- Over at the LBC, nominee Marshall Klimasewiski has begun guest-blogging and, in his inaugural post, he observes, “My impression is that there are better answer to that every year, and anyone who thinks blogging is mostly about bitching and tearing things down hasn’t been visiting sites like this. (Not that there’s anything wrong with a little eloquent bitching, of course.)”
- Frank Wilson offers a contrarian take of The Road.
- Callie Miller nails what’s wrong with dismissing Web 2.0. And Scott has a few words of his own about Andrew Keen’s approach.
- Hitch on the Zachary Leader Amis bio.
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel books editor Geeta Sharma-Jensen now goes “meekly into the recording studio” for the MJS‘s podcasting efforts.
- A fantastic cartoon describing the book blogger. (via Galleycat)
- In this month’s The Believer, Rolf Potts revisits Ginsberg. (via Ron Silliman)
- I was going to respond to John Freeman’s spintastic NPR appearance, but thankfully Colleen has echoed what I wanted to say.
- Former Chicago Sun-Times Book Editor Henry Kisor has kind words: “If, as time goes on, book sections should give way to literary blogs, I don’t think that is going to be such a bad thing. Discerning readers will always gravitate to the best-written blogs and the amateurish sites will wither on the vine.”
- Incidentally, Richard Ford may be interested to know that John Cheever did his writing in the basement. And I think we can all agree that Cheever had very little to offer.
- Yann Martel has a sense of humor. (via Bookninja)
Month / May 2007
Print vs. Online
Motoko Rich interviewed me on Monday morning for this article. While my larger points about convergence between print and media and my call for unity were both overlooked (and apparently I wasn’t the only one on this score), I can’t complain because it’s good to see many of my fellow litbloggers well represented — even if Richard Ford displays his ignorance by badmouthing a medium he has never deigned to read.
If you’re new here, please feel free to leave a comment and say hello. Check out the podcasts. Check out the other litbloggers under the links section on the right.
As to the issue of numbers, yesterday, there were 43,865 unique requests for this site. That’s easily matches the circulation of a midsize newspaper. And, like my colleague Mark Sarvas suggests, they came here strictly for the books.
Also, I have the greatest respect for people who write in basements in Terre Haute.
Crowded House Picked the Wrong Place to Launch a Reunion
Stereogum: “When the opening guitar of their smash ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ rung out, we looked around, frantically; would any of these kids respond, even in passing recognition of the tune? And they responded alright. With a water bottle straight to Neil Finn’s head! What followed just compounded Neil’s embarrassment: He was rattled, the band audibly contemplated aborting the song, but Finn felt for sure he could rely, at least during this one song, on the crowd picking up the slack by singing along. ‘It’s alright, everybody! Come on!’ Neil waved the crowd on to sing the legendary hook. And … nothing. By this point we were far back into the crowd, and you had to be there to appreciate just how thunderous this silence was.”
BSS #111: John Sheppard
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding Sheppard tones.
Author: John Sheppard
Subjects Discussed: Responding to Dan Green’s post, on being rejected by publishers and self-publishing, writing without a plot, on doing things twice, the connection between the conscious and subconscious thematics, getting out of the muddy ditch, basing fiction on reality, music and anger, Minor Threat, Pizza Hut, the Reagan era, the “punk” label, imploding labels, abrasive commentary, the circus people of Sarasota, Florida, cartoons vs. writing, the rhythm of Catholic catechisms, writing to a mix tape, orange juice concentrate, sound effects in sentences, and being a comma freak.
Sheppard: I was an illustrator, once upon a time. And I thought of this book — it’s somewhat like making a painting. You start off with the canvas and then you paint on top. And then you paint another layer on top and another layer on top. And eventually at the end, you have a painting. And that’s sort of the way I thought of writing this book. I didn’t write it with a plot in mind. Absolutely no plot in mind. And some people, like a reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times thought it was pointless that I had no plot, that there wasn’t a South Park moment, “I learned something today,” at the end. But I really don’t believe it’s a pointless book. Otherwise I wouldn’t have written it.
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Bat Torrents
In response to several requests, the first torrent pack for The Bat Segundo Show is now available for your downloading pleasure at The Pirate Bay. Torrent Pack #1 contains the first twenty shows, including conversations with Jonathan Ames, Octavia Butler, T.C. Boyle, Bret Easton Ellis, Jennifer Weiner, and many more authors.
Future torrent packs will be made available soon!