The Independent: “But there are inescapable similarities between the book and Carey’s own life. Its central character, Butcher Bones, is an artist born the same year and in the same town outside Melbourne, Australia. Their careers have taken them to Sydney, Tokyo and New York, but perhaps more crucially both have recently emerged from bitter divorces.”
Month / May 2006
It Was Really About the Puns, Not the Dinero
Speculative Fiction Elder Statesmen Don’t Count on the Exegesis Front?
There seems to be only one review I can find of the new Best of Philip Jose Farmer collection.
Prosody in a Ha-Ha Way?
Poetry’s Clearinghouse?
Ron Silliman takes a recent Poetry Foundation study to task at great length: “As a one-time contributor to Poetry, I know that this doesn’t touch my world in any meaningful way. But here’s my question: does it touch the world of Christian Wiman and the current generation of old/new formalists he represents? If it does, how very sad for him. If it doesn’t, one wonders just how much money the Poetry Foundation sunk into this project. One can imagine the New York trade publishers funding this sort of research, because it really has more to do with their use of poetry as coffee table and Christmas gift-ware, what to give to that sensitive but strange niece, that sort of thing. But as a study of the sociology of poetry, what is most remarkable is just how far it misses the mark.”
I Don’t Have a Vagina, But…
Jessa Crispin: “To be even more insulting, the femaleness that the anthologies want me to get in touch with is always of one particular type: the middle-to-upper-middle-class, white, married-with-children kind. The May Queen is especially homogenous, with a large chunk of the contributors writing about how to balance motherhood with their writing.”
Jessa must have read a completely different book than I did. Sure, there may be some essays dwelling on upper-to-middle class life in the book, but the copy of The May Queen I have has a gripping tale told by Flor Morales about crossing the border while pregnant — a decidedly working-class predicament. There’s Meghan Daum’s essay about not wanting to have children, wherein she expresses her frustration at the way society judges her by this decision. There’s Laila’s essay about coming to terms with her ethnic identity. And that’s all off the top of my head, without even flipping through the table of contents.
I don’t entirely disagree with Jessa’s sentiments, but it’s a pity that some people need to fabricate examples rather than use real and specific ones.
And That’s Just His Blurbs, Mind You
CBC: “Eggers’s approach to blurbing is novel; the slightly absurd tone is not. Every newly published book heaves with hyperbolic quotations — and the language is getting more and more preposterous.”
In Other Words, Ben Ratliff is Too Old for This Beat and Needs to Be Reassigned
New York Times: “Animal Collective played a set of well-practiced, neatly arranged freaking out, using electronic sound samples, processed guitar and lots of wild, elastic, almost ecstatic singing: working under the afternoon’s dry heat, the band seemed to be expelling demons and worked against the coziness and knowingness of the crowd, the I’ll-blog-about-you-blogging-about-me energy.”
Because, of course, when you’re in the middle of the desert dancing your ass off to groovy tunes with an unreliable cell phone, blogging is the first of your concerns.
(via Black Market Kidneys)
Stepping In Tenuously
If such a thing is possible, I have had too much fun during the past three days and am still trying to process everything that went down. Some kind of a Coachella report will follow, once I understand how to type again. (Already, I am far too loosy-goosey and relaxed to tango with Mr. QWERTY. This entry serves as a rather rough stab with the keys.)
I would be remiss if I didn’t report that I recently took up miniature golf, my first foray after a three and a half year hiatus. To my great shock, there were a few holes in one and I scored five under par on the intermediate course. This augurs well for a rather silly (and hitherto unannounced) desire I’ve had to be good at some kind of quirky sport that really can’t be qualified as a sport. (And in golf’s case, we’re talking about a particularly silly idea that involves up far too much land and consumes far too much gasoline for ridiculous-looking vehicles traveling at bradykinetic speeds up and down grass that is more well-tended than most palatial mansions. In other words, extravagance for extravagance’s sake. Mini-golfing, by contrast, involves playing on a strip of land occupied by windmills, castles and other pleasing and colorful landmarks that only a heart of anthracite could say no gracias to. It takes up far less space than a country club and, because of its quirks, warrants the same kind of attention afforded to bowling, air hockey, frisbees and the like. And if such fixations trouble you, there is nothing here I need to apologize for. I am, after all, a Californian.)
I didn’t do quite as well on the “masters course” (a few shots over par), in large part because I still need to work on putting the ball up anthills. But I think a bit of practice should get my drive down.
On this particular course, there were even some lovely peacocks, ducks and lizards running around the green, which I suppose might have provided sufficient motivation and awe for me to concentrate.
The conclusion to be drawn: animals can be counted upon in a pinch to improve your game. Perhaps if various forms of wildlife were to be let loose into AT&T Park (ideally during a Dodgers game), the San Francisco Giants, who are currently at a 13-11 standing, might be counted upon to rush past the Colorado Rockies and secure their rightful standing on the National League West roster. Of course, it’s still early in the season. The important thing to note is that the Giants are ahead of that disreputable team based in Los Angeles, which gives me a small if shameful bit of pleasure.
In any event, there seems to be a good deal of conversation going on at the LBC, which warrants your attention. There is also a planned litblog function in the works scheduled in tandem with BookExpo America. Your faithful correspondent will be there. And, of course, the Tayari Jones drinking offer still stands. If you were photographed with Ms. Jones at Busboys and Poets during her recent stint there, produce the photograph to me and I will buy you a drink.
Much more to come. But I’m hoping you are all feeling as fantastic about May as I am. And if not, I have a maypole specialist and several florists who I can happily refer you to.
[UPDATE: Tito and I exchanged numerous voicemails and text messages and never quite met up, save through two unexpected skirmishes when we were both respectively scampering to different locales. But he has several Flickr photos up.]