• The Davis Enterprise talks with local wunderkind Kim Stanley Robinson. The phrase “fried on automotive life” appears in the profile.
• Bernice Rubens has died. She was the second novelist to win the Man Booker Prize for fiction.
• Time dares to tackle Graham Greene, with a header about as bad as a knock-knock joke.
• Carol Shields’ Unless is now a play.
• Some dirt on Elmore Leonard’s new book, “I’m almost finished with a new book in which one of the characters is the son of an oil millionaire in Oklahoma in the 1930s, and he decides that he wants to be Public Enemy No. 1, like the bank robber John Dillinger. This guy doesn’t see what’s wrong with that and, like a lot of people, he doesn’t think he’s going to be held accountable.”

• Chinua Achebe has rejected one of Africa’s most prestigious literary awards, protesting the dangerous state of Nigeria.
• Playboy, sensing the final nail about to be hammered into its now culturally irrelevant coffin, opens the Playboy Club again after a twenty year hiatus. The venue? Las Vegas, of course.
• Susanna Clarke dares to call herself “the new black.” (Get on ’em, Hag)
• Everybody’s favorite Birnbaum talks with Jon Lee Anderson.
• Annamarie Jagose has won the Victoria Premier Literary Award for a novel set when homosexuality was a capital offense.
• The Chronicle writes up Litquake.
• William Hill on Cloud Atlas’ chances of winning the Booker: “I have been setting the odds for the Booker for over twenty years and this book has been more hotly fancied than any other.”
• Forget Good-Franz, Bad-Franz. Rake better get hopping on the two V.S. Naipuls.
• The Seattle Times follows up with Sergio Witz Rodriquez and his infamous 21-line poem.

It’s good to see Yardley giving props to the new Broadway Comedies volume from Library of America. With its able collection of George Kaufman plays, it appears a must own for anyone interested in theatre and comedy. My only quibble with Yardley’s review is his strange suggestion that “there aren’t that many people under 60 who remember Groucho that clearly.” I beg to differ, given the Marx Brothers’ indelible imprint upon our cultural lexicon. But if Yardley is referring to theatre, given that Animal Crackers was staged a good 76 years ago and that Groucho didn’t appear on Broadway after, one wonders where Yardley’s hiding the keys to the time machine. Or does Washington Post Book World now cater to a nonagenarian (or perhaps a non-aging) demographic? Inquiring minds want to know, if only because the Weekly World News has stopped thinking.

It has come to my attention that a strange rash of pre-election depression is afflicting a good number of my friends and acquaintances. Most of them (well, nearly all of them) hope to hell that John Kerry will be our next Commander-in-Chief. And even then, such wishes are expressed with a specifically punctuated “Anybody but Bush” stipulation. Despite their decisions, they have their doubts. They see the polls and remain convinced that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And there have been strange behavioral consequences.

Couples are breaking up. There’s a good deal of drinking going on. Effortless smiles are harder to form People look at how overworked they are and how penurious their companies are about hiring more people to assist with the rampant overflow and they ask themselves when the hell it’s all going to end. A strange sense of doom suspends in the air. And I’ve had to remind several people I love and admire that, all things considered, life is good and that it is their obligation to treat themselves well, so that the grand happiness cycle can continue and affect others within respective circles in similar fashion. And, by “grand happiness,” I don’t mean treacly Hallmark cards or bogus affirmation seminars. I mean, just looking at the damn crazy world around us and not giving into the idea that it will be bombed or turned into a totalitarian nightmare. I’m talking about doing something, dammit. I’m talking about a general sense of decency that most humans employed in a governmental capacity seem incapable of. I’m talking about standing up for yourself and looking out for others. I’m talking about ignoring the fuck out of those who would deliberately harm, maim or mock, and doing your own thing, dammit. Do I have to remind you that Roberto Rossellini gathered together strips of film and made Open City under Mussolini, dammit? Do I have to remind you that the Marquis de Sade continued to create in prison? Life’s too short. Magic is too often squandered by the damned unimaginative madmen who would point to the pony slightly straying off the concourse and declare “Enemy.” Well, fuck them. It is often the ignoble scaredycat who would willingly immolate himself because the world presents him with no other option. To the afraid, I reply: Do your own thing anyway.

And while I have strayed significantly off course, I should point out that the friends who call in with these concerns are often oblivious of the fact that my own heart was broken recently. I don’t hold this against them at all. Because I’m determined to forge ahead and I encourage them to do so likewise. (In fact, Chic plays while I type these words. I suggest that all others aspiring to exist in a moribund state play the same. It helps, believe it or not.)

Sure, you can buy into this unfortunate reality, among others. But you can also remind yourself that others are fighting the good fight. And where one is taken away, there will be hundreds to take the place.

The point is this: When the Towers were knocked down, citizens, irrespective of government, gathered together to see what the hell they can do. It was their generosity and bonhomie that got us through that fateful day, not the sham rulers or the opportunists. Why is it that we so frequently forget this? So long as artists and painters and writers and crazed speakers and determined protestors and giddy bastards continue to fight the good fight, we’re going to be okay.

Because the plain truth is that the human spirit in all of its omnifarious forms cannot be quashed. Even with a second Bush term. If those in power are to declare that certain sectors of the vox populi are to be denied basic liberties, then it is your responsibility to not only take the power away from them, but to point the middle finger in their faces. And you can do that first and foremost by heading to the polls on November 2. But beyond that, inhabit who you are and damn the consequences. The rest will follow and the world will be all right.

We would have ignored this silly Toni Bentley profile altogether, but we were inexplicably drawn to Chip McGrath’s willingness to confess his own embarassment. This sort of thing amuses us. We’re not sure why. Perhaps because it reminds us so much of the randy balderdash that often passes for “criticism” in London newspapers. Even so, Chip McGrath strikes us as a man who should know better. Strike one was his out-of-touch comics novel. This Bentley profile is strike two. We’re hoping that McGrath will prove us wrong and not falter like an unfortunate Sox player that you don’t want to see go down. But it’s looking likelier that we’ll soon have two NYTBR editors to look out for.

“a must-discuss among the sorts of people who would never let themselves be seen hanging around the porn shelf.” Wake up, Chip. You can download pornography or get it through mail order.

“No less a highbrow than Leon Wieseltier.” Oh, he’s lesser. And randier.

“an extremely graphic memoir.” Does sodomy translate into “extremely graphic” for you? What does it take for you to be truly shocked, Chip? A man tied up naked in hemp? That’s so…1968.

“We have the more clinical term ‘anal intercourse.’” No, most folks call it “ass-fucking.” Wake up and smell the vox populi.

“The subject is still not so embarrassment-free.” Maybe in upstate New York, but in most major metropolitan areas, it’s peachy keen, thankya.

“Ms. Bentley hits the grand rhapsodic note, as when she writes, ‘I became an archetype, a myth, a Joseph Campbell goddess spreading my legs for the benefit of all mankind for all time.'” And I suppose George Lucas is Zeus by way of throwing in Campbell every time he talks about his flaacid space operas? Come on, Chip. Don’t tell us you weren’t so easily suckered.

[Incidentally, in all fairness to Ms. Bentley, we should confess that we read and enjoyed Sisters of Salome. But enough already!]

Edinburgh is to be named the City of Literature. New York, Berlin, Paris and London expressed jealousy and planned to “put the little Scottish upstart in its place.”

Catherine Zeta-Jones, one of the most important minds of our time, has thrown her, uh, support into a literary award devoted to memory of Dylan Thomas. The big question is whether the prize will be awarded for the quality of a writer’s writing or the quality of a writer’s drinking. Whatever the case, this new Dylan Thomas bauble outstrips the Booker in the moolah department.

Stephen King, The Dark Tower: So this is it, eh? You’ve conned me out of $35 twice and this time I don’t feel as bad. But what’s with the artless offing of random pivotal characters? Why don’t these deaths mean anything? And if I have to read one more extended palaver or endure some deus ex machina scene momentum involving mental telepathy, I’m going to scream. Even so, I remain hooked, if only because I’ve read thousands of your pages and I’m too far in to quit. And even I have to confess that you’ve been a steady steed, soldier.

Richard Powers, The Time of Our Singing: I bow to your erudition and beauty! I’ve read the seven books before this and you seem to me the best of Powers’ oeuvre. How were you neglected so long? I’ll tell you why, padre. You’re a bit overwhelming sometimes. Sure, you’re not as much of a cerebral blitzkrieg as your bro, Operation Wandering Soul. But I find myself in a strange predicament. I’m drawn to your bright bulb like a steadfast moth, savoring your language and feeling my heart palpitate when you put the Emmett Till incident into context. Still, with all the musical terminology and digressions into relativity, I get the distinct sensation that I should stop and possibly apply a hacksaw to my skull to let some of the air out. You’re getting better at this thing called plot, Time, but a little more narrative momentum would obviate me contemplating the hacksaw, no?

Rachel Seiffert, The Dark Room: You talk the talk. You walk the walk. The principle behind your staging is to be admired: stark and clinical. Your perspective is grand. Don’t get me wrong, kid: I dig ya. But at this point, you may be a bit too detached for my tastes. We’ll see how it goes.

Sarah Waters, Fingersmith: Your victimization of a young woman in the Victorian age angle reminds me in many ways of Crimson Petal and the White, except you’re shorter and there are some exciting plot twists. While I have a suspicion you’re short-changing us on some giddy language possibilities (and what’s with the heavy-handed, obvs “Gentleman” approach), there’s absolutely no reason why you should be in the remainders pile (which I saw you in a few weeks ago). Is there no justice?

Ian Rankin, Strip Jack: You’re good, but you’re more of the same. I’ve been following your adventures, deliberately padding them out over several months, hoping to see how Rebus’s adventures evolve over time, but does Brian Holmes’ promotion really count as character development? I’m starting to grow weary of your corny jokes, which were fun in the earlier novels, but now stick out like sore thumbs intended to space out the novel. Perhaps I’m being too hard on you. Please tell me it gets better.

Leave it to Sarah to beat my ass on the Toby Litt front. His new novel, Ghost Story, is reportedly opens with a nonfiction section, whereby Litt writes about his girlfriend’s three miscarriages, and then launches into the novelistic portion about a young couple dealing with loss. I thought Litt’s Beatniks was enjoyable enough, but it’s nice to see that the man’s truly living up to his Granta 20 mantle with daring experimentation.

If you remain doubtful of Canadian ingenuity, look no further than Winnipeg: “A new nightclub at 115 Bannatyne Ave., The Library, boasts go-go dancers dressed as sexy librarians, servers who will leave contact lenses at home and wear eyeglasses — if they have them — and a general aura of naughty bookishness that owner Greg Haasbeek says is inspired by the movie Varsity Blues and Van Halen’s Hot for Teacher.”

Allow us to take the liberty of coming out of the closet right now. Greg Haasbeek must be a genius. Naughty bookishness and go-go dancers are what we live for. We have always considered librarians to be nothing less than sexy. (Perhaps we’ve just been lucky enough to encounter very helpful and attractive librarians over the years. Either this or we just have one of those standard girl-geek fetishes, in which case there’s nothing to write home about after all.) (via the polymorphously perverse Michael Schaub)

Wrestling an Alligator actor Damian Lanahan-Kalish sends word that un/dying/love, a collection of theatrical shorts, will be playing at the Climate Theatre (285 9th Street) through Oct. 30. Check it out.

And the Elegant Variation turns one today. Congratulations, Mark!

It may not be hep to say it. After all, Our Great Nation is still adapting to a post-9/11 age of terror in which irony is as forbidden as Mary Jane and Certain Assumptions must remain True and Unquestioned by the 48% of the population who still insists that George “You forgot Poland!” Bush is the best man for the job.

But the 9/11 Commission‘s recent nomination for the National Book Award is a travesty to quality nonfiction. The “work” isn’t even a book proper. It was a report generated by an independent government authority. As such, there will no doubt be a mad and unfortunate dash among the 9/11 Commission’s many members over who has rightfully earned the award. But beyond this, what can one say about a document with a structure clearly pilfered from U.S. Department of Justice Interdepartment Memo 2004-85721-97 (an undisputed classic also referred to as “Potential Applications of Telemetric Devices in Post-Operative Middle American Scenarios”)?

Unless you’re a reader who thinks turgid bureaucratese beats out investigative journalism any day of the week, the report has only its astonishing facts to draw upon. And while these facts are substantial, it cannot detract from one glaring problem: how it was written.

Take the following passages:

“The Justice Department is much more than the FBI.” (Chapter 3) Much more? Discarding the glaring redundancy here, where’s the qualitative adjective that guides the topic sentence?

“KSM first came to the attention of U.S. law enforcement as a result of his cameo role in the first World Trade Center bombing.” (Chapter 5) Cameo role? We reserve cameos for movies, thank you very much. Does someone at the 9/11 Commission fancy himself the next Alex Garland?

Chapter 6’s Title: “From Threat to Threat.” Even a half-hearted scrivener understands that you don’t use the same noun twice, particularly when you’re trying to evoke the halycon phrase “From Here to Eternity.”

“Although boasts among prison inmates often tend to be unreliable, this evidence is obviously important.” (Chapter 7) By any reasonable estimate, this is an anticlimactic sentence. It suggests that the 9/11 Commission intends to explain why the prison testimony weighed even a modicum into their decision and then fails to follow through on the promise.

“He was flown by helicopter back to the White House, passing over the still-smoldering Pentagon. At 8:30 that evening, President Bush addressed the nation from the White House.” (Chapter 10) Well, where else would the President address the nation from? It’s already been established that he’s been flown back to the White House. This is lazy exposition.

I’d quibble further, but already I crave a bottle of aspirin. And the last thing I wish to do is cause the reader additional anguish. These cursory examples are but a handful of the full travesty unveiled upon an unsuspecting public. Bad enough that the predictable Garrison Keillor and his damn Woebegone stories are on tap to propel the ceremony. But should the National Book Foundation dare to crown The 9/11 Commission Report its winner, it will send a clear and resounding message that pulpish, slavishly written and hastily executed work matters most. I urge all concerned parties to contact the NBF at (212) 685-0261. This seminal lapse in judgment demands proper accountability.

I just saw the leader of the free world reduced to a quiet stammering marshmallow. Who knew?

Congratulations, Mr. Balk (formerly known as TMFTML). Rest assured, now that Mr. Balk has very publicly sold out to the man, boiling a few live babies just before walking to the Times office, and lighting up Havanas underneath Bloomberg’s very own nose, it is clear that Mr. Balk has become too untrustworthy and hopelessly corrupted to be useful for the blogosphere’s purposes. We will be certain to write blasphemies about his work, with the same pragmatism with which we use Tanenhaus’s NYTBR issues for our furnace. Mr. Balk cannot be trusted ever, ever again. (via Maud)

The National Book Award finalists have been announced. For Fiction:

Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Florida by Christine Schutt
Ideas of Heaven by Joan Silber
The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Kate Walbert

This may be the first time in National Book Award history that all the nominees were women.

Vendela Vida: “I need help finding smell in contemporary fiction — please help me.”

From Cynthia Ozick’s Heir to the Glimmering World: “I rode the bus to a corner populated by a cluster of small shabby stores-grocery, shoemaker’s, dry cleaner’s, and under a tattered awning a dim coffee shop vomiting out odors of some foul stuff frying.”

From Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s My Nine Lives: “…she leaned forward to kiss me, enfolding me in the warmth of her breath, her perfume, the smell and taste of the good strong coffee she drank all day long, even at tea-time.”

The first two lines of Walter Mosley’s Little Scarlet: “The morning air still smelled of smoke. Wood ash mainly but there was also the acrid stench of burnt plastic and paint.”

David Lodge, Author, Author: “pressed up against her sweet-smelling, gently yielding form in the dark”

Maggie O’Farrell, My Lover’s Lover: “…Lily finds a small office smelling faintly of wet coffee granules.”

And that’s all from first chapters.

Personally, my favorite smell passage that I’ve read recently comes from (of all people) Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: “High school teachers faced with a large group of students in study hall or a school assembly will tell you that teenagers, even when freshly showered and groomed, reek of the hormones which their bodies are so busy manufacturing. Any group of people under stress emits a similar stink, and Jake, with his senses tuned to the most exquisite pitch, smelled it here.”

If there’s been a particularly bitter tone that’s crept onto these pages of late, my apologies. My heart has remained broken for at least sixty-six different reasons (and, yes, it’s at least sixty-six; they’ve all been logged down privately, along with prospective ways out) over the past couple of weeks, and I’ve tried to rebound from this by submerging myself into work, which to my mind includes this place. Certainly the insomnia helps. But it hasn’t completely extinguished a tone of nastiness that really doesn’t serve anybody. It doesn’t help my writing, much less the research I’m trying to do right now for the next play. (After all, not that I’m trying to draw any comparisons here, we all know what happened to John Fowles.)

So I’ve decided to withdraw from these pages for a while. It’s more important for me to find solid ground and a certain faith in humankind again than to kvetch about picayune shit like Stanley Crouch’s latest piece of irrational detritus. In the meantime, the David Mitchell interview I posted a few days ago should keep you folks busy. But do visit the smart and sturdy souls on the left.

I was sent the following email. If you care at all about the greatest movie theatre in San Francisco, I urge you to read this and write in (that includes you, Cinetrix!):

Friends and Colleagues:

Whether I have mentioned to you or not, the Castro Theatre is in serious trouble. The owner of the business, in his desire for sure profit, has made drastic staffing cuts and is on the verge of changing things for the worse by monkeying with programming. Anita Monga, who has programmed the theatre since 1986, long before this present owner/adminstration, has guided the Theatre through heavy times, the good and the bad years, to be able to make the Castro a unique movie theatre experience, not just locally but internationally.

If the Castro Theatre goes, an important cultural institution will forever perish. We all know the state of movie exhibiton, so this is no
exageration. The less venues there are to show unique, interesting,
non-mainstream films, the less opportunity filmmakers will have to make
those kinds of films.

This might be hard to imagine today, but the current owner’s father ran the Castro Theatre into the ground in the late 60s, early 70s, showing
third-run in an unfortunate state of disrepair. He had hoped to turn that piece
of land into a seemingly more profitable apartment building. It was the
passion of programmer Mel Novikoff who took over operations, and created
the beautiful Castro we know today, cultivating an audience for classics
and independents. Anita Monga took up Novikoff’s vision when he passed
away.

I include below a request to you made by the staff of the Castro Theatre. Whether you have, in recent times, come to see theatrical premieres of extraordinary docs like The Corporation or The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, the antics of Marc Huestis’ Ladies and Gentlemen Prefer Jane Russell with the singular Ms Jane Russell in person, gorgeous revivals of The Leopard, La Dolce Vita or Tokyo Story, or have come to the Asian American, SF International, Frameline Lesbian and Gay, the Arab or the many other film festivals we host, you know how important this theatre is.

Thank You, and please pass this on.

Dear Friend:

Can you do a favor?

Can you write a simple letter of appreciation for the Castro
Theatre? Some critical points to make (if you’re comfortable doing so)
are: 1) The programming is interesting and intelligent and is one of the
things that sets the theatre apart. 2) The staff is intelligent,
knowledgeable and responsive to the audience’s needs, and is one of the
things that sets the theatre apart. 3) The theatre is a vital part of the
cultural life of the Bay Area.

Please be positve. Any negativity, including fears about the
theatre’s future or pleas to save the theatre will be extemely
counterproductive. Rather, take the tone of a recommendation letter or a
simple thank you note. You can address it to the Castro Theatre.

This doesn’t have to be long (unless you feel inspired)—a few sentences will do. If you can write it on letterhead and mail it to Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco CA 94114, or attach it to e-mail and send it to castrotheatre@aol.com, that’d be great.

If you think of anyone else who might appreciate what we’re doing, let me know to contact.

If you feel that you can do this, please don’t delay. The next few weeks are critical.

Moby lives again.

Jessa takes King and Rowling to task for thinking “they’re above having editors.” Well, if that were the case, then I suspect the latest installments of the Dark Tower and Harry Potter series would be a good deal longer and more incoherent.

With the exception of the first book, Stephen King has in fact had an editor through the Dark Tower series. And, in fact, he went back and revised the first volume with the Donald M. Grant team specifically because these early stories lacked an editor. And, as usual, King also enlisted longtime agent Arthur Greene as his editor. One can also turn to the final pages of On Writing to see King’s editing in action.

As for Rowling, Barry Cunningham and Arthur Cunningham have, respectively, edited the UK and US editions of Potter.

So to hell with Indian Massacre Day or whatever today’s supposed to evoke. Return of the Reluctant proclaims today International Editor Day, saluting the fine folks who kept these writers under wraps.

“These tombstones looked really neat.” (via Kottke)

Best. Anchor Bay DVD Release. Ever.

And Tom “My time in Vietnam had a big influence on me” Savini is the most insane man in the film makeup business. If you check out the extras, watch his eyes light up when he contemplates pig intestines and exploding heads. That’s what movie magic is all about.

Oscar Villalon asks whether the Nobel’s really worth it: “Even the most erudite among us will have a hard time naming a single book by a great chunk of past laureates. How about that Sigrid Undset (1928)? Who could ever forget her, right? Or how about Par Lagerkvist (1951)? Or Jaroslav Seifert (1984)? Got those names tattooed on the brain, don’t you? And if you do, it’s because you’ve boned up on all the past winners for trivia night at the pub.”

Salon talks with Toni Bentley: “‘You could eat off my asshole,’ you write, describing your ritual ablutions. Can it be true that you did not see, touch or smell shit during the 298 anal penetrations you describe? Is that a realistic expectation for most people?”

Ah, nothing like the unfettered freedom of the Internet to encourage the seminal questions of our time. How long before Philip Roth is finally cornered by Rebecca Traister’s unequivocally eloquent mind on Portnoy? (via Ron)

It’s difficult to find a first novel that conveys a mature and understated voice while daring to tackle as seminal a topic as imagination’s connection to the human soul, but Ben Rice’s Pobby and Dingan (opening excerpt here) is that novel. Pobby tells the tale of two imaginary friends of Kellyanne, a young girl in an Australian Outback mining town. The two friends are “lost” one day by Kellyanne’s alcoholic father and this sets into motion a remarkable series of events that demonstrate how important fantasy is when juxtaposed against the daily upheavals of life. Rice adeptly captures the nuances of rowdy Down Under vernacular (Mello Yello and all) and pommy prejudices while showing how Ashmol, Kellyanne’s brother who narrates the tale, gradually comes to understand his sister’s mentality. But more importantly, Rice has achieved a pitch-perfect balance between Balzacian reality and the plausible hyperreality that the novel is almost intended to get away with. While my colleagues at the Complete Review may quibble over the abstract nature of Kellyanne’s condition, I think they’ve failed to fully appreciate how Rice has created a self-sufficient fable for our times.

I will confess that recent personal events probably had my heart more ready to be scattered into a thousand shards. But with pomo dismissed in some circles as intellectual flummery and a literary climate encouraging mammoth “event” novels that are essentially trumped up popular fiction (now worse than ever, given that the most egregious cases are now taken seriously by the NYTBR), Rice has done the unthinkable. He’s written a thin novel that contrasts the human heart with its own sustaining requirements. Which is more than a dozen highly regarded authors could do with a single humorless sentence, much less a concept purlonied and distilled from Donald Barthelme.

A film adaptation of Pobby is in the works, but, even with Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo behind it, Rice’s story demands to be experienced on the page.

Jacques Derrida has passed on.