- If cursory glances at MSNBC headline tickers on the flight over are anything to go by, the Judeo-Christian world seems to be up in arms with Rosie O’Donnell and Cindy Sheehan. Given the relatively ridiculous nature of both figures, I hope you’ll pardon my own similarly pedantic concerns with Giants pitcher Armando Benitez, who deserves a serious reaming for last night’s abysmal performance. The man blew a potential twelfth inning victory over the Mets by serving up not one, but two balks. I watched this game, wondering if I might be easily converted from the Giants to the Mets through this rather uncanny propinquity of two teams playing for two towns I’m currently more or less in between. Alas, I learned that a Giants partisanship is a difficult personal persuasion to shake. The median arrogance expressed by certain Mets players, which outdid even Barry Bonds’ strut and swagger, dissuaded me, as did the Giants’ fantastic field work. If one is to choose a relatively trivial topic to become obsessed with, well then I choose baseball. Bluster from the likes of Rosie O’Donnell is predictably and unfathomably one-note. When one considers that Rosie O’Donnell’s career has essentially been predicated upon a shaky talent for chatting and bluster, one wonders why anyone would pay millions of dollars to provide such “entertainment” to the masses. It’s almost as bad as paying out a few million to a hothead kid who wants to play ball.
- Carolyn Kellogg cracks the LATBR.
- The Best Novels You’ve Never Read. My own picks (if we’re talking the last ten years) is Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish and Rupert Thomson’s The Book of Revelation.
- If you can get past Silverblatt, he’s talked with John Banville.
- Speaking of literary interview craziness, the Segundo backlog stands at around fourteen, including a special two-parter and all the APE nonsense. And I haven’t even started with BEA. Please bear with me. I sent off the last of about thirty boxes to FedEx yesterday.
- I guess nobody told Gabriel Garcia Marquez that you can’t go home again.
- I could care less whether Peter Carey’s Theft is a thinly veiled attack on his wife or not. Shouldn’t the bigger question be whether or not it’s a good book?
- Lots of Pessl discussion at Callie’s.
- Also, far too much information for me to sort through. Will try for another roundup later. BEA reports are forthcoming tomorrow!
Month / May 2007
Attention BEA Bloggers!
I am currently watching a child in Park Slope cry over his Boggle board, while his mother stares into her laptop. Presumably, she’s searching for L. Ron Hubbard. The boy, as far as I can tell, is looking for someone to play Boggle and he’s surrounded by austere and humorless adults, all of them looking into laptops with similar degrees of intensity. (And just as I was preparing to engage the kid, he ran outside, presumably because he’ll have a better response from various automobiles crawling up and down 7th Avenue. Park Slope mothers. While not what a baser life form might call MILF material, you gotta love ’em.)
Don’t ask what I’m doing in Park Slope right now. I only hope the kid’s interest in words receives greater attention.
A roundup is forthcoming. But if you are a blogger at BEA, please email me your contact information. I’m assembling a master cell phone list. So let me know and I’ll get you on the list. (Incidentally, the email is ed AT edrants.com.)
Have Arrived in NYC Safely
New Review
My review of Richard Flanagan’s The Unknown Terrorist appears in today’s Philly Inquirer.
Howard Junker’s Streetcred
Ladies and gentlemen. I finally met Howard Junker. My last night in San Francisco. Two men. Pabst Blue Ribbon. It doesn’t get any sillier than that.
I am here to tell you that Mr. Junker imbibed Pabst Blue Ribbon with me. How many editors of literary journals would drink PBR? Would Wendy Lesser drink PBR? Or David Remnick? No! But Howard Junker did!
The only reason I was imbibing the stuff was because I am trying to acclimatize to Manhattan cocktail prices. Although it would appear that certain establishments in San Francisco are charging equally ridiculous prices. So perhaps I can return to better ales.
There will be more later. A lengthy post on leaving San Francisco. Another post, if I can find the time, on Richard Cheese and the remarkably dim audience at the Red Devil Lounge. But I suspect that BEA will trump all of this. Bear with me. I am now in transition!