Category / Roundup

by Edward Champion

The More Tired Than You Roundup

  • RIP Gillo Pontecorvo, cinematic revolutionary. (BATTLE OF ALGIERS, YES! BANG BANG SHOOT SHOOT ETHICAL CONUNDRUM BUY CRITERION IF YOU NO HAVE!)
  • Various bloggers and booksellers cite their overlooked books, including a few pals of mine. (via Bookdwarf)
  • Eight authors reveal how they write. (WITH PEN, WITH TYPEWRITER, WITH WORD PROCESSOR WOW! CAN THEY HONE WORDS?) (via Booksquare)
  • Scott Esposito has a very thoughtful column on book reviews. He suggests that reviewers shouldn’t be in the business of making any good/bad pronouncements at all. I think Scott hits upon part of the problem of many reviewers, in that they go in for the big kill rather than trying to understand why other critics and readers appreciate a particular author. Reviewers often fail to be doubting Thomases or sometimes neglect to cast light on a bad book’s good points (or a good book’s bad points). I would add that any good review should not just be about where one can place a book, but about a reviewer trying to commingle her subjective views with those presented by the author, ideally citing specific examples from the book (which seems a lost art these days) and without the reviewer drawing too much attention to herself. (BAD ED! THIS PARA NO MAKE SENSE! TRY TO ARTICULATE THINGS AFTER YOU HAVE SLEPT! BUT YES, SCOTT ESPOSITO’S COLUMN IS GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!)
  • James Tata examines Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and asks if its grisly horrors are all that dissimilar from The Pianist. (ME WANT BLOODY POLANSKI MOVIE RIGHT NOW! SO SATISFYING HIS TWISTED CINEMATIC VISION!)
  • Excerpts from Chris Ware’s new work, Building Stories. (SAME SAME NYT FUNNY PAGES WARM UP FOR THIS PERHAPS? WARE ONE-TRICK PONY? ME HOPE NOT!!!) (via Maud)
  • Bud Parr offers a great overview of Pamuk and the bloggers. (PAMUK PAMUK MY NAME IS TIRED AND I WOULD BE IN A COURTROOM IF ME VISIT TURKEY!)
  • Stephen Metcalf prosecutes against Charles Frazier. (STEPHEN METCALF IS WORST REVIEWER OF HIS GENERATION? YOU MAKE CALL. ME IGNORE FRAZIER. BIG PYNCHON BOOK ON WAY!!!!) (via Rake)
  • JCO ain’t got stones. (RE: JOYCE! ME WISH SHE LEFT ALONE TO WRITE WRITE WRITE!)
  • Silliman on Creeley
  • COFFEE GOOD! COFFEE VERY GOOD KEEP ED AWAKE! OH YES I AM SLUGGISH ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME I WILL KISS YOU!!!!!
by Edward Champion

In Which I Offer Another Roundup

  • In which I stand defiantly against Steve Mitchelmore.
  • Howard Junker has an interesting exchange with New Yorker editor Deborah Treisman over how much fiction The New Yorker buys. Apparently, Treisman sits on an arsenal of short stories anywhere between three to ten before running them.
  • Any guy who grooves to Sorrentino can’t be mainstream.
  • I wish I could be in New York this weekend for this, if only to see how similar (or dissimilar) the array of views are.
  • Kevin Smokler complains that The Paris Review costs $12 and that this is an inflated price to pay if you’re only looking for the interview. You know, my copy of McSweeney’s #19 was $22 and all I really wanted was a Pepsi the T.C. Boyle novella (the leftover “novel” that Dana was working on in Talk Talk that wasn’t published). That I had to hunt for this in a cigar box containing ancillary illustrations was bad enough, but several of the other stories I read, particularly that mediocre pirate story, were DOA. So the argument cuts both ways. Do I bemoan McSweeney’s for charging this price or for offering a bad selection this time around? Not at all. Having once worked at a magazine and having lengthy conversations with the printing folks, I realize that printing in color is expensive. Methinks Mr. Smokler doth protest too much.
  • And while we’re on the subject of “what the New Generation wants,” since when is it “hip” to like Spiotta, Danielewski, and Powers? I’m troubled by the notion that one’s literary sensibilities are defined not so much by what one personally responds to, but by whether one is connected to some unknown inner circle or lofty organization. Should not a person read Danielewski because he is innately curious and not because it is the apparent thing to do? Further, who is anybody to determine “what the New Generation wants?” This presumes that writing, editing, and reading involves an exclusionary process based not on literary value, but on egregious market demographics. Should not great literature transcend generations? Or is it now apparently impossible for a McSweeney’s cigar box to appeal to someone outside of the 18-34 demographic? Or a Julia Glass novel to appeal to a twentysomething?
  • Tod Goldberg tries out MySpace. And Carolyn observes that this is the first year that the National Book Awards has a nominee with a MySpace page.
  • Elizabeth Crane pens a haiku for Lost. More on Lost ripoffs from the New Yorker.
  • A list of collaborative writing projects.
  • Mark Hare examines Tim O’Brien.
  • Marco Materazzi has published a book about L’Affaire Zidane, in which he offers 249 possible phrases he could have said to earn the head butt.
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • 6 out of 10 Americans say that the nation is ready for a female president. But while we’re on the subject, 5 out of 10 Americans say that the nation is ready for a precocious marsupial who often swings from tree to tree across the National Mall as president.
  • I’m a little late on this, but author Robert Anton Wilson is in ill health and can use your support.
  • Adam Kirsh reviews the new Issac Bashevis Singer biography for The New York Sun. The dude was one crazed workhorse: writing on vacation, writing while showering, writing while making love to his wife, writing while sleeping, writing while shoving a forkful of pie into his mouth, and, inspired by behavior he observed in a Munich beer hall, writing double-fisted on two stories at the same time.
  • French novelist Andre Schwarz-Bart has passed away.
  • Lynne Scanlon ponders blogging revenue, but she makes no mention of one particularly creative form of revnue, which involves donating to the Google AdSense Blood Bank. After taking many pints of your blood, Google pays you several hundred dollars in pennies, depending upon your Google ranking. They even give you a cookie. It’s a disreuptable way of making ends meet, but in a pinch, it’s better than whoring yourself out on Polk Street.
  • I should note that the LBC has selected its Read This! selection. But not even the threat of oral sex from a sasquatch will loosen my lips. So who pray tell is the lucky winner? You’ll find out on October 16, where the winner will be revealed and the discussions will begin soon after. Also, this time around, The Bat Segundo Show is teaming up with Pinky’s Paperhaus on the podcasting front. You won’t want to miss this.
  • Mainichi Daily News: “Once shunned for being dweebish or simply grotesque, older male virgins are being sought out in Japan in the belief that they’re more creative than their sexually experienced peers.” Two words: premature ejaculation. (via The Beat)
  • Phil Campbell vs. Mike Daisey. I’ve been skeptical of Daisey for a while and it’s good to see someone calling him on the veracity of his personal narratives.
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • LBC members Dan Green and Scott Esposito* on “style vs. substance.”
  • There’s hope yet for writers over forty. John Freeman (NOT an LBC member) believes the 40 year old Mark Z. Danielewski to be a “nice young man.”
  • Greil Marcus on Twin Peaks (via the Rake, who, as it so happens, is an LBC member)
  • LBC member Jessica Stockton has, perhaps, committed a solecism by publishing “Confessions of a Former Genre Slob.” This author is not, repeat NOT, an LBC member. And we will be having all sorts of serious discussions inside the LBC to decide the appropriate method to slap Ms. Stockton on the wrist.
  • Jeff VanderMeer (NOT an LBC member! Shock! Horror! A kitten has died!) is editing a pirate anthology.
  • Mark Thwaite is not an LBC member either, but he’s had the temerity to interview Hilary Spurling. Who does he think he is? A professional?
  • And speaking of diabolical amateurism, Phil Campbell has talked with Lorin Stein. Neither of these two men are LBC members. And it has caused me considerable pain and grief to link to that post. If I were President of the LBC, I am certain that the members would be coming at me with pitchforks. I’m sorry. I’m seeing my therapist on Sunday.
  • There was a time when Bud Parr was an LBC member. But he is no longer with the LBC. So it’s a bit dodgy for me to link to his post on amateur book reviewing.
  • I just got a call from LBC founding member Mark Sarvas. He’s telling me never to link to anyone or anything outside of the LBC again. He insists that we need to be as incestuous as the Hapsburgs and that I may “face severe consequences.” But how can I blog, Mark, when there are so many interesting viewpoints that are both inside and outside the LBC? Oh well. I’m sure things we’ll sort themselves out.

* — If John Freeman intends to promote the NBCC on the Critical Mass blog, then I suppose it’s only fair that I, likewise, promote the LBC.

by Edward Champion

Early Morning Roundup At the End of the Day

  • Three hours (I think) of sleep, lots on the plate, but I can tell you this much: Bill, the producer I hired six months ago to help me with The Bat Segundo Show, recruited the Three Cheap Tenors for a return appearance. Bill tells me that the tenors sang about the fruit basket sent to Lev Grossman. But I suppose you’ll know for sure once the show goes up in the next day or two.
  • Big Bad Blog comes out in favor of the passive voice. Because passive voice is often used to great effect by writers. I couldn’t imagine sentences more stunningly utilized by people. People regularly stun us when they save their verbs for the end. These sentences, which are often exciting (instead of being mere “exciting sentences”), are fantastic for essays being padded out, often written by desperate undergraduates. So thank you, Big Bad Blog, for bringing this point, which is quite salient, home. The cocktails are being prepared and imbibed. The pinatas are being smashed by children. There is a sense of excitement, which is currently being experienced, as I write these words. The revolution has, and shall be, long lived.
  • Still don’t believe passive voice is the bomb, baby? Well, you haven’t experienced Bob Hoover’s scintillating prose.
  • 3-D TV? In the works. And you won’t need glasses. The more important question: will the inevitable development of 3-D porn, perhaps watched by octogenarians while testing Viagra, cause a rash of cardiac arrests?
  • Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too? Maybe. After you pass the sodium chloride. (via Sarah)
  • John Freeman asks, “How can the print and online worlds work together to broaden the scope of titles talked about in the media, and what’s worth reading today?” (Emphasis added.) You can talk the talk, Mr. Freeman, but can you walk the walk?
  • Perhaps one might find answers to Freeman’s Theorem (likely lesser than Fermat’s) at the Housing Works on September 27 at 7:00 PM. Maud Newton, Lizzie Skurnick, Newsday‘s Laurie Muchnick and the Philly Inquirer‘s Frank Wilson will be on tap to answer the questions that Freeman prefers to run away from.
  • It’s been linked a number of places, but it’s still an astonishing statistic: 98-99% of books are out-of-print. But on the bright side, if we apply Sturgeon’s Law, only about 10% of books are worth reading.
  • TimesSelect: nearly 200,000 schmucks subscribers.
  • I had no idea Best of the Fest was still around.
  • Max fleshes out this year’s MacArthurs. No word yet on whether any of them are good in bed.
  • Carolyn Kellog has eighteen months less to live. The story’s attracted so much interest that Lifetime Television has commissioned a TV movie starring Lori Petty as a friendly, crimson-haired Angeleno who moves to Pittsburgh, only to discover that a man named Bob Hoover (played by Don Rickles) is stealing her life away, a few days at a time. The film will feature tearjerking speeches, a beautiful score by John Tesh, and Susannah York in a supporting role as the neighbor who urges Carolyn to fight back.
  • Jason Boog has the scoop on a $100,000 cash exchange hooking up old media with new media.
  • I’ve long harbored a strange faith in the U.S. Postal Service, even when they screw up my mail or scowl at me when I retrieve my packages. But Tayari has the smoking gun for why you should believe.
  • The history of the yellow legal pad. Unfortunately, this story hasn’t been optioned by Lifetime Television.
  • Lee Goldberg writes fan fiction!
  • Jerome Weeks’ farewell column: “And, of course, there’s the pleasure of irking some people, notably bloggers. Mustn’t forget that.” What was that line about “working together,” Mr. Freeman? I didn’t get that.
  • And, finally, Megan Lindholm on how she became a famous writer. Yes, it can be done without sleeping your way to the top. (via Miss Snark)
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, the only screenplay Coppola wrote that wasn’t an adaptation, is one of the finest films to come out of the 1970s (better, I would argue, than the first two Godfather movies). But does the film’s taut narrative structure and grand ethical questions make for meaningful television? How many variations of “He’d kill us if he had the chance” can be said over the course of 22 episodes before the mystery unravels? (via Lee Goldberg)
  • Is a bestseller guided by a hook? The Publishing Contrarian opines that Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter would have sold like parkas in Juneau regardless of its literary value.
  • If it’s any consolation, I don’t get it either.
  • Thomas Quinn on the Rebus books and Rebus’s possible death. There’s a big ballyhoo over how a guy like Ian Rankin could possibly be thinking about killing his bread and butter off. But I suspect that it’s easier for Rankin to effect than most people think. Perhaps Rankin is tired of writing in Rebus’s metier or would rather annihilate his hero after having said everything he’s needed to say through him. I suspect, however, that Rankin’s Quandary will turn out similarly to what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went through. (via Jenny D)
  • Scott takes umbrage with John Freeman’s review of Only Revolutions. While I quibble over Scott’s claim that House of Leaves lacks literary experimentalism (it was a thunderbolt, sir!), he does have a good point about the long legacy of experimental novelists who have been long ignored by newspaper critics.
  • C. Max Magee reproduces a dispatch from the Brooklyn Book Festival.
  • “Who knew Joyce Carol Oates would be so funny?” That’s the lede by a bemused staff writer for The Beacon News, who apparently isn’t aware of Oates’ long history of dark comedies and mysteries. It’s understandable. These are often occluded by her literary reputation. Even so, I’m getting really tired of the generalization that anyone who is considered “literary” is incapable of being funny. One of the great joys in talking with John Updike was being able to reveal that, contrary to the way people reacted to his BEA fulminations, the guy was a jester. For those who insist that Oates is “too serious” because she turns out too many books or Updike is “stiff” because he expresses his concerns about digital books, I wonder how you can seriously suggest that authors who regularly delight us with their sentences and who express their great powers of invention are without a sense of humor. Aside from the notion that anyone who associates as adeptly as Oates and Updike has to be concocting some pretty amusing shit in a drafting phase, it also takes a certain off-kilter person to become a writer. It takes an even more idiosyncratic person to stick with it and become successful, whether through sales or reputation. Anyone contending with multiple paychecks of varying dollar amount arriving in their mailbox at strange intervals has to have a sense of humor about it, if they want to stay sane and keep pushing forward.
  • Perhaps in response to Sara Gran’s Brooklyn article, the Associated Press makes the case for upstate New York. My own essay on the overlooked literary Meccas of Bakersfield and Peoria will be appearing in this week’s PennySaver.
  • The Scotsman: “I had high hopes for the two titles under consideration here, by novelists Ali Smith and Nick Hornby. Suffice to say that one is going on the shelf, and one is going to a charity shop.”
  • Derik observes that a new serial authored by Seth can be found in the New York Times.
  • Slushpile talks with T.R. Pearson.
  • The Seattle Post-Intelligencer talks with James Ellroy: “My tape recorder is useless because he punctuates his sentences with the ‘F’ word like other people use commas and periods.”
  • Sarvas at the West Hollywood Book Fair.
  • A conversation with Stephin Merritt and Lemony Snickett.
  • Arthur Salm examines a slate of recent memoirs.
  • Jeff Bryant enters the track-by-track description game with Tindersticks II. Rumor has it that Mr. Perez, the originator of this trend, will turn out another one.
  • If you’re an indie bookseller complaining about your financial woes, look at it this way: you could be hawking books in Baghdad.
  • Etymologic: The Toughest Word Game on the Web. (via Books, Words & Writing)
  • William Gibson predicted lonelygirl15.
  • Scott Westerfield on how he names his characters.
  • And, more later, kids. FYI: It’s a week crazier than a group of penguins trying to hold a cocktail party on a melting icecap. So if it’s a little light than the norm, my apologies.
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

Way some folks figger it, when you’re just sputtering into consciousness and you’s got a blog, last thing folks need is some half-assed roundup. Then you stare at that old mug in the mirror and you says to yourself, “Well, shit, you ain’t no one’s sweetheart. And you ain’t be doing no thinkin’ anytime soon.” And if a roundup was what the Good Lord intended, then who am I to argue with His ways? But the flaws be mine. Last night’s drinkin’ o’ the devil’s jooce went a little too fine for my tastes and my head’s now a-throbbing and my body’s a-aching. And since the head’s the thing, and I’m feeling a bit woozy, I do declare that I ain’t capable of nary an extended thought, save I ‘spect for some idle speculation on aspirin.

So’s I’m hoping you’ll a-pardon my slippyshod collection of links, all kitty-cornered-like against that damn wall I keep forgettin’ to paint. Primer’s in the garage, but them bristles on the brushes ain’t getting crisp anytime soon. And I ‘spect a trip downtown in my trusty Chevy truck is in this afternoon’s cards.

  • I may not get out to Californyah much. So I cants really follow all them Hungarian poets that them Angeleno folk seem so set on. Why, hell, what kind of man spells his first name like that? But that boy’s mother — the Angeleno soul, that is — insists that this Faludy ain’t no foofaraw. So’s you alls better check him out.
  • Now this Barlow dude takes an issue or two with the ways some peoples talk. Now I ain’t much one for language. I’s just about reads and writes and even had a letter of mine printed in the paper about them damn septic tanks gettin’ so expensive these days. So I ain’t of proper mind to tells ya right or wrong. But sometimes folks talk in a particular way without no fault of their own. And them Brits ain’t in no position to speak final of our pidgin, seeing as how they’s yet to pronounce that letter zee the way the Good Lord intended it.
  • You know, I’s try to stay on good terms with me neighbors. So’s I can relate to this Mumpsimus’s casual insistence that we’s all get along. Ain’t you all heard the Good Lord’s edict? Love thy neighbor, I always say. And if you got some pissing territory for you to pass water, why I be happies if y’all came clamoring ’round to my rockshed outhouse. I donts mind — ain’t no ‘scriminatin’ here — if you’s all need to go, just so’s long as you’s all stop spilling your waste on some poor soul trying to build his own l’il shed.
  • So how we ‘duce these here motivations of a commie newspaperman. I tell’s ya, I ain’t never mets a man named Izzy round these parts. Sure this boy meant well, but the cat was conflicted, much like my’s own cat Scooter. I tells ya, Scooter don’ts know when it’s day or night, mostly cause he shy away from the sun. Yet I know he need some sturdy light every once and a while. You gots to take care of your pets if you wants them to remain happy. And that means understanding the basics of what the Good Lord set down. He says, hey there be day and there be night, and many things ‘twixt between. I do’s my best, but Scooter, he only see night and that ain’t no good way to wander ’bout our world.
  • Now’s I do sure loves me some mysteries, but I think these folks going too far. They a-takin’ Rankin’s Rebus and makin’ him younger and lighter. I ‘spect they taking out the edge, taking out that breezy aura keepin’ hairs standin’ up on your neck, putsa hair on your chest. These producers think they gettin’ an invite to the Sunday barbeque from me, they got’s another thing comin’.
  • And, wells, I gotta go. Missus comin’ round asking me ’bout the wall which I’s gotta paint and I ain’t ’bout to cross her. But you folks out there keep readin’, y’hear?
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Arab Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz has died. He was 94. Laila promises to have more.
  • Levi Asher serves up five comic books you may not have heard about. Unless, of course, you have heard about them — in which case, I’m sure Levi would like you to hear about them again. The hope here is that somewhere along the line, a person who least expects it hears you hearing about them. Unless, of course, you have no ears — in which case, I’ll provide the cornball humor.
  • Jan Underwood wrote a novel in 72 hours, among many other participants in the International 3-Day Novel Contest, which makes NaNoWriMo look like a leisurely walk on the beach. Of course, if someone gets me hooked on Benzedrine, locks me in an attic and throws away the key, I guarantee that I’ll write an incoherent mess with lots of gratuitous sex scenes with a talking gopher named Orville in two days and call it a novel too.
  • Frank Kermode wants the study of English literature to be tough again. And by tough, I think you know what Kermode means. Starving grad students simply aren’t enough. Kermode has proposed throwing them into a arena with the “Gamesters of Triskelion” music playing while they cite obscure bits of poetry. If they get one line of Milton wrong, then we cut off their finger. If they get two lines of Milton wrong, then we cut off their sibling’s finger. And if they cling to “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (such an obvious choice!), then we throw them into the incinerator. Kermode’s views may not be particularly popular with the academic crowd right now, but he insists that there is no better way to form young minds. And if a few grad students have to die, it’s the sad cost of proper education.
  • Helen Brown observes that many authors have a tendency to return to the same characters and reveals that Michel Faber is returning to Crimson Petal territory with a slim volume called The Apple. (via the Literary Saloon)
  • Dave Munger asks “Who uses the phone book anymore?” I have to agree. Everybody knows the escort services are listed in the back pages of an alt-weekly.
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup — The Truth Version

  • Harry Crews gets the Gray Lady treatment, motherfuckahs! The man is back in action after an eight year absence with An American Family. I am now convinced that the only way to save the NYTBR is to put Crews in a room with Sammy Boy with the latter skittering away like a soused titmouse. (via Maud)
  • GOB checks out Edinburgh. So does that Rory fellow. All the excitement gets me in a theatrical tizzy, determined at some future point to provide another strange homegrown Fringe entertainment.
  • Foer in Brazil. Hardly the meat and greet you expected.
  • From a Susan Sontag commencement speech: “Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”
  • And speaking of which, let’s get all this Bill Hicks revival bidness out of the way right now. Without a doubt, the man was great. But he’s been dead now for twelve years and I haven’t seen a single standup comic dare to speak the truth to the people. This whole sanctimonious business of “What would Bill Hicks do?” has reached a point where I want to throttle the sycophantic joke slingers who play it safe, who underestimate their audience’s intelligence, and who risk this fear of offending. If these comics do put upon an offensive stance, like Lisa Lampanelli or Bobby Slayton, it’s on the personal insult level, as opposed to comedy that reflects the cruel absurdities and the pernicious sociological factors around us. And don’t give me Margaret Cho or Chris Rock, both “brash” comic talents who, nevertheless, play it safe and who, as a result, stand forever in the long shadow of Bruce, early Carlin, Pryor and Hicks. Have we really reached the point where standup comedy can no longer present us with fresh insight? Have we really reached a point where we must look more than a decade backwards to find some fucking shred of truth hurled into the crowd?
  • RIP Madman Moskowitz.
  • The Epoch Times talks with Gao Zhisheng days before his arrest. More on Gao’s efforts to fight oppression here.
  • Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester home is crumbling away and efforts are being made to save it.
  • There’s an interesting marketing campaign for Orwell’s 1984 referred to as “literary littering.”
by Edward Champion

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?
by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Danielle Torres offers this intriguing guessing game: Which author slept in which house? But I don’t think the game is entirely fair. Where are the garrets? The leaking faucets? The empty cabinets? In short, where are the midlisters?
  • I don’t know what’s sillier: the notion of Bruce Willis appearing in another Die Hard movie or the ridiculous title.
  • Novelist Geoff Nicholson has written an expose on sex collecting. Nicholson couldn’t get an interview with Paul Reubens, but he got a dinner date with the late Linda Lovelace. It is rumored that the book’s original title was My Dinner with Bukkake.
  • If you haven’t had your fill of lists (and let’s face it: after X number of shopping lists, one pines for anything outside the norm), Penguin and The Times present a list of bests pertaining to the Penguin Classics. But I’m going to have to disagree on The Old Curiosity Shop as a “Best Tearjerker.” I’m about as crazed a Dickens freak as they come and when I first read Curiosity many years ago, I admired its interesting parallels with The Pilgrim’s Progress, but even I must side with Oscar Wilde for the book’s ridiculous sentimentalism.
  • Continuous partial attention applied to fiction writing? “But what grabs the attention of unsuspecting passersby is a warm, inviting smile and a sign that reads, ‘I’m writing a novel. If you’d like, please come talk to me about it.'”
  • The Globe and Mail reports that heavy Internet users don’t socialize with their loved ones and spend less time doing household chores. But the difference is only about 30 minutes. In other words, someone who is spending 30 minutes more on the Internet is spending 30 minutes less doing other things. Brilliant detective work, Statistics Canada! Can I buy you an abacus? (via Scribbling Woman)
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Pinky remembers Rupert Pole, who recently passed away. Pole was otherwise known as Anais Nin’s lover and (later) executor of her estate. But if it weren’t for Pole’s presence, I’d have to mention the story anyway, simply because any tale involving a barechested 70 year old man, asparagus and NPR is simply too good to pass up.
  • Le Haggis asks Curtis Sittenfeld 20 cues. One response: “I know it’s sort of fun and frothy to imagine literary feuds, but I don’t think every negative review comes from the reviewer’s malice.” Really, Curtis? Calling Melissa Bank a slut ain’t malicious? Well, by that measure, here is my “review” of The Man of My Dreams: I saw Curtis’s phone number in the bathroom. People have told me she’s great in bed, the way literary novelists are often perceived to be great in bed. She will even let you tie her up if you ask politely. But mostly she wants to manacle your wrist to your leg without your permission and she doesn’t rectify this when you cry out the safe word. This has been an unmalicious review.
  • Salman Rushdie vs. Germaine Greer redux. (via Bookninja)
  • Laila Lalami reviews Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.
  • The next victim of Turkish literary censorship: Elif Shafak.
  • Laura Lippman talks with the Toledo Blade: “That’s one of the great things about having worked in a newsroom. I don’t need a completely silent retreat from the world. As a matter of fact, I like working in a place that’s buzzy like a coffeehouse. All I need is my laptop.”
  • Will the late Montreal novelist Hugh MacLennan make a comeback from beyond the grave?
  • Ron Silliman on Clark Coolidge.
  • A 2001 interview with John Berger. (via wood s lot)
  • Kerp on Fesperman.
  • Who knew that Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch was a beach read? (And there is also some indication in that list that Updike’s Terrorist is getting a warmer reception across the Atlantic.)
  • Hard SF: a new review site to investigate. (via Locus)
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Lizzie Skurnick reviews Talk Talk.
  • This week at the LBC site, discussion for Edie Meidav’s Crawl Space begins. Scott and I had the great pleasure of sitting down for Indian food and (later) coffee with Meidav. A podcast of this conversation, which features Scott as a co-interviewer, horrible French mispronunciations from me, and perspicacious answers from Meidav, will be posted on Friday. In the meantime, jump in to the fray at the LBC.
  • Levi Asher uncovers another Tanenhaus naysayer and asks why so many bloggers are concerned with the NYTBR. I can’t speak for others, but since the NYTBR is often misconstrued as the flagship weekly newspaper book review supplement, it’s disconcerting to see the Review regularly come across as a particularly crass frat boy spilling a keg of beer over the upholstery of a Rolls Royce on his way home from a stag party.
  • John Updike takes a look at Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
  • Over at The Elegant Variation, Karen Palmer interviews John McNally. I like what little I’ve read of McNally so far. So it’s good to see a long-form interview help push me over the edge.
  • Attention Bittorrenters: Torchwood has an airdate of late autumn. A spinoff from Doctor Who, the show will feature Captain Jack, who may be the first flamboyantly bisexual action hero to star in a regular television series.
  • Bruce Campbell will have a cameo as Quentin Beck (aka Mysterio) in Spider-Man 3. The original source for this information (and more) is down, but Cinematical has the roundup.
  • Kathleen McGowan insists that her book, The Expected One, is not a The Da Vinci Code knockoff. Well, let’s see. Religious thriller, check. Controversial framing of text, check. Large first print run, check. Vatican conspiracy and hidden documents, check. Turgid writing (“Feeling momentarily dizzy, Maureen steadied herself with a hand against the cool stones of an ancient wall.”), check. At least McGowan, who claims to be the descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, has the consolation of being batshit crazy.
  • Will the iPod become an eBook reader? More importantly, can contemporary developers offer a tech product in which the second letter of their ware isn’t capitalized?
  • Danuta Kean suggests that cookbooks are for wimps. I’ll have you know, Danuta, that I perform calisthenics before cooking my chicken cordon bleu. The Galloping Gourmet has nothing on my ass. I slam down several shots of straight 100 proof bourbon while I’m preparing the fillets. The Dirty Dozen plays in the background. I can drink AND cook Graham Kerr under the table! You want to fuck with me? You want to fuck with my smoked salmon or my homemade biscotti? I’ll show you who the real man in the kitchen is! Have your boyfriend meet me in a five-star restaurant kitchen of your choice at 5:00 PM. Gloves off! There will be blood on the kitchen floor and a fine five-course dinner to boot!
  • I obtained McSweeney’s #19, the cigar box version, yesterday, because I was tempted by the excised novella component of Talk Talk. While I haven’t cracked the contents open yet, the blog I Am the Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor takes umbrage with it, disappointed that “an actual collection of short fiction takes a backseat to a collection of random junk posing as a collection of short fiction.” It awards the collection “one tiny Ludivine Sagnier” on a scale of one to five.
  • Porn star Mimi DeMayo is running for Nevada governor, but she’s concerned that she’s not being taken seriously. But can one really endorse a candidate who offers a slow-loading campaign site, replete with misspellings and not so much as a platform? (Unless, of course, you confuse platform heels with a list of positions.)
by Edward Champion

Roundup