. Myers (Myers Music Machine) and Brooke Wacha (On the 1), plus a great new Gallery from Syreeta McFadden.
March Madness
No, it’s not the basketball tournament…it’s the one-week-late March edition of your favorite NYC-centric literary journal, Spindle Magazine!
Log on now for new poetry by Roger Bonair-Agard, Gerard Sarnat, Jeanann Verlee and Beverly Wilkinson; short fiction by Tim Clancy; and creative non-fiction by Anne Germanacos.
Plus, keep an eye out next week for our featured columns: Coffee & Brooklyn, Myers Music Machine and On the 1.
Spring Cleaning
I spent the morning updating the backends of this site and Spindle’s — WordPress 2.3.3 and Joomla 1.0.15, respectively — as well as a number of the plug-ins and modules that had new updates released recently, and finally found a new WP template I liked better than my previous one which had a couple of cosmetic bugs I never could figure out how to fix.
The picture up top is temporary, at least in size, because I ran out of time, but any feedback on the readability and functionality of everything else would be most appreciated.
PS: Yes, thanks to a hectic couple of weeks, I’m behind on the latest Spindle update which was scheduled for 3/11 but am hoping to have it ready to go on Tuesday morning!
Last night at the Slam
It’s been a while since I judged a slam (publicly, at least!), especially at 13 where I know several of the regulars personally, so I was surprised when Lynne asked me to judge last night’s open slam. I was happy to do it as a critical listening exercise, though, because I think my ears have become much less sharp ever since I launched Spindle, and my focus has shifted to the page.
Way back in the day, I used to believe in never giving anyone less than 7 points for their work, respecting the effort it takes to simply get on stage and perform in front of an audience, but that floor dropped to 5 points last night for a terrible rhyming poem in the first round. Overall, it was a solid slam with no real standout performances and my scores were almost always the lowest or second lowest of the night with one surprising exception.
I wrote notes on each of my scores and here’s some of my favorites:
Spindle: February ’08
In the midst of all the political blogging I’ve been doing lately, I had a Spindle update looming on the calendar for today and stole time here and there over the past two weeks to sift through the surprisingly steady stream of submissions that have come in since last month.
I was worried in mid-January that the aggressive “official launch” schedule I’d set up for January, posting 15 new pieces over three weeks, would deplete my inventory and leave me scraping through some marginal work to get something up this month but it all worked out nicely in the end as we have new work from Alan King, Eric Payne, Rachel L. Olivares and Julian Taub, plus new columns from Stephanie R. Myers (Myers Music Experience) and Brooke Wacha (On the 1).
Log on now and get into a New York state of mind @ http://www.spindlezine.com