Month / September 2006

by Edward Champion

BSS #61: Hillary Carlip & Annabelle Gurwitch

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Authors: Hillary Carlip and Annabelle Gurwitch

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Recovering from an unfortunate incident involving a Motel 6 valet.

Subjects Discussed: Clarifying the provenance of “queen of the oddballs,” Chuck Barris, Rex Reed’s appearance on Dick Cavett, journals and ephemera, Liesl Schillinger’s review, on balancing the serious with the comic, cultural context and memory, the many forms of confession, on getting a blurb from Paul Reubens, the Oprah Book Club, a Voxxy postmortem, applying Hal Niedzviecki’s Hello, I’m Special to oddballs, the derivative status of current pop music, the needless prejudice against juggling and mimes, on being fired, “conquering” all “fired media,” a comical anthology as a tonic, and the similarities between getting canned in the entertainment industry and the current economy.

by Edward Champion

Boycott the Baby

There is a baby — a celebrity baby — that apparently nobody can refrain from talking about, speculating upon, offering conjecture, remarking on the photo’s authenticity (or lack thereof), gauging the baby’s patrilineage, the like.

This is all very nice. And it has all probably sold a good deal of magazines and provided a lot of water cooler conversation. If this gets you through a rough day, I can understand. If contemplating upon this baby’s provenance is what you need to prevent yourself from applying a mace to your boss’s skull, that’s okay. I’d rather see you engage in tawdry gossip over violence.

But I plan to boycott the baby. There are approximately six billion things in the universe that are more important.

I beseech you for the sake of humanity to do the same.

by Edward Champion

The Unicorns, “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?”

As I continue with this casual series of album writeups, I should note that it was the one and only Tito Perez who got me hooked on The Unicorns’ 2003 album, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? I should have known what I was getting into.

After all, The Unicorns are indie and Canadian. These two qualities, combined with the recommendation from Tito, should have alerted me to this album’s addictive dangers.

unicorns.jpgLet us ponder the North American music situation. Canadian indie bands have, over the past six years, shot farragoes of catchy melodies across the 48th parallel. This is not what the NAFTA architects had in mind. It may be penance for all those Anne Murray jokes. It may be because they empathize with us and want to give us gifts or they find our obsession with ad hoc brother-sister garage band acts tedious. But whatever the motivation, I believe this will continue, so long as the border remains loosely protected and the American music geek’s ear remains attuned to 1980s nostalgia.

With insouciant folly, I dug in like some gecko slithering down a King Cobra’s gullet, not knowing that I was roasting in some burning mad digestive tract, somewhere betwixt a concept album gone slightly awry and a mildly amped up incarnation of the Decemberists.

Behold, a precis for each and every track:

1. I Don’t Wanna Die

We begin this album’s obsession with death (or, perhaps more specifically, the quality of a haircut in a morgue) with this persipcacious song title, which begins with a lethargic whoop of electronic nonsense and sputtering drums, which suggest to us that, fresh from the gate, the Unicorns are on their last legs. From here, we begin to a languid piano bang with perhaps most rudimentary bass-snare beat heard since Trent Reznor penned a little ditty about copulating his listeners like an animal. Adenoidal vocals rise and fall, often in funny voices, sometimes cloaked in layers of processing. And the question becomes whether this is one really fucked up concept album or a process of viewing life through a backwards prism. Is the beginning of life at the opposite end of the album? And why thirteen tracks? Do these guys really consider themselves so unlucky? Or are they just morbid as hell?

2. Tuff Ghost

So we (or, rather, the Unicorns) are dead by Track No. 2. One wonders if modifiers are purposefully misspelled in this afterlife. The ghost’s theme, which sounds as if it’s been lifted from the 8-bit NES game Ghosts N Goblins, tantalizes us, before the singer tells us, “Tuff ghost, tuff crowd, tuff love / Sit down Sit down Sit down.” Aha, so this is about the audience. A riff on being gratefully dead?

“I’m a strong dead man looking out for himself.” Then it’s clear. The Unicorns could care less about what their audience has to say. This wins considerable brownie points.

3. Ghost Mountain

After an opening that sounds like a tot playing a cheap Casio synthesizer somewhere in a suburban Connecticut home, we get the most positive song thus far: a crazy little slow tune laced with self-pity. No love for the Unicorns apparently. But why? Arpeggios are strummed and we eventually hear a series of samples involving metal dropping in the background. But if the ghosts are ethereal and if we are at the summit, does not the corporeal lose its form. It’s a tricky aural conundrum and one listens to the track again and again hoping for an answer.

4. Sea Ghost

The beginning of this song informs you that, much like a Society of Creative Anarchronism meeting, you are very much in a non-electronic world. At this point, the guitars kick in and there is a stunning paucity of synths. Holy cats, these Unicorns have shifted their entire style a mere four tracks into the album! But is this in response to the cold ghost audience alluded to in the last few tracks? Whatever the case, this tune’s a solid rocker.

5. Jellybones

Could it be? The possibility of life returning with the crazed sputtering electronic opening? Or a return to the form established on the first four tracks? After three songs about ghosts, we’re now dealing with what’s left over: namely, the corpse. But it’s decidedly cheerier than contemplating ghosts.

“Checked myself into emergency urgently / Drove up in my bone-camarrow thinking only about you.”

At this point in the album, I think the Unicorns are going to split listeners into two types: those who appreciate corny puns and those who don’t. I obviously fall into the former.

6. The Clap

Perhaps this is the cause of death for the members of the band. Or maybe with the whiny voice urging us to “clap your hands,” this is an homage to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Yeah bandleader Alec Ounsworth. But this is obviously not true. The Unicorns put out this album two years before Clap Your Hands did. Is it possible that Ounsworth and company ripped off the Unicorns?

And what are we to make of the faint “Hoo!” that opens up this track? Is this a ghost? One listener in the studio? One might make the case that this “Hoo!” falls in line with how some guy driving 80mph down an interstate in a “bone-camarrow” might react if he were (a) listening to this song and (b) realizing that someone was referring to his snazzy set of wheels as a “bone-camarrow.”

7. Child Star

This then is a bit of a lullaby. A response to the Beatles’ throwaway track “Good Night?” The jangly guitar instead of the orchestra? And what of the egg shaker? Time is running out to impress! And yet the Unicorns have already done this in droves. “Are you visceral viscous?” Why, yes. Thank you for asking. Then all this is thrown into disarray with a Tommy-style dialogue involving the fan and the star, with considerable enmity expressed by both parties. This then is the fleeting underbelly of indie rock.

8. Let’s Get Known

The tune opens with a radio dial going all over the place. We hear smatterings of that questionable territory coveted by many an emerging band: the radio. So will the Unicorns “get known?” Is this the right decision for them? And will they surrender their credibility? These aren’t exactly complex rhetorical questions. They are very much already answered for us. The closing warble effect provides the answer.

9. I Was Born (A Unicorn)

Perhaps there’s something to the near rhyme of “known” and “born” (the last track, let’s recall) which suggests that any interconnectedness to this album is incidental. Perhaps Track 9 represents the second of two alternatives for the emerging indie band, with Track 8 a more subtle take on Reel Big Fish’s breakthrough hit. The salient observation: The Unicorns are more than horses. They are people too!

10. Tuff Luff

We return to the abbreviated “tuff.” Now the misspellings have spilled into nouns. The two “Heys” at the beginning — these are more pronounced than the “Hoo” of Track 6. But it takes some creativity to throw in a violin with a call and response. But is the didactic aside about Iran a parody of the self-conscious politics employed by other indie bands to garner streetcred?

11. Inoculate the Innocuous

The jangly barres at the beginning suggest a reggae element gone largely unfulfilled. The incompleteness here extends to some five minutes and eighteen seconds, with a lazy tremolo upturn thrown in for good measure.

12. Les Os

Since these guys are Canadians, I was expecting a French reference at some point. But those woos, inter alia, near the end — are they really so French?

13. Ready to Die

But wait a minute. I thought we had escaped death here, Unicorns! Is the record itself ready to die, seeing as how this is the final track? Well, what if we, the ghostly audience, have mixed things up? What if we’ve put Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? in a five CD changer with a bunch of other CDs? What if we’ve, god forbid, thrown this track on a mix tape?

You can’t get away with this, Unicorns! You simply can’t! Not even with the sudden finale! Not even…

…

by Edward Champion

I Assume This Has Something to Do With the Invite She Got to the Flanagan Barbeque

Guardian: “Telling women not to expect orgasms but to fake them, and to praise their partner lavishly afterwards, is not advice normally associated with a woman who has been in the vanguard of feminism for four decades. Nevertheless, Fay Weldon gives short shrift to the views for which feminists have fought so bitterly over the years. In her latest book, she not only warns high-flying women that they should expect to end up single, she also suggests that sexual pleasure may be incompatible with high-powered careers and that women should simply accept they are less capable of being happy than men.” (via Booksquare)

by Edward Champion

An Open Letter to Andy Ross

Dear Andy:

Thank you for surrendering Cody’s to a corporation. I’m sure that Yohan, Inc., with its concentration on distributing foreign books and magazines, has the experience and the niche interest to keep the two remaining Cody’s stores truly independent. I’m positive they won’t turn the stores into crappy franchises no less distinct than a B. Dalton outlet. Sure.

But I know how you’ll justify all this, Mr. Ross. You didn’t sell out. You bought in. It was the “market,” after all, that killed off Cody’s. Not the fact that you took over Planet Hollywood’s old space on Stockton Street, which probably had a rent that was a shitload more expensive than the original Telegraph Avenue store that you so gracelessly killed. Fred Cody is spinning in his grave right around now. He never would have let this happen.

The fact of the matter is that you didn’t have the courage to tell people that you were ready to hang up your hat. You ran this transaction through fast — without trying to find a responsible buyer who gave a damn about books and bookstores. Someone who would carry the Cody’s legacy into the 21st century.

Well, I hope you’re sitting pretty on that small fortune. You didn’t even have the balls to talk to the Berkeley Daily Planet, the newspaper that broke the story. Instead, you farmed out the duties to poor Fred’s widow, Pat Cody, who had to begrudgingly remark that this was “a good thing.”

Well, it’s not a good thing, Andy. It’s not good that you let one of the greatest indie bookstores that ever graced the Bay Area die and placed what was left well on the path to ruins. It’s not good that you cower away and let others do your talking for you. It’s not good that you betrayed a Berkeley landmark the same way that Justin Herman killed the Fillmore in the 1960s or that Robert Moses tampered with New York.

Very truly yours,

Edward Champion

by Edward Champion

Open Policy

I meant to point to this last week, but Frank Wilson, editor of the Philly Inquirer, has provided an inside glimpse of what happens on the inside of a newspaper book review section. As Terry observed, stripping away the secrecy is beneficial for all parties: editors, readers, and reviewers. Of course, it will be a cold day in hell before we see such openness practiced by a certain book review editor in New York.

But to throw my own hat into the ring, I can tell you that I receive around ten books a week (sometimes as many as thirty) and that there is absolutely no way that I can read them all. I feel very bad about this, but I am only one man and I do the best I can to read far and wide, when I’m not reading other books for professional obligations.

The books that arrive are sequestered from the main library into a set of stacks in the hallway that I refer to as “the long-term TBR pile.” Books that I must read in the next month are placed in “the immediate TBR pile.” Right now, that immediate pile contains about twenty-five books. I’m halfway through about twelve of them.

Because this scenario is a nightmare for publicists, and I respect and appreciate their position, I try to make up for this by responding to all e-mail within a week (or two, if there’s something else brewing), particularly any pitch that is personally directed to me. (I often discard the others. One recent pitch invited me to some soiree in Southern California to interview an author. And they wanted me to do this in two days on a weekday. A cursory examination of the blog will tell you that I live in San Francisco. I’m not in the habit of throwing around airfare money for an author I haven’t heard of.)

I made a pledge two months ago to get better about the email backlog and, thankfully, my recent switch to Thunderbird has facilitated a meticulous organization of my email and the way I respond to the many readers of this site.

Like Frank Wilson, there are some books that I will read immediately — simply because there are major literary titles that I must read to have even a remote understanding of the literary world. Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions and Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker are two that come to mind.

I subscribe to almost every literary news feed that I can find, provided the contents aren’t total rubbish. And I am committed to learning about fiction developments that I am unfamiliar with. I try to operate in a genre-blind atmosphere.

I have become more selective about who is interviewed on Bat Segundo, simply because each show takes anywhere from fifteen to twenty hours to produce and I do have a life. While there have been a few exceptions, I am disinclined to interview subjects when a publicist cannot get me the book at least a week before the interview. It is highly disrespectful to the author for the journalist to enter an interview without any knowledge of what she has written, much less a careful reading of the text.

While I can read in a close manner fairly fast, if you think that I am in any intelligent position to talk with an author when you’ve sent me the book a day before and if you think that I can set aside my life (of which literature is just one part), then you’re living in a dream world.

Publicists who do get their authors on the show are kind enough (and most of them have been a pleasure to work with) to send me a book weeks in advance, approach me with an author who is unique or fits my interests, and to check up on what’s happening in a non-intrusive manner.

by Edward Champion

San Franciso Fringe Festival

As a man who has volunteered his services in the past for various Fringe plays and who even wrote and directed one (and who is, in fact, working on another), it would be unconscionable of me not to point out that this year’s San Francisco Fringe Festival starts tonight.

There are a few things to observe here:

First off, that sexy podcaster Michael Rice has interviewed many of the Fringe participants (and recently reached his 100th show; congrats Mike!).

Second, a number of regulars return to the Exit’s three stages (and beyond). Jeremy Jorgenson, who put on The Thrilling Adventures of Elvis in Space back in 2004 (the year Wrestling went on), returns with a stirring sequel. The nEO sURREALISTS return with Yeastboy and PigKnuckle. Noah Kelly, a cool cat I know, is one of the talents involved in RIPE Theater’s @Six, performed, believe it or not, at Original Joe’s. And if restaurant cabaret rooms weren’t enough to tickle your fancy, why not try out the play performed on The Mexican Bus?

Jimmy Hogg’s Curriculum Vitae is a one-man show outlining Hogg’s employment history. John Rackham’s Exiles, a play outlining a world without bars, cinemas, theatres and other pleasures, looks interesting. Theatre Tremendo offers a Twilight Zone-style play. There’s even a rock opera called Thanatics.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the excellent Banana, Bag & Bodice has returned with a new play entitled The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen, in which Jason Craig and Jessica Jelliffe will not be present, but contacted from the dead.

I hope to catch at least a few of these plays next week and I will report back some of my findings.

by Edward Champion

Forget Joyce and Pynchon. Has Danielewski Upped the Ante?

L.A. Times: “Fortunately, like ‘Hopscotch,’ ‘Only Revolutions’ comes with brief user instructions (read eight pages of Sam, then turn it over and read eight pages of Hailey; rinse and repeat). But given that the book consists of 45 of these eight-page sets, with exactly 180 words on each page, the typeface progressively diminishing in size until the parallel narratives meet in the middle, reading it could well require office supplies — in my case, two bookmarks, three sets of Post-its, a dictionary, a ruler, a stapler (don’t ask) and a calculator, along with a bottle of Bordeaux. I pushed all the way through and even found parts of it enjoyable — maybe less like a history of love than advanced Sudoku over Sunday brunch.”

I’ve just started getting into my copy of Only Revolutions, without Vankin’s ancillary stash, and I realize that I’m going to have to read this book several times. Here’s a sample passage from page 101 (Sam’s side): “Calmly I fustigate NURSE BOZARK to react. She doesn’t, filing her toes. fortunately, EXTERNIES race over. Checking for pulse.” But I’m finding the website a bit helpful.

by Edward Champion

More on the Waziristan Deal

Washington Post: “Under the pact, foreign fighters would have to leave North Waziristan or live peaceable lives if they remained. The militias would not set up a ‘parallel’ government administration.”

ABC News: “If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden ‘would not be taken into custody,’ Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, ‘as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen.'”

India eNews: “Under the agreement, which is likely to be unveiled by the government next week, militant will halt all attacks on government officials and security forces, and the army ‘will not carry out operations against them,’ said an area intelligence official on condition of anonymity, the newspaper reported.”

Associated Press: “Under the deal, the militants are to halt attacks on Pakistani forces in the semiautonomous North Waziristan region and stop crossing into nearby eastern Afghanistan to attack U.S. and Afghan forces, who are hunting al-Qaida and Taliban forces there.”

Rolling Stone: “How’s the War on Terror going? Five years after 9/11, the mastermind of the attacks is still at large, the Talbian army that gave him a surrogate nation state from which to launch his attacks is now the law of the land in Northwest Pakistan, and as far as our erstwhile ally is concerned, bin Laden is welcome to make himself at home there?”

BBC: “Under the accord, the Pakistani military promises to end major operations in the area. It will pull most of its soldiers back to military camps, but will still operate border check-points. Over the summer the military met other conditions, releasing a number of tribesmen in an apparent goodwill gesture to the militants and withdrawing soldiers from new check-posts.”

Guardian: “In 2004, the Pakistan army killed 70 people in south Waziristan, claiming they were foreign militants with links to al-Qaida. Within weeks it emerged that those killed were all local tribesman. Each time Musharraf has visited the US, or a senior US official has visited Pakistan, security forces always capture or kill some “high-value” al-Qaida target. When George Bush visited Pakistan he was given a special gift: in the name of the war on terror, the security forces killed 140 tribesmen.”

New York Times: “Meanwhile, one of the Taliban’s savviest military commanders, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his sons operate out of Miramshah, the capital of the North Waziristan Province. From there, they run operations in Kabul and the eastern Afghan regions of Khost, Logar, Paktia and Paktika.”

by Edward Champion

Who Holds Bush Guilty?

George Bush, September 26, 2001: “…it’s also a war that declares a new declaration, that says if you harbor a terrorist you’re just as guilty as the terrorist; if you provide safe haven to a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as the terrorist; if you fund a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as a terrorist.”

Bush, August 31, 2006: “…we have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you’re an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account.”

Mercury News, September 1, 2006: “The United States reportedly has spent more than $1 billion underwriting the border fight, but when the military failed to crush the separatists, the Bush administration agreed to support Pakistan’s truce-making efforts and pledged millions of dollars in additional aid. The truces between Pakistan’s military and the separatists have coincided with rising violence against civilians and increased attacks by the Taliban in four Afghan provinces along the Pakistani border, according to a United Nations-run security-monitoring program that Western diplomats consider highly reliable…..Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his top aides have charged repeatedly that Musharraf’s regime is supporting the Taliban, harboring their leaders and allowing them to maintain training camps and supply bases in Pakistan.”

RELATED CLIP: ABC News.

By the way, the last time Pakistan cut a deal in Waziristan with the Taliban in 2004, violence broke out in Azam Warsak. Pakistan, as we all know, is a nuclear power.

Get ready for Cold War II! Woo hoo! At the very least, we’ll get a whole bunch of creepy nuclear holocaust movies like we did in the ’80’s.

by Edward Champion

Where Modern Love Meets the NYT Science Beat?

New York Times: “Scientists have found other species in which males encourage their own cannibalism. One remarkable twist on this strategy is seen in a species of orb-weaving spiders. The males suddenly die as they mate. The male’s death may be a strategy for preventing other males from mating with the female. In death, its sexual organ becomes stuck in the female’s receptacle. Even if she feeds on the rest of his body, the organ remains behind, preventing her from receiving more sperm.”

by Edward Champion

Tainted Glove

Guardian: “While most of us might expect to have to wear gloves to read 14th-century illuminated manuscripts, Silverman says it is damaging. He and a colleague, Dr Cathy Baker, have published a rather esoteric paper, Misperceptions about White Gloves, in which they call for the wearing of white gloves to be replaced with a policy of people simply washing their hands.”

by Edward Champion

Indieshock

Annalee Newitz has coined the term “chainshock” to depict one’s reaction when “a store you once thought independent is now part of a chain.” However, I’d like to put forth an opposing term: “indieshock,” when one learns that a place maintaining a troubling chain-store like atmosphere is actually independent. Here are my own “indieshock” moments:

1. Black Oak Books. Far too antiseptic in its layout. Its owners regularly hassle customers, demanding that they hand over their bags or purses in a rude manner that implies the customers are criminal and/or Gestapo victims. This is the kind of treatment one expects from Borders, not a reputable indie bookstore. (Technically, one might argue that Black Oaks is a chain, by dint of having two stores. But I let this discrepancy stand.)

2. Cafe Reverie. You walk into this place, shocked by the fact that you’re the only one wearing a Spam T-shirt and ripped up jeans and probably making a lot less money than the yuppies seated at the tables, who are all hypnotized by the azure glare of their laptops, as if they are awaiting a message from Xenu. You get shit from the staff for not being particular about your order. What chain-like perdition is this? Oh, it’s actually “indie.” Never mind that the people here are scared shitless of anybody who looks even remotely impoverished.

3. Lucky Penny. The decor of this place resembles a Howard Johnson’s circa 1977, steeped in hideous beiges and browns — the kind of layout only a heroin addict would respond to. The staff here are burned out. Nearly all of them have the telltale look of someone who has spent their shift contending with borderline criminals. The food is terrible, and I’m talking worse than Sparky’s at 3AM, where the only edible thing you can get is a grilled cheese sandwich. And even then, you have serious doubts. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to dine at this place. If ever there was a San Francisco restaurant that slung homogeneous-looking hash, the Lucky Penny is it. And yet, astonishingly, the Lucky Penny is independently owned and operated.

by Edward Champion

The Information Wants to Be Free, But is the Information Worth It?

freedailies.jpg

The BBC reports that Rupert Murdoch’s News International has launched London’s third free daily, referred to, without apparent deference to e.e. cummings or tomandandy, as thelondonpaper. The paper’s editor, Stefano Hatfield notes, “This is a generation who grew up with the world wide web. They usually get their news delivered to them in their e-mail inboxes or at the click of a button. It is difficult to persuade young people that news should be something you pay for.”

So if the information, as Hatfield suggests, wants to be free and is disseminated everywhere, is a free daily the answer in a dying newspaper market? Further, will a free daily, devoted to instantaneous four-paragraph stories instead of long-form pieces, dumb down journalism and encourage lazy reporting?

It’s difficult to gauge a newspaper on the other side of the Atlantic when you’re halfway across the world and you don’t have a copy in your hands, but a look at the Metro‘s website (the Metro is the current leading free London daily) isn’t encouraging. There are childish “Gimme” and “Play” sections, an egregious “Metrosexual” section loaded with insubstantial fluff[1] and poorly edited copy[2], absolutely no arts coverage to speak of[3], and a “Pictures” section which suggests a Fahrenheit 451 nightmare come to life.[4]

I cannot believe that the entire 18-35 generation is this dumb or this easily amused. If the bar is set this low, I wonder if a daily newspaper, even a free one, appealing to hard reporting and intellect could even find an audience amidst this glut. The development of the Metro and thelondonpaper may be similar to the New York newspaper wars in the 1890s. After all, both involve numerous competitors flooding a potential marketplace. Both involve efforts to push journalism beyond the status quo. Both involve upping the ante to reach new audiences.

I am by no means the first to make such a comparison. But where the 1890s crowd may have protested Hearst’s inflated coverage of the Spanish-American War, if London’s free dailies are devoted to junk news written by junk journalists and read by junk audiences, then will people protest or bother to scrutinize these ethereal dailies?

Then again, look at the blogosphere.

[1] I believe that a story about fertility and weight can be interesting, but when a reporter has only short and snappy paragraphs to cobble together a story and must compete with invasive pleas to join the interactive foray, how can any meaningful journalism be attempted?

[2] For example:

If you’re planning on working overseas the report reveals the best profession to get into if you want a bit of regular kinky after work exercise – 10 per cent of our young travellers get it on with the holiday rep.

What kind of sentence is this?

[3] Unless Kate Moss in underwear is a kind of art.

[4] The Metro was designed to be read in 20 minutes and has remained deliberately unchallenging. The second free daily, London Lite[5], is put out by Associated Newspapers. In this Guardian article, Associated free newspaper honcho Steve Auckland extolled the Lite‘s “long, turgid articles” and “lively, breezy format.”

[5] I hope I’m not the only one bothered by this spelling.

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

A Spot Where Nobody Really Bothers?

Mark Haddon received savage reviews for his poetry collection, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village, which followed his amazing novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. But does Haddon’s next novel, A Spot of Bother, atone for this misstep?

You wouldn’t know it from the reviews.

The Independent‘s Rebecca Pearson says Bother is “a superb novel, and I was shocked when it didn’t make the Man Booker longlist.” Meanwhile, the Guardian‘s Patrick Ness notes that it’s “a perfectly readable yet strangely undemanding novel of familiar domestic drama.” No starred review from Publishers Weekly, but the PW review insists it’s “great fun.” The Voice‘s Alexis Soloski gives it a lukewarm if positive review.

Like Fade Theory, I find it a bit difficult to gauge the book’s qualities with the current review coverage. Pearson’s review features plenty of ecstatic praise, but it doesn’t attach these plaudits to anything specific in the text. Likewise, the other reviews I’ve cited resort the majority of their space to summarizing the plot. If the reviewers are understandably jaded after Haddon’s poetry chapbook, I can understand. But The Curious Incident wasn’t exactly small potatoes. And if the reviewers can’t be bothered to follow Haddon’s career trajectory, I’m hoping more comprehensive heads might be employed to do so.

by Edward Champion

RIP Steve Irwin

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Steve Irwin has died. He was 44. He died while filiming a segment for a documentary. Unfortunately, while diving in the Batt Reef, he was stung by a stingray and died before medical authorities could arrive in time.

Irwin escaped death more times than any mere mortal should. And yet there was something inherent within his charisma and character which suggested, nay demanded, that he could not and should not die. Not long ago, Irwin dared to carry his month-old son into a den of crocodiles under one arm while tossing meat to a croc with the other. It pissed people off. But it confirmed in my mind that Irwin, more than anything else, was insane. On the flip side, this insanity also translated into a ferocious boosterism of Australia and vociferous protests against hunting. Irwin reminded us that we were part of the food chain and I suppose, with his last stroke, proved just how dangerous getting closer to that role could be.

The world, in its own strange way, needed a guy like Steve Irwin, however vigorously self-promoted, if only to remind the human race that, no matter how picayune or crazed your interests, it’s worth getting excited about. It’s worth it to sometimes leap into the deep end. It’s worth it because nobody else out there will.