Blogger review USA

The US blogostemic blogiferator has turned its eyes to the Book, and Sepia Mutiny (yes) has given us a lovely review. Good to see that the book is actually on some shelves over here in the US, too. Check it out here.

Also, we doff our hats, spats, and polyunsaturated fats to Language Hat, who also gave us a splurb, referring to the above blog. Click here.

And here.

In other news, a few more reviews should be appearing in the near future... And, as the doctor said to the botfly-infested patient, I'll let you know when they emerge.

Winnipeg Wunnerful Wumplings

Ahh, Winnipeg in the spring! Last March, I visited the University of Winnipeg as an Overt Agent of Indian Nonsense. Through the kindness of the English department, and the Center for Research in Young People's Texts and Culture, meaning the munificent Mavis Reimer and cartesian Kevin Shortsleeve, I was able to lecture on Indian nonsense to the general community and visit Professor Shortsleeve's class devoted to nonsense. He beat me to the all-nonsense class, alas! Thanks to everyone involved--A foll-jolly time was had by all, and Indian nonsense continues to spread across the globe in a pandimensional pandemic of pandemonium.


Brief info on the lecture...

The USA Launch and more reviews

The USA launch of The Tenth Rasa achieved dizzying heights of Hogsbreathean Hopulence , with a crowd that included not only a few nonsense newbies but also some of the Boston area Indians. I was hoping Sarita Padki might make it, but I never heard back from the Padki camp. Hope all is well! During the proceedings, "The Bathing Hymn" intoned itself once again across the reverberating chambers of the Harvard COOP, and all was as it should be! Thanks to the Friends of Nonsense in attendance (established and incorporated unwittingly, on This Day, February Thirteenth, Two Thousand Eight, of all in attendance and even some in anelevendance).




Other news on the Indian nonsense front: two more reviews are due out soon. One from the Children's Literature Association Quarterly, and one from the International Research Society for Children's Literature. Stay tuned...

The Official Official Launch in the USA:13 February, 2008, Harvard COOP

And from the Aristophalian Ashes, nonsense shall rise again! REPENT! THE USA LAUNCH is NIGH!

Like the phoenix from the ashes, like the peanuts from Natchez; like paneer from the curd, like Subir the Goatherd (whose fear of paneer is absurd), The Tenth Rasa rises again! The official (really, official, this time) launch of The Tenth Rasa in the USA will take place in the new year!

Wednesday, 13 February, 2008
7:00pm
The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense, edited by Michael Heyman, with Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar (Penguin Global, 2008)
The Harvard COOP
1400 Massachusetts Ave at Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA

Click HERE for the link to the Harvard Coop schedule.

Rantings, ravings, chantings, shavings, signings, pinings, and tea.

Nonsense rumblings from blogosphere

I wanted to point you to some recent Indian nonsense rumblings and discussions on the blogosaxoscoposphere. The link takes you to the beginning of a discussion... be sure to click on the further links from there for the different contributions.

Click here to be transported...

Here's another, from Nandan Newlander:Click Here

The Tenth Rasa--Coming to a country near you!

Hello, dear Nonsensophites! This is just a note to note that The Tenth Rasa has been picked up by Penguin Global. While I have little conception of the machinations within the giant machine that is Penguin, and while nobody has bothered to let me know what, exactly, this shift means, I still am certain that Penguin Global means a much larger distribution around the world. Unfortunately, the book will not be available (outside of India and the Indian distributors) until early January 2008--but then The Tenth Rasa will begin its assured domination of the world! Mmuah ha haa! Stay tuned, pre-order if you dare, and dig the scene. Promotion shall follow...

The Tenth Rasa Takes Over the World! --Seeking help and submissions

Though it may be hamboneheaded and bongusbrained, the next nonsense project that I am working on, with a colleague, and in conjunction with the Society for the Prevention of Sense (SFPS), is the World Anthology of Nonsense. Yes, indeed, and I would like YOUR help. As you might imagine, India is fairly well-covered (I hope, at least!), but we are looking for nonsense texts from other non-Western countries for possible inclusion in the world anthology. See the Nonsense Call into the Wild, below for details... and please do write if you can provide any help, translations, leads, or tips.

The World Anthology of Nonsense

We seek submissions, skillful translations, suggestions and any clues that will aid us in our search for nonsense literature from cultures outside the Anglo-American tradition, to be compiled in a large single volume anthology. We seek both folk nonsense of the "High Diddle Diddle" type and literary nonsense of the "Walrus and the Carpenter" type. We seek both verse and prose.

What Nonsense Is Not:

Nonsense is not riddles
Nonsense is not jokes
Nonsense is not light verse
Nonsense is not fantasy
Nonsense is not puns
Not all nursery rhymes are nonsense
Not all limericks are nonsense
A text that contains all of these could still be nonsense, butdespite them rather than because of them...

What Nonsense Is:

Nonsense texts usually exist somewhere between perfect sense, on one hand, and absolute gibberish on the other. They achieve this by maintaining a balance between elements that seem to make sense and elements that do not. Nonsense texts often revel in topsy-turvyness and inversions of natural laws or hierarchical laws of order and place. They are chimerical constructions typified by excessive randomness, often celebrating the impossible and playing with temporal and spatial confusion. Nonsense can be poetry or prose, and it can appear in the guise of any genre or form, including but not limited to short story, novel, travel writing, ballad, sonnet, limerick, song, folk rhymes and tales, lullaby, recipe, and alphabet.

~ How To Spot Nonsense from a Long Way Away ~

The following examples from English tradition point to the styles and genres for which we are looking. We seek similarly styled poems and prose nonsense from continental Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Oceania and Central and South America.

Examples...

Folk Nonsense

Certain nursery rhymes like "Hey Diddle Diddle" or "Sing a Song of Six Pence", which paint inconsequential, unlikely and seemingly meaningless scenarios.

Examples from children's oral folklore like "One Bright Day in the Middle of the Night", which posits a list of impossible juxtapositions.

Examples from prose folklore like The Brother's Grimm "Clever Elsie", in which Elsie cannot remember whether she is she, or whether someone else is she.

Passages from mummers' plays and other carnivalesque traditions in which the world is turned upside down and absurdity reigns supreme.

Literary Nonsense

Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" or "Hunting of the Snark," Edward Lear's "Owl and the Pussycat" or "The Dong With the Luminous Nose,", Edward Gorey's, "The Iron Tonic" or 'The Epiplectic Bicycle," John Ciardi's "Sylvester," Laura Richards' "Eletelephony", Shel Silverstein's "If the World Was Crazy."

Some Authors We Are Considering:

(Germany) Christian Morganstern, "The Picket Fence"
(India) Sukumar Ray, "Glibberish-Gibberish"
(South Africa) Philip de Vos, The Cinderella of Worcester and other Lusty Limericks
(Portugal) Fernando Pessoa, "Poema Pial"
(Poland) Jerzy Harasymowicz, "A Green Lowland of Pianos"
(France) Guillaume Apollinaire, "Hat-tomb"

The Editors are Michael Heyman (Berklee College of Music, and of course the head editor of The Tenth Rasa) and Kevin Shortsleeve (University of Winnipeg)

If you can help us in any way, by providing a text or a tip, please write to me! All help will be fully acknowledged in the book. Many thanks!