Salon: “Ever since OutKast came out of Atlanta 12 years ago, hip-hop’s beloved duo has been riding one long wave of critical adulation and popular acclaim, each album outselling the last, each album taking a legitimate artistic step forward, and each album confounding expectations. But now, with the tepid and unadventurous ‘Idlewild,’ Antwan ‘Big Boi’ Patton and Andre 3000 (né Benjamin) have done the last thing anyone expected: delivered their first dud.”
Say it ain’t so!
Author: A.M. Homes
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Trying to remember last night’s conquest, relying upon Jorge’s import/export skills.
Subjects Discussed: Taking on the “male menopause novel,” idioms appropriated by corporations, Kurt Vonnegut, vernacular, throwing the reader off guard, the dropping of letters, character names, donuts vs. bagels, burgers, on being provocative, novelists as ethicists, maintaining an “apocalyptic yet uplifting” tone, Katrina, Michiko Kakutani’s review, Stephen King’s plaudits and the mixed reviews, writing vulnerable male heroes, sensationalistic material, muted realism and decorum, research in Los Angeles, the ass as the great gender equalizer, charlatans and quacks, explaining life within novels, cliches, interconnectedness, Crash, Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust, money, and the relative nature of class within fiction.
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Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Dismissive of Michael Martone.
Subjects Discussed: San Francisco vs. New York, time-shifting as style, invention as experimentalism, the importance of critics (James Wood, B.R. Myers, Sven Birkets), responding to John Updike’s review, visual elements, designing Extremely Loud in Word, the use of conceptual red ink, the post-9/11 novel, United 93, making the 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers, public perception, Foer’s side of the Deborah Solomon article, interviews, the real-life inspiration for Mr. Black, Burgess’s Earthly Powers, Bertolucci’s 1900, the influence of photographs upon the text, Joseph Cornell, numbers, -ologists, “…until that day…,” Stephen Hawking, Billy Joel, laughing in the face of tragedy, the “purity” of children, and creative acts.
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