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.