Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

Dem Darkies Not Be Photogarfin, Why Can't Y'All Undahstand?

Arizona Daily Star: "President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney. The Star refused to provide the information."

Great way to unify the votnig blocs, George! Now pass us all some of dem white trash sweetmeats!

From Whitewater to Whitewash

In response to a request from Edith Wharton to produce a poem for her 1916 anthology, The Book of the Homeless, WB Yeats took the opportunity to issue a general put down to poets who get involved in politics. In On Being Asked For a War Poem, he advocates a policy of conscientious inaction, suggesting that "a poet's mouth [should] be silent", and claiming, rather bombastically, that "We have no gift to set a statesman right". While there is scope for a charge of hypocrisy - a performance of Yeats's nationalist play Cathleen ni Houlihan at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin was later credited with sparking the Easter Rising - Yeats's message is clear: politics and poetry don't mix.

John Kerry, apparently, does not agree. The presidential hopeful who yesterday gave his address to the Democratic national convention has adopted Let America Be America Again, the title of a 1938 poem by American poet Langston Hughes, as his official campaign trail slogan. What's more, in case anyone missed the point, he has gone on to quote extensively from the poem in his campaign speeches. When announcing his choice of John Edwards as running mate at a rally in Pittsburgh, for example, he chose to round off his speech by proclaiming the association between his position and aims and those of the poet. To resounding cheers, he said:

"Langston Hughes was a poet, a black man and a poor man. And he wrote in the 1930s powerful words that apply to all of us today. He said 'Let America be America again. Let it be the dream that it used to be for those whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, for those whose hand at the foundry - something Pittsburgh knows about - for those whose plough in the rain must bring back our mighty dream again.' "

The Guardian on John Kerry & campaign trail poetry. Elsewhere, Slate's Timothy Noah is less than pleased with this adoption, saying that Kerry--in his preface to a newly published book featuring the poem--is willfully misreading and performing "a whitewash" (pun intended, you betcha) on the Stalinist vision Hughes was espousing. Here's Kerry:

It was in that climate that Langston Hughes, Black America's unofficial poet laureate, wrote his powerful poetic lament, "Let America Be America Again." While it is the litany of the great promise of opportunity that has drawn so many of the world's disaffected to our shores, the poem is also a call to make that promise real for all Americans—especially for the descendants of slaves.

Not unmindful of the duality of meanings, I was drawn to incorporate the words of the poem in my 2004 presidential campaign, because it reminds us that America is a nation always in the process of becoming, always striving to build "a more perfect union." We must not forget that African Americans and women were written out of the Constitution before they were written in.

Now Noah:

Chatterbox applauds Kerry's political message, but as lit crit, this is a whitewash. What "duality of meanings" is Kerry talking about? The poem has only one meaning: America's golden promise is hooey. It's hooey for blacks, it's hooey for the farmer, it's hooey for the Native Americans. It's hooey for the entire proletariat. Time to seize the means of production!

Jeez, Noah. Trying switching to decaf or maybe looser underwear. You want to go back to the dark days of Reagan's Born in the U.S.A.? Well?

A Supposedly Fun Lobster I'll Never Eat Again

The Rake has the scoop on the DFW essay in this month's Gourmet. Apprently, it deals substantially with animal rights. And Rake says it kicketh ass.

[UPDATE: We somehow managed to pick it up while running from one meeting to another. We read it last night at some ungodly hour, shortly after watching a grainy feed of John Kerry's speech (feels like 1956 again!), and laughed ourselves silly over Mr. Wallace's solid thinking on the animal rights question (in part, because we too have avoided eating lobsters for the same reason -- that and because of a real hellish childhood experience which we won't go into). In short, we concur with the Rake. The essay is among one of DFW's best and, as Carrie rightly suggests, it may represent a new direction in DFW's writing. We also picked up the latest issue of The Believer, which we hope to respond to in depth under a new feature called BELIEVER WATCH, an effort to come to terms with our strange prejudice w/r/t the Eggers/Vida/Julavits question (though clearly not as bad as Clifton's). Our immediate impression is that we approve of the ancillary details included with the book reviews. But we'll weigh in probably several weeks from now with a more informed and thorough take. Perhaps too, because of the recent DFW read, we're also taken with long update paragraphs in lieu of actual posts. Of course, there is only so much time. Q.E.D. We apologize for engaging in this pretentious and flagrant stylistic aside, but we're damn giddy because things are coming together in the most amazing way, which strikes us as a fantastic final week with which to exit our twenties.]

[ALSO: Mark is a sexy MF. Please remind him of this posthaste.]

Eggers Remixed

So Uncle Tony's seen that pipsqueak's latest column. Tony figures he can cut the column in half. So here's the column without the bullshit:

Life. Shit happens. Something we've known for a while. Been meaning to write about Big Country. Today is Thursday.

Caught the band back in the '80s, don't know when. Loved the clip of 'em chasing chicks in Scotland. So I got me their first album. Distinctive sound. Guitars as bagpipes. Serious shit.

The lead singer Stuart Adamson wrote about Old Scotland, paying attention to old values. All the songs were panoramic, even the love song "1000 Stars."

The inner sleeve kicked ass. Black and white. Cool compass. What was this? Songs about the land. I felt transported. Even the videos submerged you in another place. Big Country had balls. They were unapologetically corny, unlike U2.

Big Country came when synths put guitar gods on the dole. Spaceship rock. Corny music. Of course! Neat, polished, spoonfed, little, yellow, Nuprin. Order. Easy listening. Like fasces. But we like.

Fortunately, Big Country. Difference. Good times. The Epic Album. The Crossing. Nough said.

Became a fan. Black man with Scottish accent. Goofy! Forget the music. Consider their plaid-shirt image.

So I wore flannel, bitch. Was I Scottish? Years later, was I black?

Live shows good. "I just want to say..." over and over. Then music. Cute.

No more U.S. hits. Change of fashion. And nobody remembers Big Country, despite Adamson's suicide. Former manager blew me off.

No moral here. Join us. And if you don't, you'll commit suicide like Adamson because you disagree with me.

Birnbaum Watch

Good stuff with Zoe Heller.

A Fury of Accord?

Since Fahrenheit 9/11 came out—and even before—critics and fans alike have wondered whether it’s simply preaching to the converted. But it isn’t just the left who are packing the pews to hear their thoughts echoed back from the pulpit. As self-described Republican Party reptile P.J. O’Rourke asks in the latest Atlantic Monthly, when was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?

Good Thing The Democrats Didn't Demand a Monorail

NPR reports that Boston business is sagging because of the DNC. Revenue has dipped dramatically. Even The International, a restaurant in the financial district, hung a sign reading, "Closed due to lack of business because of the DNC."

Last night I went to bed with John P. Marquand and boy, were some of his sentences stiff

CAAF darting through, in her orange muumuu and some superhero underoos. Lately I’ve been reading and relishing The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand. It seems appropriate to post that here as I picked up the book after reading Ed’s (and Terry’s) many effusions on the topic of all things Marquand.

In a short but interesting May 2004 Atlantic Monthly appreciation, Martha Spaulding reports that Upton Sinclair (Jungle Love) received the proofs for Apley in 1936. (It went on to win the Pulitzer in 1938.) Sinclair wrote the publisher:

I started to read it and it appeared to me to be an exact and very detailed picture of a Boston aristocrat, and as I am not especially interested in this type, I began to wonder why you had sent it to me. But finally I began to catch what I thought was a twinkle in the author's eye ... One can never be sure about Boston, and I hope I am not mistaken in my idea that the author is kidding the Boston idea. It is very subtle and clever, and I am not sure that Boston will get it.

Here’s our handsome host’s, Mr. Champion’s, take on Marquand, pulled from a recent email:

Likewise, there's the sullied status of John P. Marquand, whom I discovered completely by accident (spurned on by Yardley a few years ago). The man made the covers of both Time and Newsweek and was, to my knowledge, one of the most astute observers of manners between the two wars. Also (and this is the part that floors me), he was able to convey his satire in a way that attracted readers -- not an easy thing to do in a nation ripe with great satirists often misunderstood by a highly literal public. Now the man's getting something of a modest revival (much as John O'Hara did a few years ago). I'd recommend starting with The Late George Apley, which was just recently reissued by Back Bay Books. Also in print are H.M. Pulham, Esq., Wickford Point and Point of No Return. But my favorite Marquands would have to be Apley, Sincerely Willis Wayde and So Little Time. I managed to obtain every Marquand novel printed by making a run of every used book store in San Francisco and Berkeley (converting a few helpful bookstore clerks along the way), and supplementing these efforts with the easy and decidedly non-Arthurian search through Alibris. (Yes, I'm pathological that way.)

AudBlog #18 -- Come On, DNC Bloggers!

audio post powered by audblog

Wait Until You Hear What Romantic Poetry Will Do

From the abstract of the article "Oscillations of heart rate and respiration synchronize during poetry recitation" in American Journal of Physiology—Heart and Circulatory Physiology:

The objective of this study was to investigate the synchronization between low-frequency breathing patterns and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) of heart rate during guided recitation of poetry, i.e., recitation of hexameter verse from ancient Greek literature performed in a therapeutic setting. Twenty healthy volunteers performed three different types of exercises with respect to a cross-sectional comparison: 1) recitation of hexameter verse, 2) controlled breathing, and 3) spontaneous breathing.... In conclusion, recitation of hexameter verse exerts a strong influence on RSA by a prominent low-frequency component in the breathing pattern, generating a strong cardiorespiratory synchronization.

Is it safe to assume the Pfizer is attempting to patent all of Homer?

+ ABCnews article about the study

stop, you're scaring me

Abebooks.com has released the results of a Student Survey of 2,000 students aged 16 to 30 in which females said they'd be more likely to buy books recommended by John Kerry, while their male counterparts said they'd go for Bush's recommendations. (Does that mean the guys just don't want to read or they only want to read about baseball?)

Among the other illuminating (read: terrifying, perplexing, obvious) findings:

- 60% of students surveyed believe their life would make a better novel
than reality TV show;

- When asked what they would most like to have tomorrow, 11% of
students chose new shoes while a whopping 50% chose a "new lease on
life";

This is all troubling on so many levels. The trucking in cliches, the possible future explosion of the "better-than-a-reality-show" novel. I want to know if both sexes really chose the same roomies, as it seems unlikely. (The Frodo joke is too easy.) And newsflash: kids with more money get laid more because they can afford more drinks!

I've got a reality show for you: Virginia Woolf and Bridget Jones share a room in the literary afterlife. Where apparently writers and characters would be equally real. Sucks for the writers.

Okay, going to watch Amish teens go bad now. Not proud.

Editor reads first draft of Penn-penned novel, tells author to put a sock in it

In choosing to tell a police procedural from an attitudinal sock monkey's POV, Penn Jillette makes novel's promise disappear:

On some level, the story has potential. Sock isn't a standard police procedural, because the Little Fool isn't a cop; he's an obsessive, unhealthy outsider, redefining his relationship with a dead woman in order to give his life meaning, and in the process, reconstructing his perspective on the world in potentially revelatory ways. But the sock-monkey-protagonist gimmick twists his perspective from intriguingly off-kilter to disturbingly off-kilter, and throws almost as much obfuscation into the mix as the punchy writing style and the song lyrics and movie quotes that pop up in nearly every paragraph. Rather than giving Sock a place in the pop-culture lexicon, the nonstop referents and endless rabbit trails feel like meaningless noise, a magician's distraction from the real sleight-of-hand going on under the table.

Rake sez: Still easily the best sock-monkey-protagonist novel of the last few years...except for this one.

But Is the Third Novel Done?

Frank Bascombe is back.

"Britney Spears was NEVER a Lolita!"*

Japanese novelist Novala Takemoto writes "Lolita" novels. Lolita in Japan -- like Lolita here -- has taken on a different meaning than the traditional Nabokovian one. As this Asahi Shimbun story explains, in Japan, Takemoto is worshipped by the Lolita crowd, "girls and women who favor lace and bonnets and ribbons and frills."

The piece goes on and on about his outlandish apartment and person, but finally talks about his work. (It's not unlike pieces about horror writers are usually set up, only the focus here is on how outrageous he is, not how normal.)

Dressed in a mixed Vivian Westwood, Comme des Garcons outfit, he serves iced tea in Alice in Wonderland glasses, setting the beverages on strawberry-patterned coasters.

"Lolita is a form of aestheticism. I think Lolita is a condition in which two conflicting elements co-exist without contradiction, for example, something grotesque as well as cute,'' he says. "A Lolita loves Alice in Wonderland because the chaotic situation in Wonderland is very Lolitalike.''

I do like the idea that boys can be Lolitas, too. It only seems fair.

*Thanks, Richard!

Challenge of the Guest Bloggers

Howard Dean Points Proudly to Parallel Universe at DNC

Johnny Knoxville

Hey kids!

It's your pal the Rake here to disrupt this delightful huggermugger with yet another Cormac McCarthy-themed post. (Thank me later.) In my experience, your college profs and blogger types seem to favor McCarthy's Blood Meridian, but down-home Southern writers go for Suttree or Child of God. Here's an article about the relationship between Mr. McCarthy and East Tennessee (Knoxville in particular):

The trick shop is gone now, its charlatan's props and trinkets and frivolous parlor games long removed, half-witted relics given over to vulgar oblivion. So too are the pool halls, their beer-varnished countertops and oaken floors and rag-topped pool tables absent, replaced now by a prosaic sprawl of yellow weeds and crab-grass at the corner of Church Avenue and Gay Street. The yellow-green sprinkling of slight foliage, withered, huddles noontime in the muscular shadow of the decidedly modern Centre Square building and its bronze frontispiece, the statue of a lone oarsmen laboring desperately to right his scuttled craft.

There's a rumor, unconfirmed, that the boatpilot is meant to be Cornelius Suttree, the disinherited blue-blood roustabout who is the hero of the forenamed book.

And gone is the man who would be Gene Harrogate—John Sheddan, scholar, schemer, hustler, melon paramour. He died in recent years, at age 62, purchased by the ravages of his own excess. Gone are the Roxy Theatre and the Gold Sun Cafe and the motley vendors who every weekend peopled Market Square, ghosts of mid-century Knoxville held forever in the attitudes of the living in the pages of Cormac McCarthy's Suttree.

See also Searching for Suttree.

like an old hippie's bumper sticker

You're not paranoid, they really are coming to get you. Well, not really, they're more out to usurp all political and financial power and rule the world. They don't care so much about you.

So says Joel Achenbach in a meditation in the Washington Post on just what shit screenwriters have to come up with these days to sell paranoia and America's paranoid past. (It'll be interesting to see whether The Manchurian Candidate remake is more than a blip on the screen. Especially, as the piece says, when Fahrenheit 9/11 is already dominating the game this summer.)

The new paranoia ignores ideology; it's enough to call the whole shebang a hoax and maybe it is, right?

The knowledge that there's an enemy, that there are bad guys out there, is the anchor in our lives. To be an American today is to live in the middle of a mind control experiment. If you hear a candidate say, "I'd like to plant a thought in your mind," you'd better run for your life.

You could build a bunker, man, but who do you think controls the construction materials?

Love In The Time of Metallica

The documentary was Some Kind of Monster and the audience reaction was alternations between nonplussed silence and nervous titters of disbelief.

There were two truly "angry" bands of my teen years that I clucked with. Two that carried me through thick and thin in the thick of it: Nirvana and Metallica. While Nirvana was more angst than anger, it was arguably the freshest sound of rebellion to come out of the factory of echoes that is American entertainment in quite some time. Unique even. Timeless? Dunno, but in the here and now we have at least Courtney Love as a constant nagging reminder of what once was.

Sometimes on the weekends, I listened to Minor Threat and Enya. If you tell anyone I listened to Enya, I'll flatly deny it and then kick your ass after school, you tank-top wearing tribal tattooed poser.

Where Nirvana and specifically the frontman Kurt Cobain were openly vulnerable and always on the defensive, Metallica and frontman James Hetfield were a ball of rage, a wall of sound and seemingly always on the offensive. Oft dubbed "Alcoholica", for their love of the sauce, Metallica flaunted, encouraged and openly abused one of the oldest of excesses. In the public eye, Kurt Cobain displayed his substance use and abuse with little or no bravado. The years caught up with both the bands. For one, it just caught up faster and harder than any music they ever played. For Metallica, the trick has been to survive the playing catch-up.

In Some Kind of Monster, we follow James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich as they embark into what will become the "St. Anger" album, in the wake of Jason "Newkid" Newsted's departure from the band. We witness forcively eccentric recording sessions in a Presidio military bunker devolve into arguments over symantics. We hear from Jason Newsted and the project that is Echobrain (Newsted has since departed from the band). Newsted eerily looks like his new band members' dad, or possibly a visiting "hip" uncle or something. It gets downright surreal when Metallica hires a "band therapist". More likely, their management company has assigned this group therapist to the stars.

Reluctantly at first, the band begins to fall into a workable mode with the therapist and begin to confront issues. Fuckin' A Metallica style!!! No... no, not really. Again, interaction devolves into debates over who's what and "what do you mean when you say that" kinds of banter. Just as it starts getting tedious, James Hetfield up and disappears. Roughly a year and a handful of phone calls later, James Hetfield emerges from rehab as a spectacled and seemingly more emotionally sensitive individual. While he was away, the therapy continued. At one point, we're treated to an awkward encounter, with the therapist mediating, with Lars Ulrich and former guitarist and Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine. Let the healing begin. A teary Lars listens on as a disdainful Mustaine lays out the pain that has been the last couple decades; how he felt hated by metalheads for no longer being in Metallica and how Megadeth felt like a Number 2 position.

At one point, an audibly raw Dave Mustaine refers to Lars as his "Danish little buddy". Something like that.

The game of emotional Twister(TM) continues overly long. Right before the St. Anger tour footage kicks in in the hindquarters of the film, dialogue becomes an outright orgy of feeling as a recently let loose Hetfield lays down his new vibe of interpersonal connection and need for clearly defined boundaries. He sees his own shame matrix for what it is and asks the others to kindly not enable a negative reservoir of letdown to build up.

He goes on a while about how no one should do anything after he's left the studio for the day. In a seemingly unrelated scene, Lars' personal assistant is visibly pleased when the drummer puts up some of his personal artwork for auction - Lars makes several million, which he promptly donates all of to a trust fund for himself.

There's little else to be said. I could never be happy by Cobain or anyone else killing themselves, but Nirvana's talent will forever be set within the framework of their three major albums. Metallica has gone on through phases, genres and stages of life. And unlike Madonna's audience, Metallica's is intolerant of any change from that youthfully angry and openly alpha male Metallica of the Cold War. The one that loudly demanded we ride the lightning, the one that couldn't believe the price we pay, the one that told us that it is indeed for us that the bell does toll. And yes, even that the shortest straw has been pulled for us. The one that... well, you get the idea. That Metallica has been transformed into a "positively aggressive" juggernaut of good feeling. Look forward to crowd surfing at Metallica concerts being referred to as "hardcore trust falls".

The days of creeping death are gone and if "Some Kind of Monster" is any indication, for good. But then, what did you expect? Metallica may be self-styled shambling elder metal gods of The Unnamed Feeling, but they aren't above entropy. Things and people get older, breaks down, wear down, and have even been known to die. It's how things are.

But not everything dies. Some things are reborn. Some things grow. Sometimes for the better, but not in ways we'll ever see. Many fans may not be able to appreciate the musical outcome of this strangely mesmerizing personal process of healing within Metallica, but on a human level, I understand the need to at least try to fix those busted up parts of one's own existence. At what cost? Some things have no price value. Even the public eye is fleeting. I would argue that the impact that any one of these musicians has in their respective families' lives bears more on their legacy and value as a human being than in the lives of any number of their fans.

Hemon's Dope

Hey, Hemon, you think you're hot shit, sweetheart? First off, there's one thing you should know about Tony Clifton. Dale Peck kisses my ring. Not only does he kiss it, but he polishes it with his tongue. And that's AFTER he's said a few catechisms. So if you think you're doing the world a special favor by tearing some Swiss snowboarder a new one, if you think you're being...ORIGINAL or something, then you got another thing coming.

Hemon, you're nothing. You're pond scum. You're the kind of guy who slams a shot at a dive and then hides as the bourbon stings. You ain't got streetcred, sweetcheeks. You're a tired rag doll I'd pick up for some blow in the skids.

If you had moxie, you'd tell Daniel Wagner what orifice of his you were most interested in. Or you'd go after the big boys. The bloated novelists who had it coming. Uncle Tony ain't impressed, kiddo. See this copy of NOWHERE MAN? I'm using that for something after I download some porn.

Ed's Not Dead

I've just returned, without reluctance, from a funeral in Atlanta, to find an email from Ed asking if I would mind posting a thing or two on his site.

Would I?

Ed's site has been a favorite of mine for months now. I think I found it while doing a google search for jejune and I've been coming back daily. It was a proud day when Syntax of Things was added to the RotR blogroll, topped only by the granting of the password and username in that email this afternoon. (Don't worry, Ed, I won't put it up on ebay.)

I can't promise the most exciting or elucidating content, but I will keep all posts about farting and my hatred of Madonna where they belong.

First, I need some sleep.

is this thing on?

Show yourselves, guest compadres!

Here at Casa BondGirl we are under attack from little brown birds (small but there a lot of them, see) with striped white wings. They have some sort of vendetta against our elderly golden retriever George Rowe the Dog, Poster Boy for American Values, My Attorney. Throwing rocks at the branches under where the beaked menaces wait to perform their swooping does not seem to sway their hateful mission at all.

Especially when you're reenacting The Birds, it's never a bad idea to come into someone else's house bearing Eduardo Galeano. From his Book of Embraces.

THE FUNCTION OF ART/2

"But it scratches where there isn't any itch."

I'll try not to scratch where there isn't any itch.

UPDATE: Since George Rowe the Dog, Poster Boy for American Values, My Attorney, has been accused of trying to pass as a golden retriever, I feel the need to settle this matter. Yes, in the photo above, George has his short hair cut for summer and looks kind of like a lab. But this is what George looks like on a normal day. Except these days he's usually running from brownish mockingbirds.

The Doctor is a Chickenhead

That's right, muthaz! Now that Mabuse is gone, the real fucking party can begin. I want to coat babies in barbeque sauce and throw them into volcanoes! I want to kick a few grannies in the shins and call it spontaneous therapy! That Mabuse guy was too nice. And this place was getting too fucking comfortable. Let it be known that Tony "I will use your skull to open my brew" Clifton is in the house.

How could an asshole like me get on here? Well, let's just say that I have some photographs. So I made Mabuse my bitch cause I could. Plus, I beat that lazy bastard at arm wrestling. How you like me now? But don't get your panties caught in Dick Cheney's crack, sweetheart. I'll wax literary in a bit.

Status

The deal is this: Nearly all of our time is accounted for; thus, updates will be scanter than a pair of transparent panties. If anyone would like to step in and pick up the slack, drop us a line.

[UPDATE: We now have some surprise guest stars lined up for the next week or two, whose capable and mischevious hands should make this place very interesting. Thanks go out to these kindred souls.]

Mad Props

Sarah's unleashed a new edition of Plots With Guns. Among some of the highlights: an excerpt from Ian Rankin's next Rebus novel, Sarah's interview with John Williams, and several stories. Joe Bob says check it out.

The Blind Robber: Implied Subtext?

Lately, I've been reading Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride -- as usual, a gloriously devious book. This column suggests that Zenia is a grotesque version of Canadian journalist Barbara Amiel, who went to the University of Toronto with Atwood. Amiel, of course, was fired by the Telegraph this year after she was implicated in a lawsuit against her husband (the lawsuit having been launched by Hollinger International, which owns the telegraph). Before that, Amiel built a career writing free market tirades.

Of course, Atwood's novel (published in 1993) came long before the Telegraph scandal, but since Atwood's novel is content to play with the reader's head (leading the reader to become just as curious about Zenia's salacious details as the three protagonists), does anybody have any dirt on anything that might have gone down between the two? If Zenia is indeed based off of Amiel and there was a contretemps, then this could lend credence to the theory that vengeance promotes lively writing (much as Get Shorty's Martin Weir was based on Elmore Leonard's scuffles with Dustin Hoffman).

The Thick-Ass Books List

Okay, folks, since these book lists are a lot of fun, here's a new list I actually have a chance on. (My score here is 21.) Books that fit this criteria are long, cerebral, or epic in nature. Downright voluminous. (And to be fair, I've included a few "easy" long reads among the bunch, along with some speculative fiction.) For a book to count, you should have read the whole thing. And if I had to predict scores, my suspicion here is that Brian, who actually read A Suitable Boy, will score a 24.

1. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
2. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
3. The Royal Family by William T. Vollman
4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
5. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
6. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
7. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
8. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
9. Ulysses by James Joyce
10. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
11. The Tunnel by William Gass
12. The Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller
13. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber
14. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
15. The Diary of Anais Nin
16. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
17. The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny
18. The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
19. The Stand by Stephen King (extended version)
20. A Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
21. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
22. Rememberance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
23. Noble House by James Clavell
24. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Doestoevsky
25. Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
26. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

[UPDATE: Gwenda quite rightly points out that I failed to include a more proportional number of books by women. To remedy this, I've added The Golden Notebook, which I haven't read, to the list. I'll happily pad out the list to 30 if you folks have more choices.]

Cloud9Atlas

The Rake points to an excerpt of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.

Memo to world: Buy this book immediately. You won't be sorry. It's intricate, emotional, cerebral, funny, satirical, worldly, and will have you sifting through your reference books with glee.

To Do List of Desirable Online Tasks (Though Some of Them Are Unlikely to Happen Anytime Soon)

• What the loss of Jerry Goldsmith means (in depth)
• The State of Books & the NYTBR, Part 2
• Continued updates on pertinent backlogged posts for 2004 (I was doing it long before Kottke, thank you)
• A public response to what lit blogs are all about (corralling and finally addressing a number of points I was exchanging with Mark months ago), what they have done so far, and where we can go from here.
• A redesign of this place.
• Launch of the Wrestling an Alligator enhanced site.
• A photographic explanation of who or what Dr. Mabuse is (incriminating evidence to accompany)
• Possible reinstatement of 1999-2003 online material (more likely, greatest hits)

The Pile-Up

• I've started reading Kevin Starr's Coast of Dreams (due for publication in September 2004 by Knopf), the latest volume in Starr's underrated California Dream series. While I remain a fan of Kevin Starr, the big surprise here is not the volume's 700 page length, but the less scholarly tone than its predecessors. The chapters are surprisingly short and snappy, without the ambition or all-encompassing portraits we've come to expect. This time around, Starr's opted for a more anecdotal flavor. This isn't as disappointing as it sounds. But given Starr's ebullience and lifelong devotion to his material, my feeling so far is that the tome could have been more substantial. Perhaps, as Starr suggests himself in the preface, a book chronicling 1990-2003 is a bit premature. Or perhaps Starr's histories (or any history for that matter) work more effectively when they are removed from present events. I have a few more ideas why, but they will have to wait for my forthcoming review in a few months.
• Stephen Policoff has weighed in at Mark's and he has some horror stories about his first novel, Beautiful Somewhere Else.
• The California Supreme Court has ruled that a teenager's poem about a shooting at another school was not a crime. The Academy of Arts might want to pay attention to these little things called precedents.
• The latest literary property to be at risk? John Buchanan's.
• Michael Cunningham has gone Hollywood. Not only did he write the film adaptation for A Home at the End of the World, but he's dyed his hair blond. At 51.
• It's subscription-only, but Variety is reporting that Neil Gaiman is in negotiations to make his directorial debut with an adaptation of Death: The High Cost of Living. Gaiman writes, "Well, things are getting closer, and there may well be something that we can announce at San Diego. Or not. (Blinks innocently.)"
• Turning 30 No Cakewalk for Many Women. It ain't exactly easy for us dudes either, but we've passed the stage of acceptance and we're well on the way to putting our twenties behind us in a week and a half, thank you very much. Dave Chappelle probably has the most compelling reasons why.
• And new to the blogroll, Chekhov's Mistress.

Time Was, George Will's Syndicated Content for the Midwest Fostered Folksy Generalizations 'Bout Ol' Readin' News

George Will: "Time was, books were the primary means of knowing things. Now most people learn most things visually, from the graphic presentation of immediately, effortlessly accessible pictures."

GEORGE WILL: "Sheet, boss, you see dat ALA survey? Not nobody be reading no more."

GEORGE WILL'S EDITOR: "Yeehaw! You're darn tootin'. Who need dem books? Hey, Georgie, why not write a piece wi' some of dem rash generalizations. You're due a column, aintcher?"

GEORGE WILL: "Well, boss, you and I'ze know dats true. And I been lax o' late. And I'm shures youze understand. I reckon I never learned no nothing from dem books."

GEORGE WILL'S EDITOR: "Footnotes, sources, dem stuff's worthless, right? Ain't nobody pay no attention to scholarship."

GEORGE WILL: "I reckon. No real mind anyhows."

GEORGE WILL'S EDITOR: "All visual, like dat issue of Archie where Jughead's laughing his teenage butt off after Archie falls on his butt."

GEORGE WILL: "Oh, dat shure was funny."

GEORGE WILL'S EDITOR: "Reckon you got 750 words dere."

GEORGE WILL: "On Archie?"

GEORGE WILL'S EDITOR: "No, dang it, boy! Readin'! Easy. Say sumpin' bout Dickens. You might wanta ask Ol' Jack Bedford up the hill. He know lotsa stuff. He read. He give you sumpin' if you give him a dollah."

GEORGE WILL: "A dollah? Really? Darn tootin!"

GEORGE WILL'S EDITOR: "Maybe sumpin' bout Roosevelt or World War II."

GEORGE WILL: "Youza sharp one, boss! The piece will write itself!"

50 Essential Reads & My Illiterate Ass

More fun from Kevin, based on the recent Orange Prize essential list. Your mission: Bold the titles you've read. My count is 22, or less than half of the 50.

1. A Hundred Years of Solitude -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. A Prayer for Owen Meany -- John Irving
3. A Suitable Boy -- Vikram Seth
4. American Pastoral Philip Roth
5. Atonement -- Ian McEwan
6. Being Dead -- Jim Crace
7. Birdsong -- Sebastian Faulks
8. Captain Corelli's Mandolin -- Louis de Bernieres
9. Cloudstreet -- Tim Winton
10. Disgrace -- JM Coetzee
11. Enduring Love -- Ian McEwan
12. Faith Singer Rosie Scott
13. Fingersmith Sarah Waters
14. Fred and Edie Jill Dawson
15. Fugitive Pieces Anne Michaels
16. Girl with a Pearl Earring -- Tracy Chevalier
17. Grace Notes -- Bernard MacLaverty
18. High Fidelity -- Nick Hornby
19. His Dark Materials Trilogy -- Philip Pullman
20. Hotel World -- Ali Smith
21. Middlesex -- Jeffrey Eugenides
22. Midnight's Children -- Salman Rushdie
23. Misery -- Stephen King
24. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow -- Peter Hoeg
25. Money -- Martin Amis
26. Music and Silence -- Rose Tremain
27. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit -- Jeanette Winterson
28. Riders -- Jilly Cooper
29. Slaughterhouse-Five -- Kurt Vonnegut
30. The Blind Assassin -- Margaret Atwood
31. The Corrections -- Jonathan Franzen
32. The Golden Notebook -- Doris Lessing
33. The Handmaid's Tale -- Margaret Atwood
34. The House of Spirits -- Isabelle Allende
35. The Name of the Rose -- Umberto Eco
36. The Passion -- Jeanette Winterson
37. The Poisonwood Bible -- Barbara Kingsolver
38. The Rabbit Books -- John Updike
39. The Regeneration Trilogy -- Pat Barker
40. The Secret History -- Donna Tartt
41. The Shipping News -- E Annie Proulx
42. The Tin Drum -- Gunter Grass
43. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle -- Haruki Murakami
44. The Women's Room -- Marilyn French
45. Tracey Beaker -- Jacqueline Wilson
46. Trainspotting -- Irvine Welsh
47. Unless -- Carol Shields
48. What a Carve-Up -- Jonathan Coe
49. What I Loved -- Siri Hustvedt
50. White Teeth -- Zadie Smith

Jerry Goldsmith Dead

One of the greatest living movie composers, Jerry Goldsmith, has passed on. He was 75. Goldsmith composed over three hundred scores (more than Ennio Morricone) and nearly every one of them was a barn-buster. I'll have more to say on this later. Needless to say, Goldsmith's death is a loss to cinema beyond compare.

Glengarry Powell Ross

Powell's is hosting an essay contest celebrating ten years of bidness. Put that credit card down! That credit card is for buyers! You think I'm fucking with you? I am not fucking with you. The good news is you're fired. The bad news is, you've got, all you've got just one week to write an essay for Powell's starting with today's contest. Oh, have I got your attention now? Good. Cause we're adding a little something to the Powell's shopping experience. First prize is $1,000 in books. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is $100 in books. Third prize is you're fired. Fuck you! That's my name. You know why mister? Cause you purchased a cheapass Penguin paperback before getting here tonight. I purchased a rare limited hardcover edition with a misprint on the dust jacket. The books are weak, the books are weak. You're weak. If you can't write an essay with these books, hit the bricks pal and beat it! Cause you are going out! (via Chicha)

Kerry Unveils Surprise Arm Implant to Increase Daily Handshake Quota

Color Us Momentarily Incapacitated

We're on the mend at a particularly bad time. We'll get through it. We always do. But this means scant updates (if any at all) for the rest of the week. (And did we mention we have the bestest girlfriend in the world?)

Woof Woof: Who Let the Grads Out?

One is struck by the ponderous and patently silly nature of Mr. Munson's deconstruction. Hey, Sam, I've got your deliberately informal tone right here. It's called letting your hair down.

[UPDATE: Mark's opened up a can of whipass.]

[FURTHER UPDATE: It looks like the devil will cite scripture to serve his purpose. Because it's now clear that the assclowns at the New Partisan have too much time on their hands, and because they feel the need to frame ad hominen attacks within faux MLA essays (that's editing?), I have delinked their post. I'm all for a democratic discussion about what literary blogs are. I'm even willing to be called every name in the book (and have). But when the purpose of these posts serve as pale Dale Peck imitations (e.g., "as word-drunk and pointless as a Foucault-worshipper’s dissertation" used shortly before bemoaning name calling -- a hypocritical framing in the extreme), without a single reasonable argument or example, and are used as efforts to get attention, then I will ignore them. Memo to New Partisan: If you want to go after the heavy-hitters in an intellectual way, go check out Dan Green's the Reading Experience, where Green regularly cites from books and articles to back up his points. Now excuse me while I try and recover.]

It's Time to Bury the Corpse

I don't watch a lot of television. In fact, just about the only time I turn the teevee on is to watch Six Feet Under, which in its previous seasons somehow transcended its overwrought situations with musings on life, interrelationships and death. Now that I've caught up (thanks to insomnia) with this season, I've lost just about all hope for Six Feet Under. It can't be an accident that the last episode was called "That's My Dog." The show not only does not respect the integrity and intelligence of its characters (what happened to Keith's rage or the intricate relationship with his family?), but is content to rip off its plots from subpar movies like Training Day, though without even that film's nuances. I speak of the recent hitchhiking subplot, whereby David had several opportunities to run away or roar off with the van, but didn't. I speak of Michael C. Hall, a talented actor of understatements, reduced to cardboard histrionics. I speak of a situation in which characters are now spread across a wide expanse as opposed to being united in the funeral home, whereby the horrible plot device of coincidence will no doubt bring these people together. (Is this why Olivier is back? To keep Brenda's mom in the picture?) I speak of the stunt plot devices (seen with the shit packages, perhaps a clue from the writers that they're burned out?) and the cartoonish characterizations (the death of the religious lady seeing the balloon, the ogling security guards, and even Brenda's new boyfriend, Joe, a one-dimensional nice guy played by tin Theroux, an actor hindered by slipshod writing and thus not allowed to showcase his quirks). Even the opening deaths, with the "unexpected" person of the two dying, are as transparent as gauze.

We're now five episodes (i.e., five hours) and not only are the story arcs barely moving (slower than the recent HBO adaptation of Angels in America!), but they lack any of the vitality and meaning seen particularly in the show's first two seasons. If the current season continues in this vein, then I hope HBO will be kind enough to bury the corpse. Six Feet Under has become no different and no less dumber than network television. And it's a goddam shame.

Oh, and memo to Alan Ball: Beyond actually keeping your goddam characters consistent, if you're going to have crackheads and crack dealers, how about a little verisimilitude, you out-of-touch motherfucker? Crackheads are dingy, unwashed, unattractive, hopelessly addicted, and sad. They are not picked, as you presented them, clean with slightly used threads and about two days' stubble from the adjacent set of some failed MTV effort at streetcred.

Man, I knew I should have kept my boob tube off.

Don't the Ego Look Lonesome

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Return of the Reluctant has obtained an advance copy of Stanley Crouch's memoir, entitled I'll Slap 'Em If They Smoke My Shit, to be published by Knopf in October 2004. Curiously, the memoir has been written in the third person, with a similar style to his previous work.]

When Stanley went to Tartine with Stanley's ego to meet his nemesis, there were a lot of brief stares. Stanley thought of a horse, which spurred him to remember, as he now preferred to remember, because he could remember, that he was so masculine looking. His skin was shaven as a piece of paper, his torso just short of superman but muscular, his eyes the perfect tint to match the black marble in his floor and bathroom, and also the hotel room he stayed in last week, and also a few shades he saw at Tina Brown's party, but he was very angry and mad, and he knew that all the women would want to fuck him because of his manliness and his eyes and the hotel room that he could check into with one of the six credit cards in his wallet, his eyes greedy and nearly decadant in their dramatis personae.

This contrast, whcih they used to joke about while smoking seven cigarettes a piece in a place that had a roomful of smoke, fury, and masculinity, meant too much and mayhaps too little right now. It was Peck that put a gash, a scar, a bullet hole, a razor burn, an affront to his masculinity in his maculine spirit. He, they, and we were superior or not, but it troubled him because there was someone in the room, maybe the owner of Tartine or the busboy who ran away because he was intimidated by him, disrupted by Stanley's smooth, goddam smooth, smoother than his third cousin's (second removed) infant bottom. The two had never talked, but there had been a review, a goddam review, a pretty ragged and pretty nasty and not so pretty review of Stanley's book. Stanley's genius stood next to Peck's table, five times the genius of Peck, five times the man, five times the fighter (like Tyson back in the day), five times in his mind slapping Peck and watching him squirm five times the way that boy at the Voice did.

It had gotten a little hard to follow in Stanley's mind. His grammar had deteriorated because Stanley had played the race card. Now he would play another one, just to see who Peck was. Five times. Tina Brown would be happy.

(Hat tip: Ron)

Kerry Conceals Left Hand to Maintain Symmetry for Photo Op

Human Decency at a Premium

When I first heard the news about soldiers anally raping children in Abu Ghraib last night (Seymour Hersh says that the Pentagon is sitting on the tapes), I hoped to hell that it was a rumor. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of disgust that something this barbaric was allowed to go down. But I was left speechless. Fortunately, Stavros has weighed in on the matter. We'll see how the White House and the Pentagon respond to this one (if they respond at all) and what, if anything, Hersh manages to ferret out of his military contacts.

But He Would Have Liked It Better If It Came from Steely Dan

Holy frijole! Looks like Elvis Costello's first orchestral work, Il Sogno, has the endorsement of Terry Teachout.

I Am a Fugitive White-Suited Writer from a Typewriting Gang

New York Post: "The full manuscript of 'Charlotte Simmons' has not been turned in, sources say, but The Post obtained about 100 unedited manuscript pages. The pages indicate that the novel will be more straightforward and concerned with a smaller world than either 'Bonfire' or 'A Man in Full,' but typically Wolfian in its keen, if disturbing, observations." (via Gawker)

[UPDATE: Rolling Stone has an excerpt, which is....well, just plain goofy. "A gale was blowing in his head?"]

Review Update

My review of Chang-rae Lee's Aloft is now up at January. Reviews of The Coma and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas are forthcoming at various places.

Those Vituperative Librarians Leave Bad Childhood Memories, Don't They?

WNBC: "A 36-year-old man led police on a short car chase, driving against traffic on a busy boulevard so he wouldn't get caught with a stolen library book.... The chase lasted about 10 minutes, with about a dozen police cruisers involved. During the chase, officers saw the suspect toss a backpack out the car window, Connellan said. When they recovered it, they found the stolen book, Connellan said."

The Bohemian Grove: Continuing the Long Legacy of Racist Elitism

San Francisco Chronicle: "One year, San Francisco novelist Herb Gold said he was offered an associate membership if he would help write the Grove play. Gold took fellow writer Earnest Gaines ('A Lesson Before Dying'), an African American, to a Wednesday night entertainment at the six-story downtown club. Five members, he said, were in blackface. One member clapped Gaines on the back. 'Looks like you've played a little football,' Gold heard him say. Shortly thereafter, the writers took their leave. 'I guess I'm not clubbable,' Gold said wryly."

I'll See Your Worst Writer of His Generation and Raise You a Bumptious Heehaw

John Leonard: "Think of it: with a whole world of worthy targets -- Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, Donald Trump, Conrad Black, Eli Manning, Shell Oil, Clear Channel, Conde Nast -- he mugs a man who has spent the last quarter of a century staying poor by reviewing other people's books, who has read more widely, warmly and deeply than the vampire bat fastened to his carotid, who should be commended rather than ridiculed for a willingness to take on a review of a new translation of Mandelstam's journals, and who, even though he wrote a regrettably mixed review of a book of mine in these pages, deserves far better from the community of letters, if there is one, than Peck's bumptious heehaw: ''With friends like this, literature needs an enema.''"

The Ultimate Compromise

After hearing early notice that the film version of I, Robot was nothing less than a crapfest (hardly the stuff of Asimov; the new version had killer robots, no less), and being plagued by lack of time, I avoided the sucker, despite Alex Proyas' involvement. NPR has gone to the trouble of tracking down the players behind Harlan Ellison's original script, interviewing Ellison, director Irvin Kershner (who was at one point slated to direct the Ellison version), as well as Proyas. The Jeff Vintar script that I, Robot was based on was originally another script, but later fused with the Asimov label once the I, Robot rights became available. (Amazingly, Vintar is also adapting Asimov's Foundation trilogy.)

Among some of the more interesting revelations:

• Ellison used the Citizen Kane template to frame four of Asimov's stories into a script.
• Kershner claims that, despite its strengths, Ellison's script was too expensive and too driven by ideas.
• The executive behind the production hadn't read Ellison's script and Ellison claims (in addition to learning judo from Bruce Lee) that he forcefully grabbed the executive and let loose a farrago of expletives. He was, predictably enough, ejected from the production. Strangely, Ellison boasts about his violence in the NPR interview, as if physically gripping a dumb studio executive were some grand act of bravado.
• Proyas read Ellison's script, but states that it wasn't the movie he wanted to make. This is an interesting revelation, given how much he was attracted to Dark City, arguably just as intricate as Ellison's script.

In addition, NPR also has two online audio exclusives: one of Ellison reading portions of the screenplay and another, with Ellison relating more of his perspective in a seven minute segment. Whatever the merits of Ellison's script (or his Sticking It to The Man argument), one is struck by Ellison's hubris. ("The script was very long and very good.") He boldly states that he will "write you a screenplay that will win you awards." There is also a good amount of inexplicable justification in the online interview. (At one point, Ellison states that Asimov had his blessing. But stating this isn't enough. He also notes that he has "letters to prove it.")

Was Ellison's script a hodgepodge of ideas too intricate to be digested for mass consumption? Could the project have been set back on track if Ellison had simply dismissed the ignorant executive and talked with the right people? I remain a fan of Ellison's stories, but I find it sad that a seventy year old man, who had no problem compromising with AOL, would look back upon a unilateral act of physical violence with such feverish gusto. The tragic possibility is that, in a single moment, Ellison may have derailed one of the greatest science fiction films never made.

Visit the Elegant Man Behind the Variation

Mark's recovering from "unpleasant matters." In lieu of nothing here, please visit the man and check out his back entries. Despite all this, Mark's been maintaining a fantastic literary blog. We'll be back here on Monday.

James Wood is the Worst Generalizer of His Generation

We're operating on about one thruster right now to get us to O'Hare, so it's possible we've taken leave of our senses. But this Laura Miller essay comparing Dale Peck and James Wood offers, to our muddled fume-impaired vision, some very compelling cases that they're cut from the same cloth. As much as we appreciate his wares, Wood's comment that a novel that "engages with the culture" could never be any good is about as pretentious and myopic about the novel's future as Dale Peck's infamous first line. We can only reply, skating dangerously close to the Julavits line: What's wrong with ambition?

(UPDATE: Aw, fuggit. We have no brain. Stephany pretty much nails it.)

Toodle-oo until Monday.

Crouch Announces "I Am King of the World" to Bemused New Yorkers

Gawker: "[Crouch] He was overheard talking about his recent physical assault on critic Dale Peck (2nd item), saying that he 'had the distinct feeling that if I hit him a few more times, he'd say thank you and call me his daddy.'" (via Maud)

Sometimes You Eat the Bar, Sometimes...Well, Sometimes the Bar Eats You

It may seem a cop-out, but real life (namely, this weekend's auditions) has us really busy. Expect little today and probably nothing much here until Monday.

Bush Reveals Secret Plot to Overturn Twenty-Second Amendment

Nineteen Suns Before Earth Hands Him to 30

-- You are not doing enough.
-- Nonsense, mofo.
-- No, you are feeling the appropriate sensations.
-- Of age?
-- More than that, padre, but that's part of the package.
-- Yes, the twenties are a waning sun soon to depart into the ocean.
-- It gets better. And so do your metaphors.
-- Easier?
-- No, but better. You're going to be laughing your ass off pretty soon over this internal monologue. A few years from now. Just as your friends have been saying. Your petty musings on owning property or having a better day job. Who the hell do you think you are? You're doing a damn good job, kiddo. You know yourself now better than most your age.
-- I got carded for beer the other night.
-- Only because you shaved.
-- Yeah, good point.
-- Now if you can just get through the next few weeks, it will be as if nothing happened.
-- Just another day?
-- Yeah. And what they don't tell you is that because you make decisions on a daily basis to get to the exact place you want to be, you're one sexy motherfucker. Robert Mitchum badass, sexy.
-- These are good things.
-- Yes, I've been trying to tell you. But you keep moping on about thumbing a lift to Minneapolis in the middle of the workweek or doing something rash. I'm not suggesting you settle down, but if you keep it up, kid, it will work out.
-- But thirty? I should be someplace better.
-- Listen, you ambitious sod, the economy sucks, but you're setting things up anyway. Just deal with it.
-- Okay. But can we chat when something else comes up?
-- Here he goes again. Okay, but no more after the day of transmutation.
-- Deal.

Will It Keep Him Quiet or Make Him Write a Longass Aggro Essay?

Buy Hitch a Drink. Not since Sinclair Lewis has a writer been so actively encouraged to stay drunk. (via LNR Books Diary)

A Happy Year

About Last Night is one year old. We'd have more to say, but then we'd have to unveil the latest draft of the Teachout roast we've been working on for six months, which only Sarah's had the good fortune to read. (Rest assured the roast, which has only recently been cut down to eight hours, isn't ready anyway. It goes far beyond Terry's well-publicized endowment and includes a gripping narrative of OGIC's early days in Lisbon as a flamenco dancer, much of which has yet to be confirmed by our well-paid fact-checking department.) But a happy year nonetheless to Terry and OGIC, hopefully with more to come.

The Book Review & Reading Climate

Sara looks at book reviews from an auctorial perspective. She writes, "The reviews can be limp with distaste or bristling with sarcasm or even positive -- but one thing is pretty constant: I almost always have the really strong sense that the reviewer didn't really read the book beyond a casual skimming. Here's the thing: reviews -- even mean spirited ones, even nasty ones -- would be easier to take if the process were less opaque." A good point, but an unfair generalization, I think. To look at the issue from the reviewer's perspective, the real question is whether "casual skimming" means shifting gears to a level that involves dwelling upon almost every planted nicety that an author has included in her novel. Another suggestion is that the book reviewing climate has been influenced in part by the film review climate (of which more anon). Even if the review climate is willing to give the reviewer the time and compensation for extended contemplation, I'm curious about what constitutes an appropriate in-depth level or whether, indeed, such a level's actually compatible with the short-and-snappy demands of an editor.

In an ideal review climate, I think we'd see reviewers all propounding passions and theories, discernible to literary folk and laymen alike, with the reviewer trying to compound her copious notes (assuming she takes notes!) into a 1,200 word piece. But I would argue that the reviewing climate has become so lazy and unrewarding that not only are reviewers loath to do the proper work, but the space they receive in current newspapers is equally undervalued. Where a movie is two hours, often with nary a nugget of complexity or a double entendre, and thus very compatible with, say, a formulaic 500 word essay, a book involves more of an abstract experience that runs several hours longer and involves considerably more research. The film critic may watch an auteur's back catalog (all in the time it takes to read a book!), but is less likely to look up a reference, investigate a phrasing, or otherwise engage in the more invested experience that the book reviewer would, under the right circumstances, need to include.

I suggest that this tonal transformation has much to do with the categorization by necessity of books as "entertainment, not art." Another factor is the continuing stigma that prevents a popular (and skillful) 1940s author like John P. Marquand from being recognized in the same breath as Theodore Dreiser (depending upon whether Dreiser himself is in favor this year or not). At the present time, we see a situation in which books are either "art" or "entertainment," but almost rarely joined at the twain. (And when they are to some extent, we see stigmas, such as those levied against Jonathan Franzen, Charles Frazier and Tom Wolfe.) By contrast, movies, by way of being prohibitively expensive and therefore a greater gamble, are by their very necessity a compromise within that dichotomy. There are film snobs, to be sure; but thanks to the mass proliferation of indie and art house films on DVD (through such successful mail order companies as Netflix), the art house film experience doesn't possess nearly the prominent dichotomy that one sees at almost any literary function (not unlike the opera or they symphony). Indeed, on the film front, art itself has become democratized and it is quite possible that the populace's standards have raised. (Certainly, the sharper dropoffs for the latest Hollywood crapola blockbuster may point in this direction.)

My real question here, in light of the recent NEA results, is whether we can ever see a similar situation occur in the book world. Would it happen if some enterprising developer was to institute Bookflix, perhaps as an alternative to the dwindling hours and selections at public libraries? Or suppose publishers actually tried to market books to kids at a younger age? After all, if Pepsi-Cola and McDonald's can be aggressive about hooking kids onto addictive substances while young, why not book publishers?

Going back to some of the transformative causes, what we have, I believe, is a situation in the book review world where enthusiasm has, in part, replaced literary criticism, perhaps an effort by editors to corral the tone of their entertainment pages to a conforming whole. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but one would hope that current book reviews would be predicated on finding a halfway point that invites the lay reader while satisfying the learned sophisticate. Or is the situation so horrid and hopelessly irreversible that we have reached the point of no return?

Peck-Crouch: Linda Yablonsky's Take

Thanks in part to Sarah, I just spoke with Linda Yablonsky, who had lunch with Dale Peck when Stanley Crouch confronted him. She told me that as the two of them were dining, Stanley Crouch looked in. He put his hand on Peck's shoulder and asked, "Are you Dale Peck?" Peck was a little flushed, but prepared. The two of them stared at each other. There was silence. Peck asked, "So what?"

Crouch didn't know what. He then replied, "I just wanted to meet you. I just wanted to know what you were."

Peck didn't react. Then there was a brief beat, and Crouch slapped Peck in the face, leaving a mark.

Everyone in Tartine grew silent. The busboy cowered (which may explain why the restaurant owner knew nothing about it). Crouch said something else -- what he said, Yablonsky does not know. Then he apologized and said to Peck, "Now you have something on me."

Peck then said something along the lines of "If you hit me again, you'll..."

Crouch then said that he shouldn't have slapped Peck, but suggested that the two of them step outside. Peck refused and Crouch left.

Yablonsky reminded me that Crouch is, in her words, "five times the size" of Peck.

(Thanks to Linda Yablonsky, whose novel The Story of Junk, can be purchased here.)

Thankfully Bruckheimer Didn't Salivate Over the Balloon

Enduring Love, a film adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel, is set to make its world premiere at the next Toronto International Film Festival. The film was directed by Notting Hill/Changing Lanes director Roger Mitchell and penned by Joe Penhall.

Peck-Crouch Update

Newsday has followed up on the Peck-Crouch smackdown. Crouch declined to comment, but he acknowledges in the article that he saw Peck at Tartine. Newsday did note that Crouch was once fired for hitting a colleague at the Village Voice.

I've called the owner of Tartine, the restaurant where Crouch allegedly hit Peck. The owner declined to give his name to me, but he told me that he was unaware of anyone fighting or hitting anybody yesterday. And none of his staff reported the incident to him.

Until we can get a report corroborated from a Tartine employee, I'm inclined to believe that the incident was exaggerated somewhat on Gawker. And Choire did, after all, disclaim that he rooms with Peck.

City Arts & Lectures

If you're based here or near this fantastic City of ours, City Arts & Lectures has unveiled a dynamite lineup for the rest of this year. On September 2, Fresh Air host Terry Gross will be in town, though sadly without Gene Simmons.

On October 1, there will be Larry David.

On October 1, one of my favorite California writers, T.C. Boyle, will be here to plug The Inner Circle, his bio-fiction involving Dr. Alfred Kinsey.

On October 11, Joyce Carol Oates will be here to talk about the sixteen books she's published this year. She may even write on stage.

Stephen Elliott, fresh off of his Elegant Variation fame, will be talking with Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan on October 12.

Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner will be in town on October 18. Then there's Cynthia Ozick on October 26 and Shelley Berman on October 28.

Daniel Handler will be talking with Jonathan Lethem on November 8.

I'm particularly excited about historian Joseph Ellis, whose American Sphinx is a must-read for anyone coping with presidential legacy in our decidedly unpresidential age, on November 10. He'll be plugging His Excellency, his new bio on George Washington.

Robert Hass will be here to talk with Paul Muldoon and Kay Ryan on November 15.

The eminent scientist Richard Dawkins will be here on November 16.

Dave Eggers will talk with Roddy Doyle, presumably about how overrated Joyce is, on November 17.

The big white-suited man himself, Tom Wolfe, will be here with his latest bigass novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, on November 18.

Local playwright/monologuist Josh Kornbluth is locked in for November 30.

And on December 6, Vendela Vida, Andrew Sean Greer and ZZ Packer are lined up for a three-way discussion.

This is one of the best line-ups I've seen from City Arts & Lectures in years. Rest assured, it's likely that these good folks will be taking most of my money.

Bush Resorts to Desperate Neil Diamond Ass-Rating Antics to Sway Voters

Dale Peck Gets Bitch-Slapped

The first wave of bitch slaps has begun. Dale Peck has been bitch-slapped by Stanley Crouch. Who will deliver Peck Bitch Slap #2? Here are the odds:

James Joyce's Corpse: 3 to 1
Terry McMillan: 5 to 1
Colson Whitehead: 17 to 1
Julian Barnes: 19 to 1
Rick Moody: 20 to 1
Sven Birkets: 400 to 1
Jim Crace: Statistics unavailable.

May-December + Viagra = Creepy Vicarious Novels

I'm not sure how I missed this when it appeared in the Times, but Rick Marin attempted to examine (in part) the effects of Viagra upon literature. Now that so many septuagenarians are potent, books like Kingsley Amis's Jake's Thing, with impotent protagonists, appear dated. But to my immense astonishment, no serious paper or article seems to exist on this timely subject. If older men are to be permitted their older protagonists sleeping around with younger women, then the time has come to call upon novelists relying upon Viagra as a gimmick (and, yes, that includes you, Philip Roth!). Or better yet, ladies, why not counter with more Jane Juska-style tomes?

Book Babes Migrate to Suburban Splendor

The Book Babes can now be found in Good Housekeeping. This placement alone speaks for itself, but the great shocker is that Ellen is actually aware of Knut Hamsun!

Will Gormenghast Be Next?

After being sculpted for The Lord of the Rings, New Zealand is being turned into Narnia for the upcoming film adaptations. Reports are now circulating that New Zealanders are undergoing permanent cosmetic surgery to turn themselves into orcs, elves, fairies, and dwarfs to get work on the steady influx of fantasy film adaptations.

Low SAT Scores -- Rallying Point for Underachievers

Sample SAT scores from the elite:

The Rev. Bob Edgar: 730 (out of 1600)
Drea de Matteo: 800 (for the whole test)
Paul Wellstone: Well below 900
Career Center Specialist Robin Roth: 950
Amy Tan: Somewhere below 1,200
George W. Bush: 1,206
Al Gore: 1,355
Bill Bradley: 485 on verbal, and who knows on math?

As for me, well, the one time I took the SAT (the one time I could afford it, because as a teenager, I had to pay for it out of my own pocket), I figured back then I didn't do very well. But at least I scored higher than George Bush and Amy Tan. What's interesting, however, is that I did so-so on the verbal, but aced the math.

The Next Ford Story Will Feature Spitting, A Baseball Bat, and a Catherine Wheel

Birnbaum talks with James Wood and Wood offers possibly one of the most astute explanations for why Richard Ford's short stories pale in comparison with his novels: "I found too often that Ford relies on a moment of male violence to create the form to his stories, to close them off. Somebody hitting somebody. The last one that was in the New Yorker, somebody driving their car over a—I suppose the Chekhovian ideal, it’s not quite that nothing should happen in a story because actually Chekhov’s stories are full of deaths and births and all sorts of tragedies. I’ll put it this way: When Virginia Woolf read Chekhov she said something like, 'The emphasis falls on such unexpected places so that you hardly realize that it is an emphasis at all.' And that’s what I very much love about Chekhov is this extraordinary subtlety and unpredictability. That the sentimental moment [pauses] is always avoided, just at the last second. So I find in Ford’s stories the emphasis falls too sharply and obviously, often on violence. But he is a fine writer, there is no doubt about that."

There He Is, Mrs. America

A Special Slate Diary by Chewbacca
Translated from the Wookie Language

For 28 years the judges in the Mrs. America Paegant have awarded a tiara to strange attractive humans who happen to speak English. I've never understood this. I understand Han Solo's endless kvetching, even when he calls me a fuzzball, but not this obsession with hairless beauty. But what the hell, I like to laugh from time to time. Although I am not the hairiest Wookie on my block, I am married and I am a Wookie. So I decided to experience what it's like to enter a beauty paegant that I had no shot at winning.

"Let the Wookie win," they say. I suppose it's because I've been around for about two hundred years. You might say I've picked up a few things. How to flatten an Imperial soldier, how to roar in a way that's aggressive yet somewhat endearing. The advice that immediately applies here, particularly to holographic chess, and which might give me a leg up in this paegant is that, if you pull the other contestant's arms out, then you have a better chance of winning.

But when I filled out the Mrs. America online application, which asked for my name, address, amount of hair on my body, I let out a roar and smashed the computer monitor.

I was almost certain to lose. For one thing, I'd probably be a lot taller than the other contestants. For another, well, with all this hair on my body, it was a bit difficult to go drag.

I decided to give the Mrs. America Paegant people a call.

"Rwarrrrrrr," I asked in a gentle voice.

"Hello?"

"Rawwwrrrrrrrooooooorrarr," I continued.

"Who is this? What's your operating number?"

"Rawwwwwwwwrrrorororororrrorrrawwwrrr," I said in my sweetest voice.

Then there was a click and the line went dead.

It's not wise to upset a Wookie.

(Thanks to Jimmy Beck for the lead.)

El Presidente

If this transparentmove doesn't piss you off, then ask yourself how much liberty you're willing to give up. We had elections in November 1864 during the Civil War, in November 1918 during World War I, and in November 1944 during World War II. This "war," or whatever you want to call it, should be no different.

Congrats Terry!

We're late to the paty, but congratulations Terry!

Nelson to Haddon: Ha Ha!

After being rejected repeatedly over ten years by nearly every major publishing house in New York, Jennifer Donnelly beat out favorite Mark Haddon for the Carnegie Medal, the most prestigious prize in children's literature. (via Mark)

If Martin Amis Had Tried It With Dad, Who'd Show?

Kurt Vonnegut held a family art show and was mobbed by fans in Indianapolis.

What? No Plum Sykes?

Time has a list of 10 Trashy Novels for the summer. Strangely, Daniel Clowes is included.

MIA: Literary Operas

Those quirky hacks over at The Scotsman examine operas written by authors, pointing out that Graham Greene's one and only opera, Our Man in Havana, has only been staged once since 1987 -- last week by the Trinity College of Music. And apparently Ian McEwan has produced an oratorio with Michael Berkeley. The oratorio, Or Should We Die?, was composed in 1983 and dealt with the threat of nuclear war.

Serialized Novels

Maud notes that The Great Gatsby is being serialized in the New York Times. As a Fitzgerald fan, I commend this decision and recommend that it be read concurrently with Get Out, You Damned, Saddam Hussein's fourth novel, now being serialized in Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arab newspaper. An Iraqi critic, Ali Abdel-Amir, notes that Saddam "was completely out of touch with actual reality, and novel writing gave him the chance to live in delusions."

Pollack Waxes Presidential

Neal Pollack reports that his blood pressure has lowered and that he's written a tome on John Adams for Akashic Books. The book appears to be 65 pages long, but hopefully the typesetting will be less penurious than Alex Garland's The Coma.

Chris Ware Mural at 826 Valencia

826 Valencia now has a fabulous mural designed by Chris Ware. If you're in the City, check it out. (via James Tata)

Chip McGrath Learns About Comics

Dear Times Readers:

No doubt you are ossified and almost dead. You drink your Sunday morning coffee and it gives you, mayhaps, a few extra years of invigoration. Allow me, Chip McGrath, former editor of the New York Times Book Review and thus arbiter of some lasting quality, to inform you about this fascinating new technology called the graphic novel. That Nick Hornby kid wasn't available. So I thought I'd take a stab at this comics thing myself. Oh, sure, you might be thinking that the funnies is kid stuff. But no! These funny pages now appear in The New Yorker! They even win prestigious prizes! It's the latest rage. In fact, it's drawn and authored with rage!

And, no, we're not talking Garfield either, although I must confess that I chuckle from time to time over that pesky feline's antics. And I'm sure you do too. When will he ever get his lasagna? Ha ha ha!

As I learned yesterday, there are actual books which feature comic stories. And not just Spider-Man, but genuine autobiographical stories. I'm so excited that I'm going to have two bowls of oatmeal for breakfast, not one!

Now you can trust your Uncle Chip when he says that this stuff might be literary and might actually replace fiction altogether. Save for that dirty man Alan Moore, who apparently specializes in nothing but pornography. After all, a tale about a randy Dorothy Gale can't have any redeeming qualities now, can it?

These graphic novel thingies can now actually be purchased in bookstores. I was at the Barnes & Noble the other day and was shocked, shocked I tell you, to see some nifty little book called Persepolis in the Customer Favorites section. Well, I said to myself, I guess these things are selling. So why not write an article about these suckers?

The good news is that the people who write these graphic novels are, for the most part, friendly. When I asked Daniel Clowes if he had any specific titles of his that I could plug in my profile, he came very close to biting me before deciding that the silly nature of my article was just too good to pass up.

Believe it or not, there are also chicks who draw comics too! Let me pull out McSweeney's 13 and count the names. Yes, yes, I see. Lynda Barry, Julie Doucet, Debbie Dreschler

Granted, I'm a bit new to the form myself. But I must say that I'm impressed and I think that if you open your minds a little bit, you'll find yourself as darn smitten by these cute little graphic novels as I was. Aren't they adorable? Why, those little mice in Maus are almost as cute as Garfield!

Away

Our voicemail is clogged with the exciting entreaties of actors. We're catching up on email (sort of). And we're trying to meet three deadlines this weekend. So rather than remain terse and uninteresting, we direct you to the usual crowd.

I'm looking into my magic mirror and I see Maud, I see Carrie, I see Rake and Mark. I see Nathalie. I see Sarah and Jessa. I see Lizzie and Jimmy. I see...

(Miss Nancy, you heartless bitch! I've been waiting for you to call my name for months!)

SOUND: .357 fired into plasma tube by youngster with exotic name.

Oh, just check out everyone on the left. They're all good.

Be back on Monday.

Happy Blog

Stephen Elliott is guesting at Mark's today and he's on a roll. Joe Bob says check him out.

Go Tell it to the Post Office

James Baldwin gets his own stamp. So best. (via Moorish Girl)

We're Waiting for "More than Rakin'"

The Rake has what looks to be an ode to Theodore Sturgeon's "Bianca Hands" up, along with other fiction on the fly. Check it out.

Because USA Today Forgot the Infograph

Satan

This puts things well into perspective.

Wrestling Auditions

This may be the last Wrestling an Alligator post on this blog, before all such play-related info shifts onto the play-related site. But if you're interested in auditioning, here's the ad currently making the Bay Area theatre rounds. Get back to me if you're interested.

We're looking for a few good actors.

Stubble Magic is proud to announce that it is casting for an exciting theatrical production for the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The play, a debut effort written and directed by Edward Champion, is farcical in nature. It concerns a business meeting between a ruthless middle-management man and a principled businesswoman. The play is sixty rollicking minutes without a single scene change. We have unexpected plot twists, legal maneuvering, wordplay, oblique references to geopolitical conditions and celebrated literary figures, bizarre psychiatric tests, and even a flickering fluorescent light. While we hope to maintain a fun and fruitful atmosphere that is creatively stimulating and sexy on some modest level, rest assured that you will be challenged.

Auditions are scheduled for July 17 and July 18, 2004 at Shotwell Studios, located at 3252 19th Street, contrary to another misspelled ad making the rounds.

While these auditions are open, it is recommended that you contact us for an appointment slot, as we will be prioritizing appointment-based auditions.

The roles are as follows:

THE BUSINESSMAN: Male, 30-40, hot-tempered and Machiavellian middle-management type, though somewhat dim.

JENKINS: Female, 25-35, assistant to THE BUSINESSMAN. Constantly mishears and misassociates, though secretly in control of her boss's affairs. Role requires strong comic timing and physical comedy.

TARROW: Female, 35-45, solid businesswoman, professional and grounded, independent, provider. The "white knight" of the play. Subtlety in perceiving surroundings a plus.

THE TEMP: Male, 20-25. Lazy, relentlessly dreamy, though not without hidden agenda. Some physical comedy required.

To schedule an appointment, please contact Edward Champion by email at ed@edrants.com. Please specify which part(s) you're interested in and what time frames are good for you for an appointment. We will contact you with an audition time and answer any additional questions you might have.

We're asking all actors to prepare a one-minute monologue and cold read.

Please note that this is a non-AEA production.

If you would like to read an excerpt, then please feel free to visit our site: http://www.wrestlingplay.com.

We are somewhat flexible to your schedule. However, we will require a pretty vigorous commitment through August. Rehearsals will occur in San Francisco during weeknights and some weekends, with the level of involvement escalating near the end of August and the beginning of September. Show dates are the weekends of September 10 and the 17th. There are four shows in all. We will also need you to be available during Labor Day Weekend.

Again, if you have any further questions, we encourage you to contact us. As you may have gathered while reading this, we can be pretty thorough with our answers.

Less Than Zero-Speak Permeates Palahniuk Interview

Like, there's this interview with Chuck Palahniuk, published on, what was it?

"July 7, 2004."

Thank you, man. If it wasn't for my steady consciousness, I'd have to look it up on the Internet.

"You were looking it up on the Internet."

Whatever, man. You're a fucking genius.

"Yeah, I received rejections from The Stranger in Seattle. Way back."

Here we go. Oh, OK, I remember that.

"OK."

OK.

"OK."

That's probably why we couldn't remember.

"What were we talking about?"

I'm like, the next Birnbaum, dude.

"No, Sarvas is."

Cool.

Guest Bloggers Needed at Miscellany and Reluctant

As Mark notes, Kevin needs a guest blogger. And, if truth be told, we will too for extended periods of down time through the summer. We've tried to convince Jimmy Beck, but he's hopelessly devoted to the Hag. And we can respect that. All other aspirants, please don't hesitate to drop either Kevin or I a buzz.

[UPDATE: Sarah needs one around August too.]

Scotland Yard Proves More Effective Than U.S. Troops at Recovering Culture

A £250,000 book, one of many pillaged from archeological sites in Iraq, is now safe at Scotland Yard. The book was one of hundreds swiped from the Awqaf library in 1995, and proved to be the most valuable of the bunch.

Justin Cowers from Robbie

Teenagers let out a collective cry this morning as Justin Timberlake switched the release date of his autobiography, so as not to compete with Robbie Williams. Whether Mr. Timberlake promises confessions as grand as Rosseau or Cellini, I am not to judge. My own uneducated opinion on the matter is that, if I had to choose, Williams might be the better bet here. At least he can hold his water.

Leave It to the French to Spoil Unexpectedly Enhance the Fun

The Independent reports that perhaps the most important intellectual battle of our time is being waged in Le Monde: Is Harry Potter a capitalist neo-liberal sellout? Or is he against globalization? Who knew that J.K. Rowling was a grand seer in the tradition of L. Frank Baum?

Next up: Is Spongebob Squarepants a Marxist or a Trotskist? Do the Teletubbies represent a failed 1970s commune more effectively than T.C. Boyle's Drop City?

(And in a somewhat related matter, Rowling's fessed that she pulled her character names from phone books.)

Look Out, Plum Sykes and Nanny Diaries Chicks

Sylvia van Bell has published her first book. She has demanded a professional masseuse and personal trainer, hair and makeup throughout the book tour, and 215 bottles of Evian in every hotel room.

She's nine years old.

Shakur Replaces Shakespeare

Tupac Shakur has officially replaced Shakespeare in Worchester, MA. Frances Arena made the swap because it's "popular with the kids." While this concerns us, we don't think this is the sign of the apocalypse. That will happen when learning how to construct a cherry bomb replaces a week of chemistry.

Teachout's Got Competition in the Workhorse Dept.

Scott Bakker finished The Warrior Prophet, the second book in the Prince of Nothing trilogy, in a year. But not without defending the outline for his PhD dissertation, teaching pop culture and composition, and planning a wedding. He took one day off, but that was to see The Lord of the Rings.

Clearly, we need to finish up our three volume, 6,000 page biography on little-known Ashcan artist George Spackle, defending Mr. Spackle's legacy and with a sizable portion pointing out the influence of He Came Home Depressed With A Sliced Banana in the Corner of His Mouth on contemporary comics, by the end of the year.

Estranged Wife Collects Half of DeMille's Nest Egg

Nelson DeMille has lost a prenup battle with his ex-wife. What does this mean? No doubt more unreadable hack novels into the Costco piles to compensate for Nelson's financial shortfall. Thank you, Mrs. DeMille.

"Checkpoint" Excerpt

After all the hoopla, Return of the Reluctant has managed to nab an exclusive excerpt from Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint:

Ben: You can't be serious.

Jay: Oh yes, I am. I'm going to beat the shit out of the president. I'm going to bite off his earlobes and then pull his teeth out as slowly as possible. But only after I spend hours tickling him, just after I use his sternum as a footstool.

Ben: Isn't that a bit much?

Jay: No. Not at all. He is President Bush and he is wrong.

Ben: Shouldn't you spend your time dwelling upon the details of a stapler or contemplating how newspapers are disappearing in libraries? Or why not some nice memoir about John Updike?

Jay: No. You mistake me for a character in another book. The unseen god, whom we will not dare to mention here, for postmodernism is dead, along with irony. Besides, the god wrote those stories in simpler times. Today, in 2004, months before an election, I am Jay, the star of Checkpoint, and I wish to make a loud and resounding point.

Ben: But your god doesn't even look like Lenny Bruce.

Jay: If Lenny Bruce would have lived longer, he would have lost his hair as quickly as our daddy.

Ben: We're living in a work of fiction?

Jay: Yes.

Ben: No real threats?

Jay: No, but I dream of hitting the president's knees with a golf club.

Ben: He's a bad man, but I think someone could use a hug.

Jay: You just don't understand. Follow the footnote that leads to the 4,000 word history of the chocolate chip cookie, and you will see all.

The Reluctant Index

For the record, my TCCI is 54%. Teachout's damn crazy is he thinks he's going to get us to eat anchovies or give up James Joyce or pomo, let alone deny the kickass Rio Bravo or choose Steely Dan (!) over Elvis Costello.

In response to the TCCI, I present the Reluctant Index. Answer these questions:

• Edible underwear or underworn edibles?
• Trotsky or Guevara?
• Hunter S. Thompson or Dan Rather?
• Punk rock or bubble gum pop?
• Freezing to death or burning to death?
• 69 or 666?
• Being caught letting loose a fart in public or being caught letting loose a belch in public?
• Joe vs. the Volcano: yes or no?

Tally your score by counting left and right answers. Then divide the left score by three without using paper or a calculator. If the final count is more than 0.00005, you're okay in my book.

The War on Pornography

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has declared a War on Pornography. At the exact moment of declaration, Shurtleff's right hand froze permanently into an upward Ur-Seig Heil position, so as to prevent any conflict of interest with his lower anatomy. His subscription to Hustler was cancelled and the State of Utah will be very careful about the motels Mr. Shurtleff stays in. Aggravating matters was Mr. Shurtleff's mouth, now permanently locked into a rictus. Ms. Shurtleff's assistants plan to feed him bottles of Gerber while the proud general conducts his war against the most American of trades. (via MeFi)

Obligatory Movie Meme

Yet another one's making the rounds. (seen via Scribbling Woman, who also cites where she got it from)

01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. M
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
09. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Swordfish
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1
15. Donnie Darko
16. Spirited Away
17. Better Than Sex
18. Sleepy Hollow
19. Pirates of the Caribbean
20. The Eye
21. Requiem for a Dream
22. Dawn of the Dead (The original).
23. The Pillow Book
24. The Italian Job
25. The Goonies
26. Baseketball
27. The Spice Girls Movie (Spice World)
28. Army of Darkness
29. The Color Purple
30. The Safety of Objects
31. Can’t Hardly Wait
32. Mystic Pizza
33. Finding Nemo
34. Monsters Inc.
35. Circle of Friends
36. Mary Poppins
37. The Bourne Identity (both!)
38. Forrest Gump
39. A Clockwork Orange
40. Kindergarten Cop
41. On The Line
42. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
43. Final Destination
44. Sorority Boys
45. Urban Legend
46. Cheaper by the Dozen The original.
47. Fierce Creatures
48. Dude, Where’s My Car
49. Ladyhawke
50. Ghostbusters
51. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
52. Back to the Future
53. An Affair To Remember
54. Somewhere In Time
55. North By Northwest
56. Moulin Rouge
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Zoolander
60. A Walk to Remember
61. Chicago
62. Vanilla Sky
63. The Sweetest Thing
64. Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead
65. The Nightmare Before Christmas
66. Chasing Amy
67. Edward Scissorhands
68. Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
69. Muriel’s Wedding
70. Croupier
71. Blade Runner
72. Cruel Intentions
73. Ocean’s Eleven
74. Magnolia
75. Fight Club
76. Beauty and The Beast (Cocteau? Disney? I've seen both)
77. Much Ado About Nothing
78. Dirty Dancing
79. Gladiator
80. Ever After
81. Braveheart
82. What Lies Beneath
83. Regarding Henry
84. The Dark Crystal
85. Star Wars
86. The Birds
87. Beaches
88. Cujo
89. Maid In Manhattan
90. Labyrinth
91. Thoroughly Modern Millie
92. His Girl Friday (which one? I've seen three)
93. Chocolat
94. Independence Day
95. Singing in the Rain
96. Big Fish
97. The Thomas Crown Affair (which one? I've seen both)
98. The Matrix
99. Stargate
100. A Hard Day’s Night
101. About A Boy
102. Jurassic Park
103. Life of Brian
104. Dune
105. Help!
106. Grease
107. Newsies
108. Gone With The Wind
109. School of Rock
110. TOMMY
111. Yellow Submarine
112. From Hell
113. Benny & Joon
114. Amelie
115. Bridget Jones’ Diary
116. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
117. Heavenly Creatures
118. All About Eve
119. The Outsiders
120. Airplane!
121. The Sorcerer
122. The Crying Game
123. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
124. Slap Her, She’s French
125. Amadeus
126. Tommy Boy
127. Aladdin
128. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
129. Snatch
130. American History X
131. Jack and Sarah
132. Monkey Bone
133. Rocky Horror Picture Show
134. Kate and Leopold
135. Interview with the Vampire
136. Underworld
137. Truly, Madly, Deeply
138. Tank Girl
139. Boondock Saints
140. Blow Dry
141. Titanic
142. Good Morning Vietnam
143. Save the Last Dance
144. Lost in Translation
145. Willow
146. Legend
147. Van Helsing
148. Troy
149. Nine Girls and a Ghost
150. A Knight’s Tale
151. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
152. Beetlejuice
153. E.T.
154. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone
155. Spaceballs
156. Young Frankenstein
157. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
158. American President
159. Bad Boys (Penn or Bay? Seen both)
160. Pecker
161. Pink Floyd: The Wall
161. X-Men
162. Sidewalks of New York
163. The Children of Dune
164. Beyond Borders
165. Life Is Beautiful
166. Good Will Hunting
167. Run Lola Run
168. Blazing saddles
169. Caligula
170. The Transporter
171. Better Off Dead
172. The Abyss
173. Almost Famous
174. The Red Violin
175. Contact
176. Stand and Deliver
177. Clueless
178. William Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet
179. Dangerous Liaisions
180. I Am Sam
181. The Usual Suspects
182. U-571
183. Capricorn One
184. The Little Shop of Horrors (the one with Jack Nicholson)
185. Die Hard
186. The Flamingo Kid
187. Night of the Comet
188. Point Break
189. Chatterbox
190. Secretary
191. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
192. American Beauty
193. Pulp Fiction
194. What About Bob
195. Roger and Me
196. Fahrenheit 9/11
197. Bowling for Columbine
198. The Professional (aka Leon)
199. The Fifth Element
200. La Femme Nikita
201. Heathers
202. Bull Durham
203. The Scorpion King
204. The Thin Blue Line
205. Do the Right Thing
206. Lady From Shanghai
207. Natural Born Killers
208. Funeral in Berlin
209. Decline of the American Empire

Choire Lives with Dale Peck!

Newsday: "In the interest of full disclosure, Cox adds, her boss, Choire Sicha, editor of the New York blog www.gawker .com, happens to be Peck's roommate. That illustrates another problem with the book-reviewing culture: its incestuousness."

If Choire doesn't fess up some tales soon, I'll be really disappointed. Where's Grambo on this?

So Long as Amy Tan Doesn't Sing Backup, It's Okay by Me

The new One Ring Zero album, As Smart As We Are, features lyrics from Margaret Atwood, A.M. Homes, Denis Johnson and Dave Eggers.

Hey, Salman, It Was a Fatwa, Not a Smackdown

It's bad enough that the BBC has reported that a compromise bill has been reached in the UK, which will allow parents to "smack their children with moderation." But apparently Salman Rushdie is one of the people hoping for a total ban on smacking. Rushdie wants to "give children the personal freedom not to be hit." Rushdie doesn't seem to have any ideas, however, on how to enforce it.

New Richmond Novel Excerpt Available

Local author Michelle Richmond has an excerpt from her new book, Ocean Beach, in the Chronicle.

Filmmaker Confuses Life with Bukowski's

The Washington Post reports that John Dullaghan has not only tried to live a life similar to Bukowski's, but managed to create a documentary out of his efforts. The film, entitled To All My Friends, is eight years in the making and about nine thousand tons of cheap red wine in the drinking. Dullaghan, however, didn't go nearly as far as Barbet Schroeder, who (according to the DVD commentary to Barfly), threatened to cut his hand off if he was not able to make the film.

Moby Lives!

Melville House has produced several novellas with spicy colors and nifty typography. Do check 'em out. (And, yes, we were bribed. But that had nothing whatsoever to do with the current plug.)

Setting Up the Store Again

Yes, we're back, dammit. With a vengeance. Or at least enough unspent passion from last week to proffer some ball-busting posts (we hope). To close up shop on some minor issues:

• Spider-Man 2 is, without a doubt, the finest superhero movie since Tim Burton's Batman. If you haven't seen the depressing Fahenheit 9/11 yet, you might want to try Spidey 2 afterwards as a chaser. It's the kind of movie that not only restores your faith in Hollywood blockbusters, but rejuvenates your faith in humanity. It deserves every penny of the colossal receipts that it's picked up so far.
• I never thought I'd say this, but the latest issue of McSweeney's is absolutely incredible. Apart from a stellar design and great paper, the issue is almost devoid of the irony-for-irony's sake that's become so nauseating to its detractors. And in fact, guest editor Chris Ware has included some solid underground artists amongst the major comic stars. Particular standouts include Ron Rege's "She Sometimes Switched," a devastating story of a suicide bomber, Chris Ware's touching "We'll Sleep in My Own Room," Richard McGuire's frequently anthologized "ctrl," a harrowing offering from Gilbert Hernandez (along with other Love and Rockets setpieces) on racism, and the gloriously juvenile offerings of Joe Matt. If I have any quibble, it's the relentless plugs for Fantagraphics books. But then as Tom pointed out to me, if Fantagraphics did not exist, it would have to be invented. If you enjoy comics in any way, I highly recommend that you purchase it immediately.
• Stephen King's latest installment in the Dark Tower series, Song of Susannah (perfectly released for a long weekend of comfort reads), is mostly disappointing. But like any heroin addict, I'll probably purchase the seventh one. One can only hope that King actually goes to the trouble of explaining details more clearly in the last volume.
• Full-length reviews are in the works for The Coma (graciously sent by Penguin) and Aloft. More details to come.
• I'm hopelessly behind on email. So bear with me the next week.
• Terry has posted a goofy comparative index. We find ourselves torn between the two columns.
• Sarah has an interview with Michael Connelly up.

No Man is an Island

"No man is an island." -- John Donne

The original context can be found in Meditation XVII: "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." I encountered Donne's maxim regularly. Flipping through textbooks, listening to the stern and sibilant musings of teachers, randomly espying it or hearing it in novels and films. Never learning the whole until later, when I read Donne in my college days. The remainder proved to be just as important as the oft-quoted part. Those who popularized these five words, more enduring than any hep catchphrase germinating from the tube and polluting the fine fiber of conversation, had latched onto the "no man" part, implying personal responsibility if you dared to live the sheltered and solitary life. If you went at it alone, you were doomed, preceded with the dreaded "no," which suggested a null or invalid existence. Then there was the island part. Was this a majestic oasis or a barren isle with merely a solitary tree providing coconut sustenance? When I first heard the phrase, I imagined a yin-yang symbol, the kind I saw recurrently on Town & Country surfboards. Perhaps the dot in the middle, whether jet or pure, was the island that Donne spoke of. Perhaps the answer was up to each individual. Touche.

Logically, if no man was an island, then no island was a man. Or if no man was an island, if no man, then island, or if not an island, then no man.

Q.E.D.: If examined literally, and discounting the Talking Kipwich Islands in the South Pacific (little regarded by oceanographers and cartographers alike), an island could not be a man. They were simply two different entities: one composed of sand and sputtering above sea level, sometimes with rabid castaways (i.e., men) writing HELP messages in the sand (often in vain, followed by tears and/or insanity); the other, the homo sapien (male and female, mind you; we live in the 21st century), a bipedal creature known to his head too much for occasionally magnificent and frequently foolish purposes.

Metaphorically and logically, however, no island was a man. Thus, the state of being an island implied something outside the realm of man's knowledge and existence. Or his everday life.

The question my fourteen year old self had, however, was whether or not I was an island.

Seventh grade, poor, severe personality problems, unresolved trauma from natural father. Confined to room. For the best really. Several mistakes. Frequent bursts of tears. A period that exists largely as a expanse of duvatene, a handkerchief just before the execution squad. Except I did not die. I was shot several times, but, like Rasputin, I would not die. Years later, I would find myself living and refuse to hate the people who put me there.

Abdication of responsibility. Yes, don't fix him, let him rot and sort out his own problems. Pretending, disguising the deep hurt. A Samsung black-and-white television set for company that only received the local PBS station. Comics too. Strips, not comic books. Working out a system to reclaim the neighbors' back issue newspapers and being kept sane by Bloom County and MAD Magazine. Ripping shreds of wallpaper to see what was beneath and finding train patterns. (What would you do?) I liked trains. Too much, it turned out. Welts from a belt, from the second man my mother married. He threw me out of the house with only a threadbare blue blanket for company. I shivered in a car shelter on a cold night in an apartment complex for hours before trying to sneak back to the house, only to be smacked in the face by this man with the mustache and the horrible rage. Just like Dad No. 1. Somehow, I was let back in. My mother looked the other way.

But I would be let out of my bedroom jail for school and to go to the library. They tried to turn me into an island before I was a man. But in the library, oh, I found friends. Books, glorious books. Whatever they had. They even let me work the microfilm machine and I'd dig up articles on this Reagan guy, whose smile I did not trust. Doonesbury, Erma Bombeck, James Thurber, Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, rereading the obligatory Judy Blume and Mary Rodgers, strange compilations of pop culture and fads, even politics and history. There was pleasure in the books, but the pain was so overwhelming that I could not concentrate on the books for several years in high school. But I returned. Defiantly. And never looked back.

The library demonstrated that I was not an island. I was a piece of its multi-floored continent and I'd get a smile of encouragement from the librarians. This might be one reason I find librarians so sexy.

They could tell me otherwise. But with the books and the records and the photocopies of articles I'd hide up my T-shirt (thanks to the one librarian who saw this young and able scholar and slid dimes across the counter, no questions asked), and the movie ads I'd cut and tape to the walls, I knew that there was an identity which extended beyond the shabby trappings. Just an undiscovered country. Like Freedonia.

I lived to tell the tale. That's the part that matters.

He went through the same treatment. A troubled personality. Relentless verbal abuse. And the sad part is that I was an accomplice. But my stepbrother (Marriage No. 3) still found solace in me, even when we nicknamed him "Nyuck Nyuck." We rallied around a NES, zapping bad guys and defeating minibosses. Sometimes, we'd team up and we'd get along. Strange how a side-scroller could forge a bond. Stranger still was how much time we devoted to beating a game.

It didn't last. Near the end, he was relegated to a tent purchased from an army surplus store in the backyard. My mother was afraid of him. Or, more specifically, like me, she wouldn't give him the chance. That was the real reason he was sent away.

But he ended up joining the Army. In the days when military involvement and casualties were unthinkable. Turned out to be a decent guy with a constant smile on his face. Ended up being Soldier of the Year. He forgave us all. Well before I was able to confront my own personal demons. I was proud of him. Today, this man, who found solace in a system when his family refused to give him help, now finds himself about to be shipped to Iraq. His wife's expecting. And it scares the bejesus out of me. I don't want him to end up dead. I don't want him to die for something stupid.

The great irony is that the Army provided him with the ineluctable proof that he was not an island, that his life mattered, and that his existence involved decency and honor. But the Viagra-hardened big boys have decided that these men, individually, are islands. To be kept away from public consumption, to be disregarded, to be dishonored, to be ordered to do god knows what.

He could turn out to be just another fresh face or another statistic. An inconsequential mark on an unseen blotter.

I don't want to feel angry, but if my stepbrother goes down, then there will be hell to pay. I'll become outright seditious. I'll call upon everyone to pay attention to that clause in the Declaration of Independence that everyone so conveniently overlooked the other day:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. (emphasis added)

I don't feel safe and I'm sure as hell not happy about my stepbrother. But there's one thing I do know: No man is a goddam island.