Filed under: events, issue #1, press | Tags: Adam Wilson, Ann DeWitt, events, Gigantic, James Yeh, Justin Taylor, Kenny Aquiles, Kristen O'Toole, Lauren Spohrer, Lincoln Michel, Rozalia Jovanovic, Todd Zuniga
Gigantic Issue 1 Launch Party and Benefit, Starr Space, Brooklyn, NY, April 25th, 2009
For a Full Slideshow of the Evenings Delights, Please See:
http://s573.photobucket.com/albums/ss174/Giganticmagazine/Issue 1 Launch Party/?albumview=slideshow
unattributed statements of affirmation and pleasure, concerning our magazine:
“beautiful” // “Wow. Wow.” // “folds out” // “sounds important” // “looks sweet, in my view” // “Artful, ingenious…great…a most auspicious debut” // “best looking, best designed literary publication I have seen come out of NY” // “worth the purchase” // “I’d seen about this” // “it turned out to be so clever, it makes you want to open it up” // “looks very fine” // “You have fiction from the other intern” // “Many, many bravos!!!!!!” // “approve of it greatly, to the point where i thought, i want to be on this” // “…I mean…”
Filed under: events | Tags: Ann DeWitt, James Yeh, Lincoln Michel, Rozalia Jovanovic
more to come soon. but thanks to everyone for a most assuredly memorable evening.
Filed under: events, issue #1 | Tags: Bookshops, debut issue, launch party, Website
where you can find it:
on the internets…
pre-website website (new!): www.thegiganticmag.com
on facebook: become a Gigantic magazine fan or join our Gigantic group
—
in bookshops…
NEW YORK
St. Mark’s Books
McNally Jackson
Book Culture
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
Spoonbill & Sugartown
Book Court
Envoy Gallery
BOSTON
Harvard Bookstore
Brookline Booksmith
CHICAGO
Quimby’s
IOWA CITY
Prairie Lights
PARIS
Shakespeare & Company
PORTLAND
Powell’s City of Books (Burnside)
SAN FRANCISCO
City Lights
SANTA FE
Downtown Subscription
—
in person…
at the launch party at starr space
Saturday, April 25, Listen to readers and live music and enter a raffle for original artwork by artists featured in issue 1. write-up in time out new york here:
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Gigantic #1
DIALOGUES // Malcolm Gladwell / Tao Lin / Gary Shteyngart / Deb Olin Unferth / Joe Wenderoth // FICTION // Kenny Aquiles / Dan Bevacqua / Ben Blum / Matt Di Paoli / Doug Elsass / Howard Good / Yuka Igarashi / Derek Johnson / Shane Jones / Kristen O’Toole / Ed Park / Pedro Ponce / Lauren Spohrer / Justin Taylor / Adam Wilson / Anya Yurchyshyn // SEIZURE STATE // Joe Wenderoth / Jason Morphew // ART // Andrew Bulger / Mark Hewko / Jerome Jakubiec / Kevin Kwan / Joanna Neborsky / Thomas Pierce / Nathaniel Russell / Erin Grey West / James J. Williams III / Todd Zuniga
$3
(online ordering info here)
—
and in case you’ve forgotten
Gigantic launch party // Sat. April 25th // Starr Space
108 Starr Street in Bushwick. L train to Jefferson.
$6 dollar donation, comes with free copy of issue #1
Live music by The Five Cents and Adron
Short readings and presentations by Todd Zuniga, Justin Taylor and others
Late night DJing from King Vitamin, DJ HemingYeh and Cormac McBootay
8 pm to 3 am
There is also a flier
Gigantic est Tres Jolie…
…sur la table au Ceci Cela. Et trois dollars, seulement!! Mon dieu!!
Filed under: events | Tags: Ann DeWitt, James Yeh, John Wray, Justin Taylor, Lee Bob Black, Lincoln Michel, Rozalia Jovanovic, Stephen Elliott, Todd Zuniga
The RETURNS and The SIZZLES
What Exactly Do We Aim to Get Out of All of This?
photo by Lee Bob Black
On April 7, 2009, Todd Zuniga (top left) interviewed Gigantic (from left: Lincoln, James, Rozalia, Ann) for Opium Live, a fledgling arm of Todd’s Opium empire, which took place at Happy Ending in New York.
During the interview, Todd asked many thoughtful, humorous and eloquent questions. One was: “Four writers running a literary magazine. This is going to cost you either seven short stories or one novel each, at least. What were you thinking, and who’s to blame for not warning you away from such a misadventure?”
Later, he clarified (via blog comment) “Point being: is the trade-off worth it? What you’ll give up, do you expect it to be worth what you get in return.” He also mentioned that while the initial “sizzle” falls away, it does at times come “screaming back.”
The question, what do you get “in return” for starting a literary magazine is a very good and apt one because the RETURN is intangible and many people do ask, Why are you doing this? and, What on earth do you hope to get out of it?
The RETURN is not, obviously, monetary remuneration, because, well, that should be obvious to pretty much anyone. But SIZZLE cannot be the RETURN either, because that seems beside the point. Or, can it?
The RETURN, for Gigantic at least, has something to do with the appreciation of short prose and art that is inaccessible to more people than not because it is unmarketable, uncategorizable and odd and/or risky, and therefore shunned by venues that thrive on marketability and pleasingness of content. But our content is remarkable nonetheless and should not be passed over, but be accessible and enjoyed.
For the reasons stated above, there must exist alternative venues for the presentation of this work, such as the publisher Printed Matter was for artists/writers such as Kathy Acker, Sol LeWitt and Laurie Anderson in the seventies. And SIZZLE, while it is fun and exciting, also leads to awareness and thus the accomplishment of one of our, Gigantic’s, stated purposes. So SIZZLE may be extremely important after all.
And there are alternative venues we love out there already, such as Opium, Conjunctions, NOON, and elimae, which begs the question: How Is Gigantic Different from Those Other Journals? Todd did ask us a question to that effect during the interview, but the response deserves its own post…to follow.
In the meantime, while we don’t look forward to the demise of the SIZZLE (and humbly acknowledge that FULL SIZZLE has yet to be realized), we look forward to the return of the SCREAMING SIZZLES and plan to make the most of them on their brief appearances.
We’d also like to thank Todd for hosting this series, which enables a live dialogue between identities otherwise virtual, and are thrilled to be in the company of notable former interviewees such as John Wray, Stephen Elliott and Justin Taylor.
-The Editors