The Progressive Bank: “When I see this strip, I think of that poor bunny, and then I feel bad about him, and then I look at Ziggy and feel bad for making fun of him. He’s just some poor guy who’s trying to make a cake! And he’s smiling and keeping a positive outlook on things, no matter how much dirt life kicks in his face! Maybe I’m a softy, but I weep as I type this. Softly. For Ziggy. May Tom Wilson get punched in the eye so hard that he dies, ending your mercilessly long march on the mouse wheel of life.”
Month / June 2006
The Bat Segundo Show #44
Authors: Derik Badman and Jordan Stump
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Gone, relieved not to be involved with Bolsheviks.
Subjects Discussed: French humor, Jacques Tati, how Stump translates, comic beats, auctorial tone and linguistics, the pros and cons of long sentences, the benefits of reading aloud, translating Verne vs. translating Touissaint, why translators get a bad rap, “Translator Awareness Month,” the influence of commercial interests on translated novels, forgotten French authors.
Portrait of the Litblogger as a Young Man
Egged on by a certain unnamed instigator who didn’t believe that I once had hair, here is photographic evidence for your collective ridicule. It’s no Vollmann with a gun but it certainly does represents a sign of things to come.
Good Reading in Dem Magazines
Maud points to this interesting essay in Harper’s from Ben Metcalf on what one is permitted to say in public. I was greatly relieved that someone pointed this article out, as my Harper’s is currently lodged somewhere beneath a vertiginous stack of periodicals on the west side of my room. This particular situation, much less my magazine backlog, does not detract from what Metcalf has to say.
Also of note: Laila has an essay on what it means to be a Muslim woman today in the June 19, 2006 issue of The Nation.
Finally, if you pick up this week’s Penny Saver, you’ll find an essay penned by me detailing the disadvantages of sunglasses in a foggy urban environment. The essay is polemical and I even tie this into game theory. Really, it’s a must read.
But On the Upside, At Least It’s Good for Downloading Porn!
Charlie Brooker: “There’s no point debating anything online. You might as well hurl shoes in the air to knock clouds from the sky. The internet’s perfect for all manner of things, but productive discussion ain’t one of them. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point-scoring: the heady combination of perceived anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notional ‘live audience’ quickly conspire to create a ‘perfect storm’ of perpetual bickering.”
Open Source Characters?
As Lee Goldberg has discovered, some of these fan fiction writers don’t get it. Witness this ironic and clueless disclaimer (although the “warning” not to steal characters which Goldberg cites has been removed).
Since Shadow of the Wolf thinks nothing of stealing other people’s characters, here is my attempt at fan fiction in the style and voice of the Shadow of the Wolf characters. My “fan fiction” of “fan fiction,” if you will. You may call it “stealing,” but you’re probably right:
“You were just fucking her brains out, then?” Erik asked.
“Yes,” Alain replied longly. “Mom sucks cock better than you.” The seventeen-year-old took off the remainder of the mess of the five-minute fuck that he had completed with great care.
“After I fucked you? Taught you everything you know?”
“You knew this would happen one day. It happens in all families. The first time it happened, mom showed me the way. Where were you? A child grows up and leaves home and sometimes comes back again.”
Both men had hot tempers right now at this moment and maybe today as you’re reading this they were doing their best to keep them under control. Alain was going to leave the safety of the rat-infested studio apartment to venture out on his own and try to launching a house of opera. Because he was seventeen and because he was growing tired of fucking his parents. The two had fought and fucked over Alain’s profound decision for many days. Erik refused to leave his apartment and Alain accused him of getting bored easily. This struck three chords with Erik and he was backed off by the powerful thrust of his hand immediately, not saying nothing more much about it. Alain knew that he had fucked his father and that he might fuck him again, but was too proud to apologize for it. Perhaps he would fuck his mother again. His past and his face and his half-erect cock prevented him from completing his thought. Alain did not have a half-erect cock. In fact, now that I think about it, he did not have a cock at all and was only borrowing Lucrezia’s strap-on so that he might fuck Erik if he got bored with fucking his mother or this unspecified moaning human he was just finishing up with right now. Or was that actually mom? Or grandma?
“You’re my child!!!!!!!!”
“I’m not a child! I just prefer fucking mom” said Alain gigantically, watching his cock rise upwards and long as he pondered another dip into Mom’s honey.
Erik watched as his son fucked his wife again. Perhaps if Alain started a house of opera, there could be many grounds for divorce!
THE END
Roundup
- Congratulations Jenny D!
- BSG S3 details (via Gwenda)
- No, it’s not just you, Tayari. For your consideration: Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days or Ernest J. Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying.
- Elizabeth Crane on A History of Violence: “Like, if I suddenly found out Ben had a previous life in the Philadelphia mob (I didn’t think so, but I double checked, and he denied it), I think I would be angry about being deceived but I would not express my anger by having sex with him on the stairs after he tried to strangle me.”
- Hedy Weiss on Henry Kisor.
- “For the part of her book that is set on a ranch, Cowart’s research involved visiting a Tifton rodeo where she complied the phone numbers of all the cowboys.” But is this research or a disingenuous way to hook up with men in chaps?
- The Courier Mail reviews The History of Love, but half of the review involves talking about JSF and Krauss. While there’s always room for a little salacious tidbits, I have to ask whether the Courier Mail is running a book review section or a gossip column.
- The Sci Fi Traveling Road Show: a podcast dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, and horror coming from small press. (via Locus)
- Neil Gaiman in podcast form.
- The New Yorker blows more imagery on Phil Collins than the man deserves: “His head is small and round, like a globe, and closely shaved, so that the dark patterns of hair suggest land and the bald parts suggest water.” WTF? Is Alec Wilkinson a new Conde Nast hire or is it still New Yorker policy to find ridiculous profundity in bland and soulless performers?
- How cool is this? Of Montreal were hired as wedding singers. (via the betrothed Tito Perez)
- Sometimes Gawker comes through.
- Booksellers are pissed by the Sunday Times paid placement article.
- Finally, Sarvas comes around.
Cool As Hell Juggernaut
I’ve been catching up on the excellent Cool as Hell podcasts. Of particular interest: Denotay Wilson and Norman Gee discussing their riff on Dante’s Inferno (with some interesting remarks on how Wilson convinced the Magic to take on the play) and this really zany conversation.
Slow News Day at the Post-Intelligencer
Clooney is still tops with women. This is news?
Three Reads More Important Than Brad & Angie’s Love Child and That Taylor Hicks Idiot
1. BBC: “The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.”
2. Rolling Stone: They took Ohio.
3. Telegraph: United States moves to remote control warfare.
A Convenient Deification?
To remain au courant and (presumably) a good liberal, I will likely see An Inconvenient Truth sometime this weekend, but Film Threat‘s Phil Hall echoes some of my own reservations about the possible solipsism involved: “Yes, the man who (in his words) used to be the next President of the United States is now on the big screen in this self-serving slop where he hosts a slide show lecture on how global warming occurs and what it is doing to the planet. Looking like a corpulent Zeppo Marx and displaying all of the lethargic personality that repeatedly underwhelmed the American voters, Gore’s lecture is among the least riveting stand-up routines to play the lecture circuit. If that’s not bad enough, all of the facts presented in this lecture have been reported widely before and there is not one iota of new information in this offering.”
Dubya: Neck to Neck with the Invasion of Panama
A recent poll has American voters concluding that George W. Bush selected as the “worst President since World War II,” which is something, considering that the only war to run for presidential office was the Spanish-American War. In fact, it was the Spanish-American War’s surprising number of votes during the 1900 presidential election (it received 40,000 votes) that it inspired then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt to start the Bull Moose Party twelve years later!
Sam Tanenhaus: Man Enough or Just Plain Spent?
Well, I thought I was done with Sam Tanenhaus. But it appears that I’m not. This is simply too good to pass up. The image to the right is the cover that the NYTBR is issuing for its June 3, 2006 issue, which is designated as its “Summer Reading” issue. And what does that mean? Reviews of books from Martha McPhee, Plum Sykes, Scott Anderson and Sara Gruen. Yup. Real heavy-duty fiction.
But what of literary fiction? Or fiction in translation? Sorry, folks, the Times simply doesn’t do that anymore. And chances are they won’t be doing it anymore. It simply doesn’t fit within the Wagnerian temperament.
Why can’t Tanenhaus be honest and confess that the NYTBR has willfully abdicated its status as a cultural arbiter? Must Tanenhaus hide behind a comic book escutcheon and a cod piece instead of welcoming conversation (such as editors like the LATBR‘s David Ulin, an antipodean palliative to Tanenhaus if ever there were one; you can listen to his approach to editing on The Bat Segundo Show #43)? Or does it really boil down to a humorless dictatorial swagger?
Incidentally, on a lark, I emailed the agency that issued the press release, as Sam Tanenhaus was declared “available for interview on the best books for any summer reading list.” Of course, I’ve made my interview requests before, and they have been declined. But if anything turns up, I will let you know.
But it really boils down to this: Is Tanenhaus man enough to respond to the charges leveled at him? I think not. He may be “under no obligation to acknowledge the brownie,” but a real man wouldn’t sulk like a veteran Quaker and cling to a dying homestead amid anni mirabiles.
So once again, I offer Mr. Tanenhaus the opportunity to engage in a conversation, to present his points and square off on this issues raised here (and many other places).
If he’s man enough, that is.
(Thank you, DT.)
[UPDATE: Sam Tanenhaus has again declined an interview request with me. But I may be talking with Dwight Garner, the NYTBR senior editor. Perhaps Tanenhaus’s underlings are more man than Sam?]
Quotidian Quirks
The Suds of San Francisco: a collection of unusually named laundromats in the City.
But Will Legos Work For MA Theses?
This guy has constructed a timeline of Fight Club entirely with legos, tracking the character development of all the characters by chapter.
Perhaps He Sees Gloom As Readily As He Sees “Racists”
Sasha Frere-Jones: “The Arctic Monkeys are an independent rock band, a genre in which sunny dispositions are hardly the norm.”
Um, the Apples in Stereo? The Liars? A substantial chunk of the Elephant Six Collective? Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Yeah? Seems to me like there’s a lot of sunny indie rock these days. At least from where I’m sitting.
List of Power-Ups and Items for “Left Behind” Video Game
I checked my fax machine this morning and was stunned to learn that someone had sent me a list of power-ups and items (labeled “First Draft: R&D”) for the upcoming Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game. I share this disturbing information, so that readers might be better able to decide if Eternal Forces will unseat Counterstrike: Source as their game of choice.
Atheist Skull: Collect an atheist skull after you have annihilated a heathen! One atheist skull will increase your Intolerance Level by 50%. Also serves as adrenaline boost. Be sure to keep any skulls you can’t collect within your range of vision, as they will help you to fixate your hatred when decimating the Unbelievers.
Books: Avoid these pesky objects, as contact with a Book will take away one Hit Point! Remember, a book can sometimes be just as deadly as an Unbeliever! It is important for you to steer clear of any and all intellectual forces while proceeding with your mission. (See “Maintaining Your Ignorance” section of manual.)
Democratic Human Remains: Frequently, you will run into the remains of Democrats, who attempted to campaign long and hard to “take back the nation” during the 2006 midterm elections. Of course, the Democrats, lacking our great courage and all of them being Unbelievers, failed and they were massacred by the tens of thousands in the Time Before. If you are running low on Hit Points, stand on a DHR, hit Jump, and this action, depending upon your Callousness Levels, will help you to heal between melee attacks.
Photograph of Aborted Fetus: If your Intolerance Level is running low while in Combat Mode, use the Photograph of Aborted Fetus to frighten away or appall your enemies. Photographs can be obtained in religious zones or while playing the optional side quest during the “All Fags Must Die” section of the game.
Unsubtle Placard: Abandoned placards (which must be misspelled and cite imaginary passages from the Bible) can be used both as weapons against Muslims and to increase your Intolerance Level. Do not confuse this pivotal power-up item with a placard that is spelled correctly! Placards that are spelled correctly will mar your stamina. It is essentially that you keep your Intolerance Level at 70% in order to defeat all those who differ from the True Religion!
Tanenhaus’s Rejects
Over at Critical Mass, there’s a roundup of some of the one-vote nominees that weren’t listed in any of the Gray Lady’s coverage. Among some of the developments: John Irving voted for himself (correctly believing that nobody else would vote for him), Geoffrey O’Brien voted for Gilbert Sorrentino’s Aberration of Starlight, and someone (wisely remaining anonymous) threw in her lot with Franzen. The Critical Mass post promises to be the first in a series of installments on the subject, but I certainly hope that in the course of all this, aside from Laura Miller’s explanation, the NBCC might dig up a few reasons why the 75 judges (mostly women) said no to Tanenhaus.
The Bat Segundo Show #43
Guests: Chad Post, Dennis Loy Johnson, Laura Kellner, Judith Recke, Eleanor Herman, David Ulin, Cary Goldstein, and Eli Horowitz.
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Resistant to party atmospheres, stumbling around for dubious wisdom.
Subjects Discussed: Reading the World, multiple badges and Chad Post’s doppelganger, a few unexpected reasons to be a bookseller, torture taxis, minor speculation upon the Starbuck’s DC monopoly, expensive books, Muhammad Ali’s GOAT, Andre Schiffrin’s secret connection with Silly Putty, information on the new Moleskine City Guides, followup on the planned Moleskine sale, the 200th anniversary of the first American dictionary, etymological controversy, sex and royalty, salacious historical ratios, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the Los Angeles Times Book Review and the wrath of Mark Sarvas, the FSG Classics tag, books in translation, Frederic Prokosch, l’auto-fiction, stubble and grit, and the palliative effect of Hulk masks.
[NOTE: There will be at least two more BEA podcasts.]