the new issue of blueprintreview is launching!

the new issue of blueprintreview is launching!

the first in/stance(s) are online, featuring Karyn Eisler, Rose Hunter and Sina Evans: blueprintreview starting page

click the images to get to the issue pages

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feedback, notes, cross-connections:

"It looks fabulous!!!  Karyn's work is stellar--especially those koi! Here's to blue honey" - Sina 

"Still excited about this first set of instances, and the parallels and counterparts included - like this one: Rose sent a “vehicular” series, and without knowing of it, Karyn sent a series that focuses on “Static Motion”. - Dorothee 

"How lovely! I love Karyn's also, lovely images. And your design is beautiful also. To the instant! Being all we have..." - Rose

"Love this ‘clicking the squares’ format. Fun to do ... Congratulations on getting to the launch stage, with so much (re)innovation and (re)conceptualization involved in the (new) format of BPR...." - Karyn, who also blogged about the issue and her series: static motions blog note

"BluePrint review is off to a good start!  I love all of the first group, and it does make me smile how Rose and Karyn are juxtaposed in theme" - Steve Wing

"the new issue of blueprintreview sounds wonderful--i love "to explore the nature of the moments, of daily creation, of viewpoints of time"   which reminds of last week when i was rereading a chapter in the tao of pooh by benjamin hoff  about the honey jar   it is the moments that matter" - marcia arrieta 

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submissions are now open, too.
please note that this issue is dedicated to current or previous creative online projects, especially daily online projects that cover a certain amount of time and explore a format / theme / place and focus on moments / the nature of moments. To get an idea of possible formats, please visit the first pages of the issue and check the issue guidelines.

enjoy each moment!
Dorothee
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on the way & blue pause

the good news in 2 sentences:
the new issue of BluePrintReview - #30 - is in the making, the intro page went live today, and next week, the first issue pages will follow. from format, and from concept, it will be different from the previous issues - the title of it is "instan/ce(s)", and it is dedicated to series of works that explore the nature of moments.

the longer version, or: the making of (or rather: the pausing of) 
the longer version of how this issue developed, and why there was this long blue pause - is now live, too, on the "on the way page", just scroll down a bit to the serpentine image: BluePrintReview - on the way: #30

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it's good to be back to blue, or rather: it's good to have arrived at this different blue.

blue news #30

the new blueprint newsletter is online!
it includes the call for the next issue - which is #30. and will be all about reviewing, reading, and writing. looking forward.

and maybe it's because i am noticing the "review" theme more, but in the last days i kept running into essays and interviews and reflections on review. i will put the links together in the next days.

a free day of quiet + 2 quotes on life

it's the Easter weekend. and there was new snow yesterday in the northern and middle regions of Germany. it’s colder than it was for Christmas.

no snow here so far, but there is this cold northern wind. yet at least there was no rain. i went for a drive through a valley that leads to a viewpoint - at the entry of the valley, it was all overcast, but the trees already came in colors, white and rose. at the viewpoint, the clouds opened just when i arrived. up there, the trees are stil bare, but the grass is growing in new green already.

the building in the middle of the town, it's not a church, but a water tower. and churches: friday was a church holiday here in Germany: Karfreitag. it's a quiet bank holiday: the only one that doesn't allow parties and concerts and sport events. this year, there was an initiative to lift the restrictions, yet keep the free day: as if a free day of quiet would be unacceptable.

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after the drive, i revisited Beth Adam’s diary entries, she is blogging as part of a week of Easter celebrations at church, and it’s a beautiful series. here's a reflection of urban life and stillness:

"This is a new stillness, not requiring silence. An urban stillness I'm learning in the midst of constant motion, crowdedness, squalor and clutter, beauty and glitter; amid things I don't understand and things I understand too well; a stillness in spite of the fact that I myself am moving, changing; a growing solitude that is, paradoxically, full." (- Contrasts)

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and a quote, from Cheryl Strayed on stories and life:

"I teach memoir writing occasionally. I always ask my students to answer two questions about the work they and their peers have written: what happened in this story and what is this story about? It’s a useful way to see what’s there. A lot of times, it isn’t much. Or rather, it’s a bunch of what happened that ends up being about nothing at all. You get no points for the living, I tell my students. It isn’t enough to have had an interesting or hilarious or tragic life. Art isn’t anecdote. It’s the consciousness we bring to bear on our lives. For what happened in the story to transcend the limits of the personal, it must be driven by the engine of what the story means.

This is also true in life. Or at least it’s true when one wishes to live an ever-evolving life. What this requires of us is that we don’t get tangled up in the living, even when we in fact feel woefully tangled up. It demands that we focus not only on what’s happening in our stories, but also what our stories are about." - Cheryl Strayed

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an afterthought:
all this also connects to the theme of the new blueprint issue: "diary of", with its notes on the inner and outer life, and on the curves/tangents the years bring, taking us along a direction that often isn't clear while we are travelling, with the path winding, until at some day, we arrive at a viewpoint and get a glimpse of the larger image in moving stillness.

new blueprintreview issue launching: "Diary of..."

the new “Diary of..” issue of blueprintreview is now starting to launch –like the previous issues, the content will go online in stages, so that the whole issue has time to unfold. the last days finally brought the time and space to get the issue ready to launch.

the first 3 pages are now online at: blueprintreview - Diary of

really excited how the issue turned out, and how the pieces connect across pages, and also with previous issues. make sure to visit the extra links in the footnote, they are forming an own web of cross-connections.

now up: blueprintreview #26 "IDENTITY"

the new issue of blueprintreview is online. the theme of it: "Identity". i am excited to see the poems, stories and images go online. and i am very glad that i prepared the larger part of the issue before i went to Spain.

it’s beautiful to return to this issue now, after the time away. i even finally found the cover image – i had one included, but knew it wasn’t the right one yet. on Monday i tried another image, and it fell into place. the image is based on a photo i took in Leopold museum in Vienna. the original image is online in the blog post Vienna museum moments.

and i hadn't thought of this first, but the image included in the initial call for submissions also is from there. which fits, as one of the focus themes of the museum is: Sigmund Freud. who lived in Vienna at the same time as the artists of the Sezession.

on a more earthly note: it's snow today.

We Are More & multicultural mockings

yesterday, i worked on the upcoming identity issue of blueprintreview, and mailed with a friend about the different roles each of us takes / plays / represents throughout a day: partner, colleague, friend, customer.. - and this morning, while browsing blogs, i ran into a post that very much is about identity, here the link and a quote:

We Are Not One. We Are More.

We are not simply our appearance.
We are not simply our employment.
We are not simply our gender.
We are not simply our ethnicity.
We are everything we do, connect with, and more.

When someone wants to hurt you or belittle you, they will often try to characterize you as just one thing. Always remember, you are more.

such important lines. and the ending note, about the mechanism of belittling others by characterizing them as 'just one thing' brought me back to an essay that i wrote with a friend, a reflection that moves from racism to ethnical food, to political in/correctness, to skin colour and to ethnical mockings. it includes passages that are very much about this belittling by reducing someone  - or a whole group - to just one thing. here's a quote:

"Seen like that, it is a little amusing that racial/ethnic slurs are sometimes based on the food people eat - garlic-eater, beaner, kraut, limey (british). Actually, the more I think of it, the funnier it is, because it is so stupid that this is all the better we can do — to make fun of the food."

seen from that angle, this kind of name-calling is a perfect example of the cruel psychological mechanism of belittling. here's the link to the whole essay which originally got published in Sage of Consciousness: "Food Slurs: an e-flection on multicultural mockings"

transit days + two²

today: completing the new issue of blueprintreview with Marcia Arrieta's 2-part poem: "The bookcases need cleaning or sometimes life is exhausting" and Michael K. White's 2-sided story "That's The Way it Ought to Be" / "That's The Way It Is"

and yesterday already: moving from writing to revising in the Folded Word 24/7 word camp. more about that, tomorrow.

now to come: lunch.

update, a day later: the issue is complete now, and a note with a photo-collage is up in the blueprint-blog: issue two² complete + feedback

bahia de navidad zeitlos aureole

the next 2 pages are up in the blueprintreview two² issue: "Dual Track Mind" and "Almost There".

both pages come with images that i digitally rendered here on the computer: in "Almost There", the origial photo of aureole is from Mallorca, an ovean view of the Bay of Polencia in the North of the island. here's a more "classic" version of that Bay: sunrise at the bay.

and the Dual Track Mind image is a 2 layer-photo: the first image is from Rose Hunter, taken at a bay in Mexico: bahia de navidad, and the second is from the town square here, during the time of the public viewing of the world cup. (can't remember the game).

Rose Hunter blogged about it today with the original images, her blog note starts with the good news that her poetry collection to the river is now ready for pre-orders - congrats!!
blog post link: to the river bahia de navidad zeitlos wowee doctor people!

to join the add-another-theme-and-layer-mood, i now merged both images, out came the one above.

and looking through the 2 new two² pages again, i realized that those pages indeed reach around the world: from South America / Mexico to the Marquesas in the Pacific Ocean, and from the coast of Mallorca to Arizona: a world trip in 2 pages.

will go and try to figure out which football match was playing that day, to add 2 more nations.

Eos (Vienna, continued)

from all the places i've been to this and last year, Vienna is turning into the most "picturesque" - i've been there for just a couple of days, but took a whole huge file of images, with very different moods.

the most curious Vienna picture is probably the one that now is part of the new blueprintreview: "Eos". i am still not sure whether this was a light installation, or a weird effect of temperature and cellar light. this was in the centre area of Vienna, at around 10 pm (see clock). there was no one else around. above a crop that shows a bit more of the place than the issue-version, click for larger size.

some tidbits about "Eos" - in Greek mythology, "Eos" is the goddess of dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the sun.

for more Vienna images, try this tag-link: Vienna
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3... 2.... 1... launch: blueprintreview issue "two²"

“or to make it simple: make it 2.” – that was the key line of the call for issue 25. curious, i waited for texts and images of the “2” kind. and received: two-way poems. stories inside stories. 2-layer photos. poems in 2 parts. second-hand clips of life. and so much more twosome goodness.

the first threesome of twos is on now, kicking in with The Scream, Fire on the Other Side, Pre-Cell Observations in 2 Parts – and with a spin of complementary colors.
here is the door to “two²”: blueprintreview issue 25

this issue goes live in sequences again, check out the blog for a (color)full contributor roundabout with 2 links per person, and for some figured clues to editing blueprintreview: blueprint blog

& for some more blueprint reading joy, check out the new blueprint micro novels: there are - you guessed it - 2 of them: “My Apartment” by Michael K. White and “The Republic of Love” by Nora Nadjarian: blueprintpress_micronovel

new “two”s will pop up every couple of days, check back or just follow the announcements on twitter and facebook.

enjoy the blueprints of 2 & have a double-happy august ~
Dorothee

goodbye + hello

#23 of blueprintreview is complete. the final zone of the (dis)comfort issue is up. i just pieced together an introduction to the zone, and while typing it, felt this ping of melancholy that comes with parting. here the note: final (dis)comfort zone.

the beautiful thing it that like the images in the collage, the issues now start to overlap on my desk: the ending of issue 23 is coinciding with the first layouts for issue 24. still i alreayd miss it - the comfort this ongoing (dis)comfort provided.
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blueprint engine review

keyword fun: combined with this blurry sky shot, here some displaced entries of "visitors who visited www.blueprintreview.de arrived through the following keywords":
- lime kissie
- burlington coat factory blueprint
- three words that describe eternity
- vel re
- blueprint engine review
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liquid (dis)comfort zones

the next (dis)comfort zone is up, here the direct links to the pages:

• (Addict)ion - poetry by Jennifer Whitley (“It hurts. It’s good...”) + water photography by Karyn Eisler: 'The Bow'.
  
  
• In Her Dreams - a short story by Beate Sigriddaughter (“She tries to save this into waking...”) + artwork by Eliza Kelley: 'Waiting'.

Eliza Kelley also wrote the poem that is new in the blog: Jesse.

a theme that runs through the new texts and images: the translucence / liquidness of reality.
above, a collage of 'The Bow' and 'Waiting'. and here, a stanza from 'Jesse':

conch shells, every found and tossed back
pebble sifted from sand
through my hands, collected
in pockets of graphite and ink
uprooted ever since the Potomac
whispered, Run Away, it's a trick ...

enjoy the liquid (dis)comfort~
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blueprintreview #23: (dis)comfort zones

the new issue of BluePrintReview is on!

theme: “(dis)comfort zones”. and yes, this issue includes some disturbing pages – there will be blood. disorder. pain. but also: dissident fun. and soothing melancholy.

as all the (dis)comfort might be a bit overwhelming in one go, this issue will go live in zones:

the issue starts at 37.000 feet above rain, with blackstone/saga poems by Patrick Pilarski. from there, it touches ground with a short story by Richard Goity that includes spreading scorpion words.

this first sequence features visual art that crosses the line between photography and abstraction: “desert3” by Steve Wing, and “light”, from the editor’s files.

for a theory of discomfort, click to the blog – parallel to the theme opening, it picks up a twisted question: "Why would we get such delight from unpleasantness?"

see for yourself: http://www.blueprintreview.de/

enjoy the (dis)comfort ~
dorothee

ps: new discomfort zones will open every couple of days, check back or just follow the announcements in this blog, or on twitter and facebook.

almost ready to roll

just back from a blueprintreview session. the new issue - (dis)comfort zones - is now almost ready for going live. can't wait. it will be the first issue that will go online in sequences, or rather: in zones.

above, a rolled-up abstract of the cover.
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new blue

from white landscape to blue pages: the blueprintreview blog now comes in a new layout. this wasn't really planned - at first, i only wanted to include the current cover. while at it, i tinkered with the option to include an image as header. which then lead to a new base layout, to make it all fit together.

here the link: just a moment - blueprintreview blog

i think this will be the layout for 2010. the last major change was in september '09, that came with an upgrade of functionality (search-function, archive), and also with a change of layout, here the post from that change, links to old sample-pages included: just a moment in a new dress.
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The Death of Fiction and its Counterpart

2 takes of the current literary scene:

"The Death of Fiction?" as experienced by the university-funded editor of 'Virginia Quarterly Review' with replies from indie editors. here's a bit:

"I'm saying that writers need to venture out from under the protective wing of academia, to put themselves and their work on the line. Stop being so damned dainty and polite. Treat writing like your lifeblood instead of your livelihood. And for Christ's sake, write something we might want to read. ..
With so many newspapers and magazines closing, with so many commercial publishers looking to nonprofit models, a few bold university presidents could save American literature, reshape journalism, and maybe even rescue public discourse from the cable shout shows and the blogosphere."

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the other article is from New Pages:
"The Two-Year College Literary Magazine: Just Plain Good"

here a bit, both passages are quotes from John Dermot Woods, faculty advisor for Luna, the student-run literary magazine published at Nassau Community College in New York:

"Community college students are non-traditional – so you have this whole crop of writers from incredibly diverse backgrounds. The possibility of finding something there, something raw, something that isn’t out of a polished school of literature or thinking, is a really wonderful thing. ... Some of the submissions we get really blow my mind. People on the inside [of the literary establishment] wouldn’t dare submit some of this stuff, and it’s unfortunate that you don’t see more of it.”

"Who’s ever in the past decade read a New Yorker poem?” he asks. “We’re seeing the end of commercial publishing, which I think is an exciting thing, and what we’re doing at the community college is the splintering of this literary scene. Harper’s is no longer the pace setter."

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developing (dis)comfort zones

imagine me here, stuck between chasing deadlines and trying to get the new issue of blueprintreview together. the issue is in layout phase now, the planned going live is end of this month. well. the first half is pretty well on its way, the pages coming with this magnetic click of surprise connections, of velocity. but the second half just doesn’t want to click into place. would be too easy, i think. and then start to laugh: what did i expect? the issue is just following its theme: "(dis)comfort zones".

parallel to that, the announced giant snow discomfort zone is now moving in. i just checked the weather radar. it looks beautiful, this white spiral that embraces half of Europe. will see how tomorrow turns out, when the spiral arrives in real life.

and as the treat of the day, delivered by no more hot lunches, i turned into a sampling. of goodness. on day 6 of the new year. "elimae cracks the egg of 2010. Sampling of goodnesses: Mimi Vaquer, Greg Gerke, Dorothee Lang, Edward Mullany."

while at lunch, check out Oprah Read This, and dip into Mel Bosworth story Bleaching Bills with Henry Miller. here's a taste: "Our big rule was that we could never buy anything we’d keep. No material items. Just experiences. That way if we were ever caught, they couldn’t take anything away. The experiences were intangible, but they were real enough."

stay warm.
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leaf press: cold

the wonderful editors of leaf press organized a collaborate winter poem for the start of the year, collecting couplets from different poets. the theme and title of the poem fits these days of january: it is "cold". here the link: leafpress/Mondays_Poems/Cold

i read through the lines of the whole poem yesterday while sipping hot tea, amazed by all those different 2-line aspects of cold, and excited to find "my lines" there, as closing of the fifth stanza:

hidden beneath layers of wool / fleece / angora: my skin
pale and patient, hibernating towards lighter days

such good company of poets. and again, 2 current blueprintreview contibutors included:

Daniela Elza
(BluePrintReview #22 poem: dying for answers)

Patrick Pilarski
(BluePrintReview #19 poem: Cars Without Headlights + upcoming in #23)
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