Knockout Chosen "Best Literary Magazine of the Twin Cities of 2009" by The City Pages of Minneapolis-St. Paul

Great news—Knockout was selected as "Best Literary Magazine of the Twin Cities" of 2009 by The City Pages. And congratulations are in order to KO contributor Louis Jenkins, who was selected as best poet of 2008-2009.

New T-Shirt

A New T-Shirt, created by the ever-random Brett. Check it, and all my other wacky t-shirts, here: http://www.zazzle.com/pinata_tshirt-235246019581053496. This image is pretty small; the "no baseball bat" sign in the corner reads: Put the bat down, candy is our blood.

SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Editors Andrea Reid and Maya Jewell Zeller are currently seeking submissions for an anthology of superhero poetry, tentatively titled "Between Saviors and Villains: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry Inspired by American Superheroes."

Send 3-6 poems and a cover letter including your contact information, comments on how your poems are meant to explore the concept of superheroes, and a brief bio to superheropoetryanthology@gmail.com. Please include all materials in one attached (.rtf) document. Simultaneous submissions are fine, as are poems previously published in magazines, chapbooks, and full-length poetry collections, though the author must retain reprint rights. Please note any credits in your bio.

For more information, see our blog: http://www.superheropoetryanthology.blogspot.com

(Photo of Major Mars courtesy of http://pdsh.wikia.com/)

Join Knockout on Gather!

Keep in touch.
And discover something new.
My stuff:
http://knockoutpoetry.gather.com »

Happy Good Friday, y'all

Happy Good Friday. Here's a great painting by Antonio Ciserie titled "Ecce Homo" (or "Behold the Man!) that depicts Pontius Pilate presenting Christ to the crowd.

Baseball Update

The Minnesota Twins defeated the Seattle Mariners this evening. I attended yesterday's wonderful game, but I unfortunately encountered some variety of human tsunami. See for yourself:

Too funny

So as you probably noticed, we have Google ads on this site. They read the site and then produce "appropriate" ads for the content.

These ads just appeared when I was checking out the site:

Peter Singer

Depression Signs

Clinical Depression

Depression Support

Treatment Depression

I'm half tempted to email Mr. Singer--he might get a kick out of this.

And now I'm going to take some Zoloft and cry.

So I stumbled upon this size comparison of crocodiles and humans, and I couldn't help editing it a bit.

And here's my edit:

Iowa rocks!

A quick surprise in the news this morning. From Yahoo and the AP: " Iowa court says gay marriage ban unconstitutional."

As I understand it, this means, in effect, that gay marriage is legal (or will be) in Iowa.

Holy cow! Or should I say, corn?

Knockout Reading at Nina's Cafe, June 3, 7 PM

This Just In: Brett here, and I'm happy to announce that there will be a Knockout reading at Nina's Cafe on June 3, @ 7 PM. Brett will be reading from the 2nd issue--stay tuned about the rest of the line up!

Special Guests: STAY TUNED.
June 3 at 7pm
Nina's Cafe
Address: 165 Western Ave N, Saint Paul, MN 55102
Phone: (651) 292-9816

For now, here's a map of how to get to Nina's. The meantime, visit Nina's, it's a great place to visit, and if you need any added incentive, don't forget that Common Good Books is right below Nina's! (There's even a shortcut through Nina's to the bookstore!) Finally, MANY thanks to Todd Boss for helping us arrange the reading!


View Larger Map

Koalas Suffer From Depression

Koala Depressive Disorder

I just read about a disturbing breakthrough in koala psychology on koalascience.com

According to research conducted over a twenty year period, koalas are as prone to major depression as humans. Dr. Schultz Kuehlenschrank, of Austria's famed Lebkuchen University, said, "They may look cute and furry, but inside, these koalas have some serious problems." Kuehlenshrank said koalas are depressed for many reasons.

The life of a koala is rough. They have trouble finding food. And contrary to popular belief, they have predators. Kangaroos are the major predator. In my twenty plus years studying them, a day has not gone by when I haven't seen kangaroos harassing the koalas. On a good day, the kangaroos will simply stand below the koala, bouncing like a child on a pogo stick. But on the bad days, I've had to intervene in their disputes many times. Needless to say, I've been punched by a kangaroo many times.

What's more, the koalas don't seem to like Australia. According to the surveys they've filled out, they are not fans of the Australian outback. Specifically, koalas are tired of eucalyptus and are also not fans of the Australian accent. Kuehlenschrank said, "They much prefer the German and Austrian accents."

All of this leads to a crippling koala depression. The symptoms are easy to spot. Excessive sleeping. Sluggishness when awake. The inability to complete simple tasks, even as simple as raising one's head. Suicide is prevalent. Kuehlenschrank explains, "Suicide opportunities surround them. All they have to do is let go and they'll fall out the tree to the waiting kangaroo." And even if the koalas are taken out of the trees, there is still a great risk.

Kuehlenschrank explained, "Taking the koalas out of a threatening environment is nearly impossible, as koala claws are razor sharp. These claws are the "perfect" suicide method."

(Koala image courtesy of Luciano Roth Coelho, shared under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5)

Happy April Fool's From Wikipedia

Wikipedia, brilliant as always on April Fool's day, has an entire main page of lovely jokes, lies, and slander.

Here are a few of my favorites...

Did you know:

...that baseball Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby had his first plate appearance against King Lear?


On this day:

2006 – As mandated by a 2005 Act of the British Parliament, several British policing agencies joined together to become very serious.

1918 – The British Armed Forces started to grant personnel the power to fly.

Current Events:

NASA reports a shower of diamonds from the sky.

The merging of Hartford and New Orleans is found to have severe environmental consequences.

Three quick, random posts: A neat image, Search for Aliens From Your Desktop, and something terribly, wonderfully geeky

First, a pretty nifty electron microscope picture of flower pollen from several different plants, including lily, primrose, hollyhock, and castor bean.

Secondly, I don't know about you, but I search for aliens from desktop. No, really. SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is scanning the skies with large radio telescopes, with the goal of
discovering the existence of other civilizations in the cosmos. This brings in a good amount of data, but they don't have a supercomputer. Instead, they organized a network of volunteers, whose computers all interpret data and send it back to the main facility. The computers only do work when they aren't being used, or when they are in screen saver mode. When banded together these volunteer computers have the combined computing power of a pretty damn big supercomputer. In fact, when combined, it beats out the world's current supercomputer champ, IBM's Roadrunner. (In this sense, it's like a computer virus, but for good.)

If you're interested, here's a link: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

And now for something truly funny, but embarrassing:

So let's say you're like me, and you love poetry and books, but you also have a soft spot for space exploration and Star Trek. Let's say you're rather excited for the upcoming Star Trek movie. Now let's say you REALLY wanted to get into the movie, not just by dressing up in Vulcan ears or by aping Scotty's famous brogue. Well now, there are Star Trek fragrances.

One, called "Tiberius," seems markedly uninteresting, as I'm no great Captain Kirk fan. Those Travelocity commercials just ended it for me. And that duet with Ben Folds? WTF?

But another is called "Red Shirt," in homage to the redshirt crew members who'd die in the first few minutes of your average Original Series episode. It carries the tagline, "Because tomorrow may never come." Now that's fantastic, Mr. Bombastic, yes?















http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/41832117.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ

Unknown Regions

So while searching the Internets at work, I stumbled across this early 20th Century image of a map, which is up for sale on Ebay. Note how the North Pole is described...


Blog Update, 8:58 PM. OK, I couldn't help myself. I had to buy the map. But fear not, there are several others like it still on Ebay.

Essay About Knockout on Gather!

I was prompted by the fine folks at Minnesota Public Radio's gather site to write a brief essay about Knockout (well, I don't know if they were looking for an essay, but it turned out that way). Whatever you want to call it, you can check it out here.

As a teaser, it's called: Adventures in Starting a Literary Magazine, Featuring: The World's Worst Salesman, Robert Bly Reconnaissance, and The Literary Death Match.

Let me know what you think.

Bats Go Into Space!

OK, so the coolest thing! So just before the much-delayed Space Shuttle launch yesterday, the folks at mission control spotted a bat (yes, a bat) hanging onto the fuel tank. They concluded it was not a threat to Discovery and the shuttle lifted off yesterday. When they lifted off...the bat was still onboard. Apparently, it held on even after lift-off, thereby becoming the first (potential) BAT IN SPACE!

Here's a link, and a dramatic re-enactment of what probably happened when said bat met E.T.

Rwandan Swearing: The Anti-Bart Simpson

OK, to augment today's earlier post about swearing in Irish. Here are my favorite swear words of all time. They are all from Kinyarwanda, which is spoken in Rwanda.

Urakisegura inzira = Do die of hunger!

Kabure amaso ibirori bije = Get blind at celebration time!

Gashinyike bashikura = Do starve alone!

Kanyare ico = Do piss impurities!

Urakannywa wa Base = Drink dirty river water!

and my favorite...

Kabure inka = Have no cow!

Some Irish Swear Words for Your St. Patrick's Day

We've all been there. It's St. Patrick's Day, you're wearing green, you're drinking green beer, and you're enjoying pretending to be Irish. But then you realize: You don't know any Irish Gaelic. Well, now you do. Here's a few of my favorite inappropriate phrases from the Emerald Isle.

Tí Diabhail, which means “Devil’s House” (literally, “the house of the Devil')

Cailleach an Diabhail, which is another way to call someone “an infernal hag”

allas an diabhail, which roughly means “brat” (but literally means “a limb of Satan”)

and finally, bruithleachán, which is a person who sweats profusely

Image of the Chicago River licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Peter Singer Article

OK, a few quick notes. First, a lot of y'all might not know it, but I started out studying philosophy and I never quite stopped. (How can you?) Anyway, I came across an article about the-oh-so-controversial Peter Singer in the NYT, and I thought I'd share it with you. Singer takes utilitarianism quite seriously.

For those of you who've forgotten your philosophy or think utilitarians work on the sewer lines or power grid, here's a primer. In a moral sense, utilitarians are consequentialists; generally speaking, in a given situation, the consequences of an event (not the intentions) are what matters. And utilitarians are interested in a specific type of consequence--human happiness. But a utilitarian's definition of happiness is different than our common notion of it. Here's how J.S. Mill states it in his Utilitarianism:

The creed which accepts as the foundations of morals “utility” or the “greatest happiness principle” holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure [II 2; cf.II 1].

So if an action (whatever its intention) improves world happiness on a global scale, it's a good thing and the moral thing to do. If that action makes the world a less happy place, then that's a bad thing and an immoral thing. Mill and friends are therefore after 'the greater good,' a phrase you no doubt have read before.

Peter Singer applies this framework to contemporary culture and consumer spending. He argues that we're using our personal (and global) resources immorally, in that we're spending it on non-essential items (dinners, movies, clothes, fancy cars) when we should be spending it to reduce world suffering. In short, the money you spent on dinner at a restaurant tonight could have saved a child from dying of dysentery. This is a simple fact. The fact that you didn't do so, he contends, means that you are, in a very real sense, immoral.

Here's one argument he proposes, and it's quoted in full in the article:

“First premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.

Second premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.

Third premise: By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.

Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong.”

To reject this argument, Mr. Singer writes, “you need to find a flaw in the reasoning.”

(from The Life You Can Save, Random House, as quoted In the New York Times)

In his other work, (most notably Animal Liberation), Mr. Singer takes this argument even further; in fact, he contends that happiness doesn't just pertain to humans, but to animals as well. Therefore utilitarians, if they are to be consistent, should seek to prevent animal suffering as well. In any case, Mr. Singer always makes for an interesting debate, so I thought I'd post this up to see what y'all had to say about it.

Here's the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/books/11garn.html?ref=books
Here's Singer's webpage at Princeton: http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html

Switching from Cafepress to Zazzle

A quick note (as it's quite late): As you may know, I've been tinkering around with all sorts of fun Knockout designs on the print-on-demand site Cafepress. Well, after seeing some of the cool publicity stuff on Zazzle, I switched, so if you're looking for Knockout gear, that's the place to go. I'll update all of the links and all that good stuff tomorrow (and our cafepress site still works, of course), but the Zazzle site is a lot cleaner and the displays look pretty lovely. Here's an example for y'all to ponder.

Good night,

b


create & buy custom products at Zazzle