- Amy Finnerty: “Martin Amis excels at descriptions of creepy men–sweaty misogynists, soused lowlifes, and thugs.” Ms. Finnerty says this like it’s a bad thing!
- A reminder: fireworks on Sunday, if you’re in Los Angeles.
- Colleen illustrates the history of the science fiction label, as kick-started by this Jason Silverman piece.
- William Gibson on Borges (Thanks, Keith!)
- Churches are now slamming the doors on sex offenders. (via The Other)
- Over at the LBC, I’ve put up a guide to cultural references in Sacco & Vanzetti Are Dead. A podcast with Mr. Binelli, in which the Mr. Binelli and I talked as the sun set behind the edifice of the Phoenix Hotel, will follow tomorrow. Somehow, while we were talking about knife-throwing and films, the 1986 Anthony Michael Hall film Out of Bounds even came up in our conversation. But do sift around the LBC site and you’ll find a lot more.
- At the Huffington Post, Art Winslow sums up various newspaper closings. Norman Spinrad even shows up in the comments. (via Book/daddy)
Month / April 2007
Savage Reviewing
Scott Esposito, who before moving to Mexico was once referred to in certain quarters as the Sexiest Man in Oakland and who remains, at least according to certain reports, a polite decliner of French kisses, has made his debut in the Philly Inquirer. He reviews Robert Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives.
Roundup (Tape Delayed Blogging)
- It looks like the Mystery Writers of America share the SFWA’s troubling inability to understand that we’re now in the 21st century. Sarah has distressing news about the Edgars. The MWA, perhaps jittery because of Stephen King’s appearance, has pronounced that “cell phones, cameras and all other electronic devices” must be turned off in order to prevent certain attendees from live blogging the proceedings. I’ve never heard of such a preposterous embargo, which runs counter to the spirit of celebrating mystery writers, who I’m sure must be miffed to here that hubristic forces wish to enable their achievements to be disseminated across the Internet in real time. I’d suggest to all Edgar attendees to live blog anyway and let the spirit of samizdat reign under tablecloths.
- And speaking of hubris against online expression, Michael Dirda has just equated litblogging to “shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting, all too often by kids hoping to be noticed for their sass and vulgarity.” And that’s not all. “Playgrounds, as we all remember, are ruled by bullies, loud-mouths and prima-donnas.” Well, so long as you’re using ad hominem instead of specific examples, Mr. Dirda, I think you’ve proven that vulgarity is actually more your forte. After all, “literary and artsy gossip is always welcome” and Leo Lerman’s journals are “full of delicious anecdotes about shallow, venal, power-mad, sex-crazed and often unlikable people” (compare Dirda’s review with this decidedly less gossipy coverage from Liesl Schillinger). Yup. That’s really the stuff that makes thoughtful book review sections. Fortunately, aside from Dirda’s Wieseltieresque preening, Washington Post Book World remains a first-class publication well worth your time and certainly worth saving.
- I can absolutely assure readers that A.M. Homes is funny. Callie has more.
- Dan Wickett interviews Andrea Portes.
- Mark Binelli is now blogging at the Litblog Co-Op.
- The Complete Review has a fantastic roundup of PEN World Voices coverage.
- C. Max Magee has thoughts on how to fix broken book sections.
“No Buzz Marketing”
John Freeman on blogs: “It’s one thing to accept advertising money: that’s what has kept papers afloat for years. It’s quite another to make a commission off the very object you are purporting to criticize.” (Emphasis in original)
John Freeman while criticizing newspapers: “#4) Join the NBCC. If you’re a working critic and have published three reviews (online or in print) over the past five years, join us — the more voices we have behind us, the greater our chances will be at preserving the cultural dialogue in this country.”
And here’s more nonsense from Freeman: “But in the struggle for bragging rights something gets lost: the awareness that for every lit-blogger who has been serving up opinions daily since 1998, there are five books editors who were around when Toni Morrison’s first book landed on their desk in 1970, and are no longer.”
Who’s the one really boasting here? I certainly harbor no illusion that I was the first person writing about books. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, there were critics reviewing books decades before the NBCC. What should matter here is where the media environment is right now and what all of us can do to maintain and preserve book coverage. As I suggested on Monday, it’s “a united front, whereby literary and “sub-literary” enthusiasts of all stripes, print and online, litblogger and journalist, campaign on behalf of literary coverage in as many conduits as possible.” It seems to me that Freeman doesn’t seem to be aware of how similar his posturing is to online hubris.
UPDATE: In his latest column, the always dependable Scott McLemee addresses the book reviewing problem on many fronts, pointing out persuasively why online media, academic librarians and university-press folks should support book review sections and sign the petition, while also revealing Freeman insisting that Critical Mass is the “blog of record” for literary and publishing news.
Audio Illusions
Musicians and podcasters might find these links of interest (and I certainly plan to employ some of these tricks, now that I’ve discovered some open source toys):
- Three audio paradoxes: Shepard’s ascending tones, falling bells, and a “quickening” beat.
- Shepard’s pitch circularity in detail. (It’s worth noting that you can hear Shepard’s illusion at the beginning of Queen’s A Day at the Races album.)
- More audio illusions.
- The tritone paradox.
- The tritone paradox’s effect on linguistics.
- A list of demonstration CDs.