Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Weekend report
One hour of the Baltimore Book Fest; two beers, four readers, effectively changed the name of the band from the City Lit Band to the Lit City Band (free of charge) and left – cried while writing the scene in the café where Salim looks up and sees Khalil after thinking he’s died – designed a press kit for A Thing as Big as the Ocean – bought survival gear with Joe Cash – met a Scotsman who just got hit by a SUV – while finishing the last few pages of Falcons on the Floor the electricity goes out and my laptop is the only thing powered in the whole house; I type until the battery dies and I can’t think of a more ironic way to finish the first draft – bought a Halloween sound effects tape at the dollar store and blasted it on my way to work this morning.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Freedom to experiment
Hey!
I wrote an aphorism. How bout that!
"It was the freedom to experiment that made this experiment called Freedom possible."
Labels:
things I've done,
writing
On McCain's campaign hiatus
Utilizing national crisis to further political agendas is a hallmark of the neoconservative technique, a device which the American public has slowly grown immune as the administration relies on disasters to instill and sustain fear.
Labels:
things I've done
Thursday, September 25, 2008
who gets your money
In light of all the turmoil in the financial markets and our historic conversion to soft Socialism, I thought I’d pull out my trusty Who Gets Your Money chart and point out, with my flabbergasted pixel finger, that Morgan receives nearly ALL revenue from collars. That’s right, Americans. The profits from every single collar you buy in the good ole US of A go straight to Morgan – I’m assuming this chart was drafted before he met Stanley who later convinced his colleague to sell not only the collar, but the rest of the fabric underneath (the shirt).
Labels:
things I've done
Curating an event at the Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art asked me to curate 30 minutes of an event in response to the upcoming Franz West retrospective. Stephanie Barber, Ric Royer, and Lauren Bender will perform on December 5th at the museum with other Baltimore based artists. Knowing the insanity of the West artwork they are tasked to respond to, it should be a weird night. Here are a few photos of our initial meeting – gawking at the West “poops”.
Labels:
events
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
TICKLE TORTURE
This is an interactive piece I created in 2005 after the Abu Ghraib photos were released to the public. Go to the link below and click on the different colored provinces – a prose poem will pop up. Each piece uses the name of the province as an acrostic of sorts like: BAGHDAD begins with baby’s-breathe and gasoline have Dinar accelerating downward, bet all gamecocks helplessly…
Torturous to write – torturous to read.
Link.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
moleskine - first Falcons on the Floor
I thought it might be nice to include this moleskine page as it illustrates the very first concepts for Falcons on the Floor – a story that originated from a man I saw struggle to carry an infant’s car seat through the parking lot at work. Something about the image struck me that day; it might’ve been the awkwardness of the man’s lope, how he sorta lumbered with the cumbersome seat.
That’s one of the few details written on this page that didn’t make it into the story – everything else: burning city, internet “dating site” (Facebook), mercenaries hung from bridge, crippled trucks, laptop and internet connection – all made it in.
On the opposite page, sketches for the Grope Group website show the massaging hands I ended up implementing. Notes about weddings, a speeding ticket, NYC friends, and a compliment from Patrice take up the rest of the “composition”. Yeah, that deserves quotations.
Labels:
moleskine
Monday, September 22, 2008
Baltimore Museum of Art's - Art in Words project
I’m honored to be involved in the Art in Words project at the Baltimore Museum of Art – a new audio tour where local writers chose work from the permanent collection and write nontraditional responses. Here’s a list of the participants.
Rafael Alvarez (fiction/ televison, The Wire)
Dan Fesperman (fiction)
William Henry Lewis (fiction)
Michael Salcman (poetry)
David Simon (fiction/ televison, The Wire, Homicide)
Justin Sirois (you know)
Elizabeth Spires (poetry)
Christine Stewart (poetry)
Chezia Thompson Cager (poetry)
Joshua Weiner (poetry)
Olu Butterfly-Woods (poetry)
Laura Lippman (fiction)
Michael Kimball (fiction)
**
I chose a Giacometti sculpture.
This is what you get:
YAKTSIWIYWALT
you recognize this
sorta sketch of a man
as withered as beef jerky – as humble as bone
half finished & half rendered
you think you know him
& then ya don’t
pointing, he gestures, “look, look at the half finished people who’ve come to see the art – how in the world did you convince your father-in-law to tag along? Isn’t he missing the game?”
when Giacometti debuted this sculpture, three separate people were injured by its protruding finger, all of them in the eye, all of them on a Monday. This is why most museums, and even hip galleries, are closed on Mondays
you already know this
so I won’t insult you
with a literal translation
the complete life
is a mosque of sketches; unfinished dates
and out-of-office messages, sub-prime parking jobs and iPods filled with iThangs; spilled & downloaded & streaming & horded
I’ve sketched myself
again & again
on the white paper of stomachs
on the tomorrow of a remodeled kitchen
& we’re never complete
so then
on & on these sketches of men & women
come to see the sketches of others
relentless engines searching for hurt
Labels:
writing
Friday, September 19, 2008
Note to the Office of Personnel
Why doesn’t the Social Security Administration auction off the Social Security numbers of dead celebrities? Think about the amount of wealthy people; investment bankers, venture capitalists, real estate barons, movIe producers, and even other actors who would love to bestow their newborn child with the gift of a dead celebrity’s Social Security number. All proceeds would go directly to the dwindling budget and act as a back door tax for individuals who make too much to contribute. Thoughts, anyone?
Joe Cashiola
My good friend Joe Cashiola, one of the brightest writer/directors I know, just won the coveted and prestigious IFP Film annual 50 thousand dollar grant for his first feature “A Thing as Big as the Ocean”. Much congratulation must go to Nathan Duncan, editor of the film, who did a brilliant job with the non-linear narrative. I've viewed the rough cut twice and can't wait to see what the revised version looks like. What’s my prediction, you ask? Well – the film’s important enough to make it to Sundance and beyond. YES!
I took this photo of Joe in Marfa, TX.
http://www.indiewire.com/ots/2008/09/dispatch_from_n_15.html
Thursday, September 18, 2008
cover design for clearing with reversal
I believe Cathy Eisenhower's new full length by Edge Books will be out very soon -- probably within the next few weeks. I thought you guys might want a sneak peek ('cause like, exclusive content is always good for a blog) . This is the wrap around cover, mind you, and I didn't want to make the jpg too large therefore spoiling the blurbs by Doug Lang and Cole Swensen.
Using Cathy's very minimal photo, I played around with the text until the reversal in the circle became reversed -- kinda -- and then the rest of the layout followed the circle's composition. Hopefully it will look just as vibrant in print, but we all know of RGB's deceitful side.
Labels:
book covers,
design
State Capitalism Comes to America
Under state capitalism, the economy is manipulated to meet government set goals. Under state capitalism, Washington rules.
Under the Freddie and Fannie takeovers, the government becomes the controlling stockholder and supplier of capital in two previously private organizations on whom the residential construction, real estate, building materials, home appliance, banking and furniture industries depend. An enormous segment of the American economy has been turned over to the government, with the enthusiastic approval of the industries concerned.
Nicholas von Hoffman - The Nation, September 8, 2008
Labels:
things I've done
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
logo design for copilot (NYC)
For the past few weeks, in collaboration with Jamie GP and the two men of Copilot, I reworked and sketched and redesigned a logo for their new company. The brainchild of Ravi Krishnaswami and Jason Menkes, Copilot is an audio engineering outfit for television and film working out of NYC. The work has been a bit laborious, but, I have to admit, with a wee bit of pride, that the experience was both formative and kinda amazing; a lot of credit must go to Jamie for remotely facilitating the creative process.
This is the first time I’ve been given the opportunity to combine my draftsmanship and design work into one coherent piece – the outcome is as bazaar and unexpected as we hoped for.
I can’t wait to see this bird of prey on some trucker hats and messenger bags (I kid – kinda).
Labels:
design
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
moleskine falcons
Working on Falcons on the Floor for over a year now, I figured it would be nice to share some of the falcon sketches I've drawn (typically on air planes and in training classes).
Some of them look less like falcons than others.
Labels:
moleskine
Monday, September 15, 2008
Secondary Sound on Book Slut and JMWW dot com 8/08
"Topical and hip, Secondary Sound exploits the language of marketing and advertising in a period of time where workers have been transformed “from cashiers and bartenders to information workers nearly over night."
http://www.bookslut.com/poetry/2008_08_013258.php
and
"I am enthusiastic about this book. I have rarely been more enthusiastic about any book. I ought to say that I know justin (at least well enough for my understanding of this work to be complicated by the fact that he has a pretty sweet cell phone), and that he lent a poem from Secondary Sound to my outdoor journal Baltimore Is Reads—so I guess it's not news that I would like what he's done. "
http://jmww.150m.com/Sirois.html
http://www.bookslut.com/poetry/2008_08_013258.php
and
"I am enthusiastic about this book. I have rarely been more enthusiastic about any book. I ought to say that I know justin (at least well enough for my understanding of this work to be complicated by the fact that he has a pretty sweet cell phone), and that he lent a poem from Secondary Sound to my outdoor journal Baltimore Is Reads—so I guess it's not news that I would like what he's done. "
http://jmww.150m.com/Sirois.html
Labels:
reviews
Friday, September 12, 2008
Budapest's Szoborpark "Statue Park" 6/08
I wrote a piece about Budapest's Szoborpark "Statue Park" 6/08
Labels:
writing
Baltimore Office for Promotion and the Arts (BOPA) 4/08
Narrow House receives $1000 Baltimore Office for Promotion and the Arts (BOPA) grant to publish an i.e. Reader. 4/08
Labels:
grants/awards
archive 32: Secondary Sound in the Baltimore City Paper 3/08
Baltimore poet Justin Sirois has no interest in being Maryland's poet laureate. Absolutely none. But if by some strange fate twist he ended up in that seat, he knows exactly what he'd do. "I'd go to as many local readings as possible--in the city, because that's where the stuff is happening," he says, sitting at a small table in the murky back-room bar of a Hampden café. He pauses and takes a sip from a dark draught. "I would promote experimentation and failure. A lot of poetry doesn't want to fail--it has a very strict thing that it wants to be, and that's not a poem. It might look like a poem, but it's not going to be a poem. You can't go into it with a specific agenda, saying, This is going to change the reader. Communication doesn't work like that."
http://www.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=15467
Labels:
reviews
archive 31: downloads of Secondary Sound 2/08
Downloads of Secondary Sound from Iran to Buenos Aires to Makati Manila - Blog 2/08
Labels:
writing
archive 29: Secondary Sound and broadside on Amazon
I'm not sure who put the broadside on Amazon -- maybe Dolphin Press:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-1071069-9784456?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=justin+sirois&x=17&y=20
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-1071069-9784456?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=justin+sirois&x=17&y=20
Labels:
writing
archive 28: Grope Group website 11/07
This was/is a viral marketing scheme for Secondary Sound -- the group existed for a year and a half before the manuscript was published.
http://www.gropegroup.com/
http://www.gropegroup.com/
archive 27: Secondary Sound is published by BlazeVOX
(my design too -- wow!)
http://www.blazevox.org/bk-js.htm
Sometimes a ringtone is just a ringtone, but not very often. Mostly they say things like "hope you got away from yourself safe," or "reformat a thief into a reverted serf," or "felt more real watching it onscreen." This is not a technological book, it's about people, so it's techno-illogical-- it's about hiding & thieving & occasionally, love. sirois has written here a stunning documentary attempt at re-lyricizing our stupid alienations. He succeeds, we don't. Ahoy there Group Gropers, press send.
— Rod Smith
justin sirois is the gentle herald of the now. Where the ear is trained to sibilance and crash, here the loop reloops an antidote to noise, a synesthetic love affair. Suddenly, the message transmitting from the screens of the handheld everyday and the artifacts of commerce is one of generosity, a restorative beat. The now can seem like a condition where only the most austere and grating seer can survive, yet here the gentle, generous agent thrives as "Pirate" beguiles. It is the juncture of technophile and worldview, the imperative sum of a man-bag, mixtape and stolen kitten. No time capsule you crack will be more entrancing.
— Heather Fuller
Cannibalism, pirates, zombies, ringtones, corporations, kittens, pea coats: Secondary Sound is about cycling and recycling. Like the journal of a pirate marooned on a deserted isle, this book tracks the sifting of 21st century culture for anything usable, something sustainable, something that won't devolve into something toxic. There's an equally deep anxiety about the desire for those things – what if Pirate does create the ringtone to silence all other ringtones? What if stealing from the polycephalic mega-corporations is just corporate training boot camp? Cannibalism has an ethics; all heads come from heads; we're just looking for a little harmony.
— Ken Rumble
Labels:
book covers,
design,
writing
archive 25: Ric's Narrow House project gets best of in the Baltimore City Paper
Best Whatever it Is
There Were One and It was Two: Annotated Artifacts from the Doubles Museum, by Ric Royer
Nothing is ever what it appears to be in the performance art of Ric Royer. An expert in using a casual observation to turn an otherwise quotidian anecdote into a rabbit-hole digression into the uncanny, Royer applied his curiously perceptive mind to the genuinely odd for his Narrow House recording debut: the idea of doubling as it appears in both intellectual history and nature. And what he concocts is one of the most unusual artifacts to come out of Baltimore--no stranger to the outlandish--in some time. Part faux lecture performance, part experimental text, part spoken-word recording, and part experiential sound art (thanks to the sax noises of John Berndt on the CD), There Was One and It Was Two is and isn't a sound recording of a performance event, is and isn't an aural accompaniment to written text, is and isn't a visual artifact of a wild-hair idea. It's all of these and none of them, and somehow still manages to hold the attention throughout its meandering ride.
Labels:
grants/awards,
narrow house
archive 24: ie series (best poetry series in CP)
Best Poetry Series
i.e. Reading Series
Michael Ball's i.e. reading series moved from Clayton Fine Books to Dionysus in the summer of 2006, and over the past year it has brought numerous noteworthy, high-profile language, flarf, and otherwise avant-garde poets to Baltimore., including Rod Smith, Chris Nealon, CA Conrad, Rachel DePlessis, Phyllis Rosenzweig, Jessica Grim, and M. Magnus, alongside locals Daniel Higgs, Chris Toll, and David Franks. In January the series held a memorial for poet Kari Edwards, who passed away last December, and this sustained level of activity has given the city a place in underground/academic poetry circles. The series moved again at the beginning of this month, to a lower Charles Village carriage house, to accommodate its growing audience.
Labels:
grants/awards
archive 23: Roc Royer's Narrow House project in the Citypaper
"There are two things I learned in college," says local performance artist Ric Royer of his experiences at the University of Buffalo and Towson University. "One is how to continue going to college. They tell you how to take the loan out, how to register, and when you graduate they teach you how to go to grad school and then how to teach. And the other thing I learned was something one of my mentors, Robert Creeley, told me--to write what you don't know and you'll always get the most out of it and your readers will get the most out of it."
thanks Bret
Labels:
narrow house,
reviews
archive 22: won first place in the Desert Moon Review Spring Poetry Contest 5/07
Won first place in the Desert Moon Review Spring Poetry Contest.
Labels:
grants/awards,
writing
archive 21: Social Security Card redesign gets the green light by Commissioner Michael Astrue 4/07
If your child was born after October 1st, 2007, he or she will own the SSN Card I redesigned with a team of Social Security employees.
Though I cannot disclose to the public the exact nature of the feature, I created a covert security asset in the new SSN card that both utilizes existing resources and further prevents forgery. All I can really say is that it’s a trick – fooling the forger into believing a fixed element in the card is actually random as well as transposing infrared sensitive inks. I know that doesn’t make any sense.
This feature added no cost to the administration or consumer.
This feature added no cost to the administration or consumer.
Labels:
design,
things I've done
archive 20: three wells in the Urbanite 3/07
Even though they printed it in the wrong issue, it was still neat.
Thanks again, Alex!
archive 17: Silver Standard on the cover of the UK Guardian 12/06
JOKE
he seems to have pushed it away and fallen alseep
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