The SFist’s Sarah L. has a first-hand report of the first Survival Research Labs show in ten years. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because none other than William T. Vollmann chronicled the SRL’s theatrical destruction of machines in a section of The Rainbow Stories. Will there be more shows? Well, who knows? But Your Faithful Correspondent will try and get the inside skinny on this.
Month / August 2006
Putting the Novel Into Graphic Novel
Critic Rebecca Skloot doesn’t realize that we’re now living in the 21st century. Either that or her conservative view of what a novel is and should be prevents her from accepting a book on its own merits. She seems to think that those funny little comic things that all the kids are raving about (such as Alison Bechdel’s excellent Fun Home) can’t possibly qualify as novels.
Let’s set the record straight.
Here’s the definition of “novel” from dictionary.com: “A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters.”
In E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, Forster defined a novel as “any fictitious prose work over 50,000 words,” but even he was smart enough to note that this was too clinical a definition. “Part of our spongy tract seems more fictitious than other parts, it is true: near the middle, on a tump of grass, stand Miss Austen with the figure of Emma by her side, and Thackerey holding up Esmond. But no intelligent remark known to me will define the tract as a whole.”
David Lodge observes in The Art of Fiction: “However one defines [the novel], the beginning of a novel is a threshold, separating the world we inhabit from the world the novelist has imagined. It should therefore, as the phrase goes, ‘draw us in’.”
The fundamental difference between a graphic novel and a novel is that the former is constructed of pictures and captions and the latter is constructed of words. But books like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home share sustained narratives, with thoughts, speech, and consciousness presented through fictional characters. Are these to be discounted because their form is different? I’d argue that these two books certainly fulfill Lodge’s requirement of a reader being completely submerged into another world. As such, I think it’s safe to say that the two books can be quite judiciously deposited within Forster’s malleable tract.
I am troubled by the noun modifier “graphic” applied to “graphic novel,” but I do understand that it is necessary to draw people into the comics form. Hell, if a James Wood hard-liner like Mark can find a graphic novel to suit his tastes, then anyone can.
What I don’t get are critics like Skloot, who seem perpelexed by the notion that graphics or comics can’t be weaved into some kind of narrative form or that they can’t sustain an emotional resonance. Book critics of this ilk have no problems accepting the photographic nature of the film and appreciating that medium on artistic merits. Why then do they fail to make the jump into graphic novel form?
Of course, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then, by that token, Maus and Fun Home qualify as bona-fide epic novels.
Josh Wolf Benefits
To follow up on the Josh Wolf incarceration, Laughing Squid points to two benefit events designed to raise money for Josh’s legal defense fund.
Event #1: Cafe La Boheme, Saturday August 19, 2006, 5:00 PM-7:00 PM.
Event #2: House of Shields, Thursday, August 24, 2006, 7:00 PM.
Josh’s case represents a scenario that could apply to all journalists, establishing a legal precedent which will affect the way any story is covered. That local story about police corruption involving a reporter gaining the trust of an anonymous source? (Consider Fajitagate, for example.) Well, the case is under investigation and it’s been transferred to a federal court, sidestepping the California shield law, and the journalist has to give up his sources or be thrown in jail. If you are concerned with preserving California’s shield law and the future of investigative journalism, and you happen to be in San Francisco on either of these two days, these two benefits are worth your while.
But On the Downside, This Also Means an End to Interesting Criticism Like Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Review of “Hollow Man”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer film critic William Arnold thinks that the studios cutting down on their advance screenings is a good thing. He writes, “So I salute you, New Line Cinema, and your innovative decision to keep ‘Snakes on a Plane’ from my sight until I can’t give it the publicity it so clearly doesn’t need. It surely wasn’t your intention, but I suspect you’ve done the world of movies an enormous service.”
[RELATED: Rosenbaum’s Hollow Man review.]
Quirky Formats: Another Casualty as Newspaper Subscriptions Dwindle
The Chicago Reader, which, for years, has had one of the quirkiest and most endearing alternative newspaper formats in the nation, is saying goodbye to its four section layout. The reasons? Publishing costs and competition from Time Out Chicago.
Never Judge a Blog By Its Content?
“Partial Concealment”: The New Buzzword If You’re Hiding the Fact That You Were an Accomplice to Genocide
BBC: “In a BBC radio interview Rushdie said that he was ‘extremely shocked’ to hear the news that Grass had served with the Waffen-SS at the end of the second world war, but argued that the revelation made little difference to his literary reputation. It was ‘wrong’ to accuse Grass of ‘a huge act of hypocrisy’, he said, calling it ‘a partial concealment’.”
Otto Peltzer Embraces His Inner Literary Klansman
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This post, as you’ve probably already gathered, is a parody of Otto Penzler’s New York Sun column. But since Mr. Penzler has threatened me by email, I have added this note to state that THIS POST IS A PARODY, and it is reflective of a character named “Otto Peltzer,” not Penzler.]
I think it’s safe to say, based on my photo, that I’m white. I have always been white. Unless I pull a John Howard Griffin (and why would I want to do that?), I’ll go to the grave white. I dine at white restaurants. I listen to white music. The fact of the matter is that it’s very good to be white and it’s very good not to know anything outside of this spectrum of comfort.
Which is why I must commend all those white mystery writers writing about the spooks. I have no idea if they’re accurate about the culture they portray. But I know a good read when I see one.
As we’ve established, I never set foot outside my white neighborhood. And I wouldn’t dare mention any of those dependable niggers like Chester Himes or, more recently, Walter Mosley. Because when you get right down to it, mysteries should be written by white men and nobody else. We run the country. Therefore, we should write most of the books. Why give any of these so-called minorities a chance? Hell, if I were running the publishing industry, I’d see if apartheid might apply to the editorial department.
What nobody wants to acknowledge is that white writers write better than any ethnic group, particularly when it comes to mysteries. It’s a dirty little secret that nobody wants to acknowledge, but it’s true.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to replace the NO COLOREDS sign that some sanctimonious liberal has removed from the drinking fountain in the hall.
The Bat Segundo Show #56: Daniel Green and Michael Martone
Guests: Daniel Green and Michael Martone (LBC finalist, Summer 2006)
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding his own Contributor’s Note.
Subjects Discussed: The entertaining components of experimental fiction, the genesis of contributor’s notes, Edith Hamilton, mythology, the “Michael Martones of the universe,” cultural influence, Hugh Kenner’s The Counterfeiters, how the origin of the word “fact” influences contemporary fiction, Dan Quayle, Donald Barthelmie, collage, John Barth’s Letters, the limits of invention, cultural anxiety and art, how universities affect writer-professors, hypoxic training, and the virtues of bad writing.
The Bat Segundo Show #55: David Mitchell II, Part Two
[NOTE: This is part two of a two-part podcast.]
Author: David Mitchell
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Miffed by a grand literary theft.
Subjects Discussed: The Simpsons, the ambiguity of Norman Bates, transcontinental reception, the unexpected reception of Black Swan Green, the Stranger review, Haruki Murakami, finding auctorial voice, the “fourth book” breakthrough, avoiding the pitfalls of commercial writing, laziness, stylistic restraints and imagination, politicians, flexible opinions, compartmentalizing narrative components, conclusions of novels, the perfect songs, the Beatles, information on the fifth novel and the kind of book Mitchell is shooting for.
[LISTENER’S NOTE: There is a NASA beep that somehow made its way into this podcast. Don’t be alarmed. I will remove it later.]
The Prying Into Lot 49
Ron Silliman has an excellent post up about the documentary Thomas Pynchon — A Journey Into the Mind of P. and auctorial anonymity.
Return of Cracked
After months in development, Cracked Magazine lives again, looking suspiciously like another magazine. There’s even an eight page preview available.
Virgin Atlantic: Turning Sane Humans Into Basket Cases With a TV Dinner Aesthetic
A Guest Column by Kristin Tillotson
Fiction is dead. It dies and resurfaces, dies and resurfaces. It is Jason from Friday the 13th. It is an unwelcome call from your mother-in-law nagging you about bringing the quesadillas to the family picnic. It is that dentist who says, “This won’t hurt a bit,” when of course it hurts more than a bit.
Fiction! You bastard! Die fiction die! Why won’t you die? Why won’t you transform into a corporeal form like a piñata so that we can all beat you senseless and watch your innards spill onto the floor? Why can’t we wipe the lino clean with your blood? Why can’t we eat you for breakfast?
I want to ignore the fact that humanity thrives on stories for a moment and remind you that fiction is dead DEAD dead. If fiction will not die, then I will make it die. I am on a mission from God. If I catch you reading a novel, I will snatch it from your hands and tell you that you are wrong and that you too will die. And then I will beat you senseless and watch you die. I will laugh at you, foolish fiction reader, you who cannot acknowledge inevitability. I will use Astroglide and a cudgel, if necessary.
I will quote you troubling statistics about John Updike and ignore the 100,000 copies that Terrorist sold.
Fiction, I will bust your chops. Fiction, you are nothing. You emobdy entropy. And I will tell you again that you are dead, even when you pounce on my shoulders and perform an exuberant tap dance.
The Bat Segundo Show #54: David Mitchell II, Part One
[NOTE: This is part one of a two-part podcast.]
Author: David Mitchell
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Responding to the crazed accusations of a major film director.
Subjects Discussed: The similarities between Jason Taylor and David Mitchell, idiosynchratic vernacular, first-person vs. third-person voice, index cards, how Granta unexpectedly kicked off Black Swan Green, the correct pronounciation of Nabokov, the difference between sandwiches in the US and the UK, the use of 1980s technology in writing, the Falkland Islands, on selecting cultural references from 1982, Friendster, the regulation of UK schools over the past thirty years, the use of visual elements in BSG, authenticity, money and Thatcher’s England, MacGuffins in novels and life, being nice to horrid people, the Julia principle, the politics of language, hip-hop culture, the threat of conformity vs. Jason Taylor’s resilience, shaking off the Murakami yoke, the Ed Park review, on using characters from other books, and naming the headmaster Nixon, and character names that “stick on the eyeball.”
Reeling in the Fears
Steely Dan takes on Wes Anderson. My money’s on Steely Dan. (via Waxy)
75 Books
I’m up to Book 89, but the summaries await, even though the books are logged in draft. In the meantime, check out Dan Wickett and Carolyn Kellogg’s lists.
The Literary Hipster’s Handbook — 2006 Q3 Edition
“ALK”: An unexpected career move by a literary person in a non-literary endeavor. (Ex. I saw Frank cutting the rug in a ballroom last night, man, but it turns out he was teaching a dancing class! Talk about an ALK!) (Apparent Origin of Term: A.L. Kennedy.)
“Booker nod”: A literary event with tiresome results, often producing soporific qualities in the participant. Named after the predictable nature of the 2006 Booker Award longlist, but recently expanded to include bookstore events, boardroom meetings, and drab cocktail parties. A legitimate Booker nod must involve someone falling asleep, thus signaling to other hipsters that the event should be avoided at all costs.
“to Liesl”: To heckle a writer or litblogger without identifying who they are. Literary hipsters have adopted this cowardly behavioral technique instead of resorting to snark. Liesling involves a hipster sneering down at an opponent, but often running away from the room when the target of his insults arrives. Also referred to as Freemaning (rare usage). (Or. Liesl Schillinger.)
“Otto Penzler”: A bitter person with nothing positive or rational to say; often a has-been. Otto Penzlers are frowned upon in current literary society and are secretly ridiculed, often in mixed company, when they cannot overhear the conversation.
“pass the Günter”: To reveal a past sin unexpectedly, often near the end of one’s life. Originated by Günter Grass’s unexpected revelations that he was a member of the SS. (Ex. I always thought Grandma was a kind and generous soul, but when she told the family that she gave head to a Cocker spaniel in her college days, I suspected that she had passed the Günter.”)
“Sittenfeld”: A rancorous outburst that causes unrelated parties to fight in a silly and protracted squabble. The first known Sittenfeld was initiated on June 5, 2005, which spawned a series of online battles pitting literary fiction writers against chick lit writers. The person who initiates the Sittenfeld often absolves herself of responsibility, waiting for karma to kick her in the ass one day.
It Seems That Girls Are Living Two Sim Lives Instead of One
Telegraph: “Except it’s not quite so simple. Caroline Pelletier, a project manager at London University’s Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, says: ‘The Sims inspires quite a patronising attitude – that it’s OK for girls to play with computers so long as it’s in a domestic space, controlling characters in a maternal way, caring for them and attending to their needs.’ Yet when Pelletier’s team observed girl players, they discovered a different reality. ‘Girls usually use The Sims to explore subversive behaviour. They get rich and try out a wealthy lifestyle, then see who can lose the most money. They drown their babies and call in social services – they deliberately play against the game’s conventions.'” (via Rebecca’s Pocket)
Tom Wolfe, Your Services Are No Longer Required
In a series of essays on what American life would have been had 9/11 not happened, Tom Wolfe writes, “A local music genre called hip-hop, created by black homeboys in the South Bronx, would have swept the country, topping the charts and creating a hip-hop look featuring baggy jeans with the crotch hanging down to the knees that would have spread far and wide among white teenagers—awed, stunned, as they were, by the hip-hop musicians’ new form of competition: assassinating each other periodically. How cool would that have been?”
Mr. Wolfe seems to be under the impression that this didn’t happen before 2001. Baggy jeans hanging down to the knees have been part and parcel of American culture since the mid-1990s among all manner of teenagers. (In fact, I remember my old roommate and me sitting on the N Judah one drunken evening in 1997. We asked one young man why his trousers went down to his knees and he responded simply, “O.G., man.”)
I hereby ask Tom Wolfe to recuse himself from any further cultural commentary in any and all publications found on the newsstand. He is worn out, spent, and about as perspicacious as a pigeon sputtering about Central Park for scraps of bread. If I Am Charlotte Simmons didn’t establish how embarassingly out-of-touch he was with current culture, his offering in New York magazine is the smoking gun.
Roundup
- Kevin Smokler introduces “social jet lag” as his word of the day. It’s defined as a condition “when your social commitments reeks havoc on your physical well being.” I know just where Kevin’s coming from, as I’ve been a bit woozy with a touch of the flu over the last few days (as such, postings will be lighter than the norm this week). But the most troubling aspect is that nobody who suffers from this affliction can collect frequent flyer miles or claim an evening of free drinks after X number of social commitments. I hereby beseech some universal authority to reward those who throw themselves so willingly into the fray. Benevolence, bibulous rewards, and boisterous transference must be handed out with celerity!
- In celebration of Michael Martone’s Michael Martone, the LBC has been unleashing all manner of contributor’s notes. There should be a podcast featuring Martone and nominator Daniel Green up on Thursday.
- Brad Melzer is releasing the first chapter of his new novel, The Book of Fate, in comic book form. The first chapter will appear in Justice League of America #1. Melzer, responsible for the rape and murder of the wives of two superheroes, claims that he wants to bridge the gap between comic book reader and book reader. But the real question here is how a potboiler involving Freemasonry has anything to do with the DC universe, revamped or otherwise.
- Dorothy Givens Terry wrote a novel during her daily commute time. The novel’s plot concerns itself with a woman who travels on buses and trains and, in the novel’s most most moving moments, befriends a busker who reveals the great secret to scoring free Metrocards. Later, the two audition for a reality TV show and become the sensation of the nation. The Metrocard represents a grand metaphor for the price of singing badly and asking for change in a conformist society. Is a rectangular card the ultimate reward for amateurish talent? Or must one debase one’s self in front of a television camera to find fame and fortune in our society? These narrative questions and more await you in Terry’s I Rode the Eighth Avenue Express Like a Pony, optioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a short promotional film.
- Lev Grossman: “You’ll be relieved to know that it’s possible to have a nonawkward conversation with Curtis Sittenfeld.” Does Lev know something we don’t?
- C. Max Magee offers a roundup of Booker news.
- George Pelecanos. No, let me say that again. George Fucking Pelecanos is guesting over at Sarah’s.
- Apparently, you can teach your dog to read. The efforts have been so successful that canines have begun to offer literary criticism. Here is Spot, a dalmation in Peoria, IL, offering his thoughts on William Gass’s The Tunnel: “Roohff. Grrrrr. Rohfff rohff rohfff. (tongue wagging out) Yip yip. Rohffff.” Hopeless gibberish? To your foolish human ears, perhaps. But that’s only because you don’t speak dog. Shortly after uttering this, Spot humped his owner’s leg. I leave readers to opine whether this was Spot’s way of telling his owner that he wanted to be neutered or that the power of Gass’s work caused a great wave of energy to suffuse Spot’s being, giving him a great urge to copulate with the first thing in the room.
- A followup on the Bush-Camus connection from Slate’s John Dickerson.
- George Orwell’s estate has cancelled a Fringe show based on Animal Farm. Splendid Productions, the group behind the show, was stupid enough not to obtain permission. This may piss a few of my fellow theatrical friends off, but I don’t care. I’ve long been bothered by the reliance upon pop cultural facsimiles to bring in audiences (Evil Dead Live, The Twilight Zone, and the like come to mind). It contributes to a retrograde Fringe culture where people overlook the fine work of Banana, Bag and Bodice and mugwumpin in favor of theatrical diversions no different from their home entertainment centers or their bookshelves. I hope this serves as a lesson to the ragamuffins and the hacks who can’t be bothered to whip up narratives of their own. Theatre is all about putting yourself on the line, not capitulating to a passing pop cultural whim.
- Newsday has a lengthy piece on literary sophomore slumps. (via Jeff)
- AC/DC & Derrida.
- Is the New York Times trying to cater to hipsters?
- Pretty Fakes on Ray Davies’ Return to Waterloo.
- There’s another crazed fiction contest at Miss Snark’s: this time, involving Bella Stander.
- Grumpy Old Bookman: “I am inclined to think that Periel Aschenbrand’s principal skill is not so much in writing as in marketing. I suspect that she used these skills to good effect in getting this book published. Either that, or her uncle runs the company.”
- David Blum has been named the new Voice EIC.
- Are Amazon rankings meaningless? Does a bear, you know…? (via Scott)
- Sam Leith: “I never knew book-signing was competitive.” (via Bookninja)
- More Americans know who Harry Potter is than Tony Blair.
- And Sigourney Weaver, sexy and smart and daughter of the forgotten Pat Weaver, how can you let me down?
Solider, Eager to “Use Up Remaining Minutes,” Ignores Chopper Filled with Yahoos Heading to Bomb Village
The Gray Lady is Afraid of Bloggers
Well, this is quite interesting. The New York Times Corrections page is now hidden behind the TimesSelect paid subscriber wall. Is Bill Keller afraid that bloggers will point out the journalistic inaccuracy? Is this a response to the recent photo scandal? Whatever the case, it seems pretty irresponsible for the Times not to allow its readership to observe its accuracy. If the Times is truly all the news that’s fit to print, then it should publicly stand by this record.
Then again, on the literary side of news, Sam Sham and the NYTBR Pharaohs have been less than forthcoming about their mistakes.
One Person’s “Tiny Facial Movement” is Another’s Parched Throat
Wall Street Journal: “The people-based program — called Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, or SPOT — began undergoing tests at Boston’s Logan Airport after 9/11 and has expanded to about a dozen airports. Trained teams watch travelers in security lines and elsewhere. They look for obvious things like someone wearing a heavy coat on a hot day, but also for subtle signs like vocal timbre, gestures and tiny facial movements that indicate someone is trying to disguise an emotion. TSA officers observe passengers while consulting a list of more than 30 questionable behaviors, each of which has a numerical score. If someone scores high enough, an officer approaches the person and asks a few questions.”
The UK Airport Authorities Still Resemble the Keystone Cops, But At Least You Can Read Again
International Herald Tribune: “The British authorities removed a ban on carry-on luggage Monday, allowing airline passengers to carry a single, briefcase-sized bag on flights leaving British airports. Books, laptop computers and iPods can also be taken on board again. But airline officials said it remained unclear whether the new rules would ease the long delays at security checkpoints that have forced airlines to cancel some flights. The British transportation secretary, Douglas Alexander, warned at a news conference that “present difficulties at airports may continue for some time.”
Walter Benjamin: Arcades and Hashish
The New Yorker: “Over the next seven years, Benjamin participated in drug sessions as either subject or observer at least nine times, but his attitude toward drugs remained vigilantly experimental. He seldom took them when he was alone, and he never had his own supplier, relying on doctor friends to procure hashish, opium, and, on one occasion, mescaline. The sessions were recorded in ‘protocols,’ furnishing raw material for what Benjamin intended to be a major book on the philosophical and psychological implications of drug use. When, in a letter to Gershom Scholem, his best friend from the age of twenty-three, Benjamin, then forty, listed four unwritten books that he considered ‘large-scale defeats’—evidence of the “ruin or catastrophe” that his career had become—the last was a ‘truly exceptional book about hashish.'”
Jujitsu for Crossaints?
Not long ago, Pretty Fakes held a virtual book club for Jack Butler’s Jujitsu for Christ, which, thanks in large part to a certain Ms. Frye, I’m now reading, after all of the excitement.
For those who know not a whit about this book, Jeff Bryant has an excerpt from the book that, in his words, represents the best description of Southern heat that he’s ever read. For obvious reasons, the book had me completely by the chapter “Sword Drill.”
Now imagine if the New York Times Book Review opened its pages and offered a perspective on a forgotten author like Jack Butler. Oh, that’s right, they did back in 1989, under an editor who wasn’t nearly as tone-deaf.
Booker Longlist Announced
Peter Carey makes it on again, as do our own faves David Mitchell and Sarah Waters.
Statement of Intentions
B, the hardest working man in blog business, returns to the scene with Cleaning Las Vegas: “Let me state up front that, number one, I am recording my observations as a complete beginner to dry cleaning, not as a pro, so I make no claims of accuracy for anything I say about the business. I can just see dry cleaning motherfuckers getting all up in my grill about how I’m using the tamping brush wrong or how I’m supposed to use a 60/40 solution of neutral lubricant to water instead of 50/50.”
And How Many More Are There?
AOL: “Of the estimated 1,200 mostly Arab and Muslim men detained nationwide as potential suspects or witnesses in the Sept. 11 investigation, Benatta would earn a dubious distinction: Human rights groups say the former Algerian air force lieutenant was locked up the longest….But time did not stand still for Benatta: The clock ran for 1,780 days. The man detained at 27 was now 32.” (via Lee Goldberg)