Month / June 2007
Madison Also Had Much to Say About Commercial Shackles
James Marcus on Andrew Keen: “In any case, amateur is hardly the dirty word Keen makes it out to be, and his reflexive obeisance to people in charge cripples his polemic. After all, a James Madison (whom Keen cites approvingly for having a similarly jaundiced view of human nature) wrote: ‘The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.’ I believe it was the professionals he had in mind.”
Roundup
- Darby Dixon puts Goodreads into proper perspective.
- We’re knights of the round table! We write when we’re able! But does Rushdie push the pram a lot? Meanwhile, Iran quibbles.
- Adam Sandler is attached to a Mitch Albom film project. I cannot imagine a more suitable matchup.
- Ed Park on Kim Stanley Robinson.
- “Why I Hate Anthony” (via Bill Peschel)
- Paul Collins locates a deadly musical instrument.
- Lionel Shriver on Eggers.
- Overlooked or over-hyped?
- The Kerouac scroll is still making the rounds.
- Hitchens here.
- Various novelists on film adaptations.
- Julie Christie is blogging. (via Maxine)
- What we read in previous summers.
B.C. Camplight: For Your Consideration
Ladies and gentlemen, denied a label in his native country, I introduce to you (if you don’t know him already) B.C. Camplight (more music here), who may very well be Pennsylvania’s answer to Todd Rundgren — that is, if Rundgren himself weren’t from Pennsylvania. Oh, what the hell, there’s room for two Rundgrens, is there not? I hope that B.C.’s latest album, Blink of a Nihiist eventually gets some kind of American release. The man is also neurotic as hell. Get this: “So nervous is he that he apparently has every doctor in his home town of Philadelphia on speed dial and recently diagnosed himself as suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.”
So there you have it. Batty melodic tunes like “Blood and Peanut Butter” and “Lord I’ve Been on Fire,” more hypochrondia than Glenn Gould, and possibly quite misunderstood in his own country. What more can you ask for in an indie act?
Erica Wagner Gets an F (And Tanenhaus Too!)
Erica Wagner, whose first name is Erica and whose last name is Wagner, displays needless padding in the third paragraph, which comes before the fourth and after the second, in her review of Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero in today’s issue of the New York Times Book Review. It would be disingenuous for me to say that these sentences are loosely braided together like slack rope, for they are about as extraneous as a congealed fatty bubble that a cook not only neglected to trim from a porterhouse steak, but cooked and served to a devoted carnivore. How did such a paragraph, which appears inspired by Bart Simpson offering an impromptu book report to Ms. Krabappel, make it through the editing stage?