I don’t think Dadaist Thursday is a thing, but I wish that it was.

Yesterday, I was talking to friend-of-the-Quarterly Paul Worley about an upcoming poetry prize offered by the NDQ (you heard it here first) and various other anti-capitalist and anti-modern kind of things, and he brought up that the Dadaist journal The Blind Man was republished last year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its initial publication. You can read the the first and only two issues here.

Why does Paul know this (other than being a generally well-read kind of guy)? Well, he happened to write a review of the re-publication for the Asymptote blog.

The Blind Man was edited by Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, and Henri-Pierre Roché and published in April and May of 1917. It seems weird to celebrate its 100th anniversary, however. The tidy compartmentalizing of time into years, decades, and centuries is among the greatest concession to modernity. We insist on parsing time into scientifically rational spans that speak ostensibly to the rhythms of nature, but also clearly fail to align with our experiences of the seasons, night and day, and the important markers of our human existence. In fact, it makes more sense to celebrate the 101st anniversary of the publication of The Blind Man, which I suggest that we do by reflecting on the absurdity of the world around us today.

And do note, that this absurdity can be kept private or shared and North Dakota Quarterly will be back to help with the latter very, very soon.

Yes, that’s hint. Submissions will reopen soon.