What:
Author Blake Butler’s blog is a sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-informative, sometimes-touching, always entertaining showcase of work by both Blake and other artists.

What You Will Find:
Updates on the author’s work-in-progress, links and excerpts from and reviews of other art that Blake finds cool, impromptu poems and other creations, and events that Blake will be attending. Blake currently has a novella and a “novel in stories” to his name, Ever and Scorched Earth respectively. His blog gives updates and links regarding a recent project entitled Ricky’s Anus.

Why We Love This Find:
In an era in which every artist seems to feel the need to have a blog - whether they’ve earned the necessity or whether they even effectively use the blog to its full potentials - it’s nice to encounter blogs like Blake’s that really further the blog as an independent genre, rather than just a subordinate platform to advertise other genres.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 03.26.10/ Great Lakes Great Times Reading Series

What:
Great Lakes, Great Times has filled the void, since last year’s closing of Shaman Drum Bookstore, of bringing writers to the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area. The readings take place in the quirky and intimate setting of 826 Michigan (located at 115 East Liberty Street in Ann Arbor), which can be reached by passing through Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair.

What You Will Find:
The debut event took place back on January 23rd, a lovely night that included readings from Brian Evenson, Joanna Howard, and Blake Butler. A Q&A session, book signings, and informal conversation with the authors followed their readings. Future readers include Deb Olin Unferth, Kendra Grant Malone, and former EMU creative writing professor, Jeff Parker (April 24th). Check out the entire lineup online.

Why We Love This Find:
Great Lakes, Great Times has already followed through admirably on their tacit mission to fortify Ypsi/Arbor as a vibrant artistic community. Their selection of readers displays a wide range of styles and tones, including the representation of hybrid forms that combine written word with art and innovative presentation (Blake Butler, for one).

Bi-Weekly Find/ 03.12.10/ Hobart

What:
Hobart very possibly needs no introduction - does not need, in fact, to be bi-weekly found - so has grown this Michigan-based literary journal in just the few years since its founding by Aaron Birch.

What You Will Find:
Local-ish talent like EMU’s own Peter Markus and Ryan Molloy and Ann Arbor’s Matt Bell. Smart design and an integration of literary and visual genres compliment issues often based around a particular theme; recently, U.S. vs. Canada, Art & Stories, and Travel. “The Great Outdoors” will be available in April. Currently they are open for submissions of “rad stories” (though I don’t think that’s an actual themed issue of radness). If you’re going to AWP, be sure to stop by their reading (with Barrelhouse, Collagist, and Soft Skull) at The Corner at 7:30 on Friday, April 9th.

Why We Love This Find:
Their sub-title, “Another Literary Journal,” immediately preps you for a delightfully irreverent experience. They describe their tastes as “literary but not stuffy” and “humorous but engaging.” “We tend to like quirky stories with subjects like truck driving and mathematics and vagabonding but not really stories that rely too heavily on their quirkiness.” Despite their playfulness, open an issue and you’ll see that they mean business.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 02.26.10/ The Burton Theatre

What:
The Burton Theatre’s website describes their unique venue as “an exciting, new, independent cinema in the Chinatown/Cass Corridor neighborhood of Detroit that features classic art house, independent, LGBT, foreign and cult films.” We at BathHouse recently sent an ambassador to check it out.

What You Will Find:
First off, there’s a pool table in the men’s bathroom. As the said ambassador was using the facilities, people were actually playing billiards. Their Calendar displays their eclectic blend of $7 features. Right now for example, they’re showing two VERY difficult-to-find films by two of the ambassador’s favorite directors, Herzog’s “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?” and Cory McAbee’s “Stingray Sam.” These movies might never make their way into other arthouse venues in the area. You will also find a slightly terrifying neighborhood and the ramshackle hallways of an abandoned school. Go to a movie and feel like you’re IN a movie.

Why We Love This Find:
Their mission statement says it all: “Responding to the shortage of art house venues in the city, the Burton Theatre aims to help Detroit rival Chicago and New York as a center for independent film.” Film is not their only interest; they want their theatre to become a venue for music, lectures, and other performance arts with a local focus. Check it out. If you like what you see, think about becoming a member. Here’s what it looks like:

Bi-Weekly Find/ 02.12.10/ Lynn Tomlinson Portfolio

What:
Lynn Tomlinson’s online portfolio displays the artist’s intriguing amalgamation of painting, sculpture, sound, and media.

What You Will Find:
Under “News,” Lynn lists her current and recent projects and announcements. We highly recommend taking a look at the eleven short videos found by clicking on “Motion.” The last video has a delightful, Shel Silverstein-esque tongue twister vibe. A few of them could even be used for educational purposes, as they humorously give visual representation for such concepts as “simile” and “onomatopoeia.” “Still” will take you to photographs of her beautiful ceramic sculpture and mural work.

Why We Love This Find:
Lynn’s synthesis of various art forms and blurring of lines of distinction is the essence of what we at BathHouse are interested in. Her ecology mural for Trinity Prep, completed with over 100 students, represents a public, collaborative spirit that we find really inspiring. Here is another lovely mural she completed as part of a project for the Hannibal Center:

Bi-Weekly Find/ 09.04.08/ Locus Novus

What:
Locus Novus: a synthesis of text and motion/sound/image, is an online journal calling itself: “A new place. A space which has been built as an alternative for the traditional presentation systems. An environment to exhibit the projection of ideas that which have been affected by today’s dynamism.”

Locus Novus currently accepts submissions of experimental fiction up to 1,000 words in length. They are also considering imaginatively written essays on typography, graphic design in relation to literary works, systems of representation and presentation, and integrated forms of expression.

What You Will Find:
Multi-layered readings and a space to explore cognitive chaos. Opportunity to collaborate, designers with writers and vice versa. Current “issue” and detailed archive of contributers.

Why We Love This Find:
The wonderful mission they have to: “[be] a device [that] questions the conventional methods of perception.” And, can you say EYE CANDY?!? The level of seamlessness in presentation the journal has achieved is reason enough to give them a minute of your time while the high quality content they provide will hold your attention for an extended stay.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 08.22.08/ Drunken Boat

What:
“Foundering upon the banks of an unrevealed millenium…” Drunken Boat online arts journal arrived in 2000, helmed by American Poet, and Poet in Residence at Central Connecticut State University, Ravi Shanker. Eight years later, the publication is still, “[purposing] to provide a forum for the artists of our time, makers for whom the old arguments of faith couple with sexual politics and identity relations, for whom the conundrum of living rudderless manifests itself in the paradigms of window, rhizome, link and blur.”

What You Will Find:
Poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photography, web-art, video, sound art, essays, and individual studies into particular thoughts/topics. Complete archives and submit information are also available.

Why We Love This Find:
Drunken Boat is amazingly multi-faceted. Alongside the art they publish, they present articles of theory that explore in a strictly academic vein, causing two wonderful worlds to collide, and providing depth for their readers to interact with the work presented in both abstract and concrete ways. Drunken Boat asks: Are we in accord with Emerson when he says of art, “the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole…” Have we like Emily Dickinson felt more alive because of a funeral in our brain?

Bi-Weekly Find/ 08.08.08/ UpRightDown

What:
Newly launched in winter 2008, UpRightDown is: “a storytelling GAME or, more properly, a game of style. Every issue features a single plot, and multiple ways of telling it: a poet will write it in verse; a painter will paint it; a singer will sing it; an animator will animate it; and so on….a collaborative effort and a work in progress.”

The folks at the game want every issue: “to GROW, to proliferate, to branch out in every direction, to go left, to go up, to go right, to go down, to take on new forms, new colors, new sounds, new everything, to swell into a multimedia event.”

What You Will Find:
One plot is presented per issue and is then continuously interpreted by different “players” in whatever medium they choose, with a new interpretation added at least once weekly. The plots presented are surprisingly specific with the current plot specifying that a fat American couple, each with a different speech impediment, enter a French cafe, while at a separate table, a secretly knocked up woman laments the loss of a man. The premiere issue currently has over 35 contributors, among them Nick Montford and current OuLiPo president, Paul Fournel.

Why We Love This Find:
Their insistence to use the term “game” when contextualizing the project. Their work truly is very fun! They explain: “… if URD isn’t playful, if it isn’t fun, it’s nothing at all.” We also love that the nature of the project causes audiences to realize the value of different mediums and the depth that can be added to a topic/plot when multiple mediums are employed side-by-side to contrast/interact.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 07.25.08/ Daily Constitutional

What:
Daily Constitutional is a 3-year-old publication which maintains the slogan, “A Publication for the Artists’ Voice”. They are a, “publication for Artist’s writings and Artist’s who write”. The publication is interested in exploring the importance that writing can play in the art making process.

Editor-in-Chief, John Henry Blatter, explains this exploration in his issue #1 editorial:
Artists’ writings used to be an integral part of the art-making process. It was a way for artists to work through ideas, to record their thoughts, and to share these ideas and opinions with others. Even today, past writings by artists resurface: in studio conversations, in seminars, while relaxing over a drink. Whether it was Smithson or Judd, Man Ray or Duchamp, the letters Picasso and Braque exchanged or the manifestos of the Surrealists and Dadaists, they all had something to say—and they wrote about it.

Artists are continually reading and conducting research during the art-making process, especially now that the information age has made this process so much more accessible. They are looking for inspiration, ideas, influences, context or perhaps even originality. Is it fear, which prevents them from putting their words down on paper for others to see? Is it that the starkness of the written word on a blank piece of paper is too definitive and that they run the risk of being misunderstood? But allowing ourselves to be interpreted by others, it seems to me, is far more dangerous than speaking up as individuals. Perhaps the published manifesto should be revisited, or can we still do that, now that we are in the 21st century?

Daily Constitutional is a great outlet for our readers who identify themselves as artists who write rather than as writers foremost.

What You Will Find:
Subscription/submission information, letters from the editor as published in every archived issue, and information about thought-provoking exhibitions based on projects from the publication.

Why We Love This Find:
The Daily Constitutional is dialoguing with their audience in a way that greatly enhances what it is to create. They are not so much a place to print finished product, but a place to question what product is, and how we arrive at what we produce. The Daily Constitutional has created and offers a great community which feels like conversations had in art school paintbrush locker-rooms and writer’s workshops.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 07.11.08/ Chiasmus Press

What:
A small press, Chiasmus’s tagline: Correcting Culture, is a wonderful visual for the type of material they and their sister organization Chiasma Productions (producers of film) support. Not just a question of content, the idea of correcting culture speaks to the formats that narratives have traditionally been digested through and promotes new marriages of genre/media. Chiasmus asks: If literature could rise from its own pop-culture, market-driven ashes and remake itself as a comment against the state, rather than a commodity in the service of the market and good citizenship, what would it look like?

What You Will Find:
Contest and submit guidelines, information on upcoming film projects and a great and very regularly updated blog that features wonderful audio interviews and a weekly “TOPIC” where the authors strive to reattach writing to its dismembered body parts –politics, philosophy, poetry, music, art, etc.

Why We Love This Find:
Chiasmus fights on the front lines for hybrid publication by offering wonderful contests and opportunities to publish new formats through their press. They are also another organization that poses questions to its readers/viewers such as: If small cells of writers, filmmakers, and activists continue to create underground conversations, pacts, works of art without the permission of the socius, can we perhaps puncture its sticky thick sugary membrane now and again?

Bi-Weekly Find/ 06.20.08/ Ninth Letter

What:
Out of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Ninth Letter is both a print publication and a web site. They “reject the notion that literature is an isolated mode of expression, or that it is encountered only as words on a page. Instead, [they] recognize and seek the intersections of literature and visual culture, traditional forms and new technology.”

What Will You Find?
As well as subscription access, thorough archives, and submission guidelines, the Ninth Letter site posts awesome podcasts featuring multimedia work, essays, discussions, readings, etc. which satisfy many senses at once. Ninth Letter is currently celebrating their pseudo-anniversary with the release of their ninth print issue and visitors to the site will find interesting where-we-are-at/ where-we-have-come-from commentary on the evolution of an innovative grassroots organization.

Why We Love This Find…
Their “goal is to find and feature examples of the best electronic art currently being produced by web artist/authors, focusing explicitly on work that is not supported by, and cannot be backward engineered into older cultural forms.” They are dedicated to introducing new artists, and like BH, want to engage them and their audience in lively conversations about contemporary art, culture, and technology.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 06.06.08/ BlazeVOX

What:
An 8-year-old small press which labels itself as a “refuge”, publishing “post-avant poetries and fiction” via an online magazine, and books available for purchase and/or download. They enjoy “innovative works of literature in what ever format that it chooses to find itself,” and wish to “promote new style, emerging voices and provide an outlet for these artists to express their artistic visions.” The BlazeVOX website is flagged by the phrase: “Even through the darkest of times, the brightest minds blaze forward.”

What Will You Find?
At BlazeVOX.org you will find a thorough archive of past issues and access to buy/download books along with an extensive links system to connect you with other orgs, pubs, and individuals creating innovative work. The site also features an interesting Buffalo FOCUS archive of Buffalo located poets. These poets are featured in each magazine issue in order to focus in on what is happening in BlazeVOX’s hometown. Join the ranks of the BlazeVOX published by checking out their submission policy.

Why We Love This Find…
How much they are able to publish: because of Publish-on-Demand (POD) and free download formats, 24 titles will be published in 2008 with an estimated 10-15 to follow in 2009. How little they are able to publish: because of the POD format there is no contribution to waste on a Borders discount cart. And also: the dialogue they are inviting writers to engage in to consider the validity of POD and BlazeVOX’s own Mobilis in Mobili series (changing through the changing medium) of free dowloadable ebooks.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 05.23.08/ textsound

What:
An online sound and text-based publication that flirts with the “experimental idea” and recently put out its first issue (Winter 2008), a collection of 17 audio tracks that range in their experimental nature. textsound asks the questions: How wide is the space between music and poetry? What is that space like? How are they different and the same?

What Will You Find?
From sound poetry (in various languages), to textsound/music, to sound, the current collection is a 47-minute experience. We found it well worthwhile to listen to the issue in one sitting as the juxtaposition of work exaggerates the differences and similarities between the pieces, providing an additional layer of interest.

Why We Love This Find…
textsound provides a space rich in diverse works by poets, writers, composers, musicians and artists that will stimulate and challenge you to examine how language and sound function, affect, and interact. As Co-Founder Anna Vitale puts it: “We offer this site as a community of cultural workers working together in larger and smaller communities to push listening into making, to have fun fun fun being in text & sound”. Check them out at textsound.org

Bi-Weekly Find/ 05.09.08/ We Tell Stories

What:
We Tell Stories is a newly finished digital fiction project from Penguin’s UK arm. The project launched on March 18th and consisted of six authors digitally reinterpreting six classic novels over a period of six weeks. One re-mix debuted weekly.

What Will You Find on the Site?
On the We Tell Stories site you will find six interactive stories that utilize six unique visions of interactivity. Story features range from use of Google Maps and reader text messages to readers being invited to watch a story being written live and even engagement of readers in co-authoring, as occurs in Kevin Brooks’ interpretation of Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales. As Penguin specifies: “[these] tales take full advantage of the immediacy, connectivity and interactivity that is now possible. These stories could not have been written 200, 20 or even 2 years ago.”
Along with the stories, the site provides brief author bios and overviews of the original stories.

Why We Love This Find…
The stories are reminiscent of the Choose Your Own Adventure books we read as kids. The level of aesthetic quality matches the quality of the story content, a feat which sometimes seems mountainous for both writers approaching visual communication, and visual artists approaching text integration for the first time.

Bi-Weekly Find/ 4.25.08/ Born Magazine

What:
Born is an online zine (and a 501 c(3) non-profit) dedicated to presenting, as stated on their site, “art and literature, together.” The navigation of their site may be as simple as the saying, but the work they feature isn’t.

What Will You Find on the Site?
Innovative, exciting material by poets and artists often working in collaboration. The works are most often the result of two artists (one a crafter of words, one a crafter of images) melding their individual works into a story that titillates myriad senses. Many are interactive, as long as your computer/internet connection has the capability–otherwise you can choose to view the basic version. They’re continually featuring new works, but there’s also an archive of 398 other multi-genre works.

What We Love This Find…
The org is run by volunteers. Their love affair with art and the interaction of different artistic genres is what brought Born into being and why it’s grown and keeps growing today. Offline, they work on interactive, multi-genre art displays. And also: opportunity. Born offers amazing collaboration opportunities for people interested in hypermedia experimentation through their Birthing Room program where writers/artists/musicians are matched up to create new media. Check Born out at: bornmagazine.org