Aug 4 2010

Alice in Tangoland

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2010 NYC Tango Festival Show. Photo: Constantine Markides

2010 NYC Tango Festival Ball. Photo: Constantine MarkidesAttend any milonga – a tango social dance – and talk to some milongueros about their dance, the Argentine tango. Chances are at least one of them, probably more, will speak of it as an addiction (“a good addiction” of course); the milonguero will also likely correct you on your blasé use of the word  ‘dance’ because tango, you see, is not so much a dance as it is a way of life. To an outsider this solemn claim to tango’s habit-forming power might seem an amusing and drama-queenish overstatement; it does, at least, until you realize one evening that you have joined the ranks of the afflicted.

2010 NYC Tango Festival. Photo: Constantine Markides2010 NYC Tango Festival Ball. Photo: Constantine MarkidesNext month, on September 4, I will give a rookie addict’s account of Argentine tango. Until then, I offer a YouTube compilation of video I shot on July 24 at the NYC Tango Festival’s closing ball (which is where I also took these four photos of Alice in Tangoland) and a line from Lewis Carroll’s song “Lobster Quadrille,” sung by the Mock Turtle as he circles in dance with the Gryphon: “Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?”

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Jul 4 2010

A Walden Resolution

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Thoreau Walden PondIt’s a well established truth among successful quitters that the first thing you should do once you’ve decided to quit smoking/drinking/what-have-you is declare your decision to everyone you know. Better yet, tell everyone that failing would be naked proof of your lack of conviction (avoid the term ‘weak-willed’ since the adjective lends to romanticized epicurean excuse-making as in “I only succumb to temptation because I experience in my vices such exquisite heights of pleasure, i.e. because I feel”). In doing this you recruit your ego and its motivational speaker, Pride, to assist you from straying off the straight and harrowing path.

It’s been exactly one year to date since the launch of Fourth Fiction, the blog-based reality show I hosted on my website. Ever since FF ended in December, I’ve been contemplating the next Fourth Night project, which will be more journalistic in nature. Yesterday, while swimming across Walden Pond with some friends, one of them, Sancho, asked me when this next undertaking would begin. It was the most essential question after “what is it?” and yet I had no ready answer. I originally intended to start this summer, then pushed it back to fall, then to winter, and so on; Fourth Fiction-related work was spilling over longer than I expected (still spilling) and the project required a minimum of funds that I didn’t have. But legitimate reasons aside, I realized that if I didn’t nail down a launch date I’d become like the smoker who’s been claiming for years that he’ll quit “soon.”

You don’t have to frequent this website to figure out that the fourth of each month is a big day for me. And of the twelve, July 4 is the biggest. So I decided right then, in the middle of Walden pond (which apparently 150 years on remains a fine place for introspection and resolve) that the project would begin next July 4. It may be a year away, but time has a tendency of getting away from me; even with this window, I have no doubt that by next summer I’ll be balls-to-the-wall, cursing the Way Too Soon launch date, just like I was doing last summer.

I shared my decision with Sancho (who only sighed and wrily pointed out that I’ve straightjacketed my life into a self-created horoscope). And, taking cue from my first paragraph, I am now announcing it to all of you. I hereby pledge that [title TBA] will launch on July 4, 2011. If I fail, I lack conviction. But I’m confident my ego & pride will stand me in good stead. They haven’t failed me yet.

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Feb 4 2010

Sea, Snow & State Troopers

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**I’m currently working on rendering Fourth Fiction in manuscript form. It’s more of a task than anticipated so I’m postponing all Fourth Night posts until I finish it.**

*NOTE: I’m returning to my pre-May 2009 schedule of posting monthly every 4th (this means no more 14th or 24th posts).

The following footage was filmed over New Year’s in coastal Maine, primarily Monhegan Island, but also Port Clyde and Thomaston (the filming there coming on the tail end of a night at Billy’s Tavern, which explains any slurring in the second to last video clip). The video mostly consists of seas, snowfall, granite, evergreens, lobsterboats and (+/- plow) trucks, the aggregate of which comprises something essential about Maine that demographics and other state statistics fail to account for, something that anyone who’s formerly lived in Maine always misses. It’s why even the most jaded ex-residents of Maine, except perhaps for the nouveau riche variety who’ve embraced parochial urbanism, upon crossing New Hampshire’s Memorial Bridge and reading the words ‘The Way Life Should Be’ on the big blue Welcome to Maine sign, will nod in agreement rather than glance shotgun and snigger.

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Jan 24 2010

Fourth Fiction Bloopers & Outtakes

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The Fourth Fiction bloopers and outtakes videos (scroll down to see Part II):

PART I

PART II

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Jan 13 2010

From Mind Games to Tiger Woods

by Constantine Markides
posted in Fourth Fiction
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A few days ago, the unsleeping lodestar of the publishing universe, Debbie Stier, sent me a link to a recent podcast of This American Life called “Mind Games” She sent it to me with Fourth Fiction in mind.

I thought I’d do the same and share the link. After all the recent Decade-in-Reviews and reflections on the so-called aughts or naughts or naughties or naughty aughties or, to use the most inspired contender for the title, the ohs, consider it as an oblique retrospective on Fourth Fiction, which also closed with the decade (coincidentally, “Mind Games” first aired on December 4th). You can listen to the episode HERE. It’s worth the hour.

For a political and less sympathetic take on the same subject, read the December 19th New York Times OpEd by Frank Rich, Tiger Woods: Person of the Year.

Upon going through my Fourth Fiction video footage over the last half year, I concluded it’s hopeless separating the Extras from the Bloopers so a combined “Bloopers and Outtakes” Video is coming on January 24th.

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Jan 5 2010

The Twelve Cryptograms of Christmas

by Constantine Markides
posted in Fourth Fiction
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“Another experimental form in which [Joyce’s] literary urge took … consisted in the noting of what he called ‘epiphanies’; – manifestations or revelations.  Jim always had a contempt for secrecy, and these notes were in the beginning ironical observations of slips, and little errors and gestures – mere straws in the wind – by which people betrayed the very things they were most careful to conceal.”
-Stanislaus Joyce writing about his brother James. Continue reading

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Dec 24 2009

Fourth Fiction: The Complete Season

by Constantine Markides
posted in Fourth Fiction
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Fourth Fiction was a blog-based literary reality show in which 12 contestants, writing pseudonymously, each began a novella. Readers eliminated them, one by one, along the way, until one winner completed his or her novella. I (Host) delivered a literary challenge and announced the eliminated contestant in a YouTube video at the beginning of each round. Watch the introductory video for an overview. For more details, see the About page.

What follows is Fourth Fiction in its entirety* from Round 1 to Round 12, which features the winning post. (To read the contestants’ writings from the pre-competition month on Twitter, scroll to the bottom of this page. Links to the polls are also listed at the end.) Continue reading

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Dec 13 2009

Radio Interview about Fourth Fiction

by Constantine Markides
posted in Fourth Fiction
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Cyrus Webb of Conversations LIVE! Radio interviewed me about Fourth Fiction on Monday, Dec. 14th. You can listen to the full one-hour interview HERE. (Don’t ask what I was getting at in my first response…) Continue reading

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Dec 8 2009

Protected: COCO 12 (Part II)

by Coco
posted in Coco, Round 12
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*This post is password protected. To get the password, read COCO 12 (Part I)

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Dec 8 2009

COCO 12 (Part I)

by Constantine Markides
posted in Coco, Round 12
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Round 12 Challenge: [for reader to discover in the text]

Grand mother always told me to look into my heart for answers when too much confusion come. She also told me man who give you his heart too quickly is either too stupid or too clever. Either way trouble for you. She was wise woman babushka.

While I look at memory key I notice businessman near by is staring over his newspaper. I push pieces of heart back together and put inside my blousa but he keep glancing over. I say to myself Don’t be crazy. Man is looking because its what man do. They look at woman.

I say this to myself but I begin to have paranoia because he keep looking down where necklace is. I think Don’t be stupid Ivana. Man is looking at your breast not heart. Its nothing new to you this. Continue reading

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