Here at Black Balloon, we like pushing the boundaries of what a book can be. We think our evolving e-book for Louise Krug's new memoir, Louise: Amended, does just that, so we're very excited to share it with you—so excited that, for the next two weeks, we're giving it away as a free iPad download! But wait—there's more!
Read MoreHave an epic day, and be safe out there. We'll be back on Monday with a big announcement (hint: giveaway).
Read MoreSince it came out earlier this month, Louise Krug's meta-memoir Louise: Amended has generated some glowing reviews—and some heated comments. Clearly, Louise's story of brain trauma, partial paralysis, and redefining beauty has touched a few nerves. Last week, Buzz Poole talked with Louise about the work: the books that kept her inspired, the perils of reading one's own reviews, and what she's working on now.
Read MoreForget what Kayla B. wrote about book trailers. (You kiss your mother with that mouth, Kayla?) Check out the new promo for our spring title, Louise: Amended, and find out why our March theme is "Demon Wrestlers." Happy viewing!
Read MoreLast week, we posted our very own Remote Associates Test, designed to test the effects of light booziness on creative thinking. The results were neck-and-neck, but we have a winner.
Read MoreLast week, the internet renewed its assault on clear-headedness, self-discipline, and everything else I thought writers were at least supposed to possess. Melville House summed up a study suggesting that getting buzzed can enhance creativity. Here's your chance to test those findings, and maybe even win a prize for your efforts. Pour yourself a glass of "sudden insight" and read on.
Read More"Every once in a while you get the truth from a movie."
—Warren Beatty, 2012 Academy Awards
The Lifespan of a Fact, the new book by essayist John D’Agata and his fact-checker Jim Fingal, has caused a lot of ruckus. The book lays out an essay by D’Agata accompanied by the annotations of Fingal and their correspondence over seven years of working on the project. Fingal is intensely scrupulous when it comes to accuracy and facts, while D’Agata bristles under the procedures of nonfiction—he’s trying to accomplish something else. There's a lot at stake concerning fidelity to the facts,journalistic integrity, the expectations we have toward different forms of art...basically, the nature of truth itself.
Black Balloon’s forthcoming book, Louise: Amended, is a memoir that includes fictional interludes. In these interludes, author Louise Krug assumes the third-person POV and imagines the thoughts and emotions of her family members. This technique bucks the expected boundaries of the memoir form, but by including these other perspectives, Krug has arguably expanded the depth and scope of the memoir’s experience to include a truth larger than the narrator’s alone.
I think the debate concerning nonfiction’s relationship to truth could benefit greatly from the inclusion of texts written about truth and photography. Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, John Berger and countless others (most recently, Errol Morris) have written about the nature of photography: its relationship to reality and time, the intricacies of what exists just beyond the frame, etc. If great artists and thinkers are still grappling with photography’s depiction of reality, isn’t it fair to assume that investigation into the nature of nonfiction’s depiction of reality is worthwhile?
One of the reasons I believe art to be so profoundly necessary is because it functions as a context in which the truth is possible. Or at least provides a context in which the truth is painstakingly sought after, if not quite achieved.
Truth is not always acquired by means of unveiling what already exists in the world. Sometimes, truth is achieved by sheer creation, brought about by something entirely new. I believe both truths—unveiled and created—to be absolutely necessary, and I would strongly oppose any restrictions or impediments to the exercise of either. If D’Agata is playing with a new context (or simply a context that has gone out of style) in which truth might be created, we might just want to pay attention.
image: grokzone.com
"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees," wrote Pablo Neruda. And with Black Balloon's Valentine Haiku Contest, we wanted to do with haikus what Valentines does to your waistline: expand them. We wanted to expand the limitations of a haiku to include the two key elements of Black Balloon's first release, The Recipe Project: food and music. And what Valentines Day would be complete without those two ingredients?
We asked our loyal Twitter and Facebook followers to write us romantic haikus about food and music, and the results were awe-inspiring. Cilantro, stuffed zucchinis, cannolis, cast-iron frying pans: these were only a few of the poetic elements that our intrepid fans used to evoke the hunger of the holiday. Below are the top five entries, and we hope they expand your hearts just as much as your waistlines.
Thanks to everyone who participated. Winners: enjoy your copies of The Recipe Project, and have a happy Valentines Day!
Trickeration. Blowback. Ginormous. Lest you think I'm coming up with Huffington Post headline ideas, these are just three of the dozen words added to this year's list of banished vocabulary. Diction has been a hot topic here of late: last week, James R. offered his thoughts on banishing, or at least curbing, our use of the word "literally."
Read MoreBarring any Mayan prophecies that may come true, the Black Balloon bloggers will be back after the New Year. Expect entries on everything from Batman to Japanese fetish bars and beyond. But in the mean time, have a happy fuckingholidaysing and we'll see you in the year of the dragon!
Image credit: Burlesque
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