Martin Amis’s The Information? Stephen King’s Bag of Bones? Charles Frazier’s advance for the Cold Mountain followup? They ain’t got nothing on Alicia Keys.

Salman Rushdie says that pornography is vital to freedom. His views are to be published in a book called XXX:30 Porn Star, which features photos of porn stars and will come with a complimentary roll of toilet paper.

Kurt Vonnegut believes that his America can be found in libraries.

I snapped it with my camera, but didn’t cite the source
And so my facts are proven. I’m right, you’re wrong. Of course!
I’m the king of all the bloggers. I’m the lord of your remorse
You didn’t dig the dirt, my bitch. Matt Drudge will be my horse.

That Kerry liar’s a Commie, he fudged a minor fact
Politicians should be truthful, or show a little tact
I can post more column-inches. I can have some more impact
Then the Post, the Times, the WSJ, even if I don’t retract

You can call it speculation. You can call me Ego One.
But I’ve got a Canon camera. ‘Cause the terrorists have won.
It’s a time for being fearful. Let the rage flow over the sun.
I’m a humorless libertarian. When the government’s gone, I’m done.

Dueling mini-reviews of Cloud Atlas (courtesy of Kevin Wignall and Ed) pulled from Tingle Alley’s backblog:

KW: David Mitchell is, I’m told, a lovely person, but he represents everything I detest in fiction. I’ve tried to read both Number 9 Dream and Cloud Atlas and found both of them messy, too in love with themselves, and wilfully complacent about the need to tell a story in a compelling way. I’d be happy for Ed to try and put me straight – I remain open-minded – but if the argument is, “sometimes you have to work hard to appreciate a great work of art”, I’m sorry, it doesn’t wash. I’ve said the same about David Peace. The difficulty of a story should be in the content, not in the telling. We are in the business of entertaining people, and any writer who forgets that, no matter what the subject matter, deserves not to be read.

EC: It may be a difference of sensibilities. Even so, “Cloud Atlas” is such a rich, goofy, operatic and downright kickass work that hits so many fantastic tones (satire, pathos, pulp, nostalgia, concern for humanity, futuristic argot, surrealism, light pomo) that I just can’t see why anyone looking for a bracing literary ride wouldn’t love it. It does require a dictionary. It does require looking up arcane references. And, yes, it’s a showboat. But the plots are so entertaining, the prose so invigorating, and the five puzzling plots much fun to pick through (although admittedly the book loses steam near the end) that why would anyone possibly care? Hell, you could argue that Faulkner, Joyce, Gaddis, Barth or Pynchon are “complacent” to some extent. But then, for me, plunging into arcana is what makes literature worthwhile.

I know where I stand on this one, but what say you, EdHeads and David Mitchell fans/detractors? Is Mitchell generally making his readers work too hard or is this just a case of to-ma-to/to-mah-to?

If I haven’t answered your email during the past six weeks, there’s a reason. (And if you’re interested in seeing the results and you’ll be in San Francisco in September, showtimes are here. Please note that there are no advance tickets, no late seating, and all shows start on time. Also note that our show is cheaper, shorter, and less stupid than, say, getting gouged by M. Night for The Village, and also has a fantastic cast to boot.)

If I haven’t posted many entries, there’s another unrelated reason (on the hush hush insane deadline side of the fence) and even another (also hush hush).

If I’ve had strange dietary habits of late, there are reasons that go beyond these.

Sayonara for now. The next month is seventeen hour days (at bare minimum), with rare check-ins. I leave this blog in the hands of the capable superfriends (some of whom have fantastic plans), should they wish to weigh in. Please check out the folks on the left.

If you’re interested in becoming a superfriend (why stop here?), feel free to email me.

And now that the NYTBR is in my hands, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note Laura Miller cribbing from “Jeff” Eugenides’ definition of the “multicultral” novel without acknowledgment. Sigh.

At least there’s Maud over at the Post, along with a Yardley appreciation of Booth Tarkington. It’s almost enough to completely erase the bile left over from the scummy little review.

So this is Sam Tanenhaus’s idea of covering fiction?

“scummy little book” — While attempting to read the book as he was cleaning his bathroom, Leon Wieseltier dropped the book in the sink, causing particles of soapscum to accumulate on the pages.

“our cherished and anxious country” — Jingoism and paranoia in the first sentence. That’s the spirit!

“Baker’s novels have always been desperate to be noticed.” — Oh, I get it. Having fun with details and being ambitious should be discouraged.

“creepy hermeneutical toys” — You hoped you’d be quoted in Safire’s “On Language” column, right, Leon? What’s so creepy about being interpretive? Was Ulysses that bad?

“And the fascination is genuine.” — If we permit a novelist to contemplate the assassination of George Bush in fictional form, well then Baker is a psychopath and the terrorists have won!

“We infer from what is said that Jay is a deeply unhappy man.” — Wow, Leon, you pinned the tail on the donkey there! That’s like saying that Frank Bascombe was a little distanced from the human race or Ahab was a tad obsessed. Score one for the Obvious Conclusion Squad!

“About the deranging influence of blogs Baker makes a sterling point.” — Yeah, because we crazies can call you on your flagrant BS. Boo yah!

“The stinking thing about Jay’s analysis of the war…is that it is not Jay’s alone.” — That’s right, padre. It’s downright un-American. So to hell with Baker’s book! Let’s launch into a nationalistic dirge!

“For the virulence that calls itself critical thinking.” — Pot. Kettle. Black.

“Janet Malcom recently explained in a letter to this newspaper.” — This is the lofty word count being expended?

“Chomsky, who has not appeared in [the NYRoB’s] pages in decades.” Wrong, Leon. Nine of Chomsky’s books have been reviewed by the NYRoB since 1973. And an author search reveals some 74 articles penned in whole or in part by Chomsky since 1967. Where’s your fact checking department, Tanenhaus?

“Rush Limbaugh did not elect a president and neither will Michael Moore.” — Dan Frisa: “Without the Rush Limbaugh radio program broadcasting as a beacon of truth, my colleagues and I would never have been able to wrest control of the Congress from the Democrats, after 40 long years, in the revolution of 1994. What a thrill it was to meet him at a special dinner held at the Camden Yards stadium during our orientation prior to taking office; we made Rush an honorary member of the Republican freshman class of the 104th Congress, welcoming him as a ‘Majority Maker.'”

We’ve kept silent about Tanenhaus’s NYTBR for a while, but if this is the way Tanenhaus wants to party, the cuffs are now off. Leon Wieseltier’s review is a disgrace. It is a scourge against literary criticism and yet another example of how politics is, for the most part, incompatible with proper book coverage. Say what you want about Chip McGrath. He never permitted an out-of-control and inaccurate political rant from either side to permeate his pages. If this is the morass that Times fiction coverage is swimming in, then the NYTBR is truly a lost cause.

Porn Bread. With recipes. Includes ejaculating eclair. (NSFW)

The September 2004 Book Sense picks have arrived. Howard Mosher above David Mitchell? We wuz robbed! (via Publisher’s Lunch)

This Saturday, literary experts will congregate upon Salinas to discuss one of the important questions of our time: Would Steinbeck vote for Kerry or Bush?

What next? Herman Melville — did he like Ike or was he madly for Adlai? Thoreau – liability under the Patriot Act? Would Mark Twain approve of the Diebold voting machines?

The gang at the Globe has issued a new disclaimer in their programs, suggesting that Shakespeare’s work was attributed to somebody else. If it’s Mary Sidney Herbert, the case that Newsweek put forth on June 28 (through Sidney expert Robin Williams) is weak:

“It would explain why Shakespeare wrote love sonnets to a younger man.” Shakespeare didn’t swing both ways? Shakespeare didn’t get inside the head of another character to get at deeper feelings? I think, with the exception of some of his early work and the hideous Coriolanus, you’d be hard-pressed to nail ol’ Bill as a literal-minded writer.

“It would could clarify why the first compilation of Shakespeare’s plays, the First Folio of 1623, was dedicated to the earls of Pembroke and Montgomery (her sons).” Okay, let’s say that you’re a cash-strapped theatre and one of the best-educated women in England happens to float your operation with her husband. Are you going to be grateful? Are you going to, say, acknowledge that person’s family or friends? Are you going to hope that this spirit of generosity will trickle down to the next generation?

“And it would explain Ben Jonson’s First Folio eulogy to the ‘sweet swan of Avon.'” No, sorry. It’s called waxing poetic about a guy’s hometown.

I’m all for these interesting arguments and speculations, but none of this stuff would hold up in a court of law.

Williams, it should be be noted, was the only Sidney advocate at the July authorship conference.

The Washington Post Weekend looks at the current state of zines (sort of, in pretty skimming, general terms). (Note: The Rowe being quoted here is Chip Rowe, who works for Playboy and wrote a book about zines.)

Rowe summarizes the movement of zines onto the Web thusly: “Fanzines became paper zines became webzines became blogs. That’s where we are now.” But he’s not just being blithe. He sees in the current blog craze something akin to the paper zine craze of the early ’90’s. “The same spirit is there,” Rowe says. “Everybody feels powerless to one degree or another and is looking to get some kind of reaction. They want people to care about what they think. It’s heartening seeing blogs, even if a lot of them will go away as the novelty wears off.”

Breier and Smith, whose Xerography Debt includes a regular column on the history of zines, find the antecedents of Leeking Ink and chickfactor and all of their kin much further back, in the 19th century broadsheets often named Tatler or Spectator and devoted to a wide range of political and literary subject matter, a sudden surge of home publishing made possible by the growing availability of the tabletop printing press.

Some blogs may bear kinship to certain kinds of zines, but I’m thinking that one to one correlation is false and does no kindness to either blogs or zines.

Anyway, the article basically ignores my favorite kind of zines (ha, the kind I co-edit), the print literary ones, in which some extremely vital work is being done. Scott Berg implies there aren’t any editors in zine-ville, which is patently false. (Ask any of the writers that Christopher Rowe and I have requested rewrites from.) He hints that the print zine is over, also falsely patented.

Some links to zines I think are worth your time that Berg didn’t have time to deal with (some of his recs are great, actually, love Leeking Ink) and which are cheaper than a cup of coffee at that green and white place:

Trunk Stories
Electric Velocipede
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (you should be reading this already! and not just for my advice column! also lots of zine reviews on the site!
Alchemy

–And yes, I’ve already linked to Say…, in a moment of crass zine promotion, but we just have little weird internet homes and no real site for the Fortress of Words (I know, I know), so just follow _that_ link and help pay for the reprints of the latest issue we desperately need to have done!

If you have favorites, post them in the comments.

Long live the zine revolution.

AL Kennedy (with Maud), Tanenhaus, (Complete Review taking piss of same), Andrei Codrescu (with Birnbaum), The Art of Not Writing Books, Robert Ferrigno (no relation to Lou) at Sarah’s, Stephen King and “artistic merit,” China Mieville and economics, Wold Newton, M. Night rips off M. Peterson Haddix, new Pavarotti tell-all, John Strelecky claims world’s fastest book sales, bidding war for Obama book, classic Indian lit into new media, A. Wilson wins Trib lifetime achievement, famed Hardy tryst tower to be moved, leading lit agency enters picture biz, Scot lot fund denies funds to preserve MS (x many), street lit biatch, Gloria Emerson passed away, yet another comics deserve more respect piece, Alex Beam checks out DFW Gourmet piece.

Alas, a bit of research shows that Herr Hamsun did indeed suffer from a case of Nazism. Worse, if that’s possible, he said and did things that rocket him way past “casual flirtation”–like meeting with Joseph Goebbels and then sending Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift:

Hamsun’s loyalty to the National Socialist New Order in Europe was well appreciated in Berlin, and in May 1943 Hamsun and his wife were invited to visit Joseph Goebbels, a devoted fan of the writer. Both men were deeply moved by the meeting, and Hamsun was so affected that he sent Goebbels the medal which he had received for winning the Nobel Prize for idealistic literature in 1920, writing that he knew of no statesman who had so idealistically written and preached the cause of Europe. Goebbels in return considered the meeting to have been one of the most precious encounters of his life and wrote touchingly in his diary: “May fate permit the great poet to live to see us win victory! If anybody deserved it because of a high-minded espousal of our cause even under the most difficult circumstances, it is he.” The following month Hamsun spoke at a conference in Vienna organized to protest against the destruction of European cultural treasures by the sadistic Allied terror-bombing raids. He praised Hitler as a crusader and a reformer who would create a new age and a new life. Then, three days later, on June 26, 1943, his loyalty was rewarded with a personal and highly emotional meeting with Hitler at the Berghof. As he left, the 84 year-old Hamsun told an adjutant to pass on one last message to his Leader: “Tell Adolf Hitler: we believe in you.”

Fucking hell. This doesn’t quite answer the question of whether I should read Hamsun or not, but to say it dampens my enthusiasm (in advance) would be an understatement.

I’ve found that The Writer’s Almanac is a lot easier to enjoy when you separate the content from Garrison Keillor’s soporific mumble. From today’s entry:

It’s the birthday of novelist Knut Hamsun, born Knut Pedersen in Lom, Norway (1859). Author of Hunger (1890) and The Growth of the Soil (1917), he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920. He said, “Language must resound with all the harmonies of music. The writer must always, at all times, find the tremulous word which captures the thing and is able to draw a sob from my soul by its very rightness. A word can be transformed into a color, light, a smell. It is the writer’s task to use it in such a way that it serves, never fails, can never be ignored.”

Any Hamsun fans out there? I confess to being completely ignorant of his work, so I’m wondering if I should be running to my local bookseller or not. (I assume that’s a “yes,” but pls. elaborate for my personal edification.)

Like most Nobel Laureates, his Banquet Speech is worth a look, if you please. Extract:

It is as well perhaps that this is not the first time I have been swept off my feet. In the days of my blessed youth there were such occasions; in what young person’s life do they not occur? No, the only young people to whom this feeling is strange are those young conservatives who were born old, who do not know the meaning of being carried away. No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation. Heaven knows that there are plenty of opportunities in later life, too, for being carried away. What of it? We remain what we are and, no doubt, it is all very good for us!

Speak, dear superfriends! Speak! Without your contras here, what is this place but a stunning white effulgence of nothingness? No troops, no slimy colonel speaking on television. Save dirge here, nada nary crazed cornucopia of outbursts (nugget-size, ears to follow) without too much concentration seeing as how the pistol will be squarely fired in twenty mins (how you like that, square peg into circle slot?). 1/3 hour resembling crazed recipe in the cookbook of life. Pomo post, gum (dream? riverworld?) going out of style, or back in if you’re George, Art, or Lee? If some brilliant deity combined Strasberg and Bruce, you’d have kickass martial arts theatre, no?

See, there’s the rub. Crazed associations, ticking clock, twenty minutes of fun (far from Sweet’s 100%, I’m sure), bags and balloons replacing cogent discourse. Bask in the incoherence! Peabs back too. See, sexy mofos all around. One ponders the porn king calling lights! camera! action! only to be greeted with detumescence. How many takes is that, daddy-o? And where’s your SoCal incest hook for the Bush-voting heartland? Crude, unfounded, but proving too true, perhaps thrice. See, we be better than smut!

What’s it all about? That bulge verging upon that sibilant letter, dead enderby. Vidi well, my friends. We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when.

We have only an inkling of what’s going down in the literary world. We thus return this blog to the control of the majestic Superfriends. It should be noted that Bondgirl has something pretty cool whipped up.

One thing we will say is that Before Sunset has one of the greatest cinematic endings we’ve seen in a year (ending entails rug cleared from beneath audience’s feet, followed by moans from audience when “Directed by Richard Linklater” credit is seemingly prematurely displayed, followed shortly after by wild applause over how delightfully mischevious Linklater has been — ergo, the man kicketh ass).

Now that all the conclusions about the decline in reading have been laid out, it’s time to weigh in well after the worthwhile arguments have been exhausted. I’m talking about the Negro problem. Think of the television public-service ad featuring that African-American basketball player (African-American sports figures reading? Never mind that rapist Mike Tyson reading Voltaire in the joint. We have well-hung stereotypes to maintain.) or the one depicting a prominent member of NAMBLA (Caucasian, and thus better) reading to a group of young boys shortly before a tête-a-tête. How can anyone get excited about reading when there are so many personal prejudices to dwell upon? After all, isn’t there a larger question here about giving life imprisonment to the Cacuasian and keeping Tyson on death row?

Now, in the wake of a well-referenced ALA report that you, my dear pale-skinned readers in the burbs, haven’t heard about — there’s a movement by these bleeding hearts to get more people reading. There was recently a Barack Obama speech that actually suggested some “slander” regarding a black kid with a book being considered white. I don’t understand. Are the Negros getting uppity again? Shouldn’t we be telling our lovable black brothers to keep their positions as lovable comedians (whether cute and cuddly like Wayne Brady or populist and provocative like Dave Chappelle), supporting characters who get killed off first in horror movies or who serve as magical sidekicks for aging, toupeed and pancaked Caucasian leads, WASPified secretaries of state told what to do by a unilateral administration, and well-hung sports stars?

We cannot permit the black man to read. Because that would involve them becoming informed citizens! They may actually transform the American power base!

To me, the best way to think about reading is to consider it the exclusive territory of the white man. Let those who live in gated communities have their golden libraries! Really, it works out better that way. Keep the inner cities equipped with rotting schools and dilapidated libraries. We gave them Pruitt-Igoe and it didn’t work! Why aren’t they grateful?

I should point out that when I was at 17, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I mention this because I want you to know that there was a point in my life when I was “down with the kids.” Anyway, I was frightened of the Negros. I was certain that a race war was going on, because one of those black people actually tried to introduce himself to me. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. But like any good (now ex-)liberal, I tried to see it from the black point of view. But my two best friends, who showed up to the homecoming cance dressed in really spectacular white gowns and hoods, didn’t like what I was reading.

Well, I saw the light. And now here I am in Virginia still trying to understand why my fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson wrote words against slavery.

Where was I going with this? Ah yes. Words are potent. And we should begin burning books at the inauguration should Uncle George win again. It’s the American thing to do.

(….as soon as the birds leave anyway.)

Guerilla drive-ins are the new best activity:

For three years, cult-movie buffs have been organizing “guerrilla drive-ins” in a number of cities, rigging together a nest of digital projectors, DVD players, and radio transmitters or stereo speakers, spreading the word online, and assembling on parking lots or fields to watch obscure films beneath the stars.

They project the image onto warehouses or bridge pillars, tune their car stereos to a designated FM frequency, and sit back and enjoy the show. The only thing they do not do is ask for permission.

This sounds wonderful. Something must revive the drive-in, not least because it’s the type of viewing that best suits the majority of the big movies Hollywood turns out. You need the easy distractions and odd interface of it, the distance and the other sensory entertainments to make some of these movies, well, watchable. You can eat junk food that makes stadium theater junk food look like soycakes and have a cocktail in your car. Or outside it on a blanket.

Something is missing from our cultural life with the death of the drive-in. I saw Clash of the Titans at our own centerpiece of smalltown life when I was five. When my dad and I went to get extra snacks — (we snuck in sodas and minimal snacks in our trunk; I had no idea when I was a kid that my parents were trying to save money… I thought they were hacking the mainframe) — I got to ask him a question he still remembers with mortification: why was my cousin Anthony on the ground puking near the snack stand? Sometimes boyfriends and girlfriends fight, was the response, and I still remember my cousin’s bleach-blond girlfriend towering over him, playing the conquistador. Would this ever have happened inside a movie theater? I think not.

Just when I got old enough to loiter at the drive-in by myself on weekends, the screen blew over during a thunderstorm. Drive-ins were dying by then, movie theaters switching from showing two movies at a time to six or ten, and it wasn’t worthwhile for the owners to fix it.

Viva la warehouse viewing.