Robert Anasi

The New Republic Goes Porn

ranasi — Sun, 19 May 2013 09:45:25 +0000

The first blog post for my resurrected online journal, Entasis. Kiss those once cold lips and tell me what you think.

Entasis IV: #nofilter

ranasi — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:02:05 +0000

There were times when I didn’t think my literary journal, Entasis, was going to come out again. Editors quitting, romantic disputes, all the dramas that come with collaboration. Yet after a lot of work, and some luck, it finally happened and it’s beautiful. I’m biased, of course; I’m also not the designer, so I can’t take credit for the way it turned out. Below is my editorial note as a teaser. Please take a look.

The monster lives.

After a stint in the morgue and various reconstructive surgeries that include the transplantation of complete body parts and organ systems, Entasis is back. To satisfy an (mostly) American audience used to unrestricted calorie counts, we’ve supersized her, with more words and arts than at any time in her multiple past lives. Many years ago as I bellied up to the smooth rail at the deeply mourned Expansion Bar in pre-war, pre-Google, pre-ruined San Francisco, I watched a fat man down a double shot and declare, ‘I feel so good, I should be two people!’ Here then, are many souls compressed into one web body where the possibility of expansion is infinite, the perfect American frontier. Our issue theme, #nofilter, has led us to work that explores singularity and we have no problem rolling up our sleeves for a bar brawl; anything to defend the individual talent expressing itself with little compromise to the mooing of the herd: Cynthia Mitchell’s chill story and poems, Lisa Douglas’ LA chronicles, the volcanic artworks of Zoo Lion and Dawn Frasch. Heady stuff, with a groin kick or two thrown in, because the agony is the ecstasy. Thank you for sticking around. They also serve who only stand and wait.

Bohemians No More

ranasi — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 21:28:56 +0000

Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux, brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème. – Karl Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’

This was the world where the struggling young artist found him (or her) self in 1850s Paris. A version of this underworld survived in New York City through the 1990s. No more. The New York City where young artists lived in slums and mixed with the working (and not working) poor has vanished. This transformation of the milieu where artists make their work changes the kind of work they make. A show like Girls demonstrates how isolated these striving artists have become from anyone who isn’t like them. They’re just weird wing of the professional classes.

Entasis Wants You!

ranasi — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 07:44:16 +0000

After an extended hiatus, my journal Entasis is back on that road paved with good intentions and in search of material. Below is our call for submissions, scribed by my new co-editor, a woman who banters like Rosalind Russell in The Front Page.

ENTASIS No.4:
#NoFilter

Remember when there used to be a self? Emerson and his “transparent eyeball” didn’t have to worry about Twitter feeds. Instagram addicts or not, we’re all endlessly screened from what is by filters conscious or sub- or un; filters that keep stuff from going out or from coming in; filters that, sure, can purify the “currents of the Universal Being” or add Sriracha to our exes’ 2am texts.

And at some point, don’t we have to ask—forgive us, RWE—what’s more “transcendental” than experience that can be captured, framed, stored, cut, filtered, captioned, and carefully distributed, where moment becomes process becomes net personality, where artistic unity equals individual whim?

For our fourth issue, Entasis welcomes pieces that grapple with the idea of “#NoFilter.” Possible topics include: problems of authenticity and inauthenticity (and the paradox of having to advertise one’s authenticity); the “filtered” forbidden and/or its exposure; the possibility of experience that is “more real” than reality; refusing to take for granted the “natural”/normal; the relation of reality to experience; self-representation; censorship; the DIY-type aesthetic (versus?). Help us keep it real and cleanse the doors.

We’re now accepting submissions in the following genres in addition to fiction, poetry, creative or journalistic nonfiction, art, and photography:flash fiction, prose poetry, digital art, sound art, and aloud pieces/interviews. Send your work to enasissubmissions@gmail.com (go to http://www.entasisjournal.com/submissions for submission details) by Feb.14.

Robert Goes to Hawaii

ranasi — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:19:23 +0000

Here’s a link to my latest article for Red Bulletin, ‘The Brave Watermen of Hawaii.’ It was an interesting project – I talked to some of the most celebrated big-wave surfers in the tradition, and they had some very interesting thoughts on their relationship to the water, and the transformations in surfing over the last four decades.
Ten days in Hawaii wasn’t so bad, either.

Seymour Anasi

ranasi — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 07:45:59 +0000

An old friend published this Q&A rant of mine in her rather polished literary journal, Seymour. A portrait of the artist with on a bender.

Play that Funky Music

ranasi — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 01:31:10 +0000

I put together a Williamsburg playlist for the music blog, Large Hearted Boy. It’s every music nerd’s fantasy to have an audience for his musicological ravings. I used to bore girlfriends with lists like these; now I have you.

An American Photographer

ranasi — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 23:48:44 +0000

The photographer Andrew Lichtenstein was the first person to bring me to Williamsburg There’s a story that sums up devotion to his craft. When we were in college, he and some friends got into a car accident on the Major Deegan around 3 a.m., when they were knocked into the median barrier by a car going the wrong way up the freeway. As soon as their car stopped spinning, Drew jumped out and started shooting the wreck and the bloodied passengers. Nobody was badly injured but Chris had deep cuts on his face and hands and the blood streaming down his face made him look like a zombie. For Drew, even at a moment of crisis, the photos came first.

Drew’s new project project, An American Place, is the culmination of work he’s been doing for over a quarter of a century. Powerful ju-ju. Give it an eyeball.

Whose New York City?

ranasi — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 05:22:50 +0000

An article in The Times today tells you pretty much all you need to know about the transformation of New York City into a playpen for the wealthy. As I was touring my book, I kept coming back to this same point. The city has been rebuilt for the rich, and it doesn’t really matter if they’re voting for Romney or Obama, the result is the same.

‘The rich got richer and the poor got poorer in New York City last year as the poverty rate reached its highest point in more than a decade, and the income gap in Manhattan, already wider than almost anywhere else in the country, rivaled disparities in sub-Saharan Africa.’

92 Street Y in Tribeca Event

ranasi — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:37:08 +0000

Time Out New York did a spread to promote my event at the Y this Tuesday at noon. Really early for me – my synapses usually don’t start firing until the sun goes down. I think solar radiation is the problem.