Month / November 2006

by Edward Champion

Roundup (2 of 2)

  • Pitchfork talks with Tom Waits. (via Anecdotal Evidence)
  • I wonder what the ACLU will have to say about Jesse Jackson’s politically correct fascism. Guess we’ll have to remove Faulkner & Co. from the libraries. Has it ever occurred to Jackson that racial slurs might be used against racism?
  • Margaret Atwood, cartoonist. (via Bill Peschel)
  • The Whitbread shortlists have been announced. (And dammit, I’m calling it Whitbread. I can’t bring myself to associate a literary award that reminds me of a certain smug NBC commentator from the 1980s.)
  • Matthew Tiffany reveals what he read in 2006. I’m going to attempt a similar list at year’s end, if I can.
  • Congratulations!
  • The 7 Worst Fonts (via Books, Words & Writing)
  • John Freeman reveals The Page 99 Rule. It involves something like this: If a book looks interesting, flip to Page 99. If Page 99 doesn’t grab you, go to Page 33. If Page 33 doesn’t grab you, read Page 66 upside down with a stopwatch. If you are not compelled to turn the book right-side within 30 seconds, then the book is not worth your time. Sell it to a used bookstore. Failing that, toss it in the fireplace. Failing that, consider the paper as an exotic garnish to go with your beans and rice dinner. (This latter element of the rule assumes that you cannot afford so much as parsley and is ill-advised for those who maintain strict diets, either by choice, allergens, or financial necessity.)
  • Robin Quivers has declared Seinfeld racist and The Corsair raises an eyebrow.
  • Finally, and this has nothing to do with literature, the endless onslaught of Xmas music at nearly every public location has me contemplating heading for the hills and settling in a shack with an arsenal of canned food and shotguns. And it isn’t even December yet. Is it too much to ask the shops, restaurants, and other assorted places to turn off this damn racket? Who, pray tell, are the people who groove to this cheery nonsense? Particularly as it is portrayed by the likes of Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow and Madonna. I have tried my best to inure myself to it, but I am likely to become a Scrooge sooner than required. Might some kind soul with loads of spare time offer a comprehensive list of places one can settle where Xmas music doesn’t pollute the auditory meatii? Surely, I cannot be alone.
by Edward Champion

Roundup (1 of 2)

  • How did I not know about the Body Heat: Deluxe Edition DVD? This great Lawrence Kasdan film pretty much galvanized noir into cinematic action over the past twenty-five years, paving the way for Blade Runner, John Dahl’s fantastic pre-Unforgettable films and Curtis Hanson’s understated offerings (of which I would include The Bedroom Window, which manages to work despite the dreaded Steve Guttenberg presence). I’m not sure, however, if so-called “neo-noir” is really all it’s cracked up to be, particularly when you consider this dubious list. Good noir has a hard edge, rooted in an existential dilemma with the clock ticking. This quality is particularly absent in such pedestrian films as Training Day, Road to Perdition, and Reindeer Games. Kasdan reminded us noir’s dynamo with Body Heat, but it’s too bad many of his followers have been more interested in the lowest common denominator than entertainments which emphasized the human condition. (And as a side note, after seeing Babel last week, maybe I’m alone on this, but I think Alejandro González Iñárritu could direct a great noir if he wanted to. His films have both the darkness, the acting, and the structural heft that good noir often requires.)
  • Note to news outlets: the OJ story is dead dead dead. Please stop reporting on this for the benefit of the humanities.
  • Kakuro: sudoku for smarter people? (via Word Munger)
  • RU Sirius asks various people if America has reached a fascist state yet.
  • A response to Michael Bérubé’s What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts.
  • Tayari collects a roundup of Bebe Moore Campbell obits.
  • Rachel Cooke: always the source of a raised eyebrow.
  • Scott McKenzie reveals the hard truth about online fleshpots.
  • Henry Kisor has some interesting words on L’Affaire Gasparini.
  • Eat me, Tim Toulmin. Do you really want to turn blogs into lifeless husks? Blogging shakes people up in ways that are currently prohibitive to newspapers. What you call inaccurate, I call satire. And I trust readers to separate what are clear satirical fabrications from genuine news. Because I respect their intelligence. Prohibiting persistent pursuit? It is often the inexorable quest for a story that has a journalist, print or online, unearthing the truth. I don’t entirely disagree with Toulmin’s principles (particularly in relation to children and victims of sexual assault), but I have a fundamental problem with Toulmin’s assumption that blogging is newspaper journalism. Sometimes, it is. Sometimes, it isn’t. But I cannot subscribe to any uniform code that severely misunderstands the blogging medium.