I don’t always get the blues, but when I do I look for McGaha
So my office hours passed without a student in site. That’s how it goes. But I wasn’t doing as well as usual at Tetris. That got me down. More than it should have. Good thing my former WIU colleague, Jennifer McGaha, just published this about fighting the February blues.
You don’t need a black belt to do it, but any exercise helps. McGaha also suggests cutting back on negative news. She doesn’t suggest burying your head in the sand, but I know I’ve made things worse by reading too much Chompsky from time to time. Other tips: Call, text and hang out with the funnest people you know and the yeasayers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-mcgaha/8-tips-for-fighting-the-february-blues_b_9174558.html
Letters to a Young Poet on Creative Content, Part 1
Last week a poet, musician, graffiti artist, and recent graduate (bachelors in English) asked me, “What are all these creative content gigs about?”
I thought this might be something that other people are thinking about. So here it is. Thanks for reading.
First, I want to admit that I’m no Tim Ferriss or even Brian Clark (http://www.copyblogger.com/about/). However, I know a little bit about this stuff. In addition to the usual skills and writing experience you’d expect from a dude who teaches college English, I’ve been working with “creative content” for a long time now. I’ve blogged here, at Critical Margins, and even for Jane Friedman (the former publisher of Writer’s Digest). I’ve produced and hosted radio shows and podcasts for KDHX (a station that has over 82,000 listeners per week) and Critical Margins. I’ve created the copy, the products, and the press releases that have landed coverage in as diverse publications as Riverfront Times, ESPN.com, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Now, let’s get back to the poet’s question about creative content. Every large company has somebody writing the words that appear on their website. Some smaller companies and non for profits do this as well.
Q: What’s all this about SEO and copywriting?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a game where you try to load as many key words into an article or the headings and titles of the articles to make that article return at a higher place in users search results. The algorithms that underpin search results apparently attend to the frequency of keywords as one of their variables. The best way to optimize search results is to consistently put up good content. I’m not the first to say this. All the tricks in the world aren’t worth as much as good, honest, thoughtful, and frequent writing that comes from a perspective that feels like a human wrote it.
Q: If I was a producer of online marketing content, what would this actually tangibly look like?
This depends on the company and the contract. Some gigs are for a jack-of-all-trades who can create internal materials (employee newsletters, CEO speeches, training materials for new employees…) and external materials (customer facing web copy, press releases, infographics, podcasts, videos…). Some of these gigs might want you to do just one or two of these things. There are gigs that people do from home and then some gigs where they’d have to go in for. Some of those tasks I mentioned above quickly become other job descriptions (and fields of study) of their own at larger companies: public relations, advertising, instructional design, audio and visual production, and even technical writing.
Like kung fu, all the rhetorical skills you’ve learned as an English major can be used for good as well as evil. Some companies might want you to write them out of a corner or explain away certain mistakes with your exceptional storytelling abilities. Theranos is a health tech company that, according to The Wall Street Journal, lied about their blood tests and then covered up their problems. Wired just wrote a story about how Theranos is looking for a writer to spin this (http://www.wired.com/2016/02/theranos-is-hiring-a-writer-to-solve-its-problems/?mbid=nl_2516).
Q: Content writing seems like a growing field. But what are the long-term career prospects for this (plus the salary/benefit/ full time vs. part time situation)?
Until you craft something big that sets you apart or get experience with top-level clients, you’re competing against an international computer using, English speaking mass of people who aren’t spending US dollars to live. They’re spending rupees, pesos, or duckets. They can afford to work for less than you can and still pay their rent. This is not an argument for or against outsourcing. You want to know about the economics of a situation, that’s all.
Q: Does getting a gig in this field require knowledge of HTML or programming?
Learning a little bit about HTML and CSS is easy. Spending two or three hours at codecademy (www.codecademy.com) will be useful to you know matter what you end up doing (as long as you’re not going off to a mountain to be a yogi or something). If you do creative content marketing HTML will come in handy sometime. Same goes if you become an English professor. HTML is just a mark up language. It isn’t a functional programing language. The functional stuff is more of a challenge. But surely not beyond your big brain.
Push Through the Paywalls
Sure, it is great to support old media. I buy subscriptions to actual printed things (Poetry, Wired, and others). But sometimes you might just need to get around a paywall. And don’t feel like logging into some university library database. Google Incognito will help you.
It’s better than the Groucho Marx nose glasses disguise. Here’s a link to a lifehacker post about using Google Incognito, but really it’s only a couple clicks away. If you’re already using Chrome, you don’t have to download anything.
Some good press. That’s all I wanted for my birthday.
It’s my birthday and Flyover Country decided to say some nice things about the hip hop and the poetry. Good press! That’s all I ever wanted for my birthday.
Mark Oprea asks some great questions about poems, lyrics, music, themes, public perceptions and more in this. We discussed Jay Z’s Decoded, compare Dante’s Inferno to every thing DMX ever wrote, and put 50 Cent in a room with Joseph Campbell to see who dies and who is resurrected first. Shakespeare, Roethke, and Eminem are also put on notice.
Edwardsville Intelligencer’s Feature Story on Homophonecheck.com
Corey Stevens had this to say:
Their is going to be a new way to edit your class assignments online. Or is it they’re? There?
Jason Braun, an English composition teacher at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, has released the world’s first homophone checker. Homophones are words that sound alike, but are spelled differently, and cause a lot of confusion for many beginning writers.
Read more at:
http://www.theintelligencer.com/local_news/article_d5ecdb8c-a6b8-11e2-b188-0019bb2963f4.html
The Belleville News Democrate Features Homophone Checker on Front Page
By JAMIE FORSYTHE — News-Democrat
A Southern Illinois University Edwardsville graduate student has created a website application to help other dyslexic students like himself. Jason Braun, 35, of Edwardsville recently launched an online “homophone” checker.
A homophone refers to words that sound the same, but are spelled differently, and Braun’s web application, http://www.homophonecheck.com, allows writers to proofread for errors that word processing software can’t find.
For example, spell checking a document won’t find an error if you use ‘there’ instead of ‘their’ or ‘they’re’ or ‘know’ instead of ‘no.’
http://www.bnd.com/2013/04/11/2573441/dyslexic-student-creates-website.html
Homophone Checker and the Cult of Correctness in The ALESTLE
The Alestle giving some props to the Homophone Checker and making some good points about the “cult of correctness” that follows around English professors, teachers, and majors.
http://www.alestlelive.com/news/article_e9bc89c0-9cbb-11e2-85fe-001a4bcf6878.html
One of my poems, “Klimt Flashback” is up at MUSED
It’s got everything a poem should have: reference to a painting and Hamlet, a redhead, and death.
http://infertility.bellaonline.com/review/issues/spring2013/p014.html
Don’t worry about the “infertility” in the web address above. Everything’s a-okay here.
An absurd poem of mine is up at Clutching at Straws
It’s me at my Tom Waits-y-est!
http://clutchingatstraws.wordpress.com/category/jason-braun/
At Critical Margins: LITERACY IS FOR THE CYBORGS, OR HOW I SPENT NEARLY TWO YEARS READING A ONE PAGE BLOG POST
In an attempt to redefine literacy for the cyborg future, I have annotated Benson Schliesser’s article “Court Approves Nortel’s Sale of IPv4 Addresses to Microsoft” that appeared at CircleID.com.
Read more at:
Read Makers If You Write Or Create Anything
As the editor in chief of Wired, Chris Anderson has championed 3D printing since the beginning. This book is a harbinger. This book is a prototype of your future life. This book was sent back from 2042 to the digital shelves of Amazon to stop other machines from killing your dreams.
Anderson compresses recent and future innovation as seen from 20,000 feet: “The past ten years have been about discovering new ways to create, invent, and work together on the Web. The next ten years will be about applying those lessons to the real world” (17).
Whittle, paint, write, repurpose, tinker, code, copy, manipulate and share–but whatever you do, do not stop.
Anderson, Chris. Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. New York: Crown Business, 2012. Print.
The Homophone Checker Makes The Chronicle Of Higher Education
Lucy Ferriss tells it like it is. The Homophone checker is not perfect, but it is a start. Check it out at:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/04/02/homophone-phobic-hears-help/
Fulbright Scholar and Blogger, Kola Tubosun had this to say about the Homophone Checker
“My friend, Jason Braun, has launched the world’s first free Homophone Checker app at Homophonecheck.com!”
Read more at:
Jason and the Beast Featured in The Belleville News Democrat:
Jason and the Beast — Puck would like this music
Published: July 19, 2012 Updated 3 hours ago
By Video, story and photos by Zia Nizami — News-Democrat
It’s Saturday night and a small group of hiphop fans sip Miller Highlife in the dark corners of the Firebird in St. Louis as they wait for the show to start.
The opening act, Jason and the Beast take the stage. As saxophone player Adam Sirgany improvises over DJ Matt Jones’ driving hip-hop beats, Jason Braun starts rapping in a spoken word style more akin to beat poet Allen Ginsberg than Snoop Dog.
I am that merry wanderer of the night I am that sight the Beast let loose in Bookhouse Well read but Faust read too in smoky light Stretched tight as snaring drum or strings of Strauss I have lead young lovers ‘stray with serpent tongue Hitting graveyard shifts at coffee shops Spiked the preachers punch Smoked the teacher lung Skipped out on tab but didn’t stiff the bellhop I learned my tricks from Beatniks Let’s Drink to them let’s drink to us Let’s skinny dip with dead of river Styx And knock the dust off Ken Kesey’s bus.
— “The Beast in the Bookhouse.”
Watching Braun confidently belt out his cerebral verses, you would think you were watching someone with a lifelong affinity for the written word. You would be wrong. “I didn’t learn to read till I was 6 and I didn’t enjoy reading till I was 17,” said Braun. “I didn’t even read books on my own volition until my junior year of high school, so I was really a late bloomer.” Braun, 34, grew up near Hecker and attended Waterloo High School. His interest in writing and literature was sparked during his junior year in high school.
Watching Braun confidently belt out his cerebral verses, you would think you were watching someone with a lifelong affinity for the written word. You would be wrong. “I didn’t learn to read till I was 6 and I didn’t enjoy reading till I was 17,” said Braun. “I didn’t even read books on my own volition until my junior year of high school, so I was really a late bloomer.” Braun, 34, grew up near Hecker and attended Waterloo High School. His interest in writing and literature was sparked during his junior year in high school.
“It was Shakespeare that really brought me around. Through reading it aloud, I was able to hear what we were talking about and I was able to make guesses about what these words meant,” Braun said. “He wasn’t writing something to be inflicted as a sort of punishment to high school students. He was writing a show. I didn’t get pleasure for reading the words silently , but to hear the ideas, the jokes — to hear the show.”
Braun started writing poems when he was a senior, and went on to join “Jupiter Jazz,” a musical group that combined indie rock with hiphop and spoken-word poetry. After Jupiter Jazz broke up, Braun started working on a collection of sonnets that would become his first solo album entitled “Birth of the Beast.” His stage name “Jason and the BEAST” is an acknowledgement of the duality of good and evil that exists in all of us. “The idea was a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing. It plays on the idea that every rapper has a real name and a stage name,” Braun said. “People think poetry is reserved and calm and they think hiphop is aggressive. I wanted to dramatize that misconception and prove that they are the same. Inside all of us there are these various beasts. “
Artists like the Wu Tang Clan and the Beastie Boys may have inspired Braun to become a rapper but he also has some truly “old school” influences.
“I thought if I want to prove hip-hop is poetry, why not use the tools of the old guard, of the staunch formal poets, and turn it into hip-hop. The first sonnet that I said ‘This should be a rap song’ was the ‘Beast in the Book House.’ It starts ‘I am the merry wanderer of the night,’ which is a line from Puck in Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ So I take that line and imagine how a modern day Puck might be and I put in a little bit of autobiography.”
Braun lives in Edwardsville and is working on his master’s degree in English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He also teaches undergraduate English classes. His editor and faculty adviser, Valerie Vogrin, has a strong appreciation for his music.
“What I think is brilliant about what Jason is doing is that he is trying really hard to combine all of his various passions, his passion for music, for the spoken word, performance, for the written word, poetry, for classic poets,” said Vogrin, a professor of English at SIUE. “He is also really interested in contemporary culture whether it’s hip-hop or rap. It really enlivens all of it. It brings people my age who go to a performance (and) we get one thing out of it and people coming at more of the hip hop angle get a different thing out of it.”
Braun’s latest project is “Made This For You— The Mix Tape is Literature.” The songs are interspersed with excerpts from Braun’s KDHX-FM (88.1) radio show, “Literature for the Halibut,” and recordings Braun made with his iPhone while he was hanging out with his friends.
Braun has also developed an iphone app called “Paradise Lost Office” that provides business advice and a guide to office politics based on John Milton’s poem “Paradise Lost.”
After his set at the Firebird, Braun spends time talking with members of the audience about his music and passes out copies of his new CD.
“When I’m putting on shows, I think that’s a form of teaching. I want to be entertaining first but I also want to kick knowledge,” Braun said. “People are makers now and I believe it makes them better fans as well.
“I believe, whether or not anyone gets famous, writing a song or writing a poem or making a film — I think if you do that you’ve enriched your own life. You’ve taken a risk and you’ve made a small mark on the world even if it’s just for friends and family to see.”
Welcome To The Jason and The Beast Email List and Jasonandthebeast.com
Thanks for being here, as Jay-Z, in what I believe is his most thoughtful incarnation, has pointed out to his crowds, “You could be anywhere in the world, and you’re right here with me.”
It’s my belief that 99%of the people that come to underground hip-hop shows like ours are artists themselves or are in the process of becoming artists–to say nothing of the fact that they are uncommonly sexy artists. This is an asset to the community, and I look forward to co-creation within the Jason and the Beast fan base!
Of course, if you’re not interested in making your own songs, poems, apps, etc, I’m still very happy to have you here. The support and interest non-musicians have for hip-hop artists is invaluable to the survival of this music in its ongoing creative development.
To that end I’d like to invite all of you, to an upcoming show in the St. Louis area. Jason and The Beast will be appearing Saturday, June 16th at Johnny’s Sidebar at 109 E. Main St, in Collinsville, IL. We’ll go on at 10pm.
For those of you also interested creating songs, poems, apps, and more stayed tuned! I’m working on putting together how-to’s and interviews with other creators on these topics. But, in the mean time, here are a few links to get you started:
Ruth Gerson wrote a great article for the Huffington Post about how to start writing a song at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruth-gerson/how-to-write-a-song-for-w_b_893649.html
Chad Mureta wrote one of the best introductions to the business of app creation for Tim Ferriss’ blog at: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/04/22/how-to-build-an-app-empire-can-you-create-the-next-instagram/#more-6688
Thanks,
Jason Braun
Jasonandthebeast.com
Show Review of Jason and The Beast, Robb Steele, Bus Driver, and Buck 65
Show Review of Jason and The Beast, Robb Steele, Bus Driver, and Buck 65
Converging on the Firebird from the outer fringes of hip hop, Buck 65 andBusdriver, along with Robb Steele and Jason and the Beast, gave us proof that underground hip hop is still like the Wild West, full of pioneers and prospectors mining gold.
The first act of the night was Jason and the Beast, featuring Jason Braun (one of the hosts of 88.1 KDHX’s Literature for the Halibut) on vocals, Adam Sirgany on the saxophone and Matt Jones behind the turntables. Trying to label this trio with generic terms like “rap” or “hip hop” isn’t possible, as their set transcended the traditional norm and could have easily been a re-enactment of a Beat Generation-era poetry slam. I wondered the entire time if I should be snapping my fingers instead of clapping. Overall the set had a bit of a film noir feel and would have been equally at home in “The Maltese Falcon” or a Charles Bukowski reading.
Braun’s delivery was more like a spoken-word performance than a rap act, his timbre and cadence meshing well with the background music. His lyrics are poems that tell vivid tales of life, often drawing inspiration from classic literature and artists, such as Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and the photographs of Cindy Sherman. With his long hair and mustache, Sirgany looked like a young “Blue” Lou Marini while playing some fantastic runs on his baritone sax, creating a river of notes for Braun’s vocals to sail on. DJ Matt Jones created a great mood for the set. His scratches didn’t seem out of place given the atmosphere set by the sax and vocals, and he dropped some samples that were reminiscent of old 3rd Bass and Del the Funky Homosapien tracks.
Matt Champion Writes at KDHX.org
Me and Adam give a director’s commentary for, “Made This For You: The Mixtape As Literature.”
How it happened:
I wanted to do something special for the 2012 American Writers and Poets Conference (AWP), which was to be held in Chicago at the end of February. I conceived the project as a sort of audio guide to the present and future of literature, and on February 19th I went into Will Jones’ Yellow Hat Studios with the tracks for this album in sequence. Still, I was unsure if anyone else would dig the “mix tape” I had built out of three tracks from a finished album recorded over two years ago, three tracks from an unreleased album recorded a year ago, six tracks recorded two days prior to final production, and an assortment of sometimes candid and sometimes orchestrated audio clips of varying fidelity, which I whittled down from seven hours worth of iPod voice memos and radio show interviews. Determined to have a finished product before leaving St. Louis for the AWP, Will Jones and I completed the album at around 1:15AM on the 21st—just a week before the release and so close that it was yet to have its title, “Made This For You: The Mix Tape As Literature.” I want to show some love to Will for helping me pull this off. I’d like to add a special thanks to KDHX 88.1 and Sou’wester Literary Magazine if possible.
Track by track:
“Turning It On,” This first bit contains SIUE grad students and a professor at Stagger Inn, a short clip of Adam Sirgany’s (He’s an SIUE Graduate Student with Creative Writing Specialization.) Saxophone from Vince Café, and novelist Lloyd Kropp either from a selection of Literature for the Halibut or a recording I did of him at Sacred Grounds in Edwardsville.
“Inferno” is a retelling of Dante’s story with Eliot and Shakespeare thrown in for good measure. Emily Sudholt is singing the hook. (She interned at NASA, by the way.)
People that are somewhere in this track are: Will Jones, Jerry Hill/ DJ Uptown, Mic Boshans of Humdrum and Nee, Elaine Holtz, Dan Meehan of Humdrum, Dan McKenzie, Emily Sudholt, Josh Evans, Shae Moseley of Ghost in Light, Dustin Sendejas of Arts & Sciences, Jon Weiss of Arts & Sciences
“Ander Monson, I’m Losing You,” This was a section of a prerecorded interview. This section of the interview wasn’t aired on KDHX as his phone was cutting out. But Monson’s book, Other Electricities, has been described by Michael Martone as being, “Like Franklin’s discovery of the electricity we do know, Ander Monson’s luminous, galvanized book represents a paradigm shift. The frequencies of the novel have been scrambled and redefined by this elegant experiment.”
“Faust” self explanatory, right?
“Taking Shots At Legends: Bob Dylan Now Works For Cadillac,” This was a late night think tank featuring me in a bad mood about Bob Dylan. I love Freewheeling Bob Dylan, but do not love Cadillac. Neil C. Luke and Nate Fisher (SIUE Grad Student in Creative Writing) speak up for dear old Bob. I’m not especially proud of this moment. But this mix tape idea wasn’t about clipping moments where I’m proud of myself. There are plenty of moments where I’m on there stuttering, more on this later (if you ask).
“Overhearing Black Power Poems,” is a response to a reading the that the Eugene Redmond Writers Club put together at the Mo History Museum featuring Haki R. Madhubuti, Amiri Baraka, and my former SIUE professor Eugene Redmond. The track features SIUE Graduate Creative Writing Students Adam Sirgany on sax and David Rawson on bass.
“Adam Says It’s About Fame,” Adam Sirgany, Tim Harvey and me, running our mouths at Stagger Inn.
“The Thermodynamics Of Laundromats,” is a Dan Meehan original beat, we think. I sent it to him and he thinks he remembers recording it for me at my old place in St. Louis.
“Adam Doesn’t Save The World,” Adam Sirgany running his mouth at Stagger Inn.
“Matt Madden’s Dream Machine,” Artist and Author and Friend Matt Madden, exert from Literature for the Halibut.
“Giant Man, After Matt Kindt: Graphic Novel As Poem And Song,” Matt’s book is also becoming a movie, but there’s already an River Front Times story on that.
“How Many Purses David?” David Rawson runs his mouth at the Stagger Inn.
“Basquiat” is another massive track with all or most of these people: Will Jones, Jerry Hill/ DJ Uptown, Mic Boshans of Humdrum and Nee, Elaine Holtz, Dan Meehan of Humdrum, Dan McKenzie, Emily Sudholt, Josh Evans, Shae Moseley of Ghost in Light, Dustin Sendejas of Arts & Sciences, Jon Weiss of Arts & Sciences
“He Marries The Legless Woman,” Lloyd Kropp taken out of context in a recording of him I did at Sacred Grounds.
“The Fly,” Features Carl Pandolfi of The Lettuce Heads on drums and bass, and Adam Sirgany on sax.
“Extra,” Adam Sirgany, Tim Harvey and me, running our mouths at Stagger Inn.
“Reanimator” is a true story about this Scientist Mark Roth. (www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/bringing-back-the-dead-1208)
“Scott Phillips In French And Jedidiah Ayres In Laughter,” clipped from Literature for the Halibut.
“Alma Mater,” is me, the geese, and a memory.
“Is The Book Dead, Al Katkowsky?” is clipped from Literature for the Halibut.
“Lowdown Redhead Blues: How My Ex-Girlfriend Slept With Ryan Adams While I Was In L.A.” Also true story. Recorded live at Venice café with the iPhone in my pocket. Adam Sirgany and I had never played together before that night. We don’t know what that drummers name was, but we liked him, and still do.
“Dundee” is clipped from Literature for the Halibut.
“Faux Pas” Adam Sirgany on sax and David Rawson on bass.
“Really Creepy Breathy,” David Rawson runs his mouth at the Fine Dinning Hall at SIUE.
“Death By Blackhole,” is writing for astophysicist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who has a book by the same name. The track features Carl Pandolfi of The Lettuce Heads on drums, bass, and piano.
“Curtain Comes Down,” is Lloyd Kropp taken out of context in a recording of him I did at Sacred Grounds.
Jason Braun is Jason and The Beast. These are his friends who helped him on this:
Will Jones (Producer/ Engineer)
Jerry Hill/ DJ Uptown (Produced a number of tracks)
Mic Boshans of Humdrum and Nee (Drums, Found Object Percussion)
Elaine Holtz (Keys)
Dan Meehan of Humdrum (Guitar, Keys, Bass)
Dan McKenzie (Fife, Bass, Vibes, Atari)
Emily Sudholt (Vocals)
Josh Evans (Engineering/ Bass/ Guitar)
Shae Moseley of Ghost in Light (Drums, Bass, Backing Vocals)
Dustin Sendejas of Arts & Sciences (French Horn)
Jon Weiss of Arts & Sciences (Trombone, Tuba)
Matt Kindt (Logo)
Carl Pandolfi of The Lettuce Heads (Bass, Piano, And More)
Adam Sirgany (Sax)
David Rawson (Bass)
Tim Harvey
Lloyd Kropp
Al Katkowsky
Matt Madden
Ander Monson
Jedidiah Ayres
Scott Phillips
Valier Vogrin
Neil C. Luke
Nate Fisher
Paradise Lost in The Office app Released Today
Paradise Lost in The Office is the app that asks, “What Would Lucifer Do?” The quotes pulled from John Milton’s epic cut through the philosophical fluff of the ages to the essence of power, spin, and strategy. Milton’s words hold their own against Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, or Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. Paradise Lost works as a how-to get what you want in life or instruction manual in spin, niche marketing, employee motivation, outsourcing, hostile takeovers, and geoarbitrage. Read the quotes on the subway, while you are stuck in traffic, or while your boss has their back turned to you pointing at some chart. These words from Milton are actionable, but take action at your own risk.
Download the app at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paradise-lost-office/id524619644?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
What they are saying about it:
“I downloaded it this afternoon and I already gained wisdom from it.” Benson Schliesser, Principal Engineer at Cisco Systems, Inc.
“One of our creative writing students (Jason Braun) at Southern Illinois created the Paradise Lost Office app for iTunes, which (hysterically: but will some people take this seriously?) offers cutthroat “how to get ahead” business advice using quotes from Milton’s poem; who knew Milton was so useful for niche marketing and office spin?” Eileen A. Joy, SIUE English Professor
“So you think you have control of your life. You have all the answers and sense of self satisfaction. Perhaps you do, but perhaps you need some extra guidance through the hard times. Satisfaction is hard to come by,let Milton ( with the help of the beast and friends ) guide you through the troubled times. Buy this app, have you ever had $.99 save your life and piece of mind? Except for a loosey nothing else will come close.” Jason Gonzalez, Roustabout St. Louis, Inc.
Check Out This Big Bridge Anthology I Edited
Check Out This Big Bridge Anthology I Edited
Months ago Michael Rothenberg and I came up with the idea of collecting poems that work equally well on the page as well as the stage. We decided to call this online anthology from Big Bridge, “Fusion.” Specifically we were trying to weave a tapestry of Beat Poets, Slam Poets, Black Arts Poets and Hip Hop Poets. We were looking for poets from those movements and peripheral to them, as well as poets inspired by any and all of those movements. We were working to show the similarities of these movements as well as celebrate the cultural and individual differences.
What I received, were great lyric poems. Fusion features one poet from Israel, one poet from Ireland, and one Fulbright Scholar. Fusion also fully represents the outsider arts as well, featuring a few poets that will count that as their second or third publication. They all follow Kerouac’s decree to “moan for man.”
Thanks,
Jason Braun
Show with Buck 65, Busdriver, And Robb Steele At Firebird on June 2nd
On Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 8pm the Firebird Presents:
Buck 65
Busdriver
Robb Steele
Jason And The Beast
Get tickets: http://ticketf.ly/KRgmCv
“Made This For You” in good company in Future of the Book Blog
“Made This For You” in good company in Future of the Book Blog
jasonandthebeast 