Matthue Roth's Blog, page 128

Forget reality. I've got my new glasses.

So this weekend was IndieCade East, a video game convention for independent game-makers, and in line with my new job I got to go. Most of it was really wonderful, playing other people's games and stepping into their minds for a few minutes.



Tons of stuff I could tell you about if I remembered all the links, but the one that stands out right now is Gorogoa, a sort of puzzle game with amazing drawing work. You fit the pictures together and then they grow out of each other, and explaining too much is probably bad, but here's what it looks like, sometimes, anyway:









And then there was virtual reality. This is what I did. Essentially it's tiny TV monitors inside a set of goggles. The screen turns in time with you, which is uncannily accurate, and the suctiony power of the goggles sort of blinds out everything else. 




It's not THAT hi-tech, in spite of the concept, but it is surprisingly effective. I was shaking as I walked away, forgetting that in reality there were no climbing spires or castles. (Not in Queens, anyway.) Twelve-year-old me would be so pleased. So pleased and so jealous:

Me, in 24 hours

Can I say it again? I work at a dream job. Replace Donald Glover with me, and you can envision my office tomorrow afternoon:

See 1/20 at The Hester

Just a little note that the movie I wrote, 1/20, is screening this Saturday night in New York City! Go here to buy tickets -- it's at The Hester, this little underground kosher speakeasy that my wife happens to run, and that happens to have been recently featured in the New Yorker and GrubStreet and a whole bunch of other places.



It'll be interesting, and fun, and different. And I'll be onhand, probably to incoherently answer any questions that you may have, and stare at my shoes. And eat kohlrabi pickles with spicy hummus. Which, you probably didn't know, but is one of my biggest talents.

Losers Is, Weirdly, Popular!

Whoa! Just got an awesome email from the good folks at Scholastic. Thank you, people! It's really amazing that five years after this little neon novel got birthed (oboyo am I old), people are still thinking and talking about Losers.



(And: the other people on the list! Raina Telgemeier, who did the amazing Baby-Sitters' Club adaptations [that are actually brilliant, srsly]! Michael freakin' Northrop!)






Great news! – the following Scholastic titles are included in lists just announced by the ALA, selected at the recent ALA Midwinter Convention in Seattle.




2013 ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

·         Prom and Prejudice, by Elizabeth Eulberg (A Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults Top Ten Title)

·         Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, by Jordan Sonnenblick

·         Drama, by Raina Telgemeier (A Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults Top Ten Title)

·         Does My Head Look Big in This?, by Randa Abdel-Fattah

·         All the Broken Pieces, by Ann Burg

·         Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier

·         Losers, by Matthue Roth

·         Green Heart, by Alice Hoffman

·         Bluford High: Search for Safety, by John Langan

·         Trapped, by Michael Northrup

·         Smile, by Raina Telgemeier

FAQ: What are you excited about?

random question that ended up in my inbox this morning:




Q: What are you excited about in Judaism?



A: G-d! physics! the creation of the universe anew from nothingness at every moment! the fact that everything happens for a reason! the idea that i shouldn't be anxious about things because it's all part of g-d's plan! the fact that there is a plan in the first place, and we're all a part of it, and basically everything has been predestined, but we have free will and free choice anyway. like g-d knows where we're going to end up, but how we do end up there -- and what it means for us -- is still all in our hands.

Dork! download it here, now, free

Hey, remember how I said I was going to give away free stuff every month? It's January 1. It's here. Click to listen or hit the downloady thing to download -- you won't have to enter an email or a credit card or anything. Or just download it here.



Dork by Matthue RothPlease, please, check out Katie Skau, who did the art. And for the extra version of "Shit Girls Don't Say," I asked a bunch of people on my facebook and twitter if they'd record themselves doing a version of a poem. I didn't tell them what the title or the lyrics were.



This mix features queendeb, Postal, Lacy LeBlanc, Michelle Hilburn, Cate Freyer, and Amalya Tolchin. Track them down, twitter-follow them, thank them every time you see them in the streets. I will. I'd love to just throw up each of their unedited versions. They're all brilliant.

The Dork E.P.: Track List! Art! My Inner Madness!

Tomorrow I'll be posting, here and anywhere else I can think of, an E.P. of new spoken-word poems. I wrote them in a flurry last month, when I realized I hadn't written any poems lately; and I recorded them all at once, more or less, on a Saturday night when Shabbos ended early and I put my kids to bed and said goodbye to Itta when she was off doing a social thing and then realized that my house was particularly quiet -- too quiet, you'd think -- and I needed an excuse to start talking to myself.



This is the prototype art for the cover, which is by Katie Skau:

It's called (unless one of us comes up with something I like more before midday tomorrow) the Dork E.P. There's one track called "Dork 2.0," and I could call it that, except that it feels like a bit too much for a tiny little album that's less than 10 minutes long. I'm actually sort of proud of having it so short. When I was in high school, and did the recording trick of recording one track on my tape player, then playing it back close to the tape player while I recorded another track, the goal was to make songs as long as possible -- my favorite R.E.M. songs were four minutes long! some were almost five! they was practically symphonies! -- but for Dork, brevity seemed to be the thing.



Here's the track list:



1. Get Back Here New York City, I'm Not Finished with You Yet

2. Dork 2.0

3. Shit Girls Don't Say

4. Love in the Time of Attachment Parenting

5. Born to Run

6. Shit Girls Don't Say (other people version)



Originally I'd asked people to film themselves reciting the poem "Shit Girls Don't Say" for a music video (well, a non-music music video). Due to my computer being about 27 years old and not being able to crunch the recordings on iMovie, I had to mix it as an audio track better. And I kind of like it that way, in the end: The more-or-less proper closing track is "Love in the Time of Attachment Parenting," which is sort of my cover version of this great book you should read, and then my actual cover version of "Born to Run" (which I am praying doesn't sound bad), and then other people doing a cover of my thing.



Yes, I realize this is an immense amount of thought to put into a 9-minute recording -- let alone, one I'm giving away for free, and with no clear (to me) motive (I mean, I'm not really thinking that Sony will buy the rights, or that Kanye will hear this and ask me to record a song with him) -- but it feels right. And I really hope you come back tomorrow and download it.

Free Stuff! For all of 2013!

Stand back. I'm trying something new.



One way or another you guys have ended up here, reading random stuff that I write, either my books or my movie or my tweets or something else -- and for that, I am incredibly, overwhelmingly grateful. And I have a bunch of stuff I've been working on since Losers  happened. My new book (a picture book collaboration with Mr. Rohan Daniel Eason and Mr. Franz Kafka) is coming out this summer, and day-job-wise, I'm working on this top-secret video game thing that you'll hear about as soon as it actually exists.



But I've been feeling like I've lived too much in my head, and not enough time in the actual world, and although I have all this stuff going on, you probably aren't going to see most of it for a long, long while.



So I've decided to throw it out in the world. For free, for however long I can.



I'm going to start releasing things mostly monthly. Starting on the goyishe New Year's Day, on 1/1, then something else on 2/2, up till My First Kafka comes out in the summer, and maybe beyond, if I'm not too insane for it? The first one's going to be a little spoken-word album. Then maybe a Kindle/iBooks/whatever-else-there-is book. Maybe some short stories mixed in. If you have requests, or ideas, or if you've read anything of mine and want to illustrate it or adapt it on YouTube or whatever, please, go wild, go crazy, email me and lend a hand.



I'm still not sure I'll be able to manage this thing! But right now, I really want to. I can't believe some of you found me ten years ago doing a poem that ended up on Broadway, or five years ago in a used bookstore with a neon green cover, or doing some late-night reading on a street or a bar somewhere, and I'm flattered and honored and frankly baffled that you kept in touch.



You're the best. Thank you so much.

Guns

Project I'll never have time for:



Visit gun stores where people who've gone on mass-killing sprees have bought their guns. Interview the people who sold them their guns. What kind of mood were they in? What did they say? Was there a difference between the time they applied to buy a gun and the time they picked it up? Then interview the cashiers about their own lives.



Slightly more aggressive and questionable project I'll never have time for:



Visit local gun stores. Take photos of people who work there. Hang them all over town, mugshot-like, or like the pictures of the Joker from the Dark Knight ARG. Picket outside their houses. Treat them like protestors treat doctors who perform abortions.



No; that's wrong. It's more than this, and deeper. It's wrong to target these people: it's like cutting off a nose to stop a cold. Friends are visiting me this weekend who own, and use recreationally, automatic weapons, and they're way more responsible and levelheaded than I am.



Really, I think, we all just need to find a way to take care of each other better. Last night a homeless guy asked me for change. I didn't have any and he started shoving me. Why didn't I just stop and get some money? I'm too busy. I needed to get home to my kids, who I also don't have enough time for.



This world has me so scared and so mad.

WANTED: Be in My Music Video

Hey, I'm about to put together a little free spoken-word E.P. and I'm making a music video as part of it -- only, of course, without the music, because it's spoken-word.

And I need your help.

There's a poem. Email me, at matthue at gmail, and I will email the text of the poem to you. Then, if you would be so kind, film yourself using an iPod or iPhone, reciting all or part of the poem. I'll splice it together and make it into a video.

If you have any questions, send them to me too! I'll do my best to answer.