Event: 60 Writers/60 Places

60 Writers/60 Places, a film by Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball
will be screened as part of Pratt's Writer's Forum at 12 PM., Friday,
December 11, in the Engineering Building, Room 371, on Pratt's Brooklyn
Campus. The film is free and open to the public.

Produced by Little Burn Films, 60 Writers/60 Places is 60 different writers
reading their work for 60 seconds each in 60 different places. 60
Writers/60 Places is about writers and their writing occupying
untraditional spaces, everyday life, everywhere. There is Blake Butler
reading on the subway, Deb Olin Unferth in a laundromat, Jamie
Gaughran-Perez in a beauty salon, Tita Chico in a dressing room, Giancarlo
DiTrapano in front of a church, Tao Lin next to a hot dog cart, Adam
Robison in an artist's studio, and Adam Robinson in a dumpster.

60 Writers/60 Places begins with the idea of the tableaux vivant, a living
picture where the camera never moves. But instead of silently holding their
poses, the writers read a short excerpt of their work-another kind of
framing that linguistically echoes the frame of the tableaux vivant. The
film uses ideas from painting, stage performance, early photography,
contemporary photo compositing, other documentaries (e.g., Jorgen Leth's 66
Scenes from America), and old postcards.

There is an interaction between each writer, their writing, and the place
in which they read. Besides the internal structure of each shot, there is
an external architecture that accumulates among the 60 places. The writer
and the writing go on no matter what is going on around them.

Several of the writers featured in the film will be present at the
screening. For more information on the film, visit
http://www.littleburnfilms.com/60Writers60Places.html.

Friday Forum is curated by co-directors Nelly Reifler and Gina Zucker,
and is sponsored by the Pratt Writing Program. For more information on
Pratt's Writer's Forum, visit http://mysite.pratt.edu/~fforum/.

---

And Good Luck on Finals, everyone!

News & Events: Way of The Word!

The Fall 2009 issue is currently in production, thanks to everyone who submitted artwork and writing. Be sure to stay in touch for updates and events! Take some time from school work to check out this reading, featuring past Ubiquitous staff and contributors:

Republic Worldwide Presents WAY OF THE WORD

There is a misconception that poetry, as a conceptual art form, speaks only to a select audience. In truth poetry has kept up a great pace with popular culture and has continually been reinterpreted through each successive generation broadening its breadth and definition. It is in the spirit of language arts that REPUBLIC presents the first installment of its recurring “Way of the Word” program at Bar On A.

“Way of the Word” opens Wednesday, November 11, 2009 to a unique evening of art, poetry, performance and music by emerging artists in the New York poetry world. Artists and poets include: Artists: Edward Hopely, Brian VanRemmen and more, slam poets: Khephran ­­­­Riddick and Aldrin Valdez and traditional poets: Davey Vacek, Katie Przybylski, Marissa Forbes, Peter Ford, and three founding members of a Brooklyn based poetry group called The Corresponding Society—Lonely Christopher, Robert Snyderman, and Jason Tallon.

Doors open at 7pm with a visual and interactive gallery hour for the artists, poets, and guests before the poetry readings begin at 8pm. Drink specials are provided by Bar On A from 7 to 9pm. Bar On A is located at 170 Avenue A, between 10th and 11th Streets.

A short event anthology, featuring poets from the show and around the nation will be available for purchase online and at the door for $15. Portions of the proceeds will be donated to *Reading Excellence and Discovery* (READ.), a foundation that promotes literacy by pairing qualified high school tutors with elementary students who demonstrate below grade level reading skills.

For more information about “*Way of the Word*,” READ or REPUBLIC please contact republicbrooklyn@gmail.com or call (443) 528-6761 or (917) 273-2712

NaNoWriMo 2009!

Ahoy to writers everywhere,

NaNoWriMo is coming soon! It begins on November 1st! Just giving you a heads up so that people can prepare.

For those that have no idea what NaNo is- it's National Novel Writing Month and it's a 50,000 word deadline to get writers of every kind to write their brains out without worrying about editing before November ends. There's no cash prizes or anything, but it'll keep people productive and it's self- rewarding. :D You get a crafty little certificate if you win.

Here's the event site: NaNoWriMo.org

Free Museum Entry!

Hiya guys,

Just a reminder that all Pratt students get into the following museums (with your valid Pratt ID) for FREE:


Brooklyn Museum of Art

Whitney Museum of American Art

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum


For free admission to The Frick Collection, you can pick up passes at Student Activities (Main Building, lower level).

Admission to The Metropolitan Museum of Art is "recommended". This means you can pay whatever you like and the museum will grant you admission.

Have fun!

NY Art Book Fair!

The NY Art Book Fair is coming up next weekend!

Oct. 3rd & 4th of 2009 and it's free/open to the public!

NyArtBookFair.com

It's being held at PS1!

www.ps1.org

And if you don't get a chance to stop by the fair, be sure to stop by PS1 in your free time. It's a great unique space, and is free for Pratt students!

Enjoy!

Ubiquitous is Up and Running!

Hello fellow Pratt students,

Ubiquitous is back and eagerly awaiting submissions for Fall 2009!

Please remember that the magazine accepts different forms of writing (e.g. poetry, fiction, plays, essays, hybrid works, etc.) and art work (drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, models, jewelery, etc.)

Image submissions need to be 300 dpi or greater and in BLACK AND WHITE.

Send all submissions to ubiquitous.submissions@gmail.com

We can't wait to see what everyone has for us! :D

Promotion Reading!

In order to promote the upcoming Spring 2009 issue, the magazine will be hosting a reading. We are asking those who have submitted in the past and those who will be published in the upcoming issue to read from their work.

If you are interested, please contact us by email (ubiquitous.submissions@gmail.com) with your name, email & phone number, and the piece(s) you are interested in reading.

What Day? Tuesday, April 28th
What Time? 7:00 PM
And Where? Engineering Bld. 371

Hope to see you there!

Poetry: Sojourner

Sojourner

Backward foam is offered up by Venus
and a blacksmith, fallen to the sea,
only to return
it there, finding in its deepest black
the spreading -- continents spreading from Africa.
Burdened an searching, Isis

straps on her sandals, brave Isis
is searching in the night. Pale Venus
light guides her out of Africa,
through the delta to the sea.
It waits in fish black
for her return.

A return
of the leg, Isis
finds it, of the black,
coarse hair, she finds it. Fish have swallowed Venus,
fat, decapitated, out of sea,
into an Austrian tomb, a Slovakian tomb, across Africa

to a tomb, not Africa --
off cliff face, into water and foam, a return
to the sea.
In trees and under sand, limbs gathered; Isis
places them like pineapple in a basket, but Venus
rests belly deep in black,

in fish guts, a black
pearl first: Rodinia first, Godwana second, Pangaea third, Africa
fourth. First, Venus,
second, phallus, then Osiris erected upon his return,
the old leaf phallus cast by Isis,
the flesh lost out to the sea.

Into the foam, Isis went, into the sea
to find Venus, rescue from the black.
God will have to satisfy Africa, the flesh won’t return

~ By Robert Balkovich ~

Poetry: Collada

Collada

El niño with his little hands is playing in the kitchen
with a miniature bindle stick made from ball lightning fragments
and shards of eddy. Balancing it against the eye wall,
el niño hitches the neap tide and claps his little hands together.

Tomorrow el niño meets the nexrad:

Above a nocturnal thunderstorm, by the jet stream,
the thick albedo quakes the atmosphere.
El niño, tired from riding the mountain waves,
curls up inside an ice jam. His muggy little hands

are awake and stay curious:

Do battle with the isopleth! The North
Pacific high approaches. Azores high and Bermuda
high, el niño stands at the nadir and contemplates
the lotus. Beneath the omega block he cultivates a lotus.

El niño meditates:

The lotus has five white little fingers. It grows
in the aphelion. It sips hoarfrost from the tip of
each white little finger. It blossoms at red tide
and dies at mare’s tail. Stands in a field of moist adiabat;

tomorrow el niño meets the nexrad:

~ By Benjamin Korman ~

Poetry: The Unnatural Scale

the unnatural scale


but where

did we float on this sea of sound?

jetsammy davis jr. might hold

the truth of evolution, but he

can’t even be seen anymore. ironic

for a man who couldn’t really see well

in the first place. we one-eye-balled

into devolution. lost track of the devil.

then daniel johnson. what i mean to say is

i agree, sir. heard word there’s a circle

where we follow back down laddered language

‘til cavemen mock our grunts and simplicity. i agree

jimi put clapton in his place, but you know townshend

won’t back down ‘til underground and why not

mention paler fingers plucking? holcomb’s banjo led

long fingers to short and all they see are

breasts and plastic surgery but

Shhhhh!

bet with eyes closed dolly could quote roscoe.

one up him, even. (dylan wouldn’t cite her, though.

hop the train to another town to tell them

you carried bound bandana on a stick

when first class was the way.

the difference doesn’t figure out

(and here’s to every song you twirled to

to make the record skip ‘n’ scratch.)

shake again like little.

two sugars,

no milk,

made irish,

but you know

then

the color

don’t change.


~ By Adah Gorton ~

Poetry: A Translucent Dream

A Translucent Dream


He read the classics, Huck Finn twice,

And took coffee black with sugar.

When I was a girl, I took sugar and cream,

And wrote poem after poem

And wrote dream after dream

Of the houses and the people in this town.



Remember when I went to your town?

You kissed good, and how I missed your sugar!

Under your sheets, we made love twice.

My skin was dark, against yours, (a fair cream)

And I showed you that poem

And dreamed the sweetest dream.



It was night and the snow fell like sugar

When we were driving into town.

You stopped for a coffee; I took mine with cream.

That winter, I read her book of poems twice,

And dreamed less real dreams

So I just drank the poems.



Remember sleeping in church, twice?

Once in the morning, and you woke from a dream.

Next at midnight– we were the only kids in town.

Looking up at the ceiling, painted cream,

I recited to you one of The Small Poems:

We sat at the table with nothing but sugar.



On your birthday, I thought the salt was sugar

So I made your cake twice,

Then bought vanilla ice cream.

Your friends came from out of town

And I found my old poem

About the wildest horses, and the wildest dreams.



After the end I wrote you a poem.

She said, a love affair merits a poem twice:

When it is stale and when it has sugar.

We met in my saddest dreams.

You were a ghost in my town,

A shimmering translucent cream.



Night sky is a poem, and the moon is cream

Dashed with sugar for stars in my town,

Twice baked, but only in that dream.

~ By Rachael Taylor ~

Poetry: Inside

Inside

inside

two voices
one is Southern
the other is mine

Southern says speak, act as if, & play
mine feels radiowaves signal across a haywire field of fucker-uppers
but instead says okay

Southern presses record
mine suggests the gray slab of building has cupped thoughts in an alley
by the Metro where the maple leaves have scattered thunder

mine shows a poem in the backpocket, directs words for Southern
my arm’s a pillow & my foot’s a saint

Southern intimates a question with pursed lips
mine deliberates that the world has blown up and asks finally
about the tape recorder
mine jumps the void, clinging to the window frame


~ By Aldrin Valdez ~

AldrinValdez

Fiction: Serenity

Serenity

Richard cried in slumber. His wife, moving closer, pressed her body into his from behind. She woke him gently and said, “Richard, let’s recite the Serenity Prayer.” She clutched his hand. Richard groaned, turning. He didn’t want to recite. He wanted to go back, fear-wrought by dreams. “What are we going to do, Sal?” he said. He couldn’t tell through the dark if she was looking at him. He wanted her to pull his head to her breasts, to stroke his hair, to say, “We’re in this together. Everything’s going to be fine. If all else fails, we can pack up our things and move the kids to Arizona. I hear it’s cheaper out there.” That is all; he thought about paying a whore to say it, nothing seedy just his cheek held to that warm skin below her neck. Instead his wife said, “Richard, let’s talk about the Eighth Step.”

~ By Adrian Shirk ~

Fiction: Routine

Routine

Every morning, the old man’s routine was the same. Alone in his maintained but careworn house, he’d be awakened by the sun spilling over his windowsill; decades ago his wife had insisted on a bedroom facing east, and since her passing, also decades ago, he hadn’t had the heart to change rooms, or even to replace the threadbare curtains she’d picked out.

He would open his eyes slowly, blinking the sleep from them and the dreams from his mind, and pull himself upright in bed; slowly he would swing his two feet onto the hardwood floor, letting them fall there like weights coming to rest on the ocean floor. Here he would pause and run his hand up through his thin hair and then down over his face, over the tired eyes, with their full murder of crow’s feet, the bony nose, the drooping lips surrounded by five days’ unshaven beard.
Outside the window would be stillness. A few birds would call to each other, not especially pretty or ugly songs, but simply the noises one would expect to hear from dull, familiar sparrows. Sometimes a sleepy car would drive past, barely bothering to announce its presence, or the muffled footsteps of some neighbor walking a dog could be heard.

Neighbors, however, were infrequent; while the road was only twenty feet from the unsteady front porch, even closer with the broken sidewalk, the area contained only a handful of other houses. In the property to the south was a family of three that kept to themselves, and the lot to the north was empty, home only to some overgrown rubble and empty cans that boys used to shoot at with slingshots. Across the street was a collage of forgotten chain link and telephone poles and a few other tired houses.
After several moments, the old man would rise from bed and walk to the bathroom, where he would use the toilet, brush his teeth, and take the few pills he kept behind the mirror, with the automated motions of someone forgotten not only by the world, but by himself. Eventually, he would find his way downstairs.

Today was no exception. After a cold breakfast of oatmeal and milk, the man pushed back his chair, stood, and put his feet into the slippers he kept at the edge of the living room. He was about to perform the most sacred rite of the morning rituals: getting the newspaper. Reading it was one of the few things that produced a spark of life in him anymore; he held few opinions on current affairs, but relished the news itself, the knowledge that the world outside his Rust Belt suburb was still continuing on. He kept up to date on a few sports teams even though he had no television and hadn’t been to a game in years, and read the comics section despite most of his old favorites having been replaced. He was especially looking forward to today’s paper, hoping the hostage crisis in a Tennessee Wal-Mart had been resolved.
He shuffled towards the door, opened it after two feeble shoves, and stepped onto the porch; a creak sounded as the door swung shut, although it could just as easily have been his old bones. Across the street several boys were sprinting, and were almost instantly out of sight around the corner. The day was sunny, but a film seemed to hang over the entire place, giving the area a graininess that contributed no warmth to the already run-down scenery.

Seven paces away from the mailbox, the old man’s world exploded with light and sound. The roar of forgotten battleships colliding in foreign seas, the hammers and anvils of childhood thunderstorms, penetrated his head and embedded themselves in the space behind his eyes, reverberating; he felt the earth slip away underneath him.
Dimly he became aware of a tickling sensation on his skin, and knew he would die: it was radiation poisoning, or nerve gas. Several seconds passed, his breathing slowed, and he gradually realized the tiny pricks were caused by grass touching his bare arms and his neck, and that he was on the ground, with his eyes shut tighter than the vaults of a fallout shelter. The pain of the noise was replaced with a lesser throb above his right eye, which he opened slowly and reached his hand to; he’d gotten a small cut when he’d fallen. Around him lay scattered black shrapnel, twisted pieces of metal no bigger than playing cards, and a thousand bits of paper.
The mailbox had been blown to pieces by the neighborhood boys’ crude bomb, undoubtedly more powerful than they had intended; the wooden post atop which the mailbox had sat now ended in splinters and a few bent nails. The old man got shakily to his feet, coughed, and started towards the house. There would be no mail today. He crossed the porch, stepped inside, and shut the door quietly behind him.

~ By Mike Cook ~
mcook6@pratt.edu

Theme Submission: Fingers

Theme #1: The Body

Fingers

Lead chopsticks open their maws
Polygraph scratch
Across naked flesh of cotton canvas
Fingertips letter pressing keyboard keys
A blur of motion, and a speed so rapid
The rapping reminiscent
To the subdued salvo of a machine gun
Wrists becoming the faucet
Rusted pipes directly pouring
The gum in my head
The bread stuffed between my ears
The meat behind my pupils
The potion in my beaker
Type
Rhyme
Type
Rhyme
My words knitting stockinet
And my fingers commit the crime

~By Rachel Vasquez~
Rubixchick.com

Inspiration: Gurney Journey

A new link has been added to the links list on the right. I'd recommend all artists take a look at his posts.

Description:"This daily weblog by James Gurney is for illustrators, comic artists, plein-air painters, sketchers, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums. Plus, for you lateral thinkers and pop-culture trekkers, a few bizarre rabbit trails."

Theme #2: Spring/Rebirth

This month's theme is Spring/Rebirth. We will be accepting submissions for the blog all month long. Remember to title the subject of your submissions specifically as "Blog Submissions" when you send us emails. This makes for easier organizing and quicker posts.

Posts on last month's theme, "The Body" will be posted soon. Stay tuned.

Open Drawing

For those interested in Open Drawing sessions on Campus, they're now being held in the engineering building, room 4D.

6-9 PM on Tues. & Wed.

1-4 PM on Saturdays

It's $3.00 with your school ID and $5.00 without.

Inspiration for the Theme (The Body)

I know some people might need a little muse to get those brain gears turning for the theme on the blog: The Body. And so, I found a website that tackled the same theme as we are now. The examples may help to inspire you. Enjoy.

Poetry examples of "The Body":

Preview: All my pinky ever hits is "Shift"
And I think it's getting tired of that
What with soreness, stiffness, and a rift
'Twixt it and the missing wedding band.

And remember, the body can be as literal or abstract as you like, and can even focus on a particular element of the body.

A link or two for our artists:

Body & Soul

Ear

Announcement: Site Fixes

I'd like to make a quick note to users that this site is now accessible for comments by everyone- meaning even if you do not have a gmail account or are a member of Blogger, you can leave comments on the posts. This is to encourage Pratt students and others to interact with each others work and leave construction criticism.

Another quick fix, posts will now be marked with labels for all your easy searching needs. :-) Here are the labels that you will find posts marked under:

Announcement
Art
Events
Fiction
Inspiration
Poetry
Theme

Announcement: Call for Submissions/Blog Theme #1

The deadline for submissions for the Ubiquitous Magazine is on February 24th. Please be sure to submit your work before that date.

From this point onward, the blog will also be accepting submissions as a separate zone from the magazine.

The blog will run its own events and submission deadlines all year round, and will be a different entity for people to interact with. The blog will start being more active by introducing Theme Writing. Occasionally, the blog will post a theme, and the goal is for artists and writers to produce work from that theme. Of course, non-theme-related submissions are just as welcome.

Here is theme #1: The Body

Relay all submissions for the blog at ubiquitous.submissions@gmail.com and specify that your entry is for the blog. The deadline for these submissions is on February 28th. Have fun and feel free to interpret the theme in any way you like.

What can you do to keep this blog active? Have any recommendations- art, poetry, literature that you've found really interesting? Know of any events that people might want to hear about? Have any submissions? Send 'em all at the Ubiquitous email!