Let it not be said that Gerard Jones ever rested on his laurels. Mr. Jones has now finished recorded every chapter of Ginny Good and made them publicly available.
Year / 2005
The Bat Segundo Show #10
Author: T.C. Boyle
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Terse, conserving energies for a drink.
Subjects Discussed: Boyle as one of the original bloggaz, how Boyle arranges his short stories for his collections, John Cheever, how Boyle got into the New Yorker, the current state of the short story market, the future of literature, country music, historical fiction vs. contemporary fiction, the comparisons between “The Doubtfulness of Water” and Water Music, Boyle’s working methods and the “continuous first draft,” the frequency of watering holes in Boyle’s stories, community at T.C. Boyle websites, details on Talk Talk, the influence of history upon fiction, how The Human Fly came to be, political subtext, The Bonehunters’ Revenge by David Rains Wallace, observing people and balancing time, the ethics of creating characters based on people, on being prolific, the T.C. Boyle website, the media perception of literature, the New York Times Book Review (Chip McGrath vs. Sam Tanenhaus), the influence of book reviews on writing, reevaluating writers generations later, The Inner Circle vs. Bill Condon’s Kinsey, Boyle’s “continuous first draft” before computers, technology’s influence upon culture and writing, the spoken and visual dimensions of fiction, on being a “nutball perfectionist,” and the joys of the word “ventricose.”
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America: A Nation of TV-Watching Zombies?
This information from Nielsen Media Research (PDF) can’t possibly be right. The average American watches 8 hours and 11 minutes per day? Okay, let’s say the average American works from nine to five. That’s eight hours. Let’s say further that the average American spends about an hour commuting. That leaves fifteen hours left in the day: seven hours devoted to sleep and eight hours to television?
And that’s just the mean. Who knows what the standard deviation is? We’re not even counting the folks (e.g., senior citizens) who are putting in ten hours of television watching a day. Or even twelve hours a day? I mean, this is pretty much that Ray Bradbury story (the title escapes me) in which the entire population is watching television and a man is arrested for daring to walk outside.
I mean, I’m lucky if I watch eight hours of television a month. Please help me understand.
Have American lives become so fundamentally empty that we now clutch onto the television as if it’s some totem to stave off loneliness? Or are Nielsen’s figures suspect?
One thing’s for sure: this television thing sure explains certain mentalities.
1986 Was Nineteen Years Ago…Thank Goodness
How Not to Solicit Litbloggers
M.J. Rose may have received a strange letter with two unwanted galleys, but I believe that I can top her. For I received an equally baffling letter accompanying a package of books last week. The letter in question made me so uncomfortable that I took three cold showers in a row, turned into a serial caller for four hours, talking with sympathetic friends and using up what few favors remained, and basted my brain in a bit of Gaddis shortly after eating a jar of Gerber’s Apple Sauce for lunch that I had obtained from a thirtysomething mother who saw my sad face as I was walking in the park and promptly gave me the sustenance out of the kindness of her own heart and ran away when a ruffian tried to mug her (who then promptly mugged me instead, although he wasn’t interested in the apple sauce).
Anyway, I hope that I won’t have to experience a day like that again. But for informative purposes, I have reproduced the letter below:
Dear Friend of a Friend of a Litblogger:
I want to have your children. I want to tie you up and make you my slave. Your new name will be “Piñata” and you shall stare at my menacing wooden stick. And I’m sure that after you’ve read the six 2,000 word novels that I’ve enclosed, you’ll understand why we were meant to be together, reproduce, and move to a small shack, sans DSL connection or running water, in the Kansas prairies.
Do not think for a minute that I am not aware of your situation with regard to the opposite sex. I’ve paid a lot of money to a private investigative agency to install video cameras in your apartment, violating your privacy in every way possible. I’ve tracked the number of times you’ve masturbated in the past month. (Please see the attached bar graph if you have somehow lost count. Each “incident” is meticulously logged by time and duration.)
The good news, Mt. Champion (can I climb you?), is that I can give you lots of sex and I can give you lots of books. If you don’t believe me, please consult the attached 400-page analytical essay for the accompanying tomes. It will demonstrate my impeccable taste. I had tried to submit this as a Ph.D. dissertation, but, alas, I didn’t realize that one had to be enrolled in school to earn the appropriate degree.
In any event, I hope that all this will lead to a fruitful relationship which you can then, in turn, publicize on your blog site thingy. If you like, I will install the third nipple before I meet you in person.
Very truly yours,
Juanita M. Underside, FELLATIO PRESS