The deadline for the 2008 Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a $2,500 grant given to a woman writer of 32 years or younger, is this Thursday, May 15. For more information, click here. - - - -

A Convergence of Convergences: A Contest. - - - - For more information about this contest, click here. - - - - Contest Winner No. 4. - - - - This Is Not an Ad. By Jimmy Chen - - - - Tokyo Akasaka-Mitsuke Station, Boss advertisement (2002) - - - - Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) - - - - René Magritte, The Treason of Images (1928-29) - - - - A mustache and a pipe—two icons of surrealist painting (Duchamp's treatment of Mona Lisa in L.H.O.O.Q. and Magritte's infamous play on semiotics in The Treason of Images, respectively) are "painted" on a young Asian woman with dyed blond hair. The thick black Sharpie pen is not the gesture of some graffiti artist but of the advertisers, as the black scrawl is embedded in an ad that mimics the logo of its product, a coffee drink. It would have been easy to tape an actual fake (never mind the paradox) mustache on the woman and stick a pipe in her mouth during the photo shoot, but the graffiti-like subsequent adornments resonate so much more. They empower the viewer. It's as if we, standing on the platform waiting for the cringing metal worm, are holding the black pen in our own hands. Palpability is power. "L.H.O.O.Q." when mouthed in French comes out elle a chaud au cul, or, in English, "She has hot ass." We all know Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe, or "This is not a pipe." Between semantics and semiotics is a blind world. These words have a way of doing things to us. The tongue is the mind's bastard. I wonder what "Boss" in Japanese is. I imagine Duchamp and Magritte, those magicians of meaning, standing on the subway platform. A little laugh, a quick wink, I think might transpire. And what about Leonardo himself? Is it he behind that wondrous face smiling at us? Can lips wink? Is he wearing a wig? Ah, those guys. They could get off at Shibuya, the heart of Tokyo's commercial district, ride the escalators upward and enter the world of advertising signs—the artifice of artifacts, blinking. - - - - Weschler Responds. - - - - Another nice catch, nicely explicated. The only thing I would add here, regarding those Japanese ads in the first place, is how, bizarrely and quite conspicuously, "Ceci n'est pas une femme japonnaise." - - - - OTHER WINNERS. - - - - 1. Evolving, Evolved by Charlie Hopper 2. Primal Forces, Basic Colors by Andy Hunter 3. The End of the Beginning by Holly Dunsworth Intermezzo by Lawrence Weschler 5. Catskills Vagina by Dan Clem 6. The Antipodes by Chris Zic 7. Self-Made Constriction by Sam Gaskin 8. We Are the Son by Danny Erker 9. Painfully Unaware by Dan Park 10. Gutshot by Jason Torchinsky Weschler's Second Interlude 11. Love and War by Kim Wood 12. Inside and Out There by Lena Webb 13. The March by Emily Marvosh 14. Feminine Divine Triptych by Margit Christenson 15. Time's Deliberate Convergence by Steve Denyszyn 16. A Rousseau/Hirshfield Convergence by Adam Webb Beirut/Warsaw by Lawrence Weschler 17. Clothesline Raising Over Carlisle, Indiana by Charlie Hopper Carnival of Convergences Weschler's Fourth Interlude Aftersquib to the Foregoing 18. Pelvises All the Way Down by John Peter Rickgauer 19. Ovary Night? by Maya Muñoz 20. Christ in Space by Jonathan Shipley A Pair of Convergences Off of Tina Barney Another Carnival of Convergences 21. Moral Confusion: Iraq, Munich, and Vietnam by Donald Rumsfeld 22. Seeing the Tree for the Forest by Walter Murch An Addendum to the Foregoing, and a Visitor Challenge 23, 24, and 25. Far Out by Michael Benson, Brian Christian, and Walter Murch 26. Jewish Bunk Beds by Monica S. Bland Those Damn Swedish Trees, Take 3: Convergence of the Blogs 27. Degenerate Boogie-Woogie by Lisa Lee Carnival of Convergences No. 3 28. Sand and Moon by Alison Cornyn Actaeon: An Ovidian Impromptu by Lawrence Weschler 29 and 30. Hoods and Veils by Vero Testa and Lauren Redniss The Onion/Bickle Convergence by Lawrence Weschler 31. The Lone Figure Against the Armored Swarm by Michele Siegel 32. Muscle and Flow by Benjamin R. Cohen An Addendum to the Foregoing: Cities, Brains, Orchestras by Lawrence Weschler Saint and Princess by Lawrence Weschler Beauty Queen and Baghdad Hummer by Lawrence Weschler Carnival of Convergences No. 4 Laughing, Clapping, Constantly Forgetting: A Trill of Readerly Associations by Lawrence Weschler 33. Lithographica by R.A. Villanueva 34. Papal Fire (Papa Lux) by Nick Feia Addendum to "Laughing, Clapping ..." and, More Specifically, to the Stalinist-Applause Anecdote by Lawrence Weschler 35. Disseminations: Internet, Dandelions, Flight Paths by Sarah Daegling 36. Black and White and in Color by Walter Murch Carnival of Convergences No. 5 Lee Friedlander's Visionary Trees: An Addendum to the Last Chapters of Everything That Rises by Lawrence Weschler 37. Shipwrecked Desperation by Charles Mudede via Matt Haber 38. Life Forms by Ariel Winter   MORE ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT RISES

- - - - MAIN PAGE   |   ARCHIVES   Memories of Amanda Davis   Red dot denotes content that is new today. Black dot denotes newish content. McSWEENEY'S STORE SUBSCRIBE TO: McSWEENEY'S THE BELIEVER WHOLPHIN FUTURE McSWEENEY'S BOOKS THE AMANDA DAVIS HIGHWIRE FICTION AWARD INVITE A McSWEENEY'S AUTHOR TO SPEAK IN YOUR TOWN OR COLLEGE McSWEENEY'S MONTHLY MAILING LIST McSWEENEY'S-RELATED EVENTS AND VARIOUS TOUR DATES ORDER INQUIRIES AND ADDRESS CHANGES SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: FOR BOOKS FOR THE QUARTERLY FOR THE WEBSITE FOR WHOLPHIN McSWEENEY'S INTERNSHIPS CONTACT US - - - - LETTERS TO McSWEENEY'S LISTS McSWEENEY'S PREDICTS McSWEENEY'S RECOMMENDS NEW WHOLPHIN FILM DAN LIEBERT, VERBAL CARTOONIST JOKES BY BRIAN BEATTY REVIEWS OF NEW FOOD DISPATCHES FROM MOSCOW SO YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT? DISPATCHES FROM THE ANACOSTIA THE WINNER'S CIRCLE WITH ERIC FEEZELL BEN GREENMAN'S FAKE CELEBRITY MUSICALS DISPATCHES FROM A HUMANITARIAN JOURNALIST DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ SHORT IMAGINED MONOLOGUES PHILIP GRAHAM SPENDS A YEAR IN LISBON STAINED TEETH: A COLUMN ABOUT WINE DISPATCHES FROM THE NAPOLEONIC WARS AT THE MET KEVIN DOLGIN TELLS YOU ABOUT PLACES YOU SHOULD GO IN EUROPE LAWRENCE WESCHLER'S EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A BOOK OF CONVERGENCES THE CONVERGENCES CONTEST ABOUT WHAT IS THE WHAT ABOUT BOWL OF CHERRIES ABOUT COMEDY BY THE NUMBERS ABOUT JOHN BRANDON'S ARKANSAS LETTERS FROM AN EARTH BALL TO, OR CONCERNING, SEAN HANNITY DISPATCHES FROM ADJUNCT FACULTY AT A LARGE STATE UNIVERSITY ADVICE FROM A PERSON WITH A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY DISPATCHES FROM THE NBA ENTERTAINMENT LEAGUE JOHN MOE'S POP-SONG CORRESPONDENCES B.R. COHEN'S ANNALS OF SCIENCE INTERVIEWS WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE INTERESTING OR UNUSUAL JOBS OPEN LETTERS TO PEOPLE OR ENTITIES WHO ARE UNLIKELY TO RESPOND DISPATCHES FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARIAN MICHAEL IAN BLACK IS A VERY FAMOUS CELEBRITY DISPATCHES FROM ROY KESEY, AN AMERICAN GUY MARRIED TO A PERUVIAN DIPLOMAT LIVING IN CHINA STEPHEN ELLIOTT'S POKER REPORT - - - - ADDITIONAL MATERIAL